The Durmstrang students gathered around the box that was now siting in the centre of their communal living area aboard the ship.

"What do you mean it is empty?" One of the elder boys demanded.

The others all shifted nervously. It had taken over a week to get hold of one of those coveted boxes the Hogwarts students were always carrying about. Over a week of watching and waiting and planning. More effort had been put into this than the tournament preparations.

Finally, this afternoon their efforts had proven fruitful.

They had one.

There must be something in there, the Hufflepuff student who had been holding it was seen whispering into the thing just hours ago. Yet when they opened the lid; nothing.

A brief whoosh of air and then when they all craned their necks to look it was just an empty box.

…

"Is there a leak?" Someone asked suddenly. Others glanced toward him in question. "I hear dripping."

"Um…gentlemen…was there always a bathtub in the corner of this room?"

As one they turned to look. Sure-enough there was in fact a bathtub in the corner of the room. A white claw foot tub with translucent draping's hanging down over it, suspended from a metal rail. Behind the curtain a shadow shifted.

"Merlin's soul!"

"Go open it."

"You go open it."

"I'm not going near that thing."

"Maybe it's a test?" Someone suggested. "A test of bravery to see who is fit to be the tournament champion."

"The Goblet will decide that you fool. This is…I don't know what this is."

After much arguing and jostling, a volunteer was selected by the age-old tradition of everyone else voting against them. The poor unfortunate soul crept towards the curtain as everyone else hung back.

With trembling hands, the boy threw back the curtain to reveal the ghastly sight of a rotted old woman curled up in the tub, dirty water covering her putrid flesh, grey cloudy eyes jumping to look at him.

With a raspy voice she began to sing, her eyes locked to his. "There's a little boy here, a little boy there, here a boy, there a boy, everywhere a boy, boy." With every word her sinister smile grew wider. "I've been waiting for you."

The boy turned and ran, slamming head first into the human wall of his horrified peers, who had all drifted a step closer to see. "Get out of my way! Move you bastards!"

As he fought his way through, the others watched frozen in shock as the woman rose up out of the bath, one sopping wet foot raising over the rounded edge of the tub and settling down on the wooden planks of the ships hull. The first was soon followed by the other and there she stood, in all her horrific glory, now grinning at all of them.

"Here a boy, there a boy." She sang again.

She began to walk towards them.

…

The sound of screams echoed across the grounds of Hogwarts.

Students in the Gryffindor and Ravenclaw Towers ran to the windows, alerted to the commotion outside as the noise reverberated across the castle roofs.

Far in the distance the Durmstrang ship floated on the lake where it had been anchored since their arrival, the source of the screaming was made clear as the tournament hopefuls from the Northern European school scrambled and pushed at one another to get out of the ship's interior and into the open air.

From their vantage point the Hogwarts students watched in amazement.

"Oh Merlin, they're jumping off!"

And they were.

Heedless of their audience Durmstrang students where flinging themselves head first over the edge of the ship and into the lake.

With zero hesitation Lee Jordan cast a Sonorous to amplify his voice and began shouting out diving scores.

"And that is a solid eight from Mr Krum. Beautiful form. Flawless entry."

"What do you think they are doing?" One of the Ravenclaws asked her friends, whilst many of the other students around them began climbing out of the windows and across the roof to get a better view. Some people had grabbed their brooms and were hovering.

"Must be some weird Durmstrang training exercise." Someone suggested. "I hear that in Norway and Sweden people dive into cold water to invigorate themselves. It's like an endurance test or something."

"Oh. What a strange custom."

Sorry for the long wait everyone. I lost the thread with this one. I'll try to do better.

Should I change the chapter titles to reflect the monsters or would that be too much of a spoiler for each one?

I realise the dialogue in this is completely off for how the Durmstrang students would sound, however I think if I tried to write accents it would just be worse.

The old woman is of course from the shining, bathtub scene.