Warning: This is an 'a Song of Ice and Fire'-crossover, so keep in mind that this story may include, and may not be limited to: foul language, blood, gore, sexual situations, disembowelment, rape, character death, dismemberment, incest, defenestration and being burned alive.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

Author Note: I am not a professional writer, so updates might be few and far between. Or I might just decide to stop writing altogether. I might come back later to rework this chapter. Constructive criticism is greatly appreciated! Let me know what you think about the story in the review section.

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Toujours Pur: Chapter One

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Cordelia Potter was despondently thinking how her life had come to this point. She was staring in the distance. Eyes aimed at the tent wall made in the most atrocious colours she could imagine – she was almost certain that Dumbledore had had some say in the choosing of said colours, but trying to teach that man something about fashion was a lost battle if she had ever seen one. At the moment there were only three other people in there with her.

The first, and probably the most important to her, was the lovely Fleur Delacour. To many people she was nothing but a bitchy, spoiled pretty face, but Cordelia knew better. Once you got passed the cold exterior there was a nice and caring person underneath. When her name had come out of the Goblet of Fire their relationship had begun with a more frigid start than a Scottish winter, but after passing each other a few times in the corridors of the castle they had grudgingly dropped their pride and got to know each other a bit better. They quickly found out that they had a lot more in common than one would imagine.

They were both astoundingly beautiful. Fleur was a veela, which is synonymous with being the envy of every female. Cordelia on the other hand was of an average height, had a slender frame that some would even describe as petite, a bosom that was not as far developed as she would have liked, long black hair that fell to her shoulder blades and the most enticing emerald green eyes anyone had seen.

Two beautiful females and unfortunately they both suffered from it. Honestly, having guys drooling over you might sound nice when used as a figure of speech, but when it happens in reality it was simply disgusting!

The two of them had the eyes of the public on them and wanted that, but for something that they had actually achieved, not some superficial beauty or the defeating of a Dark Lord when she wasn't even potty trained!

Cordelia looked at her friend who was starting to look a little green on the cheeks. Not exactly the most flattering colour, but she somehow managed to pull it off. She walked over to Fleur and softly murmured in her ear: "Calm down Fleur. You have trained for this task for weeks. What is a little dragon going to do against an angry veela?"

Fleur gave her a small smile and answered: "Stand still with its mouth open, because obviously am so impressing. I won't have to do anything more than walk up to it and grab my egg."

"Exactly!" Cordelia replied and gave her a cheesy smile.

Fleur shook her head in exasperation at her friend's antics and continued pacing in a circle like she had been doing before she had been interrupted. Though Cordelia saw with some satisfaction that her head was held higher and her step was more determined.

She then looked over her shoulder to assess the other two occupants of the tent. The closest was none other than Victor Krum. Bulgarian professional seeker and top student of Durmstrang Institute. By many regarded as the ideal boyfriend material, though Cordelia begged to disagree. His surly disposition somewhat ruined it for her, though she grudgingly had to admit that he was rather good looking.

The other person was none other than the official Hogwarts champion Cedric Diggory. As Huffelpuff's poster boy a lot of pressure was on his shoulders to make their house shine. Though at the moment he looked so pale that one would think his main priority was surviving the upcoming confrontation with a big, flying, fire breathing lizard. Fair enough, each could chose his own priorities.

Cordelia had found out about the fact that dragons would feature in the first task early on in the competition. Thank Morgana that Ginny had the state of mind to tell her that her brother Charlie was in the country for his work. If you knew that this particular job consisted of transferring exactly four dragons from the reservation to England, it wasn't too difficult to deduce that the only plausible destination was the Triwizard Tournament hosted at Hogwarts. Not too long after Cordelia was visited by Hermione sent on a covert mission by Ron to tell her a most confusing story to visit Hagrid.

Sheesh, thanks Ronald! Just say the keyword 'dragon' already!

After seeing the headmaster and –mistress of Durmstrang and Beauxbatons near the dragon pen she wasn't too worried about their champions being fed to a ferocious beast without them having prior information. It made her curse being saddled with Albus fricking Dumbledore as her Headmaster though. Of course his sense of righteousness wouldn't allow him to help his students cheat the competition – more like death.

So it fell to her to warn Cedric that he might want to put on fireproof underwear for the first task. Her chivalry demanded that she did and she happily complied to her Gryffindor side. Of course as the Sorting Hat recognised she also had a Slytherin side, so she failed to mention it to Cedric until two days before the first task. Can't give the competition too much of an advantage, can you? Ah, Daphne would be so proud of her!

Daphne Greengrass was her best friend since last year. After the troll incident in first it seemed as if Ron, Hermione and herself would be a close group of friends at the very least for the rest of their scholastic career and probably for the rest of their lives after that. Alas, it couldn't have been further from the truth.

In their third year, Cordelia chose Care of Magical Creatures, Arithmancy and Ancient Runes as her electives. True, a rather theoretical set, but widely applicable on the world around her! In those electives she met dozens of new people, one of which was none other than the pretty pure-blooded princess Daphne Greengrass. She kept her distance from most people, but apparently she saw something in Cordelia and after being paired for a paper for Ancient Runes a strong friendship was founded on a shared passion for the subject, a wicked sense of humour, a large sack of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans and the usage of tons of sarcasm.

Of course Hermione was not pleased with being reduced to playing the second violin. Unfortunately that was only the beginning of their problems.

At Christmas Cordelia had received the most awesome present in the history of presents: a Firebolt. However before she had the chance to do anything more than look at it, Professor McGonagall had swept into the room and consequently confiscated the broom. Whose fault was that you might ask, Hermione Granger.

Don't get it wrong. Cordelia was very grateful to Hermione for looking out for her, because in all honesty in the bliss of owning the best racing broom money could buy, she had forgotten that receiving presents from Mr. No-name was not the most reliable source and as such she had thanked Hermione for that afterwards.

The problem was that Hermione didn't seem to understand that going behind peoples backs and snitch to teachers without so much as bringing up the subject to Cordelia was simply not done! The worst part was that Hermione never apologized for the transgression since in her eyes she was perfectly justified.

That kind of soured their relationship from that point forward. They still hung out together –hard not to when you share a dormitory, the common room and all your classes together-, but their friendship never got like it was before. In many ways she was replaced by Daphne and her friend Tracey Davis. Of course to this very day Hermione blamed their fallout entirely on Daphne.

Cordelia continued pondering over the meaning of her life, her part in the grand scheme of things and pretty much everything else, while gazing with unseeing eyes at the atrocious material of the tent.

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With a resounding bang the cannon went off for the fourth time, after Filch had once again lightened the fuse with a disturbingly pleased look on his face, signalling that it was finally time for Cordelia to face her destiny – well dragon that is.

After taking a deep breath –since it could quite possibly be one of her last- she tentatively stepped out of the opening of the tent. The cheering of the spectators assaulted her ears. Hundreds of people laughing, clapping and yelling to let their appreciation be known for the excitement they had gotten from the other three champions and in the hope that the fourth one would give them even more of a spectacle.

Cordelia was momentarily blinded by the light of the sun that shone straight in her eyes. Squeezing her green orbs shut, she quickly ran over to the nearest rock that offered a place of safety to hide. Huddling behind it she rubbed her eyes, trying to still her heart and focussing her mind on the competition.

After acclimatizing to her new surroundings, she stood up and looked around the slab of rock. There she saw a view that would have had lesser men – or woman- running.

'Of course, thanks to whomever entered me into this ruddy tournament I can do no such thing!' Cordelia sighed to herself in regret, before once more taking a peek around the rock she was hiding behind.

Large, wooden stands filled with scores of loud, cheering spectators, though she was rather dubious for some in regards to whom they were cheering for – Cordelia or the dragon; all of this surrounded a big open field, filled with man high rock formations. Right on the other side, opposite to the entrance of the tent, the safe haven she had just been forced to leave, there was the stand where the members of the esteemed jury would give points to those champions who managed to fulfil their task. Of course for them it was a question how well they performed during the task, for Cordelia on the other hand it was more than sufficient to simply complete it. Period.

In the middle of the palisaded enclosure was a shallow pit dug in the rock, filled with a few dragon eggs in a myriad of colours. Any other time, Cordelia would have taken her time admiring the pretty eggs, however today she did not as they lay in the shadow of a prime example of what each and every one of those eggs could grow into: a nesting dragon!

"If I must choose between this brute or little Norbert, I must admit I am rather partial to the latter," Cordelia uttered in slight frustration, while eyeing her fierce opponent. "Merlin tell me. What does Hagrid see in those beasts? They are big, ugly brutes and have tempers to match unfortunately. If the task was to steal a golden object, why not put us against a niffler? It is just as difficult, and a lot safer to boot."

The beast had a fifty feet long body the colour of a new moon sky, wings the size of a small airplane that it could have used to propel itself into the sky if not for the big, bulky chain attached to its neck collar and a tail adorned by vicious looking spikes that could tear a human apart in a matter of seconds – at least that is what she thought at least that could happen, she had no intention whatsoever to actually put that hypothesis to test.

Cordelia gulped once again upon seeing this horrifying view, trying to hydrate her throat that was suddenly painfully dry. She felt her heart stop for a moment when the dragon roared in her direction; showcasing the plethora of deadly fangs in its mouth. The large, white hot fire plume that was fired towards her previously peaceful abode did nothing to assuage her fears.

However as the Hungarian Horntail's big, yellow eyes glanced over her position, she heard a loud shout coming from the public in the stands. "Come on Cordy! You can do this. It is just a little dragon!"

Cordelia looked behind her in the direction where the encouragement came from. There she saw none other than her friends Daphne Greengrass and Tracey Davis sitting next to each other on the first row of the stands, along with some of her other friends and acquaintances. Tracey was hyperactively jumping on the benches in excitement and even Daphne, while normally the personification of grace and aloofness, was yelling loudlyin encouragement, making many of the bystanders wonder who she was and what she had done to Slytherin's unofficial Ice Queen.

Smirking at her friends' antics, she squared her shoulders, tightened her grip on her faithful holly wand and started the first step of her plan.

"Accio dungbombs," the witch yelled, while waving her wand in the direction of Fred and George. The two redheads, who sat a few rows behind Daphne and Tracey taking bets on the performance of the four champions though they had assured her that they would give her good odds, had gracefully agreed to carry them for her, since she was not allowed to bring anything into the arena aside from her wand and clothes.

A dozen dungbombs, securely wrapped in tight, black wrapping paper, flew from the satchel beside Fred –or was it George- straight into Cordelia's waiting, open arms; almost knocking her over in the process, which was not so surprising considering her lithe frame that was better suited for performing gravity defying stunts at breakneck speeds during quidditch games. She put the smelly devices down on the ground beside her, since she had no need of them in the immediate future.

Going over the next step of the plan in her head, she then summoned a few of the smaller rocks in her vicinity towards her.

Cordelia then put her three years of Transfiguration education to good use. She carefully merged some of the rocks together, while paying extra attention to changing their form to better suit what she had in mind. It was a precision job that demanded all of her concentration in order to achieve the desired result, but after a few short minutes, she had three rock formations lying before her with a rough humanoid shape and measuring approximately four feet each from top to bottom. Professor McGonagall would most assuredly not be giving her any extra points for good looks for this, but the size of her transfigurations was rather impressive.

Pleased with her progress so far, Cordelia stretched her arms above her head in an attempt to relieve the tension in the muscles of her arms and back, that she had gotten from the transfiguration.

She then continued her work by carefully etching runes into the stone creations, by using a nifty little spell Professor Babbling had taught her in one of their first classes last year. It was very important that all runes were shaped correctly. Any deformations could ruin their effects. It was equally as important to get the depth of the carvings just right: too deep and the workings of the magic would be all wonky, too shallow and the ancient magic wouldn't take hold on the stone.

One after the other, she put the runes on their place in the intricate design she had thought out more than a week earlier with the help of her friends. Animation on top of obedience in conjunction with life. Silence next to equality which in turn was joined with environment. Strength and endurance were placed in the remaining two corners of one of the arrays she had drawn.

'I am going to have to do something extra nice for Tracey next time I see her,' Cordelia thought to herself. 'Merlin knows I would never have been able to get this rune pattern to work all by myself. It's not my fault that there is such a ridiculous amount of runes to understand and memorize!'

"Well ladies and gentlemen. It seems that our youngest candidate has some sort of plan for this task," Ludo Bagman commentated to the crowd who were watching the last champion work in confusion. "Though I must admit that I am not entirely sure what that plan exactly is. Unless she plans to distract the dragon with some pretty sculptures. Can't see that working though, honestly." The smirks that Daphne and Tracey wore on their faces betrayed that they did in fact know what was going on in the arena, which was not surprising since they had helped Cordelia devise and train every single step of the plan she was currently executing.

Cordelia was so engrossed in her work that she only caught the last part of Ludo Bagmans commentary. Upon hearing it she pointedly ignored the commentator, whom she considered to be little more than a bumbling idiot, then again he had been a professional quidditch player there had been no need for him to grow up so far.

'Right, I have my stone golems in front of me. I have finished the necessary rune work and as far as I can ascertain it looks like I did a fine job on the carving. Now all I have to do is fire up my mindless minions and then nothing will be able to stop me from conquering the world!' Cordelia assessed her work in her mind. 'Alright, I am losing my line of thought. Moving on,' she called herself to work.

She carefully placed the tip of her phoenix feather wand on the centre of the intricate runic design of the construct closest to her and slowly pushed her magic through the runes into the inanimate stone. After finishing the job for the first one, she stepped aside and did the same for the other two. The magical constructs seemed to hum in the air around her, waiting to fulfil their purpose. Which meant they were ready to use.

"Animus," Cordelia pronounced, her wand steadfast aimed at the stone golems laying on the ground in front of her. Concentrating on her creations, she envisioned them standing up from their laying position . She could feel the animation charm she was using interact with her runic design, making it so much easier to control them. One after the other they slowly moved their limbs to push their heavy stone bodies in an upright position. Their movements becoming faster and more sure as Cordelia got the hang of controlling three animations at once.

Overjoyed that her creation worked, Cordelia did a funny little jig before she could stop herself.

Watching over her back, she saw Tracey doing a good attempt at squeezing Daphne to death in her exuberance at Cordy's success. It was not surprising that Tracey was so happy. After all she had been the one who had put the most work in the calculations for the design. When she finally released Daphne from the death trap that were her arms, Daphne gave her companion one of her patented death glares. The image was slightly ruined though, because one could detect a slight smile that tugged on the corner of the witch's lips.

'Now all I have left to do, is steal a dragon egg from underneath a dragon mother's nose,' Cordelia thought to herself. 'Piece of cake. If I hurry I might even be able to catch tea time without any delay.'

She walked towards the dung bombs she had been ignoring so far in favour of her other work and picked them up. She then continued to throw them over the rock towards the dragon that was peacefully resting there.

'Too bad I have to violate Hogwarts' own words for this task,' Cordelia mused 'Never tickle a sleeping dragon indeed.'

One after the other the bombs exploded with a loud resounding bang that came surprisingly close to the canon shot that had signalled the start of her turn, bathing the entire arena in a vibrant, poisonous green mist and permeating the air with an unbelievable stench. More than one cry of unease came from the captivated audience when the wind blew the smell towards them.

She then cast a disillusionment charm at her golems to make them even harder to detect in the mist of the dungbombs.

'Well they blend in well enough I guess,' Cordelia appraised as her constructs faded from view until only a faint outline gave their presence away. 'I will have to practice that a bit more in the future though; that spell is way too useful not to know. Who knows if I might get stuck somewhere without my father's invisibility cloak one day …'

She focussed her attention on the space behind the dragon, the furthest away from herself and her little minions, right before the jury. She then carefully cast a large scale glamour charm that gave the illusion of a large man coming from behind one of the rocks who started making his way towards the irritated dragon, with a wand held in his hand.

The Hungarian Horntail reeled up when it saw the figure approaching. Angry about the smell, the loud explosions and the mist that had invaded its nest it fixed its large, yellow, reptilian eyes on the new intruder. The dragon's eyes gleamed with a vicious light. They were proof of the ruthless, animal cunning that the animal possessed and which made him such an formidable foe

"Success!" Cordelia cheered, seeing the dragon distracted from what was happening around her. She pumped her fist in the air before sending her three golems towards the nest containing the elusive golden egg.

Carefully balancing her concentration between her advancing minions and the illusion, Cordelia continued her attack on the nest. She had to ensure that the illusionary person jumped out of the way of the dragon's fiery breath as realistically as possible, otherwise the dragon would catch on to the mummers trick that Cordelia was performing; all the while making him crisscross between the many rocks of the dragon pen in order to make everyone think the danger was coming out of that direction.

The dragon suddenly leapt forward towards her elusive adversary, opening its wings as if to crush her foe, leaving her nest momentarily unguarded. This gave Cordelia the perfect opening to make the closest golem take the last few steps towards her price.

'Just a few more,' Cordy encouraged the little guy as he went in a dead run, rapidly advancing towards his target. The fearless golem picked up the egg and ran just as quickly as before towards its creator, who was eagerly anticipating their return; his brothers flanking him to ensure that he at least would befall no harm and deliver his package.

Cordelia literally beamed from happiness and relief as they approached her in formation. She could hear the crowd cheer in encouragement as they watched her plans come to fruition at last. She could hear the commentary of Ludo Bagman run through the enclosure: "And she did it, people! Our youngest champion took her egg without attaining any bodily harm whatsoever and in a very sharp time as will if I may say."

"Did you see that Professor Dumbledore," Bagman asked the ancient Hogwarts Headmaster. "I almost missed the action myself. I think I blinked. Of course, using those dungbombs to prevent the dragon from using its sensitive nose to smell her coming was a rather brilliant plan. Simple but effective."

Cordelia thought she could even hear parts of her friends' congratulations through all the noise. But she ignored it all in favour of taking possession of her prize when the golem with the egg reached her, the proof that she had achieved her goal: she had tricked a nesting dragon, stolen one of its eggs from right under its nose and she had lived to tell the tale.

With the egg safely tucked under her arm, she turned around walked towards the exit, ready to drop in the nearest couch and take a well-deserved nap for a day or two.

As she was ready to round up and leave the arena, Cordelia didn't see the cunning creatures' eyes narrow in suspicion when it had pounced on nothing but thin air, she didn't realize when it looked back towards the nest it had left unguarded and found one of its eggs missing, when it noticed someone walk away with her precious egg, that she would protect against all odds.

Cordelia was almost at the entrance of the tent and was oblivious to all but the feeling that it was finally over. She did hear the crowd's loud and rambunctious cheer turn into a sudden and unanimous gasp of terror, though.

She quickly looked back over her shoulder, turning slightly around to get a better view and saw the large, open maw coming towards her. She saw the fire that lighted up deep in the throat of the furious dragon and that suddenly travelled outwards faster than she could even begin to comprehend.

As the arena was flooded by terrified cries of panic, all she could feel was the heath of the dragon's fiery breath and the burning pain where the white hot flames touched her, eating away all in their path.

All she could see was the blazing inferno that consumed her. Then all she could see became darkness.