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𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐖𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐘-𝐓𝐖𝐎

 𝐃𝐑𝐀𝐆𝐎𝐍𝐒
"𝑇𝑟𝑎𝑖𝑛, 𝑑𝑜𝑛'𝑡 𝑠𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑖𝑛."
—𝐴𝑟𝑡ℎ𝑢𝑟 𝐿𝑦𝑑𝑖𝑎𝑟𝑑
𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 𝟐𝟗𝟏𝟕

⋆⋆⋆✧⋆⋆⋆

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐍𝐄𝐗𝐓 𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆, Harry and Liliana walked along the lake with Hermione, taking advantage of the empty area as Harry explained everything that Sirius had said to Hermione, including—especially—the part about the dragons. 

Hermione's face had slowly evolved into one of panic as the story went on, though she was obviously trying her best to remain calm. 

Once Harry was finished, she gave a slow nod. "Let's just try and keep you alive until Tuesday evening, and then we can worry about Karkaroff."

The three of them walked around the lake several times, each of them offering their own solutions on how to combat the dragon, though none of them proved to be any good. At that point, Liliana wished more than ever that Ron hadn't interrupted them, or else they would've heard what Sirius was going to say. Talk about horrible timing. 

Liliana knew that she was going to tell Cedric about the dragons, obviously. But first, she had to help Harry; he was so much younger and less experienced, not to mention probably had someone out to murder him. Besides, while she helped Harry, she would also look for something for Cedric, so, really, it was a 'two birds, one stone' sitch.

After almost an hour of nothing, they decided to go to the library, where they took every book they could find on dragons. They sat down at one of the tables and began to ruffle through each one.

"'Talon-clipping by charms . . . treating scale-rot . . .' This is no good, this is for nutters like Hagrid who want to keep them healthy . . ." Harry muttered as he looked through a gold-lined book.

"'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 . . .'" Liliana read aloud before scrunching her nose and shaking her head. "But Sirius said a simple one would do it . . ."

"Let's try some simple spellbooks, then," Harry said while throwing another book to the side.

Harry came back with a large pile of spellbooks, and once again the three of them poured over each one in an attempt to find something. Hermione was continuously whispering things, her brows knit tightly in both concentration and confusion.

"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 McGonagall . . . 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 . . ."

"Hermione," Harry interjected through gritted teeth, causing her to stop and look up at him with furrowed eyebrows, "will you shut up for a bit, please? I'm trying to concentrate."

Hermione fell silent, allowing them a bit more peace to continue searching through the endless pile of books. But with every useless page that Liliana turned, the situation began to be more and more hopeless, and her heart was sinking lower and lower. 

"Oh no, he's back again, why can't he read on his stupid ship?" Hermione rolled her eyes as Viktor Krum came into the library, giving them a look of distaste before heading to the other corner. "Come on, we'll go back to the common room . . . his fan club'll be here in a moment, twittering away . . ."