"It is a great honour to announce that this year, for the first time in over a century, Hogwarts School will be playing host to the Triwizard Tournament!"
The empty plates and goblets had been cleared from the four house tables, where every astonished face was turned towards Dumbledore. Ernie McMillan's jaw dropped.
"YOU'RE JOKING!" Fred Weasley cried from the Gryffindor table and everybody laughed, except George who was shaking his head, apparently lost for words.
"Aha," Dumbledore too gave a little chuckle, "I am not joking, Mr Weasley. I am certain-" He raised his voice, quenching the buzz that had broken out on all sides, "That some of our number require a little further explanation, and I ask if the rest would allow their attentions to wander quietly."
Emer listened, her brain churning the information into excitement, as Dumbledore's words wove a Tournament thick with danger, triumph and riches promised to the winner. She caught George's eye across the room. He winked. She grinned back, imagining herself as school champion, the one student elected above all others to compete in dangerous tasks and win glory for Hogwarts.
"However, over the years the death toll has grown too high to be ignored, and certain safety precautions must be in place to ensure that none of the competing champions are in any serious danger. This includes," Dumbledore looked sternly around at the sea of anticipation, "A strict rule that only students who are of age by the thirty-first of October, that is to say seventeen, shall be allowed to enter the Tournament."
There was uproar at this. Fred and George, who would turn seventeen in April, rose as one, and yelling obscenities at Dumbledore that, thankfully, could not fully be heard over the tumult of noise.
"I will personally ensure," Dumbledore called firmly and the noise died down at once, Ginny and Lee Jordan pulled at the twins, but they would not sit. "That our impartial judge will not allow any under-age student, and therefore I advise you not to attempt it." His sparkling blue eyes held on the mutinous looks of Fred and George. "Now, off to bed all of you. Pip-pip."
The scrapings of chairs and escalating talk filled the Great Hall.
"Exciting isn't it?" Justin Finch-Fletchly said, turning to Emer. "I wish we were allowed to enter though," he added glumly.
"Aye," Emer nodded.
"I think Professor Dumbledore is quite right to put restrictions in place," Ernie said pompously, leaning in. "Quite frankly, no underage student will have learnt enough to participate safely." Emer rolled her eyes. She liked Ernie, but his love of rule-following, and her disregard for it, meant they did not always see eye to eye.
The three of them moved down the table together, speculating over the dangerous tasks the champions might have to compete in and thinking wistfully of the one thousand galleons in prize money that would never be theirs.
"You know," Justin said as they joined the back of the crowd, "I would have entered,"
"You?" someone scoffed. Draco Malfoy had snuck up behind them, flanked by his thickset bodyguards Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle. "I seriously doubt a Hufflepuff will be school champion, I mean, what are you really good at Fletchly? Manners can't really compete with dark magic can they?" Justin turned a little pink, and Crabbe and Goyle guffawed stupidly.
"What would you know about it?" Ernie snapped. Malfoy raised a scathing eyebrow.
"Really McMillan if that's the best you can-"
"Aye, but you'd be a great champion Malfoy." Emer smiled, "Daddy could pay the nasty monsters not to get mud on your precious, golden locks." Ernie and Justin both snorted loudly. Crabbe and Goyle's beefy faces curled into ugly snarls.
"Oh very clever, dirty mudblood." Malfoy spat, his cheeks darkening.
"I say!" Ernie cried, the smile slipping from his face.
Emer had grown up being butchered by much worse names than 'mudblood', but of course to wizarding folk it was the worst thing Mafloy could have come up with. All she did as Ernie spluttered with indignation was flick a finger and was carefully tread on Crabbe's foot as the crowd moved forwards and she left them.
The air was suddenly cooler as students disbanded, Gryffindors and Ravenclaws hurrying up the marble staircase, the Slytherins down to the dungeons and the Hufflepuffs towards the kitchens.
"Oi! Watch where you're going!" A skinny blonde boy with an upturned nose said, shoving Emer hard out of his way. She scowled, her fingers reaching for her wand.
"Hey!" Someone from behind darted forward and grabbed the boy's robes, "If I see you shoving people again Smith I swear you're off the team!" It was Cedric Diggory.
"Don't worry about it," Emer muttered going red, "It doesn't matter."
"It does!" Cedric pointed a finger in Smith's face, a few of Cedric's sixth year friends had joined them and were causing a pile-up. "I'm warning you, one more stunt like that and I'll have you off the Quiddich team for good. There are plenty of other, better, chasers in this house." Smith's face contorted with anger, but Cedric turned away before he had a chance to retort.
"Are you alright?" Cedric said to Emer, who was concentrating all her efforts on calming the rising flush in her face.
"Aye, I'm, I'm fine. Th-thank you…" She stuttered. Her voice came out unusually high pitched and it seemed her grasp of language had abandoned her.
"It's alright," Cedric said cheerily, his friends pulling him along with them, "Smith can be a right arse."
"A-aye." Emer laughed, but he was gone before she got the word out.
From time to time she fantasised about the tall, well-built boy, with dark ruffled hair and bright grey eyes that smiled even when his mouth did not. She had imagined walking through the school, arm in arm with Cedric, the pride of Hufflepuff house, of hiding in empty classrooms with him, of kissing him.
The Hufflepuff basement was found along a secret passage hidden behind a false barrel of butterbeer. People weren't staying in the common room tonight, all preferring to take refuge in their beds beneath thick sheets warmed with bedpans and plump with cushions. There were benefits to being in the homeliest of the Hogwarts' Houses.
Emer shared her dormitory with the four other Hufflepuff girls in her year, most of whom she got on with, but found all irritating.
"Evening Emer!" Megan Jones, a dumpy Welsh girl, called from her bed, her round face alight and excited, dirty blonde pigtails sticking out at right angles either side of her head. "Good hols'?" Megan reminded Emer of an upper class chipmunk.
Emer made a non-committal grunt as she bent down and began unlocking her school trunk. She was still glowing and careful to hide her face.
"Ignore her Megan," Susan Bones said, "She's just being a moody old wart." Out of all the girls in her dormitory, Emer like Susan the least. She followed her best friend Hannah Abbot around like a whimpering puppy, and was quick to criticise anyone failing to meet her own standard of perfection. Emer was yet to reach this ideal.
"Aye," Emer said, extracting her pyjamas before giving Susan a mock solute, "I'm a moody old wart so I am. Right y'are Susie." Megan and Leanne, the last of Emer's roommates, laughed nervously as Susan turned an interesting shade of burgundy. Emer smiled sweetly at her.
"Don't call me Sus…"
"Alright!" Hannah said, stepping between them, and Susan stopped at once, her eyes brimming with adoration. Emer turned away disgusted, silently praying that look would never appear on her own face.
"I don't want you two fighting before the term's even started." Hannah said imperiously, addressing the hangings Emer had pulled shut. "We're going to have to set an example to the foreign students this term."
"Didn't know they were going to be following me to bed." Emer muttered, "Although, I wouldn't mind some lost Beauxbatons boy finding his way here in the middle of the night."
Leanne shrieked with laughter and there was a little thud as Megan tumbled from her own four-poster. Emer couldn't stop the grin spreading across her lips.
"Bed!" Hannah said, although Emer knew she was struggling to hold back a laugh.
Chuckling, she lay back on her pillows and stared at the canopy above. She imagined again, winning the Triwizard Tournament, a thousand galleons prize money and Cedric Diggory running up to congratulate her. It was after their third consecutive kiss, when she fell into a dream of Draco Malfoy being chased by a dragon, his hands over his hair as it burned merrily.
Emer awoke late the next morning, and so stumbled sleepily down the staircase into the common room alone. Her stomach rumbled pointedly. Only a couple of fifth years sat by the fire, as most of the Hufflepuffs were already down in the Great Hall eating breakfast and collecting their new timetables.
The Great Hall was thick with chatter and the clatter of forks against plates, while the post owls fluttered in through the rafters, circling the tables and dropping packages. No one glanced twice at Emer as she followed a group of Hufflepuff boys to their table, until a shout was heard above the chatter-
"Oi! Paddy!"
Fred was on his feet, beckoning her towards himself and George. Feeling disapproving eyes on her back, she slotted herself beside Fred at the Gryffindor table instead. Susan Bones gave a distinct disapproving cough.
George rolled his eyes and Fred said loudly, "You should feel privileged Emer; we don't affiliate with duffers."
"Subtle…" Emer muttered, chuckling as she dropped her bag on the floor between her legs and took a glass of orange juice from George.
"We try," He said, winking.
They were clearly halfway through scrutinising their new timetables, one of which Fred had propped against the water jug. Emer picked it up and glanced over it.
"Nice…" she said, "You've got that Moody fella later. Creepy one he is…"
The twins shared a look.
"What? Do you know him?"
"Dad knows him. He reckons Moody was the best Auror the Ministry ever had, brilliant…in his day," Fred said carefully, glancing up at the top table.
"Auror?"
"Dark wizard catcher."
"But now he's meant to be a right nutcase." George shrugged. "The Ministry got rid of him when he started arresting people for looking at him twice."
Emer looked up at the top table too, Moody wasn't touching the food set out before him, but surveying the students, his mean mismatched eyes boring into the crowd.
"But anyway, we've got a scheme."
Emer took a sip from her glass and placed it back down before replying. "Go on." Fred turned his back slightly, so as to block their conversation from Seamus and Dean who sat the other side of him.
"It's this Triwizard thing," he said wielding a slice of toast in the air like a baton.
"And the age restriction." George muttered. Emer nodded, her eyes flitting from one twin to the next.
"We feel, with the greatest respect, that our dear Headmaster has greatly underestimated the ability of under-age wizards, and couldn't bare to think of our community going unrepresented in this prestigious event."
"Aye," Emer scoffed, "An' you thought a thousand galleons sounded pretty nice."
"Well, that too." Fred admitted.
"So…" George said, leaning across the table towards them. "We're going to trick this 'impartial judge' into letting us enter."
"Right, great plan." Emer rolled her eyes, "Let me know when you've actually worked out how."
"An aging potion." She stared at them, her mouth slightly open in disbelief.
"You're kidding right?" They shook their heads, "Dumbledore'll see through that a mile off! Everybody knows that you aren't seventeen!"
"Well…" Fred said, raising an eyebrow.
"If you don't want to join us…" George smiled slyly. She narrowed her eyes. If she was honest with herself, Emer knew she had to take every opportunity to make this friendship work – and they knew it too.
"Alright," she said, and they grinned wickedly. "But if I end up all warty because you've got half a brain cell between you…"
"How very dare you!" Fred gasped with a glint in his eye. They discussed the tournament in detail for the rest of breakfast, oblivious to the students steadily leaving the Great Hall for their first lessons. By the time the bell rang, the hall was empty apart from themselves and a handful of Slytherins.
"McKinley!" a harassed voice called. Emer stood up as the twins stuffed their timetables into their bags and slung them over shoulders. Squat, with wispy grey hair and cheeks tinged with a purple red, Professor Sprout was hurrying towards them.
"You didn't collect your timetable! I've been looking for you all morning, only to find you lounging around with…" she gestured at Fred and George, both of whose eyebrows shot skyward, "Do you care about your education?"
Emer bad the twins goodbye and trudged down the stone steps towards the greenhouses. She was very late, and the rest of her class were already pulling on protective coats and dragonhide gloves. However, to her relief, Professor Sprout hadn't arrived yet, and so she took her place on the back table without further comment.
Emer spent the next hour bursting bubotubers, repulsive black slug-like plants that yielded thick yellowish green pus. The highlight of the lesson was a spectacular explosion of pus from Seamus' bubotuber, which splattered the putrid smelling gunk all over him. However the humour wore off when he angled his next squeeze towards her place on the bench. The pus landed with a squelch and she had to duck to avoid it hitting her in the face. Professor Sprout quickly decided to end the activity for fear of a looming all-out pus-war between them.
The rest of Emer's first week proved not to be quite as enjoyable. The teachers clearly felt that they needed to cram as much into the heads of the students as they could before the Triwizard Tournament began. She, like the rest of the fourth years, was piled with essay after essay demanding explanations of transfigurments and charms, recipes for potions and recounts of apparently legendary Goblin Wars. Emer had to take Professor Bins' word for this, as she had never heard of the gory, bloody conflict until she walked into A History of Magic on Friday morning.
She sat through an hour of the ghost-professor's drones, without making a single note on her parchment. Instead, Emer entertained herself by zooming a dead spider across the classroom, flitting it from desk to desk with the intent of making as many of her classmates shriek as she could. The game ended with Draco Malfoy plucking the spider from Pansy Parkinson's hair and crushing it between his fingers.
The Hufflepuffs and Slytherins also shared their Defence Against the Dark Arts lessons that morning, and so all trudged together towards Mad Eye Moody's classroom. Emer followed Leanne and Megan, who were gossiping frantically – continuing a conversation they had started an hour previously.
"So what do you think? About Cedric entering the Tournament?" Megan asked Leanne excitedly.
"Well…" Leanne began, but a scathing voice cut her off from behind them.
"Cedric? You mean Diggory's putting his name forward? Oh please," He rolled his eyes and the other Slytherins started to laugh. "Not that arrogant pretty boy, he hasn't got the nerve to crush a bug. He would be dead in minutes!"
This, Emer thought, was a bit rich coming from Malfoy who was the pinnacle of 'an arrogant pretty boy'. The girls gasped, disgusted, and recoiled as if the insult had been aimed at them personally. Ernie McMillan stepped forward, a threatening finger raised.
"That was rude and inconsiderate." He began, and Emer lost hope. Malfoy knew it would provide a little light entertainment for his cronies as the Hufflepuffs spluttered for a worthwhile retort that would never come.
Pansy Parkinson was sniggering with her gang of girl friends at Malfoy's elbow. "It's not even like Diggory's handsome!" She snorted, "His face is all pinched and skinny! He looks like a house elf!" The other girls cackled with derisive laughter.
"You'd make a cute couple then Pansy," Emer said calmly from behind Ernie. "Pinched is one thing, but at least his face hasn't been smashed in with a frying pan, that really would be unfortunate. Tell me, does it make life difficult?" She asked angelically, batting her eyelids. This time it was the Hufflepuffs' turn to laugh. Pansy went bright red and her jaw hung open in shock.
"YOU CAN'T SAY THAT TO ME!" She shrieked, her hands balling into fists.
"Aye, well, you're probably right." Emer nodded slowly, her eyes glittering.
"I WAS EXPECTING A CLASS!" A booming bark came from behind the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom door. The Hufflepuffs all scurried through, flocking towards Moody's voice. As Emer turned to follow them, her eyes met Malfoy's for the briefest second. She continued through the door, considering.