The Red Rose That Has Green Thorns

“…Begin.”

Scorpius squeezed my hand tighter, glancing at me, and we stepped purposely onto the course together. My left hand in his right, since I wasn’t ambidextrous, even with a wand - one wouldn’t think it was so hard to use a wand with the hand you’re not used to using it in, but it really was. I could barely stun with my wand in my left hand.

Stepping through the arch that began the course was like stepping into a dark room after you’d been out in the sun with snow on the ground.

“It’s bewitched,” I breathed. “I bet Lumos doesn’t work here…”

“Is this what the black parchment meant?” Scorpius mused, and we stepped forward cautiously. Just then, we heard Professor Collins.

“And you see the special obstacle that Rose and Scorpius have to take on! Remember, each team has a different special obstacle, and this darkness is theirs! Remember, Ethan and Carmela had wind. They can‘t see, nor can they be seen!”

“That explains it,” I snorted. “What’s something we can used for light, other than Lumos?”

“Hang on,” Scorpius said, and we paused. He slid his arm up, linking our arms so he could have the use of both hands. I couldn’t see what he was doing, but a moment later, he had a small blue flame in a jar that he had undoubtedly conjured.

“Shall I bewitch it to lead the way…?” I asked, and I saw him nod in the dim glow. I then said, “While I do that, you should make a few more.”

“Good idea.”

We were taking a few of our precious minutes, but it was better to have some form of light than to tread ahead blindly, unable to see the dangers that lurked in the dark.

Once we had successfully bewitched five jars of blue flames to scout ahead, where we could just see each other and the ground in front of us but could clearly see the ground, we attempted Lumos to find that my assumption was correct and that we couldn’t use it. We linked hands again, and a temporary binding charm was placed, since, as Scorpius so nicely put it, I was a klutz and we didn’t want twenty seconds added on for something as simple as me tripping.

We walked on in silence, me scanning to our right and Scorpius to our left, so much so that we nearly forgot to look in front. Just in time, it seems, Scorpius did, and pulled me back. I stumbled slightly but regained my balance and shot him a look as our jars slowed to a halt - they were bewitched to stay five to ten feet ahead, and they’d reached the end of their tether.

“Trench,” Scorpius explained, nodding to the gaping hole in front of our feet. I racked my brain for a solution to the ten feet wide trench - for the makeshift lanterns of ours hovered right over the end, occasionally straying closer to us again, before moving back out.

I saw an odd shimmer, but before I could say anything about it, Scorpius put his foot on it.

“An illusion!” we said in unison.

“At least a part of it is,” Scorpius said thoughtfully. “Walk carefully, feel with your foot before each step. It may drop off at any moment.”

I nodded in understanding and stepped slowly out into what seemed like air over an endless trench. Each step we took seemed torturously slow, a drip of sweat running down the side of my face reminding me that we were being timed even then. I felt like I was running through molasses, as hard as it seemed it was to move forward. I was just beginning to think that the whole thing was an illusion when my foot met air and I nearly toppled down.

“Rose!” Scorpius cried, giving a tug on my hand so I fell back into him.

“Sorry,” I said, slightly breathless from the rush I’d just gotten - not the good kind of rush, mind. “I wasn’t as careful as I should have been.”

“It’s fine,” Scorpius said, breathing a sigh of relief at the fact that we hadn’t gone over the edge, “but now we have to find a way to get the rest of the way across.”

We were still halfway out, standing on seemingly nothing - six inches farther, and we would be falling to either our death or the need to be rescued by the professors roaming around. It was with a slightly frightened leap of my heart that I wondered if the professors would be able to find us, if the red sparks would work. Surely, I decided, or any trouble for us would be like a death sentence.

With a flick of my wand, mostly to solve how deep the trench really was, I summoned one of the jars nearer and had it descend a few feet into the blackness. It wasn’t all that deep, so I let the jar go back to where it had been. As it rose back out of the trench, something above caught my eye. I used a charm to pull it down, and it descended nicely across the gap, forming a bridge.

“Is it safe?” Scorpius wondered aloud.

“One way to find out,” I replied, and stepped onto it with one foot. So far so good…we made it safely across, but before I stepped off, I put my foot out to make sure the real trench didn’t extend farther. There wasn’t a shimmer over the area, so I didn’t think it was an illusion of solid ground, but it was best to be safe rather than sorry.

The next ten minutes was uneventful, until an odd clicking sound came from the right. We kept moving, but with a look from Scorpius, I kept an even closer eye on the bushes that outlined our course.

We were in a small, low-lying area when it leapt out.

I groaned, having inherited my father’s fear.

“Acromantulas,” I muttered as the seven foot tall beast clicked around us. Another one soon came after it, towering to eleven feet.

“At least they’re young…?” Scorpius tried, but he knew my fear. Just as one began to crouch, to leap into a spring, Scorpius whispered hurriedly, “cast a stunner at its underside when it jumps, then make sure we’re out of the way.”

I nodded, glad that I, unlike my father, could keep a level head in the face of our mutual fear. The eleven foot tall beast sprang, and as one, Scorpius and I shouted, “Stupefy!”

It keeled over mid-leap, and I breathed a sigh of relief. We inched forward, keeping an eye on the smaller spider, which was examining its kin and talking to it in their clicking tongue. Just as we got out of the indention in the ground, it leapt and took me off guard.

“Impedimenta!” I cried as it came barreling towards us.

Scorpius’ “Stupefy!” was a few seconds later, which might be why the acromantula only stumbled before continuing its charge.

“Three,” I started counting down, so we’d get the same time, “two, one!”

“Impedimenta!!” we both cried, and apparently we had enough force to knock it back, but not before it had grazed my outstretched arm with a sharp pincer.

“Rose!” Scorpius cried for the second time as I brought my arm close to my body, wincing as I did so. After a moment, the sting went away as I numbed the pain with a quick spell that Madam Pomfrey had used on me several times.

“It’ll be fine,” I said, “I’ve numbed it for now. We’ll get it looked at when we get done. Now let’s get out of here before more of them show up.”

Scorpius muttered his agreement, still looking worried, and we forged onward. Nothing too challenging had confronted us yet, for which I was thankful, but I knew it couldn’t last long. We’d only been in the darkness for half an hour, at best, so I knew there was plenty more to waylay us. As was proved by the eerie, shimmering pink mist that slowly came from the trees on either side to the path in front of us.

“Confundus Vapor,” Scorpius breathed, stepping back. “Use a bubblehead charm, it should work against it. If not, you’ll forget why we’re in here for as long as you’re in contact with the mist.”

I nodded, glad that he, at least, seemed to know what it was. I was thinking it was one of Uncle George’s trick mists, that had you laughing uncontrollable for an hour afterwards, but either way the bubblehead charm would work. I was a second later than Scorpius with producing the charm, but we were soon marching through it warily, having trouble seeing because our lamps were so far ahead through the dense fog. I summoned two of them back, and it was a bit easier to watch our steps, but I still stumbled four times and fell once. Scorpius was patient, as he knew I was a bit of a klutz at times, and we forged on.

We were out of the mist within three minutes, and walked a safe distance away before dispatching our bubblehead charms. It was then that a strange noise came, and Scorpius yelped.

“What is it?” I leaned around him and could have laughed at the creature on his leg if it weren’t for the fact that it had sliced through his pants and was causing rivulets of blood to run from his left calf. I pointed my wand at it, thinking Levicorpus, and the bowtruckle was suspended upside down in the air, slashing ferociously at the two of us.

“You were right,” I mused, looking at the cuts. “Are you going to be okay?”

“Let’s just move on,” he said, wincing as he leaned backwards a little too slowly and one of the wood creature’s claws scraped his cheek. A few drips of blood fell as I pulled him around the floating creature and past it, following our impatient lanterns, still casting soft blue light around us.

That first bowtruckle would be one of sixteen that we came across in the next thirteen minutes - yes, I’d started keeping track, although I had no idea how long we’d been in the course total. I had gained four scrapes across the right side of my neck, and three on that shoulder, all from one particularly vicious little bugger, as well as three that spanned my forearm and the interlocked hands of Scorpius and I. His right forearm and hand received the same treatment as my left, so that we both had blood dripping from our clasped hands, and he had gained two more cuts on his face and one across his torso, ripping the front of his white, buttoned shirt and staining it red with the slight blood that dripped.

“I told you…” he said, panting, after we left the small grove of wand-wood trees, “that they were nasty little buggers.”

“And I never denied it,” I retorted, wincing at the piercing shriek the nearest tiny creature emitted. “Now let’s get farther away, shall we?”

He nodded, glaring backwards over his shoulder for a second longer before facing forward. We clambered over a fallen tree that had never been on the grounds before, and were knocked back by a newly planted Whomping Willow before using a freezing charm in unison and sprinting by it - Scorpius nearly twisting his ankle in the process.

We had been walking in eerie silence for about fifteen minutes before a rustling was heard off to the left. I internally groaned, but readied my wand as Scorpius tensed and did the same. It was a slightly slithering sound, almost like a snake - for a brief second, the word basilisk flashed across my mind, but I dismissed that thought quickly. They weren’t about to put a creature who could kill with a single glare in a tournament.

“Let’s keep moving,” I said softly, tugging Scorpius as the sound stopped briefly. “Keep watching, but keep moving.”

“Okay,” Scorpius agreed, and we traveled unhindered for five more minutes before the creature leapt out at us, and I held back a squeal.

It had the head of a white tiger, the body and front legs of a crab, or something, the hind legs and claws of a griffin, the tails of scorpions, snakes, and dragons - thus, two of them were very, very dangerous tails. From the first joint of it’s front, crablike legs, it had the legs of an abnormally large bird - like a falcon.

“A chimera,” I breathed, taking an involuntary step back. I had supposed they might be in here, but I hadn’t expected to come across one. Especially not in the dark. I noticed, then, that it had spines all down its back that connected with its dragon tail, which only added to the menacing image.

It charged, and Scorpius pulled me out of the way of the gnashing teeth as he leapt back from the scorpion’s tail. It barreled past, then rounded on us once more. As it began to charge, Scorpius said, “It’s easier to evade unattached. We’re going to get a penalty, but it’s the best way!” and broke the binding charm, shoved me away, and dove just in time.
From opposite sides of the beast, we faced it. It lunged at me, swiping with a talon-like front leg, and I leapt back. I was a bit slow, but it only ripped my robes, and Scorpius distracted it then with a stinging hex.

The next few things happened so fast I couldn’t remember clearly. It focused fully on Scorpius, and within ten seconds had him backed up against a tree with a gash in his left shoulder. He grimaced, reaching up and grasping his shoulder, glaring at the creature. I remembered afterwards searching frantically for a spell, or hex, or charm that could help. As a last resort, just as the chimera began to charge him again, I leapt closer than I should have and cried, “Elastasis!”

My wand, which was pointing at the ground, caused the soil to grow soft and stretchy, and when the claws had sunk slightly and trapped the chimera fairly well, I said, “Elasti-gone!” and the ground returned to its normal appearance and consistency, trapping the chimera’s claws in the firm soil. It roared it’s rage and swept it’s dragon tail out quickly, knocking me to my feet. I grunted in pain, dazed for a minute before I realized it was preparing to strike straight down on my face with the scorpion tail.
With a shriek, I rolled out of the way and out of range, leaping to my feet in fright.

“Rose!” Scorpius stumbled over, wincing and clasping my hand. “Are you okay? How bad did it get you?!”

“Not - not bad,” I managed, which was true. I had a cut on the back of one leg. “We’re going to get so many points docked for injuries!” I groaned.

He snorted, squeezing my hand tightly. He also leant down swiftly, placing a kiss on my cheek, and said, “I’m glad it’s just a few cuts. You could’ve just died, Rose. I couldn’t care less about points right now.”

I flushed so red I was glad the light was as far away as we’d let them get.

“Thanks, I guess. I couldn’t just let it get you, though, you know? Let’s just…get going again, shall we?” I said, looking away. My heart was beating faster than I would have liked, but it was just from a little thing called my Scorpius-just-kissed-me-on-the-cheek-I-must-resist-the-urge-to-freak syndrome.

We forged onwards, unfortunately encountering another group of bowtruckles but fortunately escaping this group better off than the last group. We had to duck suddenly under a vicious explosion from a Boomboom tree - a new discovery, normally located on the side of volcanoes and normally only active when the volcano is. This one must have been unstable.

I nearly fell in another hole, but Scorpius used a nifty charm that he had just remembered (that would have come in handy earlier) to cause us both to float safely over the hole and touch down on the other side…and in the light once more. A loud honk sounded to the left, and there the Honking Flurfy sat on its pedestal.

Cheers erupted, and I stared, dumbfounded, at the crowd.

“And they’ve completed it! And what a useful idea - those little blue flames in the jars, as the ever-useful Lumos would not work in that darkness. Surprisingly, they only lost contact one time, but for four minutes and sixteen seconds, so added to that, twenty more, and we have to add four minutes and thirty-six seconds…but that’s not too bad.” Professor Collins sounded excited. “So the total time for Rose and Scorpius is one hour, forty-seven minutes, and three seconds!”

The Hogwarts students erupted into cheers.

“We were faster,” I breathed, grinning. I turned on Scorpius, hugging him tightly around the neck and planting a kiss of my own on his cheek, bringing my blush back, but luckily Madam Pomfrey rushed up and ushered us to the first aid tent as the Flurfy honked for Andy and Carl to take on their obstacle.

“You’ve been through the mill,” Madam Pomfrey said, fretting over us. She shooed Scorpius into the next bed, behind the curtains, while she fixed the hurts that were under my clothes. Then she ushered over to him and continued with talking, “You two have been hurt by…let’s see…Rose was hurt by an acromantula, but you aren’t, Scorpius, but you’ve both got wounds from bowtruckles and…a chimera?! I thought dragons were bad, but you’ve come out worse than they did last time! And that Whomping Willow seedling got you. You’ve got some bruising, from that. You’re a right mess, you two, you know that?”

“What did you expect?” I asked through the curtain, her silhouette patching up Scorpius - who I knew, also from the silhouette, was shirtless (I was blushing like a schoolgirl…okay, maybe I was a schoolgirl, but I was still blushing like crazy). “I’m a Weasley. We tend to get into trouble a lot and drag whoever’s near down with us.”

“Yes, yes, I suppose so.” she chuckled wryly, then came back over to patch me up some more. “You two can go back to the Champion’s tent now, to await the results.”

“Thanks!” I chirped, hoping up. The bow truckle wounds had healed nicely, but I had a bandage wrapped around my arm where the acromantula had wounded me, and when Scorpius came out I saw that the shoulder the scorpion tail had pierced was bandaged up, with a weird blue salve showing.

Back in the tent, Ethan and Carmela were more than willing to talk about their trip through the obstacle course and readily listened to ours. While Scorpius told them, I dwelled freely on the kisses on the cheek we’d shared, flushing slightly, and wishing I didn’t like him so bloody much.

Occasionally, I chipped in the conversation to add something Scorpius had forgotten, but otherwise, and once that was done we played a game of exploding snap with the Durmstrang champs, finding a few decks sitting on the table that held refreshments. After the first game, Ethan and I began to set up another and Scorpius went to the table and grabbed each of us a goblet of pumpkin juice, for which we all thanked him and began again.

It once again came as a shock when the Honking Flurfy let out its honking call. We all climbed to our feet, leaving the game as it was - it exploded just as we all reached the mouth of the tent - and we listened to Professor Collins.

“This was really close,” he called out. “with their twelve minutes and twenty-two seconds added, their total time is one hour, forty-seven minutes, and one second! The time for Beauxbatons’ team is the fastest, by only two seconds, but they also looked pretty banged up…let’s let them get fixed up while the judges converse on scores.”

We waited for a good fifteen minutes, seven of which we waited outside the stadium with Andy and Carl, who were already fixed up by Madam Pomfrey, before we were called in. We all stood in a row, once more holding the hand of our partner - this time, it was mostly for support.

“The scores for Durmstrang are as follows…” Professor Collins held up his wand, shooting smoky numbers that glowed gold up. “Eight!”

Next was Uncle Percy, who also shot up a golden eight. “Eight!” he repeated.

“Eight!” said Madame Maxime.

“Seven!” Uncle Viktor gave his own students less than Madame Maxime.

“Nine!” Gwen called, the number curling into the air.

“The total score for Durmstrang’s team is forty! Excellent score, you two, excellent. Now, for Hogwarts!”

The crowed cheered, heard more clearly than those that had cheered for Ethan and Carmela because this was the home school, after all.

“Eight!” Called Professor Collins, and the numbers went up in order again.

“Nine!” said Uncle Percy.

“Eight!” said Madame Maxime.

“Nine!” said Uncle Viktor.

“Eight!” said Gwen. There came a roar from the supporters.

“That’s very good, that’s forty-two for Rose and Scorpius! The Beauxbatons scores are next, this will be close, I’ll wager!”

The Beauxbatons section managed to make themselves heard more than Durmstrang.

“Nine!”

“Eight!”

“Nine!”

“Eight!”

“Eight!”

They made themselves heard again, just barely over Hogwarts.

“That puts Beauxbatons and Hogwarts tied for first place right now! Very close still are Ethan and Carmela of Durmstrang! This concludes the first task, and the next time we shall see the champions in the spotlight will be the Yule Ball! Now, let us go and enjoy a nice, warm, and slightly overdue meal!”

There was an uproar again, and we all headed back toward the castle, the champions with a slight head start since we weren’t in the stands. There was a grin on my face, as was on Scorpius’ when he met my gaze, and we headed back up with the other teams, chatting as though we weren’t opponents in a prestigious wizarding tournament.