Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.

Chapter 14

The two pieces of parchment began to float towards the ground for a moment before Dumbledore caught them in each of his hands. Everyone stared in his direction in complete shock and confusion. What was going on? There were only three champions, so only three pieces of parchment were supposed to come out of the fire.

Dumbledore said something quietly so that no one could hear him, even in this silence. But he looked up from the paper in my general direction in shock and repeated what he had said.

"Harry Potter and Emily Potter," Dumbledore said.

My mouth fell open in shock. Why was he saying our names - what was going on? This was impossible, they must have a mistake. Everyone turned to look at us and several conversations broke out immediately, mostly in confusion and outrage. I looked over at Harry whose eyes were huge and looking around frantically as if he thought Dumbledore had called someone else's name.

"Emily…what's going on?" he asked quietly.

"I…I don't know…" I said in shock. "There must be some mistake."

We just sat where we were, not sure what to do. Dumbledore and the rest of the people in the hall were staring at us and it made me feel like I couldn't move. I was shocked and numb, I didn't know what to do. We couldn't be champions - it was impossible. We were too young and we never even entered our names into the cup. Did someone else? Was this some kind of joke?

"Both of you," Dumbledore called. "Up here - now."

Slowly, both of us stood up and began walking towards the front of the room. I could feel the stares and the glares from everyone in the room. People were shocked, confused, and angry - I didn't need to hear what they were thinking to be able to tell that. It felt like an eternity walking down the aisle towards Dumbledore, but we finally made it up there. After a moment, he led us through the crowd of teachers behind him and towards a separate room - the trophy room - where we were going to have to wait. On the way in the room, I noticed a particular set of eyes that wouldn't look away. Snape looked just as shocked as everyone else in the room, but there was also a distinct look of terror that filled his eyes when he watched us walk into the trophy room.

Once we were in the room, Dumbledore returned to the Great Hall to dismiss everyone else so that we could all talk. Harry and I stood alongside of Victor, Fleur, and Cedric who all looked completely confused as to why we were even in the room. Then I thought back and realized that they had actually been led in here just before the Goblet released our names.

"What iz it?" Fleur asked us. "Do zey want us in ze Hall again?"

"Well…n-no…" I stuttered, still stunned as to what had just happened. "You see…what happened was-"

"Isn't this brilliant!" someone said cheerfully behind me.

I turned around to see Ludo Bagman walking into the trophy room with huge smile plastered on his face. What was wrong with him? What was he so happy about? He stepped in between Harry and me and threw his arms around us both.

"May I introduce you all to our fourth and fifth champion?" Bagman said cheerfully.

Victor, Cedric, and Fleur stood up straight and looked at us both in shock and confusion.

"Iz zis some kind of joke?" Fleur asked.

"No, not at all," Bagman smiled. "Their names just flew out of the Goblet - it was extraordinary!"

"But they're too young," Cedric said in confusion. "They can't compete…can they?"

Suddenly the door behind us all burst open. Professor Dumbledore, followed closely by Mr. Crouch, Professor Karkaroff, Madame Maxime, Professor McGonagall, and Professor Snape entered the room, all looking angry and confused as they had before.

"What iz the meaning of zis Dumbley-dore?" Madam Maxine demanded.

"I was about to ask the same thing," Karkaroff said angrily. "Three Hogwarts champions? Is that even aloud?"

I felt all eyes towards Harry and me, both of us were backed up towards the wall behind us trying to become invisible. That obviously wasn't going to work out very well.

"I was under the impression that your Age Line was going to prevent this sort of thing," Karkaroff said.

"This isn't Dumbledore's fault," Snape said suddenly. "The boy obviously did something - he's always getting into some kind of trouble!"

"Zen what about ze girl?" Madam Maxine said while pointing at me. "Explain zat one!"

Snape opened his mouth to continue, but Dumbledore held up a hand to silence him. Snape obeyed and everyone in the room turned to Dumbledore who was now looking at both Harry and me.

"Did either of you enter your names into the Goblet of Fire?" Dumbledore asked us calmly.

"No," we both said at the same time.

"Did you have one of the older students place your name into the cup?" he asked.

"No," we said simultaneously.

"Well obviously they are lying!" Karkaroff said irritably. "How else could their names have just appeared in the cup?"

"The boy obviously threw their names into the cup-" Snape started irritably.

"Why iz it zat you keep blaming za boy?" Madam Maxine inquired. "What about zee girl?"

"She wouldn't-" Snape started.

"Enough!" Dumbledore stopped them. "Both Harry and Emily are very well behaved students - neither of them would ever willingly go against the rules that we have set up."

Snape scoffed, but Mr. Crouch took this opportunity to speak up.

"They have to compete," Crouch said simply. "There name came out of the Goblet of Fire and it's a binding contract, they can't back out of this."

Karkaroff and Madam Maxine looked at Mr. Crouch as though he was completely out of his mind. I couldn't half blame them either and I could imagine that I had the same expression as they did. I didn't want to compete - I never in my wildest dreams would have wanted this. This could very well kill the both of us.

"We have to readmit the names into the Goblet," Karkaroff demanded. "Start this entire thing over."

"You cannot do that," Bagman said. "You know how it works - the Goblet won't start up again until the beginning of the next tournament."

"I am pulling my champion out then," Karkaroff said angrily. "Durmstrang will not be competing - this is absurd-"

"You can't pull out," Moody growled from the doorframe. "It's a magical binding contract - you know as well as I do that you cannot do that."

Moody walked into the room, a thud sounding with each footstep he made. He glared at Karkaroff with a look of utter hatred as if he was accusing him of something on the spot.

"They didn't put their names into the Goblet of Fire," said Moody. "It's very simple, don't you see? Someone obviously put their names into the cup in hopes that they would get killed."

My eyes widened and I looked over at Harry who suddenly became tense. It wouldn't be the first time that our murder was planned on the grounds of Hogwarts. It's slightly ironic that the castle is considered one of the safest places to be considering we have almost been killed on the grounds at least twice before in the past two years.

"Moody, that's a little serious, isn't it?" Bagman spoke up.

"Oh please," Karkaroff snickered. "The man always thinks people are out to kill one another."

"Are you suggesting that I'm imagining things Karkaroff?" Moody growled. "It's obvious that a skilled witch or wizard entered their name into the cup-"

"Where iz your evidence?" Madam Maxine asked. "There iz nozzing to prove zat!"

"The Goblet of Fire is a very complex object," Moody said. "It had to have been a very skilled wizard to have tricked such an object. They would have had to trick the Goblet into believing that there were four or five schools competing so that they could enter both of their names as separate schools."

"You seem to have given this a lot of thought Moody," Karkaroff said darkly.

"As you should very well remember," Moody growled. "It is my job to think as dark wizards do."

Everyone went silent and looked between both Moody and Karkaroff. I wouldn't have been all that shocked if they had gone out into a duel at that very moment because of the looks on their faces as they glared menacingly at one another.

"It seems to me that Harry and Emily will both have to compete alongside of Cedric," Dumbledore said. "There doesn't seem to be any other way…"

No one challenged him because they all knew that it was true. Our names were part of a contract and we couldn't break it. But who did this to us? Did they really want us dead or were they just pulling some kind of sick prank on us? What was going to happen?

"The first task will take place on the twenty-fourth of November," Crouch spoke up in a trembling voice. "This task will test your daring, so you will not know what you will be facing until the date comes around. You are to have no outside help with this task other than the use of your wands. I wish you all the best of luck."

Everyone nodded silently and began to exit the room one by one. Dumbledore gave me a weak smile as I began to exit the room and I also noticed the look of deep concern from both him and Snape. They knew that we were going to die - it was as simple as that.

Together, Harry, Cedric, and I all walked out from the trophy room and towards our common rooms as soon as we could. I couldn't help but notice that he kept glancing over at us with curiosity.

"So…how did you get your names in the Goblet?" he asked finally.

"We didn't put our names in," Harry said.

"Right…" Cedric said with a small smile.

He thought we were lying. How could he think that? Why would we want to put our names into the goblet? Unless he thought we were just trying to get some money out of it.

"We didn't do it," I insisted. "Why would we want to set ourselves up for death?"

"I didn't say anything," Cedric said, still not believing us.

"Whatever," I rolled my eyes.

Soon enough, Cedric departed in the other direction towards the Hufflepuff common room and Harry and I made our way towards the Gryffindor Tower slowly.

"No one is going to believe us," Harry said after a moment.

"I know…" I sighed. "Cedric just proved that."

We didn't talk anymore after that. We continued to walk silently throughout the hallway until we made it to the Fat Lady. As soon as we gave her the password and the portrait opened, there was a blast of sound we could hear from the common room. We walked in and everyone jumped towards us at once. Harry, who took a look at the crowd with disbelief, took off towards the dorms immediately so he wouldn't have to confront them all. How nice of him to leave me here alone with them - NOT!

"How did you do it?" Fred asked.

"You were helping us - you should have told us you were going to enter!" George said.

"We didn't-" I started.

"Emily - I thought that you said that the Tournament was too dangerous!" Lee Jordan said. "Were you just trying to make yourself unsuspicious?"

"What-?" I yelled.

Then all at once people began to jump towards me and bombard me with questions about how we got into the Tournament and what we were going to do during it. As the crowd of people began to close in on me; I began to panic at once. The walls were closing in and there was no escape-then it all went away at once as I felt myself being pulled out.

I was being dragged through the crowd and finally we managed to get out of there and towards the side of the room that people weren't in. I backed up against the wall and saw them all following us, but the crowd stopped when the person that dragged me stepped in front of me.

"Just leave her alone!" Neville shouted. "Can't you see that you're bothering her?"

Everyone looked around at one another for a minute and looked slightly ashamed. They all dispersed and went into small groups to talk about what had just happened and what the chances were that Hogwarts was going to be the champion.

"Thanks," I said quietly to Neville.

"Yeah…I figured you had enough on your mind at the moment without all of them attacking you," he sighed. "Where did Harry go?"

"He ran off as soon as we got in here," I told him. "I guess that I should have followed him…"

I looked back towards everyone else and noticed several eyes looking directly at me. Everyone was talking about me…they thought that we wanted to be in the Tournament, I could just tell. They thought that we just wanted more attention…more fame…if only they knew that it was the exact opposite. I would rather be anyone else right now.

"You didn't really do it, did you?" Neville asked as he leaned up against the wall next to me.

"No…" I said. "We didn't…no one is going to believe us though."

"I believe you," he said. "I know that you didn't want any part of this Tournament - you've been saying it for a while now. Harry seemed like he might have been interested, but I don't think he would have done it either."

"I wish everyone else could see that…" I muttered.

"Well, don't worry about them," he sighed. "They'll come around eventually."

"I can only hope…" I sighed.

Thanks for reading - I hope that you liked it! I know that not everyone is happy with the results of who the champions are, I know that it seems to be a little cliché. I hope that I'll still be able to make it interesting for you though. Again, if you have any suggestions, feel free to leave them in a comment or a private message! Thanks!