Characters, settings, and story taken from the Harry Potter series of novels are copyright J. K. Rowling, along with Bloomsbury Publishing, et al. "Spirit of Fear" is not an officially published work, nor is it in any cooperation with J. K. Rowling or Bloomsbury Publishing. "Spirit of Fear" is entirely (with the exclusion of the aforementioned characters, settings, and story) a work by Thomas Holman.


Chapter Forty-Three

Talking About the Champions


"Wake up, Yank."

Someone's heel caught Chey in the stomach and woke him up. He had fallen asleep in a chair by a window in the Gryffindor common room after spending hours awake the night before, pondering the impossible task of finding the one responsible for entering Harry's name.

"Wondered where you got to," Edward said, seemingly the only one who could have kicked Chey. "Didn't see you at all after the feast."

"Heard there was a party going on in here last night," Chey answered, "felt like avoiding it."

"What for?"

"Last party I went to ended in me beating someone half to death."

"I think its time for some scotch," Edward said, making to pull the disguised bottle from his bag as he did whenever Chey's past came to light.

"No, no, he had it coming. And his friend. But we all gave as good as we got."

"When was this?"

"Expulsion number three."

"I thought they technically weren't expulsions?"

"They were, but everyone around here keeps forgetting."

"...So why bother reminding them, right?"

"Exactly."

Edward seemed to be understanding Chey more and more each day, and Chey was finding it easier to talk to him. It was by no means a great friendship they shared, but more along the lines of two regular visitors to a bar who spoke to each other very often, only because their favorite seats at the counter were next to each other, but never made contact outside the common gathering place.

"How did it happen?" Edward asked.

"What, the fight four years ago?"

"No, last night," Edward corrected.

"There was a fight last night?"

"No, I'm talking about the champions. How is it all of them are your friends?"

"Say what?"

"You, Diggory and I help each other in Flitwick's Charms class."

"Sure, but it's not like either of you are in my will."

"You and Krum were talking in the entrance hall the other night."

"Are you seriously going to argue Viktor isn't the right guy for the position?"

"Potter and yourself get along pretty well."

"I fought like hell to get him un-selected, but of course you didn't see that."

"I saw you snogging the Beauxbatons girl!"

"And I'm very happy she was selected. You going somewhere with this?" Chey said, getting annoyed.

"Quite a coincidence that all four champions in the Tournament are close friends of your's, isn't it?"

"Dammit, if you're going to accuse me of fixing the results, come out and say it!"

"I'm not saying you did, but someone will."

"Come again?"

"You know all those dozens of people who weren't selected to be champion of their school?"

"Yeah, real sad story for them to put in their memoirs." Chey said. "What do I care?"

"They're going to be asking these same questions."

Edward was smart like that. He always had a tendency to know how people's brains worked. These weren't accusations he was making, it was a warning. And he was right. Losing a contest would bring out the worst in some, and, at the same time, lead the rest to accept any plausible explanation that came their way. The very coincidence that all four champions would call him a friend at the drop of a hat would conceivably lead one to believe that the Goblet of Fire's methodology for selecting a champion could have been a matter of who considered Chey a worthy enough person for whom they would donate a kidney.

"So you're just asking them in advance so I can come up with a good answer, is that right?"

"Precisely," Edward said, and Chey now regretting sweating him about the accusatory tone.

"Well, uh, sorry for snapping at you."

"Don't worry about it." Edward was always very understanding. "So what would you say to the prats?"

"To be honest, I don't know. I mean, I looked at the goblet myself. Nothing can tamper with its selection process."

"So you think it was coincidence then?"

"If one of my friends was a champion, I'd find it cool. Two is a coincidence, if not a happy one. Three champions being friends of mine raises one or two red flags."

"What about the fourth?" Edward asked, as though he'd caught Chey in a miscount.

"You can't count Specks."

"Why the bloody hell not?"

"Moody figures someone has it in for the kid."

"Always knew the man was a nutter."

"Seriously, you ought to listen to your headmaster more closely."

"You mean all he said about the Tournament being dangerous and all?"

"Moody said whoever entered Speck's name is counting on that element of danger."

"You don't think Potter entered himself?"

"Evidence says he didn't."

Edward stalled a moment, then said, "I'll grant you that, but Dumbledore said there would be better safety this go around."

"I swear, it's like your entire country is oblivious to chaos theory. There are too many variables to predict a clear outcome. Something is bound to go wrong as per Murphy's Law."

"Then you don't believe it's safe this year just based on the idea it is never safe?"

"No, I'm saying that if everything was going to go right, Speck's name never would have been mentioned at all last night."

"Then Potter's name coming out of the Goblet is a bad omen." Edward summarized.

"In a way, yeah."

They reflected on this for a moment as other Gryffindors moved about the common room, either milling around discussing the good fortune of a Gryffindor champion or drifting blearily from their dormitories to the portrait hole for a laid-back Sunday breakfast.

"Well, I'm about ready to devour a hippogrif," Edward said. "How are you on the hunger side of things?"

"I'm starving like a fish is thirsty. Let's go." Chey answered.


Tone in the Great Hall was elevated compared to the morning before, doubtless due to the unprecedented fourth Triwizard champion. As Chey and Edward walked along the tables they caught snippets of discussions about how Harry bested Dumbledore's Age Line, how the tasks will change now that there was a fourth competitor, and several of age students unselected for the position of school champion schemed to lace their champion's pumpkin juice with a laxative.

Cedric caught up with them and told them that, while everyone in Hufflepuff house was delighted for him (albeit upset about Harry stealing a bit of his thunder), he'd been informed that Derrick and Montegue from Slytherin had already posed the idea that the champions had been selected based, not on their merit, but by their relationship with Chey. Edward exchanged looks with Chey when this was said, and now Chey was convinced he'd better come up with a plausible explanation for the coincidence quickly, lest the whole school assume just that.

Knowing the Charger's fuel pump couldn't wait much longer, Chey and Edward went to work. Later, Fleur found them and watched them reassemble the many components of the muscle car torn asunder.

Before long, a second-year Ravenclaw girl approached them meekly with a slip of parchment. She seemed very hesitant about coming any closer than ten feet to them (understandable, for she was a lone twelve year old and they were three towering teenagers of seventeen), but finally relented, giving Chey the note and scampering away back in through the double oak doors.

The note didn't have to be signed, because there was always a disapproved tone to Minerva's handwriting: "Come to my office right away, Chey. Your father's car can wait."

"Looks like my disappointed aunt wants a word," he said. He answered Edward's questioning gaze by saying, "I shouldn't be too long. You can keep working on the alternator if you want."

"Eez it fine eef I join you?" Fleur asked.

"Don't see any harm," Chey said. "Nothing on here about coming alone and it's probably best if there's a witness." Neither one of them caught the joke.

After walking the winding halls, Chey and Fleur found themselves outside Minerva's office. Two voices were coming from behind the closed door, one definitely Minerva's but both too muffled to discern their words.

His first instinct was to open the door, but curiosity stopped him. Whoever Minerva was talking to could very well be the reason she wanted to have a word with him, so it would be to his benefit to know who it was beforehand.

He pressed his hand to the door and cast the eavesdropping charm. Fleur interpreted his action and followed suit, touching her wand to the door like she learned from Chey the previous year.

"I don't think now is an appropriate time to tell him this," came Minerva's voice, clear as though there were no door between them.

"All due respect, Miss Minerva, it's not for you to decide," said the second voice, a mild and very polite Carolina accent hanging on his words. "And to be perfectly honest, I don't think you're the best judge of what he's ready to understand."

"Are you saying I don't know my own nephew?"

"Now, I never said anything of the kind-"

"I spent more time with him than anyone else!"

"If I'm not mistaken, ma'am, that honor belongs to our dear departed friend, Jimmy. You haven't exactly been a major figure in the boy's life."

"Despite teaching much of the year, I still came to America every Summer to be with him!"

"I understand you had your obligations here, but that's an awful long time away from the boy."

"Who was it, then, that taught him everything he knows about transfiguration?"

"You did indeed, and I respect that," said the stranger, defusing Minerva's unusually heated temper. "But you can't deny the boy's grown up since then."

"William would not have him hear this so soon."

"I know that, Miss Minerva, but Will also believed the sooner you know something the better prepared you'll be."

"Mister Secretary, we are not alone," said a third voice, this one very calm and quiet and straight out of Alabama.

"How's that, Jackson?" the Carolina man said.

"Two shadows under the door," came yet a fourth voice, and the attitude in his voice left no doubt he was from the streets of Brooklyn.

The two eavesdroppers released their spells just as the door opened, and Chey and Fleur found themselves at the wandpoint of a man who appeared from just inside. His face was hardened with concentration, his eyes fixed upon their targets from behind sun-bleached blonde hair. He didn't wear a single article of clothing that wasn't black, from the military style tactical vest, combat boots and long trench coat which seemed to be concealing something slung under his right arm.

"Door clear!" he announced in a voice not matching any previously overheard to everyone in the office.

The door opened wider to let them in and revealed a total of six people standing in Minerva's office. There was Minerva, of course, behind her desk in her usual robed attire and square-rimmed glasses. Then there were four men, including the man who had opened the door, all wearing the same black combat wear and trench coats, and all seemingly concealing something beneath those black coats. In addition to the blonde-haired man by the door, there was one behind the door with neat black hair and a slouching posture, wand in hand and hastily but efficiently stowing something else under his coat at his side.

These two men shuffled Chey and Fleur in the door, then rushed into the hallway, each with wands drawn a different direction down the hallway.

"Clear left," said the blonde-haired man, followed by the dark-haired man with the Brooklyn accent saying, "Clear right." They then returned to the office and locked the door behind them. Only then could Chey get a look at the other two in black coats. One was in the back. He had messy black hair, wiry frame, a gaunt face and black, empty looking eyes. The fourth man in a black coat was just the opposite. His face was handsome with reddish brown eyes, swept brown hair and a medium build, looking kind of like a cliche fighter pilot from the movies.

The last person in the room wore a dark grey suit and tie, black dress shoes and was solidly built with hair beginning to grey and recede. Standing in front of Minerva's desk, next to a chair with a long light-brown coat draped over its back, he said in a polite Carolina accent, "Happy birthday, Mister McGonagall."


Author's note.

Okay, so my stab at a two week update turned into a three weeks. But it's hard to stay focused when your head is buzzing with ideas for other fics. One of them is a Zoids fanfic, and my character (original) already looks pretty solid. Just need to find time to write this stuff down.

I've started rebuilding my personal website, termitestudios (dot) com. While I'm rebuilding, the old one will stay up for everyone to look at.

That's about all that's new. I'll try my best to keep writing, so long as everyone keeps reading and sending me feedback.

-Termite.