"You'd think death becomes something you can deal with, eventually."

"Far from it," Sirius Black sighed. Ella and him were seated in a corner at the Hog's head, both huddled beneath layers of clothes (the day wasn't as cold as their bodies couldn't seem to keep themselves properly warm), and Aberforth Dumbledore for a moment confused them for family resemblence.

"Aren't you from Hogwarts?" Aberforth asked, and got a solemn nod. "It's a school-day, why you here?"

Ella sighed, taking another sip of the fire-whiskey. It still burned down her throat even with it being the second whole glass she's been drinking with Sirius.

"We're having a mental breakdown," Sirius said casually. "What with the world being shit, right?"

"You put it perfectly," Ella agreed with a smile.

"Well, I'm runnin' out of Blishen's Firewhiskey, so next glass is on me, and it's Ogden's Old Firewhiskey," the two agreed happily, and Ella looked around the dust covered bar.

"Why don't you join us? We're discussing ways to live after your loved ones are gone."

"Oh, I've got some things to say about that," he bitterly said. He walked behind the counter and brought a brand new bottle of firewhiskey, and another cup. A goat suddenly called, and he sighed. "Ignore Tati, she's an attention seeker."

"Like Ella here," Sirius laughed, and she threw a balled-up napkin. "We shouldn't let you drink much more, Mini-Prongs, you've got detention in a few hours," he pointed out.

"It's just Hagrid, he'll understand... 'sides, Sirius, we're day-drinking and bitching," Ella said. "I think it's safe to say we're already pretty drunk."

"So another glass?" Aberforth wondered, and both Ella and Sirius finished the drink in their glasses, before Aberforth poured the other brand of firewhiskey into their glasses. "So who are we mournin' for, now?"

"I watched a chimaera die on my birthday," Ella sighed. "And my boyfriend's name was pulled out from the goblet, so now he's probably dying too."

"Now, that's a tad too much," Sirius said. "I told you before, Dumbledore's trying to keep it safe as possible," he slurred a bit as he took another sip. "Now I remember why I like Blishen's more, Ogden's is too... honey-y."

Aberforth put the glass back on the table, now empty. "I don't want to make you stressed, girl, but I don't trust your headmaster too much."

"Me neither, actually," Ella sighed, taking a sip.

"Well, bring me down more," Sirius rolled his eyes. "It's my godson who is the other champion of the school."

Ella's head fell on the dusty table as she groaned. "I hate the way this world is."

"So how do you deal with it?" Aberforth wondered. "I raise my goats and run a shady bar, but what about you two?"

Sirius seemed deep in thoughts. "Well, ever since I escaped Azkaban, I've been too busy. First with running, then with getting Wormtail, and then I just tried to keep busy. I flew to America for a concert of a singer I haven't even liked before Azkaban," he shrugged. "I think it's the first time I actually sit down and consider everything that's happened, and I'm drunk."

"I miss Yamac." Ella whispered. "He was... He was really my father, in so many ways. I miss having a parent, and I... I just want a healthy way to cope with death."

"PADFOOT!" A voice suddenly called, and the three snapped away from miserably staring at random points in the bar. The trio turned to look at him, and Sirius wobbled up, throwing himself on the man.

"Moony!"

"Ella? What are you doing?!" Remus Lupin questioned, looking at the situation. "The First Mission is in two days, and you two are getting drunk?! Ella, you're a student! Oh, hello Aberforth, how are you? And Sirius, for once, be a responsible adult! She's got school tomorrow!"

"Hey, Remus, your dad's alright?" Sirius suddenly wondered, and Remus realised the vibes were very solemn in the bar.

"Well, kind of." Remus admitted, taking a chair and twisting it so it'd stand by their table, sitting down, "what's going on here?"

"Accio glass," Ella mumbled, pointing her wand at a glass, and it flew over. Aberforth grabbed it and filled it with firewhiskey, handing it to the werewolf.

"Here's to coping with this fucked up life," he raised his own glass. The three grabbed their glasses and mumbled the same thing.

"How 'bout we call you Goattail, Aberforth?"

"Just call me Aberforth, weirdo," he told the girl, who laughed.

::

"Hi," Ella greeted Hagrid.

"Yeh drunk?" he wondered, and Ella nodded.

"Of course not, Hagrid! If I were drunk, would I be facing a professor in this school?"

"Yer noddin' yer head, Ella," Hagrid told her, and she grabbed her head in her hands.

"Funny head, mine is. Ah, let's get to... what are we doing?"

"Detention," Hagrid sighed, and Ella nodded enthsuiastically.

"Yes, detention!" she grinned. She twisted around in her mouth the mandrake leaf, and wondered how she'd keep it there for a whole month, when Hagrid looked around.

"Look, Ella, it's a special sort of detention, so--" Ella turned to look at him properly (though she was swaying and trying to make the air keep her standong). He waswearing a flower that resembled an oversized artichoke in his buttonhole. It looked as though he had certainly attempted to comb his hair, which wasn't a good look on him.

"Come on, now, Ella," he told her, leading her to the Beauxbatonscarriage.

Ella blinked, confused.

He knocked three times on the doorbearing the crossed golden wands.

Maybe she could sleep on the grass. She was about to curl on the ground, when the door opened.

Madame Maxime opened it. She was wearing a silk shawl wrappedaround her massive shoulders. She smiled when she saw Hagrid.

"Ah, 'Agrid . . . it is time?"

"Bong-sewer," said Hagrid, beaming at her, and holding out ahand to help her down the golden steps. "This is Ella, she's got detention, so will be joining us for a while."

Ella blinked tiredly, smiling like an idiot. "Yo."

"Iz 'e drunk?" Madam Maxime wondered, looking outraged.

"Err, no, she's just that way." Hagrid cleared his throat, glancing around. "Shall we?" he wondered, and the group started walking off towards the forest.

"Wair is it you aretaking me, 'Agrid?"

"Yeh'll enjoy this," said Hagrid gruffly, "worth seein', trust me.On'y - don' go tellin' anyone I showed yeh, right? Yeh're nots'posed ter know."

"Of course not," said Madame Maxime, fluttering her longblack eyelashes.

"Hey yo, you bangin'?" Ella wondered, tripping on a stray branch. She fell on the ground, and rolled on her back. "I'mma stay here. Night."

"Ella, yeh've got detention! Get up!" Hagrid sighed, stepping closer to help her up.

She dragged her feet behind her as she walked behind them, sighing to herself every now and then, and contemplated to just lay down on the ground again.

But then - when they had walked so far around the perimeterof the forest that the castle and the lake were out of sight - Ella heard something. Men were shouting up ahead . . . then came adeafening, earsplitting roar--

"DRAGONS?" Ella sobered up quite suddenly, the haze in her mind disappearing with the knowledge of a great creature being just around the corner.

Four fully grown, enormous, vicious-looking dragons were rearing onto their hind legs inside an enclosure fenced with thick planksof wood, roaring and snorting - torrents of fire were shooting intothe dark sky from their open, fanged mouths, fifty feet above theground on their outstretched necks.

There was a silvery-blue onewith long, pointed horns, snapping and snarling at the wizards onthe ground (the swedish short-snout, which Ella considered the prettiest kind of dragons); a smooth-scaled green one, which was writhing andstamping with all its might (the common green welsh, that unlike the one Hagrid and Filch kept hidden, was healthy and strong); a red one with an odd fringe of fine goldspikes around its face, which was shooting mushroom-shaped fireclouds into the air (this was a chinese fireball, which Ella loved more than any other breed); and a gigantic black one, more lizard-like thanthe others, which was nearest to them (Ella literally choked on her own spit as she realised it was no other than the Hungarian Horntail, the rumored nastiest dragon of all).

At least thirty wizards, seven or eight to each dragon, wereattempting to control them, pulling on the chains connected toheavy leather straps around their necks and legs. Mesmerized,Ella looked up, high above her, and saw the eyes of the Horntail, with vertical pupils like a cat's, bulging with either fear orrage. It was making a horrible noise, ayowling, screeching scream.

"Charlie?" She suddenly asked, and Charlie Weasley turned to her.

"Ah, Ella!" he smiled. "Heard we're getting help from you as a form of punishment. Keep back there, Hagrid!" he yelled from near the fence, straining on the chain he was holding. "They can shoot fire at a range oftwenty feet, you know! I've seen this Horntail do forty!"

"Is'n' it beautiful?" said Hagrid softly.

"It's no good!" yelled another wizard. "Stunning Spells, on thecount of three!"

Each of the dragon keepers pulled out their wands.

"Stupefy!" they shouted in unison, and the Stunning Spells shotinto the darkness like fiery rockets, bursting in showers of stars onthe dragons' scaly hides, and he teetered dangerously onits back legs; its jaws stretched wide in a silent howl; its nostrilswere suddenly devoid of flame, though still smoking - then, veryslowly, it fell. Several tons of sinewy, scaly-black dragon hit theground with a thud that shook Ella and the ground.

She was grinning widely.

The dragon keepers lowered their wands and walked forward totheir fallen charges, each of which was the size of a small hill. Theyhurried to tighten the chains and fasten them securely to iron pegs,which they forced deep into the ground with their wands.

"Wan' a closer look?" Hagrid asked Madame Maxime excitedly.The pair of them moved right up to the fence, and Ella followed.

"Alright Ella?" Charlie wondered. "You can go to Nic over there," he pointed at a pale man with dark hair. "He's your supervisor for the time you're with us, sweet-cheeks."

"Oh, this is the best detention ever," Ella stated.

::

"Severus!" Ella called happily as she entered the Potions classroom. They played around with her time-table a bit, since her punishment consisted of being on-call with the dragon keepers, and her first class of that day was Potions.

She walked right up to him and hugged him, no regard to the fact he was attempting to pry her off of him.

"Grey! Get off!"

"Thank you, Severus!" she hugged tighter. "I love you, so, so much. You knew exactly how to cheer me up. I truly--"

"GREY! OFF!" he growled, and she pouted as she stepped off. "Go to the headmaster's office, I am not willing to deal with you at the moment!"

"What should I tell him?"

"That you're there to help him clean, I don't care. OUT!"

She frowned, but walked off, blowing a kiss and throwing suggestive looks his way as she left.

Ella climbed her wat casually up, when she suddenly saw Cedric talking with a black haired Ravenclaw she saw around him every now and then. Ella disappeared on Cedric after he was chosen, and practically ignored him.

She didn't know how to deal with the idea of him being hurt, and now she knew what could make him be hurt, so she stepped closer, even though her heart wanted her to rip itself out of her chest.

"Ced?" she called, and the Ravenclaw girl scowled. Cedric's smile towards the girl paled in comparison to the one he gave Ella at the moment-- three weeks of little to no communication took a tool on him, even if it wasn't very noticable, compared to Ella.

Ella's lost a few pounds since last they spoke, and she was losing sleep even before the dragon detention came to be, but Cedric still couldn't see her as anything but the prettiest person in the world.

"Ella," relief washed his voice.

"Care to step aside for me?" she wondered, and he nodded brilliantly, walking away from the girl with a small 'see ya Cho', and waiting for Ella to speak.

"Yeah baby?" he questioned, and she sighed.

"I'm not... look," she breathed deeply. "The first mission is dragons," she informed, "you have to find a way to deal with them, not beat them."

"What do you mean?" Cedric wondered.

"I don't know, it's just dragons." She looked at his eyes, "I don't know if the other champions know, or not, but I needed you to know- I can't... I don't want to see you hurt."

"Ella, look, we haven't gotten to talk about what happened--"

"I don't wanna talk," she cut him off. "Just, stay safe. I love you, but I don't know how to cope with this whole thing."

"So you're opting out," Cedric frowned. "Okay, okay. Do whatever you need, El." He glanced back at where Cho stood, and Ella scowled, placing a hand on his arm.

"Ced."

"Yeah?"

But she didn't know what to say, and she was left to stare blankly at him.

"I love you, El," he said simply. "I told you before, I'll lose my mind over you gladly. Just... promise me there is a future, and that this is not how you're ending this for us."

"I love you," was all she said, and he nodded.

"I'll see you around, babe."