November Snow

t w e n t y - s e v e n

"Welcome to the second task." Dumbledore's voice boomed over the loudspeaker "Last night, something was stolen from each of our champions. A treasure of sorts. These four treasures, one for each champion, now lie on the bottom of the Black Lake. In order to win, each champion need only find their treasure and return to the surface. Simple enough. Except for this, they will have one hour to do so and one hour only. After that, they'll be on their own."

We all gathered together on small wooden huts built on the Black Lake, watching the four champions competing in the second task of the Tri-Wizard Tournament. Juliette and I stood among the Hogwarts students and right behind Harry, Longbottom and a few Gryffindors. Juliette really didn't pay much attention towards me, she was busy talking to Zabini. Guess what? He asked her out after the Yule Ball. Hermione was of course dating Krum and I didn't think Ron liked that much. 

Professor Moody was standing next to Harry and said something into his ears. Harry then put a green plant into his mouth and nearly choked. It must taste terrible. He looked incredibly tensed.

"You may begin at the start of the cannon."

The cannon fired seconds later, Diggory, Delacour and Krum dived into the cold water, Harry remained on the platform and was pushed down. The three older contestants had moved, but Harry made no movement at all. We couldn't see if he had swum away or not.

"What's the matter with him?" Finnigan asked.

"I don't know, I can't see him." Another one said.

"Oh my God, I've killed Harry Potter." Longbottom held his head with his two hands, shaking in disbelief.

Suddenly, Harry flew up into the air from under water like a dolphin, joyfully cheered before diving down again and continued his task. The crowds cheered as well. I clapped and laughed at him.

"That's quite a performance." Juliette said.

"I know." I nodded.

We all stood patiently above the water surface, waiting for the champions to finish the task. We counted each and every minute that passed, praying that they made it out in time. I glanced around and accidentally looked directly into Malfoy's eyes. He looked back at me with a small smile, then we both looked away, blushing in light pink. Juliette smirked at me.

"What happened between the two of you?" She asked.

"We kinda... kinda nearly kissed." I mumbled to myself, blushing harder at the memory.

"You what?" She exclaimed, then lowered her voice "Why didn't you just kiss?"

"Parkinson." I stated simply "I didn't mean to, I didn't even know what I was doing at that time."

"One day, I'm going to kill her because of this." She mumbled angrily.

"Hey, don't tell anyone, okay?" I said.

"Sure, promise." She nodded.

Delacour suddenly emerged from the water, screaming in fear. She swam to the platform and the Beauxbatons pulled her up, she was shaking and crying. Whatever her treasure was, she couldn't take it and something scared her so much she had to resurface. They wrapped a towel around her, everyone was worried, especially her school friends and Headmistress. They checked on her, made sure she was fine.

"The Beauxbaton champion, Miss Delacour, has unfortunately been forced to retire." Dumbledore announced "She will take no further part in this task."

"My sister..." Delacour said shakily.

So it was the closest person that was the treasure. That explained why no one had seen Hermione or Ron all morning. Harry must save Ron, Hermione must be Krum's to save. Time was running out and we hadn't seen any of them emerging yet. I prayed that Harry wouldn't get in trouble like Delacour.