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Chapter 25: Beauxbatons and Durmstrang
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It turned out that, mad as he was about it, Montague didn't seek revenge after that Quidditch match. Slytherin had won, after all.
Jack chose to be paranoid, all the same.
He had started trying to get his wrist strap's camouflage function- which made it look, to the casual observer, like he was just wearing whatever that individual perceived as an ordinary watch- to stretch to cover his concealed wand holster... thus concealing it even when he wasn't wearing a long-sleeved shirt. He was still working on it. He wasn't the technical genius Tosh was, but he was fairly competent with the technology from his own century, and he was sure he could get it to work eventually.
Having acquired the allegiance of Draco Malfoy, and made Cullen Montague look like a complete fool, most of Slytherin House either respected, or in some cased feared him, now. There were underhanded mutterings about the Quidditch incident, calling him a traitor, but no one dared confront him directly about it.
This did afford him a few luxuries within the House common room, such as a seat near the fire, which some anxious first-or-third-year would always vacate on Draco's orders, if Jack wanted it. Not that he usually did, preferring to sit with his friends in his own year for the most part.
One of those privileges, however, was that on the night before Hallowe'en, when the entire school was gathered to greet the students from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, space was made where Jack and his friends could see what was going on clearly.
Gwen and Owen weren't so lucky, being stuck behind the fourth-year Gryffindors. He couldn't see where Ianto and Tosh had gotten to.
"Feels like we're on parade, like a bunch of show-dogs." Zoe grumbled.
Jack snorted, "Yeah, something like that." he muttered, trying not to think about how very eternally grateful he was that John Hart was nowhere near this decade, to have heard that casual remark.
"It's bloody freezing out here." Malcolm grumbled, "And they're late, now. Thought they were meant to get here at six o'clock?"
As if his words had somehow summoned it, something appeared on the horizon, flying towards them very fast.
"Aha!" Dumbledore called out, "Unless I am very much mistaken, the delegation from Beauxbatons approaches!"
"Either that or we're getting nuked." Jack muttered, marvelling at the speed of the approaching... vehicle. He really had no idea what it was.
"Where?" several people asked around him.
"There!" someone yelled from the Gryffindor side.
"It's a dragon!" a Hufflepuff first-year cried.
"Don't be stupid! one of the Gryffindor first-years countered, "It's a flying house!"
"It's a bird!" Owen shouted ironically.
A moment later, and Jack could just imagine the inner torment at playing along with one of Owen's jokes, Ianto shouted out the obvious, from somewhere a few rows behind Jack. "It's a plane!"
"It's... a Powerpuff Girl?" Gwen asked in shock, as the colour of the approaching object became clear. This might have been more funny, Jack reflected, if the cartoon in question existed in this time. As it was, however, Owen did manage to laugh loudly enough for everyone gathered there.
It turned out to be a giant powder-blue carriage, pulled by a dozen equally over-sized winged palomino horses.
And it was charging towards them not one bit slower than a guided missile.
Many of the other students started making moves to scatter, but just as it might have become a good idea to do just that, the horses turned and slowed surprisingly quickly- like slamming the breaks on a racing car- so that it came to a slightly-skidding stop right in front of the gathered crowd.
Very dramatic. Jack approved.
The size of the carriage was soon justified. Once some poor boy had the unfortunate task of opening the door and pulling the steps down (couldn't find a spell to do that, could they?) a giant of a woman stepped out before them. She was taller than Hagrid, though nowhere near as wide.
"Wow..." Malcolm whispered, awed.
Jack briefly toyed with the thought of horrifying his entire House with some casual insinuation about bigger being better... but he only just had the common decency- or was that common sense?- not to.
She was good-looking, though... in a rather austere way.
It took Dumbledore's pointed clapping to break the student body out of their collective shock. Soon everyone was applauding the new arrival, and the group of teenage students gathered behind her, utterly dwarfed by her sheer size.
She smiled, and took only two strides to close the distance between herself and the Headmaster, holding her hand out to allow him to kiss it. She was so tall that he didn't even need to bow to do so. "My dear Madame Maxime." he said, "Welcome to Hogwarts."
"Dumbly-dorr." the woman replied in a thick French accent, "I 'ope I find you well?"
"In excellent form, I thank you." he answered brightly.
"My pupils." Madame Maxime said, gesturing to he huddled boys and girls behind her. They came to Britain without coats? No wonder they were shivering. "'As Karkaroff arrived yet?"
"He should be here any moment. 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." she answered, "But ze 'orses -"
"Our Care of Magical Creatures teacher will be delighted to take care of them." Dumbledore reassured her, "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." Madame Maxime observed. Jack bit his lip to suppress the instinctive 'well duh' on the tip of his tongue.
"Hagrid can handle anything."
"Zey are very strong..."
"I assure you that Hagrid will be well up to the job." Dumbledore insisted.
'And any other 'job' you want him for, I'll bet.' Oh, not-talking was almost painful, sometimes. He wondered if it was as bad as this for Owen.
"Very well." she conceded, bowing slightly. "Will you please inform zis 'Agrid zat ze 'orses drink only single-malt whiskey?"
"It will be attended to." Dumbledore promised, also bowing.
"Come." Madame Maxime ordered, beckoning her students to follow her up into the castle.
Several freezing minutes passed in silence, before a Gryffindor upperclassman shouted out, "The lake! Look at the lake!"
Jack turned to look, and saw the rippling and waving, forming a whirlpool at the centre of water that at this hour of the night usually made a point of resembling black glass. And then what looked like the mast of a ship began to rise up from beneath the waves.
"It's the Flying Dutchman!" Owen yelled.
A few people got this reference, chuckling nervously... but they were all Muggle-born Ravenclaws. Once again, a member of his team had made a reference that was entirely out of place in this decade.
But sure enough, it was a ship that was rising out of the depths of the lake.
It finally surfaced completely, and sailed slowly to the edge of the water. A gangplank was thrown down, and a not oversized but still tall man led another group of teenagers over to the welcoming committee at the front doors of the school. Like his counterpart, he was finely dressed, but while Madame Maxime had worn silks, he wore furs.
All his students wore furs, actually. Either they were seriously overcompensating for the weather, or they came from somewhere absolutely freezing. Jack took a moment of mild sadism to contemplate how the Beauxbatons students would have coped had they the need to visit Durmstrang.
When the leader of the Durmstrang students stepped into the light, he gave Jack a very unsettling feeling. He had a goatee, and a bearing of dark authority that somehow reminded Jack of the Master. His students weren't much better, giving off an air that just screamed power and dark magic. Each and every one of them was intimidating on some level.
He watched as one of them tripped and stumbled on the uneven ground, muttering Bulgarian swear-words for it. Well, some were more intimidating than others, obviously.
"Dumbledore!" the leader of these students called warmly, "How are you, my dear fellow, how are you?"
"Blooming, thank you, Professor Karkaroff." Dumbledore replied, shaking his hand.
"I dread to think what nicknames get passed behind his back." Jack whispered to Malcolm and Zoe, both of whom snickered at this.
"Dear old Hogwarts." Karkaroff said with poorly feigned nostalgia, "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."
As he led his students into the castle, excited murmuring erupted across the assembled group of Hogwarts students. Jack just picked up the words 'Krum' and from one sixth-year girl, 'autograph'. So he assumed that someone there was a celebrity. Quite probably this Viktor person, as Karkaroff had been giving him preferential treatment.
He allowed himself to be swept into the Great Hall, by the crowd, and soon found himself a seat at the Slytherin table. Tosh sat down behind him, just across the aisle from him. "That's a whole hour I could have been working, wasted." she sighed sadly.
Jack leaned across and asked her, "Do you know who Krum is?"
"Sorry." she said, shrugging, "All I caught was something to do with Quidditch."
Jack turned back to his own table, and leaned across to speak to Draco, "Draco, you can call me a dumb Muggle for asking this, but who is Krum?"
"Dumb Muggle." a third-year, Nathaniel Travers, snickered.
Jack hit him upside the head, as if he was Owen. "I said Draco was aloud to insult me. Not you, princess." he growled threateningly. Travers actually cringed, and didn't even snipe a retort to the 'princess' remark.
At this moment, several Durmstrang students claimed the empty seats around the Slytherin table. Krum sat right next to Draco. Draco seemed not to think it was a good idea to explain who Krum was while the man himself was sitting right there.
So Jack asked again. "Why are you famous?"
Krum looked at him, stunned by the question, "I play Qvidditch for Bulgaria." he answered curtly, before looking down at the table.
"Oh? That's all?" Jack asked, grinning, "I played Quidditch for Hufflepuff."
Krum looked up at him, confused, "Is this not the Slytherin House in your school?"
"Yes." Jack said cheerfully. "I did it for political reasons."
"He did it to piss off Montague." Adrian Yaxley declared clearly.
Jack shrugged, still grinning, "It worked."
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"Yeah, that's right, smarm up to him, Harkness." Ron Weasley grumbled, glowering across the Hall at the Slytherin table. "I bet Krum can see right through him, though... bet he gets people fawning over him all the time. Where d'you reckon they're going to sleep? We could offer him a space in our dormitory, Harry... I wouldn't mind giving him my bed, I could kip on a camp bed."
"Oh, for the love of the Force, shut the fuck up, Weasley!" Owen yelled.
Hermione gasped in horror, "Language!"
"Star Wars? Really?" Gwen asked despairingly, not caring one iota for the swearing involved.
"Weasley..." Owen growled, wielding a utensil threateningly in Ron's face, across the table, "If you don't stop badmouthing Jack, I am going to shove this fork somewhere very uncomfortable on your anatomy... and I haven't quite decided exactly where yet."
"He'll do it..." Gwen said, almost mournfully, "I've seen him do it."
Which was only partially true. She had once seen him use a fork as a tool in an alien autopsy... although, in all fairness, Beth had broken his favourite scalpel the previous week.
Ron was staring at Owen in equal measures of fear and incredulity. Several tense seconds passed, before Gwen grabbed Owen's arm and pulled him away from the table.
"I'll get you Weasley! And your little dog, too!" Owen yelled, waving his fork in the air dramatically, as Gwen dragged him down to near where Ianto was sitting.
"What was that about?" Ianto asked, across the aisle.
"Ron Weasley." Gwen said despairingly.
"Needs to be stabbed with a fork." Owen concluded cheerfully.
"Was that it?" Ianto asked blankly, "I'd have expected his punishment to warrant being fed to a Weevil, before you started quoting the Wizard of Oz."
Gwen giggled almost hysterically at this... but then Dumbledore distracted them from their debate, with one of his announcements.
"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, ghosts and- most particularly- guests. I have great pleasure in welcoming you all to Hogwarts. I hope and trust that your stay here will be both comfortable and enjoyable. The tournament will be officially opened at the end of the feast. I now invite you all to eat, drink, and make yourselves at home!"
"Thankfully brief." Ianto muttered gratefully, as food appeared at the tables.
Owen didn't comment, simple commenced shovelling of food into his mouth in as uncivilised a manner as he could manage. This was mostly to annoy Ianto, who he was watching out of the corner of his eye. Sure enough, tea-boy wrinkled his nose in distaste, and turned away.
"Is it just me, or do we have more variety tonight?" Ianto asked, surveying the Hufflepuff table.
Owen deigned to surface from his own food long enough to actually look, "Foreign guests, foreign food?" he suggested, "Thank god they're not from that place in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, s'all I'm sayin'."
"Or Korea." Ianto muttered darkly, "Jack has a problem with dogs."
Gwen choked on her pumpkin juice, "I wonder why?" she spluttered in disgust.
That successfully ended the conversation, and Owen- not for the first time- wondered where the connection between Jack, John Hart, and dogs, particularly poodles, came from. He had heard Gwen, Ianto and Tosh joke about it on various occasions since the day they had met that freak.
Once they had finished eating, Dumbledore stood once more. The announcement had been short before the feast... therefore it would be long afterwards, Owen was certain.
"The moment has come. The Triwizard Tournament is about to start. I would like to say a few words of explanation before we bring in the casket, just to clarify the procedure which we will be following this year. But firstly, let me introduce, for those of you who do not know them, Mr Bartemius Crouch, Head of the Department of International Magical Co-operation-"
A few people applauded, just to be polite, but not that many.
"-and Mr Ludo Bagman, Head of the Department of Magical Games and Sports."
This time most of the school applauded loudly and enthusiastically. Owen remembered the Weasley twins' rant about Bagman, on the train, and therefore yelled at the top of his lungs, "BOOOOOO!"
"Mr Bagman and Mr Crouch have worked tirelessly over the last few months on the arrangements for the Triwizard Tournament, and they will be joining myself, Professor Karkaroff and Madame Maxime on the panel which will judge the champions' efforts." Dumbledore smiled, as the silence became one of anticipation. "The casket, then, if you please, Mr Filch."
Filch had been lurking in a nearby corner, and now brought forward an ancient-looking wooden chest encrusted in jewels.
Dumbledore took the chest from him and explained, "The instructions for the tasks the champions will face this year have already been examined by Mr Crouch and Mr Bagman, and they have made the necessary arrangements for each challenge. There will be three tasks, spaced throughout the school year, and they will test the champions in many different ways. Their magical prowess, their daring, their powers of deduction, and of course their ability to cope with danger."
He allowed that last part hanging for a moment of tense silence, before continuing.
"As you know, three champions compete in the tournament, one from each of the participating schools. They will be marked on how well they perform each of the tournament tasks and the champion with the highest total after task three will win the Triwizard Cup. The champions will be chosen by an impartial selector. The Goblet of Fire."
"The what of fire?" Owen asked incredulously.
"Sounded like he said goblet." Gwen admitted, "Which makes no sense."
Dumbledore drew his wand and tapped the lid of the mysterious chest three times. The lid creaked open in a slow and ponderous way that seemed designed to increase the anticipation of the crowd watching with baited breath. Dumbledore reached into the chest and pulled out an entirely anti-climactic wooden cup.
Or at least, it would have been anti-climactic if Owen hadn't noticed a second later the faint blue flames flickering from within it as Dumbledore set it down on the staff table in front of him.
"Anybody wishing to submit themselves as champion must write their name and school clearly upon a slip of parchment, and drop it into the Goblet. Aspiring champions have twenty-four hours in which to put their names forward. Tomorrow night, Hallowe'en, the Goblet will return the names of the three it has judged most worthy to represent their schools. The Goblet will be placed in the Entrance Hall tonight, where it will be freely accessible to all those wishing to compete. To ensure that no underage student yields to temptation, I will be drawing an age line around the Goblet of Fire once it has been placed in the Entrance Hall. Nobody under the age of seventeen will be able to cross this line."
Gwen, Owen and Ianto shared a dubious look at this. "Age line? Does that work on real age or apparent age?" Owen wondered aloud.
Neither of the other two answered him... all three wore equal expressions of apprehension at this possibility.
"Finally, I wish to impress upon any of you wishing to compete that this tournament is not to be entered lightly. Once a champion has been selected by the Goblet of Fire, he or she is obliged to see the tournament through to the end. The placing of your name in the Goblet constitutes a binding, magical contract. There can be no change of heart once you have become a champion. Please be very sure, therefore, that you are whole-heartedly prepared to play, before you drop your name into the Goblet. Now, I think it is time for bed. Goodnight to you all."
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