Natsu Dragneel and the Goblet of Fire

The First Task

Natsu got up on Sunday morning and dressed so inattentively that it was a while before he realized he was trying to pull his hat onto his foot instead of his sock.

When he'd finally got all his clothes on the right parts of his body, he hurried off to find Lucy, locating her at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall, where she was eating breakfast with Juvia Lockser. Feeling too queasy to eat, Natsu waited until Lucy had swallowed her last spoonful of porridge, then dragged her out onto the grounds.

There, he told her all about the dragons, and about everything Weiss had said, while they took another long walk around the lake. Alarmed as she was by Weiss' warnings about Karkaroff, Lucy still thought that the dragons were the more pressing problem.

"Let's just try and keep you alive until Tuesday evening," she said desperately, "and then we can worry about Karkaroff."

They walked three times around the lake, trying all the way to think of a simple spell that would subdue a dragon.

Nothing whatsoever occurred to them, so they retired to the library instead. Here, Natsu pulled down every book he could find on dragons, and both of them set to work searching through the large pile.

"Talon-clipping by charms... treating scale-rot... This is no good, this is for nutters like Gildarts who want to keep them healthy... Dragons are extremely difficult to slay, owing to the ancient magic that imbues their thick hides, which none but the most powerful spells can penetrate... ' But Weiss said a simple one would do it...

"Let's try some simple spellbooks, then," said Natsu, throwing aside Men Who Love Dragons Too Much.

He returned to the table with a pile of spellbooks, set them down, and began to flick through each in turn, Hermione whispering nonstop at his elbow.

"Well, there are Switching Spells... but what's the point of Switching it? Unless you swapped its fangs for wine-gums or something that would make it less dangerous... The trouble is, like that book said, not much is going to get through a dragon's hide... I'd say Transfigure it, but something that big, you really haven't got a hope, I doubt even Professor Pegasus...unless you're supposed to put the spell on yourself? Maybe to give yourself extra powers? But they're not simple spells, I mean, we haven't done any of those in class, I only know about them because I've been doing O.W.L. practice papers..."

"Lucy," Natsu said, through gritted teeth, "will you shut up for a bit, please? I m trying to concentrate."

But all that happened, when Lucy fell silent, was that Natsu's brain filled with a sort of blank buzzing, which didn't seem to allow room for concentration. He stared hopelessly down the index of Basic Hexes for the Busy and Vexed. Instant scalping... but dragons had no hair... pepper breath... that would probably increase a dragon's firepower... horn tongue... just what he needed, to give it an extra weapon...

"Oh no, he's back again, why can't he read on his stupid ship?" said Lucy irritably as Dan Straight slouched in, cast a surly look over at the pair of them, and settled himself in a distant corner with a pile of books.

"Come on, Natsu, we'll go back to the common room... his fan club'll be here in a moment, twittering away... "

And sure enough, as they left the library, a gang of girls tiptoed past them, one of them wearing a Bulgaria scarf tied around her waist.

Natsu barely slept that night. When he awoke on Monday morning, he seriously considered for the first time ever just running away from Hogwarts. But as he looked around the Great Hall at breakfast time, and thought about what leaving the castle would mean, he knew he couldn't do it. It was the only place he had ever been happy... well, he supposed he must have been happy with his parents too, but he couldn't remember that.