The Wish of the Goblet of Fire
It was difficult, being a Magical Construct, but one had to work with what one had. And the Goblet of Fire just found itself with four Seekers in its metaphorical lap. Quidditch was, after all, an international preoccupation. (Rated T for referenced off-screen violence)
Disclaimer: Harry Potter (including characters, world, and canon events) belongs to various parties including but not limited to J. K. Rowling.
Being a Magical Construct was hardly unusual, especially in the Wizarding World. What was unusual was being a Magical Construct expected to perform higher order cognitive functions. Nearly unheard of was being a Magical Construct required to make decisions based upon amorphous factors – in short, to behave with a high degree of sentience.
The Sorting Hat of Howgarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was one such construct.
The Goblet of Fire, impartial judge of the Triwizard Tournament, was another.
And the Goblet was bored.
There hadn't been a Triwizard Tournament for over two centuries. No tournaments meant no candidates to judge. Due to its nature, the Goblet sifted through the minds magically singled out by the names burned in its flames. After all, how else was it to determine the most worthy of its candidates? The result was that the Goblet had spent the past eight hundred years, give or take, being bombarded with varying levels of Quidditch-obsessed memories, and had, quite frankly, caught the bug. Another side effect of the Goblet's nature was that it could see the events of tournaments over which it presided. For the last several centuries, the Goblet had been angling for its very own Quidditch game, for it was certain to be far better in person, so to speak, undistorted by the specific concerns of a hoard of distractible teenagers.
A full game, however, was slightly impractical for a tournament in which a maximum of three could compete. And so, the Goblet had to become creative. As the game developed, so too did the Goblet's dreams. Now, after a two hundred year break, the Goblet had decided. Keepers were boring without chasers. Chasers were most interesting as a team – several games in which two of three chasers were incapacitated had proven that. Beaters were a possibility – and the idiots designing the Goblet's Tournament might even go for it. But Seekers…
The job was by nature solitary. They could harass each other to great affect – some attacks were even legally encouraged – while performing their duties. They typically moved at great speed and with enormous skill – especially after the bird got replaced by a ball – and there wasn't actually a limit to how many could play at once. Just a convention, and even that was ignored during most try-outs.
The Goblet had decided. It wanted a Battle of the Seekers in its tournament, and it was going to get one any way it could.
The biggest problem being that the Goblet had no say in what the Tasks were. And previous experiments had proven that the witches and wizards who had the happy duty of designing the Tasks were difficult to persuade. That last tournament had been a marvelous chance: three champions, and all of them Chasers on their home teams. But did the Goblet get its game? No, of course not! And really, a cockatrice?
But this time, this time the Goblet had a Plan.
Beauxbatons' candidates numbered among them three Chasers, a Beater, and two who had played Seeker at some point in their life. Hogwarts' candidates numbered among them several Chasers, a Beater, and – and this was very important – a Seeker. And Durmstrang? By this point, the Goblet could care less about the other positions. Durmstrang had provided the Goblet with a professional Seeker who had caught the Snitch in an International Quidditch Competition not three months prior. The Goblet could just about sing. It was prevented from doing so only by its form barring it from that ability. Wood, after all, could not bend to create a mouth-like apparatus.
Then it was hit by a spell – a fourth school? How odd… - and another name was dropped into its mouth. It was inclined to simply throw off the entire farce of a confounding charm – the name was clearly associated with Hogwarts – but then it looked at the mind tied to the name. And that mind belonged to a natural flyer, who was the youngest Seeker in a Century, flouting several school rules in the process, and very brave to boot.
The Goblet couldn't fall under the Confundus fast enough.
A Professional Seeker, the Youngest Seeker in a Century, a House Seeker, and a pick-up Quidditch Seeker. There was no way this could go wrong.
*%*
One month later, the Goblet was just about in metaphorical tears. The fourth Champion had out flown a Dragon for the first task – and the Goblet had been displeased when the tournament officials had stuck to their original plan and simply ordered another dragon, but it had understood their reasoning – and the officials still were prepping for an under-water Second Task. In their defense, they had already decided upon the clue and concluded negotiations with the mer-population by the time they received their flying reminder.
Oh well. The Goblet was patient. It would wait. There was still one Task to go, and it was un-linked to the first two.
The Goblet sent its feelers toward the ties connecting it to the tournament officials and judges.
Quidditch, it whispered. They fly so well, one out-flew a Dragon! And they are Seekers. Quidditch… Quidditch… Four Seekers… Snitch… Quidditch fields are big and come with pre-made stands… it would be easy and cheap to set up… Quidditch…
*%*
The Tournament was over, and the Goblet was disconnected from the Champions and Officials. It promptly took advantage of its lack of mental hangers-on to throw a silent fit. The reinforced top of its casket proved that the spellwork and metal shielding was absolutely necessary as yellow flames punched up from the bowl of the Goblet, striking the lid. Four seekers, three tasks, and not one Quidditch Game! During the First Task, the Goblet had gotten a teasing taste of what a Battle of the Seekers could look like. The Second Task had been an all-around disappointment. But the Third Task was the kicker, the one which had truly smarted.
It had happened on the Quidditch Pitch. The Champions had to wend their way through a Maze – fighting beasts, spells, and each other – to reach the Trophy in the center. And the Maze had been grown on the lawn of the Quidditch Pitch. Not one broom in sight. No one even flew the maze to make up time.
It had been so close!
The flames shifted from sunshine yellow to sullen orange, and the spluttering tendrils dulled to twisting coils of flame which curled sulkily at the bottom of the Goblet's bowl.
The Goblet of Fire would not give up; it simply needed to find a way to get someone reasonable in charge of picking the tasks.
It would commence plotting soon; the mess with the idiot not-snake-not-human it had seen its youngest Champion (Youngest Seeker in a Century! *Sob!*) get into a bit of a tiff with would probably keep Hogwarts busy for at least a year, and the officials were still trying to figure out how to make the Goblet even harder to tamper with (of this, the Goblet mostly approved). The Goblet had time to come up with a new Plan, one which was actually foolproof, since apparently fools were what it had to work with.
But that would happen later, for now the Goblet had commenced sulking, and it had no intention of stopping for at least a week.
…I just wanted my Quidditch game… the flames twisting in the Goblet's bowl let out a few dejected crackles, as if the fire were keening its despair.
Notes:
An alternative view of the Triwizard Tournament, especially the hoodwinking of a powerful magical artifact by Crouch Jr. as well as the mechanics behind the Choosing of the Champions. The Goblet doesn't get its own character tag in the drop-down menu, so the next-most-active character – Harry – is filling in.
I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it (procrastination can yield great projects).
Began: ~March 2015
Finished: August 2015