Summary: Rebecca Curd, Penelope Trimble, and many others are returning to Hogwarts. But what's this? A new school for witches and wizards has sprung up in Britain? Yes. Boarwilds aims to absorb Hogwarts, and already students are transferring. But proud students like Rebecca and Penelope aren't letting Hogwarts die so easily. With a new headmaster – sorry, headmistress, as well as a batch of new professors that range from awfully strict to seriously deluded, they're ready to do battle. Raging hormones and reawakened prejudices only add to the madness!

If you think that I own even the most insignificant shrivel of Harry Potter's realm, than you, my friend, must not have heard of J.K. Rowling.

Chapter Eleven

The First Challenge

(finally)

Gilbert sat on a windowsill, his knees tucked under his chin and his shirt unbuttoned. His skin glistened with sweat, and his breathing was shallow.

Bloody hell, he thought between pants. Why did I give my coat to Rebecca? Now I have a fever. He pressed his forehead against the window's cold glass and watched the flakes slowly covering Hogwarts.

Touching his lips thoughtfully, the Slytherin sighed. More importantly, what possessed me to kiss her? I have been feeling rather odd around her lately, but... I don't know if it's like that. And besides, how do I know the feeling is mutual? She's probably terrified...

"Gilbert?"

He sat up quickly, rubbing sweat from his forehead and glancing around stupidly.

Stepping out of the shadows was Penelope. She blinked and turned a little red. "Oh my, Mr. Malfoy. I trust you are not under the weather?"

Gilbert quickly buttoned his shirt, feeling his face heat up as well. "Not under the weather, no," he informed her. I'm in the middle of the storm, rather.

"Good." She chewed thoughtfully on the end of one of her braids. Wearing a jewel-tone violet coat, she was looking even prettier than she usually did in the drab school uniforms. The royal shade made her look more grown up. More regal.

He found himself flushing at the thought. Excuse me? Aren't you in love with Rebecca?

Penelope sighed. "I suppose I shall have to go through with it, then." She took a deep breath and looked him in the eye. "Rebecca is hyperventilating in the hospital wing - she's nervous about her brother, you know - and Patsy is, horror upon horrors, sitting with the Bulgarians to cheer on their champion. Would it terribly inconvenience you if I..." She sighed once more. "If I sat with you and your friends for the first challenge today?"

The Slytherin inhaled sharply and immediately hoped it hadn't been visible. "Sit with us? Sure. Why would you want to, though? Surely you have someone else who is much more amiable, yes?"

She shook her head. "I haven't the largest pack of mates, you must remember. I can't find the Wilts siblings, and Roderick is in the tournament, of course."

"Of course," Gilbert echoed. This was interesting.

"Usually I'd just sit alone and enjoy the game, but..." The brunette shrugged.

"It's fine," he assured her. "I'll just go and grab my coat..." He turned in the general direction of the Slytherin common room and immediately toppled over as a fresh wave of pain wracked his head. "Merlin's buttocks!"

Penelope dashed to his side, concern written all over her face. "Oh, dear. You are ill, aren't you?" She tsked. "Liar. Let's see about dragging you to the hospital wing."

"No!" he bellowed. "Rebecca's there!"

Her brow creased. "What's all this about?" She was already tugging him to the window, grunting with the exertion. To her credit, he was a dead weight at the moment.

"She hasn't told you?" Gilbert asked incredulously. "I figured a kiss is something that girls gossip about..." He winced the second the words were out of his mouth.

"A kiss?" she practically shouted.

He laughed nervously. "Yes, there was some snogging between us. I kind of saved her from... something..."

"I know about your mate and what he tried to do to Becky," Penelope said evenly. "The poor girl still thinks he only meant to snog her. So naive... It's adorable."

Gilbert looked away. "He's no longer my mate. I don't want anything to do with that monster." He turned back to the Gryffindor. "I also don't want to see Rebecca right now... I... It's just too awkward."

She gave him a strange look and glanced up and down the corridors. "Fine. Let's go to the challenge. However, if you die of something caused by sitting around in the cold while you are ill, you cannot come to me. Do we have an agreement?"

"Uh-huh..."

Penelope grinned. "Excellent." Helping him to his feet, she gave him a slap on the back.

"Ow! Hey!" Gilbert swatted at her, finding himself laughing.

She laughed with him, holding his arm around her shoulders until he regained his bearings. "Just making sure you were actually in pain, and that this wasn't some ploy to get an innocent young girl alone, like your ma- I mean, like your fellow Slytherin."

He rubbed his back with his spare hand. "If I wasn't hurt before, I am now."

*****

Patsy rubbed her mitten-clad hands together, blowing hot breath on them to add to the meagre heat the friction created. Sven had introduced her to his Bulgarian friends and they invited her to sit with them. She felt only slightly as though she had turned her back on Hogwarts. She was a new student, after all. She didn't officially feel like she was part of the school yet.

A reasonable excuse, right?

Vlad smiled down at her. He wasn't as hot as Sven, but there was still plenty of potential. "Patsy of Canada." They all called her that. It was slightly annoying. "Your waiting is not able?"

"Yes, Vlad," she replied calmly. She had to remind herself that he had yet to grasp her language fully. "I cannot wait for the challenge. I'm, like, so excited!"

To see over the massive Bulgarians in the row before her, Patsy had to sit on a stack of cushions. Unfortunately, the sky kept sputtering out little droplets of rain every now and then, and they were getting a little damp.

"I am wondering..." Vlad murmured, "... what is first challenge?"

Patsy sighed. "Like, it could be anything! They never repeat the same challenge, though, so they probably won't be battling dragons and mermaids and shrubberies..."

The Bulgarian boy blinked. "Shrubberies?"

"Oh. Maybe that was a rumour... I swear Becky mentioned a Beauxbatons girl that was eaten by a plant of some sort..."

Vlad chuckled, a deep and reverberating sound. "Ja, ja. In time of Harry Potter." He seemed to be struggling for the English translation of something, and whispered to someone sitting nearby. This guy whispered something back. Finally, to the Gryffindor girl, Vlad said, "Not really eaten, no. Just swallowed. Trapped."

Good grief, thought Patsy. Harry Potter must have had a heck of a time. Wasn't he, like, fourteen?

McGonagall's voice, magnified by her wand, interrupted her thoughts. "Good afternoon, students of Hogwarts, Beauxbatons, Durmstrang..." She added, as if an afterthought, "and Boarwilds..."

Students cheered as their school name was called, but the Boarwilds students' calls sounded the most aggressive.

Having paused for the cheering to subside, McGonagall resumed her speech. "As you all should know, today marks the first challenge. Remember, the champions have nothing but their wands and their wits on hand. Behold!"

There was a flash of light, and the middle of the Quidditch field blurred. It became apparent that an illusion had been concealing something in the field.

"It's... a door?" Patsy whispered, bemused.

"Not just any door," guessed the boy who had helped Vlad with his English.

McGonagall's voice returned once more. "The Mirror of Erised was recently experimented on and... uh... this was the result. It is no longer a mirror that shows you your deepest desires, but a passageway to where you can experience it all around you."

Patsy gasped. She vaguely recalled Eva babbling about writing an essay on the Mirror.

"Each champion will enter the aptly renamed Door to Erised and face this desire of theirs. It may be so wonderful that they will be unable to return. If this is the case, we have methods of getting them back, so do not worry." McGonagall cleared her throat, evidently nervous herself. "Inside the dream world, there will be another door that leads out. Each champion will have ten minutes to reach it. If this is not done, we will be forced to assume he has succumbed to his desires and will be disqualified from the next round."

"I wonder what Sven's deepest desire is..." Patsy mused. She pictured herself beckoning to him while sitting in a hot tub and wearing her favourite bikini, the blue and orange one. But before Sven could reach the tub, Brian Wilts appeared out of nowhere and offered her a Butterbeer. She quickly abandoned the vision and refocused on the field. It seemed the French girl had been chosen to go first.

Amelie Beauchamp strode toward the Door to Erised, her long black hair beautifully swishing from side to side. She paused just in front of the Door, and looked up at the crowd. Her gaze swept all around the seats, covering everyone, and yet Patsy had a feeling as though the girl had looked right at her. She knew everyone else felt the same way, too.

"Mademoiselle Beauchamp," McGonagall began, "when you hear the horn, step into the Door. You will have ten minutes."

With a bow of her pretty little head, Amelie pulled out her wand and waited.

The horn sounded - and what a horrible sound it was! Patsy looked around to find a very nervous-looking Hufflepuff cowering with the instrument.

When her gaze returned to the field, Amelie had gone.

*****

"And last but definitely not least, as I like to think, Hogwarts!" A giggling blonde reporter, who also happened to be a Hogwarts alumni, scribbled the last bits of her interview with the Bulgarian lad with her quill and fixed her eyes on Roderick. "How does it feel to be about to face your deepest, darkest desires?" She licked her lips.

He collapsed on a chair, exhausted. "I haven't really thought about it all that much. Right now I'm upset because my sister is angry... I flirted with her friends... And she's in the hospital wing now because she's too afraid to watch me compete."

The reported jotted something down and beamed at him. "Your sister is important to you, I assume?"

"Very much so."

"That's sweet."

After the interview, Roderick staggered out into the Quidditch field. Savannah was just emerging from the Door to Erised, and she looked wild-eyed and sweaty. It must have been quite a fight to escape that which she wanted most.

The Hogwarts champion waited for McGonagall to announce him and stepped out of the shadows. He passed a smiling Amelie, who murmured encouragement, and a dancing Sven, who paused only to wink at him. Savannah merely smirked at his passing.

"Mr. Curd, when you hear the horn, step into the Door. You will have ten minutes."

There was a sound like a dying elephant, and Roderick dove into the shimmering surface of the Door.

The next thing he knew, he was seated in a throne of gold, holding the Triwizard Cup above his head. For a moment he wondered why 'Quadrawizard' wasn't scrawled on it, and then memory came back to him. It was only called that in reality. Here, in Erised, they hadn't marred the Cup with the Quadra-nonsense.

Sound came back to him as well, albeit slowly. He made out cheering, and he looked down to see Amelie at his feet. "I knew you could do it!" she told him, and then began whispering seductive-sounding things in French.

Penelope was there as well. "That's a pretty big cup you've got there," she said with a giggle. "It makes me want to head down to the Three Broomsticks... Only you won't have to slip Firewhisky into my drink like that Slytherin did to poor ickle Becky." She performed an exaggerated wink and giggled some more.

This is my deepest desire? he wondered, frowning. It's pretty simple. Glory and girls? And, quite frankly, this is a little on the disturbing side.

'A little' no longer did it justice. The reporter from before was now suspended from the ceiling, heralding his praises and wearing angel wings.

Just when he thought it couldn't get any stranger, Becky entered the scene. Her hair was no longer that horrid violet, and instead draped itself around her shoulders in its normal, lovely golden hue. She wore a white sun dress that, for some reason, was billowing around her as though there was a strong wind. Her hair went undisturbed.

How many minutes have passed? he wondered. He glanced around as if there would be a clock hanging in the emptiness. He could make out the glowing white door behind Becky. Easing himself from the throne, he handed the Cup to Penelope and said, "If you think it's so great, keep it."

"Roderick..." Becky breathed, stepping toward him.

"Ah, hello, sis!" He patted her awkwardly on the back and headed for the door.

"Wait, Roderick! There is something I must say..." She hurried to catch up to him and took his shoulders in her hands. "Mother revealed it to me in a letter. She wanted me to tell you."

Roderick figured he had some time left, so he slowed and looked at her. "What is it?"

She smiled. "You're adopted. That's why you don't have the family hair. And it's also why you are so handsome, and I am so plain."

He stared at her blankly. "Pardon?"

"Surely you understand what this implies?"

"It means that you are entitled to more time in the loo?" Roderick tried to joke. It came out more strangled than he intended.

Becky laughed in that creepily quiet way that girls did when boys couldn't understand them. "You silly bloke." She let go of his shoulders and walked around to face him. "It means that your feelings aren't for-"

"What?" Roderick spluttered. Sister complex? I have sister complex?

Her smile fell slightly. "You do have feelings, don't you, Ricky?"

Now it was too much. Roderick couldn't answer her. He took her in his arms, but quickly wrenched his grasp from her, knowing he'd never let go if he didn't stop now. "Farewell, Becky of Erised!" he cried, and then plunged into the glowing door.

The last thing he saw before the light enveloped him was his sister. Crying.

A/N: Gack! Curses on you, inventor of essays! It has kept me from this Hogwarts madness for far too long. * sulk * Anyways, for those of you who thought, "What's goin' on here? So, this story is to be a BeckyxGilbert tale?" in the last chapter, you can see the error of your ways. And, do not fear. There will NOT be any BeckyxRoderick, 'cause that's just not cool. Who WILL Becky end up with? Only time will tell… * wiggles fingers *