Slytherin, Raised By Wolfstar: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

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Chapter Ten: The Triwizard Tournament

Through the gates, flanked with statues of winged boars, and up the sweeping drive the carriages trundled, swaying dangerously in what was fast becoming a gale. Leaning against the window, Harry could see Hogwarts coming nearer, its many lighted windows blurred and shimmering behind the thick curtain of rain. Lightning flashed across the sky as their carriage came to a halt before the great oak front doors, which stood at the top of a flight of stone steps. People who had occupied the carriages in front were already hurrying up the stone steps into the castle. Harry, Theodore, Allison, and Tracey jumped down from their carriage and dashed up the steps too, looking up only when they were safely inside the cavernous, torch-lit entrance hall, with its magnificent marble staircase.

‘I’m used to a lot of rain,’ said Allison, shaking her head and sending water everywhere, ‘but if this keeps up this school is going to be nothing but lake. I am drenched all the way through— ARRGH!’

A large, red, water-filled balloon had dropped from out of the ceiling onto Allison’s head and exploded.

She was no more wet than she had been, but a hundred times more angry. Allison staggered sideways into Harry, just as a second water bomb dropped—narrowly missing Theodore, it burst at Harry’s feet, sending a wave of cold water over his sneakers into his socks. People all around them shrieked and started pushing one another in their efforts to get out of the line of fire. Harry looked up and saw, floating twenty feet above them, Peeves the Poltergeist, a little man in a bell-covered hat and orange bow tie, his wide, malicious face contorted with concentration as he took aim again.

‘PEEVES!’ yelled an angry voice. ‘Peeves, come down here at ONCE!’

Professor McGonagall, Deputy Headmistress and head of Gryffindor House, had come dashing out of the Great Hall; she skidded on the wet floor and grabbed Tracey around the neck to stop herself from falling.

‘Ouch—sorry, Miss Davis—‘

‘It’s ok, Professor!’ Tracey gasped, massaging her throat.

‘Peeves, get down here NOW!’ barked Professor McGonagall, straightening her pointed hat and glaring upward through her square-rimmed spectacles.

‘Not doing nothing!’ cackled Peeves, lobbing a water bomb at several fifth-year girls, who screamed and dived into the Great Hall. ‘Already wet, aren’t they? Little squirts! Wheeeeeeeeee!’ And he aimed another bomb at a group of second years who had just arrived which included Canini.

‘I shall call the headmaster!’ shouted Professor McGonagall. ‘I’m warning you, Peeves—‘

Peeves stuck out his tongue, threw the last of his water bombs into the air, and zoomed off up the marble staircase, cackling insanely. Thankfully everyone had time to dodge the last of the bombs.

'Well, move along, then!' said Professor McGonagall sharply to the bedraggled crowd. 'Into the Great Hall, come on!'

Harry, Tracey, Allison, and Theodore slipped and slid across the entrance hall and through the double doors on the right. There was excitement in the air for a new year, but also a lot of grumbling from nearly everyone being soaked.

The Great Hall looked its usual splendid self, decorated for the start-of-term feast. Golden plates and goblets gleamed by the light of hundreds and hundreds of candles, floating over the tables in midair. The four long House tables were packed with chattering students; at the top of the Hall, the staff sat along one side of a fifth table, facing their pupils. It was much warmer in here. Harry, Theodore, Allison, and Tracey walked towards the Slytherin table, passing Malyfoys group and Pansy's group, and sat down while trying not to slip. Floating near them was the Bloody Baron, pearly white and semitransparent, and as always, covered in silvery blood.

'Er, um, good evening Baron,' Harry said hesitantly.

He was ignored, as always, which was actually a relief as most students including Harry were terrified of the Bloody Baron.

‘I hope the sorting is fast,’ said Theodore, ‘I am hungry, cold, and wet, not a good combination.’

Harry was in agreement, he took off his sneakers and emptying them of water.

The Sorting of the new students into Houses took place at the start of every school year, but by an unlucky combination of circumstances, Harry hadn’t been present at one since his own. He was quite looking forward to it. Just then, a familiarly excited, breathless voice called down the table.

‘Hiya Harry, hiya Theo!’

It was Colin Creevey, still chipper despite being drenched.

‘Hi, Colin,’ said Harry trying to stay positive.

‘Hey Colin, how was the rest of the train ride?’ Theodore asked.

‘It was good, wish it went straight to the entrance though,’ he joked. ‘Anyway I am so excited for the Sorting to start. I hope Dennis is a Gryffindor with me, but even if he’s a Slytherin I’d know he’d be safe with you guys there.’

Before Harry or hiss friends could thank Colin for his kind words, Pansy Parkinson opened her big mean mouth. ‘We don’t want your filthy mudblood brother. Not in our school, and certainly not in our house.’

‘Don’t listen to her,’ said Theodore.

‘If you’re brother is a Slytherin we’ll make him feel right at home.’ said Tracey.

‘There are more Slytherin’s born of partial or both muggle parents then she would like to admit.’ Harry said encouraging.

Colin smiled and went back to the Gryffindor table to take his seat.

Still waiting, and having his conversation with Colin on his mind, Harry turned to Theodore who he knew had read Hogwarts a History.

‘Theo? I know for extended family you could easily be in a different house than each other, but for siblings is common to be in the same house?’ Harry was thinking about how the Weasley’s were all Gryffindors, and most of Sirius’s family were Slytherins.

‘Not really. You’re chosen through traits not genetics. It just happens that people raised in the same environment often develop similar traits, but not always. Look at Sirius, the first Gryffindor in generations, and the Patil’s are literally identical twins but are in different houses.’

Harry looked up at the staff table. There seemed to be rather more empty seats there than usual. Hagrid, of course, was still fighting his way across the lake with the first years; Professor McGonagall was presumably supervising the drying of the entrance hall floor, but there was another empty chair too, the chair that should have been filled by Remus Lupin.

Allison noticed him staring, ‘I know it’s unfair why he was fired, but there was nothing you could do, Harry.’

‘Who do you think will teach Defense Against the Dark Arts this year?’ asked Tracey. ‘Hopefully not another dud like Quirrell and Lockhart.’

They had never yet had a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher who had lasted more than three terms. Quirrell was Harry’s first year teacher, and although he secretly knew a great deal of Dark Arts, he acted like a wimp the whole year. Lockhart was a lying celebrity who knew just as much about the Dark Arts before and after his memory was erased. Harry’s favorite by far had been his adoptive father Remus, who actually had a lot of hands on experience. He looked up and down the staff table. There was definitely no new face there.

‘What if they couldn’t find anyone?’ said Harry, thinking that might force them to rehire Remus.

Harry scanned the table more carefully. Tiny little Professor Flitwick, the Charms teacher, was sitting on a large pile of cushions beside Professor Sprout, the Herbology teacher, whose hat was askew over her flyaway gray hair. She was talking to Professor Sinistra of the Astronomy department. On Professor Sinistra’s other side was the sallow-faced, hook-nosed, greasy-haired Potions master, Snape—Harry’s least favorite person at Hogwarts.

Harry’s loathing of Snape was matched only by Snape’s hatred of him, a hatred which had, if possible, intensified last year, when Remus had been teaching—Snape had been enemies with Harry’s biological father James, as well as Sirius and Remus, and it didn’t help that Remus had been teaching the course Snape wanted to teach so badly.

On Snape’s other side was an empty seat, which Harry guessed was Professor McGonagall’s. Next to it, and in the very center of the table, sat Professor Dumbledore, the headmaster, his sweeping silver hair and beard shining in the candlelight, his magnificent deep green robes embroidered with many stars and moons. The tips of Dumbledore’s long, thin fingers were together and he was resting his chin upon them, staring up at the ceiling through his half-moon spectacles as though lost in thought. Harry glanced up at the ceiling too. It was enchanted to look like the sky outside, and he had never seen it look this stormy. Black and purple clouds were swirling across it, and as another thunderclap sounded outside, a fork of lightning flashed across it.

‘Oh hurry up!’ Ron Weasley moaned from the Gryffindor table, ‘I could eat a hippogriff.’

The words were no sooner out of his mouth than the doors of the Great Hall opened and silence fell. Professor McGonagall was leading a long line of about forty first years up to the top of the Hall. If Harry, Tracey, Allison, and Theodore were wet, it was nothing to how these first years looked. They appeared to have swum across the lake rather than sailed. All of them were shivering with a combination of cold and nerves as they filed along the staff table and came to a halt in a line facing the rest of the school—all of them except the smallest of the lot, a boy with mousy hair, who was wrapped in what Harry recognized as Hagrid’s moleskin overcoat. The coat was so big for him that it looked as though he were draped in a furry black circus tent. His small face protruded from over the collar, looking almost painfully excited. When he had lined up with his terrified-looking peers, he caught Colin Creevey’s eye, gave a double thumbs-up, and mouthed, I fell in the lake! He looked positively delighted about it.

Professor McGonagall now placed a three-legged stool on the ground before the first years and, on top of it, an extremely old, dirty, patched wizard’s hat. The first years stared at it. So did everyone else. For a moment, there was silence. Then a long tear near the brim opened wide like a mouth, and the hat broke into song:

‘A thousand years or more ago,

When I was newly sewn,

There lived four wizards of renown,

Whose names are still well known:

Bold Gryffindor, from wild moor,

Fair Ravenclaw, from glen,

Sweet Hufflepuff, from valley broad,

Shrewd Slytherin, from fen.

They shared a wish, a hope, a dream,

They hatched a daring plan

To educate young sorcerers

Thus Hogwarts School began.

Now each of these four founders

Formed their own house, for each

Did value different virtues

In the ones they had to teach.

By Gryffindor, the bravest were

Prized far beyond the rest;

For Ravenclaw, the cleverest

Would always be the best;

For Hufflepuff, hard workers were

Most worthy of admission;

And power-hungry Slytherin

Loved those of great ambition.

While still alive they did divide

Their favorites from the throng,

Yet how to pick the worthy ones

When they were dead and gone?

‘Twas Gryffindor who found the way,

He whipped me off his head

The founders put some brains in me

So I could choose instead!

Now slip me snug about your ears,

I’ve never yet been wrong,

I’ll have a look inside your mind

And tell where you belong!’

The Great Hall rang with applause as the Sorting Hat finished.

‘That’s not the song it sang when it Sorted us,’ Harry said to Theodore while clapping along with everyone else.

‘Forgot you haven’t been to one in many years,’ started Allison. ‘It always sings a different song. With only one day of use it must spend the other three hundred-sixty-four perfecting a new one.’

Professor McGonagall was now unrolling a large scroll of parchment.

‘When I call out your name, you will put on the hat and sit on the stool,’ she told the first years. ‘When the hat announces your House, you will go and sit at the appropriate table.

‘Ackerley, Stewart!’

A boy walked forward, visibly trembling from head to foot, picked up the Sorting Hat, put it on, and sat down on the stool.

‘RAVENCLAW!’ shouted the hat.

Stewart Ackerley took off the hat and hurried into a seat at the Ravenclaw table, where everyone was applauding him. Harry caught a glimpse of Cho, the Ravenclaw Seeker, cheering Stewart Ackerley as he sat down. For a fleeting second, Harry had a strange desire to join the Ravenclaw table too.

‘Baddock, Malcolm!’

‘SLYTHERIN!’

Harry’s table erupted into cheers to welcome there first new student. The table on the other side of the hall erupted with cheers;

‘Branstone, Eleanor!’

‘HUFFLEPUFF!’

Twin girls Flora and Hestia Carrow were next, both became Slytherins.

‘Cauldwell, Owen!’

‘HUFFLEPUFF!’

‘Creevey, Dennis!’

Tiny Dennis Creevey staggered forward, tripping over Hagrid’s

moleskin, just as Hagrid himself sidled into the Hall through a door behind the teachers’ table. About twice as tall as a normal man, and at least three times as broad, Hagrid, with his long, wild, tangled black hair and beard, looked slightly alarming—a misleading impression, for Harry, Theodore, Allison, and Tracey had learned that Hagrid possessed a kind nature. He winked at them as he sat down at the end of the staff table and watched Dennis Creevey putting on the Sorting Hat. The rip at the brim opened wide—

‘GRYFFINDOR!’ the hat shouted.

Hagrid clapped along with the Gryffindors as Dennis Creevey, beaming widely, took off the hat, placed it back on the stool, and hurried over to join his brother. Harry couldn’t hear what Dennis was saying to his brother, but at one point his mouth looked like it said something grabbed him in the lake. Colin then pointed straight at Harry and his friends and was talking excitedly which made Dennis get even more excited. Harry waved at them with a smile.

The Sorting continued; boys and girls with varying degrees of fright on their faces moving one by one to the three-legged stool.

Laura Madley was sorted into Hufflepuff. Scarlett Lympsham became a Slytherin. There were the Peakes cousins, Jimmy became a Gryffindor while Sean was sorted into Hufflepuff. A smug little girl named Mafalda Prewett was sorted into Slytherin.

The line dwindling slowly as Professor McGonagall continued.

‘I love the Sorting,’ moaned Tracey, ‘But this feels like forever.’

‘Pritchard, Graham!’

‘SLYTHERIN!’

‘Quirke, Orla!’

‘RAVENCLAW!’

‘Robins, Demelza!’

‘GRYFFINDOR!’

And after what seemed like an eternity the final kid named Kevin Whitby became a Hufflepuff. The

Sorting ended. Professor McGonagall picked up the hat and the stool and carried them away.

‘Finally,’ said Harry under his breath, he seized his knife and fork and looking expectantly at his golden plate.

Professor Dumbledore had gotten to his feet. He was smiling around at the students, his arms opened wide in welcome.

‘I have only two words to say to you,’ he told them, his deep voice echoing around the Hall. ‘Tuck in.’

‘Hear, hear!’ said practically the entire hall as the empty dishes filled magically before their eyes.

‘I have never been this hungry,’ Tracey proclaimed as they all started piling the food high onto their plates.

They are started talking and laughing. Discussing their summers in more detail. Eventually Terence left his Quidditch team buddies and came to hang out with them, sitting right between Harry and Tracey.

Harry, Allison, and Terence quickly transitioned from talking about the summer to discussing Quidditch strategies for the coming season. They hadn’t won in a couple years, and now that their previous mean and strict team captain had finally graduated they hoped to end that streak.

‘We’ll take what each of us do best and perfect that skill, as well as find or weaknesses and instead of fruitlessly trying to improve them, think outside the box and find a solution they won’t see coming.’

‘And also implement what we saw during the World Cup that helped each team,’ suggested Harry.

‘Yes, we’ll be practicing some of those fake out tricks. Heaven knows our team could use a little brain mixed in with our brawn.’

Allison smiled, ‘Look at you Higgs, sounding like a true Quidditch capt—‘

Clang!

There was a loud metal sound from somewhere in the hall, Harry looked over to the Gryffindor table to see Hermione had knocked over her golden goblet. She had a shocked and mortified look on her face.

‘There are house-elves here?!’ she said, staring, horror-struck, at the Gryffindor house ghost Nearly Headless Nick. ‘Here at Hogwarts?!’

Hermione continued to have a heated discussion with Nearly Headless Nick and those around her, but Harry could no longer hear. Tracey noticed Harry looking at Hermione. 'What is up with her?'

'She learned about house-elfs at the World Cup and I think it upset her, and if I had to take a guess she just learned house-elfs run the school.'

Terence spoke up, 'Well it is unfair. Why does this world have magical sentient beings doing their chores?'

'Dobby mentioned once that there are laws in place on the treatment of house-elf,' Harry started, 'but he confessed many wizards get away with not following it. I just hope that Hogwarts does.'

When the puddings too had been demolished, and the last crumbs had faded off the plates, leaving them sparkling clean, Albus Dumbledore got to his feet again. The buzz of chatter filling the Hall ceased almost at once, so that only the howling wind and pounding rain could be heard.

'So!' said Dumbledore, smiling around at them all. 'Now that we are all fed and watered, I must once more ask for your attention, while I give out a few notices. Mr. Filch, the caretaker, has asked me to tell you that the list of objects forbidden inside the castle has this year been extended to include Screaming Yo-yos, Fanged Frisbees, and Ever-Bashing Boomerangs. The full list comprises some four hundred and thirty-seven items, I believe, and can be viewed in Mr. Filch’s office, if anybody would like to check it.'

The corners of Dumbledore’s mouth twitched. He continued, 'As ever, I would like to remind you all that the forest on the grounds is out-of-bounds to students, as is the village of Hogsmeade to all below third year. It is also my painful duty to inform you that the Inter-House Quidditch Cup will not take place this year.'

'What?' Harry gasped. He looked around Terence and Allison, their mouths were gapping open in shock. Dumbledore went on, 'This is due to an event that will be starting in October, and continuing throughout the school year, taking up much of the teachers’ time and energy—but I am sure you will all enjoy it immensely. I have great pleasure in announcing that this year at Hogwarts—'

But at that moment, there was a deafening rumble of thunder and the doors of the Great Hall banged open. A man stood in the doorway, leaning upon a long staff, shrouded in a black traveling cloak. Every head in the Great Hall swiveled toward the stranger, suddenly brightly illuminated by a fork of lightning that flashed across the ceiling. He lowered his hood, shook out a long mane of grizzled, dark gray hair, then began to walk up toward the teachers’ table. Harry had never met him personally, but he reconised the man instantly from descriptions his family had given, it was Alastor Mad-eye Moody.

A dull clunk echoed through the Hall on his every other step. Moody reached the end of the top table, turned right, and limped heavily toward Dumbledore. Another flash of lightning crossed the ceiling. There were many gasps.

The lightning had thrown the Moody’s face into sharp relief, and it was a face unlike any Harry had ever seen. It looked as though it had been carved out of weathered wood by someone who had only the vaguest idea of what human faces are supposed to look like, and was none too skilled with a chisel. Every inch of skin seemed to be scarred. The mouth looked like a diagonal gash, and a large chunk of the nose was missing. But it was the man’s eyes that was the most frightening.

One of them was small, dark, and beady. The other was large, round as a coin, and a vivid, electric blue. The blue eye was moving ceaselessly, without blinking, and was rolling up, down, and from side to side, quite independently of the normal eye—and then it rolled right over, pointing into the back of the man’s head, so that all they could see was whiteness.

Moody reached Dumbledore, he stretched out a hand that was as badly scarred as his face, and Dumbledore shook it, muttering words Harry couldn’t hear. He seemed to be making some inquiry to Moody, who shook his head unsmilingly and replied in an undertone. Dumbledore nodded and gestured Moody to the empty seat on his right-hand side. Moody sat down, shook his mane of dark gray hair out of his face, pulled a plate of sausages toward him, raised it to what was left of his nose, and sniffed it. He then took a small knife out of his pocket, speared a sausage on the end of it, and began to eat. His normal eye was fixed upon the sausages, but the blue eye was still darting restlessly around in its socket, taking in the Hall and the students.

'May I introduce our new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher?' said Dumbledore brightly into the silence. 'Professor Moody.'

It was usual for new staff members to be greeted with applause, but none of the staff or students clapped except Dumbledore and Hagrid, who both put their hands together and applauded, but the sound echoed dismally into the silence, and they stopped fairly quickly. Everyone else seemed too transfixed by Moody’s bizarre appearance to do more than stare at him.

Theodore quietly whispered to Harry, 'So that is the man Remus talks about? The famous Auror?'

'Yes,' Harry muttered back. 'Although I admit I have never seen him in person before.'

'Most of my fathers coworkers have a scar or two,' Allison started, 'But I have never seen an auror that beaten up. What happened to him?'

'He only goes after the darkest of wizards and witches, acording to Remus,' Harry answered.

Moody seemed totally indifferent to his less-than-warm welcome. Ignoring the jug of pumpkin juice in front of him, he reached again into his traveling cloak, pulled out a hip flask, and took a long draught from it. As he lifted his arm to drink, his cloak was pulled a few inches from the ground, and Harry saw, below the table, several inches of carved wooden leg, ending in a clawed foot.

Dumbledore cleared his throat. 'As I was saying,' he said, smiling at the sea of students before him, all of whom were still gazing transfixed at Mad-Eye Moody, 'we are to have the honor of hosting a very exciting event over the coming months, an event that has not been held for over a century. It is my very great pleasure to inform you that the Triwizard Tournament will be taking place at Hogwarts this year.'

'You’re JOKING!' said Fred Weasley loudly.

'This is incredible!' Terence said excitedly.

The tension that had filled the Hall ever since Moody’s arrival suddenly broke. Nearly everyone laughed, and Dumbledore chuckled appreciatively.

'I am not joking, Mr Weasley, and this is indeed incredible Mr Higgs,' he said, 'Where was I? Ah yes, the Triwizard Tournament...well, some of you will not know what this tournament involves, so I hope those who do know will forgive me for giving a short explanation, and allow their attention to wander freely. The Triwizard Tournament was first established some seven hundred years ago as a friendly competition between the three largest European schools of wizardry: Hogwarts, Beauxbatons, and Durmstrang. A champion was selected to represent each school, and the three champions competed in three magical tasks. The schools took it in turns to host the tournament once every five years, and it was generally agreed to be a most excellent way of establishing ties between young witches and wizards of different nationalities—until, that is, the death toll mounted so high that the tournament was discontinued.'

'How bad was it?' Tracey whispered, looking alarmed. Terence stretched out his arms to say that the death toll was big. Tracey's anxiety did not seem to be shared by the majority of students in the Hall; many of them were whispering excitedly to one another, and Harry himself was far more interested in hearing about the tournament than in worrying about deaths that had happened hundreds of years ago.

'There have been several attempts over the centuries to reinstate the tournament,' Dumbledore continued, 'none of which has been very successful. However, our own departments of International Magical Cooperation and Magical Games and Sports have decided the time is ripe for another attempt. We have worked hard over the summer to ensure that this time, no champion will find himself or herself in mortal danger. The heads of Beauxbatons and Durmstrang will be arriving with their short-listed contenders in October, and the selection of the three champions will take place at Halloween. An impartial judge will decide which students are most worthy to compete for the Triwizard Cup, the glory of their school, and a thousand Galleons personal prize money.'

'I’m going for it!' Fred Weasley hissed loudly, his face lit with enthusiasm at the prospect of such glory and riches. He was not the only person who seemed to be visualizing himself as the Hogwarts champion. At every House table, Harry could see people either gazing raptly at Dumbledore, or else whispering fervently to their neighbors. But then Dumbledore spoke again, and the Hall quieted once more.

'Eager though I know all of you will be to bring the Triwizard Cup to Hogwarts,' he said, 'the heads of the participating schools, along with the Ministry of Magic, have agreed to impose an age restriction on contenders this year. Only students who are of age—that is to say, seventeen years or older—will be allowed to put forward their names for consideration. This—'

Dumbledore raised his voice slightly, for several people had made noises of outrage at these words, and the Terence looked suddenly furious— 'is a measure we feel is necessary, given that the tournament tasks will still be difficult and dangerous, whatever precautions we take, and it is highly unlikely that students below sixth and seventh year will be able to cope with them. I will personally be ensuring that no underage student hoodwinks our impartial judge into making them Hogwarts champion.' His light blue eyes twinkled as they flickered over Fred’s and George’s mutinous faces. 'I therefore beg you not to waste your time submitting yourself if you are under seventeen. The delegations from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang will be arriving in October and remaining with us for the greater part of this year. I know that you will all extend every courtesy to our foreign guests while they are with us, and will give your whole-hearted support to the Hogwarts champion when he or she is selected. And now, it is late, and I know how important it is to you all to be alert and rested as you enter your lessons tomorrow morning. Bedtime! Chop chop!'

Dumbledore sat down again and turned to talk to Mad-Eye Moody. There was a great scraping and banging as all the students got to their feet and swarmed toward the double doors into the entrance hall.

'This is so unfair,' said Terence, who was glaring at Dumbledore as they left the Great Hall 'If I can't play Quidditch this year I would at least want a shot at the compitision. But I won't ever get a shot because it is every five years, I'll be long graduated by then.'

'And the thousand Galleons wouldn't go unwanted,' said Theodore.

'Theo,' asked Harry, 'Sirius and Remus are rich, anything you need they'll provide.'

Theodore then looked a bit sheepish, 'You and Canini now have access to your bio families vault, but I will likely never gain access to mine. I want to have some of my own money so I don’t feel like a burden.’

‘Ok,’ said Harry, ‘I can understand wanting your own money, but trust me, Padfoot and Moony do not think of you as a burden.’

As they descended towards the dungeons, Harry had a question. ‘Who’s this impartial judge that’s going to decide who the champions are?’ said Harry.

‘Whatever it is, it probably isn’t human,’ said Allison, stone-faced. ‘Humans are to easy to influence, with or without magic.’

‘I still wish I could enter,’ said Terence grumpily, ‘what about you four, would you enter if you could?’

‘Oh definitely,’ said Allison in an instant. ‘I would absolutely love to complete, get to show off my skills and all that I have learned. Theo, besides wanting the money, would you want to complete?’

Theodore thought for a moment, ‘I honestly don’t know, I would have to learn more about the tournament before I decide if my skills are good enough. We just started fourth year, and they are barely letting seventeen year olds compete, I doubt we are close to ready.’

‘I’d probably do it,’ said Tracey excitedly, ‘You four either have your grades or Quidditch skills to make you stand out, but if I competed in the tournament it would finally be my time to shine.’

‘You have plenty of accomplishments to be proud of,’ encouraged Terence.

‘Maybe, but no ones the whole school knows. But anyway, Harry, would you apply to be in the tournament?’

‘Maybe? I agree with Terence that it would probably be a good Quidditch replacement, but honestly my first two years at this school was exciting enough. So yeah, probably not.’

They made their way down to the entrance to Slytherin Dungeon, which was concealed behind an enchanted stone wall that from the outside looked like any other wall.

Terence walked up and spoke, ‘Scorpion. Cassius Warrington told me the password as the feast.’

They all walked through the wall. A crackling fire was going, but it just barely brought any warmth to the deep underground common room. There were lanterns hanging from the ceiling casting light below, as well as several stone tables and stone chairs.

The girls bid them good night and disappearing through the doorway to the girls’ dormitory.

Harry and Theodore climbed up the other spiral staircase until they reached their own dormitory. Six four-poster beds with deep jade hangings stood against the walls, each with its owner’s trunk at the foot. Crabbe and Goyle were already asleep in bed, leaving only Zabini and Malfoy awake when they arrived.

‘You better behave again this year boys,’ Zabini announced. ‘Because if it looks like we are going to lose the house cup, all of you will regret it.’

With that threat out of the way, Harry and Theodore got into their pajamas and into bed. Someone—a house-elf, no doubt—had placed warming pans between the sheets. It was extremely comfortable, lying there in bed and listening to the stormy lake crash against their windows.

‘I might try and find away to enter,’ said Theodore sleepily, ‘not for the money, but to finally bring some honour back to the Nott family name. I could potentially win.’

‘I s’pose.’

Harry rolled over in bed, a series of dazzling new pictures forming in his mind’s eye...He had hoodwinked the impartial judge into believing he was seventeen...he had become Hogwarts champion...he was standing on the grounds, his arms raised in triumph in front of the whole school, all of whom were applauding and screaming...he had just won the Triwizard Tournament...Cho’s face stood out particularly clearly in the blurred crowd, her face glowing with admiration...

Harry grinned into his pillow, exceptionally glad that Theodore couldn’t see what he could.