Igor Karkaroff

Previous Chapters:

Chapter 1: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003585181

Chapter 2: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003585386

Chapter 3: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003589099

Chapter 4: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003589999

Chapter 5: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003590737

Chapter 6: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003592048

Chapter 7: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003593450

Chapter 8: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003594715

Chapter 9: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003595876

Chapter 10: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003596713

Chapter 11: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003597502

Chapter 12: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003598647

Chapter 13: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003600597

Chapter 14: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003602821

Chapter 15: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003605031

Chapter 16: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003605690

Chapter 17: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003607525

Chapter 18: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003607955

Chapter 19: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003608845

Chapter 20: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003609937

Chapter 21: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003612000

Chapter 22: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003613068

Chapter 23: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003613747

Chapter 24: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003614871

Chapter 25: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003617641

Chapter 26: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003618022

Tags: @MeowTasticCat @Bellatrisblack @Diantha Angelina Black @CatsAndRoblox @Kakaonut @Potatopanda2121

Chapter Twenty-Seven: The Pensieve

The door of the office opened.

‘Hello, Potter,’ said Moody. ‘Come in, then.’

Harry walked inside. He had been inside Dumbledore’s office once before; it was a very beautiful, circular room, lined with pictures of previous headmasters and headmistresses of Hogwarts, all of whom were fast asleep, their chests rising and falling gently.

Cornelius Fudge was standing beside Dumbledore’s desk, wearing his usual pinstriped cloak and holding his lime-green bowler hat.

‘Harry!’ said Fudge jovially, moving forward. ‘How are you?’

‘Fine,’ Harry lied.

‘We were just talking about the night when Mr Crouch turned up on the grounds,’ said Fudge. ‘It was you who found him, was it not?’

‘Yes,’ said Harry. Then, feeling it was pointless to pretend that he hadn’t overheard what they had been saying, he added, ‘I didn’t see Madame Maxime anywhere, though, and she’d have a job hiding, wouldn’t she?’

Dumbledore smiled at Harry behind Fudge’s back, his eyes twinkling.

‘Yes, well,’ said Fudge, looking embarrassed, ‘we’re about to go for a short walk on the grounds, Harry, if you’ll excuse us...perhaps if you just go back to your class—‘

‘I wanted to talk to you, Professor,’ Harry said quickly, looking at Dumbledore, who gave him a swift, searching look.

‘Wait here for me, Harry,’ he said. ‘Our examination of the grounds will not take long.’

They trooped out in silence past him and closed the door. After a minute or so, Harry heard the clunks of Moody’s wooden leg growing fainter in the corridor below. He looked around.

‘Hello, Fawkes,’ he said.

Fawkes, Professor Dumbledore’s phoenix, was standing on his golden perch beside the door. The size of a swan, with magnificent scarlet-and-gold plumage, he swished his long tail and blinked benignly at Harry. He stared fondly at the bird, remembering how it had come to his aid when he had thought all hope was lost, absorbing Harry's Fiendfyre then healing him back in second year.

Harry sat down in a chair in front of Dumbledore’s desk. For several minutes, he sat and watched the old headmasters and headmistresses snoozing in their frames, thinking about what he had just heard, and running his fingers over his scar. It had stopped hurting now.

He felt much calmer, somehow, now that he was in Dumbledore’s office, knowing he would shortly be telling him about the dream. Harry looked up at the walls behind the desk. The patched and ragged Sorting Hat was standing on a shelf. A glass case next to it held a magnificent silver sword with large rubies set into the hilt, Harry wondered what it was.

His attention was taken away from the sword when he noticed a patch of silvery light, dancing and shimmering on the glass case. He looked around for the source of the light and saw a sliver of silver-white shining brightly from within a black cabinet behind him, whose door had not been closed properly. Harry hesitated, glanced at Fawkes, then got up, walked across the office, and pulled open the cabinet door.

A shallow stone basin lay there, with odd carvings around the edge: runes and symbols that Harry did not recognize. The silvery light was coming from the basin’s contents, which were like nothing Harry had ever seen before. He could not tell whether the substance was liquid or gas. It was a bright, whitish silver, and it was moving ceaselessly; the surface of it became ruffled like water beneath wind, and then, like clouds, separated and swirled smoothly. It looked like light made liquid— or like wind made solid—Harry couldn’t make up his mind.

He wanted to touch it, to find out what it felt like, but nearly four years’ experience of the magic lessons told him that sticking his hand into a bowl full of some unknown substance was a very stupid thing to do. He therefore pulled his wand out of the inside of his robes, cast a nervous look around the office, looked back at the contents of the basin, and prodded them.

The surface of the silvery stuff inside the basin began to swirl very fast.

Harry bent closer, his head right inside the cabinet. The silvery substance had become transparent; it looked like glass. He looked down into it, expecting to see the stone bottom of the basin—and saw instead an enormous room below the surface of the mysterious substance, a room into which he seemed to be looking through a circular window in the ceiling.

The room was dimly lit; he thought it might even be underground, for there were no windows, merely torches in brackets such as the ones that illuminated the walls of Hogwarts. Lowering his face so that his nose was a mere inch away from the glassy substance, Harry saw that rows and rows of witches and wizards were seated around every wall on what seemed to be benches rising in levels. An empty chair stood in the very center of the room. There was something about the chair that gave Harry an ominous feeling. Chains encircled the arms of it, as though its occupants were usually tied to it.

Where was this place? It surely wasn’t Hogwarts; he had never seen a room like that here in the castle. Moreover, the crowd in the mysterious room at the bottom of the basin was comprised of adults, and Harry knew there were not nearly that many teachers at Hogwarts. They seemed, he thought, to be waiting for something; even though he could only see the tops of their hats, all of their faces seemed to be pointing in one direction, and none of them were talking to one another.

The basin being circular, and the room he was observing square, Harry could not make out what was going on in the corners of it. He leaned even closer, tilting his head, trying to see...

The tip of his nose touched the strange substance into which he was staring.

Dumbledore’s office gave an almighty lurch—Harry was thrown forward and pitched headfirst into the substance inside the basin—But his head did not hit the stone bottom. He was falling through something icy-cold and black; it was like being sucked into a dark whirlpool—

And suddenly, Harry found himself sitting on a bench at the end of the room inside the basin, a bench raised high above the others. He looked up at the high stone ceiling, expecting to see the circular window through which he had just been staring, but there was nothing there but dark, solid stone.

Breathing hard and fast, Harry looked around him. Not one of the witches and wizards in the room (and there were at least two hundred of them) was looking at him. Not one of them seemed to have noticed that a fourteen-year-old boy had just dropped from the ceiling into their midst. Harry turned to the wizard next to him on the bench and uttered a loud cry of surprise that reverberated around the silent room.

He was sitting right next to Albus Dumbledore.

‘Professor!’ Harry said in a kind of strangled whisper. ‘I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to—I was just looking at that basin in your cabinet—I—where are we?’

But Dumbledore didn’t move or speak. He ignored Harry completely. Like every other wizard on the benches, he was staring into the far corner of the room, where there was a door.

Harry gazed, nonplussed, at Dumbledore, then around at the silently watchful crowd, then back at Dumbledore. And then it dawned on him...

Once before, Harry had found himself somewhere that nobody could see or hear him. That time, he had fallen through a page in an enchanted diary, right into somebody else’s memory...and unless he was very much mistaken, something of the sort had happened again...

Harry raised his right hand, hesitated, and then waved it energetically in front of Dumbledore’s face. Dumbledore did not blink, look around at Harry, or indeed move at all. And that, in Harry’s opinion, settled the matter. Dumbledore wouldn’t ignore him like that. He was inside a memory, and this was not the present-day Dumbledore. Yet it couldn’t be that long ago...the Dumbledore sitting next to him now was silver-haired, just like the present-day Dumbledore. But what was this place? What were all these wizards waiting for?

Harry looked around more carefully. The room, as he had suspected when observing it from above, was almost certainly underground—more of a dungeon than a room, he thought. There was a bleak and forbidding air about the place; there were no pictures on the walls, no decorations at all; just these serried rows of benches, rising in levels all around the room, all positioned so that they had a clear view of that chair with the chains on its arms.

Before Harry could reach any conclusions about the place in which they were, he heard footsteps. The door in the corner of the dungeon opened and three people entered—or at least one man, flanked by two dementors.

Harry’s insides went cold. The dementors—tall, hooded creatures whose faces were concealed—were gliding slowly toward the chair in the center of the room, each grasping one of the man’s arms with their dead and rotten-looking hands. The man between them looked as though he was about to faint, and Harry couldn’t blame him...he knew the dementors could not touch him inside a memory, but he remembered their power only too well. The watching crowd recoiled slightly as the dementors placed the man in the chained chair and glided back out of the room. The door swung shut behind them.

Harry looked down at the man now sitting in the chair and saw that it was Karkaroff.

Unlike Dumbledore, Karkaroff looked much younger; his hair and goatee were black. He was not dressed in sleek furs, but in thin and ragged robes. He was shaking. Even as Harry watched, the chains on the arms of the chair glowed suddenly gold and snaked their way up Karkaroff ’s arms, binding him there.

‘Igor Karkaroff,’ said a curt voice to Harry’s left. Harry looked around and saw Mr Crouch standing up in the middle of the bench beside him. Crouch’s hair was dark, his face was much less lined, he looked fit and alert. ‘You have been brought from Azkaban to present evidence to the Ministry of Magic. You have given us to understand that you have important information for us.’

Karkaroff straightened himself as best he could, tightly bound to the chair.

‘I have, sir,’ he said, and although his voice was very scared, Harry could still hear the familiar unctuous note in it. ‘I wish to be of use to the Ministry. I wish to help. I—I know that the Ministry is trying to—to round up the last of the Dark Lord’s supporters. I am eager to assist in any way I can...’

There was a murmur around the benches. Some of the wizards and witches were surveying Karkaroff with interest, others with pronounced mistrust. Then Harry heard, quite distinctly, from Dumbledore’s other side, a familiar, growling voice saying, ‘Filth.’

Harry leaned forward so that he could see past Dumbledore. Mad-Eye Moody was sitting there—except that there was a very noticeable difference in his appearance. He did not have his magical eye, but two normal ones. Both were looking down upon Karkaroff, and both were narrowed in intense dislike.

‘Crouch is going to let him out,’ Moody breathed quietly to Dumbledore. ‘He’s done a deal with him. Took me six months to track him down, and Crouch is going to let him go if he’s got enough new names. Let’s hear his information, I say, and throw him straight back to the dementors.’

Dumbledore made a small noise of dissent through his long, crooked nose.

‘Ah, I was forgetting...you don’t like the dementors, do you, Albus?’ said Moody with a sardonic smile.

‘No,’ said Dumbledore calmly, ‘I’m afraid I don’t. I have long felt the Ministry is wrong to ally itself with such creatures.’

‘But for filth like this...’ Moody said softly.

‘You say you have names for us, Karkaroff,’ said Mr Crouch. ‘Let us hear them, please.’

‘You must understand,’ said Karkaroff hurriedly, ‘that He-Who- Must-Not-Be-Named operated always in the greatest secrecy...He preferred that we—I mean to say, his supporters—and I regret now, very deeply, that I ever counted myself among them—‘

‘Get on with it,’ sneered Moody.

‘—we never knew the names of every one of our fellows—He alone knew exactly who we all were—‘

‘Which was a wise move, wasn’t it, as it prevented someone like you, Karkaroff, from turning all of them in,’ muttered Moody.

‘Yet you say you have some names for us?’ said Mr Crouch.

‘I—I do,’ said Karkaroff breathlessly. ‘And these were important supporters, mark you. People I saw with my own eyes doing his bidding. I give this information as a sign that I fully and totally renounce him, and am filled with a remorse so deep I can barely—‘

‘These names are?’ said Mr Crouch sharply.

Karkaroff drew a deep breath.

‘There was Antonin Dolohov,’ he said. ‘I—I saw him torture countless Muggles and—and non-supporters of the Dark Lord.’

‘And helped him do it,’ murmured Moody.

‘We have already apprehended Dolohov,’ said Crouch. ‘He was caught shortly after yourself.’

‘Indeed?’ said Karkaroff, his eyes widening. ‘I—I am delighted to hear it!’

But he didn’t look it. Harry could tell that this news had come as a real blow to him. One of his names was worthless.

‘Any others?’ said Crouch coldly.

‘Why, yes...there was Rosier,’ said Karkaroff hurriedly. ‘Evan Rosier.’

‘Rosier is dead,’ said Crouch. ‘He was caught shortly after you were too. He preferred to fight rather than come quietly and was killed in the struggle.’

‘Took a bit of me with him, though,’ whispered Moody to Harry’s right. Harry looked around at him once more, and saw him indicating the large chunk out of his nose to Dumbledore.

‘No—no more than Rosier deserved!’ said Karkaroff, a real note of panic in his voice now. Harry could see that he was starting to worry that none of his information would be of any use to the Ministry. Karkaroff’s eyes darted toward the door in the corner, behind which the dementors undoubtedly still stood, waiting.

‘Any more?’ said Crouch.

‘Yes!’ said Karkaroff. ‘There was Travers—he helped murder the McKinnons! Mulciber—he specialized in the Imperius Curse, forced countless people to do horrific things! Rookwood, who was a spy, and passed He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named useful information from inside the Ministry itself!’

Harry could tell that, this time, Karkaroff had struck gold. The watching crowd was all murmuring together.

‘Rookwood?’ said Mr Crouch, nodding to a witch sitting in front of him, who began scribbling upon her piece of parchment. ‘Augustus Rookwood of the Department of Mysteries?’

‘The very same,m said Karkaroff eagerly. ‘I believe he used a network of well-placed wizards, both inside the Ministry and out, to collect information—‘

‘But Travers and Mulciber we have,’ said Mr Crouch. ‘Very well, Karkaroff, if that is all, you will be returned to Azkaban while we decide—‘

‘Not yet!’ cried Karkaroff, looking quite desperate. ‘Wait, I have more!’

Harry could see him sweating in the torchlight, his white skin contrasting strongly with the black of his hair and beard.

‘Snape!’ he shouted. ‘Severus Snape!’

‘Snape has been cleared by this council,’ said Crouch disdainfully. ‘He has been vouched for by Albus Dumbledore.’

‘No!’ shouted Karkaroff, straining at the chains that bound him to the chair. ‘I assure you! Severus Snape is a Death Eater!’

Dumbledore had gotten to his feet. ‘I have given evidence already on this matter,’ he said calmly. ‘Severus Snape was indeed a Death Eater. However, he rejoined our side before Lord Voldemort’s downfall and turned spy for us, at great personal risk. He is now no more a Death Eater than I am.’

This was news to Harry. He had long suspected Snape to have a dark past, but he didn’t think he was a deatheater. His parents repeatedly warned him about Karkaroff for being a deatheater, and yet despite hating Snape they never once mentioned him being one.

Harry turned to look at Mad-Eye Moody. He was wearing a look of deep skepticism behind Dumbledore’s back.

‘Very well, Karkaroff,’ Crouch said coldly, ‘you have been of assistance. I shall review your case. You will return to Azkaban in the meantime...’

Mr Crouch’s voice faded. Harry looked around; the dungeon was dissolving as though it were made of smoke; everything was fading; he could see only his own body—all else was swirling darkness...

And then, the dungeon returned. Harry was sitting in a different seat, still on the highest bench, but now to the left side of Mr Crouch. The atmosphere seemed quite different: relaxed, even cheerful. The witches and wizards all around the walls were talking to one another, almost as though they were at some sort of sporting event. Harry noticed a witch halfway up the rows of benches opposite. She had short blonde hair, was wearing magenta robes, and was sucking the end of an acid-green quill. It was, unmistakably, a younger Rita Skeeter. Harry looked around; Dumbledore was sitting beside him again, wearing different robes. Mr Crouch looked more tired and somehow fiercer, gaunter...Harry understood. It was a different memory, a different day...a different trial.

Previous Chapters:

Chapter 1: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003585181

Chapter 2: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003585386

Chapter 3: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003589099

Chapter 4: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003589999

Chapter 5: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003590737

Chapter 6: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003592048

Chapter 7: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003593450

Chapter 8: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003594715

Chapter 9: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003595876

Chapter 10: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003596713

Chapter 11: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003597502

Chapter 12: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003598647

Chapter 13: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003600597

Chapter 14: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003602821

Chapter 15: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003605031

Chapter 16: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003605690

Chapter 17: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003607525

Chapter 18: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003607955

Chapter 19: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003608845

Chapter 20: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003609937

Chapter 21: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003612000

Chapter 22: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003613068

Chapter 23: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003613747

Tags: @MeowTasticCat @Bellatrisblack @Diantha Angelina Black @CatsAndRoblox @Kakaonut @Potatopanda2121

Chapter Twenty-Four: Magazines and Meetings

One of the best things about the aftermath of the second task was that everybody was very keen to hear details of what had happened down in the lake, which meant that Tracey was getting to share Harry’s limelight for once. Harry noticed that Tracey’s version of events changed subtly with every retelling. At first, she gave what seemed to be the truth, Dumbledore had put all the hostages into a bewitched sleep after assuring them that they would be quite safe, and would awake when they were back above the water. One week later, however, Tracey was telling a thrilling tale of the merpeople kidnapping her when she was walking near the lake the day before the challenge.

‘I thought about fighting them off, but I realized that if they thought I was powerless than I could take them by surprise later when I inevitably escape their slimy grasp.’

Niall Urquhart, who had been getting quite annoyed with Tracey leading up to the second task, now wouldn’t leave her side.

‘You could have died. You were so brave Davy.’

But behind the people who were really impressed with her and kept asking her about what happened, there were more laughing behind her back. People were taking the whole “thing that Harry would most miss” out of context, like the rest of the song it was just an exaggeration to motivate the champions and Tracey was just Harry’s close friend, but many were saying that Tracey was cheating on Urquhart with Harry.

As they entered March the weather became drier, but cruel winds skinned their hands and faces every time they went out onto the grounds. There were delays in the post because the owls kept being blown off course. It took Hedwig days to get Sirius and Remus the Hogsmeade date and fly back, it was the breakfast the day before the Hogsmeade Saturday that she finally returned.

“Meet us at the tea shop at two o’clock. Theodore and your friends can come to if they want.”

Harry was really happy at this news, he had survived his second task, and now he was going to spend an afternoon with his family. He half considered smuggling Canini out of the castle but she might be recognized as a second year.

With the next day to look forward to Harry actually entered his double Potions feeling considerably more cheerful than he usually did heading to that class.

Pansy, Blaise, Crabbe, and Goyle were standing in a huddle outside the classroom door. All of them were looking at something Harry couldn’t see and sniggering heartily. Pansy’s pug-like face peered excitedly around Goyle’s broad back as Harry, Theodore, Allison, and Tracey approached.

‘There they are, there they are!’ she giggled, and the knot of Slytherins broke apart. Harry saw that Pansy had a magazine in her hands—Witch Weekly. The moving picture on the front showed a witch with short tight curls and showed her when she was upset with Terence at the Yule Ball.

‘You might find something to interest you in there, Davis! You too Runcorn.’ Pansy said loudly, and she threw the magazine at Tracey, who caught it, looking startled. At that moment, the dungeon door opened, and Snape beckoned them all inside.

Tracey, Harry, Theodore, and Allison headed for a table at the back of the dungeon as usual. Once Snape had turned his back on them to write up the ingredients of today’s potion on the blackboard, Tracey hastily rifled through the magazine under the desk. At last, in the center pages, Tracey found what they were looking for. Harry, Allison, and Allison leaned in closer. A color photograph of Harry headed a short piece entitled:

“Harry Potter’s Secret Heartache

A boy like no other, perhaps—yet a boy suffering all the usual pangs of adolescence, writes Rita Skeeter. Deprived of love since the tragic demise of his parents and strained relationship of his adoptive parents, fourteen-year-old Harry Potter thought he had found solace in his steady girlfriend at Hogwarts, Half-born Tracey Davis. Little did he know that he would shortly be suffering yet another emotional blow in a life already littered with personal loss.

Miss Davis, a pretty but rebellious girl, seems to not have the stomach for the spotlight that comes with dating a famous wizard. She left Potter on the dance floor at the Triwizard Tournament’s Yule Ball for another boy and Harry Potter in heartbreak ever since. This betrayal not only split up the couple, but also their shared friend group, as instead of staying by her friend Tracey Davis’ side, Quidditch brute Allison Runcorn chose the boy who lived as the two were seen on a date in Hogsmeade not long later.

This new love did not help Harry’s heartache over Tracey however, as his second task for the Triwizard Tournament involved the person each champion loved the most being kidnapped, and to Allison Runcorn’s disbelief it was not her but Tracey Davis who was kidnapped. Once done rescuing his Tracey, Harry proclaimed his love once more for Miss Davis, but yet again he was harshly rejected, and Runcorn has subsequently dumped him, leaving him utterly alone.

But sources say these rejections might be for the best.

‘Tracey is a rule breaker and has commitment issues,’ says Pansy Parkinson, a pretty and vivacious fourth-year student, ‘while Runcorn has severe anger management issues.’

Others have said Allison Runcorn has a violent streak and if she doesn’t improve upon herself she might have a cell in Azkaban waiting for her. In the meantime, Harry Potter’s well-wishers must hope that, next time, he bestows his heart on a worthier candidate than these two harpies.”

‘She’s dead!’ Allison hissed venomously as she finished reading over Tracey’s shoulder. ‘I thought she’d come for me through my father, but she instead made you like a heartbreaker and that I abandoned you for bloody Harry. No offence Harry.’

‘No offence taken, she made Tracey out to be a philanderer, and you a backstabbing bully.’

Tracey let out a small giggle, ‘Philanderer, that’s hilarious.’

Allison’s jaw dropped, ‘How are you laughing at this, she is ruining your reputation. She needs her shins busted.’

Tracey closed the magazine and took it away from Allison. ‘Alli, I want you to listen to me. The people that actually know me, that matter, already know this isn’t true and doesn’t reflect who I really am. If you put all your anger out into violence than she wins, everyone will see you as just the hotheaded bully she says you are, but if you try and channel your anger to something else it might be you who has the last laugh instead of her.’

Allison took a couple breaths and that calmed her down. The four of them then looked over at Pansy and Blaise, who were watching Tracey, Allison, and Harry closely across the room to see if they had been upset by the article. Allison gave them a sarcastic smile and a wave, and she, Tracey, Harry, and Theodore started unpacking the ingredients they would need for their Wit-Sharpening Potion.

‘I do wonder one thing, though,’ said Theodore ten minutes later, holding his pestle suspended over a bowl of scarab beetles. ‘How did Rita Skeeter know if she was banned from the grounds...?’

‘How did she know what?’ asked Harry.

‘Colin gets the Daily Prophet and sometimes reads to me exciting articles. The article on the second task has a copy of the merpeople’s clue and how each champion completed the task. I don’t think it mentioned the thing stolen from each champion was a person, and I know that it didn’t mention the names of the hostages.’

‘Well maybe there was a different paper that mentioned it?’ Tracey suggested.

‘There wasn’t,’ responded Theodore, ‘Dumbledore doesn’t trust newspapers, he only allowed the Prophet because Bagman insisted.’

‘Than how could she have known,’ said Harry, ‘maybe you were right from New Years that she’s using an invisibility cloak, Theodore.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Allison, ‘I think there is more going on than meets the eye.’

‘I don’t know what you four are scheming this time, Miss Runcorn,’ said an icy voice right behind them, and all four of them jumped, ‘but I must ask you not to discuss it in my class. Five points from Slytherin.’

Snape had glided over to their desk while they were talking. The whole class was now looking around at them; Pansy, her goon, and Malfoy’s group were all looking at them with disgust for loosing them points.

‘Ah...reading magazines under the table as well?’ Snape added, snatching up the copy of Witch Weekly. ‘A further five points from Slytherin...oh but of course...’

Snape’s black eyes glittered as they fell on Rita Skeeter’s article. ‘Potter has to keep up with his press cuttings...’

The dungeon rang with the laughter of Pansy and her friends, and an unpleasant smile curled Snape’s thin mouth. To Harry’s fury, he began to read the article aloud.

‘‘Harry Potter’s Secret Heartache...dear, dear, Potter, what’s ailing you now? ‘A boy like no other, perhaps...’’

Harry could feel his face burning. Snape was pausing at the end of every sentence to allow Pansy and her goons, and now some of Malfoy’s group, a hearty laugh. The article sounded ten times worse when read by Snape. Even Tracey was blushing scarlet now.

‘’...Harry Potter’s well-wishers must hope that, next time, he bestows his heart upon a worthier candidate than these two harpies.’ How very touching,’ sneered Snape, rolling up the magazine to continued gales of laughter from nearly every Slytherin other than Daphne, and now half the Gryffindors too. ‘Well, I think I had better separate the four of you, so you can keep your minds on your potions rather than on your tangled love lives. Nott, only one not in this love triangle, you stay there. Miss Runcorn, over there, beside Miss Parkinson. Davis, you’ll move to be with Mr Finnigan. you sit next to Mr Potter—that table in front of my desk. Move. Now.’

Furious, Harry threw his ingredients and his bag into his cauldron and dragged it up to the front of the dungeon to the empty table. Snape followed, sat down at his desk and watched Harry unload his cauldron. Determined not to look at Snape, Harry resumed the mashing of his scarab beetles, imagining each one to have Snape’s face. The only cold comfort was that Snape had yet to give him detention, so he could still see his parents tomorrow.

‘All this press attention seems to have inflated your already over-large head, Potter,’ said Snape quietly, once the rest of the class had settled down again. Harry didn’t answer. He knew Snape was trying to provoke him; he had done this before. No doubt he was hoping for an excuse to take Harry’s free weekend away.

‘You might be laboring under the delusion that the entire wizarding world is impressed with you,’ Snape went on, so quietly that no one else could hear him (Harry continued to pound his scarab beetles, even though he had already reduced them to a very fine powder), ‘but I don’t care how many times your picture appears in the papers. To me, Potter, you are nothing but a nasty little boy who considers rules to be beneath him.’

Harry tipped the powdered beetles into his cauldron and started cutting up his ginger roots. His hands were shaking slightly out of anger, but he kept his eyes down, as though he couldn’t hear what Snape was saying to him.

‘So I give you fair warning, Potter,’ Snape continued in a softer and more dangerous voice, ‘pint-sized celebrity or not—if I catch you breaking into my office one more time—‘

‘I haven’t been anywhere near your office!’ said Harry angrily, forgetting his feigned deafness.

‘Don’t lie to me,’ Snape hissed, his fathomless black eyes boring into Harry’s. ‘Boomslang skin. Gillyweed. Both come from my private stores, and I know who stole them.’

Harry stared back at Snape, determined not to blink or to look guilty. In truth, he hadn’t stolen either of these things from Snape. Tracey had taken the boomslang skin back in their second year—they had needed it for the Polyjuice Potion—and while Snape had suspected Harry at the time, he had never been able to prove it. Dobby, of course, had stolen the gillyweed.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Harry lied coldly. He was starting to realize that with Snape’s current fury level there was far worse than detention on the table.

‘You were out of bed on the night my office was broken into!’ Snape hissed. ‘I know it, Potter! Now, Mad-Eye Moody might have joined your fan club, but I will not tolerate your behavior! One more nighttime stroll into my office, Potter, and you will pay!’

‘Right,’ said Harry coolly, turning back to his ginger roots. ‘I’ll bear that in mind if I ever get the urge to go in there.’

Snape’s eyes flashed. He plunged a hand into the inside of his black robes. For one wild moment, Harry thought Snape was about to pull out his wand and curse him—then he saw that Snape had drawn out a small crystal bottle of a completely clear potion. Harry stared at it.

‘Do you know what this is, Potter?’ Snape said, his eyes glittering dangerously again.

‘No,’ said Harry, with complete honesty this time.

‘It is Veritaserum—a Truth Potion so powerful that three drops would have you spilling your innermost secrets for this entire class to hear,’ said Snape viciously. ‘Now, the use of this potion is controlled by very strict Ministry guidelines. But unless you watch your step, you might just find that my hand slips’—he shook the crystal bottle slightly—‘right over your evening pumpkin juice. And then, Potter...then we’ll find out whether you’ve been in my office or not.’

Harry said nothing. He turned back to his ginger roots once more, picked up his knife, and started slicing them again. He didn’t like the sound of that Truth Potion at all, nor would he put it past Snape to slip him some. He repressed a shudder at the thought of what might come spilling out of his mouth in public if Snape did it...quite apart from landing a whole lot of people in trouble—Tracey and Dobby for a start—Canini’s curse—how he felt about Cho...He tipped his ginger roots into the cauldron too, and wondered whether he ought to take a leaf out of Moody’s book and start drinking only from a private hip flask.

There was a knock on the dungeon door.

‘Enter,’ said Snape in his usual voice.

The class looked around as the door opened. Professor Karkaroff came in. Everyone watched him as he walked up toward Snape’s desk. He was twisting his finger around his goatee and looking agitated.

‘We need to talk,’ said Karkaroff abruptly when he had reached Snape. He seemed so determined that nobody should hear what he was saying that he was barely opening his lips; it was as though he were a rather poor ventriloquist.

Harry kept his eyes on his ginger roots, listening hard.

‘I’ll talk to you after my lesson, Karkaroff,’ Snape muttered, but Karkaroff interrupted him.

‘I want to talk now, while you can’t slip off, Severus. You’ve been avoiding me.’

‘After the lesson,’ Snape snapped.

Under the pretext of holding up a measuring cup to see if he’d poured out enough armadillo bile, Harry sneaked a sidelong glance at the pair of them. Karkaroff looked extremely worried, and Snape looked angry.

Karkaroff hovered behind Snape’s desk for the rest of the double period. He seemed intent on preventing Snape from slipping away at the end of class. Keen to hear what Karkaroff wanted to say, Harry deliberately knocked over his bottle of armadillo bile with two minutes to go to the bell, which gave him an excuse to duck down behind his cauldron and mop up while the rest of the class moved noisily toward the door.

‘What’s so urgent?’ he heard Snape hiss at Karkaroff.

‘This,’ said Karkaroff, and Harry, peering around the edge of his cauldron, saw Karkaroff pull up the left-hand sleeve of his robe and show Snape something on his inner forearm.

‘Well?’ said Karkaroff, still making every effort not to move his lips. ‘Do you see? It’s never been this clear, never since—‘

‘Put it away!’ snarled Snape, his black eyes sweeping the classroom.

‘But you must have noticed—‘ Karkaroff began in an agitated voice.

‘We can talk later, Karkaroff!’ spat Snape. ‘Potter! What are you doing?’

‘Clearing up my armadillo bile, Professor,’ said Harry innocently, straightening up and showing Snape the sodden rag he was holding.

Karkaroff turned on his heel and strode out of the dungeon. He looked both worried and angry. Not wanting to remain alone with an exceptionally angry Snape, Harry threw his books and ingredients back into his bag and left at top speed to tell his friends what he had just witnessed.

All his friends had decided to go to Hogsmeade the next day, including Terence, but only he and Allison were joining Harry to see his parents as the others both had dates.

They left the castle at noon and found a weak silver sun shining down upon the grounds. The weather was milder than it had been all year, and by the time they arrived in Hogsmeade, all of them had taken off their cloaks and thrown them over their shoulders.

Previous Chapters:

Chapter 1: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003585181

Chapter 2: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003585386

Chapter 3: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003589099

Chapter 4: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003589999

Chapter 5: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003590737

Chapter 6: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003592048

Chapter 7: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003593450

Chapter 8: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003594715

Chapter 9: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003595876

Chapter 10: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003596713

Chapter 11: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003597502

Chapter 12: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003598647

Chapter 13: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003600597

Chapter 14: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003602821

Chapter 15: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003605031

Chapter 16: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003605690

Tags: @MeowTasticCat @Bellatrisblack @Diantha Angelina Black @CatsAndRoblox @Kakaonut @Potatopanda2121

Chapter Seventeen: The Hungarian Horntail

The next day Harry and Theodore managed to find Tracey in the Great Hall at breakfast, and to their surprise she still had no hair.

'There you are,' said Harry relieved, giving her a hug. 'We were beginning to worry. What happened though, why are you still, er, bald?'

'I went up to the infirmary and Madam Pomfrey cast the counter-curse that'll allow me to naturally regrow my hair. She offered to cast a hair-regrowing spell to get it back to the length it was, but Pansy was teasing me for the lack of hair so I'm going to show her how beautiful I can be like this. I sent an owl home, so my parents will be sending me products for bald heads and for really short hair when it starts growing back in.'

'Well as long as your happy, and Pansy is frustrated, then I am all good,' said Theodore with a smile.

'Agreed,' said Harry, 'I can't wait to see what kind of styles you will do as it grows.'

The next week passed by agonizingly slowly. The shock of finding himself school champion had worn off slightly now, and the fear of what was facing him had started to sink in. The first task was drawing steadily nearer; he felt as though it were crouching ahead of him like some horrific monster, barring his path. He had never suffered nerves like these; they were way beyond anything he had experienced before a Quidditch match, not even ones that would determine if Slytherin would win the Quidditch Cup or not. Harry was finding it hard to think about the future at all; he felt as though his whole life had been leading up to, and would finish with, the first task...

Even before the first task had arrived life had become even worse for Harry within the confines of the castle, for Rita Skeeter had published her piece about the Triwizard Tournament, and it had turned out to be not so much a report on the tournament as a highly coloured life story of Harry. Much of the front page had been given over to a picture of Harry; the article (continuing on pages two, six, and seven) had been all about Harry, the names of the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang champions (misspelled) had been squashed into the last line of the article, and Cedric hadn’t been mentioned at all.

The article had appeared six days ago, and Harry still got a sick, burning feeling of shame in his stomach every time he thought about it. Rita Skeeter had reported him saying an awful lot of things that he couldn’t remember ever saying in his life, let alone in that broom cupboard.

"I suppose I get my strength from my parents. I know they’d be very proud of me if they could see me now...Yes, sometimes at night I still cry about them, I’m not ashamed to admit it...I know nothing will hurt me during the tournament, because they’re watching over me..."

But Rita Skeeter had gone even further than transforming his “er’s” into long, sickly sentences: She had interviewed other people about him too:

"Harry has at last found love at Hogwarts. His close friend, Pansy Parkinson, says that Harry is rarely seen out of the company of one Tracey Davis, a stunningly pretty half-born girl who, unlike Harry, tends to find herself in trouble often at the school."

From the moment the article had appeared, Harry had had to endure students—mainly Pansy's posse—quoting it at him as he passed and making sneering comments.

'Want a hanky, Potter, in case you start crying in Transfiguration?'

'You really had to take all the glory from Cedric, didn't you Potter. It should be his face and his story on the cover, not some cheating Slytherin.'

'Hey—Harry!'

'Yeah, that’s right!' Harry found himself shouting as he wheeled around in the corridor, having had just about enough. 'I’ve just been crying my eyes out over my dead mum, and I’m just off to do a bit more...'

'No—it was just—you dropped your quill.'

It was Cho. Harry felt the colour rising in his face.

'Oh—right—sorry,' he muttered, taking the quill back.

'Er...good luck on Tuesday,' she said. 'I really hope you do well.'

Which left Harry feeling extremely stupid. Tracey had come in for her fair share of unpleasantness too, but she hadn’t yet started yelling at innocent bystanders; in fact, Harry was full of admiration for the way she was handling the situation.

'Stunningly pretty? I know I defiantly didn't tell Miss Skeeter that,' Pansy Parkinson had shrieked the first time she had come face-to-face with Tracey after Rita’s article had appeared. 'What was she judging against—a round octopus?'

'Don't listen to her Harry,' Tracey said in a dignified voice, holding her head in the air and stalking past the sniggering pig faced girl as though she couldn’t hear them. 'I don't want you getting into another fight.'

But Harry couldn’t ignore it. Allison hadn’t spoken to him at all since Tracey was cursed. Harry had half hoped they would make things up during the two hours all three of them were forced to pickle rats’ brains in Snape’s dungeon, but that had been the day Rita’s article had appeared, which seemed to have confirmed Allison’s belief that Harry did put his name in and was really enjoying all the attention.

Theodore was furious with the pair of them; he kept trying to force them to talk to each other, but Harry was adamant: He would talk to Allison again only if Allison admitted that Harry hadn’t put his name in the Goblet of Fire and apologized for calling him a liar.

'I didn’t ask for any of this,' Harry said stubbornly. 'So it should be her who apologizes. Why should it be me?'

'Because she is stubborn and is clearly hurting about something!' Theodore said impatiently. 'She's our friend, we should be trying to find a way to end this stupid stand still. That and you obviously miss her—'

'Miss her?' said Harry. 'I don’t miss her...'

But this was a downright lie. Theodore and Tracey were practically family to Harry, but Allison was his best friend. They trained together, they had similar sense in humour, and both were not willing to put up with stuck up witches and wizards. With Allison gone it was like a piece of him was missing, and it really hurt.

Harry still hadn’t mastered Summoning Charms despite Tracey's best efforts, he seemed to have developed something of a block about them, and Tracey insisted that her wrist exercise would help. They consequently spent a lot of time practicing wand movements in the courtyard during their lunchtimes.

Terence Higgs was in the court yard an awful lot too, he said the crisp air helped him focus on his O.W.L. classes, but Harry had his suspicions it was for another reason. Terence had a soft spot for Tracey, and although he never told Harry, he was pretty certain he had feelings for Tracey. And Harry knew that Tracey felt the same, but he never told either of them his suspicions just in case he was wrong as that might make the friend group awkward, not that it wasn't already awkward with Allison gone.

'He's both strong and smart,' she said one evening after Terence left. 'Without quidditch this year he uses all his extra time training for next year and studying for his O.W.L.s.'

'I just wish I had months to prepare for the first task like he has to prepare for O.W.L.s and the next quidditch season.'

It is a strange thing, but when you are dreading something, and would give anything to slow down time, it has a disobliging habit of speeding up. The days until the first task seemed to slip by as though someone had fixed the clocks to work at double speed. Harry’s feeling of barely controlled panic was with him wherever he went, as ever present as the snide comments about the Daily Prophet article.

On the Saturday morning before the first task, Harry received a letter from home.

"Dear Harry,

Meet me and Sirius at the Three Broomsticks at noon.

With love,

~Remus"

'Moony and Padfoot are here?' Harry said in surprise.

On most Saturdays all students in the third year and above were permitted to visit the village of Hogsmeade. Though this would be the first time his parents had been there besides when Remus had taught at Hogwarts the year prior. Harry was more than happy to leave the castle for a little while, especially if it involved seeing his adoptive parents, but his only hesitation was he didn't want to be harassed by students without the protection of nearby teachers. So once the common room was just Harry and Theodore, Harry grabbed his invisibility cloak.

They left the dormitory and once in the common room invited Tracey along. They left the common room and waited for there to not be a student in site, then Harry wrapped the velvety fabric around himself, leaving only Theodore and Tracey visible. They went up the stair, and together they set off for Hogsmeade.

Harry felt wonderfully free under the cloak; he watched other

students walking past them as they entered the village, most of them sporting Support Cedric Diggory! ribbons, but no horrible remarks came his way for a change, and nobody was quoting that stupid article.

‘So should I wait outside while you two talk with your parents and we go get sweets after, or-‘

‘Course not Tracey, I’m sure it’d be fine for you to join us,’ encouraged Theodore.

‘Yeah, besides you have only gotten to meet my godfather once,’ said Harry.

As the approached the Three Broomsticks Harry started looking for somewhere he could discreetly take his cloak off. He was just about to tell the others his plan when Theodore froze.

‘Harry, whatever you do don’t take your cloak off yet.’

‘What, why?’

Theodore point and Harry looked in that direction to find Rita Skeeter and her photographer friend had just emerging from the Three Broomsticks pub. Talking in low voices, they passed right by Tracey and Theodore without looking at them. Harry backed into the wall of Honeydukes to stop Rita Skeeter from hitting him with her crocodile-skin handbag. When they were gone, Harry said, ‘She’s staying in the village. I bet she’s coming to watch the first task.’

As he said it, his stomach flooded with a wave of molten panic. He didn’t mention this; he and his friends hadn’t discussed what was coming in the first task much; he had the feeling that they were worrying about what will happen and he didn't want to add to that.

'Coast is clear, Harry,' said Theodore, looking right through Harry toward the end of the street. 'You can take the cloak off now.'

'No, I'm going to leave it on, if she is staying here she'll be back and I am not in the mood to deal with her right now.'

Tracey and Theodore looked at each other hesitantly, but said nothing. They all then entered the pub.

The Three Broomsticks was packed, mainly with Hogwarts students enjoying their free afternoon, but also with a variety of magical people Harry rarely saw anywhere else. Harry supposed that as Hogsmeade was the only all-wizard village in Britain, it was a bit of a haven for creatures like hags, who were not as adept as wizards at disguising themselves. The three Weasley brothers were at the pub, along with Lee Jordan and Hermione Granger, who looked like she was pitching an idea to them that was getting on their nerves. Finally, near the very back Harry spotted Sirius and Remus.

It was very hard to move through crowds in the Invisibility Cloak, in case you accidentally trod on someone, which tended to lead to awkward questions. Harry edged slowly toward his family with Tracey and Theodore at his sides. When his two guardians spotted Theodore they smiled, but looked confuse.

'Theo,' said Remus, 'it's good to see you, but where is Harry, we have to talk to him about the first task.'

'I am right here,' said Harry as him and his friends sit down across from the two adults. 'Rita Skeeter is here and if she sees me I'll be on the front page again tomorrow.'

'I see,' said Sirius. He then put his hand out to Tracey and she took it. 'It's been a couple years, you have really grown Miss Davis. It's nice to meet you again.'

'It's nice to meet you again too Mr Black.'

'Well,' said Sirius, trying his best to look at Harry, 'we came to wish you good luck on your first task and to see how you are doing.'

'I’m, er—' For a second, Harry tried to say 'fine'—but he couldn’t do it. Before he could stop himself, he was talking more than he’d talked in days—about how almost no one believed he hadn’t entered the tournament of his own free will, how Rita Skeeter had lied about him in the Daily Prophet, how he couldn’t walk down a corridor without being sneered at—and about Allison and how he truly missed her, he didn't care that Tracey and Theodore were both starring at him with a 'I told you so' look.

'...and now the task is in five days and I don't know what to do. The point of the first task is to learn the challenge on the spot and then deal with it, but I don't know half the stuff seventh years would know so how am I going to deal with a problem where I don't have the knowledge or experience?'

Remus looked really worried at Sirius, 'This might be his plan, have Harry plopped into a challenge and let the task do all the work for him.'

'Who's plan?' Harry asked, now both confused and concerned.

'Theodore,' Remus said calmly, 'can you and Tracey go get some ice cream for yourselves next door, this is for Harry's ears only.'

Reluctantly the two got up, leaving just Harry and his guardians. Once the table was to themselves, Sirius spoke in a hashed voice.

'We don't think it s a coincidence that the same time a deatheater is at Hogwarts that you are entered against your will into a very deadly competition.'

'I bet anything that is the reason Dumbledore hired Moody this year, to scare Karkaroff from doing anything,' said Remus, twisting his moustache.

'Yes, Karkaroff might be a traitorous coward, but he is powerful, and unlike some he was defiantly not under the Imperious Curse when he committed his crimes.'

'Okay,' said Harry slowly. 'So...are you saying Karkaroff put my name in the goblet? Because if he did, he’s a really good actor. He seemed furious about it. He wanted to stop me from competing.'

'We know he’s a good actor,' said Sirius, 'because he convinced the Ministry of Magic to set him free, didn’t he? Now, I’ve been keeping an eye on the Daily Prophet, Harry—'

'—you and the rest of the wizarding world,' said Harry bitterly.

'—What Sirius is trying to say is if you take the time to separate the facts from the embellishments in the Prophet's from early September it is clear that Moody was attacked the night before he started at Hogwarts.'

Sirius continued where Remus left off, 'It is true they are often false alarms, but I don't think that was the case this time, I think someone tried to stop him from getting to Hogwarts. I think someone knew their job would be a lot more difficult with him around. And no one’s going to look into it too closely; Mad-Eye’s heard intruders a bit too often. But that doesn’t mean he can’t still spot the real thing. Moody was the best Auror the Ministry ever had. Well, besides you, love,' Sirius said to Remus.

'So...what are you two saying?' said Harry slowly. 'Karkaroff’s trying to kill me? Why—why would he risk his freedom?'

Sirius looked to Remus and the two seemed to come to a non-verbal agreement. Sirius spoke slowly and quietly.

‘We’ve been hearing some very strange things. The Death Eaters seem to be a bit more active than usual lately. They showed themselves at the Quidditch World Cup, didn’t they? Someone set off the Dark Mark...and then—did you hear about that Ministry of Magic witch who’s gone missing?’

‘Bertha Jorkins?’ said Harry thinking back to August. ‘They still haven’t found her? Who is she exactly?’

‘She bounced between a few positions in the ministry, but she’s been with the Department of Magical Games and Sports for a little while now. What is important to note is that she disappeared in Albania, and that’s where Albus Dumbledore says is Voldemort’s most recent known location.’

Remus spoke next, ‘Because of her position she would likely have known the most information about the Triwizard Tournament other than Lubo or Crouch.’

‘Yeah,’ said Harry slowly, trying to process this information, ‘but it can’t be very likely she’d have walked straight into Voldemort, is it?’

‘Me, James, and Sirius knew her from back at hogwarts Harry, she was three years ahead of us. She was far from the brightest candle on the chandelier. I think her running into him would be an accident, but then she’d be very easy to lure away and extract information from.’

‘So...so Voldemort could have found out about the tournament?’ said Harry. ‘Is that what you mean? You think Karkaroff might be here on his orders?’

‘We don’t know,’ said Sirius slowly, ‘there aren’t enough facts for a clear conclusion, but all that is happening is most definitely not a coincidence.’

‘As you said Harry Karkaroff views his freedom as very important,’ said Remus, ‘so I think the only reason he would be following his orders again would be if he thinks Voldemort is strong enough to start rising in power again.’

‘But whoever put your name in that goblet, Karkaroff or someone else, they did it for a reason, and we can’t help thinking the tournament would be a very good way to attack you and make it look like an accident.’

‘Looks like a really good plan from where I’m standing,’ said Harry grinning bleakly. ‘They’ll just have to stand back and let the challenge finish me off.’

'Right—the task,' said Remus. 'Of course the best strategy is to be prepared, but at this point it is unlikely you'll be able to master any new spell in time, so don't. Instead put your focus on perfecting useful spells you already know. Being able to cast the spell you need at a moments notice is crucial.'

'And you need to be in the right mental space and be physically prepared,' suggested Sirius. 'So for the next few days try and get some exercise in to heighten your reflexes and get blood flowing to your brain, the night before make sure to get and good night sleep, and the morning of make sure to eat, even if you feel like you can't.'

They continued to give advice for a few more minutes, and by the end Harry did feel slightly more confident than when he right entered the pub. The two men than got up and discreetly gave Harry a hug.

'We have faith in you Harry,' said Sirius, smiling brightly.

'Last year I was privileged to see you grow into a powerful wizard, you will do just fine.'

'Now,' said Sirius, 'the last important thing you must do is lessen your stress a bit, so I'll go buy a round of butterbeer's and Remus will go find your friends. Enjoy your afternoon Harry.'

And they did what he said, and soon Theodore was sitting next to Harry with Tracey sitting across, each with a hot butterbeer in their hands. They joked around and just enjoyed themselves. While Harry drank his butterbeer, he looked around at the people in the pub. All of them looked cheerful and relaxed. Ernie Macmillan and Hannah Abbot were swapping Chocolate Frog cards at a nearby table; both of them sporting Support Diggory, the True Champion! ribbons on their cloaks. Right over by the door he saw Cho and a large group of her Ravenclaw friends. She wasn’t wearing a Cedric ribbon though...This cheered up Harry a little more...

What wouldn’t he have given to be one of these people, being so care free, with nothing to worry about but homework? He imagined how it would have felt to be here if his name hadn’t come out of the Goblet of Fire. He wouldn’t be wearing the Invisibility Cloak, for one thing. Allison would be sitting with him. The four of them would probably be happily imagining what deadly dangerous task the school champions would be facing on Thursday. He’d have been really looking forward to it, watching them do whatever it is...cheering on Cedric with everyone else, safe in a seat at the back of the stands...

He wondered how the other champions were feeling. Every time he had seen Cedric lately, he had been surrounded by admirers and looking nervous but excited. Harry glimpsed Fleur Delacour from time to time in the corridors; she looked exactly as she always did, haughty and unruffled. And Krum just sat in the library, poring over books.

Harry thought of his family, and the tight, tense knot in his chest seemed to ease slightly. He couldn’t have done this without his parents advice and Theodore and Canini’s support.

‘Oh, Hagrid’s over there!’ said Tracey.

The back of Hagrid’s enormous shaggy head—he had mercifully abandoned his bunches—emerged over the crowd. Harry wondered why he hadn’t spotted him at once, as Hagrid was so large, but standing up carefully, he saw that Hagrid had been leaning low, talking to Professor Moody. Hagrid had his usual enormous tankard in front of him, but Moody was drinking from his hip flask. Madam Rosmerta, the pretty landlady, didn’t seem to think much of this; she was looking askance at Moody as she collected glasses from tables around them. Perhaps she thought it was an insult to her mulled mead, but Harry knew better. Moody had told them all during their last Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson that he preferred to prepare his own food and drink at all times, as it was so easy for Dark wizards to poison an unattended cup.

As Harry watched, he saw Hagrid and Moody get up to leave. He waved, then remembered that Hagrid couldn’t see him. Moody, however, paused, his magical eye on the corner where Harry was standing. He tapped Hagrid in the small of the back (being unable to reach his shoulder), muttered something to him, and then the pair of them made their way back across the pub toward Harry, Theodore, and Tracey’s table.

‘All right, Tracey?’ said Hagrid loudly.

‘Hello Hagrid, I’m good,’ said Tracey, smiling back.

Moody limped around the table and bent down; Harry thought

he was looking out the window, until he muttered, ‘Nice cloak, Potter.’

Harry stared at him in amazement. The large chunk missing from Moody’s nose was particularly obvious at a few inches’ distance. Moody grinned.

‘Can your eye—I mean, can you—?’

‘Yeah, it can see through Invisibility Cloaks,’ Moody said quietly. ‘And it’s come in useful at times, I can tell you.’

Hagrid was beaming down at Harry too. Harry knew Hagrid couldn’t see him, but Moody had obviously told Hagrid he was there. Hagrid now was pretending to be focusing on Theodore But was actually facing Harry, and said in a whisper so low that only Harry could hear it, ‘Harry, meet me tonight at midnight at me cabin. Wear that cloak.’

Straightening up, Hagrid said loudly, ‘Nice ter see yeh, two,’ winked, and departed. Moody followed him.

'Why does Hagrid want me to meet him at midnight?” Harry said, very surprised.

'Don't know,' said Theodore curiously. 'Its likely important if he is asking to see you late after hours.'

It was true that going down to Hagrid’s at midnight would mean risking getting detention, but since he just wanted Harry it would be easy to hide under the invisibility cloak. At half past eleven that evening, Harry, who had pretended to go up to bed early, pulled the Invisibility Cloak back over himself and crept back downstairs through the common room. Quite a few people were still in there, mostly older students including Lucian Bole, Adrian Pucey, and Peregrine Derrick. Harry crept past them to the enchanted wall and waited for a minute or so, keeping an eye on his watch. Then when he was sure no one was watching he slipped through and set off across the castle.

The grounds were very dark. Harry walked down the lawn toward the lights shining in Hagrid’s cabin. The inside of the enormous Beauxbatons carriage was also lit up; Harry could hear Madame Maxime talking inside it as he knocked on Hagrid’s front door.

'You there, Harry?' Hagrid whispered, opening the door and looking around.

'Yeah,' said Harry, slipping inside the cabin and pulling the cloak down off his head. 'What’s up?'

'Got summat ter show yeh,' said Hagrid.

There was an air of enormous excitement about Hagrid. He was wearing a flower that resembled an oversized artichoke in his buttonhole. It looked as though he had abandoned the use of axle grease, but he had certainly attempted to comb his hair—Harry could see the comb’s broken teeth tangled in it.

'What’re you showing me?' Harry said warily, wondering if the skrewts had laid eggs, or Hagrid had managed to buy another giant three-headed dog off a stranger in a pub.

'Come with me, keep quiet, an’ keep yerself covered with that cloak,' said Hagrid. 'We won’ take Fang, he won’ like it...'

'Hagrid, I mean no offence, but almost everytime I have entered the forrest I almost didn't come out. This isn't another crazy adventure, right?'

But Hagrid wasn’t listening; he was opening the cabin door and striding off into the night. Harry hurried to follow and found, to his great surprise, that Hagrid was leading him to the Beauxbatons carriage.

'Hagrid, what—?'

'Shhh!' said Hagrid, and he knocked three times on the door bearing the crossed golden wands.

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

'Ah, ’Agrid...it is time?'

'Bong-sewer,' said Hagrid, beaming at her, and holding out a hand to help her down the golden steps.

Madame Maxime closed the door behind her, Hagrid offered her his arm, and they set off around the edge of the paddock containing Madame Maxime’s giant winged horses, with Harry, totally bewildered, running to keep up with them. Had Hagrid wanted to show him Madame Maxime? He could see her any old time he wanted...she wasn’t exactly hard to miss...

But it seemed that Madame Maxime was in for the same treat as Harry, because after a while she said playfully, 'Wair is it you are taking me, ’Agrid?'

'Yeh’ll enjoy this,' said Hagrid gruffly, 'worth seein’, trust me. On’y—don’ go tellin’ anyone I showed yeh, right? Yeh’re not s’posed ter know.'

'Of course not,' said Madame Maxime, fluttering her long black eyelashes.

And still they walked, Harry getting more and more irritated as he jogged along in their wake, getting quite cold in the late November night. Hagrid had some harebrained scheme in hand, which might end up being nothing. If they didn’t get there soon, he was going to turn around, go straight back to the castle, and leave Hagrid to enjoy his moonlit stroll with Madame Maxime...

But then—when they had walked so far around the perimeter of the forest that the castle and the lake were out of sight—Harry heard something. Men were shouting up ahead...then came a deafening, earsplitting roar...

Hagrid led Madame Maxime around a clump of trees and came to a halt. Harry hurried up alongside them—for a split second, he thought he was seeing bonfires, and men darting around them—and then his mouth fell open.

Dragons.

Four fully grown, enormous, vicious-looking dragons were rearing onto their hind legs inside an enclosure fenced with thick planks of wood, roaring and snorting—torrents of fire were shooting into the dark sky from their open, fanged mouths, fifty feet above the ground on their outstretched necks. There was a silvery-blue one with long, pointed horns, snapping and snarling at the wizards on the ground; a smooth-scaled green one, which was writhing and stamping with all its might; a red one with an odd fringe of fine gold spikes around its face, which was shooting mushroom-shaped fire clouds into the air; and a gigantic black one, more lizard-like than the others, which was nearest to them.

At least thirty wizards, seven or eight to each dragon, were attempting to control them, pulling on the chains connected to heavy leather straps around their necks and legs. Mesmerized, Harry looked up, high above him, and saw the eyes of the black dragon, with vertical pupils like a cat’s, bulging with either fear or rage, he couldn’t tell which...It was making a horrible noise, a yowling, screeching scream...

'Keep back there, Hagrid!' yelled a wizard near the fence with a familiar voice, straining on the chain he was holding. 'They can shoot fire at a range of twenty feet, you know! I’ve seen this Horntail do forty!'

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

'It’s no good!' yelled another wizard. 'Stunning Spells, on the count of three!'

Harry saw each of the dragon keepers pull out his wand.

'Stupefy!' they shouted in unison, and the Stunning Spells shot into the darkness like fiery rockets, bursting in showers of stars on the dragons’ scaly hides—Harry watched the dragon nearest to them teeter dangerously on its back legs; its jaws stretched wide in a silent howl; its nostrils were suddenly devoid of flame, though still smoking—then, very slowly, it fell. Several tons of sinewy, scaly-black dragon hit the ground with a thud that Harry could have sworn made the trees behind him quake.

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

'Wan’ a closer look?' Hagrid asked Madame Maxime excitedly. The pair of them moved right up to the fence, and Harry followed. The wizard who had warned Hagrid not to come any closer turned, and Harry realized who it was: Charlie Weasley.

'All right, Hagrid?' he panted, coming over to talk. 'They should be okay now—we put them out with a Sleeping Draft on the way here, thought it might be better for them to wake up in the dark and the quiet—but, like you saw, they weren’t happy, not happy at all—'

'What breeds you got here, Charlie?' said Hagrid, gazing at the closest dragon, the black one, with something close to reverence. Its eyes were still just open. Harry could see a strip of gleaming yellow beneath its wrinkled black eyelid.

'This is a Hungarian Horntail,' said Charlie. 'There’s a Common Welsh Green over there, the smaller one—a Swedish Short-Snout, that blue-gray—and a Chinese Fireball, that’s the red.'

Charlie looked around; Madame Maxime was strolling away around the edge of the enclosure, gazing at the stunned dragons.

'I didn’t know you were bringing her, Hagrid,' Charlie said, frowning. 'The champions aren’t supposed to know what’s coming—she’s bound to tell her student, isn’t she?'

'Jus’ thought she’d like ter see ’em,' shrugged Hagrid, still gazing, enraptured, at the dragons.

'Really romantic date, Hagrid,' said Charlie, shaking his head.

'Four...' said Hagrid, 'so it’s one fer each o’ the champions, is it? What’ve they gotta do—fight ’em?'

'Just get past them, I think,' said Charlie. 'We’ll be on hand if it gets nasty, Extinguishing Spells at the ready. They wanted nesting mothers, I don’t know why...but I tell you this, I don’t envy the one who gets the Horntail. Vicious thing. Its back end’s as dangerous as its front, look.'

Charlie pointed toward the Horntail’s tail, and Harry saw long, bronze-colored spikes protruding along it every few inches. Five of Charlie’s fellow keepers staggered up to the Horntail at that moment, carrying a clutch of huge granite-gray eggs between them in a blanket. They placed them carefully at the Horntail’s side. Hagrid let out a moan of longing.

'I’ve got them counted, Hagrid,' said Charlie sternly. Then he said, 'How’s Harry?'

'Fine,' said Hagrid. He was still gazing at the eggs.

'Just hope he’s still fine after he’s faced this lot,' said Charlie grimly, looking out over the dragons’ enclosure. 'I didn’t dare tell Mum what he’s got to do for the first task; she’s already having kittens about him...' Charlie imitated his mother’s anxious voice. '‘How could they let him enter that tournament, he’s much too young! I thought they were all safe, I thought there was going to be an age limit!' She was in floods after that Daily Prophet article about him. ‘He still cries about his parents! Oh bless him, I never knew!’'

Harry had had enough. Trusting to the fact that Hagrid wouldn’t miss him, with the attractions of four dragons and Madame Maxime to occupy him, he turned silently and began to walk away, back to the castle.

He didn’t know whether he was glad he’d seen what was coming or not. Perhaps this way was better. The first shock was over now. Maybe if he’d seen the dragons for the first time on Thursday, he would have passed out cold in front of the whole school...but maybe he would anyway...He was going to be armed with his wand—which, just now, felt like nothing more than a narrow strip of wood—against a fifty-foot-high, scaly, spike-ridden, fire- breathing dragon. And he had to get past it. With everyone watching. How?

Harry sped up, after finally feeling calm again at noon, he now had more anxiety than the entire last three weeks combined. He desperately was hoping Terence and Tracey were still in the common room somehow, but at this point he’d settle for just Theodore, he couldn’t remember, ever, needing to talk to someone more than he did right now—when, without warning, he ran into something very solid.

Harry fell backward, his glasses askew, clutching the cloak around him. A voice nearby said, ‘Ouch! Кто там?’

Harry hastily checked that the cloak was covering him and lay very still, staring up at the dark outline of the wizard he had hit. He recognized the goatee...it was Karkaroff.

‘Who’s there?’ said Karkaroff in english, very suspiciously, looking around in the darkness. Harry remained still and silent. After a minute or so, Karkaroff seemed to decide that he had hit some sort of animal; he was looking around at waist height, as though expecting to see a dog. Then he crept back under the cover of the trees and started to edge forward toward the place where the dragons were.

Very slowly and very carefully, Harry got to his feet and set off again as fast as he could without making too much noise, hurrying through the darkness back toward Hogwarts.

He had no doubt whatsoever what Karkaroff was up to. He had sneaked off his ship to try and find out what the first task was going to be. He might even have spotted Hagrid and Madame Maxime heading off around the forest together—they were hardly difficult to spot at a distance...and now all Karkaroff had to do was follow the sound of voices, and he, like Madame Maxime, would know what was in store for the champions.

By the looks of it, the only champion who would be facing the unknown on Thursday was Cedric.

Harry reached the castle, slipped in through the front doors, and began to descend the stone stairs; he was very out of breath, but he didn’t dare slow down...He needed to tell someone what he had seen.

‘Salem!’ he gasped at the solid stone wall, making it intangible.

The common room appeared to be deserted, the fire was just some embers and not a sound could be heard. Harry pulled off the Invisibility Cloak and crossed the room engulfed in semidarkness to reach the stairs only to stop in his tracks at the sound of someone clearing their throat.

Who had decided to go for a stroll at half past twelve in the morning? It was Allison. Dressed in blood red pajamas, Allison had been sitting in one of the stone chairs that had its back turned to the common room entrance but was in perfect view of the boy’s stair case.

‘Out for a night stroll, Potter?’ she said, one eyebrow raised.

‘What’s that got to do with you?’ Harry snarled. ‘What are you doing down here at this time of night?’

‘Well I was in the Three Broomsticks earlier, overheard Hagrid talking about dragons, didn’t piece it together until Tracey seemed reluctant to go to sleep. You were out doing mischief again, weren’t you?’

‘It’s none of your business, you haven’t cared about me or what I do for weeks, why start now?’

She looked slightly hurt by this, but quickly regained her composure. ‘I do care-I care if you’re going to be losing our house more points. The last time you snuck out to look at dragons with Hagrid we lost one hundred points.’

‘Yeah, well if that’s all you care about you’ll be happy to know not a soul saw me. Can I go now?’

‘Sure, why not, have to get your beauty sleep so you look great on the Prophet’s front cover again, you traitorous brat!’

Harry knew she didn’t mean any harm, and that deep down she did worry about him getting in trouble or hurt, but he didn’t care—at this moment he hated everything about Allison, right down to the several black cat hairs on her pyjamas.

‘You know what, Allison, when I’m being mauled to death on Thursday I hope you have a great seat to watch, maybe then you’ll finally be happy.’

And with that he turned his back on her and started to climb the stairs to his dormitory; he half expected Allison to stop him, he would even have liked her to throw a punch at him, but behind Harry there was just silence. Harry, having stormed upstairs, lay awake in bed fuming for a long time afterward but soon his fury turned to sadness as he thought about what he had just said to one of his oldest friends.

Previous Chapters:

Chapter 1: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003585181

Chapter 2: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003585386

Chapter 3: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003589099

Chapter 4: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003589999

Chapter 5: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003590737

Chapter 6: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003592048

Chapter 7: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003593450

Chapter 8: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003594715

Chapter 9: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003595876

Chapter 10: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003596713

Chapter 11: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003597502

Chapter 12: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003598647

Chapter 13: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003600597

Chapter 14: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003602821

Tags: @MeowTasticCat @Bellatrisblack @Diantha Angelina Black @CatsAndRoblox @Kakaonut

(The first half is pretty similar to canon as what happens has nothing to do with Harry being in Slytherin, but just know the second half is very different.)

Chapter Fifteen: The Four Champions

Harry sat there, aware that every head in the Great Hall had turned to look at him. He was stunned. He felt numb. He was surely dreaming. He had not heard correctly.

There was no applause. A buzzing, as though of angry bees, was starting to fill the Hall; some students were standing up to get a better look at Harry as he sat, frozen, in his seat.

Up at the top table, Professor McGonagall had got to her feet and swept past Ludo Bagman and Professor Karkaroff to whisper urgently to Professor Dumbledore, who bent his ear toward her, frowning slightly. Professor Snape had also risen, his face was originally of shock, but quickly changed to fury.

Harry turned to look at his friends; beyond them, he saw the long Slytherin table all watching him, openmouthed.

‘I didn’t put my name in,’ Harry said blankly. ‘You know I didn’t.’

But all four of them just stared as blankly back.

At the top table, Professor Dumbledore had straightened up, nodding to Professor McGonagall.

‘Harry Potter!’ he called again. ‘Harry! Up here, if you please!’

‘You have to go, go now,’ Tracey whispered, giving Harry a slight push. Harry got to his feet, trod on the hem of his robes, and stumbled slightly. He set off up the gap between the Slytherin and Ravenclaw tables. It felt like an immensely long walk; the top table didn’t seem to be getting any nearer at all, and he could feel over three hundred eyes upon him, as though each were a searchlight. The buzzing grew louder and louder. After what seemed like an hour, he was right in front of Dumbledore, feeling the stares of all the teachers upon him.

‘Well...through the door, Harry,’ said Dumbledore. He wasn’t smiling.

Harry moved off along the teachers’ table. Hagrid was seated right at the end. He did not wink at Harry, or wave, or give any of his usual signs of greeting. He looked completely astonished and stared at Harry as he passed, seemingly contemplating something. Harry went through the door out of the Great Hall and found himself in a smaller room, lined with paintings of witches and wizards. A handsome fire was roaring in the fireplace opposite him.

The faces in the portraits turned to look at him as he entered. He saw a wizened witch flit out of the frame of her picture and into the one next to it, which contained a wizard with a walrus moustache. The wizened witch started whispering in his ear.

Viktor Krum, Cedric Diggory, and Fleur Delacour were grouped around the fire. They looked strangely impressive, silhouetted against the flames. Krum, hunched-up and brooding, was leaning against the mantelpiece, slightly apart from the other two. Cedric was standing with his hands behind his back, staring into the fire. Fleur Delacour looked around when Harry walked in and threw back her sheet of long, silvery hair.

‘What is it?’ she said. ‘Do zey want us back in ze Hall?’

She thought he had come to deliver a message. Harry didn’t know how to explain what had just happened. He just stood there, looking at the three champions. It struck him how very tall all of them were.

There was a sound of scurrying feet behind him, and Ludo Bagman entered the room. He took Harry by the arm and led him forward.

‘Extraordinary!’ he muttered, squeezing Harry’s arm. ‘Absolutely extraordinary! Gentlemen...lady,’ he added, approaching the fire-side and addressing the other three. ‘May I introduce—incredible though it may seem—the fourth Triwizard champion?’

Viktor Krum straightened up. His surly face darkened as he surveyed Harry. Cedric looked nonplussed. He looked from Bagman to Harry and back again as though sure he must have misheard what Bagman had said. Fleur Delacour, however, tossed her hair, smiling, and said, ‘Oh, vairy funny joke, Meester Bagman.’

‘Joke?’ Bagman repeated, bewildered. ‘No, no, not at all! Harry’s name just came out of the Goblet of Fire!’

Krum’s thick eyebrows contracted slightly. Cedric was still looking politely bewildered. Fleur frowned.

‘But evidently zair ’as been a mistake,’ she said contemptuously to Bagman. ‘’E cannot compete. ’E is too young.’

‘Well...it is amazing,’ said Bagman, rubbing his smooth chin and smiling down at Harry. ‘But, as you know, the age restriction was only imposed this year as an extra safety measure. And as his name’s come out of the goblet...I mean, I don’t think there can be any ducking out at this stage...It’s down in the rules, you’re obliged...Harry will just have to do the best he—‘

The door behind them opened again, and a large group of people came in: Professor Dumbledore, followed closely by Mr Crouch, Professor Karkaroff, Madame Maxime, Professor McGonagall, and Professor Snape. Harry heard the buzzing of the hundreds of students on the other side of the wall, before Professor McGonagall closed the door.

‘Madame Maxime!’ said Fleur at once, striding over to her headmistress. ‘Zey are saying zat zis little boy is to compete also!’

Somewhere under Harry’s numb disbelief he felt a ripple of anger. Little boy?

Madame Maxime had drawn herself up to her full, and considerable, height. The top of her handsome head brushed the candle-filled chandelier, and her gigantic black-satin bosom swelled.

‘What is ze meaning of zis, Dumbly-dorr?’ she said imperiously.

‘I’d rather like to know that myself, Dumbledore,’ said Professor Karkaroff. He was wearing a steely smile, and his blue eyes were like chips of ice. ‘Two Hogwarts champions? I don’t remember anyone telling me the host school is allowed two champions—or have I not read the rules carefully enough?’ He gave a short and nasty laugh.

‘C’est impossible,’ said Madame Maxime, whose enormous hand with its many superb opals was resting upon Fleur’s shoulder. ‘’Ogwarts cannot ’ave two champions. It is most injust.’

‘We were under the impression that your Age Line would keep out younger contestants, Dumbledore,’ said Karkaroff, his steely smile still in place, though his eyes were colder than ever. ‘Otherwise, we would, of course, have brought along a wider selection of candidates from our own schools.’

‘It’s no one’s fault but Potter’s, Karkaroff,’ said Snape softly. His black eyes were alight with malice. ‘Don’t go blaming Dumbledore for Potter’s determination to break rules and cause unbelievable amounts of chaos. He has been crossing lines ever since he was sorted into my proud—‘

‘Thank you, Severus,’ said Dumbledore firmly, and Snape went quiet, though his eyes still glinted malevolently through his curtain of greasy black hair.

Professor Dumbledore was now looking down at Harry, who looked right back at him, trying to discern the expression of the eyes behind the half-moon spectacles.

‘Did you put your name into the Goblet of Fire, Harry?’ he asked calmly.

‘No,’ said Harry. He was very aware of everybody watching him closely. Snape made a soft noise of impatient disbelief in the shadows.

‘Did you ask an older student to put it into the Goblet of Fire for you?’ said Professor Dumbledore, ignoring Snape.

‘No,’ said Harry vehemently.

‘Ah, but of course ’e is lying!’ cried Madame Maxime. Snape was now shaking his head, his lip curling.

‘He could not have crossed the Age Line,’ said Professor McGonagall sharply. ‘I am sure we are all agreed on that—‘

‘Dumbly-dorr must ’ave made a mistake wiz ze line,’ said Madame Maxime, shrugging.

‘It is possible, of course,’ said Dumbledore politely.

‘Dumbledore, you know perfectly well you did not make a mistake!’ said Professor McGonagall angrily. ‘Really, what nonsense! Harry could not have crossed the line himself, and even if he had managed to convince an older student to put his name in for him that doesn’t explain what has happened, Potter or not a fourth champion has been chosen. No fourth year could pull that off. Dumbledore is not to blame.’

She shot a very angry look at Professor Snape.

‘Mr Crouch...Mr Bagman,’ said Karkaroff, his voice unctuous once more, ‘you are our—er—objective judges. Surely you will agree that this is most irregular?’

Bagman wiped his round, boyish face with his handkerchief and looked at Mr Crouch, who was standing outside the circle of the firelight, his face half hidden in shadow. He looked slightly eerie, the half darkness making him look much older, giving him an almost skull-like appearance. When he spoke, however, it was in his usual curt voice.

‘We must follow the rules, and the rules state clearly that those people whose names come out of the Goblet of Fire are bound to compete in the tournament.’

‘Well, Barty knows the rule book back to front,’ said Bagman, beaming and turning back to Karkaroff and Madame Maxime, as though the matter was now closed.

‘I insist upon resubmitting the names of the rest of my students,’ said Karkaroff. He had dropped his unctuous tone and his smile now. His face wore a very ugly look indeed. ‘You will set up the Goblet of Fire once more, and we will continue adding names until each school has two champions. It’s only fair, Dumbledore.’

‘But Karkaroff, it doesn’t work like that,’ said Bagman. ‘The Goblet of Fire’s just gone out—it won’t reignite until the start of the next tournament—‘

‘—in which Durmstrang will most certainly not be competing!’ exploded Karkaroff. ‘After all our meetings and negotiations and compromises, I little expected something of this nature to occur! I have half a mind to leave now!’

‘Empty threat, Karkaroff,’ growled a voice from near the door. ‘You can’t leave your champion now. He’s got to compete. They’ve all got to compete. Binding magical contract, like Dumbledore said. Convenient, eh?’

Moody had just entered the room. He limped toward the fire, and with every right step he took, there was a loud clunk.

‘Convenient?’ said Karkaroff. ‘I’m afraid I don’t understand you, Moody.’

Harry could tell he was trying to sound disdainful, as though what Moody was saying was barely worth his notice, but his hands gave him away; they had balled themselves into fists.

‘Don’t you?’ said Moody quietly. ‘It’s very simple, Karkaroff. Someone put Potter’s name in that goblet knowing he’d have to compete if it came out.’

‘Evidently, someone ’oo wished to give ’Ogwarts two bites at ze apple!’ said Madame Maxime.

‘I quite agree, Madame Maxime,’ said Karkaroff, bowing to her. ‘I shall be lodging complaints with the Ministry of Magic and the International Confederation of Wizards—‘

‘If anyone’s got reason to complain, it’s Potter,’ growled Moody, ‘but...funny thing...I don’t hear him saying a word...’

‘Why should ’e complain?’ burst out Fleur Delacour, stamping her foot. ‘’E ’as ze chance to compete, ’asn’t ’e? We ’ave all been ’oping to be chosen for weeks and weeks! Ze honor for our schools! A thousand Galleons in prize money—zis is a chance many would die for!’

‘Maybe someone’s hoping Potter is going to die for it,’ said Moody, with the merest trace of a growl.

An extremely tense silence followed these words. Ludo Bagman, who was looking very anxious indeed, bounced nervously up and down on his feet and said, ‘Moody, old man...what a thing to say!’

‘We all know Professor Moody considers the morning wasted if he hasn’t discovered six plots to murder him before lunchtime,’ said Karkaroff loudly. ‘Apparently he is now teaching his students to fear assassination too. An odd quality in a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Dumbledore, but no doubt you had your reasons.’

‘Imagining things, am I?’ growled Moody. ‘Seeing things, eh? It was a skilled witch or wizard who put the boy’s name in that goblet...’

‘As I suspected,’ said McGonagall.

‘Ah, what evidence is zere of zat?’ said Madame Maxime, throwing up her huge hands.

‘Because they hoodwinked a very powerful magical object!’ said Moody. ‘It would have needed an exceptionally strong Confundus Charm to bamboozle that goblet into forgetting that only three schools compete in the tournament...I’m guessing they submitted Potter’s name under a fourth school, to make sure he was the only one in his category...’

‘You seem to have given this a great deal of thought, Moody,’ said Karkaroff coldly, ‘and a very ingenious theory it is—though of course, I heard you recently got it into your head that one of your birthday presents contained a cunningly disguised basilisk egg, and smashed it to pieces before realizing it was a carriage clock. So you’ll understand if we don’t take you entirely seriously...’

‘There are those who’ll turn innocent occasions to their advantage,’ Moody retorted in a menacing voice. ‘It’s my job to think the way Dark wizards do, Karkaroff—as you ought to remember...’

‘Alastor!’ said Dumbledore warningly. Harry hardly ever heard Dumbledore raise his voice except when giving a speech. Harry knew Karkaroff was once a deatheater, likely caught by Moody’s hands, but Harry was now guessing that wasn’t common knowledge and that Dumbledore didn’t want the whole room knowing for some reason. Moody fell silent, though still surveying Karkaroff with satisfaction—Karkaroff’s face was burning.

‘How this situation arose, we do not know,’ said Dumbledore, speaking to everyone gathered in the room. ‘It seems to me, however, that we have no choice but to accept it. Both Cedric and Harry have been chosen to compete in the Tournament. This, therefore, they will do...’

‘Ah, but Dumbly-dorr—‘

‘My dear Madame Maxime, if you have an alternative, I would be delighted to hear it.’

Dumbledore waited, but Madame Maxime did not speak, she merely glared. She wasn’t the only one either. Snape looked furious; Karkaroff livid; Bagman, however, looked rather excited.

‘Well, shall we crack on, then?’ he said, rubbing his hands together and smiling around the room. ‘Got to give our champions their instructions, haven’t we? Barty, want to do the honors?’

Mr Crouch seemed to come out of a deep reverie.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘instructions. Yes...the first task...’

He moved forward into the firelight. Close up, Harry thought he looked ill. There were dark shadows beneath his eyes and a thin, papery look about his wrinkled skin that had not been there at the Quidditch World Cup.

‘The first task is designed to test your daring,’ he told Harry, Cedric, Fleur, and Viktor, ‘so we are not going to be telling you what it is. Courage in the face of the unknown is an important quality in a wizard...very important...

‘The first task will take place on November the twenty-fourth, in front of the other students and the panel of judges. The champions are not permitted to ask for or accept help of any kind from their teachers to complete the tasks in the tournament. The champions will face the first challenge armed only with their wands. They will receive information about the second task when the first is over. Owing to the demanding and time-consuming nature of the tournament, the champions are exempted from end-of-year tests.’

Mr Crouch turned to look at Dumbledore. ‘I think that’s all, is it, Albus?’

‘I think so,’ said Dumbledore, who was looking at Mr Crouch with mild concern. ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t like to stay at Hogwarts tonight, Barty?’

‘No, Dumbledore, I must get back to the Ministry,’ said Mr. Crouch. ‘It is a very busy, very difficult time at the moment...I’ve left young Weatherby in charge...Very enthusiastic...a little overenthusiastic, if truth be told...’

‘You’ll come and have a drink before you go, at least?’ said Dumbledore.

‘Come on, Barty, I’m staying!’ said Bagman brightly. ‘It’s all happening at Hogwarts now, you know, much more exciting here than at the office!’

‘I think not, Ludo,’ said Crouch with a touch of his old impatience.

‘Professor Karkaroff—Madame Maxime—a nightcap?’ said Dumbledore.

But Madame Maxime had already put her arm around Fleur’s shoulders and was leading her swiftly out of the room. Harry could hear them both talking very fast in French as they went off into the Great Hall. Karkaroff beckoned to Krum, and they, too, exited, though in silence.

‘Harry, Cedric, I suggest you go off to bed,’ said Dumbledore, smiling at both of them. ‘I am sure Slytherin and Hufflepuff are waiting to celebrate with you, and it would be a shame to deprive them of this excellent excuse to make a great deal of mess and noise.’

Harry glanced at Cedric, who nodded, and they left together. The Great Hall was deserted now; the candles had burned low, giving the jagged smiles of the pumpkins an eerie, flickering quality.

‘So,’ said Cedric, with a slight smile. ‘We’re playing against each other again!’

‘I s’pose,’ said Harry. He really couldn’t think of anything to say. The inside of his head seemed to be in complete disarray, as though his brain had been ransacked.

‘So...tell me...’ said Cedric as they reached the entrance hall, which was now lit only by torches in the absence of the Goblet of Fire. ‘How did you get your name in?’

‘I didn’t,’ said Harry, staring up at him. ‘I didn’t put it in. I was telling the truth.’

‘Ah...okay,’ said Cedric. Harry could tell Cedric didn’t believe him, Harry had seen that face many times before when a Slytherin tells the truth and no one believes them. ‘Well...see you, then.’

Harry had always assumed the Hufflepuff common room was upstairs, but instead of going up the marble staircase, Cedric headed for a door to his right. Harry stood listening to him going down the stone steps beyond it, he was about to head for his own downward steps when someone grabbed the collar of his neck.

‘Not so fast, Potter!’ said Snape’s snarling voice. His cold fury was unlike anything Harry had seen before. ‘You might have fooled Dumbledore but you haven’t fooled me. If you put a single toe out of line I’ll personally make sure that expulsion will be the least of your worries. I will be watching you carefully.’

He released Harry, shaken up all he could manage in response was a nod. Harry then half-ran towards the Dungeon staircase, then slowly he started to descend down the dark stone steps.

Was anyone except Tracey, Allison, Theodore, and Terence going to believe him, or would they all think he’d put himself in for the tournament? He knew his house would probably think he pulled off the greatest trick in Slytherin history. Yet how could anyone think that, when he was facing competitors who’d had three years’ more magical education than he had—when he was now facing tasks that not only sounded very dangerous, but which were to be performed in front of hundreds of people? Yes, he’d thought about it a couple times...he’d fantasized about it...but it had been a joke, really, an idle sort of dream...he’d never really, seriously considered entering...

But someone else had considered it...someone else had wanted him in the tournament, and had made sure he was entered. Why? To give him a treat? He didn’t think so, somehow...

To see him make a fool of himself? Well, they were likely to get their wish...

But to get him killed?

Was Moody just being his usual paranoid self? Couldn’t someone have put Harry’s name in the goblet as a trick, a practical joke? Did anyone really want him dead?

Harry was able to answer that at once. Yes, someone wanted him dead, someone had wanted him dead ever since he had been a year old...Lord Voldemort. But how could Voldemort have ensured that Harry’s name got into the Goblet of Fire? Voldemort was supposed to be far away, in some distant country, in hiding, alone...feeble and powerless...

Yet in that dream he had had, just before he had awoken with his scar hurting, Voldemort had not been alone...he had been talking to Wormtail...plotting Harry’s murder...

Harry got a shock to find himself facing the enchanted wall already. He had barely noticed where his feet were carrying him.

'Fóvos,' with the password spoken the wall ceased to be solid and Harry walked through it similarly to the Hogwarts Express platform.

The blast of noise that met Harry’s ears when he walked through almost knocked him backward. Next thing he knew, he was being wrenched inside the common room by about a dozen pairs of hands, and was facing the entirety of the Slytherin House, all of whom were screaming, applauding, and whistling.

'How did you manage to trick the Goblet?' yelled Cassius Warrington.

'I had no idea you were so duplicitous,' said Mafalda Prewett.

'This is probably the greatest act of cunning performed in our house since Salazar himself walked the halls,' Draco said smugly.

I didn’t enter,' Harry said. “I don’t know how—'

But Lucian had now swooped down upon him; 'I wish it were me, but I'm glad another fellow teammate is competing—'

'Yes, Slytherin is going to make history this year!' shouted Daphne.

Harry, if you are hungry we have some food—' offered Ella Wilkins.

'I’m not hungry, I had enough at the feast—'

But nobody wanted to hear that he wasn’t hungry; nobody wanted to hear that he hadn’t put his name in the goblet; not one single person seemed to have noticed that he wasn’t at all in the mood to celebrate...Niall Urquhart had unearthed a Slytherin banner from somewhere, and he was waving it all around the room chanting Harry's name. Harry couldn’t get away; whenever he tried to sidle over to the staircase up to the dormitories, the crowd around him closed ranks, forcing another butterbeer on him, stuffing crisps and peanuts into his hands...Everyone wanted to know how he had done it, how he had tricked Dumbledore’s Age Line and managed to get his name into the goblet...

'I didn’t,' he said, over and over again, 'I don’t know how it happened.'

But for all the notice anyone took, he might just as well not have answered at all.

'I’m tired!' he bellowed finally, after nearly half an hour. 'We have classes tomorrow—I’m going to bed—'

He wanted more than anything to find his friends, to find a bit of sanity, but none of them seemed to be in the common room, meaning he would likely not see the girls until morning. Insisting that he needed to sleep, and almost flattening the little Carrow twins as they attempted to waylay him at the foot of the stairs, Harry managed to shake everyone off and climb up to the dormitory as fast as he could.

To his great relief, he found Theodore was lying on his bed in the otherwise empty dormitory, waiting for him. He looked up when Harry slammed the door behind him.

'Where’ve you been?' Harry said.

'I couldn't stand the noise, sorry, but its what you deserve for lying.'

'Theo, I need to make myself clear right now, I didn't put my name into the Goblet of Fire. When would I have had the chance, you have been by my side almost every minute of the last few days.'

Theodore seemed to contemplate this for a moment, then took a sigh of relief, 'That is good to here, because I don't think I could share a dorm comprised solely of jerks.'

'Where were the others?' Harry asked.

'Terence is mad at you so he went to cool down, I think he'll come around in a day or two. Tracey went to stop Allison from doing something she'll regret.'

'What's wrong with Allison?'

'She is pissed Harry, she has desperately wanted to be champion for months and then she learns her best friend entered behind her back.'

'But I didn't enter!'

'She doesn't know that, nor do I think she'll believe you when you tell her. She was practically planning your murder when Tracey went after her. Its going to take more than time to calm her down and make her see the truth.'

They sat in silence for a while, Harry wasn't sure how he was going to get out of this situation. Theodore than broke the quiet.

'So, how did your name get put into the Goblet then if it wasn't you?'

'I don't have a bloody clue, Professor Moody thinks someone tricked the Goblet into thinking there are four champions, then put my name in with a false school. As brilliant as he is, I am not sure if he is right.'

After they talked for a little longer Theodore convinced Harry to use the two-way mirror to tell Sirius and Remus what had happened, but it was at that moment that the other boys started entering the dormitory. So instead he got out some paper and a quill and wrote a long letter explaining all tat had happened and asking for advice as he would desperately be needing it. He handed the letter off to Hedwig who left through the owl tunnels. Harry then laid down on his bed, trying to convince himself that everything since supper was just a bad dream, but something deep inside him was telling him that the nightmare had just begun.

Previous Chapters:

Chapter 1: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003585181

Chapter 2: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003585386

Chapter 3: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003589099

Chapter 4: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003589999

Chapter 5: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003590737

Chapter 6: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003592048

Chapter 7: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003593450

Chapter 8: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003594715

Chapter 9: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003595876

Chapter 10: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003596713

Chapter 11: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003597502

Chapter 12: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000003598647

Tags: @MeowTasticCat @Bellatrisblack @Diantha Angelina Black @CatsAndRoblox @Kakaonut

Chapter Thirteen: Beauxbatons and Durmstrang

By breakfast the following morning Harry was still feeling anxious. He really wished that force once he could have a normal school year not filled with dangers around every corner, he could only hope that his worry’s were without cause. Harry was so lost in his own thoughts that he wasn’t quite registering the movements of those around him, not until someone tapped him on his shoulder to get his attention.

‘Wha-? Oh, hey Colin.’

Colin Creevey was standing beside him with a wide smile on his face, looking quite chipper.

‘Morning Harry,’ he said happily. ‘Have you seen Theo today?’

Harry thought for a moment, he was positive Theodore had come down with them, but he had been so lost in thought that he had no idea where he was now. ‘Sorry Colin, not sure where Theodore went off to.’

The chipper smile of the third year diminished somewhat, he then tried to force it back to what it was. ‘Oh...I see.’

‘I’m sure he’ll be around, but you can sit with me if you’d like.’

Colin stayed standing for another moment, looking up and down the long tables, then sat next to Harry and helped himself to some scrambled eggs.

‘So how has your first week back been, Colin?’ Harry asked, grateful to have something take his mind off his worries.

‘It’s been really great. I chose Care of Magical Creatures as an elective, as well as Muggle Studies. I wanted to learn more about how the magical world interprets my parents world. I’ve also been showing Dennis all around.’

‘That is really great, I remember getting to show Canini around last year, it’s fun being the older sibling,’ Harry said while gently elbowing Colin, which got him to chuckle.

‘Yes, it is fun being the oldest. The classes are getting harder though. For Defense class we did some quick review on the creatures we learned about last year and are now going straight into defensive spells, and in Potions there was no review class and we jumped right into learning shrinking potions.’

‘Yeah, Snape really doesn’t believe in easing into the school year.’

‘What about Snape?’

Harry and Collin turned to Theodore approaching.

‘Oh, just that he is a hard-case and a bit unfair. Colin was looking for you.’

Colin smiled, a bit embarrassed, and if Harry wasn’t mistaken he swore Colin’s cheeks were a little pink.

‘Hi Colin, you look happy today. Mind if I sit then?’

‘Course not,’ Colin blurted. The three finished up eating and then headed to their classes.

Over the next couple weeks Harry’s worries subsided, although they never truly went away. He found that without Quidditch he had a lot of extra time on his hands and wasn’t quite sure how to fill it. One of the things he used to fill that time was deal with Canini’s bullies, he implied to them that they might not want to mess with her as Harry was known for making people disappear. The rest of the time though he found himself often quite bored. Just homework to fill the time.

However in class he did not find himself bored, their lessons were becoming more difficult and demanding than ever before, particularly Moody’s Defense Against the Dark Arts. To their surprise, Professor Moody had announced that he would be putting the Imperius Curse on each of them in turn, to demonstrate its power and to see whether they could resist its effects.

‘But—Professor, as you said it is illegal to use these spells on humans,’ said Tracey uncertainly as Moody cleared away the desks with a sweep of his wand, leaving a large clear space in the middle of the room. ‘What if the Ministry finds out, won’t you be in—‘

‘Dumbledore wants you taught what it feels like,’ said Moody, his magical eye swiveling onto Tracey and fixing her with an eerie, unblinking stare. ‘If you’d rather learn the hard way—when someone’s putting it on you so they can control you completely—fine by me. You’re excused. Off you go.’

He pointed one gnarled finger toward the door. Tracey shook her head, and embarrassed, walked back to the group. Tracey meant no offence, she just didn’t like seeing others get hurt.

Moody began to beckon students forward in turn and put the Imperius Curse upon them. Harry watched as, one by one, his classmates did the most extraordinary things under its influence. Dean Thomas hopped three times around the room, singing the national anthem. Millicent did a handstand while chirping like a bird. Neville performed a series of quite astonishing gymnastics he would certainly not have been capable of in his normal state. Not one of them seemed to be able to fight off the curse, and each of them recovered only when Moody had removed it.

‘Potter,’ Moody growled, ‘you next.’

Harry moved forward into the middle of the classroom, into the space that Moody had cleared of desks. Moody raised his wand, pointed it at Harry, and said, ‘Imperio!’

It was the most wonderful feeling. Harry felt a floating sensation as every thought and worry in his head was wiped gently away, leaving nothing but a vague, untraceable happiness. He stood there feeling immensely relaxed, only dimly aware of everyone watching him.

And then he heard Mad-Eye Moody’s voice, echoing in some distant chamber of his empty brain: Jump onto the desk...jump onto the desk...

Harry bent his knees obediently, preparing to spring. Jump onto the desk...

Why, though? Another voice had awoken in the back of his brain. Stupid thing to do, really, said the voice.

Jump onto the desk...

No, I don’t think I will, thanks, said the other voice, a little more firmly...no, I don’t really want to...

Jump! NOW!

The next thing Harry felt was considerable pain. He had both jumped and tried to prevent himself from jumping—the result was that he’d smashed headlong into the desk, knocking it over, and, by the feeling in his legs, fractured both his kneecaps.

‘Now, that’s more like it!’ growled Moody’s voice, and suddenly, Harry felt the empty, echoing feeling in his head disappear. He remembered exactly what was happening, and the pain in his knees seemed to double.

‘Look at that, you lot...Potter fought! He fought it, and he damn near beat it! We’ll try that again, Potter, and the rest of you, pay attention—watch his eyes, that’s where you see it—very good, Potter, very good indeed! They’ll have trouble controlling you!’

‘The way he talks,’ Harry muttered as he hobbled out of the Defense Against the Dark Arts class an hour later (Moody had insisted on putting Harry through his paces four times in a row, until Harry could throw off the curse entirely), ‘you’d think we were all going to be attacked any second.’

'You heard Remus and Sirius,' Theodore began, 'Our world is getting more dangerous again. I think Moody is taking it to far, but his logic is sound. We don't know what could happen tomorrow, or the day after that.'

'It is quite intense though,' said Tracey, 'hopefully he tones it down a little bit. I want to learn, but not get traumatized in the process.'

Moody did not tone down his lessons however, and as all the fourth years had noticed, the other teachers had increased there amount of work they were required to do as well. Professor McGonagall explained why, when the class gave a particularly loud groan at the amount of Transfiguration homework she had assigned.

'You are now entering a most important phase of your magical education!' she told them, her eyes glinting dangerously behind her square spectacles. 'Your Ordinary Wizarding Levels are drawing closer—'

'We aren't fifth years!' Malfoy shouted, 'are your glasses working?'

'Maybe not, Mr Malfoy, but believe me, you need all the preparation you can get! Miss Granger from the Gryffindor remains the only student in your year who has managed to turn a hedgehog into a satisfactory pincushion. I might remind you all that your pincushions still tend to run away when approached with a pin!'

'She's a Mudblood,' Harry heard Pansy whisper to Zabini, 'she grew up using those useless tools, of course she'd be more familiar with them.'

Harry glared at her for using such a filthy word, but since Professor McGonagall didn't hear anything there wasn't anything he could do.

Harry, Tracey, and Theodore were deeply amused when Professor Trelawney told them that they had received top marks for their homework in their next Divination class. She read out large portions of their predictions, commending them for their unflinching acceptance of the horrors in store for them—but they were less amused when she asked them to do the same thing for the month after next; both of them were running out of ideas for catastrophes.

Meanwhile Professor Binns had them writing weekly essays on the goblin rebellions of the eighteenth century. Professor Snape was forcing them to research antidotes. They took this one seriously, as he had hinted that he might be poisoning one of them before Christmas to see if their antidote worked. Professor Flitwick had asked them to read three extra books in preparation for their lesson on Summoning Charms.

Even Hagrid was adding to their workload. The Blast-Ended Skrewts were growing at a remarkable pace given that nobody had yet discovered what they ate. Hagrid was delighted, and as part of their “project,” suggested that they come down to his hut on alternate evenings to observe the Skrewts and make notes on their extraordinary behavior.

'I will not,' said Draco Malfoy flatly when Hagrid had proposed this with the air of Father Christmas pulling an extra-large toy out of his sack. 'I see enough of these foul things during lessons, thanks.'

Hagrid’s smile faded off his face.

'Yeh’ll do wha’ yer told,' he growled, 'or I’ll be takin’ a leaf outta Professor Moody’s book...I hear cowardly Slytherins make excellent ferrets.' Everyone but Malfoy laughed, however Malfoy turned a bit red, clearly not wanting to share in Pansy's fate. Harry, and his friends returned to the castle at the end of the lesson in high spirits; seeing Hagrid put down Malfoy was particularly satisfying, Malfoy may not be as bad as Pansy, but he was still quite a thorn in their sides.

When they arrived in the Entrance Hall, they found themselves unable to proceed owing to the large crowd of students congregated there, all milling around a large sign that had been erected at the foot of the marble staircase. None were tall enough to see over it so they tried waiting for the crowd to ease up a little, however Terence who is over a foot taller than them soon came down the stairs and he agreed to find out what was happening. He read the sign aloud to the other four:

'TRIWIZARD TOURNAMENT

The delegations from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang will be arriving at six o’clock on Friday the twenty-eighth of October. Lessons will end half an hour early—'

'Brilliant!' said Harry. 'It’s Potions last thing on Friday! Snape won’t have time to poison us all!'

Terence continued:

'Students will return their bags and books to their dormitories and assemble in front of the castle to greet our guests before the Welcoming Feast.'

'Only a week away!' said Ernie Macmillan of Hufflepuff, emerging from the crowd, his eyes gleaming. 'I wonder if Cedric knows? Think I’ll go and tell him...'

'Cedric Diggory?' said Terence, 'He'll be competing?'

'I guess he must be entering the tournament,' Harry agreed.

Terence face was of mixed feelings, 'I still wish I could compete, but if I can't I am glad Cedric is. He might be on a rival team but I have to admit he is very skilled and very honorable.'

Harry nodded, he had been competing against Cedric in Quidditch for over three years, and Harry had to admit he was equally a good flyer, and nearly an equally good Seeker. And what Terence said was true, unlike the Gryffindor Seeker Kenneth Towler, Cedric played fair and didn't resort to using brought force to win. 'Yes, Cedric would probably make a good champion.'

The appearance of the sign in the entrance hall had a marked effect upon the inhabitants of the castle. During the following week, there seemed to be only one topic of conversation, no matter where Harry went: the Triwizard Tournament. Rumors were flying from student to student like highly contagious germs: who was going to try for Hogwarts champion, what the tournament would involve, how the students from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang differed from themselves.

Harry noticed too that the castle seemed to be undergoing an extra-thorough cleaning. Several grimy portraits had been scrubbed, much to the displeasure of their subjects, who sat huddled in their frames muttering darkly and wincing as they felt their raw pink faces. The suits of armor were suddenly gleaming and moving without squeaking, and Argus Filch, the caretaker, was behaving so ferociously to any students who forgot to wipe their shoes that he terrified a pair of first-year girls into hysterics.

Other members of the staff seemed oddly tense too. 'Runcorn, don't let Beauxbaton know you haven't mastered the Full Body-Bind yet, we can't let them see even the tiniest of flaws!' Professor Flitwick begged at the end of his last class before the schools arrive. Nearly every teacher had a similar message, show off what you have perfected but hide your struggles.

When they went down to breakfast on the morning of the twenty-eighth of October, they found that the Great Hall had been decorated overnight. Enormous silk banners hung from the walls, each of them representing a Hogwarts House: red with a gold lion for Gryffindor, blue with a bronze eagle for Ravenclaw, yellow with a black badger for Hufflepuff, and green with a silver serpent for Slytherin. Behind the teachers’ table, the largest banner of all bore the Hogwarts coat of arms: lion, eagle, badger, and snake united around a large letter H.

Harry, Theodore, Allison, and Tracey sat down beside Terence at the Slytherin table. He and Allison both shared a gloomy look despite everyone else being so excited.

'Are you too still in melancholy over being too young?' Theodore asked, some annoyance in his voice.

'Its just unfair,' Allison protested, 'the requirement to enter should be based on skill, not age.'

'And by the time the tournament comes around again we'll already have graduated,' Terence added on.

'Think of it this way,' suggested Harry, 'Dumbledore said the death toll was really high, with these rules you'll actually live to see graduation.'

'I guess,' said Terence, 'but I still think if I could figure out who chooses the champions I could convince them to give me a shot.'

'So you still haven't figured out who it is?' Tracey asked tentatively.

'No,' answered Allison. 'We have asked all around but the teachers all have tight lips when it comes to this. I almost wonder if they have charm on them.'

'What do you think the tasks will be?' Harry asked the group.

'I've read all about the Tournament,' Terence said proudly. 'Every five years the tasks are different, but they usually require a combination of skill and puzzle solving. They are rarely solved with just brute force. And whoever does it best gets the most points from the judges.'

'Who are the judges?' Harry asked.

'Not sure if there are more, but usually the Heads of the three schools are always on the panel,' said Terence, and everyone looked around at him. 'Seriously, none of you have read Twiwizard Tragedies? In the 1792 Tournament it mentioned those three judges getting hurt, although there probably would be more than just those three as they would be too biased to their own school.'

As the day continued there was a pleasant feeling of anticipation in the air. Nobody was very attentive in lessons, being much more interested in the arrival that evening of the people from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang; even Potions was more bearable than usual, as it was half an hour shorter. When the bell rang early, Harry, Tracey, Allison, and Theodore hurried up to Slytherin Dungeon, deposited their bags and books as they had been instructed, pulled on their cloaks, and rushed back upstairs into the entrance hall.

The Heads of Houses were ordering their students into lines.

'Potter, try and do something with that mop of a head of yours,' Professor Snape snapped. 'Miss Parkinson, take those of your ears.'

Pansy scowled and removed two large green crystal ear rings.

'We're leaving now,' said Professor Snape. 'First years in the front...Go single file.'

They filed down the steps and lined up in front of the castle. It was a cold, clear evening; dusk was falling and a pale, transparent-looking moon was already shining over the Forbidden Forest. Harry, standing between Tracey and Allison in the fourth row from the front, saw the Carrow twins positively shivering from both excitement and the cold among the other first years.

‘We’ve been waiting over an hour,’ Theodore quietly whined as the clock tower struck six o’clock. ‘Are they actually coming today?’

‘They should be, but maybe whatever mode of transportation they are using got delayed,’ Harry responded. ‘For such a big even they probably aren’t using simply a Portkey to Hogsmeade and walking the rest of the way. Allison, what do you know about Beauxbatons?’

‘Very little, it was my grandmother that had went, and my father hasn’t let me see her since I was born. Not even sure if she’s alive anymore. What about Durmstrang? Did Canini ever talk about how they got to the island you mentioned?’

‘She said they traveled by boat,’ Harry answered.

They scanned the darkening grounds excitedly, but nothing was

moving; everything was still, silent, and quite as usual. Harry was starting to feel cold. He wished they’d hurry up...Maybe the foreign students were preparing a dramatic entrance...He remembered what Mr Weasley had said back when they first arrived at the campsite before the Quidditch World Cup: ‘always the same—we can’t resist showing off when we get together...’

And then Dumbledore called out from the back row where he stood with the other teachers—

‘Aha! Unless I am very much mistaken, the delegation from Beauxbatons approaches!’

‘Where?’ said many students eagerly, all looking in different directions.

‘There!’ yelled a sixth year, pointing over the forest.

Something large, much larger than a broomstick—or, indeed, a hundred broomsticks—was hurtling across the deep blue sky toward the castle, growing larger all the time.

‘It’s a dragon!’ shrieked the first year Scarlett Lympsham, losing her head completely.

‘Don’t be stupid...it’s a flying house!’ Harry heard Dennis Creevey call out from the Gryffindor line.

Dennis’s guess was closer...As the gigantic black shape skimmed over the treetops of the Forbidden Forest and the lights shining from the castle windows hit it, they saw a gigantic, powder-blue, horse-drawn carriage, the size of a large house, soaring toward them, pulled through the air by a dozen winged horses, all palominos, and each the size of an elephant.

The front three rows of students drew backward as the carriage hurtled ever lower, coming in to land at a tremendous speed—then, with an almighty crash that made poor Neville jump backward onto a fifth year Slytherin named Jack Vaisey’s foot, the horses’ hooves, larger than dinner plates, hit the ground. A second later, the carriage landed too, bouncing upon its vast wheels, while the golden horses tossed their enormous heads and rolled large, fiery red eyes.

Harry just had time to see that the door of the carriage bore a coat of arms (two crossed, golden wands, each emitting three stars) before it opened.

A boy in pale blue robes jumped down from the carriage, bent forward, fumbled for a moment with something on the carriage floor, and unfolded a set of golden steps. He sprang back respectfully. Then Harry saw a shining, high-heeled black shoe emerging from the inside of the carriage—a shoe the size of a child’s sled—followed, almost immediately, by the largest woman he had ever seen in his life. The size of the carriage, and of the horses, was immediately explained. A few people gasped.

Harry had only ever seen one person as large as this woman in his life, and that was Hagrid; he doubted whether there was an inch difference in their heights. Yet somehow—maybe simply because he was used to Hagrid—this woman (now at the foot of the steps, and looking around at the waiting, wide-eyed crowd) seemed even more unnaturally large. As she stepped into the light flooding from the entrance hall, she was revealed to have a handsome, olive-skinned face; large, black, liquid-looking eyes; and a rather beaky nose. Her hair was drawn back in a shining knob at the base of her neck. She was dressed from head to foot in black satin, and many magnificent opals gleamed at her throat and on her thick fingers.

Dumbledore started to clap; the students, following his lead, broke into applause too, many of them standing on tiptoe, the better to look at this woman.

Her face relaxed into a gracious smile and she walked forward toward Dumbledore, extending a glittering hand. Dumbledore, though tall himself, had barely to bend to kiss it.

‘My dear Madame Maxime,’ he said. ‘Welcome to Hogwarts.’

‘Dumbly-dorr,’ said Madame Maxime in a deep voice. ‘I ’ope I find you well?’

‘In excellent form, I thank you,’ said Dumbledore.

‘My pupils,’ said Madame Maxime, waving one of her enormous hands carelessly behind her.

Harry, whose attention had been focused completely upon Madame Maxime, now noticed that about a dozen boys and girls, all, by the look of them, in their late teens, had emerged from the carriage and were now standing behind Madame Maxime. They were shivering, which was unsurprising, given that their robes seemed to be made of fine silk, and none of them were wearing cloaks. A few had wrapped scarves and shawls around their heads. From what Harry could see of them (they were standing in Madame Maxime’s enormous shadow), they were staring up at Hogwarts with apprehensive looks on their faces.

‘ ’As Karkaroff arrived yet?’ Madame Maxime asked.

‘He should be here any moment,’ said Dumbledore. ‘Would you like to wait here and greet him or would you prefer to step inside and warm up a trifle?’

‘Warm up, I think,’ said Madame Maxime. ‘But ze ’orses—‘

‘Our Care of Magical Creatures teacher will be delighted to take care of them,’ said Dumbledore, ‘the moment he has returned from dealing with a slight situation that has arisen with some of his other—er—charges.’

‘Must mean Skrewts,’ Tracey muttered to Harry, grinning.

‘My steeds require—er—forceful ’andling,’ said Madame Maxime, looking as though she doubted whether any Care of Magical Creatures teacher at Hogwarts could be up to the job. ‘Zey are very strong...’

‘I assure you that Hagrid will be well up to the job,’ said Dumbledore, smiling.

‘Very well,’ said Madame Maxime, bowing slightly. ‘Will you please inform zis ’Agrid zat ze ’orses drink only single-malt whiskey?’

‘It will be attended to,’ said Dumbledore, also bowing.

‘Come,’ said Madame Maxime imperiously to her students, and the Hogwarts crowd parted to allow her and her students to pass up the stone steps.

‘If Durmstrang is traveling by boat, I almost wonder if it’ll be bigger or smaller than that carriage,’ Terence whispered from behind them.

‘I wonder what has happened with the Skrewts that Hagrid had to miss this?’ Harry asked in a hashed voice.

‘I don’t know,’ said Tracey, ‘They’re starving and dangerous, anything is possible.’

They stood, shivering slightly now, waiting for the Durmstrang party to arrive. Most people were gazing hopefully up at the sky.

For a few minutes, the silence was broken only by Madame Maxime’s huge horses snorting and stamping. But then—

‘What is that sound?’ said Allison suddenly.

Harry listened; a loud and oddly eerie noise was drifting toward them from out of the darkness: a muffled rumbling and sucking sound, as though an immense vacuum cleaner were moving along a riverbed...

‘The lake!’ yelled the Gryffindor Lee Jordan, pointing down at it. ‘Look at the lake!’

From their position at the top of the lawns overlooking the grounds, they had a clear view of the smooth black surface of the water—except that the surface was suddenly not smooth at all. Some disturbance was taking place deep in the center; great bubbles were forming on the surface, waves were now washing over the muddy banks—and then, out in the very middle of the lake, a whirlpool appeared, as if a giant plug had just been pulled out of the lake’s floor...

What seemed to be a long, black pole began to rise slowly out of the heart of the whirlpool...and then Harry saw the rigging...

‘I was right! It’s a ship!’ said Harry to the others. ‘Look at the mast.’

Slowly, magnificently, the ship rose out of the water, gleaming in the moonlight. It had a strangely skeletal look about it, as though it were a resurrected wreck, and the dim, misty lights shimmering at its portholes looked like ghostly eyes. Finally, with a great sloshing noise, the ship emerged entirely, bobbing on the turbulent water, and began to glide toward the bank. A few moments later, they heard the splash of an anchor being thrown down in the shallows, and the thud of a plank being lowered onto the bank.

People were disembarking; they could see their silhouettes passing the lights in the ship’s portholes. All of them, Harry noticed, seemed to be built along the lines of Crabbe and Goyle...but then, as they drew nearer, walking up the lawns into the light streaming from the entrance hall, he saw that their bulk was really due to the fact that they were wearing cloaks of some kind of shaggy, matted fur. But the man who was leading them up to the castle was wearing furs of a different sort: sleek and silver, like his hair.

‘Dumbledore!’ he called heartily as he walked up the slope. ‘How are you, my dear fellow, how are you?’

‘Bloomingly, thank you, Professor Karkaroff,’ Dumbledore replied.

Karkaroff had a fruity, unctuous voice; when he stepped into the light pouring from the front doors of the castle they saw that he was tall and thin like Dumbledore, but his white hair was short, and his goatee (finishing in a small curl) did not entirely hide his rather weak chin. Harry had a hard time believing what Remus and Sirius had warned him about Karkaroff. When he reached Dumbledore, he shook hands with both of his own.

‘Dear old Hogwarts,’ he said, looking up at the castle and smiling; his teeth were rather yellow, and Harry noticed that his smile did not extend to his eyes, which remained cold and shrewd, much more like he had imagined. ‘How good it is to be here, how good...Viktor, come along, into the warmth...you don’t mind, Dumbledore? Viktor has a slight head cold...’

Karkaroff beckoned forward one of his students. As the boy passed, Harry caught a glimpse of a prominent curved nose and thick black eyebrows. He didn’t need the brief high-pitched squeal from Theodore to recognize who was in front of them.

‘I can’t believe it—‘ Theodore squeaked, ‘—it’s Krum!’

Edit: (I actually forgot to add a small detail, after her 12th birthday (The 3rd of October) Canini starts taking the Casition Potion which allows her to slowly start going through the female puberty.)