Dawn Rivera

The Hungarian Horntail

The prospect of talking face to face with Uncle Sirius and that Gregory is once again mine is all that sustains me over the next fortnight, the only bright spots on a horizon that has never looked darker. The shock of finding Harry and Danny school champions has worn off slightly now, and the fear of what is facing them starts to sink in. The first task is drawing steadily nearer; I feel as though it is crouching ahead of me like some horrific monster, barring their path. I have never suffered nerves like these; they are way beyond anything I have felt before a Quidditch match, not even the last one against Slytherin, which decided who would win the Quidditch Cup. I am finding it hard to think about the future at all, I feel as if Harry's and Danny's whole lives have been leading up to, and will finish with, the first task...my only escape is Gregory. He's the only one who can calm me these days. The only one who can make me feel better about Ron and Hermione not speaking to me.

Admittedly, I don't see how Uncle Sirius is going to make me feel any better about Harry and Danny having to perform an unknown piece of difficult and dangerous magic in front of hundreds of people, but the mere sight of a friendly face will be something at the moment. Harry and Danny have written back to Uncle Sirius, saying that we will be beside the common room fire at the time Uncle Sirius suggested, and they, Hermione and I spend a long time going over plans for forcing any stragglers out of the common room on the night in question. If the worst comes to worst, we are going to drop a bag of Dungbombs, but we hope we won't have to resort to that - Filch would skin us alive.

Hermione has accepted that Gregory and I love each other, and that nothing she says will make any difference. We hug it out and are soon laughing together again. We can't stay mad at each other for long. I've also told Fay, who accepted it straight away without hesitation. She's the only one I could go to about Gregory, and I'm so lucky to have her as a friend. Now it's just Ron to convince.

In the meantime, life becomes even worse for Harry and Danny within the confines of the castle, for Rita Skeeter has published her piece about the Triwizard Tournament, and it has turned out to be not so much a report on the Tournament, as a highly coloured life story of Harry, although Danny has his fair share of writing too, since he is Harry's best friend. Much of the front page has been given over to a picture of Harry and Danny together, the names of the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang champions have been squashed into the last line of the article, and Cedric hasn't been mentioned at all.

"I suppose I get my strength from my parents, I know they'd be very proud of me if they could see me now...yes, sometimes at night I still cry about them, I'm not ashamed to admit it...I know nothing will hurt me during the Tournament, because they're watching over me..."

But Rita Skeeter has gone even further: she has interviewed other people about them, too.

Harry and Dathaniel have at last found love at Hogwarts. Their close friend, Colin Creevey, says that Dathaniel is dating one Hermione Granger, and Harry is hardly seen out of the company of Dawn Rivera, Dathaniel's twin sister, both stunningly pretty Muggle born girls who, like Harry and Dathaniel, are some of the top students in the school. It is possible that one of the reasons Harry and Dawn found love with the other is because she, and Dathaniel, know how Harry feels, as their parents were murdered when they were very young, too.

From the moment the article appears, Harry and Danny have to endure people - Slytherins, mainly - quoting them as they pass them, and making sneering comments.

Hermione and I have come in for our fair share of unpleasantness, too, but we haven't yet started yelling at innocent bystanders.

"Stunningly pretty? Them?" Pansy Parkinson shrieked, the first time she came face to face with Hermione and I - who are still not friends, by the way - after Rita's article appeared. "What was she judging against - chipmunks?"