While they were discussing plans for tomorrows breakfast they had missed Filch setting up extra chairs and the Heads and Barty Crouch arriving. It also took a particularly loud throat clearing from Dumbledore, and a solid glare from most of the professors before they realized that he had stood to begin a speech.
"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, ghosts and – most particularly – guests," he beamed around at the foreign students, "I have a great pleasure in welcoming you all to Hogwarts. I hope and trust you find your stay here will be both comfortable and enjoyable." Then with a quick wave of his hands the feast appeared. Even from where they were Harry could hear Hermione complaining about 'claiming the work of house-elves as his own', and guiltily felt happy not to be sitting with his normal friends.
The feast was more extravagant in honor of the extra students, the house-elves had really outdone themselves. Harry had never seen most of the food in front of him, although he had cooked a fair share of the obscure desserts for Petunia before. The twins seemed almost equally out of depth, but Lee seemed more than happy to describe all of them, and Harry soon had a competition going to see who could try the most dishes. He found that Fred would eat absolutely anything, while George was surprisingly squeamish with anything red.
"Prank gone wrong with blood." He shrugged, forfeiting to Harry. In the end he and Fred came to a draw, although secretly Harry had gagged in his mouth on the last dish, some form of eggs, which he strongly suspected weren't from fish. They seemed to be sitting near a lot of French food, and quite a few of the girls from Beauxbaton came over to ask for dishes that had run out on their table. Their silky blue uniforms had most of the boys a little distracted, and didn't look to be doing much for keeping the girls warm. After watching the twins and Lee expertly flirt with every girl that came over Harry eventually won some points (plus a few glares from the boys) when he taught the fourth witch to come over shivering a warming charm they, as students in Scotland, had covered in first year.
He was actually enjoying himself greatly. While it was rather out of character for him to get outwardly annoyed at his celebrity status, he was always the center of attention, and hated it. Harry secretly thought that even Viktor Krum wouldn't manage to be center of attention for very long with the twins around, and Harry spent most of the meal trying not to cough up a mouthful of food, or snort more pumpkin juice through his nose. By the end of the feast he had a stitch in one side from laughing. This had become especially hard when a particularly pretty French witch approached Ron, Dean and Seamus, who only seemed to be able to splutter when she asked for the bouillabaisse, and eventually had to wait for Hermione to stretch down the table and pass it to her, Dean knocking a vat of gravy into Seamus' lap in a sudden effort to help.
"Veela." Lee said in awe.
"What?" Harry said, watching amused as Seamus refused to let Lavender clean off the gravy, obviously uncomfortable with a laughing witch pointing her wand lazily at his crotch.
"That girl, she must be part Veela."
"Ah, that explains it." Harry nodded to the ongoing escapades further up the table, unfortunately for Seamus bringing the twins rather loud attention to him.
"They don't make them like that at Hogwarts." Harry heard Ron arguing with Hermione.
"They make them okay at Hogwarts." Harry mumbled, glancing at Cho Chang, who was sitting at the Ravenclaw table not to far down from the silver haired witch.
"Oh-ho!" George grinned. Fred smirked and opened his mouth but Harry was having none of that.
"What you don't agree?" He said false-innocently, just loud enough to catch Angelina's and Alica's attention. Suddenly the twins were stuttering to find an answer and while they were busy Harry swiped the last piece of chocolate cake from off Fred's plate.
Once the plates were all cleared a tension filled the hall, and everyone quickly fell silent when Dumbledore stood. Fred and George leaned forwards and the group of girls all sat up straighter and grinned at Angela. She's obviously planning to enter, well at least there is a chance for Gryffindor Harry thought as he to leaned to get a better view of the Headmaster.
"The time has come to begin the competition. I would like to give a brief informative speech before we bring forth the casket–"
"So that's the judge" Lee whispered as a box was carried in by Filch.
"Before I do that, let me introduce to you some faces that will become familiar over the next few months. Mr. Bartemius Crouch, Head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation, and Mr. Ludo Bagman," Harry couldn't help but notice that Ludo got a much louder applause, "Head of the Department of Magical Games and Sports." Harry also noticed that Krum didn't applaud much for Bagman, in fact he almost looked to be glaring, although it was hard to tell as the seeker generally looked rather grumpy. Harry's thoughts drifted, idly wondering if his expression had much to do with constantly being hounded by fans. His attention was brought abruptly back as the Triwizard Cup was brought out from it's crate and the hall sucked in a collective breath.
The cup was beautiful, it was heavily engraved and had a pulsing blue glow, which originated at the newly lit silver flames. The flames themselves looked like molten silver flowing and dancing around the cup. The murmur of interest grew steadily and Denis Creevy actually stood on his chair to get a better look. Of course he was tiny, so he barely stood out.
"There are three tasks that the champions will have to face, all of which have been examined already by Mr. Crouch and Mr. Bagman, and will test the champions nerve, magical prowess, daring, and of course their ability to cope with danger. The tasks are spread out over the school year, the first one in just under a month away." The hall was filled with silence now, everyone eating up Dumbledore's every word.
"If you are of age, and wish to enter the tournament, you will have to place your name and school into the impartial judge: The Goblet of Fire." Fred and George exchanged grins at that. "Students will have twenty four hours to enter their names, until the Halloween feast tomorrow night."
Harry groaned loudly at this, but thankfully most of the school had begun whispering so very few people heard.
"I will ensure that nobody under seventeen will enter the tournament, and will be drawing an age line around the Goblet to this effect." The whispering in the hall grew louder and Harry could already see from the glint in the twins eyes that they thought they could beat this simple measure. "I wish to impress upon anyone who is thinking of entering the tournament not to do so lightly, as while we have reduced as many risks as possible, it is still a risk." Dumbledore stared around at them solemnly, before his face suddenly grew into a smile.
"Right then, now that we are fed and informed, we should head off to bed. Good night, and we shall see you in the morning."
They met back up with the fourth years to leave the hall, Ron watching the Drumstrang students carefully, wondering where they would be sleeping. Sadly, as Ron had been hoping to offer their dorm, they appeared to be heading back to their ship. Karkaroff was walking with Krum, offering wine and berating the other students for wanting some. As Ron kept slowing to try and get closer to Krum they arrived at the doorway at exactly the same instant. Harry gestured for Karkaroff to go firstand the Headmaster carelessly threw a polite "Thank you" over his shoulder, however after turning back he did a double-take and stopped to stare at Harry as if he couldn't believe his eyes. Behind him most of the Drumstrang students came to a stop and craned their necks trying to see the hold-up. Slowly they all caught on and Harry found many eyes flicking to his forehead, and not so subtle whispers running around the group. One boy actually pointed with his jaw hanging open. Harry sighed deeply.
Karkaroff's eyes took in all of Harry, slowly coming to rest on his scar.
"Yeah, that's Harry Potter." Said a growling voice from the side. Thankfully this took some, but not all the attention off Harry. Karkaroff spun around.
"You!" He said, to Mad-Eye.
"Me." Mad-Eye agreed, magical eye spinning. "And unless you've got anything to say to Potter I suggest you stop blocking the doorway.
Karkaroff seemed to glare, first at Mad-Eye, then at Harry, but said nothing and swept from the room, actually leaving Krum to trail a bit, something which seemed to shock his students a little.
Harry sighed, pushing through the crowd to catch up to the twins and get back to the Hogwarts students who were mostly used to him.
"An Age line!" Fred grinned, as they walked back to the Gryffindor tower. "We already have some aging potion on stock. Piece of cake."
"Yes but the competition is for seventeen year olds, you shouldn't–" Hermione lectured, but George just leaned around her to Ron.
"Mum would kill me for asking," He said gleefully, "But do you want some if we can get past?"
Ron nodded immediately, stepping out of reach of Hermione he grinned. "Hell yes!"
"What about you Harry?" Fred asked.
"Still a no, but thanks." Harry smiled, causing the twins to shake their heads in shame.
"No sense of adventure this one!" They joked, causing a few people to laugh thinking of Harry's previous years.
"But I don't think anyone under seventeen will stand a chance," Hermione fought on, "We just haven't learnt enough…"
"Speak for yourself." Said George shortly. "Hey Harry, continuing our conversation about certain inheritances you haven't yet lived up to, mind if we borrow…" He trailed off, and caused an already glaring Hermione to glare harder by winking at Harry. "Got to watch out for the competition."
"Wha– Oh yeah, sure. Are we still on for the other thing?" Harry said, causing Hermione to get so frustrated that she Huffed and stalked up the girls dormitory stairs.
"Sure. Grab your… stuff, and head up to our dorms. You can help us with the potion if you want?" This then caused Ron t give Harry a jealous look, but Harry just mouthed 'I'll explain it in a bit', so they headed up to their own dorm together.
"They want the map back to watch who's entering, and I want help with a prank." Harry shrugged, talking quickly before Dean and Seamus entered the dorm.
"A prank? What are you doing that for?" Ron asked warily.
"Because... I guess it's a link to my dad." Harry shrugged.
"Oh." Ron went quiet for a bit. "Hey listen, about tonight, I didn't–"
"Nah, it's fine." Harry grinned, "I'm just in a foul mood."
"Oh? What's bothering you?"
"Well… this is going to sound stupid, but have you ever noticed things always happen to me on Halloween?"
"What do you mean?"
"The troll, the first attack, Sirius breaking in… and, you know, mum and dad."
Ron frowned. "So you think something will happen tomorrow?"
Harry shrugged, "I just think it's pushing fate a little to have the names drawn on Halloween."
Ron's frown increased, "Well, you know, I was there for most of that too."
"Yeah," Harry's mood lightened. "Yeah, you were."
Harry delivered the map up to the twins, they were already brewing a cauldron each, Fred a giant silver one, which he was sprinkling shredded pieces of paper into, and George a small one that seemed to be cycling from White to Black and back again.
"What are you adding?" Harry curiously asked Fred, only ever having added plant or animal parts to potions before.
"This is a language potion. The book we found it in said you have to read the entire language dictionary out while you stir it, but after a little experimentation we found that if you just shredded the dictionary into the potion then it does the same process."
"Plus you can use it for more then one language this way, as normally there isn't enough brewing time to read out more than one language."
Harry stared into the murky potion, he could see little bits of paper floating around still.
"Are you sure this is safe?"
"Of course. We did comprehensive testing." Fred grinned. "After all, while your wand is registered over the holidays, any potions you brew aren't."
George nodded with a matching smile. "Of course there was the odd explosion –"
"Or two." Fred interrupted.
"Or two," George acknowledged, "But after we discovered adding bubotuber pus dissolves the paper, the whole thing became significantly easier to get down."
Harry sighed, but dutifully ladled the potion into five big containers.
"So how do we get people to drink it?"
Fred and George grinned. "Ever been to the kitchens?" They said in unison.
Two hours later Harry and the twins returned to the dormitory heavily laden down with snacks. The elves were very happy for some extra work it seemed, and surprised Harry by agreeing immediately to helping Fred and George.
"Don't you worry they'll turn you in?" Harry asked as they stepped into the common room, still watching the map.
"That git Peterson from Slytherin has just entered," George commented, he had been watching the goblet since they finished brewing, "Nah, the little blighters love us. I know Hermione thinks she's standing up for them, but they are actually happier when they have more work to do."
Harry just made a non-committal noise, he knew better than to get caught between the twins and Hermione. "I actually didn't think Peterson was that bad." He switched back to the topic of the Triwizard entrances.
The twins shrugged in unison, not looking at each other, "Yeah, he stays out of stuff, but can you imagine–"
"A Slytherin champion. We'd never live it down."
Harry had a sudden vision of Malfoy gloating, but shrugged it off with a shiver, "Yeah I guess, Do the other schools have houses? I wonder how they chose who came here?"
"Maybe just all the seventeen and older students." They shrugged again in unison.
"Hmm, yeah I guess I didn't see many younger students. Pity, all those extra French witches…" Harry grinned, and dodged Lee-Jordan's friendly swipe and headed back down to his own dorm.
The next morning Harry set his alarm early, and got up straight away to wake Ron.
"Come on! Wake up!"
"Whassmatter?" Ron rolled over, wrapping the blanket around him and falling to the floor with a loud THUMP.
"I'm heading down to see who's going to put their names in the cup, the twins reckon that most people will try and do it before everyone wakes up."
"Before we even wake up." Dean said, climbing out of bed and making his way blearily over to the bathroom. There was a lot of grumbling but soon they were all up and dressed and heading down to sit near the cup. Apparently they were right with their hunch. Other than the fourth year Gryffindor boys, there were a few Ravenclaws, studying on the benches, but looking up to watch people enter and a group of Sixth and seventh year Hufflepuffs, who cheered loudly when four boys and a girl from their house entered their names, but then headed in to breakfast.
Cedric Diggory was one person who entered, and came over to talk with Harry, who had struck up a conversation with Davies, the Ravenclaw Quidditch captain.
"So you've entered then?" Davies grinned.
"Yeah, did you?" Cedric smiled widely, nodding acknowledgement to Harry.
"Nah, I decided against it. I want to do well on my N.E.W.T.S this year. It's a bummer about Quidditch though."
Harry grinned at this and looked at Cedric, "It's a pity we can't have an inter-school game, although I'd lose my record a second time, and without the dementors." Harry winked.
Cedric laughed loudly, "Who's to say I wouldn't have beaten you to the snitch anyway?"
"Ah, but we'll never know." Harry joked, but then switched to a normal tone, "In all honesty you were pretty far ahead of me."
Davies grinned, he had never talked to Harry off the field before, and until a passing comment that morning had assumed he was a bit of a snob. Fred and George were wearing off on Harry though, and after a few jokes the ice broke, and with no competition this year they got into an enthusiastically debate about Quidditch tactics. Ron added the occasional comment in, but his house pride was still too strong to talk much Quidditch with an opposing team member.
"It is really unfortunate for me that they aren't running a season, It means I won't have Quidditch Captain on my graduation certificate, nor the championship cup we would obviously have won." He winked and Harry and Cedric just laughed.
"That was one of the main reasons I entered," Cedric admitted sheepishly, gesturing to the cup. "I figured if I couldn't play Quidditch I had to do something with my time."
Harry frowned. Quidditch was a massive stress reliever for him, and he was missing it already, even though he was still forcing himself out to fly.
"I'm already missing it, although I've been out flying quite a few times. I'm thinking about buying a snitch too, because Madam Hooch won't lend me a school one and I don't want to get out of practice."
"I've got one." Cedric grinned, "And if you'll let me join you I'll even let you use it."
"Really!" Harry grinned, "Having someone to fly with would be great."
"What am I? A broom?" Ron spoke up jokingly.
"No, but as much as you enjoy being Keeper, I suck at Chaser." Harry said despondently making the two elder boys laugh.
"Maybe we could get some pick-up games going?" Cedric suggested.
"Assuming you don't get into the tournament." Harry grinned.
Cedric shook his head, "I'd like to, but I think it's unlikely. There is already bets going around about who will be selected, Merlin only knows how they got the names. So far Jenkins is leading."
"Who's Jenkins?" Davies asked wrinkling his nose. Harry just laughed.
"He's in your year. But Gryffindor, he seems the quiet type though, I wouldn't have even suspected him of entering."
"Oh, is he that dark-haired boy? He's amazing in defense, and in charms. Besides, our house had a debate a few weeks back; they think it'll be a Gryffindor too. After all, you guys are all about bravery and daring."
Harry shook his head again. "Yes but we are all sorted because of our strongest traits. Just because you are in Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff doesn't mean you aren't brave, just that you are more interested in knowledge or loyalty."
"I heard you said that before when your mates were discussing my considering entering." Next to Harry Ron went a bright red and suddenly found interest in the conversation Neville and Dean were having.
"Hmm." Harry mumbled.
"So can I join you in the mornings with the snitch?"
Harry grinned. "Please."
At that moment they were interrupted as Fred and George turned up to much cheering. They walked up to the edge of the line and clinked glasses before downing a bit of their aging potion and trying to cross the line. They both got two steps in and began cheering themselves, when suddenly there was a loud sucking noise and they were thrown across the hallway, landing in a pile of tangled limbs. Just as they got themselves untangles there was a loud POP and both of them sprouted waist-length beards. The whole room went silent as the twins stared at each other.
"I say old chap, you look rather dashing in that." George grinned.
"Equally as old and equally as dashing as you my dear." Fred said, reaching out and tweaking George's beard. Suddenly they were both rolling on the floor laughing, and the room quickly joined in, only to stop again when Dumbledore materialized out of nowhere and suggested that they head up to the hospital wing where Madam Pomphrey would fix them up straight away. They looked at each other, then glanced quickly at Harry.
"Actually I think we'll enjoy this for a few hours first." They grinned in unison.
"Ah, very well," Dumbledore smiled benignly "After all, one can gain great wisdom through experiencing the knowledge of time whilst still young."
The twins just started a parade towards the great hall. Harry, Cedric and Rodger Davies followed on together, the other Hufflepuffs having already gone.
"Bloody barmy." Cedric muttered.
"What, the twins?" Harry asked.
"Nah, Dumbledore."
"Oh definitely." Harry agreed. Both boys turned to stare at Harry, who was generally acknowledged by the whole school as being quite close to the Headmaster. "Of course he does it on purpose most of the time." He grinned. "Oh, and I'd watch out for the bacon and the pumpkin juice." He winked and went to sit next to Ron.
Cedric and Rodger Davies glanced at each other as they headed towards their respective tables.
"Hmm, he's been hanging around those twins a lot lately." Rodger mused.
"Yes," Cedric agreed, "I think I'll be having tea instead of juice this morning."
"Mmm, no bacon for me." Rodger agreed.
They both grinned.
In the end it wasn't such a drastic choice, the twins had wanted the prank to have a time-delay activating on a certain phrase or word, however Harry suggested just having a time-delay from when someone eats or drinks. That way they would have moved on to different foods and it would take longer to figure out what was causing the prank. The twins had just stared at him silently, making for a very nervous Harry, however on a silent signal they dropped to their knees and began hailing him as 'Oh great prankster son of prongs, teach us all you have naturally inherited. Harry had given Sirius a quick mirror call to let him know this, and had had him in strong hysterics.
As it was, the system was a huge success, and no matter how much McGonagall glared she couldn't pin it down to the twins (although they did lose twenty points for having crooked ties… and they didn't even have ties on). Everyone else laughed at first, then tried to find the source, and as the foreign students joined eating bacon and pumpkin juice became quite popular. The effects were for ten hours, and by the time Harry got to his second class most of the teachers had given in and approached the elves for extra potion. The potion meant that everyone was talking constantly in either Bulgarian or French, and had completely forgotten how to understand English. It was particularly funny for the few students who had skipped breakfast, as they had no idea what was going on all day. History of magic was especially boring too, as Professor Binns couldn't eat anything, so droned on in an, to the students, unrecognizable language. Fortunately no one but Hermione paid attention in history anyway.
The one downside to the potion was that Harry could now understand all the whispering students. Clearly rumour of his existence had been spread through the foreign schools, and it felt like first year again as people were standing on tip-toe, and doubling back to get a chance at a look at him. Hermione, Ron, Neville and Harry had had a break after first period, however after being pointed at just as much as the students coming to enter their name, Harry and Hermione headed off to the library. Harry had overheard someone discussing the tournament, and how the international ministries had had such a hard time agreeing on which school to have the competition as if anything went wrong the students would be under British Ministry rule, rather than French or Bulgarian. Harry had been stuck for a while on the law front, however this gave him a whole new lead. In the end Harry had worked all through the free period, and lunch too, and had to run to get to Herbology on time.
The fourth year Gryffindors arrived back in the entrance hall after class just in time to catch a Grinning Angelina.
"I did it!" She yelled, grabbing her Quidditch team mate Harry into a bear hug.
"You're seventeen then?" Harry asked.
"Of course she is. Do you see a beard?" George grinned. He had simply trimmed his down into a very square shape. For once the twins weren't identical, as Fred had braided his into dreadlocks.
"You're kidding! That's great." Ron cheered.
"Yeah, I hope it's you." Harry agreed.
"Now we can cheer for a Gryffindor." Dean nodded.
"Yeah, I just had my birthday last week." She was grinning from ear to ear.
They had Care of magical creatures next, and just as they were heading back out to class the Beauxbaton girls all lined up orderly and entered their names on pale pink perfumed paper.
"Hey look, it's your friend." Harry grinned, pointing the witch from last night to Ron. Ron just went bright red and pretended not to hear.
"What do you think will happen to the ones who don't get it? Will they stick around, or go home?" He said, blatantly ignoring Harry.
"Not sure. Though I guess they will have to wait for their Headmistress?" Harry shrugged.
Hermione suddenly caught up behind them rattling her box full of badges. "I'd forgotten. I haven't asked Hagrid about joining yet!"
They followed the Beauxbaton Girls down the lawn, splitting off to reach Hagrid's hut, the Beauxbaton coach parked not far away.
Hagrid started out the lesson on Skrewets again, however ended in a lecture of house-elves after Hermione tried to get him to join.
"They aren't happy unless they are working. They will actually spiral into depression, and eventually die without a master."
Hagrid surprisingly knew quite a lot about house-elves, and it ended up being one of the more interesting lessons they had had, despite a grumpy Hermione.
Harry's mood was helped by the announcement at the end of class that the Skrewets had grown big enough to start killing each other and there were only twenty left. Of course this was twenty more than Harry ever wanted to see in his life, however it was a vast improvement on the hundred or so they had started out with. Sadly Hagrid had separated them so there wouldn't be any more deaths.
"I'm almost thinking about studying the damn things diet in the hope that I'll figure out how to poison them" Ron Grumbled as they walked back to the castle. He had been unfortunate enough to be the demonstrator at the beginning of class and now had a light burn on his left leg. They had been waiting for Hagrid, but he kept muttering something about 'getting ready for the feast'.