Alexandra Weasley: Book 5

41

A/N- okay, so all of my translations are from google translate, so if I've butchered anything, please let me know so I can fix it, xx. Thank you ❤️

Alexandra didn't know who was left, just that there were three people left in the competition. She veered to the side, to stock up on some ingredients. So far she'd encountered an aggravated gremlin, river trolls, sprites and an amphisbaena.

As she harvested her plants, the sky turned red, indicating another person had been disqualified. Just her and one other person left. She spotted some whispering peppermint and moved to pluck it from the ground. A memory pushed its way through, of her walking a similar path and encountering some of the whispering four. She blinked it away, and tried to push it out of her mind. Now wasn't the time for distractions. She added it to her collection and headed to the next checkpoint. There were four, each equidistant to the golden cauldron in the middle. There was a boy already at the checkpoint. Pedro, she recalled. He was Castelobruxo's champion.

Ignoring him, she took her place at the checkpoint opposite him. The cauldron was surrounded by a fire wall. She glanced around her surroundings looking for hidden traps amongst the trees. There was a bird on a branch. She looked closer and recognised it as an adarna. She looked around for anything else and satisfied, turned to the cauldron before her. She started with the heat repellant potion.

She finished her potion and poured it into her vial. The next potion would be tricky. It was sort of like what muggles called contacts. Glass eyes. The adarna's main method of petrifying people was putting them to sleep and dropping excrement on them. A shield potion wouldn't be too hard, but if Alexandra had learned anything about finding out she'd once been petrified, it was that eyes were another vulnerable organ that she'd need to protect herself from.

She had to use the time manipulation stirring rod for the glass eyes potion. And poured it into another vial. She then turned to the shield charm. It took thirty minutes to brew. Ten minutes before it was ready, she could see Pedro moving towards the fire. The bird began to fly towards him with a squawk and he paused. The bird stopped and Pedro gulped a potion. He slowly shimmered out of view. Alexandra turned back to her potion. A minute later she heard his agonised screams. She looked and saw he was on fire. Well, she couldn't see him, but she could see his silhouette. She focused on her own potion. He wouldn't get hurt. These tasks were designed to test intelligence, not pain threshold. He could choose to abdicate, but he'd be disqualified.

Sure enough, the sky turned red. Alexandra's work wasn't done. If she couldn't get through, she'd be disqualified too, and the skill of each potioneer would be reviewed before a winner emerged. Her win wouldn't be guaranteed unless she could get in through to the circle.

The moment her glass eyes potion was ready, she poured it into another vial, before contemplating the fire. She stared for a moment, looking for a hint of something. Anything to help her overcome it. It was a fraction of a second, but she was sure she'd seen it flicker purple. She grinned and poured out the remnants of her potion into the waste basin before squirting some lava soap into her cauldron. She swished it around before pouring it back into the waste basin. She took out the whispering peppermint from her reserve and muddled it together with her muddler. She added some whole aloe leaves, having no time to extract its gel. She continued to muddle it before adding more water and setting it to boil.

Once it was ready, she put on her dragon hide gloves and headed to the cauldron to her left. She filtered a cup of her in-progress potion into the empty cauldron and set her original on the ground. She picked up a whisk and began stirring the potion until it formed a gel like substance.

She drank the glass eyes potion first, then the heat resistant potion. She then rubbed the soother gel on her exposed flesh before downing the shield potion. Ready, she marched up to the fire, closing her eyes the closer she got out of fear her protections were inadequate.

She felt the heat on her skin, slowly trying to burn at her skin. It didn't hurt, it felt more like a tingle. She grinned as she passed the fire wall and looked out. The adarna had reached the edge of the wall. She grabbed the golden cauldron and she was teleported out of the garden. She passed Pedro first. He shook her hand.

"Not bad, Alejandra." He said.

"Thanks, Peter." She purposely used the English variation of his name. He winced but nodded.

"Alexandra, then." He said.

"And I'll call you Pedro."

"Ay ay." He muttered quietly. "Bonita e uma lingua afiada." (Pretty and a sharp tongue)

"Eu tambem falo portugues." (I also speak Portuguese) She said, reflexively and he glanced up. She froze. "Since when do I speak Portuguese?"

"You understood me?" He asked and she nodded.

"I think so."

"You didn't know you knew portugues?"

"I've forgotten the better part of the last five years. Sometimes some memories filter through. I don't remember learning Portuguese, but I must have learnt it at some point." Before they could finish their conversation, Amélie appeared.

"You won!"

"I did."

"Je suis triste que tu m'as encore battu, mais if it had to be anyone else, I'm happy it was you." (I am upset that you beat me again, but)

"Thank you."

"Você fala frances e portugues?" Pedro asked. (You speak French and Portuguese?)

"And Japanese."

"Are you talking about the languages you speak?" Amélie asked. Alex nodded. "You also speak Spanish and a bit of Bulgarian, if my memory serves well. Portuguese is a new one."

"I do?" Alexandra asked and Amélie nodded.

"Nice."

"Chit chat later. You need to claim your prize." Amélie ushered her off.

A/N- ayy, go Alexandra, though to be fair She has some of Alex's knowledge too. She almost didn't win, oof. Could've been Pedro.

Favourite line is "Je suis triste que tu m'as encore battu, mais if it had to be anyone else, I'm happy it was you." (I am upset that you beat me again, but) because lmfao, Amélie is acc supportive though, and blunt. Anyways hope you enjoyyy