The following morning Tansy was shaken awake by Hermione.
'C'mon; I left you as long as I could but breakfast will be over in ten minutes and it's a long way to go till lunch…' Hermione bent down to tie up a shoelace and Tansy looked around the dormitory. September sunlight streamed in through the gap in the curtains, pooling in golden patches on the carpet. She pulled herself up the bed and made a split-second decision.
'Mrs Weasley gave me the rest of my birthday cake. Can we take it and go for a walk in the grounds… just us…' She hurried over to her trunk and drew out the container full of cake; Mrs Weasley had placed a charm on it so that its contents would remain fresh for a long time. She turned back to Hermione, clutching the cake to her chest like a new-born baby.
'Please Hermione,' she began but stopped as she saw the expression on her friend's face. Hermione pulled herself together and nodded.
When they reached one of Tansy's favourite places by the lake, Hermione spread out a waterproof cloth, took the cake tin from Tansy and began to cut slices using her wand as a knife. Tansy skimmed a stone over the iridescent surface of the water and tried to collect her thoughts. It bounced twice before disappearing under the surface and she watched the ripples spreading out in rings, getting thinner and thinner until they were gone completely. She turned back to Hermione and saw that her friend was staring at her with the same queer expression that she'd had on her face earlier.
'Do you want to talk, Tansy?' Hermione asked, looking at her keenly.
'I don't know how to start…' Tansy began hesitantly. She turned back to the water and gazed out over the lake to the mountains beyond. She didn't want to talk, she never wanted to talk but she also knew that sometimes talking made things easier once the words had been said.
'I'm scared, Hermione,' she said after a few seconds. 'More scared than I've ever been before. It's like my mind is revolting against me… I don't know what to do…' She trailed off.
'Professor Dumbledore said that the Medela bracelet would help and it has. You haven't had any flashbacks since you put it on have you?' Hermione replied quietly.
'Using the Medela bracelet is all very well but… but I'm scared of relying on it, Hermione. What if it goes wrong or I lose it or… well, you know what I mean. What if I go crazy again?' Tansy looked up desperately and saw tears sparkling in Hermione's eyes.
'Oh Tansy; you're not crazy. Nothing will ever make you forget what… what happened in the Chamber of Secrets and your… your mother. But I'm sure you'll come to terms with it; Moody's lesson was bound to bring things to the surface for a bit.' Hermione struggled to her feet and hurried over to Tansy, wiping her eyes impatiently with her sleeve. After a few seconds, she looked at Tansy with determination in her brown eyes.
'Maybe it's a good thing really; you've never talked about your nightmares or what you remembered on the train last year. Maybe this will help you to face it…'
Tansy shook her head numbly.
'I'm too much of a coward, Hermione; it's much easier just to ignore it… pretend it's not happening…'
'Talk to me, Tansy,' Hermione whispered passionately. She led Tansy over to the picnic cloth and pushed her down into a sitting position. 'Accio coffee!' Tansy looked at her friend in amazement and jumped slightly as a tray, complete with a cafetiere and two coffee cups, skidded to a halt in front of Hermione.
'What the…?'
'Summoning charm,' Hermione clarified, handing Tansy a large slice of lemon cake and a cup of black coffee. After taking cake and coffee for herself too, Hermione looked up, somewhat expectantly, at her friend.
'I don't know where to start, Hermione,' Tansy said desperately, suddenly overcome with nerves. Why was talking always such a big deal for her?
'Start with… um… start by telling me exactly what happened when you woke up in the Chamber of Secrets,' Hermione suggested.
Tansy's talk with Hermione helped as much, if not more, than the Medela bracelet and Tansy started to feel much less anxious over the next couple of weeks. Although she often remembered the things that scared her, she no longer felt overwhelmed by them, and as September turned to October she started taking the Medela bracelet off her wrist for short periods of time during the day under Madam Pomfrey's advice.
Snape was furious that Dumbledore had given Gryffindor back the house points but he was unable to do much against both the headmaster and the deputy head. Although he continued to pick on Harry and Neville, he had started to completely ignore Tansy during lessons. This was such an improvement that she actually found herself quite enjoying the subject for the first time ever. Professor Moody continued to talk to the fourth years about curses but he did not try to demonstrate another unforgivable until the end of October when he announced that he was going to put the Imperius curse on each of them in turn. Rather apprehensively, Tansy watched as each of her classmates did the weirdest things; Ron actually picked up one of Moody's pet spiders and Hermione did a tap dance on the lid of her desk. Only Harry seemed to be able to shake off the curse, although he sustained multiple bruises as he tried.
'Laverstock; you next,' Moody growled. Rather apprehensively, she moved forwards, feeling extremely vulnerable with her wand pointed to the floor. She blushed under the concentrated focus of the entire class, feeling ill at ease under their focus.
'Imperio!'
The most amazing feeling drifted through Tansy's brain; it was as if she was floating in a giant tub of bubble bath. Every worry and fear had been magically cleared out of her head, leaving her with a pleasant, drifting happiness. She felt light, as if she could just float away. She felt totally calm and at ease for the first time in weeks.
Turn yourself into a pig… Moody's voice echoed through her head. Tansy raised her wand.
Transfigure yourself into a pig… What was Moody doing in her head anyway?
I don't want to! Tansy felt a part of her mind arguing with Moody.
Do it NOW!
Laughter… the entire class was laughing at her; she had both tried to turn herself into a pig and tried to stop herself from turning herself into a pig. The result had been that she had ended up with a snout and a tail but no other pig-like features. Moody was ecstatic and insisted on casting the spell on Tansy a further two times until she could shake it off completely, by the end of which, Tansy's head was aching from the sheer intensity of his attack.
A few days later, the four friends arrived in the entrance hall after an extremely taxing Care of Magical Creatures lesson and found that the entrance to the great hall was blocked by a large crowd of people, all looking at the notice board.
'The delegations from Beeaksbaytons and Deeermstrang are arriving at six o'clock on Friday…' Ron read, standing on tiptoe. The sheer atrocity of his attempted foreign accent caused both of the girls to wince.
'Beauxbatons and Durmstrang,' Tansy corrected grumpily; she was in a bad mood after Hagrid's lesson. The Skrewts were growing at an alarming rate, (which was surprising because they had yet to discover what they ate), and Tansy had sustained yet another burn from a particularly fat one.
'We get to miss at least half an hour of Potions.' Harry said cheerfully as they manoeuvred themselves around the crowd and into the great hall.
Tansy cheered up slightly as she heard this and helped herself to a large plateful of lasagne, chips and salad. As she looked down the Gryffindor table, she couldn't help but notice that Fred and George Weasley were sitting only a few seats away, examining a piece of parchment and talking intensely. As she stared at them, Fred suddenly looked up and caught her eye and Tansy dropped her gaze, blushing furiously.
'What's up?' Hermione asked, helping herself to pudding. Tansy blushed an even deeper shade of crimson and shrugged.
'I… I dropped… um food down my front…' She stammered. Hermione raised an eyebrow but mercifully didn't question her explanation. Tansy shook herself mentally; why was Fred Weasley having such an odd effect on her?
Friday evening finally arrived and Tansy lined up with her classmates outside the castle doors. It was bitingly cold and she shivered and drew her cloak more carefully around herself, hoping that the students from Durmstrang and Beauxbatons would arrive quickly so that they could go back into the warmth. Being shorter than almost everyone in front of her, she found that she could see very little and had to be content with a whispered commentary from Ron and Harry who were standing on either side of her. She listened to the loud conversations between the heads of the other wizarding schools and Dumbledore and was pleased when the introductions were over and she could join the crowd of Hogwarts students shuffling up the front steps.
'I can't believe it! It's Viktor Krum!' Ron was saying excitedly. 'Do you have a quill, Harry?' Harry stood on tiptoe, presumably to better inspect the retreating figure of the all-time Quidditch hero.
'Maybe I'll run up and get one; it'll take ages for us all to get settled in the great hall,' Ron suggested, bouncing up and down in excitement.
'Don't be ridiculous,' Hermione snapped. 'It'll take far too long and imagine what an idiot you'll look like walking in late when everyone's already sat down.'
'Not to mention that they're bound to be staying for a little while at least,' Tansy said quickly, as she saw Ron open his mouth to retort. 'The champions aren't supposed to be picked till tomorrow night…'
'How do you know…?' Ron interrupted.
'I read, Ronald!' Tansy said waspishly, indicating the large notice bored in the entrance hall with her head as they filed into the great hall.
After the feast, Professor Dumbledore introduced the two objective judges, Ludo Bagman and Bartemius Crouch. Both seemed to be polar opposites; Ludo Bagman large and jolly in his colourful robes and Mr Crouch prim and neat, wearing black silk. On closer inspection, Tansy thought that Mr Crouch looked drawn and ill but then remembered what Hermione had told her about his house-elf, Winky, and found that her pity was limited.
Her musings were cut short as Dumbledore pulled a roughly hewn wooden cup out of a jewelled box. It wasn't the non-descript goblet itself that caught everyone's attention but the fact that it was filled to the brim with curling flames of white fire. Tansy gazed at it in awe, completely mesmerised, and barely listened to Dumbledore's explanation of the age-line.
The next twenty-four hours passed relatively quickly; Tansy spent most of the morning hanging around the entrance hall with Harry, Ron and Hermione as they watched people putting their names into the goblet. As each piece of parchment was added, the flames turned red and sparks flew high into the air. Tansy found it almost as mesmerising as she had the night before. It was fun to stand there and speculate who would be chosen for school champion. Tansy wondered vaguely whether the tasks in the Triwizard tournament would be interesting or whether they would just be another, larger, version of the Inter House Quidditch Cup.
There was one funny incident when the Weasley twins, (who had taken an ageing potion), were thrown backwards out of the circle drawn by Dumbledore and sprouted long, white facial hair. Tansy joined in with the laughter as they went upstairs to the hospital wing but was secretly quite pleased when she saw a beardless-Fred later that day; he looked much better without the long white beard that had instantly added sixty years to him!
The castle had been decorated for Halloween overnight and the great hall contained dozens of Hagrid's traditional enormous pumpkins. Clouds of live bats circled the midnight blue ceiling and black drapes covered with luminescent silver stars had been set up behind the high table. The lights had also been dimmed to a point where they were all sitting in the half-light, presumably to add some mood to the evening, and thousands of magical candles were now suspended in midair above the long house tables and the top table. That evening the food was even more extravagant than the night before; extra tables had been set up around the edges of the great hall, carrying yet more dishes and Tansy felt so overwhelmed by the amount of choice that she ended up filling her plate with her favourite chicken and chips.
Finally, the last traces of the puddings had disappeared from the golden plates, leaving them sparkling clean, and Dumbledore stepped forwards to where the Goblet of Fire stood on a small plinth. He extinguished almost all of the candles with a wave of his wand and the hall was filled instead with the strange flickering light of the goblet. It was so bright that Tansy actually found herself screwing up her eyes.
As the entire hall watched with bated breath, the flames inside the Goblet turned ruby red and sparks flew high into the air. A tongue of flame shot out carrying a small piece of parchment. Dumbledore caught it deftly and held it up to the light of the fire so that he could read the name on it.
'The champion from Durmstrang will be Viktor Krum,' he read in a loud voice. A storm of applause filled the great hall as the Quidditch star rose to his feet and slouched up the hall to the antechamber at the back of the hall.
As the applause died down, the flames suddenly turned red for a second time and a second piece of parchment flew out.
'The champion from Beauxbatons will be Fleur Delacour!' Tansy recognised the graceful girl who rose from the Ravenclaw table; she had struck Ron dumbstruck the night before by asking for a dish of French bouillabaisse. Looking strangely ethereal with her silver hair and pale white skin glinting in the light from the goblet, Fleur glided to the front of the hall and swept through the door at the back.
The smattering of applause died down and everybody looked expectantly at the goblet. They watched with bated breath as Dumbledore caught the third piece of parchment.
'The champion from Hogwarts is Cedric Diggory!'
'No!' Ron protested, but Tansy joined in the clapping; it didn't really matter to her who the champion was and besides, Cedric was supposed to be a model student and fantastic at magic.
'Well, we now have our three champions and I'm sure…' The flames of the goblet turned red for a fourth time. Sparks shot out of it and a long tongue of flame carried another piece of parchment high into the air. Dumbledore's hand reached out automatically and snatched it before it could land on the floor. There was a long silence and Professor Dumbledore appeared to take a deep, calming breath before he looked up at the expectant students and read:
'Cassiopeia Black alias Tansy Laverstock.'
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