"Don't kill anyone!" Strength hissed quietly to Rock as they stood facing away from each other, with Mr Weasley and the young wizards lying on the ground between them.
Rock leapt into action, she fired the Rock Cannon towards a small grouping of wizards, at low power the cannon wasn't fatal, it would just knock them away. Immediately after firing she bolted towards a pair of wizards to her right, she hit one with the flat edge of the Black Blade and followed through with her body, catching the other with her heel. With a quick scan of the surroundings she sped towards more of the attacking wizards.
Strength hammered her fists into the ground, causing the attackers near her to lose their footing. As they staggered to maintain their balance, she quickly swept in with open palms, knocking each wizard aside with just enough force to render them unconscious.
"Expelliarmus!" Cried a man as Strength ran towards him.
A blue flash of light hit Strength's massive hands and sent them, and her, flying several metres to the side.
Rock hit the wizard she was next to with her cannon before running and leaping over the group cowering on the floor, with no decrease in speed, she jumped and extended her foot into the man's face, breaking his jaw. She turned to see Strength running back.
"Enough!" Mr Weasley shouted, standing up.
The wizards attacking them stopped suddenly, the Otherselves also stopped but were ready to engage at any moment.
A tall grey-haired man, with a pencil moustache and wearing a severe pin-stripe suit. Walked towards the group.
"Which one of you was it?" The man demanded. "Who cast the spell."
"No one!" Mr Weasley protested.
"You've been found at the scene of the crime, do not deny it!" The other man said accusingly.
"No one here cast the Dark Mark!" Mr Weasley shouted.
"We'll soon see, grab their wands." The man ordered.
"Do what he says kids." Mr Weasley muttered.
The wizards who were left standing gathered the wands, everyone handed them over without question. When the wizards got to Rock and Strength they started demanding they give them their wands in an increasingly hostile tone.
"We don't have wands, we're not magic users." Strength explained.
"It's true sir, they are magical but they can't use it." Harry jumped in.
"A likely story." The grey-haired man sneered. "Take them into custody."
Rock pointed her katana at the nearest wizard and the Rock Cannon at the one next to him, she shook her head slowly, glaring at them with her bright blue eyes.
"We can't allow you to do that, we've been tasked with protecting Harry. And we're not going to do that from within a prison cell." Strength told him, clenching her fists.
"Barty, this is Harry Potter, do you really think he would cast the Dark Mark? Or be with anyone who would?." Mr Weasley said as calmly as he could. "You've got our wands, check them!"
The man, Barty Crouch, held his own wand over each of the confiscated wands one by one. A small image floated above each one, showing the last spell it had cast. With reluctance, he ordered that the wands be returned to their owners. Without another word, he turned and walked away, the wizards who attacked them also left.
"So they just attacked you, without warning?" Mrs Weasley shouted in disbelief.
"Yeah, then Rock and Strength started battling them, they protected us." Ron said excitedly.
"But we weren't in any danger." Mr Weasley added quickly. "They were Ministry Wizards looking for the person who cast the Dark Mark, we just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time." He said, trying to sound cheerful.
"That's no excuse!" Bellowed Mrs Weasley.
It was at this moment that Ginny and Harry sneaked out of the kitchen to find Rock and Strength.
They quickly located them standing a short way from the back of the house.
"Hey Strength, I've got a question." Ginny said as she skipped over to the tanned Otherself.
"Hi Ginny, what did you want?" Strength smiled.
"When that wizard tried disarming you, why did you get thrown around like that?" Ginny asked.
"My Ogre Arms are fused to my body, when he tried to disarm me they were supposed to be pulled out of my grip, bus they are attached to me I ended up getting pulled along." Strength explained.
"So those are your real arms?" Ginny asked in amazement.
"No, my arms look like yours but my Ogre Arms are a part of me. Like Black Rock Shooter's Rock Cannon." Strength grinned in amusement.
Ginny looked carefully where the white-haired girl's real arms joined up with her giant metal ones'
"But that's impossible." The youngest Weasley stated. "I can see right through the elbow joints."
Strength snickered and gently, and carefully, ruffled her long, red hair.
"You live in a world of magic, you have small tents that can fit dozens of people inside. Oil paintings that can move, flying brooms, dancing fireworks, and you're saying that my arms are impossible?" Strength laughed.
Ginny blushed.
"Believe me." Harry said to Ginny. "With everything that I've learned and discovered in the last three years, Rock and Strength are quite ordinary." He looked at Strength. "That sounded bad, I'm sorry." He added.
Strength smiled and shook her head.
"I understood what you meant, that was the point I was trying to get across." The Otherself said.
"By the way, where has Rock gone?" Harry asked suddenly noticing that the pale girl had gone missing.
His question was answered by something hard and cold slapping him on the side of the head, he cried out in surprise and turned around. Rock was pointing the Black Blade straight at Harry's face.
"I guess you should pay more attention, I think you might pay for that later!" Strength giggled.
Harry sighed, he knew that Strength wasn't joking. Rock would end up pushing him harder and longer just to teach him a lesson.
And school isn't supposed to start for another two weeks. He thought glumly.
In the Hogwarts Great Hall, Harry, Hermione and Ron were enjoying the feast and discussing the new school year. Rock sat silently in between Ron and Neville, who was trying to ignore her, she watched everyone eat and wondered where Strength was. The tanned, white-haired girl hadn't been formally made a student of Hogwarts like Rock had been, even though she had been given a room to call her own. Like Rock however, she never made use of it, instead preferring to sit on the roof and stare at the sky like the other girl did.
"The Triwizard Tournament, is, for those who do not know, a competition between three schools." Dumbledore was saying.
Rock paid the man no attention, instead she was focused on the hall and mentally noting down who was in proximity to herself and Harry and the quickest ways to counter attack against magic. This was something that she did every time she was in the Great Hall, she was asked to protect Harry, and it was something she took very seriously.
"Please join me in welcoming the ladies of the Beauxbatons Academy of Magic and their headmistress, Madame Maxime." Dumbledore said, gesturing to the large doors at the opposite end of the Great Hall.
About thirty or so girls, all wearing what looked like blue silk dresses entered. They skipped through the hall, releasing butterflies as they passed. Behind them walked a huge woman wrapped up in a fur coat, she towered over every person in the hall, which became apparent as Dumbledore took her hand.
"That's one big woman!" Ron exclaimed.
"And now, please welcome our friends from the north, the students of Durmstrang and their high master Igor Karkaroff!" Dumbledore said loudly.
A similar number of boys entered the hall, wearing thick furs and hats. They carried staffs which they twirled and hammered into the floor, creating a deep rhythmic pounding that sent chills down everyone's spine.
They were followed by a tall, thin man wearing a similar fur coat and hat as his students, beside him walked a sturdy looking boy of around seventeen.
"Bloody hell!" Ron cried as they walked past. "It's Viktor Krum!"
A loud murmuring surrounded them as many of the Hogwarts students recognised Viktor.
"Attention!" Dumbledore shouted, raising his arms. "Eternal glory, that is what awaits the winner of the Triwizard Tournament. But to do so, three extremely dangerous tasks must be faced." He said darkly.
"To this end, the Ministry has imposed a new rule. To explain this we have the head of the department of international magic cooperation, Bartimus Crouch." The headmaster continued.
Several shocked screams were heard as the enchanted ceiling of the great hall roared with thunder.
A stunned silence followed as suddenly Rock was out of her seat and racing towards a doorway to the side of the teachers table. She tackled a heavy-set man who had his wand out ready to cast a spell, he had some sort of device over his right eye, in the device was a bright blue eyeball, madly spinning in its socket.
As she knocked him to the floor, she ripped the wand from his hand and tore the strange device from his head, not knowing what it did.
"Black Rock Shooter!" Dumbledore bellowed. "What do you think you are doing?"
Rock glanced at Dumbledore but quickly turned her attention back to the intruder, a few seconds later Strength appeared in the doorway and picked up the man in one of her giant hands. She nodded to Rock to let her know she had a firm grip on him.
Dumbledore stormed over, his face a mixture of anger and confusion.
"I followed this man as he entered the castle, since everyone who is supposed to be in Hogwarts is in this room I thought I would keep an eye on him." Strength explained to Dumbledore. She then looked at Rock and blushed a little. "I'm afraid I got lost down one of the corridors."
"Miss Strength, I would appreciate it if you would put down our new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher." Dumbledore said a little more calmly.
Rock and Strength looked at each other.
"Aye that's right lil' Missy, you've jus' seen me arrive. I was going to sort out that blasted ceiling, that's why I had my wand out." The man said.
Strength put him down.
"I take it you are unharmed Alastor?" Dumbledore enquired.
"I'm fine, although it's good to see some around here have got good sense to not let a stranger wander through their halls." Alastor said.
Dumbledore ignored the veiled insult to the security of the castle and, with peace restored, allowed Bartimus Crouch to speak.
A thin man wearing a pin-striped suit stood in front of the podium, he had grey hair, a pencil moustache and a very tired look upon his face.
"That's the guy who accused us of casting the Dark Mark, remember?" Hermione whispered.
"After much deliberation the ministry has concluded that for their own safety no student under the age of seventeen shall be allowed to put forth their name for the Triwizard tournament. This decision is final." Crouch said, almost without pause.
A massive uproar from the students followed, there were boos and hisses, several crude and obscene comments were heard above the yelling.
"Silence!" The headmaster bellowed.
A large case, fashioned like and octagonal pyramid was wheeled forwards. The elderly wizard tapped the casing with his wand and watched as the outside seemingly melted into nothingness, revealing a large goblet shaped bowl with a blue flame inside.
"The Goblet of Fire." Dumbledore said. "Anyone who wishes to enter the tournament merely write their name on a piece of parchment and place it into the flames before this hour on Thursday night. Do not do so on a whim, as once chosen, there is no turning back." He paused and looked around the Great Hall. "As of now, the Triwizard Tournament has begun."
"What do you think of that Alastor person?" Strength asked from her usual spot on top of the astronomy tower.
Rock closed her eyes and shook her head, like Strength, she had a got a strange feeling from him. As a creature of instinct, she found it very difficult to not slay him on the spot, but if the headmaster said he was to be trusted then she would abide by his wishes for now.
"You're right, there's something about him that's not quite right." Strength said, reading the tiniest movements in Rock's face and body language to get an answer. "And it's nothing to do with his own form of insanity." She continued.
"Alastor Moody." The grizzled man said as he wrote his name on the blackboard. He turned to face the class, his mechanical eye spun wildly, focusing on each student before moving on to the next one.
Rock noticed that his eye seemed to linger on Harry and herself longer than anyone else, further fuelling the sensation that something was wrong about this man.
"When it comes to the Dark Arts, I believe seeing is better than just reading about it in some book." Moody said. "Can someone tell me how many unforgivable curses there are?" He asked.
"Three sir." Hermione answered while holding her arm up. "They are called unforgivable as using any one of them will..." She trailed off.
"Give you a one-way ticket to Azkaban." Moody finished for her. "Can anyone name the curses?" He asked. "Weasley!"
Ron jumped. "Err, there is one I know about, the Imperius Curse?" He said quietly. "I remember my dad telling me about it."
"Well he would know about that one, gave the Ministry a lot of problems a couple of years ago." Moody said.
He hobbled over to a jar containing live spiders, he pulled one out and as it sat on the palm of his hand he pulled out his wand and pointed it at the spider.
"Engorgio" The one-eye man said.
The spider grew to twice its original size, he placed it on Ron's desk.
"Imperio." Moody said.
The spider then jumped onto Ron's head, Ron froze with fear until Moody made the spider jump onto Draco Malfoy's face. Laughter filled the room as Professor Moody made the spider jump from person to person, until it jumped onto a jug of water.
"What shall I make her do now?" Moody asked. "Drown itself? Jump out of the window? Of maybe force its way down one of your throats?" He said with no hint of amusement. "A lot of witches and wizards were under the effect of the Imperius Curse, but here's the thing. How do we weed out the liars?"
He picked up the spider and brought it in front of Neville, Rock could almost taste the malicious intent behind his actions. It was as if he knew how the boy was going to react, like he knew who Neville was before the class.
She couldn't narrow it down any more than that, but every part of her was screaming to kill this man. It took every ounce of self control not to, even when Neville was physically shaking from the tiny noises of pain coming from the spider. Moody seemed to be enjoying Neville's discomfort, and enjoying torturing the spider even more.
"Stop, can't you see it's bothering him?" Hermione cried out.
Moody stopped immediately, he picked up the spider again and started to walk to Hermione's desk when Rock saw his mechanical eye focus on her. Mid-stride he walked up to her and placed the twitching spider upon her desk.
"And you, can you tell me the last unforgivable curse." Moody said.
Rock shook her head, she could guess what it was though.
"Sir, Rock can't talk." Harry said.
Moody nodded.
"It's the killing curse, girl." The grizzled auror said.
He pointed his wand at the abused arachnid.
Rock could definitely sense enjoyment coming from Moody now, while she wasn't as able to pick up on others emotions like Strength or Black Gold Saw was, it was so powerful from this man that there was no mistaking it. Her hand eased down towards her katana as she watched where the wand was being pointed.
"Avada Kedavra." Moody cried.
A bright green light illuminated the spider and it instantly stopped twitching, slowly it's legs contracted but it was already dead.
A sense of satisfaction came from Moody, Rock was so close to decapitating him that he was only saved when he dismissed the class.