HARRY POTTER DOESN'T BELONG TO ME

35: triwizard tournament

Arriving at Hogwarts for her third year didn't feel any different to Luna. She had been happy when she saw Mandy waiting for her near the front doors of the school—she had cut her hair into a pixie haircut and from the drastic haircut Luna found that the girl seemed even more confident than before. She had told her that she had cut her hair not only because she wanted to but also to prove that a girl could have a pixie haircut and not look masculine.

They headed up the stone front steps of the school together, their nice school shoes clinking against the stone stairs. Around them they could hear excited whispers and loud remarks about how summer was from some of the students while others were eerily quiet and Luna knew that it must have been because of what had happened at the Quidditch World Cup and how Death Eaters had stormed the event and caused mayhem, messed with the Muggle family that looked after the property, and left the Dark Mark in the sky—as though Voldemort had been planning to return and would come slithering through the trees and claim that he'd been dying to see them.

Thankfully Mandy had been over in America at the lake house and hadn't learnt of what had happened until she had received her Daily Prophet and read the newspaper. She had been so frightened that she had used the International Floo Network in her aunt's house (even though the house was owned by the Muggle side of her family, Mandy always had her aunt connect the fireplace to Luna's house during the summer ever since she had first met her), and demanded to know what had happened.

After telling her that she had stayed home and didn't go to the sporting event Mandy seemed a little more relaxed. Since she hadn't come directly through and was standing in front of her but had her head stuck through she hadn't accounted on having one of her cousins slip their heads through the fire and smile at Luna—and that happened to be Dollie. She had been excited to meet Luna and thought nothing more than sticking her head through the fire would be harmless.

Dollie hadn't accounted for her to be slid back by her dad grabbing her by the back of her legs and pulling her completely away from the fireplace. Her dad had arched his eyebrow up and twitched his magnificent beard (Mandy's words not Luna's—apparently he looked just like he would live in the forest and provide for himself only through nature along with wrestling bears because he wanted to).

Luna had left the Golden Trio alone today; she had wanted to be spending time with her Ravenclaw best friend. She was also smart enough to know that she shouldn't be clingy to them, even thought there was a near death experience involved with all of them.

Walking through the front doors of the school, Luna entered the Great Hall not that long after—she along with the others were clustered together when it came to her House and they made their way towards where their table was.

In the corner of her eye though Luna could see that there was another man that was sitting up near the table—conversing with Professor Dumbledore, and although Luna didn't know Quidditch that much she could tell that it was Lodovic Bagman. He had a large belly but still seemed enthusiastic as always when it came to the sport—he liked to bask in the glory days.

Sitting down with Mandy, Luna craned her head to the side and found that Madam Hooch was sitting close to him and that she was conversing to him with excitement and he beamed at her—happy that he had had someone who loved Quidditch and wanted to talk about said glory days.

"Isn't that Lodovic Bagman? If so he really let himself go. Look at that gut," Mandy commented, earning snickers from some of the Ravenclaws that were around her—agreeing with her one hundred percent. Even Cho agreed.

"What is he doing here anyway?" one of the Ravenclaws probed, earning others to ask after them—they didn't have time to question anymore when the first years arrived and made their way up so that they were on the stage steps—waiting for the moment that they could be sorted.

Luna placed her head sideways onto her palm of her hand, her eyes scanning over all of the new first years and which ones were younger siblings to ones that were currently going to school.

As each student was brought up to be sorted Ravenclaw received two new students—Stewart Ackerley, and Orla Quirke. Gryffindor received two students—Dennis Creevey and Natalie McDonald. Slytherin received two students—Malcom Baddock, along with Graham Pritchard. Hufflepuff received four students—Eleanor Branstone, Owen Cauldwell, Laura Madley, and Kevin Whitby.

Luna watched along with the others as the first years scurried to their tables and they sat down. Luna could tell though that there was something off, a lot more off than one would think. Her eyes flashed over the different teachers that were sitting at the tables and found that none of them surprised her—they all looked the same. Her eyes did linger on Lodovic a little longer though; she could tell that he was nothing more than excited to be around young students again.

It would not be until after they were eating their welcoming feast that Luna felt the strangeness in her stomach again. She knew that there was something off and that it was heading in their direction. It would be seen and it would be heard and they would have to deal with it as long as it was here.

"Why aren't you eating, Lune, usually you're really happy and eat a bunch during the welcoming feast." Mandy craned her head to the side as she stabbed her fork into meat on the plate. A few seats to the north side of where Mandy was sitting Cho was happily telling them all about her spending as much time with Cedric and wanted to avoid the topic of the Quidditch World Cup all entirely.

"Something seems off, I cannot put my finger to it, but I sense that something is coming and that it will bring nothing more than confusion and—" Luna paused, as she noted in the corner of her eye that something was heading towards the Great Hall and she felt her head turn in the direction of where the person was that was heading to the Great Hall—not listening to Professor Dumbledore as he began to clear his throat and speak, only for the doors to slam open.

Hobbling into the Great Hall with a prosthetic leg, magical false eye, and a badly damaged face was the new Defense against the Dark Arts professor. Luna felt her eyes narrow as she knew that she could feel something that was clinging around his aura and she didn't know if she really wanted to scrap back the layers of what his aura was to see what was lurking in the darkness.

"It's him. He's not good. That's all I know," Luna managed to say, only for Mandy to straighten and stiffen—as though to let her know that she had heard her and that she was going to look at the man and see if she could find something that would allow her to add to Luna's statement.

Neither of them had heard Professor Dumbledore saying that there wasn't going to be Quidditch this year (this made Cho livid with anger, having not wanted to hear this because of her only having a season of playing for her House).

Giving a tight smile (Luna could see when even Professor Dumbledore gave tight smiles) at the man, Professor Dumbledore explained who the man was—that he was Professor 'Mad-Eye Moody' and that he was an Auror. He also explained about something that some of the Slytherin uppers were waiting for—the ones like Draco Malfoy that had connections in the Ministry and such.

All Luna had heard was 'Triwizard Tournament" and how there were supposed to be the two other schools that would be coming since Hogwarts was going to be the one who was hosting the tournament—the two schools were Dumstrang and Beauxbaton. Luna had already known enough about Beauxbaton and she knew that Olympe would be pleased to hear about her country's wizarding school coming here.

She didn't know anything about Dumstrang other than the fact that they were coated in dark magic and that they had thick affiliations with the Dark Lord—so many of his supporters were associated with this school.

Luna watched as a stone goblet appeared in the middle of the Great Hall and hovered high above the tables—its platform only adding to the superiority of the event in itself. Flames flickered from the Goblet and Professor Dumbledore explained about how those who were seventeen by Halloween could be allowed to put their name in the Goblet so that they could be in the tournament. He had already put enough charms on it along with the other professors combined to make sure that no one would be able to get in that was underage.

Luna did not understand why one would be unhappy by this, how they could so easily throw their life into a horrid situation such as this. She knew that her daddy and her mum would not have been pleased with this event if it was here when they attended the school. She could see Harry's dad putting his name into the Goblet along with Sirius Black but not Professor Lupin. She did not want to think about Peter Pettigrew or what he would have done.

"Even if I was seventeen I sure as hell would not put my name in that godforsaken Goblet," Mandy told her along with the others around her—she was a fourth year and it was obvious that the only ones that would be allowed to even do the tournament were in their seventh year of Hogwarts and they were basically about to walk out of the school as it was.

Some of the other Ravenclaws nodded their heads, agreeing with her logic while others still would have liked to have their intelligence tested so that they could prove that with their logic they could win and it wouldn't be out of dumb bravery, or undying loyalty, or in a cunning way. They wanted to show that Ravenclaw was the best House out of all the four ones.

Luna picked up her Pumpkin Juice and took a sip, her eyes trailing over from where Mad-Eye Moody was sitting at the table and his magical eye was rolling everywhere. To anyone else it would be unsettling but it wasn't to Luna—she knew plenty of people through The Quibbler and others associated with her daddy that had magical moving glass eyes.

In fact it didn't even take a second later for the eye to land on her. She kept the cup up to her lips and kept her eyes on that single eye. She could feel everyone start to look at where she was looking at or at Professor Moody, in order to see where the both of them were looking at.

Luna would have titled her chin up a little higher if she didn't have the cup in her hand but she did have the cup in her hand. She kept her eyes on him though and after almost a whole minute the eye that had been staring at her drifted away and Professor Moody said that his eye was acting up on him and that he didn't mean for it to stay on Luna that long, though she could see that he had a tightness in his facial muscles that told her that he was already long tired of her.

"Should I even hex any ideas of having a staring contest with you?" Mandy chuckled as she took a sip of her own Pumpkin Juice. Luna took a sip from her Pumpkin Juice and sat it down before she turned to look at Mandy, "Whatever do you mean, Mandy? I wasn't staring at him. That must have been someone else."

Mandy smiled even more at her best friend as she laughed and rung her arm around Luna's shoulder blades so that she could give her a quick sideways hug. Luna almost squeaked from the strength of the squeeze (turns out that Mandy quite liked doing boxing so she always practiced when she was at home during the break—it was apparent that none of the professors would be happy to have the girl train in their school).

Luna sipped some more on her drink and waited for everyone else to be finished with their meal so that she could go ahead and go upstairs to her dorm. She finally sat her drink down when those around her were finished with their drinks or food.

She got up from her spot though when she was excused to leave to go to her dorm—and when she got up she could feel eyes on her. She knew that three out of the four people that were staring at her happened to be her friends and the last one happened to be Draco. She looked at him first—her eyes drifting over to him and how his handsome face was beginning to have this tired withered to look to it. She could see that being the son of Lucius Malfoy happened to be his downfall since the moment that he had been conceived by his mother.

She turned her eyes away from him, not in the mood to look at him that much longer, and let her eyes land on the trio as they were heading through the cluster. She walked through the cluster of students too—hearing about seventh years and saying that they were going to put their names into the Goblet as soon as possible. A couple others were saying that they were going to put multiple scraps into the Goblet so that they would have a better chance of being selected (for Ravenclaws they were very thick headed it seemed like).

Finally reaching the trio as they left the Great Hall, Luna was surprised with Harry wrapping his arm around her and pulling her towards him so that he could have her next to him. She didn't put her head down on his shoulder or lean against him. She just felt warmth at the fact that he held her closer to him so that he could have her near him. He didn't have to turn and see if she was next to him because he knew that Luna wouldn't avoid him.

"I don't get the point in doing the tournament, Ron," he tried to protest to Ron, but being that Ron was the least looked upon son it felt as though it would be his destiny to be in the tournament or at least Harry since he was the Boy-Who-Lived that could do anything and everything.

Luna felt sorry for Harry and she reached out to take his hand and give his hand a squeeze as though to tell him that she felt sorry for him, and that she was there for him. He squeezed her hand back as though to let her know that he knew before he disconnected their hands but she still stayed next to him. Mandy stood to her right and Ron and Hermione were standing to Harry's left (Ron was next to Harry and Hermione was next to Ron).

As long as he knew that she was there for him then she was at least a little more at ease than before.