Triwizard Tournament, Hogwarts' style (PRS)

Disregard – very mature. Alison fought the urge of rolling her eyes as Professor Snape walked up to Troye and spoke with him. When Troye had read his paper, she shrugged.
“Don’t know, maybe both. At least we know it involves the Forest” she said and looked out one of the big windows of the Great Hall. Alison liked animals, which meant that the experience in the forest couldn’t be that bad, right? But then again, there were some pretty dangerous animals in the forest, as well. However, the whole “together” thing didn’t make sense to her, she could handle herself in the forest. She wondered if the team lottery was rigged; both herself and Troye (at least as far as she knew) were both Straight- O students. Pairing them up would be a challenge for them both, and she was somehow sure that the teachers knew that, too. She looked up at Troye and met his eyes.
“So. Something in the forest, and we need to cooperate somehow. Should be interesting” she said, raising an eyebrow. She wondered if Troye was even able to cooperate at all. Probably not, which would create problems for Alison. At least it would be a nicer win if she won the entire thing without the cooperation of her team member.

The Forest. He could handle that. Sure, it was forbidden, which probably meant something, but he could handle it. No animals, no nothing could hurt him when he had his magic. It would be impossible. He noticed how Alison's eyes met his and he immediately turned his face down, avoiding the eye contact.
"I personally believe that I can handle it myself", he said, not even avoiding to sound cocky. He kind of tried harder to sound even cockier than he used to - and it probably worked. "But yeah. Interesting." As he said the last word he rolled his eyes and turned his head to the Slytherin table. The students were still eating their breakfast, no one looking stressed out, because no one was in a hurry. It was the weekend, so there wasn't any lessons that they had to run to.

They hadn’t spoken for long, they decided to meet up at the edge of the forest to take part in the first task, but not speak before then. Not that Alison cared, any minute without Troye was great. She spoke with her friends during the day, and especially Claire.
“I don’t care that you’ve teamed up with him. When it’s just two left, and it will probably be you two if you believe the betting pool – promise me you’ll crush him and win this thing” she said and Alison laughed.
“Don’t worry, he won’t stand a chance” she said and leaned back in the armchair in the Ravenclaw common room. She glanced at her watch, and stood up. She had to meet the others.

As she walked down towards the forest, she saw the four Heads of each house standing at the edge of the forest. Each professor had a backpack in front of them. As she arrived, she saw that only the Gryffindor contestant had arrived yet. Professor Flitwick cleared his throat.
“Your wand, please, Miss Langdon” he said and Alison looked surprised at him.
“This is a no-magic task” he said and Alison did as she was told. What was this? She bit her lip and stood next to Daisy, waiting for the others.

When they left the Great Hall, Troye decided to avoid Alison all day, until he really had to meet her. Therefore he kept his butt inside of the Slytherin common room - the one place where he could be sure that he wouldn't meet her. He wasn't really sure why it was so important for him to avoid her, he usually never felt any reason to avoid anyone; not even Claire. And now he felt the need to avoid Claire's friend? What was up with him?
"So they teamed you up with a Mudblood, huh?" Nathan asked just as Troye leaned back in one of the armchairs. Even though that he was a dick, and a Slytherin, Troye didn't have any personal issues with Mudbloods. Sure, he referred to them as Mudbloods, which was problematic, but he wouldn't mess with anyone purely because of their blood status.
"Yeah", he sighed as an answer. He didn't get to relax for long before students started talking to him about the odds and whatever, but he didn't mind. They really boosted his ego.

After a couple of hours it was time to meet the other contestants down by the edge of the forest. He arrived, almost at the last minute, and was met by the sight of the four Heads of each house, plus Alison and the Gryffindor contestant (who he didn't know the name of). He walked up to professor Snape, who had a backpack in front of him.
"I need you to hand in your wand, Avery", he said, sticking out his hand in front of him. Troye wrinkled his forehead and wanted to ask why - but he didn't want to annoy Snape, so he just picked his wand out of his pocket and gave it to him.

When all four contestants had arrived, McGonagall cleared her throat.
“You will stay four days in the Forest, without magic. There are protective spells around each camp, to protect you from harm. There is one tent in each camp, and you need to build them yourselves. You need to get food and water by yourselves, and we will send different, safe but hard, obstacles along the way to see how well you cooperate. If you need to terminate the task, knock three times at one of the trees. But remember, if you terminate the task you will be disqualified” she said and Alison nodded. No magic, at least she had an advantage with being a Muggleborn. She had always been at a disadvantage because of her blood status, at least until she had gotten used to the wizarding world. McGonagall stopped talking, and Alison walked up to Troye. She wondered if he had ever even seen a tent; he felt like one of those rich guys who lived in mansions and couldn’t handle the nature. She wondered how he would react to the whole no-magic thing. He probably hated everything that had to do with muggles and muggle world. At least that was Alison’s prejudices. Alison picked up the backpack McGonagall had in front of her and took a quick peek inside. Rope, water bottle, a knife and some other things that they might need.

Four days without magic? What the hell was that about? Wasn't it a competition for witches and wizards? Complete bullshit. He looked over at Snape to try and figure out what he thought about the no-magic thing, but his facial expression was blank. Hell, the professors couldn't be serious. Troye hadn't been without magic for four days before. Hell, not even one day! Sure, at holidays he wasn't allowed to use magic himself - but it was still magic around him.
Screaming ugly words at the professors inside his head he grabbed the backpack in front of Snape and turned around when Alison walked up to him.
"This is some bullshit", he muttered before opening the backpack and checking what was inside. Ugh, it looked like muggle-things!

Alison raised her eyebrow.
“Or, it’s something for us to gain knowledge by” she said, sounding like a true Ravenclaw. Not that she needed any more knowledge, she knew a few things about camping. Not much, but she was sure she knew more than Troye.
“I suppose you haven’t camped much as a kid?” she asked and looked towards the forest. If he had, they had probably used magid for everything. Now they literally couldn’t. Professor Flitwick spoke.
“You’ll find your camps, the flags will be marked with either green and blue or red and yellow” he said and looked at his watch, “the first task begins…. Now!”. Daisy and Tyler went into the forest, and Alison looked over at Troye.
“Come on, say goodbye to your wand and let’s go” she said and started to move towards the forest.

Alison’s carefully spoken Ravenclaw words literally made Troye roll his eyes. He couldn’t help it! Not that he would stop himself from doing so if he had the opportunity.
“Nope, my mom says it’s dirty”, he answered shortly before listening to professor Flitwick. Just the word ‘camps’ made him want to cringe. He had heard the word before, obviously, but now he hated it. No magic?
“Shut up”, he answered Alison even though he actually did want to say goodbye to his wand. Snape still held it visible in his hands; it hurt to leave it. Trout had never been without his wand ever since he got it, it was like a pacemaker for him. He was going to die without it! He said a mental goodbye to his wand before swinging the backpack over his shoulder, running into the woods.
“Are you coming?”

Alison grinned and jogged after him. She didn’t answer him, and didn’t slow down until they were a few meters in the forest. She looked around, and walked towards the middle of the forest. Between the trees, she spotted a flag, which was half green, half blue.
“That was pretty easy” she said, walking up to the flag. On the ground was a pile of fabric, poles and other things needed when putting up a tent. She bent over and tried to lift one of the poles. Of course.
“They’ve put a spell on them. They are too heavy for one of us to lift, we need to carry them together” she said, straightening up and turning towards Troye. She wanted to sigh, and not do this, but she had to. She only hoped this magic tent would have two separate rooms, but somehow she doubted it.

Troye made sure to always be at least one meter in front of Alison. Hell, he couldn’t be slower than a girl, let alone a Ravenclaw! Although he had a harder time spotting the actual flag; which Alison did quite fast. It hurt a little, not being superior to her all of the time. Definitely hurt his ego.
“Such a bad excuse for not being strong enough”, he said, grinning, with his arms crossed over his chest. He looked at her in silence for a short second before bending down and tried himself to lift the same pole. He couldn’t believe it. It was too heavy for one person! Cursing at himself inside of his own head he straightened up and looked over at Alison.
“Come on, you have to help if you want this to be over with!” he said demandingly, trying not to think of the fact that he was blushing. Trying not to think about it made him think even more about it, which made him blush even more.