Because everyone was expecting the next big thing to happen to be the arrival of the other schools' students, Harry was quite caught by surprise when the actual next thing to happen arrived at nine in the morning on the Saturday before they were due to arrive.

It was just after breakfast, and Harry was about to head upstairs to clean his teeth before some Charms revision when Hedwig caught up with him.

"Sort of wish Ginny's owl was that well behaved," Fred said, watching as Harry raised a foreleg and Hedwig landed neatly on it.

"Tell me about it," George agreed, rubbing a point just below his collar bone. "Pigwidgeon doesn't consider a letter properly delivered until he's stuffed it up your shirt."

Hedwig looked disapproving even as she gave Harry the message she was carrying, and he unfolded the parchment to find two words hastily written in Hagrid's big hand.

Hatching now.

"Mind showing me where Hagrid is?" Harry asked his snowy owl, and she clicked her beak before taking off again.

"Excuse me," he added to the Twins, who looked a little disappointed that they weren't able to explain how they'd managed to infiltrate an animated cat toy full of catnip into Taira's schoolbag the previous evening.

Harry had to admit that he wasn't entirely sure if catnip worked on foxes, or kitsune, but it certainly worked on cats and there were several cats in the Slytherin dorm rooms. It was probably quite interesting in there.

When Harry reached his destination – Hedwig led him to one of the many small wooden buildings that were scattered around the Care of Magical Creatures class area – there were several familiar faces already there.

Hagrid was no surprise, and there was Professor Kettleburn as well – and Nora, leaning over Professor Kettleburn's head anxiously in a way he'd have called hovering was that not a confusing term to apply to a dragon. But Harry hadn't even realized Charlie Weasley was at Hogwarts – unless he hadn't been until a few minutes ago – and there was also an elderly witch he'd never met before with short grey hair, all of them spread fairly evenly around the trio of dragon eggs resting on fine white sand.

The sand itself was also quite different from how Nora herself had been hatched. If Harry remembered correctly, and he was fairly sure he did, Nora had simply been hatched on Hagrid's kitchen table, which still had a few mild scorch marks from having a very hot egg deposited on it once it started to wobble. This seemed much better, with the sand supported about two or three feet off the floor on a metal table, and a quick peek below the table revealed quite a hot fire burning beneath it.

"Ah, Harry!" Professor Kettleburn said brightly. "I don't believe you've met Wilhelmina before? Wilhelmina, this is Harry Potter – Harry, this is Wilhelmina Grubbly-Plank."

"Oh, you wrote The Atlas of Beasts and Creatures," Harry realized. "I liked that book, but I did think there were a few things missing."

"There usually are," Mrs. Grubbly-Plank said with a small smile. "Otherwise I wouldn't have much of a job researching them. You may be pleased to know that one of the reasons I'm here is to give the local population of wolves descended from werewolves an interview."

"That would be nice," Harry said.

He was about to add about how he thought they might prefer to be called wargs, but then Hagrid's gasp drew their attention to the eggs.

The first egg was a pale grey, and it cracked twice before finally splitting into a dozen pieces. A shimmering white wing emerged, then a head, and an Antipodean Opaleye sort of stumbled out of the egg and fell right onto the sand.

Professor Kettleburn picked it up, supporting the hatchling at the base of the neck and around the middle of the body, and inspected it quickly and efficiently.

"Male," he said, before passing the dragonet to Hagrid (who got to cleaning off anything that needed to be cleaned away).

"Was I that small?" Nora asked, examining the Opaleye closely as Hagrid worked. "That's very small."

"You were this tiny too!" Hagrid told her, also presumably in Dragonish (or Parsel), and Harry noticed Grubbly-Plank shaking her head.

"Remarkable," she pronounced. "I'd heard about it before, of course I had, but..."

"It's something different to actually see, isn't it?" Kettleburn asked.

The second egg started to crack, but that one went much more slowly. In fact, it went so slowly that the third and last egg – a pleasant silver colour – broke first, and four legs came out the bottom before lifting the dragon inside up.

Since the rest of the shell was still intact, the hatchling wandered around in confusion for a long moment, until Hagrid helped by pulling at the shell so the rest of it split. That revealed a little Swedish Short-Snout, which stretched before flaring both wings and growling in a high pitched way.

"You're not meant to growl at people who are nice," Nora said firmly.

"That one only tiny," Hagrid chuckled.

"You mean that one's only tiny," Nora corrected him matter-of-factly. "One's."

Harry realized it would be polite to translate for Mrs. Grubbly-Plank, who sounded very interested indeed in the explanation of what was being said. At the same time, meanwhile, Professor Kettleburn told them that the blue Short-Snout was female, and then that the Common Welsh Green that hatched out of the final egg was another male.

The process of inspecting them got him bitten (fortunately on his prosthetic hand), and he gave the Swedish Short-Snout that was the culprit a sharp bop on the nose.

"No," he told her clearly. "That's bad manners."

Charlie inspected the new dragons as well, casting several diagnosis spells that Harry sort of thought were the same ones that had been used on him about three years ago, and took plenty of notes.

"What are they going to be called?" he asked.

"Oh, um, right," Hagrid said, presumably switching back from reptilian to English. "Well, didn't really settle on a name for Nora for months, and all, but… what about Oliver, for this little fellow?"

He indicated the Opaleye, then the Welsh Green. "And… well, I wanted to say Will, but that's yer brother's name..."

"Out of curiosity, whose idea was the heated sand?" Grubbly-Plank asked. "It seems like a worthwhile idea."

"I think it was originally Anne McCaffrey's," Charlie answered absently. "If you're not sure about him, what about the Short-Snout?"

"Sarah," Hagrid said firmly. "Sally for short."

Harry still had school work, which meant he couldn't check in on the young dragons very often during the day, but he did briefly contact Empress each night before she got to work.

It seemed she was going to be doing the same program of education for the three young dragons – now in their own joint room in the castle, to keep them used to one another as well as incidentally keep them somewhere that Empress could talk to them – as she had for Nora herself, though getting started when they were younger as she didn't have to wait until she'd thought of it.

Harry certainly couldn't tell yet whether the hatchlings were acting differently to how Nora had when she was that age – or whether they were taking to the program to keep them well behaved to the same degree that Nora had – but he could tell that there'd been a major effect on Nora, who seemed to spend half her time trying to keep an eye on her juniors and trying to stop them getting in trouble.

It was particularly obvious during Care of Magical Creatures, when the whole class had to stop discussing Nifflers for ten minutes as both Nora and Hagrid tried to find a remarkably well disguised Welsh Green, who clearly hadn't yet learned either that his name was Gary (well, officially Gareth) or the Parsel equivalent thereof.

Harry tried not to think about what Sally and Ollie were doing during that time, though if he had to guess it would probably be 'try to set fire to things'.

They wouldn't have fire breath for weeks or months, but they would find a way.

That Friday, the last one before the Monday on which Halloween fell, classes ended a bit early so the whole school could be ready for when the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang students arrived.

They all had to line up in their houses and years, forming seven rows spaced out by height on one of the swells of ground coming down from the main doors, and after there had been a few allowances for height everyone just sort of stood and waited.

"I wonder how they're going to arrive," Ron said quietly. "I know flying carpets aren't illegal in some countries. Maybe it'll be one of them?"

"Portkeys are easier, right?" Dean asked. "Unless you're a dragon."

"So not if they're from Beauxbatons, then," Harry contributed. "I think if it were me I'd have to fly and floo fram fronce. Bleah."

Hermione tried not to giggle.

"I mean, I'd have to fly and floo from France," Harry tried again, sounding it out slower and more carefully this time. "But to actually get to Hogwarts we use a train… maybe they do something else."

"It's France," Neville pointed out. "And according to Ron's brothers, France is backwards."

He shrugged. "I always thought that would make them Ecnarf, but that's just me. So maybe they'd see a train as a novelty."

"They have some of the fastest trains in the world in France," Hermione said. "They call it the TGV, which stands for very fast train."

"I'm not sure that's how spelling works?" Ron asked, then shivered. "I'm kind of cold… Hyacinthum flammare."

"Mr. Weasley," Professor McGonagall said sharply. "Please do not ignite yourself in front of anyone from Beauxbatons or Durmstrang, it would be very impolite."

"It's cold, though," Ron complained. "And it's easier to cast than a warming charm."

"I believe Mr. Weasley may have had a most excellent idea," Professor Dumbledore said. "Though I must say the colour of the flames would better suit Ravenclaw. If anyone who can cast that particular spell to such a degree that they can provide their house colour would please raise their wands?"

Five minutes later, surrounded by warm red-and-gold flames that gave a toasty feeling to the night air, Harry wondered what Muggles would think of this.

Still, nobody was shivering any more.

"Look!" someone said, pointing over towards the Forbidden Forest, and Harry focused in that direction – quickly spotting what they were pointing at.

It was a big black shape, zooming closer, and there was a sudden clap of wings as Nora took off from her position right at the back of the waiting group.

"They're friends!" Hagrid called up to her.

"Okay!" Nora replied back, just as loudly, and sped out to meet the incoming shape. It quickly resolved itself into being a giant house-sized carriage drawn by a dozen enormous winged horses, and Nora caught up with it before flying alongside it during the approach.

Her long scarf streamed out behind her, and as it got lower and lower she slowed down until it finally touched the ground. Then she rose back into the air, alighting next to Hagrid with a thump, and the doors of the carriage opened.

A boy in pale robes jumped down, took one look at the Hogwarts students, and nearly fell over.

"Emile?" asked someone inside the carriage, and the boy quickly did something to lower a set of golden steps.

Then the Beauxbatons delegation disembarked.

They were led by someone about the same size as Hagrid, which was interesting, and for some reason they all just got off the carriage and stared at all the Hogwarts students.

Dumbledore strolled happily up to them, purple flames dripping off the end of his beard, and clapped several times.

"A wonderful entrance, Madame Maxime," he said. "Welcome to Hogwarts."

"Dumbledore," Madame Maxime replied, in – naturally – a French accent. "Your students appear to be aflame."

"It can be a little cold in Scotland at this time of year," Dumbledore replied with a smile. "As I'm sure you must be aware. Would you perhaps like to step inside to warm up? I am afraid Karkaroff has not yet arrived, so the choice of whether to wait for him or go inside is yours."

"I think, yes, perhaps warming up would be for the best," Madame Maxime said. "But I must ask – was that a dragon I saw?"

"Our school mascot, Nora," Dumbledore replied, and Nora waved helpfully at the sound of her name. "She's quite the kindly individual."

"C'est un loup," one of the Beauxbatonniers said, blinking. "Pourquoi."

"Et je pense que c'est un sphinx," another replied. "Pareil."

The giant flying horses that had pulled the Beauxbatons carriage were passed off to Hagrid, who led them down the path, and then the Beauxbatons students went indoors while everyone else stayed outside waiting for the Durmstrangers.

Everyone was looking at the sky, now, expecting Durmstrang to come flying in as well, though Harry had to wonder about how Beauxbatons had arrived and whether it would work for Durmstrang as well.

Maybe the Beauxbatons carriage was just enchanted the same way as, well, Harry – or the Hogwarts Express – so that none of the Muggles they flew over could actually see it. That seemed like the only way to get a house-sized carriage pulled by a dozen elephantine horses over Britain without being noticed.

Then Lee Jordan noticed something was happening with the lake, and an eighteenth-century sort of ship appeared out of a whirlpool before starting to let off passengers.

"Ah, Durmstrang approaches," Dumbledore observed pleasantly, as a collection of cloaked students came up the lawns to the castle.

The headmaster of Durmstrang, Professor Karkaroff, promptly greeted Dumbledore before shaking his hand, and examined the gathered Hogwarts students.

"It seems your old Salazar Slytherin was right," he said. "The policy on Muggleborn students did lead to witch burnings."

Harry didn't know whether to gasp or laugh, and ultimately settled on laugh – as did most of the rest of the students. Flopsy and Cottontail both spluttered as they tried not to giggle too much, and something about the noise seemed to draw the Durmstrangers to really look at the Hogwarts students for the first time.

"Wow..." someone said, in a thick Bulgarian accent. "They have a cerberus student."

"And a wolf. That's really cool. Why didn't we think of that?" someone else asked.

"Hush," someone else chided. "You'll make us look bad."

Thinking about whether anyone else could have heard what they'd said, Harry decided the tactful thing to do would be not to mention it to anyone.

Then Ron noticed that one of the Durmstrang students was Viktor Krum, which he was very excited about indeed.

Inside (and after the Hogwarts students had been extinguished) they found the tables all set for a feast, which was a bit unusual for Friday, and the Beauxbatons students were mostly all seated together at the Ravenclaw table. The Durmstrang visitors ended up a little bit more spread out, though Viktor Krum didn't go to the Gryffindor table – which was a little disappointing for Ron – and the headmasters took their places up at the high table.

"Good evening," Dumbledore said with a pleasant smile. "Welcome, one and all, to the Great Hall at Hogwarts! I know many of you will have seen it before, but please join me in saying hello to all our guests."

He waited a few seconds for the generalized murmur of hello-welcome to die down. "We are of course here for the Tournament, which will be officially opened once everyone has filled themselves nicely up with food. So, without further ado, the feast!"

The plates filled with food in a flash, and Harry examined the closest food to him.

It looked like a sort of shellfish stew, and he took a ladleful for his plate before picking up one of the shellfish in two talons.

It looked sort of like a mussel, and he crunched it up before swallowing.

"How is it?" Ron asked.

"Crunchy," Harry summarized.

"I think he means apart from the bit he can't possibly eat," Ginny pointed out.

That made sense, and Harry considered before answering a second time.

"Sort of spicy," he said, licking his teeth a bit. "I think you get an idea of most of the taste from the sauce, so take a spoonful if you want."

After duly taking a spoonful, Ron decided that it wasn't really for him. The pilaf was more to his taste, though, and an odd-looking filled pastry was something he liked so much he said he wasn't sure whether to tell everyone else to have some or just try and have it all himself.

Someone from Beauxbatons came over to pick up the shellfish stew – apparently it was French – and after that Harry noticed that two new people had entered the hall.

One of them was Mr. Ludo Bagman, the head of the Department of Magical Games and Sports, but much to Harry's surprise the other was Percy Weasley.

"Wonder why he's here?" he asked, nodding. Everyone looked to see what he meant, and Fred groaned quietly.

"And I thought we'd escaped," he said with a sigh.

"That's how Issolas work," Harry replied. "Any idea why though?"

"It could be because the Department of International Magical Co-Operation is a bit of a mess," Neville suggested. "The trials and stuff are over, but they're still trying to work out who's responsible for what or even who's going to be in charge."

"Percy was involved in organizing it," George mused. "So that might explain it."

"How come it's such a mess?" Dean asked. "There was only one bloke who got arrested, right?"

"Well, he was the head of the department," Hermione said. "And he was the sort of department head who keeps his own son under Imperius for more than a decade. That sort of person sounds like a control freak – I wouldn't be surprised if he's the only one who knows what everyone's doing, and would you trust him?"

"Probably not, yeah," Dean agreed.

"To be honest," Ginny began, with a tone of deep contemplation. "Out of all of us Weasleys, Percy is the only one I'd trust in a DIMC position without starting a war."

"You what?" Ron demanded. "You think I'd start a war?"

"I think I'd start a war," Ginny explained. "I think you, me and Mum would all get so angry we'd start a war, Charlie and Dad would get distracted and start a war, and Bill would start a war after taking something home from Egypt he shouldn't."

"And what about us?" George asked. "Shouldn't George and I get a mention?"

"You two would start a war for a laugh," Ginny judged.

"She's got us there, Fred," Fred said. "Can you imagine the kinds of pranks you could play with the right sort of war?"

"I've never liked quiche," George told him. "Could we declare war on that?"

"We could make Harry the leader of the army," Fred pointed out. "He can eat anything. Even quiche."

Dessert had just as much of a mix of food as the main meal had – Harry was particularly confused by something Hermione said was called Crepes Marcie, which for no adequately explained reason had been served with about a pound of cinnamon showered on top of the basic recipe – and after that Professor Dumbledore stood up again.

"I hope you've all stuffed yourselves adequately," he said. "I am led to believe that there will in fact be no more food for as much as ten hours, and I would not want everyone to starve."

Harry saw some of the Beauxbatons students looking around in confusion as Dumbledore continued, expressing how glad he was of the fulfilment of the true purpose of the Triwizard Tournament (which was, from context, exposing people to foreign cooking) and then launched into a clarification of the set up for the Triwizard Tournament.

It seemed that there would be a five-person panel involved in the judging, consisting of the three headmasters, plus Mr. Bagman and 'whoever the Department of International Magical Cooperation decides to send us', which this time at least was Percy Weasley.

Mr. Filch the caretaker then brought in a jewelled wooden chest, the sort of thing which made Harry's claws tingle faintly, and he sternly told himself that it would probably ruin the entire Tournament and make a lot of people very upset if he took the shiny chest for himself.

He had a hoard. He didn't need a bigger one. (Though admittedly most dragons would never say that a hoard was too big, they also often decided it was big enough and stopped going out for more.)

With great ceremony, Dumbledore opened the lid of the casket and took out a small wooden goblet – one full to the brim with blue flames, which probably would have looked a bit more impressive had everyone not been on fire earlier.

"The Goblet of Fire," he announced. "The origin of the name is obvious. The Goblet itself will be our impartial judge to select which student from each of the three schools taking part in the Tournament will be taking part. Each student who wishes to participate – and is at least seventeen, of course – will have to write their name and school clearly upon a piece of parchment and place it within the flames of the Goblet, and we shall reconvene to see who it selects in two days."

Dumbledore gave a little smile.

"When we were planning this part of the Tournament, there was something of a conflict with the calendar," he announced. "It would have been tremendously meaningful for you all to have twenty-four hours to place your names within the Goblet of Fire and to then have the selection made on the night of Halloween, but alas, the week did not co-operate. So we will be giving you more than thirty-six hours – the goblet will be in the entrance hall tomorrow morning – and holding the Selection Feast a day before Halloween."

Dumbledore's voice turned rather graver. "I wish to impress upon you all that the tasks of the Triwizard Tournament are not for the faint hearted, and that once embarked upon the path of a school champion cannot be left before the end of the tournament. If one places his or her name into the goblet, one has entered into a binding magical contract which is in force until the end of the Third Task. This is simply one of the reasons why we have restricted the age of entry to the tournament this year, and indeed the Goblet of Fire will be surrounded by an Age Line when it is placed in the Entrance Hall so as to avoid temptation. Suffice it to say that that is but one of the measures taken to ensure that the champions are restricted to those who are of an age to compete."

"Well, that won't slow us down for long," George said quietly.

"Now, I believe it is time for bed," Dumbledore added. "Good night to you all."

"Okay, so what can we do to get past the Age Line?" Fred asked, on their way to the dorms. "Ageing potion?"

"Dumbledore drew that line," Hermione retorted. "I think he's heard of ageing potions."

"Yeah, well, worth a try," George declared.

"It's dangerous, anyway," Hermione added. "I don't think anyone below seventeen will stand a chance, we haven't learned enough."

"Hermione," Lee Jordan said, indicating himself and then Fred and George. "We'll turn seventeen over the course of the tournament. We've done our OWLs. The only difference between how much magical education we've had and how much, um, Pucey or Warrington has had is nothing."

"They haven't even done more homework than us," Fred jumped in. "We counted."

"I don't like supporting my brothers when they're planning something insane," Ron said critically. "But they have a point."

"You don't like supporting us when we're planning something insane?" Fred demanded.

"That does explain why he never supports us," George mused. "Explains a lot, really."

"So, ideas," Lee added. "Dean? Anything?"

"I've got loads of ideas," Dean replied, grinning. "Problem is, Dumbledore asked first."

"...that sneaky old extremely distinguished and somewhat mad wizard," George growled. "Like what?"

"You can't have an older student pick up the goblet and move it outside the age line," Dean said, beginning to tick them off. "The name on the parchment that goes into the goblet has to match your name – I think he got help from Professor Lupin and Mr. Black for that. The parchment has to be in your hands until you drop it in the flames, so you can't throw it in from outside. There's only three schools, so you can't make up a new one..."

He trailed off, seeing everyone staring at him (including several passing Hufflepuffs). "What?"

"How long have you been thinking about this?" Neville asked.

"About a month," Dean answered with a shrug. "Professor Dumbledore asked me to think of all the ways to get around it, and I came up with a lot of them."

"That's okay, we'll just use our Animagus forms," Fred suggested.

"You think he didn't think of that?" Dean asked, sniggering. "Good luck, I kind of want to see a pine marten with a giant white beard."

"What about if the one who puts it in is really magic resistant?" Fred asked. "Like Harry?"

"I'd say no," Harry answered, quite reasonably he thought. "And it wouldn't work anyway because it'd be someone else's name. I think if you want to enter the tournament you should get Professor Dumbledore to change the age limit so it's sixteen years and three months old, because that way anyone in Sixth Year qualifies."

"We really should have thought of that two months ago," George groaned. "Well, we'll give it a try anyway, no point not trying."

"Can we see any more of those big catapults?" Neville asked. "Ones that we haven't set on fire, I mean."

"There's one over on the western tower," Harry replied, indicating it on the map. "But apart from that you don't see any."

"Okay, that's good," James decided. "I think that means we can land to the east – over here – without getting the ship smashed up. Good work, guys."

"I hope you're not going to dangle Toskr over the side on a rope again," Ron said. "That was really kind of embarrassing."

"It was funny, though," Su pointed out. "You've got to admit that."

"It kind of was," Ron said, after some agonizing.

"Are we going to land over there, or are we going to have someone fly the boat over the battlements and drop off most of the team?" Tanisis asked. "James, your character knows how to land, right?"

"Well, yeah, but not very well," James countered. "It's based on Dexterity, and mine isn't great."

"I think we need to think about this a bit," Su said. "Do we have the time?"

"I'll tell you if anything changes," Harry said. "For now the castle guards are sort of running around watching you."

"I hope they don't work out why we're here," Colin said. "We're supposed to be saving that guy, right? And they might kill him if they realize."

"That probably won't happen until they think we're going to win," Tanisis said. "So we just need to move quickly… or we could try and get someone in to guard him while the rest of us rescue him."

"Yeah, but Harry said the windows of the tower he's in are really small," Ron pointed out.

He paused. "Why is everyone looking at me?"

"You've got to admit, this sort of thing does tend to solve most of our problems," Su said, trying not to laugh. "Who's the best at throwing? And do we have a good parachute for a squirrel?"

"None of you have a weapon proficiency in squirrel," Harry said, as Ron began to try to protest through his giggles. "But there is a Feather Fall spell, so if you aim right Ron can stop himself falling."

"Oh, right, he knows the arrest momentum spell," James nodded. "Should we just drop him? Or swing him on a rope?"

"You sound like my brothers two hours ago," Ron said, still grinning. "Anyway, uh, Toskr makes this kind of squeaky sigh and tells everyone to just get on with it then."

As far as Harry could tell, neither Fred nor George nor anyone else made any real progress in trying to get their names in the Goblet illicitly.

That didn't mean they didn't try. Harry wasn't there to see it, but apparently there'd been some kind of mad series of events where first Lee Jordan tried transfiguring a marble into a lion to bring the Goblet to the edge of the Age Line and let them put in their entry parchment that way.

Lee Jordan now had a near-weightless floating marble lion persistently bouncing off the side of his head, and Dumbledore had stopped by to pleasantly inform him that it would wear off in a day or two.

Undaunted by the failure of their friend, Fred and George had tried plans of their own. Throwing the parchment hadn't worked (it had just caught fire) and then making a very long piece of parchment had led to the parchment curling back and hitting Fred quite sharply on the nose.

George had tried the next thing, which was taking Animagus form and then taking Ageing Potion, and Fred had Transfigured one of the flagstones on the floor so the two of them could get underneath the age line. That had actually seemed to work, apparently, right up until Fred had tried to put his parchment into the Goblet and both of them had been flung backwards with great force to land just outside the front door.

Both of them had also apparently ended up with six foot long beards (which Harry could only imagine had been particularly hard on George, if he'd still been transformed at the time) and were in the Hospital Wing awaiting beard removal.

Ginny said that they'd been slightly cheered up by the two grumpy-looking fox kits in a basket next to them, because the Smiths hadn't been successful either and the Age Line had gone the other way in making a point with them.

To Harry's mind, though, the oddest thing about the two days between the arrival of the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang students and the official opening of the Triwizard Tournament was meeting people from other wizarding schools in the first place.

It seemed like some of the Durmstrang students weren't quite sure what to make of the student body at Hogwarts. At first Harry thought it was something to do with all the non-human students who'd joined in the last few years, because he knew that some wizards didn't really know what to make of centaurs (and sphinxes were classified as dangerous beasts) but something June said in the oddly-shaped club meeting had sort of explained things for him when she said that one of the Durmstrangers had asked whether she was Muggle Born.

(She'd said that her parents were both wargs, and that you had to go back quite a long way to find a non magical wolf – you would find German wargs a couple of generations back, though – and the Durmstrang girl had seemed slightly disquieted by the whole idea.)

As for Beauxbatons, Harry happened to run into one of the French students in the library where he was looking for a book about the history of Hogwarts. Harry was happy to point him at Hogwarts: A History, and once he'd got the book the boy (who was called Emile) had asked Harry somewhat hesitantly just how long Hogwarts had had non human students.

"Oh, well, I'm in fourth year," Harry answered. "But my friend Hagrid was at school in the 1940s. So it depends how you count."

"Hagrid, the grounds man?" Emile said. "I see… is there anyone else?"

"Well, werewolves don't really count," Harry frowned. "As they're only non human a few hours a month. So I think it's quite new – there was a legal case about me which sort of got things started."

"We were all ready to feel very smug," Emile told him candidly. "We have Veela at our school, and there is Madame Maxime of course, and we've always thought Hogwarts was silly and backwards. Now I think that we have been silly and backwards ourselves for not paying attention."

Harry shrugged his wings, careful not to bump into anything. "I think that's what this is all about, really. That and being able to be smug if you win."

"Of course, and when Beauxbatons wins we will be able to be smug again," Emile nodded.

Harry snickered, then remembered something. "Oh, um, do you have any dragons hiding at your school?"

"Dragons?" Emile asked. "Like your mascot, ah, Nora?"

"Or like me," Harry clarified.

"I've never seen any," Emile answered.

It wasn't until fifteen minutes later that Harry realized that didn't really answer his question satisfactorily.

AN:

Whoops still near the end of October.

I did actually ask someone I know what the closest thing in French is to "Wat."