Author's Note: Sorry for the extremely late update. Stupid fever/flu/whatever-the-hell-this-sickness-is.

This answer wasn't meant to be rude.

The question was, from Guest (anon):

"...well one Question. Will Hazel, Frank, Piper and Leo be here?"

Your answer is: No.

Well, probably no.

Note: Guys, feel free to leave CC or questions. I'll happily take good advice and answer your questions. Unlike Feuding Worlds, I'm actually trying to make this story readable. And since I'm not exactly punching out a chapter a day like I did in the early days of the afore story mentioned...well, just bear with me, and I'll take the time to review and revise.

Disclaimer: Extensive parts of this chapter was taken from Chapter Twelve: The Triwizard Tournament from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. I have no claim to the book. Otherwise, why would I be wasting my time writing fanfiction on this?


Chapter Four
Harry

"Do they never stop yelling?" I groaned, sinking into my chair as an outburst sounded from the compartment next to us. (Something about hamsters.)

I had never seen the Hogwarts Express this chaotic. Some kids in orange and purple T-shirts were running down the aisle, slamming doors and generally, causing a huge commotion. Heads were poking out of compartments to assess what was wrong.

"Blimey," Ron said, peering out our door as the bad singing continued. "They are on a mad sugar rush. The bloke singing would do well to take a choir lesson."

I nodded my head fervently, wincing a little as a noise that sounded like a dying donkey penetrated the walls.

Hermione glanced up from where she was reading an extremely thick book (which, obviously, wasn't that surprising). She marked her page with her finger and frowned at the compartment across from us. "Well...they're probably the exchange students from America."

"Exchange students from America?" I asked, confused. "Dumbledore allows that?"

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Harry, there are tons of wizards and witches from other countries at Hogwarts! Haven't you ever noticed that?"

"Only you would," Ron muttered.

"If I did," I countered, "would I be asking why there are exchange students from America?"

Hermione shrugged and went back to reading, but did not choose to answer my question.

The meaningless banter continued until we got to Hogwarts, lights blazing out of every window. We got out with Hermione stuffing her morbidly obese book in her already-bursting-at-the-seams bag.

We were immediately caught by the downpour of rain as soon as we climbed out. Hermione shivered. "Oooh, I wouldn't fancy crossing the lake in this weather."

"Who would?" Ron grumbled, ruffling his extremely damp hair.

"Hi, Hagrid!" I waved to the giant silhouette at the far end of the platform.

"All righ', Harry?" Hagrid boomed back, waving. "See yeh at the feast if we don' drown!"

"Lovely," a girl's voice muttered next to me. One of the "exchange students", a girl with startlingly blue eyes trudged past us, trailing after a guy with green eyes who looked completely dry. I could almost hear Ron glowering at the guy. I could hear the girl's voice as her voice faded from earshot: "Did you really have to be that obvious? Everybody was staring at you..."

We caught an empty carriage, Neville joining us about a minute later. The doors shut with a snap and the horseless carriages creaked. The carriages began splashing their way up to the Hogwarts castle.


"Blimey," Ron muttered, shaking the rain from his hair. "If that keeps up the lake's going to overflow. I'm soaked—ARGH!"

His already bad mood wasn't improved by the large water balloon that came whizzing out of nowhere, which exploded on top of Ron's head. He stumbled sideways into me, just in time for another water balloon to drop. It narrowly missed Hermione, who quickly stepped away with a flinch, and broke open at my feet, sending a wave of icy water into my shoes. I let out a startled yelp, backing up so quickly that I almost lost my footing on the slick floor.

Everybody shrieked around us as they started trampling each other to get to the Great Hall. Quite a few people fell down and got flattened under stampedes of feet.

"Holy Jupiter!" A guy with blue eyes seemed to swear as his whole back got damp with a blue water balloon. "Let's go before we contract hypothermia." He weaved his way between the yelling and hyperventilating students, some other people in purple T-shirts maneuvering their way with expertise between the wizards and witches blocking their way to the Great Hall.

"PEEVES!" cried an angry voice. Professor McGonagall, the deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts, came dashing out of the Great Hall. She skidded on the wet floor and grabbed Hermione's neck to keep her balance.

"Ouch—sorry, Ms. Granger—"

"That's all right, Professor!" Hermione wheezed, rubbing at her throat, which happened to have a red imprint of Professor McGonagall's hand curled around it now.

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

"Not doing nothing!" cackled Peeves, lobbing a water bomb at several fifth-year girls, who screamed and dived into the Great Hall. There were several nasty thuds on the other side. "Already wet, aren't they? Little squirts! Wheeeeeeeeee!" And he aimed another bomb at a group of second years who had just arrived.

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

Peeves waggled his ghostly tongue and tossed the last of the water balloons in the air, which hit the heads of the students just entering the hall, and then zoomed up the marble staircase while insanely giggling.

"Cracked up, isn't he?" I could hear a boy in an orange T-shirt mutter crossly. "Stupid ghosts..."

"Hey!"

"Sorry, Nico..."

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

Ron, and Hermione, and I slipped and slid across the entrance hall and through the double doors on the right, Ron muttering furiously under his breath as he pushed his sopping hair away from his face.

As usual, the Great Hall looked amazing, especially since it was decorated for the start-of-the-term feast. Golden plates and goblets gleamed by the light of hundreds and hundreds of candles, floating over the tables in midair. The four long House tables were packed with chattering students; at the top of the Hall, the staff sat along one side of a fifth table, facing their pupils. It was much warmer in here. We walked past the Slytherins (who jeered at us, not that it was much of a surprise), the Ravenclaws, and the Hufflepuffs, and sat down with the rest of the Gryffindors at the far side of the Hall, next to Nearly Headless Nick, the Gryffindor ghost.

Hermione nudged me as she pointed to the visitors. They were all sopping wet, including the boy with green eyes, and the orange-clad ones were staying a respectable distance away from the kids with the purple T-shirts. None of them were wearing their robes. Both groups were lurking near the right end of the wall.

The girl (clad in a silver jacket, blue pants, and combat boots) who had snapped at the guy earlier still seemed to be arguing with him. Another girl with curly blond hair that was plastered around her face like a wet golden halo was talking quietly with a guy with shaggy black hair, who tilted his head towards the other group. All the other people in orange seemed to be hanging around, occasionally laughing as they conversed absently with each other.

Meanwhile, the people in the purple shirts were all murmuring quietly to each other. I picked out a guy with thin blond hair and an angular face, holding a stuffed bear. For some reason, it gave me an sense of foreboding. There was a girl with long black hair tied back into a braid. A boy with short blond hair was trying to shush another curly-haired boy with extremely red lips. Eventually, he gave up and placed a hand against the other boy's arm.

Hermione gaped as the curly-haired person spasmed for a moment, and when the blond boy took away his hand, you could see crackling golden tendrils of lightning pull away with him for a moment. The curly-haired boy limply shuddered, but was quieted.

My jaw could have touched the Gryffindor table.

"Did you just see that?" Hermione squeaked, clutching Ron's arm. "That was...terrifying!"

I never got the chance to answer, because Ron, having obviously not paid a second's worth of attention to the lightning scene, moaned besides me, "Oh, hurry up...I could eat a hippogriff!"

The words were no sooner out of his mouth than the doors of the Great Hall opened and silence fell. Professor McGonagall was leading a long line of first years up to the top of the Hall. If we were wet, it was nothing to how these first years looked. They appeared to have swum across the lake rather than sailed. All of them were shivering with a combination of cold and nerves as they filed along the staff table and came to a halt in a line facing the rest of the school—all of them except the smallest of the lot, a boy with mousy hair, who was wrapped in what I recognized as Hagrid's moleskin overcoat. The coat was so big for him that it hooked as though he were draped in a furry black circus tent. His small face protruded from over the collar, looking almost painfully excited.

Professor McGonagall now placed a three-legged stool on the ground before the first years and, on top of it, an extremely old, dirty and patched wizard's hat.

The first years stared at it. So did everyone else. For a moment, there was silence. Then a long tear near the brim opened wide like a mouth, and the hat broke into song:

"A thousand years or more ago,
When I was newly sewn,
There lived four wizards of renown,
Whose names are still well known:
Bold Gryffindor, from wild moor,
Fair Ravenclaw, from glen,
Sweet Hufflepuff, from valley broad,
Shrewd Slytherin, from fen.
They shared a wish, a hope, a dream,
They hatched a daring plan
To educate young sorcerers
Thus Hogwarts School began.
Now each of these four founders
Formed their own house, for each
Did value different virtues
In the ones they had to teach.
By Gryffindor, the bravest were
Prized far beyond the rest;
For Ravenclaw, the cleverest
Would always be the best;
For Hufflepuff, hard workers were
Most worthy of admission;
And power-hungry Slytherin
Loved those of great ambition.
While still alive they did divide
Their favorties from the throng,
Yet how to pick the worthy ones
When they were dead and gon?
'Twas Gryffindor who found the way,
He whipped me off his head
The founders put some brains in me
So I could choose instead!
Now slip me snug about your ears,
I've never yet been wrong,
I'll have a look inside your mind
And tell where you belong!"

All the while, the visitors hadn't stopped their little conversations, and none of the teachers seemed to be telling them off. Dumbledore was smiling amiably at the Hat's song. Even Snape ignored them completely as he devoted his attention towards the Sorting Hat.

The Great Hall rang with applause while the Sorting Hat finished its song.

"It was different from when we got Sorted," I noticed.

"Sings a different one every year," Ron replied. "It's got to be a pretty boring life, hasn't it, being a hat? I suppose it spends all year making up the next one."

Professor McGonagall was now unrolling a large scroll of parchment.

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

"Ackerley, Stewart!"

A boy walked forward, visibly trembling from head to foot, picked up the Sorting Hat, put it on, and sat down on the stool. I noticed the blonde girl with the orange people take a sudden interest in the guy.

"RAVENCLAW!" the hat shouted.

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

"Baddock, Malcolm!"

"SLYTHERIN!"

The table on the other side of the hall erupted with cheers; I could see Malfoy clapping as Baddock joined the Slytherins. I wondered whether Baddock knew that Slytherin House had turned out more Dark witches and wizards than any other. Fred and George hissed Malcolm Baddock as he sat down.

I must say, the Sorting seemed to take longer than usual. Probably because my stomach was moaning for food, for I felt like an empty trunk.

"Oh, hurry up," Ron moaned, clutching his stomach and hungrily staring at the golden plates, obviously feeling the same hunger pangs as I was.

"Now, Ron, the Sorting's much more important than food," chided the Nearly Headless Nick.

Ron glowered at the pearly white ghost. "Yeah, because ghosts can't eat!"

Once all the first years were sorted, McGonagall picked up the hat and the stool and carried them away.

"About time," said Ron, seizing his knife and fork and looking expectantly at his golden plate.

But nothing happened to the dishes. Murmurs of indignation rippled throughout the Great Hall. Dumbledore stood up. "This year," his voice boomed, "we have some very special guests."

All heads immediately turned to the visitors, who didn't seem to notice all the attention suddenly fixated on them. They simply carried on peacefully with their conversation. One would think that when everyone stopped talking, they would go with the flow, but apparently, this was not the case.

Dumbledore loudly cleared his throat, and all of them turned his way. One of them, the guy with green eyes said really intelligently: "Oh. Hi, what's up?"

The blonde girl kicked him in the shins. He stared at her, not seeming to notice what she did. "Yes?"

The girl rolled her eyes and stepped back, and seemed to mutter something under her breath.

"They have come all the way from the United States of America," Dumbledore continued, "because a very special event is about to happen this year. But more on that after our feast! Let us welcome our newest arrivals!"

There was a smattering of applause as everybody but the Sltyherins uneasily clapped for a while.

"Where will they be staying?" Malfoy called out rather snidely. "They won't be Sorted, will they?"

Dumbledore's eyes twinkled as he waved his wand. Tables materialized in front of both groups. "No, they will not be Sorted. We have prepared...special dormitories for both groups."

There was an outbreak of confused yelling as the visitors looked unperturbed, like they knew this was coming. Whatever the case, I wondered how they were so special that Hogwarts would bother to make two new dormitories for groups that couldn't have more than a dozen people in each.

"But enough of the small talk!" Dumbledore announced, sitting down. "Tuck in!"

"Hear, hear!" said Ron and I loudly as the empty dishes filled magically before our eyes.

Nearly Headless Nick watched mournfully as Ron, Hermione, and I loaded our own plates.

"Aaah, 'at's be'er," said Ron, with his mouth full of mashed potato.

"You're lucky there's a feast at all tonight, you know," Nearly Headless Nick breezily mentioned. "There was trouble in the kitchens earlier."

"Why? Wha' 'appened?" I asked, through a sizable chunk of steak. (Hermione swatted me and reprimanded, "Don't talk with your mouth full!")

"Ron's doing it," I pointed out.

"You're not Ron," Hermione countered.

"Peeves, of course," said Nearly Headless Nick, shaking his head, which wobbled dangerously. He pulled his ruff a little higher up on his neck. "The usual argument, you know. He wanted to attend the feast—well, it's quite out of the question, you know what he's like, utterly uncivilized, can't see a plate of food without throwing it. We held a ghost's council—the Fat Friar was all for giving him the chance—but most wisely, in my opinion, the Bloody Baron put his foot down."

The Bloody Baron was the Slytherin ghost, a gaunt and silent specter covered in silver bloodstains. He was the only person at Hogwarts who could really control Peeves.

"Yeah, we thought Peeves seemed hacked off about something," Ron said darkly.

"So what did he do in the kitchens?"

"Oh the usual," Nearly Headless Nick replied, shrugging. "Wreaked havoc and mayhem. Pots and pans everywhere. Place swimming in soup. Terrified the house-elves out of their wits—"

That wasn't the right thing to say.

Clang.

Hermione had knocked over her golden goblet. Pumpkin juice spread steadily over the tablecloth, staining several feet of white linen orange, but Hermione paid no attention.

"There are house-elves here?" she said, staring, horror-struck, at Nearly Headless Nick. "Here at Hogwarts?"

"Certainly," said Nearly Headless Nick, looking surprised at her reaction. "The largest number in any dwelling in Britain, I believe. Over a hundred."

"I've never seen one!" said Hermione.

"Well, they hardly ever leave the kitchen by day, do they?" said Nearly Headless Nick. "They come out at night to do a bit of cleaning...see to the fires and so on...I mean, you're not supposed to see them, are you? That's the mark of a good house-elf, isn't it, that you don't know it's there?"

Hermione stared at him.

"But they get paid?" she managed to get out. "They get holidays, don't they? And—and sick leave, and pensions, and everything?"

Nearly Headless Nick chortled so much that his ruff slipped and his head flopped off, dangling on the inch or so of ghostly skin and muscle that still attached it to his neck.

"Sick leave and pensions?" he said, pushing his head back onto his shoulders and securing it once more with his ruff. "House-elves don't want 'sick leave and pensions'!"

Hermione looked down at her hardly touched plate of food, then put her knife and fork down upon it and pushed it away from her.

"Oh c'mon, 'Er-my-knee," said Ron, spraying me with Yorkshire pudding. "Oops—sorry, 'Arry—"

He gave a huge swallow. "You won't get them sick leave by starving yourself!"

I chuckled and kept on digging into my steak.

"Slave labor," said Hermione, breathing hard through her nose. "That's what made this dinner. Slave labor." And she refused to eat another bite.

Meanwhile, the visitors were having their own problems. All the purple-clad ones were eating like it was all fine, but the ones in orange were staring at their food like to take a single bite was a huge sin.

One of them raised her hand. Dumbledore raised an eyebrow at her from where he was neatly tucking into some chicken. "Yes, Miss Chase?"

"Um," the blonde girl said nervously, "back at our place, we have this 'custom'...we sacrifice a portion of our food to our...uh, parent."

"One parent?" Ron whispered in indignation. "Sacrifice your food?"

The ones in purple stared at them like they were crazy. Dumbledore, on the other hand, didn't blink an eye as a large bronze brazier appeared in front of the kids. All of them stood up with their plates and lined up in a single file line. The Great Hall was so quiet that you could hear each item of food drop into the fire and burn.

"Poseidon." The guy with green eyes approached the fire, his head bowed, and tossed in a fat cluster of grapes.

Everybody followed suit, each of them saying a different name. They were "sacrificing", I noticed, the best part of their food. The warmest, most buttery roll here, the juiciest and most flavorful slice of roast beef there.

"Athena."

"Dionysus."

"Hermes," two identical boys said in unison.

"Zeus...uh, and Artemis."

"Hephaestus."

"Apollo."

"Aphrodite."

"Hades."

"Demeter."

"Ares."

Ron was gaping at them like each and every single one of them had commited a huge sin and offense. Hermione, meanwhile, hadn't taken any notice of what the people did, and was still muttering to herself darkly when the visitors sat down again and began eating like nothing happened. A guy who had curly black hair from the purple kids frowned at his goblet and mumbled something that sounded like, "More Kool-Aid!" I didn't have the slightest idea on what he was talking about or on to.

Dumbledore cleared his throat after the feast, which was continued in total silence with barely anybody eating anything else.

As the second part of the feast drew to a close, Dumbledore rose and clapped his hands for attention.

"So!" said Dumbledore, smiling around at them all. "Now that we are all fed and watered," ("Hmph!" Hermione muttered peevishly), "I must once more ask for your attention, while I give out a few notices.

"Mr. Filch, the caretaker, has asked me to tell you that the list of objects forbidden inside the castle has this year been extended to include Screaming Yo-Yos, Fanged Frisbees, and Ever-Bashing Boomerangs. The full list comprises some four hundred and thirty-seven items, I believe, and can be viewed in Mr. Filch's office, if anybody would like to check it."

I saw the two people who said "Hermes" rub their hands until the boy with shaggy black hair seemed to stomp on their feet.

The corners of Dumbledore's mouth twitched as he eyed the two boys. He continued, "As ever, I would like to remind you all that the forest on the grounds is out-of-bounds to students, as is the village of Hogsmeade to all below third year.

"It is also my painful duty to inform you that the Inter-House Quidditch Cup will not take place this year."

"What?" I gasped. I looked around at Fred and George, his fellow members of the Quidditch team. They were mouthing soundlessly at Dumbledore, apparently too appalled to speak. Dumbledore went on, "This is due to an event that will be starting in October, and continuing throughout the school year, taking up much of the teachers' time and energy—but I am sure you will all enjoy it immensely. I have great pleasure in announcing that this year at Hogwarts—"

But at that exact moment, there was a deafening rumble of thunder and the doors of the Great Hall banged open.

A man stood in the doorway, leaning upon a long staff, shrouded in a black traveling cloak. Every head in the Great Hall swiveled toward the stranger, suddenly brightly illuminated by a fork of lightning that flashed across the ceiling. He lowered his hood, shook out a long mane of grizzled, dark gray hair, then began to walk up toward the teachers' table.

Somebody from the purple group mumbled, "Oh, Jupiter..."

"Why do they praise the planets?" Ron muttered.

A dull clunk echoed through the Hall on his every other step. He reached the end of the top table, turned right, and limped heavily toward Dumbledore. Another flash of lightning crossed the ceiling. Hermione gasped.

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

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

The whole Great Hall nervously fidgeted, and I noticed that quite a few of the visitors' hands were creeping towards their pockets.

The stranger reached Dumbledore. He stretched out a hand that was as badly scarred as his face, and Dumbledore shook it, muttering words Harry couldn't hear. He seemed to be making some inquiry of the stranger, who shook his head unsmilingly and replied in an undertone. Dumbledore nodded and gestured the man to the empty seat on his right-hand side.

The stranger sat down, shook his mane of dark gray hair out of his face, pulled a plate of sausages toward him, raised it to what was left of his nose, and sniffed it. He then took a small knife out of his pocket, speared a sausage on the end of it, and began to eat. His normal eye was fixed upon the sausages, but the blue eye was still darting restlessly around in its socket, taking in the Hall and the students. A pretty girl from the orange group flinched violently as the eye rested on her for a moment.

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

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

"Moody?" I muttered to Ron. "Mad-Eye Moody? The one your dad went to help this morning?"

"Must be," Ron said in a low, awed voice.

"What happened to him?" Hermione whispered. "What happened to his face?"

"Dunno," Ron whispered back, watching Moody with fascination.

Moody seemed totally indifferent to his less-than-warm welcome. Ignoring the jug of pumpkin juice in front of him, he reached again into his traveling cloak, pulled out a hip flask, and took a long draught from it.

As he lifted his arm to drink, his cloak was pulled a few inches from the ground, and I saw, below the table, several inches of carved wooden leg, ending in a clawed foot.

Dumbledore cleared his throat.

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

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

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

"I am not joking, Mr. Weasley," he said, "though now that you mention it, I did hear an excellent one over the summer about a troll, a hag, and a leprechaun who all go into a bar."

Somebody guffawed, a big burly guy from the purple clad group. He didn't notice that one of his own compatriots was kicking him, and he continued to chuckle.

Professor McGonagall cleared her throat loudly.

"Er—but maybe this is not the time...no..." said Dumbledore, "where was I? Ah yes, the Triwizard Tournament...well, some of you will not know what this tournament involves, so I hope those who do know will forgive me for giving a short explanation, and allow their attention to wander freely.

"The Triwizard Tournament was first established some seven hundred years ago as a friendly competition between the three largest European schools of wizardry: Hogwarts, Beauxbatons, and Durmstrang. A champion was selected to represent each school, and the three champions competed in three magical tasks. The schools took it in turns to host the tournament once every five years, and it was generally agreed to be a most excellent way of establishing ties between young witches and wizards of different nationalities—until, that is, the death toll mounted so high that the tournament was discontinued."

"Excellent; sounds fun!" the guy with shaggy black hair from the orange group eagerly and rudely interrupted. "I can swing by to visit my father!"

The two people that were besides him, the girl in silver camouflage and the boy with green eyes, both smacked him around the head.

"Shut up," the girl snapped.

"Right. I'll shut up—ow! What was that for?" He glowered at the other person to his right.

The three of them burst out bickering.

All their other group members looked like they wanted to die from embarrassment.

"This year," Dumbledore continued, his eyes flitting to both groups, "we will also be having some...ah, interesting Muggles, if I may say, join us in the Triwizard Tournament, so there will be five champions this year.

"The heads of Beauxbatons and Durmstrang will be arriving with their short-listed contenders in October, and the selection of the five champions will take place at Halloween. An impartial judge will decide which students are most worthy to compete for the Triwizard Cup, the glory of their school, and a thousand Galleons personal prize money."

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

"Eager though I know all of you will be to bring the Triwizard Cup to Hogwarts," Dumbledore said, "the heads of the participating schools, along with the Ministry of Magic, have agreed to impose an age restriction on contenders this year. Only students who are of age—that is to say, seventeen years or older—will be allowed to put forward their names for consideration. This only applies to each of the three participating schools. Each of the contenders from the two camps in America, however, are free to choose whether or not they want to do it."

He raised his voice at the loud objections coming from Hogwarts. "However, this has been set because Chiron and Lupa—er, excuse me, the directors of the camps have assured us that each of these campers are...ahem, capable of handling themselves in case they run into a difficult situation."

"Difficult situation?" the guy with green eyes indignantly spluttered. Dumbledore waved his comment aside. "Well, now! I believe that I have spoken enough for tonight! Off to bed, all of you, tut tut! If the visitors would come to me for a moment, please."

Everybody began to file out of the Great Hall, murmuring amongst themselves, while the visitors stood by and walked to Dumbledore, who started talking to them in a low undertone.

"Who do you reckon they are?" I asked Hermione as we started walking to the Gryffindor dorm.

Hermione frowned. "Well, they were using the names of the Greek and Roman Muggle gods...I don't know what's up with that."

Something about them made me feel uneasy, like we weren't going to survive a week with the supposed "visitors" at Hogwarts. I was sure that complete pandemonium would break out once the Triwizard Tournament officially began.