The students had all filed into the Great Hall for the Halloween feast. The house elves who prepared the food had really outdone themselves that time, Maddie reflected, as she ate dinner wedged between Amber and Sierra. Across from them sat Boo and Allison, the latter of which was looking rather bored and the former who seemed to be practically bouncing up and down.
"I heard Carson Weatherstone put his name in the Goblet of Fire," she said. "He's a seventh year—and he's so attractive. I hope he's the one that's chosen."
"Is he a Hufflepuff?" Sierra asked, seemingly racking her brain for who her friend might have been talking about.
She shook her head. "Slytherin—but the good kind of Slytherins. The nice ones."
Maddie rolled her eyes. "That's such a stereotype, Boo. There really is no such thing as an 'evil Slytherin'..."
"Then why does it seem like everyone who's ever gone mad or joined You Know Who was from there?"
"Because they have ambition."
"Sure they do."
They immediately fell back into conversation with each other over who they hoped was chosen from each school. By the time that their plates had been cleared of dinner and the pudding had appeared, Allison and Amber were certain that it would be Angelina Johnson for Hogwarts, Martina Bouchard from Beauxbatons ("She has the body of a warrior, Sierra, you should see her," Amber said, "she's so tall and muscular!"), and Ivan Aleksandrov for Durmstrang. Maddie simply wondered how the two of them even knew Miss Bouchard and Mr. Aleksandrov in the first place, seeing as they were from another school.
"And Martina barely speaks any English," Allison said. "Oh, it was so sweet the other day when she asked me where the 'badroom' was at. I felt simply terrible about correcting her..."
"I'm sure," Maddie said, disinterest dripping from her voice.
Her eyes began to roam the Great Hall as she tried to place a guess on who would be chosen for the Tournament. At the Gryffindor table, it seemed that the students were certainly hoping Angelina Johnson would be chosen, as well as Carter Ganzby, a seventh year boy who had thick glasses that made his eyes appear to be twice the normal size and had an extremely round face. He didn't seem like a likely candidate, but then Maddie remembered two things: one, he was Head Boy; and two, he was extremely intelligent. Perhaps he would make a good champion.
From Ravenclaw, there was a large group of students hoping it'd be them. Kristin Frizzle was looking extremely hopeful; down the table some, Maxwell Zenneth was also a bit more jumpy than usual; and then there was a set of fraternal twins, Jane and Jeremiah Thiner, who were both hoping it'd be one of them. At Slytherin, it seemed all of them had placed their money on Hector Heathcliff, who was beaming at them all in pride.
She quickly turned her attention away from the Slytherin table in her search for Carson Weatherstone, who she found snogging a girl a little too passionately.
Martina Bouchard, Maddie had to admit, was quite pretty; like Amber had said, she was extremely tall. Maddie estimated she had to be close to Cedric in height, and she was certainly very muscular. Maddie wondered for a moment what she must have done in her spare time, because it certainly wasn't what the other Beauxbatons girls did (which was a whole lot of nothing).
And from her friends' descriptions, she found Ivan Aleksandrov with ease; he had a smug grin on his face, too, as though he had rigged the entire thing so that he would be champion. But down the table a ways from him sat Viktor Krum. Maddie would certainly be surprised if he hadn't entered his name, and if he had, she certainly liked his chances. To her, it seemed that most of the boys from Durmstrang were convinced it would be them that was chosen. For half a moment, she wondered whether they would attack the poor boy chosen to be champion, and then demand to take his place if they ended up killing him.
She finally turned her head back to the long Hufflepuff table, looking to see if there was anyone who she would put her money on. There weren't too many Hufflepuffs who had entered the tournament, so she supposed she had better just cheer on the Hogwarts student who ended up being chosen. Her eyes, as they usually did, fell on Cedric, and she felt her heart skip a beat. He was talking excitedly to his friends, making him so much more handsome than he already was—she thought he looked the sharpest when he was doing or talking about something he had a great passion for. Though she couldn't hear the conversation, she already knew what they were discussing: the tournament.
But then, they were all looking so hopeful and excited, and she knew that Cedric was the only one of them old enough to enter, but he promised he wouldn't. Were they doing the same as her friends, taking bets and guessing who they thought would be chosen?
She had to laugh, but managed to keep herself silent. Dumbledore had said himself that the Goblet of Fire, which chose the champions, was an impartial judge. There was no real way to place any bets; the champions were to be chosen at random, at least at her understanding of the practice.
Speak of the devil, she thought, as the dishes began to clear themselves and all the food on the tables suddenly vanished when most of the eating turned just to talking. The noise ceased, however, when Dumbledore stood and came to address them all. Both Professor Karkaroff from Durmstrang and Madame Maxime from Beauxbatons were standing on either side of him, and all three of them appeared very attentive. Ludo Bagman was there, too, along with Barty Crouch, Sr. Bagman was standing in a similar fashion to Dumbledore, but Crouch appeared as though he couldn't care less.
"Well, the goblet is almost ready to make its decision," Dumbledore said, and an even more noticeable hush fell over the students. "I estimate that it requires one more minute. Now, when the champions' names are called, I would ask them please to come up to the top of the Hall, walk along the staff table, and go through into the next chamber"—he indicated to the door that was behind the staff table—"where they will be receiving their first instructions."
"What's all the fuss about?" Sierra hissed as Dumbledore took out his wand and cleared all the candles (save for those inside of a pumpkin) with a sweeping flourish of it. "Over ninety-nine percent of the school won't get to do anything special..."
"But finding out the champions is so exciting," Allison breathed back, with a hint of disgust in her voice. She seemed to become easily fed up with Sierra's questions of the school and its practices, though it wasn't her fault she was so curious; she was Muggleborn.
Maddie had to agree with Allison about the excitement factor, though she didn't exactly agree with the tournament in itself. There was something sort of riveting about the whole affair.
The Great Hall was now in a state of semidarkness, thanks to the lack of light from the candles. The Goblet of Fire was the main source of light, as it continued to burn with a brilliant blue flame. Everyone watched expectantly, waiting for something to happen. A few moments passed, and Maddie was starting to lose interest when...
The flames suddenly tried vibrant red, and sparks began to fly out of the top of the object. A wave of flame shot into the air, high above their heads, and emitted a charred piece of parchment. The entire room gasped as the parchment flew towards Dumbledore and he snatched it out of the air, reading what was on it carefully...
"The Durmstrang champion," he said, pausing for a few moments (undoubtedly to build suspense), "is Viktor Krum!"
Krum rose from the Slytherin table, where he was being congratulated by everyone in the near vicinity of him. Maddie was a bit taken aback by this; hadn't she just thought that attempting to guess at who the champions would be was not a good idea, since there really was no way of knowing for sure? And yet, hadn't she also thought that she liked Krum's chances? Regardless, she joined in with the rest of the school with polite applause.
Her eyes flicked down the table at Cedric, who was looking back at her, deep in thought and very nervous. She raised her eyebrows in a way that was characteristic for them, an unspoken code: are you okay?
He nodded almost inconspicuously back a single time. This was another part of their code. Just fine.
She turned her attention back to Dumbledore as the applause died off. Krum had come up to the staff table and was shaking hands with Karkaroff, Dumbledore, and Maxime, and then disappeared through the door. The Goblet of Fire's flames burned brighter and brighter still, until another wave of flame came erupting out of it...
Dumbledore caught the next piece of parchment then, straining to read it as he did with Krum's.
"The champion from Beauxbatons," he said, then paused yet again (did they really need all the suspense?), "is Fleur Delacour!"
The other girls from Beauxbatons seemed to be very disappointed, but applauded politely nonetheless. Fleur seemed so proud of herself, jumping up gracefully and walking towards the three headmasters with a sort of grace that Maddie would never be able to imitate, not even in her wildest dreams; she just wasn't feminine enough to pull it off.
She had to admit, Fleur was quite pretty. There was, of course, first and foremost, the elegance. Maddie would never be able to hold herself the same way. But then, there was also the height—Maddie was quite short, being only about five feet tall. And on top of that, she had dazzling white skin, whereas Maddie was pale as pale could be. She had sparkling blue eyes that seemed to be deeper than the deepest lakes—and Maddie's green eyes were always hidden behind a pair of glasses. The worst part, besides the daintiness and the gracefulness, was just how beautiful her long, flowing blonde hair was. Maddie, too, had long blonde hair, but not like Fleur's, whose was shiny and silvery in color, and Maddie's was so dark it was almost brown. Dirty blonde, her mother called it, and it never did anything but lie flat.
Still, Fleur was champion, and Maddie shouldn't be so low as to compare herself to the girl; Amber loudly speculated (and was probably right) that she was part Veela. Maddie applauded just as politely as she had for Krum.
There was only one champion left. Hogwarts.
If she had to guess, she was going to say that it was either Angelina Johnson or one of the Thiner twins. If she could combine the three of them into one, that one person would be the perfect champion.
A large wave of flame came out of the top of the goblet, emitting a scrap of parchment...Dumbledore caught it between two fingers and read it, almost allowing himself a grin...
"The Hogwarts champion..."
Angelina Johnson?
Jane Thiner?
Jeremiah Thiner?
Carson Weatherstone?
To Maddie's great surprise, it was none of these names.
The name that was called nearly made her heart stop beating.
"Is Cedric Diggory!"
It felt as though all the wind had been knocked out of her as she looked down the table to where Cedric sat. He was grinning broadly, and all of his friends had rose to their feet, slapping him on the back and congratulating him. She pressed her hands to her mouth; had he been planning this?
For a moment, he looked down at her, and their eyes met. He was grinning, but seeing the expression on her face, the grin faltered ever so slightly. He cocked his left eyebrow—more of their unspoken code. What's wrong?
She didn't dare answer, partly because he was being shoved forward by his friends and he had no choice but to go shake the headmasters' hands, but also because he should have known what was wrong, and what was she to do? Stand up on the table and shout to him? By this point, all Maddie could think about was the thought of Cedric getting seriously injured, maybe even killed in this stupid tournament (and the horrible thought crossed her mind that there was a magically binding contract, and Cedric couldn't drop out of the tournament at this point), but there was also the fact that he had deliberately disobeyed her (and broken a promise, no less), and she started to cry.
Hard.
The noise in the hall was too great for anyone to hear her, even anyone in her immediate vicinity. That was why when Amber asked, "Cedric! As champion! I bet you feel proud, don't you, Mad?" and jabbed her in the ribs that she didn't notice the tears rolling down Maddie's face.
She was sobbing much harder, but somehow softer, when Cedric exited the room and Dumbledore continued, "Excellent! Well, we now have our three champions. I am sure I can count upon all of you, including the remaining students from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, to give your champions every once of support you can muster. By cheering your champion on, you will contribute in a very real—"
Dumbledore suddenly stopped speaking, and even Maddie stopped crying to see what was the matter.
The goblet had already chosen its three champions, but its flame was glowing red once again as though preparing to shoot out another name. It had to know that there wasn't any other schools, didn't it? And it did know the rule that there was only one champion from each school? Perhaps there was a glitch, and it was going to continue until it spit out every name of someone who had entered?
Sparks were flying, and finally, a single scrap of parchment came flying out, then floated towards the Headmaster, who caught the scrap, looking just as confused as everyone else undoubtedly felt. As he caught it, the flames died and changed back to blue, thereby squashing Maddie's theory that everyone's name was going to come flying out of it.
Dumbledore read the paper, cleared his throat, and looked out at the school, looking extremely concerned.
"Harry Potter."
Maddie and her friends all looked over at the Gryffindor table. Harry was looking back at Dumbledore, all eyes on him, and slowly sank lower in his seat. At the staff table, everyone looked absolutely horrified, especially Hagrid, who was mumbling to himself and shaking his head like this was all happening in a foreign language.
"Harry Potter?" Allison whispered. "What's going on?"
"The goblet chose two names?" Amber asked. "But—but Harry's not even seventeen..."
"Harry Potter," Dumbledore called again; Harry sank lower in his chair.
"What's going on?" Boo hissed. "Did he enter himself?"
"That's impossible," Maddie said, finally finding her voice. "The age line..."
Of course, an age line was an extremely tricky spell, but Dumbledore drew it himself, and if anyone was to draw a working line, it'd be Dumbledore. There was no way that Harry entered himself...but, lo and behold, he had been chosen as a fourth champion, and the second one for Hogwarts.
"Harry Potter!" Dumbledore said, breaking his usually calm demeanor by yelling. "Hurry up here, if you please!"
Finally, Harry removed himself from the Gryffindor table and walked on shaky legs. Maddie watched him go, hopelessly confused. What exactly had happened?
"He's a cheat!" someone yelled from the Hall.
"He's not even seventeen yet!" somebody else yelled.
"This is fixed!" a third person yelled.
When Harry reached Dumbledore, all of the teachers watched him go as though they were sentencing him to his death; not a single headmaster offered a hand to him, and most ignored his presence, with the exception of Dumbledore who said, "Right this way, Harry."
With that, Harry exited the Great Hall, and Dumbledore said, "You are all dismissed. Please return to your dormitories at once."
The students began to be filed out of the Great Hall by their respectable House prefect. With Cedric gone for the tournament, one of the fifth year prefects (a girl named Maureen Nighthoff) led them out of the hall to their dorms in the basement. Maddie was practically shaking all over.
"Well, regardless of what just happened," Amber said, throwing an arm around Maddie and knocking all of the wind out of her, "our Hogwarts champion—well, one of them—is a Hufflepuff! And Maddie's best friend, isn't he?"
She couldn't respond.
"I bet you're just bursting with joy on the inside, aren't you?"
She found her voice again just enough to say, "Oh, I'm bursting, alright."
"You seem upset," Sierra said.
"Probably just shocked," Amber said. "I was, too. I never in a million years suspected it'd be Hufflepuff—we never win in Quidditch or the House Cup, but I suppose this gives us a chance to get some comeuppance, wouldn't you say?"
Maddie's insides were writhing and twisting uncomfortably. When they finally reached the common room, Cedric's friends (John, Edward, Joseph, and Liam) were gathering everyone around to prepare them for a celebration, but Maddie excused herself to go up to bed.
As soon as she got into her pajamas and saw her bed, she collapsed onto it, weeping. Cedric's safety was her biggest concern, but it seemed to be something he just didn't care about at all. After all, he had put his name forward after promising her that he wouldn't. What in the world was he thinking?
Answer: he wasn't thinking. Not at all.
When Cedric returned to the common room about an hour later, a bit confused but overall pleasantly surprised, the room erupted into cheer. John ran forth and draped a banner around Cedric's shoulders as the room erupted into cheers of, "Diggory—Diggory—Diggory..."
"Make way, one half of the Hogwarts champions coming through!" John shouted, leading Cedric over to the hearth at the far corner of the room. "Congrats, man. I'm glad it was you."
The chants of 'Diggory' slowly faded into 'speech', but Cedric wasn't having any of it. He beamed proudly, draping the banner over an armchair, glad that he was selected. Finally, he had a reason for his parents to be proud of him. They claimed that they already were—and in his mother's case, that was probably true—but his father... Well, his father had a funny way of showing his admiration for his son, in that he didn't.
Sure, he boasted long and loud about all of his accomplishments to anyone who listened, but only if they matched a set of preconceived goals that he had. What about the time that Cedric had been the first to learn one of the hardest spells in his textbook in his second year? "Good job," his father said, with only meager pride. "Now let's see about getting you to becoming a star Quidditch player, eh?"
And as for Quidditch, when he was finally selected as a fourth year as the Hufflepuff Seeker, that announcement was heard loud by everyone. Academics, who cared about those? It was in sports that the real glory was at. Sure, Cedric loved Quidditch too, but it would have been nice if it wasn't the only thing his father cared about. And when his prefect badge came in the mail, all his father said was, "On the path to becoming Head Boy! And after that, I'm sure you're determined to join me at the Ministry, aren't you?"
And for Cedric, this tournament was something he was so eager to do, and it was certainly something that his parents wanted as well. Now that he was selected, he was determined to win. He was so glad that he decided to enter after all; what was it that was holding him back in the first place?
His friends dragged him from his thoughts, slapping him on the back and offering him a bottle of butterbeer, which he took happily and took a long drink out of. A large group of girls came over and started giggling in his presence, congratulating him for being selected, as though he had much choice in the matter; all he had done was simply write 'Cedric Diggory, Hogwarts' on a piece of parchment and put it in the Goblet of Fire, along with over a hundred other people.
As the girls ogled at him, he smiled back politely, yet a bit bored, then turned to cross to Joseph, who was standing off to the side by himself. As he looked about the scene, there was one person who seemed to be missing, and Joseph was the only person he could ask about it...
"Congratulations, Cedric," he said, grinning broadly. "I had hoped it'd be you..."
"Thanks, Joseph," he said back, then took another drink of butterbeer. "Listen, have you seen Maddie anywhere? I'd really like to speak to her..."
Joseph frowned. "Oh. She went to her room almost immediately after we got back."
Cedric, too, frowned. "She did? Why?"
Joseph shrugged. "Dunno. But she seemed upset."
Cedric's frown deepened. "Upset? Why would she..."
Suddenly, realization hit him.
"What is it?"
"Well...you heard Dumbledore last night."
Good Lord, Maddie was beautiful. But she was also very fidgety, and a bit panicked... He wondered for a moment what was the matter with her. This thought set him on edge, and so he stood up straight, frowning.
"About the Triwizard Tournament?"
Ah. That would be it. He relaxed some. "What about it?"
Her voice was shaking. Good God, why was her voice shaking so much? "You wanted to enter it, didn't you? You're the only one of your friends who's old enough to do it. I saw the look on your face."
"Well...yeah, I suppose I do." He shrugged, trying to seem nonchalant about it, in attempt to calm her nerves, though what she was nervous about, he had no idea. "Why? What about it?"
She sighed, as though he was missing the point. He felt like he was, and was hoping she'd just come out with it; her nervousness was setting him on edge as well. "It's just...well, you know what Dumbledore said. That people have died in this tournament? I did some research on it last night before I went to bed, in Hogwarts, A History, and it wasn't just the champions that have been hurt in it. In the last tournament, all three Heads of the schools—Hogwarts, Durmstrang, and Beauxbatons—were injured by a cockatrice that the champions had to capture. If it's dangerous enough to hurt the judges..." She trailed off.
He nodded, hoping to get this conversation over with so that he could finally work on calming her down. "Go on."
"I just would sleep easier at night if I didn't have to worry about you."
There was a silence as realization set in. "Are you asking me..."
"Not to enter?" He nodded. "Well..."
He knew that that was a yes.
"Oh, shit," he muttered to himself, setting his bottle of butterbeer on the table. When he spoke again, he was slightly more audible, speaking so that only Joseph could hear him. "Oh, God, Joseph...I made a mistake."
He frowned. "What are you talking about?"
"Don't you remember? She asked me a long time ago not to enter the tournament."
Joseph nodded, his face showing that he suddenly remembered too.
"And..." Cedric said, trailing off. It wasn't needed for him to explain that he had entered; after all, he had just been chosen.
"I see the problem," Joseph muttered. "Well, what are you going to do?"
"Apologize," Cedric said. "What else can I do?"
With that, he took off to where he saw her friends, far against the back wall. He only knew one of them by name (thanks both to Maddie and to Liam), but he didn't know which one it was, so he took a guess and just spoke to the group. "Er, excuse me—Amber?"
They all stopped talking when he spoke, as though they were questioning whether he was really addressing one of them. The one with long, curly brown hair, pale skin, and green eyes, like a cat's looked at him attentively. "Yes?"
"You're Maddie's friend, right?" She nodded. "Do you know where she is?"
"In our room," she said, "she said she was tired. I thought she'd want to stay here and congratulate you."
"Trust me, congratulating me is the last thing she'll be doing in the near future..."
With that, he walked away. He suddenly felt far tenser than he had for a long time.
John ran up to him, followed closely by Liam and Edward. "Hey, man!" Liam said. "How's it feel bringing all this glory to Hufflepuff?"
"Mmm," he said, trying to maneuver his way through the crowd in the direction of the girls' dorms.
"Hey—what's the matter?" Edward asked. "You don't seem quite yourself. Is everything... Why are you going towards the girls' dorms?"
He paused just outside the archway that led to the staircase to all of the girls' dorms. He stared down at his feet, then looked over his shoulder at Edward. "I—need to speak to someone."
"Well, you're never going to do it that way," Liam said. "There's some sort of force field that prevents guys from going into the girls' dorms. But they can come into ours."
Cedric's face suddenly set into anger at this development. He had remembered that; the founders didn't think that they could trust the boys as much, and so each House had this feature on the girls' dorms. He turned around, exhaling heavily, and said, "Great. This is really important, too..."
"Well, just forget about it. Most of the girls you'd ever want to talk to are all in here," Edward said, leading Cedric away from the archway. Cedric didn't tell him what he was thinking: I don't want to talk to any girls. I need to talk to this one. Liam followed after them, though John was still standing at the archway, looking after Cedric very suspiciously.
Liam stopped, turning back around to look at John. "Oi, what's the matter?"
John shook his head and answered before following them again. "Nothing. Nothing at all."
They pulled Cedric to the middle of the room, then Liam stood up on a table and said, "Cedric Diggory, the real Hogwarts champion!"
The room started to cheer, but Cedric's thoughts were elsewhere. I may be a winner, he said, thinking of how hurt and betrayed Maddie must have been thinking at that very moment, but I sure feel like a loser.
Okay, here is my long winded apology for never updating this story. And since some of the details are like 'uh, what?', yes, this is an entirely true story.
So, I last updated in March, and started working on chapter seven about a week after I posted chapter six. But then, I was cast in my school's production of Beauty and the Beast, albeit a very small part. Still, being at rehearsal gave me very little time to do anything "productive" (I use that loosely since I know my parents don't consider writing to be very productive, especially writing fanfiction). So that went on until the very beginning of May. Then after BatB ended, I had to start focusing on my AP tests (I was in AP English Language and AP US History). That also took up a pretty reasonable chunk of time. Then, once I was all done with AP testing, I had finals. YAY.
Not.
So anyway, finals. I did very well on these; my worst grade in a class was like an 85%, so I got a B because the American grading system is super unfair and anything lower than a 90% is a B. That was in English, my best subject, but like I said it was AP and my teacher was a REALLY STRICT grader. Although he was the best English teacher I've ever had, too, and he was my favorite teacher despite how strict he was in grading. I really like to think that his guidance was the reason I got a 5 on my AP English exam and therefore don't have to take English Language in college (in AP land, the best possible score on an AP test is a 5, and scores of 3-5 will give you college credit so you don't have to take the class once you're in college. The grading scale is complicated, so I recommend you check out the College Board's website if you want to understand it).
Anyway, summer starts and I'm SERIOUSLY READY to get back into my fanfiction mode. And then I had way too many health problems to list here, so I was not in the mood to write. So I finally get tested for these problems and are awaiting the results and I decide, 'Hey, now's a good time to start working on the next chapter of Fearless since I have been attempting to write this godforsaken thing for FOUR DAMN YEARS NOW'.
And then my laptop crashed.
Just days before I had to go across the country to Philadelphia for a creative writing summer program where we were sort of required to have a computer. So I had to buy a new Toshiba laptop, complete with Windows 8 which I HATE WITH A PASSION OH MY GOD, so I could go to Philadelphia. I would have wrote the chapter there, but my stupid laptop that crashed had all of my notes for this fanfiction on it, so no bueno. My old computer luckily had the hard drive intact, so a coworker of my mom's saved all of my files. But I was on the other side of the country, so there was no way I could possibly get the files and use them.
So I got home and my files still weren't back from my mom's coworker. And I needed the files to write this, because I had carefully outlined this story and two sequels on my computer (yes, two. Don't judge me; I've been thinking about this couple pretty much nonstop for four years now, okay?) and if I deviated from my outline it would majorly screw up the rest of my outline and I didn't want to have to rework it. It took until October for me to get them all back. And YAY TIME TO WRITE. Except now I'm the lead in another play so boo I can't write. Oh, play's over, time to write YAY-oh wait my boyfriend/potential fiance just broke up with me. Okay I'm sad and have a lot of emotion I need to let out YAY WRITING TIME-except now it's November so that means NaNoWriMo and applying for colleges.
And now here we are.
And oh God, according to my outline you all are going to hate me starting in chapter nine. I'm preparing my funeral as we speak. Please don't be too harsh; everything will get worked out, I promise.
I hope you accept this apology regarding my absence, and I also hope that you're kind enough to please review.
- Hatter of Madness