Chapter 14: Durmstrang and Beauxbatons
Next morning, Josh awoke a little late to find that he was the only one in bed. Grolwing to himself about roomates being ungrateful about waking him up, Josh hurriedly left his bed and began to dress. Minutes later, Josh was running through the halls and towards the Great Hall.
"That was a lie, Harry," Josh heard Hermione say sharply when he entered the Great Hall and sat next to them. "You didn't imagine your scar hurting and you know it."
"So what?" said Harry as Josh looked between the two, knowing that they were talking about Sirius or something similar. "He's not going back to Azkaban because of me."
"Drop it," said Ron sharply to Hermione as she opened her mouth to argue some more, and to Josh's surprise, Hermione heeded Ron, and fell silent.
Over the next couple of weeks, nothing fun or interesting had been happening at Hogwarts so far. Josh wished there was another adventure afoot before the tournament started, but he knew nothing like that was going to happen this year. He also wished Quidditch was around, and he had thought about trying out this year if he could. He could tryout for a chaser or keeper since Wood no longer played for the team, having graduated last year. Everything was dull and a bit boring, and Josh hoped there was something fun to distract him.
Their lessons were becoming more difficult and demanding than ever before, particularly Moody's Defence Against the Dark Arts. To their surprise, Professor Moody had announced that he would be putting the Imperius Curse on each of them in turn, to demonstrate its power and to see whether they could resist its effects.
"But - but you said it's illegal, Professor," said Hermione uncertainly as Moody cleared away the desks with a sweep of his wand, leaving a large clear space in the middle of the room. "You said - to use it against another human was -"
"Dumbledore wants you taught what it feels like," said Moody, his magical eye swivelling onto Hermione and fixing her with an eerie, unblinking stare. "If you'd rather learn the hard way - when someone's putting it on you so they can control you completely - fine by me. You're excused. Off you go."
He pointed one gnarled finger toward the door. Hermione went very pink and muttered something about not meaning that she wanted to leave. Josh and Nevlle grinned at each other. They knew Hermione would rather eat bubotuber pus than miss such an important lesson.
Moody began to beckon students forward in turn and put the Imperius Curse upon them. Josh watched as, one by one, his classmates did the most extraordinary things under its influence. Dean Thomas hopped three times around the room, making pig noises. Lavender Brown imitated a squirrel.
Neville performed a series of quite astonishing gymnastics he would certainly not have been capable of in his normal state. Not one of them seemed to be able to fight off the curse, and each of them recovered only when Moody had removed it.
"Potter," Moody growled, "you next."
Josh watched as Harry moved forward into the middle of the classroom, into the space that Moody had cleared of desks. Moody raised his wand, pointed it at Harry, and said, "Imperio!"
Josh saw Harry's eyes glaze over and Moody spoke, "Jump onto the desk… jump onto the desk…"
Josh saw Harry bend his knees obediently, preparing to spring.
"Jump onto the desk…" Moody said again, but Harry didn't move. "Jump onto the desk…" But Harry didn't move. "Jump! NOW!"
Josh then watched as Harry had both jumped and tried to prevent himself from jumping - the result was that he'd smashed headlong into the desk knocking it over.
"Now, that's more like it!" growled Moody. "Look at that, you lot…Potter fought! He fought it, and he damn near beat it! We'll try that again, Potter, and the rest of you, pay attention - watch his eyes, that's where you see it - very good, Potter, very good indeed! They'll have trouble controlling you!"
Moody once again tried to control Harry a few more times with the curse, but Harry fought it every time.
"Excellent," Moody growled. "Now, who's left?" Josh slowly raised his hand, and everyone looked at him. "Ah, yes, come on over." Josh nodded and moved over to the spot. Moody raised his wand, pointed it at Josh, and said, "Imperio!" and Josh's eyes glazed over.
It was the most wonderful feeling. Josh felt a floating sensation as every thought and worry in her head was wiped gently away, leaving nothing but a vague, untraceable happiness. He stood there feeling immensely relaxed, only dimly aware of everyone watching him.
And then he heard Mad-Eye Moody's voice, echoing in some distant chamber of his empty brain: Twirl… Twirl like a ballerina…
Josh blinked, his eyes turning to normal as he saw Moody still pointing his wand at Josh. "No," he said, as Moody looked at his eyes.
"Interesting," Moody muttered, lowering his wand. Josh looked over at the crowd to see everyone looking at Josh with confusion in their eyes. Josh looked back wondering why they were looking at him like that. "Class dismissed!" Moody suddenly growled out. "And remember, CONSTANT VIGILANCE!"
Josh moved from the center of the classroom and towards his bag, Neville walking over to him. "What was that?" he asked.
"What was what?" Josh asked, picking up his bag and hoisting it over his shoulder.
"When Moody put you under the Imperius," Neville said, as the two began leaving the classroom. "You resisted it in an instant."
"Oh, yeah, weird," Josh spoke, as if it was nothing. "So, what? I'm sure other people can do it too."
"Yeah, probably Dumbledore," Neville said. "And you-know-who." And Josh suddenly tripped over his own foot, nearly falling over. "Josh, are you alright?" Neville asked as Josh regained his footing.
"Yeah, I'm fine," Josh said, thinking about what Neville just said.
"The way he talks," Josh heard Harry say as he hobbled through the corridor, in front of him and Neville, "you'd think we were all going to be attacked any second."
"Yeah, I know," said Ron, who was skipping on every alternate step. He had much more difficulty with the curse than Harry or Josh, though Moody assured him the effects would wear off by lunch. "Talk about Paranoid..." Ron glanced nervously over his shoulder to check that Moody was definitely out of earshot and went on. "No wonder they were glad to get shot of him at the Ministry. Did you hear him telling Seamus what he did to that witch who shouted 'Boo' behind him on April Fools' Day? And when are we supposed to read up on resisting the Imperius Curse with everything else we've got to do?"
All the fourth years had noticed a definite increase in the amount of work they were required to do this term. Professor McGonagall explained why, when the class gave a particularly loud groan at the amount of Transfiguration homework she had assigned.
"You are now entering a most important phase of your magical education!" she told them, her eyes glinting dangerously behind her square spectacles. "Your Ordinary Wizarding Levels are drawing closer —"
"We don't take O.W.L.s till fifth year!" said Dean Thomas indignantly.
"Maybe not, Thomas, but believe me, you need all the preparation you can get! Miss Granger and Mr. Anderson remain the only people in this class who have managed to turn a hedgehog into a satisfactory pincushion. I might remind you that your pincushion, Thomas, still curls up in fright if anyone approaches it with a pin!"
Hermione, who had turned rather pink again, seemed to be trying not to look too pleased with herself, while Josh was laying his head in his arms and staring through McGonagall out of boredom.
Harry, Josh, and Ron were deeply amused when Professor Trelawney told them that they had received top marks for their homework in their next Divination class. She read out large portions of their predictions, commending them for their unflinching acceptance of the horrors in store for them - but they were less amused when she asked them to do the same thing for the month after next; but that wasn't the weird part. The weird part was that a couple of Predictions of Josh's had come true.
He witnessed Nott getting caught the bad end of a Screwt and was burned a bit badly. His other predictions, one about Josh losing all his quills which did happen, and one about how he would be tortured by spirits, which he was terrorized by Peeves throwing more water balloons at him.
Meanwhile Professor Binns, the ghost who taught History of Magic, had them writing weekly essays on the goblin rebellions of the eighteenth century. Professor Snape was forcing them to research antidotes. They took this one seriously, as he had hinted that he might be poisoning one of them before Christmas to see if their antidote worked.
Professor Flitwick had asked them to read three extra books in preparation for their lesson on Summoning Charms.
Even Hagrid was adding to their workload. The Blast-Ended Skrewts were growing at a remarkable pace given that nobody had yet discovered what they ate. Hagrid was delighted, and as part of their "project," suggested that they come down to his hut on alternate evenings to observe the skrewts and make notes on their extraordinary behavior.
"I will not," said Draco Malfoy flatly when Hagrid had proposed this with the air of Santa Claus pulling an extra-large toy out of his sack. "I see enough of these foul things during lessons, thanks."
Hagrid's smile faded off his face.
"Yeh'll do wha' yer told," he growled, "or I'll be takin' a leaf outta Professor Moody's book… I hear yeh made a good ferret, Malfoy."
The Gryffindors roared with laughter and a few Slytherins. Malfoy flushed with anger, but apparently the memory of Moody's punishment was still sufficiently painful to stop them from retorting. Harry, Ron, Josh, Neville, and Hermione returned to the castle at the end of the lesson in high spirits; seeing Hagrid put down Malfoy was particularly satisfying, especially because he had done their very best to get Hagrid sacked the previous year.
When they arrived in the entrance hall, they found themselves unable to proceed owing to the large crowd of students congregated there, all milling around a large sign that had been erected at the foot of the marble staircase. Ron, the tallest of the them, stood on tiptoe to see over the heads in front of them and read the sign aloud to the other two:
TRIWIZARD TOURNAMENT
THE DELEGATIONS FROM BEAUXBATONS AND DURMSTRANG WILL BE ARRIVING AT 6 O'CLOCK ON FRIDAY THE 30TH OF OCTOBER. LESSONS WILL END HALF AN HOUR EARLY –
"Brilliant!" said Harry. "It's Potions last thing on Friday! Snape won't have time to poison us all!"
STUDENTS WILL RETURN THEIR BAGS AND BOOKS TO THEIR DORMITORIES AND ASSEMBLE IN FRONT OF THE CASTLE TO GREET OUR GUESTS BEFORE THE WELCOMING FEAST.
"Only a week away!" said Ernie Macmillan of Hufflepuff, emerging from the crowd, his eyes gleaming. "I wonder if Cedric knows? Think I'll go and tell him…"
"Cedric?" Josh heard Ron say blankly as Ernie hurried off.
"Diggory," said Harry. "He must be entering the tournament."
"That idiot, Hogwarts champion?" Josh said nonchalantly, causing Ron to snort, as they pushed their way through the chattering crowd toward the staircase.
"He's not an idiot. You just don't like him because he beat Gryffindor at Quidditch," said Hermione as Josh raised an eyebrow. "I've heard he's a really good student - and he's a prefect." She spoke as though this settled the matter.
"You only like him because he's handsome," said Ron scathingly.
"Excuse me, I don't like people just because they're handsome!" said Hermione indignantly.
Ron gave a loud false cough, which sounded oddly like "Lockhart!" As Josh laughed.
The appearance of the sign in the entrance hall had a marked effect upon the inhabitants of the castle. During the following week, there seemed to be only one topic of conversation, no matter where Josh went: the Triwizard Tournament.
Rumours were flying from student to student like highly contagious germs: who was going to try for Hogwarts champion, what the tournament would involve, how the students from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang differed from themselves. Josh noticed too that the castle seemed to be undergoing an extra-thorough cleaning. Several grimy portraits had been scrubbed, much to the displeasure of their subjects, who sat huddled in their frames muttering darkly and wincing as they felt their raw pink faces. The suits of armour were suddenly gleaming and moving without squeaking, and Argus Filch, the caretaker, was behaving so ferociously to any students who forgot to wipe their shoes that he terrified a pair of first-year girls into hysterics. Other members of the staff seemed oddly tense too.
"Longbottom, kindly do not reveal that you can't even perform a simple Switching Spell in front of anyone from Durmstrang!" Professor McGonagall barked at the end of one particularly difficult lesson, during which Neville had accidentally transplanted his own ears onto a cactus. Josh had to set Neville straigh all the while trying not to laugh hysterically.
When they went down to breakfast on the morning of the thirtieth of October, they found that the Great Hall had been decorated overnight. Enormous silk banners hung from the walls, each of them representing a Hogwarts House: red with a gold lion for Gryffindor, blue with a bronze eagle for Ravenclaw, yellow with a black badger for Hufflepuff, and green with a silver serpent for Slytherin. Behind the teachers' table, the largest banner of all bore the Hogwarts coat of arms: lion, eagle, badger, and snake united around a large letter H.
Harry, Ron, Neville, Josh, and Hermione sat down around Fred and George at the Gryffindor table. Once again, and most unusually, they were sitting apart from everyone else and conversing in low voices. Ron led the way over to them.
"It's a bummer, all right," George was saying gloomily to Fred. "But if he won't talk to us in person, we'll have to send him the letter after all. Or we'll stuff it into his hand. He can't avoid us forever."
"Who's avoiding you?" said Ron, sitting down next to them.
"Wish you would," said Fred, looking irritated at the interruption.
"What's a bummer?" Ron asked George.
"Having a nosy git like you for a brother," said George. Josh snorted, but coughed when Ron glared at him, then turned back to the Twins.
"You two have any ideas on the Triwizard Tournament yet?" Josh asked. "Thought any more about trying to enter?"
"I asked McGonagall how the champions are chosen but she wasn't telling," said George bitterly. "She just told me to shut up and get on with transfiguring my raccoon."
"Wonder what the tasks are going to be?" Ron said thoughtfully. "You know, I bet we could do them, Harry. We've done dangerous stuff before…" Josh rolled his eyes at Ron's words.
"Not in front of a panel of judges, you haven't," said Fred. "McGonagall says the champions get awarded points according to how well they've done the tasks."
"Who are the judges?" Harry asked.
"Well, the Heads of the participating schools are always on the panel," said Hermione, and everyone looked around at her, rather surprised, "because all three of them were injured during the Tournament of 1792, when a cockatrice the champions were supposed to be catching went on the rampage."
She noticed them all looking at her and said, with her usual air of impatience that nobody else had read all the books she had, "It's all in Hogwarts, A History. Though, of course, that book's not entirely reliable. A Revised History of Hogwarts would be a more accurate title. Or A Highly Biased and Selective History of Hogwarts, Which Glosses Over the Nastier Aspects of the School."
"What are you on about?" said Ron, though Josh thought he knew what was coming.
"House-elves!" said Hermione, her eyes flashing. "Not once, in over a thousand pages, does Hogwarts, A History mention that we are all colluding in the oppression of a hundred slaves!"
Josh rolled his eyes and applied himself to his scrambled eggs. Their lack of enthusiasm had done nothing whatsoever to curb Hermione's determination to pursue justice for house-elves.
True, all of them, had paid two Sickles for a S.P.E.W. badge, but they had only done it to keep her quiet.
Their Sickles had been wasted, however; if anything, they seemed to have made Hermione more vociferous. She had been badgering Harry, Josh, and Ron ever since, first to wear the badges, and she had also taken to rattling around the Gryffindor common room every evening, cornering people and shaking the collecting tin under their noses.
"You do realize that your sheets are changed, your fires lit, your classrooms cleaned, and your food cooked by a group of magical creatures who are unpaid and enslaved?" she kept saying fiercely.
Some people, like Neville, had paid up just to stop Hermione from glowering at them. A few seemed mildly interested in what she had to say, but were reluctant to take a more active role in campaigning. Many regarded the whole thing as a joke.
Ron now rolled his eyes at the ceiling, which was flooding them all in autumn sunlight, and Fred became extremely interested in his bacon (both twins had refused to buy a S.P.E.W. badge). George, however, leaned in toward Hermione.
"Listen, have you ever been down in the kitchens, Hermione?"
"No, of course not," said Hermione curtly, "I hardly think students are supposed to -"
"Well, we have," said George, indicating Fred, "loads of times, to nick food. And we've met them, and they're happy. They think they've got the best job in the world -"
"That's because they're uneducated and brainwashed!" Hermione began hotly, but her next few words were drowned out by the sudden whooshing noise from overhead, which announced the arrival of the post owls. Josh kept eating food, not expecting a letter as nearly everyone else got a letter, even Harry. Josh was surprised as his owl, Shadow, dropped a letter on his plate.
Josh grabbed the letter and opened it, having a feeling he knew who it was from.
Josh,
I'm back in the country and well hidden. I need a favor. I want you to keep me posted on everything that's going on at Hogwarts, I've told Harry to do the same, but I want you to tell to make sure Harry isn't leaving out any details. Don't use Shadow, keep changing owls, and don't worry about me, just watch out for yourself and keep an eye on Harry. Hope you are well,
Sirius
"Why d'you have to keep changing owls?" Josh heard Ron asked in a low voice as he folded up Sirius's letter.
"Hedwig'll attract too much attention," said Hermione at once. "She stands out. A snowy owl that keeps returning to wherever he's hiding… I mean, they're not native birds, are they?"
Harry rolled up the letter and slipped it inside his robes. "Thanks, Hedwig," he said, stroking her. She hooted sleepily, dipped her beak briefly into his goblet of orange juice, then took off again, clearly desperate for a good long sleep in the Owlery.
"Who's the letter from?" Neville asked, noticing as Josh put his letter in his bag.
"My grandfather," Josh lied. "Just checking up on me, since we haven't spoke in a while." Neville nodded and went back to his breakfast.
There was a pleasant feeling of anticipation in the air that day. Nobody was very attentive in lessons, being much more interested in the arrival that evening of the people from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang; even Potions was more bearable than usual, as it was half an hour shorter. When the bell rang early, Harry, Ron, Josh, Neville, and Hermione hurried up to Gryffindor Tower, deposited their bags and books as they had been instructed, pulled on their cloaks, and rushed back downstairs into the entrance hall.
The Heads of Houses were ordering their students into lines.
"Weasley, straighten your collar," Professor McGonagall snapped at Ron. "Miss Patil, take that ridiculous thing out of your hair."
Parvati scowled and removed a large ornamental butterfly from the end of her plait.
"Follow me, please," said Professor McGonagall. "First years in front… no pushing…"
They filed down the steps and lined up in front of the castle. It was a cold, clear evening; dusk was falling and a pale, transparent-looking moon was already shining over the Forbidden Forest. Josh, standing between Neville and Hermione in the fourth row from the front, saw Dennis Creevey positively shivering with anticipation among the other first years.
"Nearly six," said Ron, checking his watch and then staring down the drive that led to the front gates. "How d'you reckon they're coming? The train?"
"I doubt it," said Hermione.
"How, then? Broomsticks?" Harry suggested, looking up at the starry sky. "I don't think so… not from that far away…"
"A Portkey?" Ron suggested. "Or they could Apparate - maybe you're allowed to do it under seventeen wherever they come from?"
"You can't Apparate inside the Hogwarts grounds, how often do I have to tell you?" said Hermione impatiently.
They scanned the darkening grounds excitedly, but nothing was moving; everything was still, silent, and quite as usual. Josh was starting to feel cold. He wished they'd hurry up… Maybe the foreign students were preparing a dramatic entrance… He remembered what Mr. Weasley had said back at the campsite before the Quidditch World Cup: "always the same - we can't resist showing off when we get together…"
And then Dumbledore called out from the back row where he stood with the other teachers - "Aha! Unless I am very much mistaken, the delegation from Beauxbatons approaches!"
"Where?" said many students eagerly, all looking in different directions.
"There!" yelled a sixth year, pointing over the forest.
Something large, much larger than a broomstick - or, indeed, a hundred broomsticks - was hurtling across the deep blue sky toward the castle, growing larger all the time.
"It's a dragon!" shrieked one of the first years, losing her head completely.
"Don't be stupid… it's a flying house!" said Dennis Creevey.
Dennis's guess was closer…
As the gigantic black shape skimmed over the treetops of the Forbidden Forest and the lights shining from the castle windows hit it, they saw a gigantic, powderblue, horse-drawn carriage, the size of a large house, soaring toward them, pulled through the air by a dozen winged horses, all palominos, and each the size of an elephant.
The front three rows of students drew backward as the carriage hurtled ever lower, coming in to land at a tremendous speed - then, with an almighty crash that made Neville jump backward and crash into a Slytherin, the horses' hooves, larger than dinner plates, hit the ground. A second later, the carriage landed too, bouncing upon its vast wheels, while the golden horses tossed their enormous heads and rolled large, fiery red eyes.
Josh quickly helped Neville back to his feet and turned just in time to see that the door of the carriage bore a coat of arms (two crossed, golden wands, each emitting three stars) open. A boy in pale blue robes jumped down from the carriage, bent forward, fumbled for a moment with something on the carriage floor, and unfolded a set of golden steps. He sprang back respectfully. Then Josh saw a shining, high-heeled black shoe emerging from the inside of the carriage - a shoe the size of a child's sled - followed, almost immediately, by the largest woman he had ever seen in his life. The size of the carriage, and of the horses, was immediately explained. A few people gasped.
Josh had only ever seen one person as large as this woman in his life, and that was Hagrid; he doubted whether there was an inch difference in their heights. Yet somehow - maybe simply because they were used to Hagrid - this woman (now at the foot of the steps, and looking around at the waiting, wide-eyed crowd) seemed even more unnaturally large. As she stepped into the light flooding from the entrance hall, she was revealed to have a handsome, olive-skinned face; large, black, liquid-looking eyes; and a rather beaky nose. Her hair was drawn back in a shining knob at the base of her neck. She was dressed from head to foot in black satin, and many magnificent opals gleamed at her throat and on her thick fingers.
Dumbledore started to clap; the students, following his lead, broke into applause too, many of them standing on tiptoe, the better to look at this woman.
Her face relaxed into a gracious smile and she walked forward toward Dumbledore, extending a glittering hand. Dumbledore, though tall himself, had barely to bend to kiss it.
"My dear Madame Maxime," he said. "Welcome to Hogwarts."
"Dumbly-dorr," said Madame Maxime in a deep voice. "I 'ope I find you well?"
"In excellent form, I thank you," said Dumbledore.
"My pupils," said Madame Maxime, waving one of her enormous hands carelessly behind her.
Josh, whose attention had been focused completely upon Madame Maxime, now noticed that about a dozen boys and girls, all, by the look of them, in their late teens, had emerged from the carriage and were now standing behind Madame Maxime. They were shivering, which was unsurprising, given that their robes seemed to be made of fine silk, and none of them were wearing cloaks. A few had wrapped scarves and shawls around their heads.
From what Josh could see of them (they were standing in Madame Maxime's enormous shadow), they were staring up at Hogwarts with apprehensive looks on their faces.
"'As Karkaroff arrived yet?" Madame Maxime asked.
"He should be here any moment," said Dumbledore. "Would you like to wait here and greet him or would you prefer to step inside and warm up a trifle?"
"Warm up, I think," said Madame Maxime. "But ze 'orses -"
"Our Care of Magical Creatures teacher will be delighted to take care of them," said Dumbledore, "the moment he has returned from dealing with a slight situation that has arisen with some of his other - er - charges."
"My steeds require - er - forceful 'andling," said Madame Maxime, looking as though she doubted whether any Care of Magical Creatures teacher at Hogwarts could be up to the job.
"Hagrid can handle anything."
"Zey are very strong…"
"I assure you that Hagrid will be well up to the job," said Dumbledore, smiling.
"Very well," said Madame Maxime, bowing slightly. "Will you please inform zis 'Agrid zat ze 'orses drink only single-malt whiskey?"
"It will be attended to," said Dumbledore, also bowing.
"Come," said Madame Maxime imperiously to her students, and the Hogwarts crowd parted to allow her and her students to pass up the stone steps.
"How big d'you reckon Durmstrang's horses are going to be?" Seamus Finnigan said, leaning around Lavender and Parvati to address Josh and Neville.
"Well, if they're any bigger than this lot, even Hagrid won't be able to handle them," Josh said, crossing his arms.
"That's if he hasn't been attacked by his skrewts. Wonder what's up with them?" Neville said, placing his hands in his pocket.
"Maybe they've escaped," Josh said hopefully.
"Oh, don't say that," Hermione said with a shudder. "Imagine that lot loose on the grounds…"
They stood, shivering slightly now, waiting for the Durmstrang party to arrive. Most people were gazing hopefully up at the sky.
For a few minutes, the silence was broken only by Madame Maxime's huge horses snorting and stamping. But then - "Can you hear something?" said Ron suddenly. Josh listened; a loud and oddly eerie noise was drifting toward them from out of the darkness: a muffled rumbling and sucking sound, as though an immense vacuum cleaner were moving along a riverbed.
"The lake!" yelled Lee Jordan, pointing towards the lake. "Look at the lake!"
From their position at the top of the lawns overlooking the grounds, they had a clear view of the smooth black surface of the water - except that the surface was suddenly not smooth at all. Some disturbance was taking place deep in the centre; great bubbles were forming on the surface, waves were now washing over the muddy banks - and then, out in the very middle of the lake, a whirlpool appeared, as if a giant plug had just been pulled out of the lake's floor… What seemed to be a long, black pole began to rise slowly out of the heart of the whirlpool… and then Josh saw the rigging…
"It's a mast!" Josh heard someone say.
Slowly, magnificently, the ship rose out of the water, gleaming in the moonlight. It had a strangely skeletal look about it, as though it were a resurrected wreck, and the dim, misty lights shimmering at its portholes looked like ghostly eyes.
Finally, with a great sloshing noise, the ship emerged entirely, bobbing on the turbulent water, and began to glide toward the bank. A few moments later, they heard the splash of an anchor being thrown down in the shallows, and the thud of a plank being lowered onto the bank.
People were disembarking; they could see their silhouettes passing the lights in the ship's portholes. All of them, Josh noticed, seemed to be built along the lines of Crabbe and Goyle… but then, as they drew nearer, walking up the lawns into the light streaming from the entrance hall, he saw that their bulk was really due to the fact that they were wearing cloaks of some kind of shaggy, matted fur. But the man who was leading them up to the castle was wearing furs of a different sort: sleek and silver, like his hair.
"Dumbledore!" he called heartily as he walked up the slope. "How are you, my dear fellow, how are you?"
"Blooming, thank you, Professor Karkaroff," Dumbledore replied. Karkaroff had a fruity, unctuous voice; when he stepped into the light pouring from the front doors of the castle they saw that he was tall and thin like Dumbledore, but his white hair was short, and his goatee (finishing in a small curl) did not entirely hide his rather weak chin. When he reached Dumbledore, he shook hands with both of his own.
"Dear old Hogwarts," he said, looking up at the castle and smiling; his teeth were rather yellow, and Josh noticed that his smile did not extend to his eyes, which remained cold and shrewd. "How good it is to be here, how good… Viktor, come along, into the warmth… you don't mind, Dumbledore? Viktor has a slight head cold…"
Karkaroff beckoned forward one of his students. As the boy passed, Josh caught a glimpse of a prominent curved nose and thick black eyebrows, and then he heard the excited voice of Ron.
"Harry - it's Krum!"
A/N: Yes, there, Josh is impervious to this curse, and you're wondering why? Well I do have the answer but I cannot tell you that. Anyways, I'm sure the next Chapter you are all going to be Thunderstruck! Dun dun dun dun!