Todays chapter up nice and early (compared to recent days anyway, lol)


Afterwards there were indeed photographs. A small man entered the room, complete with a large old fashioned flash camera. He seemed, for the most part, determined to get Fleur in the centre, but for some reason Rita insisted that Usagi and Haruka should be in the middle. Madam Maxime was forced to sit on the floor in order to fit in the photo and Karkeroff was constantly complaining that Krum was too far back, despite the fact that he was more often than not moving there of his own free will.

Finally they were done meaning Usagi, Harry and Haruka could head down for dinner. Usagi and Harry sat with Hermione and the inner senshi, but Ron was sat a short distance away with Dean and Seamus.

The article on the tournament was not published for another few days, leading to more than a little talk about what could be holding Rita Skeeter (who seemed to be renowned for causing trouble) back from publishing a story with so much juicy gossip. When the article finally did appear, it caused quite a stir.


When I, Rita Skeeter Daily Prophet Reporter, was given the task of reporting on the historic resurrection of the tri-wizard tournament, I expected a story. What I did not expect, however, was the story I received.

For it seems that, despite the tournaments long history, it has now become traditional to allow five champions to compete over three. More than that, two of the champions are under the age stipulated in the new tournament guidelines.

One of these champions is none other than poor, long suffering Harry Potter, or 'the boy who lived'. Harry Potter's story is, of course, legend, but unfortunately I was not able to interview the youngest of the champions, or indeed any of the champions, and so have instead turned my not to be underestimated skills of journalism to the two newcomers, both of whom are transfer students at Hogwarts this year – Tenoh Haruka and Tsukino Usagi.

Tenoh was originally the Hogwarts champion after it was decided that for the purpose of the tournament the transfer students should be considered students of the historic school. Miss Tsukino, however, is underage and therefore was in no position to enter the tournament.

Since the drawing of the champions names from the goblet of fire, it has been decided that Potter will run as the only Hogwarts champion while Tsukino and Tenoh run individually. Neither of them attended a magic school prior to their year at Hogwarts, meaning that there was no headmaster to take a place on the judging panel. The new History of Magic teacher at Hogwarts, one Meioh Setsuna, is supposedly a high ranking member of the Japanese Ministry, and so has taken the empty judges slot.

Only yesterday, I paid a visit to Japan and, after much time spent searching, finally located the home of the elusive transfer students – in the Juuban district of Tokyo city.

It took me only moments with the parents of Miss Tsukino to realise that they had no idea where their daughter really was. The pair of them and their son, all of them muggles, were under the impression that little miss Usagi had received a scholarship to a prominent English boarding school.

As for Tenoh I could learn very little about except for the fact that she seems to live with fellow students Kaioh Michiru and Tomoe Hotaru. Kaioh and Tenoh seem to have raised Tomoe as their own daughter after her father was seriously injured a year or so ago in an explosion that levelled his (non-magical) school to the ground.

As for Meioh, I could find very little – either the Japanese Ministry is far more effective at hiding itself than it's British counterpart or it simply does not exist.

The champion for Durmstrang is Victor Crum, while the Beabaton champion is Fluer Delacoor.


Usagi could not, it seemed, escape from the aftermath of that article. The Slytherins seemed to find the fact that her parents were not magical something to make fun and insult her about. Hermione had explained the logic they had about this, but Usagi agreed with her – it was more than a little ridiculous.

The first task was scheduled to take place on November the 24th, only a couple of weeks away, and Usagi had no idea what she would be up against. This, they had been told, was the point of the first task – to test courage in the face of the unknown. Ami, however, had always been a believer in preparation, meaning that when the first Hogsmeade weekend finally rolled around the scouts and Usagi were to be found alone in the charms classroom practising every spell Ami thought might come in useful of which there seemed to be a surprisingly large amount.

They were slightly late for dinner and did not join in the conversations of their classmates, most of whom were talking about what they had done in the village. Usagi went to bed early and barely stirred as one by one the scouts went to bed around her.

She did, however, notice when Hermione burst into the room panting. "Usagi?" She ran over to the bed and shook her friend awake, "Usagi? Harry says he needs to talk to you right now – it's really urgent." Usagi shook her head slightly and brushed her long hair out of her eyes.

"What – right this second?"

"Yes, but he wouldn't say what about."

"We're coming," Usagi pulled on her dressing gown as the scouts each shook themselves out of varying states of drowsiness. They hurried down the stairs into the common room, which was empty except for Harry who was sat by the fire.

"No! It's alright Sirius, they're friends," Harry said to... Usagi blinked. There was someone's head in the fireplace.

"Very well," the head said, nodding towards Harry. "Is one of them this Usagi?"

"That's me," Usagi squeaked, moving next to Harry as Hermione came back down the stairs this time accompanied by Haruka and Michiru.

"And this would be Haruka?" Haruka nodded stiffly but did not speak.

"Dragons." Harry said, "that's what the first task is. There are five dragons, and we have to get past them."

"Dragons?" Usagi's head felt light, "you mean… dragons actually exist?"

"Yes, but don't worry," the head in the fire said, not unkindly, "there are simple ways to defeat them."

"Go on!" Usagi encouraged eagerly, "tell us!"

The head – Sirius? – took a deep breath and then stopped as the sound of footsteps came from the boys dormitory. "I'd better be off," and without another word the head disappeared with a slight pop.

Usagi turned to see Ron emerge from the boy's dormitory. He seemed more than a little surprised to see so many of them there and hesitated. "What do you want?" Harry asked aggressively, "haven't you done enough already?"

Usagi stared at Harry – when had it gotten this bad? For a second Ron's hand twitched and Usagi thought he might reach for his wand, but instead he just shook his head and turned away, heading up the boy's dormitory.


Dragons, dragons, dragons…

The word circled around Usagi's head all through Sunday, which they spent in the library with Harry and Hermione, looking for any one of the simple ways Sirius had hinted at to defeat them with no luck. They found many books on raising dragons, back from the days when it was legal and there was a market for such books, but nothing about how do fight one.

The likelihood that most people weren't stupid enough to try. Usagi knew that Haruka was planning to use the skills unique to her as Sailor Uranus to defeat the dragon, which she had apparently spent some time working on since the weighing of the wands. Usagi only wished she knew how to do something other than make pretty sparks with her wand.

Sunday ended far too fast, and Monday zoomed along too. On Monday evening, they were heading for dinner when they head the clunk behind them that could only mean Moody was walking behind them.

"Potter," he growled.

"Yes professor?"

"Come with me."

Harry followed Moody cautiously, wondering what he could want. When they reached his office, Moody sat down and looked at Harry, "so tell me," he said, "how did you find out about the dragons."

"I don't know what you mean sir," Harry said loyally – there was no way he was going to tell Moody that Hagrid had shown him the dragons.

"Relax Potter, cheating is traditional in this tournament. Now, how do you plan on getting past your dragon?"

Usagi felt sick. She would be fighting a dragon in a little less than two hours and she had no plan, no idea of what to do. Harry, she knew, would be summoning his broom after some advice from Moody, but Harry had passed on the advice and Usagi could not think of anything she had ever really been good at other than being Sailor Moon, and she couldn't do that for the tournament even had she wanted to.

She clutched at the almost useless Henshin broach in her pocket and wished she could still transform. When the time came, she headed down with Harry and Haruka, trying and failing to stop her legs from shaking.


Thanks again to reviewers :) – you keep me going x

I know this was a little bit of a filler chapter, but I can promise the next one wont be... well duh...

And to answer questions – I can't reveal the secret behind the wands :o That would ruin a major plot element (ok… a major plot element that only occurred to me in full last chapter, but still….)

And as for comparing riddle and the moon baddies, it's not something I've really considered before… an interesting question for certain :) x