Adam Wyatt propped himself up on his elbows as he allowed his numb toes to warm in front of the fire. He didn’t quite understand how his fur-lined boots, now thrown off to the side, were supposed to keep him warm; especially when the mud and the melted slush that had seeped into the lining made his feet feel even colder than wearing nothing at all. As he tried to rub the feeling back into his digits, he began thinking to himself about how spending the night sleeping out in the snow was supposed to make him and his classmate better wizards. Eons ago, it was believed that if a young brave was sent out into the wilderness with nothing but a hunting knife and the clothes on his back, he would be granted a life altering epiphany that would guide his way through the rest of his life.

Adam, however, couldn’t have cared less about who did what back in the stone ages to become powerful. He didn’t live there, and neither did his classmates at the Hardscrabble Creek School of Magical Arts; and despite looking like he at least grew during that time period, neither did Professor Blackbear.

Although, Adam did have to admit he was somewhat impressed.

Professor Blackbear had not been kidding when he said nothing was going to happen to cancel this little field trip deep into the prairie wildness away from the school. If was snowing, they were going to go into the wilderness. If the wind was blowing, threatened frostbite, and regular classes were canceled for the day, they were going into the wilderness. If they were cold, tired, their feet hurt, and they were getting pneumonia, they were still going out into the wilderness.

When anyone dared to complain, Professor Blackbear would simply remind them that were they Native Americans living seven hundred years ago, they would have taken this journey without food, water, or without another human being. As far as Professor Blackbear was concerned, this was simply a camping trip.

A camping trip in January, in the snow and the cold, listening for ‘the voices in the wind in the trees’…

With at least one person awake watching the fire at all times so no one would freeze to death.

Snap! A very loud crack from the dying fire was able to distract Adam from his suffering, at least for a moment. Gingerly, he poked a long stick into the pit, turning over the embers and exposing them to fresh oxygen.

Of course, neither Adam nor any of the other sixth-years who were sleeping around the fire would have ever agreed to this whole thing if Professor Blackbear weren’t such a good salesman. From the way he outlined the planned journey, it sounded like it would be a largely do-nothing field trip and what could be an entire week without any real class. Although the Shamanism professor’s class was far from being an easy grade, it was still better than endless Wandwork notes and hours-long Potion labs in the eyes of many students. Shamanism was a highly subjective class that had no textbook, little written work, and almost no way of testing what a person had learned. Professor Blackbear had been saying since Adam’s first year that the knowledge of Native American magic could only be apparent to the beholder and no one else. It wasn’t the destination that they would be focusing on, but the journey itself, for there may well be no destination.

It all sounded like mumble-jumble to most of the class, and Adam was no exception. All they really cared about was the part where Professor Blackbear said he didn’t believe in textbooks or in finals.

A log in the center of the fire pit, burnt white and brittle from burning since sundown, split in half, causing the fire itself to smolder. It was clear to Adam that simply turning the ashes wouldn’t be enough to generate the heat and light. If this fire was going to keep burning, he was going to have to go searching for more wood.

Sprawled at a various distances from the dwindling fire were the rest of the sixth years who had been stupid enough to agree to this trip. One of them would have to keep watch over the fire while he was gone.

Ennie, Meany, Meiney…

Giselle Lawrence: one of the last people Adam would have expected to be on this camping trip.

Adam had known Giselle since their early days at Hardscrabble Creek. The blonde pretty-girl would cringe at the very sight of most of her potions ingredients and still couldn’t seem to accept the concept of having to share a bathroom with the other girls in her dorm. It wracked Adam’s brain as he tried to figure out what was going through her mind when she decided to take this trip. Even as she slept, he could swear he saw an almost disgusted look on her face as she cringed into her sleeping bag.

“Giselle,” Adam whispered as he shook her shoulder. “Hey, Giselle.”

“Adam?” Giselle groaned as she stirred from her sleep. “What…are you doing?”

“The fire’s dying. I need to go look for more firewood.”

“Good for you.” She yawned and crawled further into her sleeping bag, making only the crown of her blonde head visible.

This was clearly going to take more drastic action. Adam responded by yanking Giselle’s pillow out from under her head, causing her to hit her head against the solid ground. Once she was jerked awake, Adam grabbed her by her shirt collar and dragged her over to the fire pit.

“That means that you need to watch the fire while I’m gone to make sure the fire doesn’t go out.”

Once she was fully awake, glaring into the glowing embers, Giselle was much more able to express her current disdain for Adam.

“I hate you, Adam,” she said more to the fire than to Adam himself.

“You’ll get over it,” Adam told her as he pulled on his boots and reached for an extra coat.

Giselle had never been one for deep thinking, so this whole arrangement would probably good for her. It would actually force her to do the one school assignment they had for this trip. One of the things that made this trip different from an ordinary camping trip, besides the fact it was taking place in the dead of winter, was that Professor Blackbear called it a Vision Quest.

The way the professor had explained it, was that if the students would go out into the wilderness, their minds would be cleared of all distractions and they would be free to receive guidance from sources unknown to problems that they were struggling with. Before leaving the school grounds, everyone on the quest had to have one thing in mind that they wanted to come back with an answer to. Adam had his question in mind the moment he heard this rule.

“Adam, Adam, Adam,” came the shouts of a much too excited third-year, “Adam, Adam!”

“What,” Adam asked, looking of from his Defensive Magic notes, “five times?”

Adam watched as Toby Miller, an excitable third-year who shouldn’t even have been allowed in the sixth-year houses, tore around the corner and bolted into the study den. He nearly collapsed onto the floor, gasping for breath, as the seven other students doing homework stopped what they were doing and stared. Shaking his head, Adam jumped to his feet and pulled Toby up onto the couch next to him. Clutched in Toby’s fist was a torn clipping from a newspaper, his knuckles beginning to white around it.

It was a particularly cold October evening. There was rain, sleet, gusting winds, making it the kind of day where people would rather do anything than be outside: even do homework! If Toby was willing to brave the cold to deliver a message, it had to be important, even for Toby. He was an anxious boy, nervous over everything, but even he could usually wait until class.

“Alright, Toby.” Adam sighed and relaxed against the coffee-colored suede. “What’s so important that it couldn’t wait till morning?”

“Did…you…” Toby gasped as he gulped for breath, “r-read the paper…today?”

Adam shook his head. Hardscrabble Creek was extremely out of the way, even by wizard-standards. Mail would take days to get to them, if the weather was good, and sometimes, they would get the newspaper until it was a week old. Most students didn’t even bother to read it anymore, and would simply depend on the teachers to tell them anything important happing in the world.

Adam reached for Toby fist, forced him to unclench his fingers, and began to smooth out the clipping.

“It’s…for a-all the sixth-years,” Toby explained, his words causing the other distracted sixth-years to gather around the sofa.

Once the article was reasonably flat, Adam sat up on the couch and held it up so everyone else could read too.

While the subject is still considered under speculation in Europe, American media sources have just received confirmation that the Hardscrabble Creek School of Magical Arts will me invited to participate in the Triwizard Tournament, taking place this coming October at Hogwarts School Witchcraft in Wizardry. This announcement came as a great honor to the school, because it is the first time in the history of the tournament that a school outside of Europe has been allowed to participate.

Still no word has been given about the other school being invited to participate, although it is speculated that it will be a school in Asia. A statement from the tournament committee stated that they hope this decision will help the tournaments mission to help international wizard relations and help to introduce European students to wizard cultures they may not otherwise have the opportunity to be exposed to.

The dean of Hardscrabble Creek released this statement, “We are so honored to be invited to this historic event. We have a very talented class coming into their seventh-year in time for the tournament. I am confident that anyone of our students would make an outstanding competitor. I can’t help but feel our students have grown up somewhat isolated from the rest of the wizard community, so I’m sure this invitation will be welcomed by every member of the student body.”

Critics of the invitation have actively spoken out ever since it was extended; claiming that the school is being too hasty to put its students in harms way. “It’s no secret that these ‘games’ are dangerous,” Celeste Cunningham, of the American Wizards’ Education Sisterhood, said in a statement to the paper. “Cedric Diggory’s death in the 1995 tournament was a widely publicized event, and helped to offer all the more proof of how dangerous this event really is.”

The Diggory family could not be reached for comment, and neither could any of the other competitors in the 1994-95 Triwizard Tournament.

For a long time, the entire room was silent, long after everyone should have been done reading. Even after it was clear that everyone had finished, the quiet still carried on. No one really knew what to say or what to feel. One of the drawbacks of being so slow to receive news of the outside world was that they were never quite sure how to react to it. People who lived in cities had the luxury of hearing other people’s opinions about events in the world, so a person never really had to form their own opinion.

Hardscrabble Creek was different. Not only were they late to receive news from the outside world, they were also late to receive the world’s opinions of the news. Many people would have told them that this would leave the school’s students with the purest eyes and most honest voices about the goings-on in the world. But all it really did was leave them confused in a way that a displaced refugee might be, hearing news about their war-torn homeland.

So they all sat and stared, waiting for a group reaction that would not come to them.

Adam felt his toes freeze all over again as his boots kicked through the snow, the soles of his feet squishing against the mud-soaked fur. The barren prairie lands had been picked clean as far as firewood went, so Adam would have to walk three miles to the forest if he wanted to bring back anything remotely useful for burning.

The tall prairie grass still rose considerably above the snow line, the tan blades creating a much starker contrast against the ground than it did any other time of the year. Adam ran his wand hand threw the brittle plants, noting the contrast was no different than it was in the summer. The harsh winters around Hardscrabble Creek were more than enough to turn the students into homebound hermits for the season. Adam couldn’t recall a time in all his school years when he spent a considerable amount of time outside during the colder months.

The low-hanging moon provided just enough light to see this, and only this. But it was bright enough not to need the assistance of a lantern or the Lumos charm, especially when all he really needed to see was the ground right in front of him.

Adam soon became very well acquainted with the prairie earth, however, when he found it three inches in front of his face as he fell. He could swear he felt his ribs poke into his lungs upon impact and his brain shake around inside his skull. But that wasn’t even what was causing him the most pain right now.

Adam looked back behind his shoulder to see that, sure enough, his ankle was painfully twisted inside a gnome hole. It was easy to tell, because while gopher and prairie dog hole were something people were hurt by accident, gnomes in this area seemed to dig their hole so they could trap people into getting hurt. And a Hardscrabble Creek student seemed to be a special prize in the eyes of the little…creatures.

Once the initial sharpness of the pain wore off, Adam pulled himself up into a seated position and carefully pulled his foot out of the hole, gritting his teeth against the sting. One he was free, he could swear he heard the little gnomes cackling at him, to which he growled at them. Out of habit, Adam reached into his pocket for his wand, only to remember that he hadn’t brought it with him as soon as his hand touch the coat material. He had hardly thought he would need to use magic to gather firewood. Now he had no means of healing himself or even signally his location.

Damn! he thought to himself, hating the world and everyone in it. He could swear he heard the gnomes laughing at his cursing and even the fact that he had forgotten his wand.

Pouring salt on the wound, he had as one last thought.

Adam tried desperately to pull himself back to his feet, but the pain was worse than any he had ever felt in his life. Angry and frustrated, he kicked a light patch of snow out of the way, revealing the deep brown earth underneath.

Falling back against the frozen ground, Adam let out a deep groan as he stared up at the sky. The winter clouds spread over the sky covered most of the stars, but still, the moon shone out like a beacon, unusually strong for a January night.

The silence forced Adam to take solace in his own thoughts. As the seconds past, feeling longer than they should have been, his mind began to race, bouncing from subject to subject. And one certain subject kept coming back to him: the upcoming Triwizard Tournament.

The Triwizard Tournament had been all the sixth-year class had been talking about for months, even though most of them barely knew what it was. The day after the sixth-years had come to their professor with the article they began to pressure the staff for every bit of information they could get.

What they had learned so far, through sketchy information and rumors, the Triwizard Tournament was a contest between three different schools, from three different countries. Three candidates would participate in three competitions, hence the name ‘Triwizard’, with the winner taking home the Triwizard cup, one thousand galleons, and ‘eternal glory’. There would also be a Yule Ball on Christmas Eve, which is what got most of the girls excited, more so than the tournament itself.

And only a few of the class’ select students would even be allowed to go to the United Kingdom, not to mention the sole one who would even be allowed to compete in the games. There was already a betting pool in place for who the Goblet of Fire would choose to be the candidate from their school.

Nobody in the school knew exactly how the Goblet chose the candidate or even for sure what the Goblet of Fire was. All any of them had to go on were rumors they had heard from friends and even relative who knew a lot more about the Triwizard Tournament than they did. Supposedly, the cup could actually read their names and made an intelligent decision about which named belonged to the best candidate for the tournament.

A lot of people knew for certain that Adam would be one of the students asked to go to Hogwarts for the tournament. Not only was he one of his class’ top students, he was also one of the more liked students, among the students and the teachers both. And all the past competitions seemed to prove that it was these criteria that seemed to choose the competitor for the Triwizard Tournament.

Of course, even if he was invited to go to the tournament, no one was going to force him to enter his name. It would be expected, but it certainly wouldn’t be mandatory. The teachers might lose some respect for him, none of the girls in his class would want to date him and all the guys would call him a girl’s name until graduation, but that was a small price to pay for making through the school year with his heart still beating.

On the other hand, Adam wasn’t quite sure he trusted any of his other classmates to compete in the tournament and come out of it alive. Gideon Marshall came back from summer vacation having mastered an extremely complicated Invisibility Charm, and then earned a month of in-school suspension for using it to sneak into the girls’ bathroom. Dodson Bauldwin tried to improve the recipe for a Pepperup Potion in their fourth year, and ended up burning down the entire Potions wing. And Giselle…well, hadn’t the American people been disgraced enough by their own history without having Giselle Lawrence presented as the best their country’s magical population had to offer.

This was a conundrum if ever there was one. There was nothing Adam wanted less than to risk his life in the Triwizard Tournament, but at the same time, he didn’t trust anyone except for himself to enter the tournament without disgracing themselves.

A piercing howl broke through Adam’s thoughts. Pushing himself up onto his elbows, Adam peered over the blades of the prairie grass to see exactly what he feared. The Alpha wolf stood alone on a mound of snow, signaling to the rest of the pack that prey was in reach. Common sense would have told any person to run, but the sprained ankle kept Adam right where he was.

Adam gulped, held his breath, and clenched his eyes shut as he told himself again and again that wild wolves did not prey on humans. Not even injured humans.

The Alpha wolf howled once again before racing down the mound and disappearing into the high grasses. All around him, Adam hear the sound of the packs padded footprints run past him. Ever now and again, patches of the silver fur flashed through the pale, dead-brown blades. Growls, yelps, and more howls echoed through the dark night.

Eventually, once he was sure the last of the pack had run past him, Adam was able to life himself up just a little bit higher. Just high enough to see up to where the blades began to thin, and allowed vision beyond what was three feet in front of him. Allowing him just enough to see the packs target prey: a bison, barely grown, wandered away from the rest of the herd.

Adam watched the pack surround the young calf, his low position on the ground giving him the opportunity to watch their movements before they made themselves known to the bison. Adam squirmed and ground his teeth as he watched the wolves close in around their victim. Academically, he knew that the wolves needed to eat too and it was all part of the natural order, or the circle of life, or whatever it was.

Emotionally, however, it was another thing entirely to watch the life snuffed out yourself.

The pack closed in around the calf in their typical hunting patterns, tightening into a circle. The bison pounded its hooves into the earth, tossing its shaggy brown head in the hair as it snorted. The calf was clearly insane, willed with its own sense of bull-headed pride, thinking it could take on an entire pack of wolves by itself. Not even a fully-grown bison could; that was why they traveled in packs. There was strength in numbers.

The Alpha wolf signaled two other members of the pack to attack first. The chose to close in one at a time, possibly because they did not feel the young bison constituted much of a threat. The calf snorted and kicked its hooves against the snowy earth, deciding it was going to go down fighting. The first wolf leapt, only to be met head-on with the bison’s horns and be stomped as soon as it was down. With a frightened yelp, the first wolf retreated to the back of the pack, allowing the second wolf to try its luck.

The second fight ended much the same way, as though the pack had learned nothing from their first defeat. After being gored and stomped, the second wolf also retreated. Adam was certain he saw blood streaked across the wolf’s coat and the snow where it had fallen.

Finally, in a show of power unusual in hunting strategies, the Alpha wolf step forward to take down the calf. This time, the display was a lot more violent. As the strongest and most skilled hunter in the pack, the Alpha wolf would not be so easily taken down as those before it. And the bison, worn for the previous attacks, was hardly in a position to offer itself as a worthy opponent.

Somehow, Adam was able to force himself to watch the entire ordeal. First, the Alpha wolf decided to attack one of the calf’s legs first, jerking its head sharply as it tried to break the bison’s leg. Although Adam didn’t hear the characteristic crack of a breaking bone, the calf bellowed out in pain and fell to the ground. The Alpha wolf backed away, growling and bearing its fangs, stepping from side to side, taunting its prey before going in for the kill.

A kill that never even came. When the Alpha wolf pounced one last time, low and deadly, the calf used its opposite leg, the one that hadn’t been injured, to kick the wolf in the side of the head. The intense amount of velocity, much of which had been cause by the Alpha wolf’s own attack, caused it to sour backwards across the snow. Blood smeared across the disturbed snow where the wolf hit the ground. The Alpha wolf struggled to its feet, stumbling slightly as though it were drunk, and then feel back to the ground. It didn’t get back up and eventually, the breathing movements of its chest stopped as well. For a long time, it seemed like no living creature, not even Adam, dared to move.

With the pack leader taken down, the rest of pack dissolved. They ran back through the prairie grass, rushing past Adam and back into the wilderness.

Adam watched in a sense of quiet awe as the calf limbed away; beaten, but still alive, which was all that really mattered at the end of the bison’s day. But even after the calf had disappeared into the prairie grass, its pointed horns and shaggy head just barely poking over to surface, he found himself continuing to reflect on what he saw. Falling back into the snow, turning is head towards the deserted battlefield, he watched the shed blood dry in the frozen air, turning a rusty shade of brown.

“Adam!” a voice shouted over the noises of the wilderness. “Adam, where are you? Adam!”

Once again, Adam pushed himself up as far as he could, searching the horizon for the source of the voice: a shadowed figure not far off in the distance, gradually running closer to him. It was Clay Bauer, one of Adam’s roommates back at school; a scrawny boy with yellowing skin and stringy, tallow hair. In his arms and strapped to his back was more than enough fire would to get them through at least the next three days. Clearly, Giselle had sent someone out to go look for him. Or more likely, judging from the heavy burdens in his arms and on his back, sent him to go look for firewood because Adam wasn’t coming back fast enough.

“Adam!” Clay finally saw him and ran over to Adam’s spot in the prairie grass. “Adam, what happened? Where have you been?”

“I hurt my ankle in a gnome hole,” Adam explained, not-so-proudly showing off his injury, “and I left my wand at the campsite. Did you remember yours?”

Smirking slightly, Clay shifted his bundle of firewood under on arm and pulled his wand from his coat pocket. He tapped the rod against the injured ankle, the wordless spell slowly beginning to take effect. Adam could feel his tendons and his muscles vibrate and shift back into place as the magic took effect. It wasn’t painful, but it felt strange. Adam had never had a sprained ankle before, much less one that had been healed by magic.

Clay lifted his wand away, and the pain was gone. Adam reached forward to rub the previously stressed ligament, and still felt nothing. He couldn’t even recall at what point in the spell the pain had begun to fade.

“Are you okay to walk?” Clay asked, holding out his hand to help Adam to his feet.

Adam nodded, but he wasn’t quite ready for the sharp jerk against his shoulder as Clay pulled him off the ground, or the scratches his arm received when he brushed against the rough, brown bark of the firewood. Although, Adam was quite relieved to find his ankle no longer pained him. Clay, however, still steadied his steps as they walked through kicked-up snow and the patches of brown blood.

The winter darkness held the sun hostage every last moment that it could. It was only a few moments ago when the first traces of natural light peeked over the mountains on the horizon line, bringing with it the warmth of the day. The fire didn’t need to burn so brightly anymore, at least not for Adam to see. He didn’t fall back to sleep once he got back to the campsite. He tried, but he could seem to get his mind to the quiet place where a person stopped being bound to the physical world and was able to watch it disintegrate before their eyes. That was about as far as Adam had been able to remember whenever he feel asleep, a point in time where random images that made no sense took over his vision and allowed him to know the world has gone.

But Adam couldn’t get himself to that place that night. His brained stayed awake and alert, recalling the incident on the prairie in vivid detail. Finally giving up on sleep, he eventually took a seat next to the campfire and stared into the embers, where he still sat now. When he first took his seat the fire pit, the current fire guard seemed excited to have the company, but Adam had no intentions of making small talk.

Adam sat perfectly still, eyes focused on the fire until he was distracted by the first movements of the morning. Professor Blackbear was coming up the walk from the woods that Adam himself had been trying to get to just last night. The aged Lakota man with long strands of graying hair seemed to have more energy for this trip than any of his young students did.

The teacher seemed shocked to see Adam awake so early. The one luxury Professor Blackbear allowed his students on this trip was the privilege of sleeping late, believing revelations might come to them in dreams. The rest of the class was still asleep, the snores and breathing taking the place of the crickets who lay in their winter slumber.

“Morning, Professor Blackbear,” Adam called out to his teacher, pointing to the coffee pot just beginning to perk over the dwindling fire. “The coffee will be done in about a minute.

“Adam Wyatt, what are you still doing up?” Professor Blackbear asked, taking a seat next to Adam and noticing his red, bleary eyes. “You were only supposed to watch the fire until three in the morning.”

“I couldn’t sleep,” Adam explained, poking a stick into the pit and turning the ashes. “I can’t turn off my brain.”

“You can’t turn off your brain?” Professor Blackbear seemed confused by his student’s response. “How so? What happened to your leg?”

At first, Adam could understand his teacher’s sudden panic, but then he looked down to see what Professor Blackbear was talking about. Even though Clay had healed the sprain, he had done nothing to fix the tears in his pant leg or the dirt that covered them. It was funny that Adam had not noticed this himself until now.

“It’s nothing,” Adam responded in a weary voice, hoping to ease his teacher’s worries. “Clay already took care of it. But back to my head in hyper drive?”

“Oh, right!” Professor Blackbear nodded, but still sounded distracted somehow. “What’s your brain in ‘hyper drive’ about?”

Slowly, Adam began to regale his teacher with the events of his evening, from the sprained ankle to the dead wolf to the bison lucky enough to escape with its life. Professor nodded without showing any signs of emotion, reminding Adam very much of speaking with a psychologist.

“Professor, can the…” Adam searched his brain, trying to decide on the right word. “…spirits tell you to do something with your life, even when every logical part of you is saying to do the opposite?”

“Oh, no,” Professor Blackbear groaned, shaking his head. “I’m almost afraid to answer this question.”

“Don’t worry, Professor,” Adam assured him. “It has nothing to do with drugs, girls, death curses, or dropping out of school. You’re safe to answer.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Professor Blackbear finally looked as though he felt safe enough to answer.

“Well, Adam,” he told his student, taking on that wise, aged expression whenever he spoke on deep subjects, “messages don’t always come in the form of supernatural lights and sounds. Sometimes messages can be received in the most mundane of events.”

Adam understood what Professor Blackbear was hinting at, but still could see what the bison had to do with him. When Professor Blackbear saw his confused expression, he let loose a frustrated laugh.

“Honestly, I’m beginning to think you kids just sleep through most of my classes!” He then tried for a different tactic. “Alright, the last class before we left on this trip, what did I say you need to do if you were confused by the messages around you.”

Adam chewed on his bottom lip as he considered the question. Then, he reached into his coat pocket, fishing around for a few moments before he was able to find one stray sickle. But as soon as Professor Blackbear saw it, he gave a frustrated groan uncharacteristic of the usually restrained teacher.

“No, Adam. You don’t flip a coin!” Professor Blackbear snatched the coin from Adam’s hand and deposited it in his own pocket, leading Adam to doubt that he would never see it again. “You acknowledge the sign and search for the meaning as it pertains to your questions. Once you know the answer on the metaphorical level, you will know it on the physical level as well. Can you do that?”

This time, Adam seriously considered his teacher’s words, thinking back to every little detail from what he had seen the night before.

A young bison, barely grown. A pack of wolves, something most animals had no hope of fighting off alone. Only three wolves actually attacked…three wolves. The bison didn’t get through the situation unscathed, but it got through it all alive, and that was all it was fighting for.

Getting through the fight alive…

The Triwizard Tournament. Even if he didn’t enter it to win, he would get through it with his life. He may end it beated, injured, and broken, but he would be alive. And that was really all he would want to finish the tournament with anyway.

With that last fight thought implanted in his head, Adam pushed himself up off the ground, leaving the startled and confused-looking Professor Blackbear alone.

“Where are you going, Adam?” Professor Blackbear called out to Adam.

“I’m going to wake up Clay,” he told his teacher, making his way towards the cluster of sleeping bags. “I need to tell him that if I die, he gets my broomstick.”

As soon as Professor Blackbear heard this answered, his face turned about five shades paler. He looked so utterly ill, Adam was convinced he would fall backwards onto the ground any second.

“Oh, Great Spirit,” the teacher called out, up into the sky, “what did I just tell him to do?”

You didn’t tell me anything, Professor, Adam though to himself, a slight smirk spreading across his face. Remember?

Adam continued to make his way towards in friend, feeling the earth holding solid below his feet, but also feeling very much as though he were floating inside his own head.

The Triwizard Tournament, Adam thought, becoming more confident every time he said it to himself, and I’m going to make it out alive

Adam’s feet brushed over the fresh powder of snow, revealing more of the prairie’s deep brown earth.

And that’s all we really fight for everyday…