Elizabeth hurtled down platform 9 ¾ as the guard's warning whistle blew. Her dad, who was driving the luggage trolley, let out a sting of swear words he would never have let Elizabeth say and raced ahead of her to the end of the train. He wrenched the door open and shoved Cleopatra's basket in, ignoring the cat's plaintive mews. Up and down the train, guards slammed doors shut while she and her dad struggled with her trunk.
"Are you ever going to learn to be on time?"
She shook honey blonde hair out of her eyes and was relieved to see her best friends in the doorway. Cedric jumped down onto the platform to help them with the trunk while Kumiko rescued Cleopatra from harm's way.
Elizabeth just had time to hug her dad goodbye before the train started moving, her friends grabbing her to haul her on before she was left behind.
"Remember my pepper imps," her dad called, running to keep up with the train. "Send me an owl as soon as you can so I can let you know if we get the 10th!"
Then they picked up speed and her dad became little more than a stick man waving spindly arms after them.
Cedric and Kumiko – who delighted in pointing out how early they had both been - had snagged a compartment up near the front of the train. As soon as her luggage had been safely tucked away beside theirs and the door shut behind them, Elizabeth let her worry show at last.
"Are you sure you're both alright?"
Kumiko rolled her eyes. "We've still got all our limbs, haven't we?"
Elizabeth shot her a withering look.
"Dad says they still have no idea who did it," Cedric said. "It doesn't seem real: death eaters and the dark mark at the quidditch world cup. I don't get how nobody saw who did it."
"There's someone out there who knows the truth," Kumiko said. "A lot of someones, I'm guessing. My parents have never been so glad to get me off to Hogwarts."
"Mine too. You don't know how lucky you are not to be a part of all this, Liz."
She certainly didn't feel lucky. The first she'd heard of the disaster had been via her grandparents' distressed letter a few days afterwards. She'd spent much of the last week of the holidays pacing her room, waiting for letters from her friends. Though she loved Cleopatra dearly, there were times when she would have given her right arm for an owl.
"Well, you didn't have to be part of it either," Elizabeth said, trying her best to push her thoughts aside. "You should have come sailing with me." She laughed at the identical mortified expressions on her friends' faces.
"There's no way you're getting me on one of those muggle death traps." Kumiko said. "Give up."
"You wouldn't say that if you could swim."
"And you wouldn't like sailing so much if you could fly."
"I can fly!" Elizabeth protested and Cedric snorted.
"Into a tree, maybe."
Her cheeks grew hot as they fell about laughing, though she couldn't help smiling. It was true that none of her attempts at flying had ended well, but she wished one of them would come sailing with her. Then they'd see that she wasn't missing out at all. She'd just decided to have another stab at coaxing them onto open water when the door slid open and a seventh year Slytherin girl stuck her head in.
"You better get changed, Koko. Prefects' meeting starts in a minute." Her eyes brushed over Cedric and Elizabeth. "And you two, I suppose."
"Good summer, Adeline?" Elizabeth asked.
"Fine," she replied shortly then turned back to Kumiko. "I'll meet you outside."
Cedric met Elizabeth's gaze and across the carriage as Adeline shut the door behind her. His lips were quirked up at the edges, his cheeks stiff, a sure sign he was trying hard not to laugh. Elizabeth was relieved to be in on the joke this time rather than the butt of it.
"Sure you want to be seen with us Hufflepuffs? Might ruin your reputation forever." Cedric said as Kumiko stood up to fish in her trunk.
She raised one thin, dark eyebrow. "Don't badgers eat snakes?"
"Only honey badgers," Elizabeth answered in mock-disappointment.
"Well then." Kumiko grinned and pulled out her Slytherin robes. "I guess you two had better watch your backs."
Between half-heartedly patrolling the corridor, catching up with her fellow Hufflepuffs, and listening eagerly to a blow-by-blow account of the world cup match from Cedric and Kumiko, the journey to Hogwarts felt as though it ended before it begun.
The bloated black clouds which had been so easy to ignore amidst the warmth of the train and the thrill of heading back to Hogwarts made their presence keenly felt as Elizabeth and her friends filed out onto Hogsmeade station. Great icy raindrops pelted them as they hurried towards the carriages and, for once, Elizabeth made no objection when Kumiko pulled rank to steal a carriage from some second-year girls. She avoided looking at the Thestrals as best she could as she clambered into the musty carriage. The skeletal horses never looked pleasant, but they looked positively nightmarish amid the awful weather.
Thestrals always set her on edge and the clammy feeling the rain had left her with wasn't helping. Across the carriage, Cedric caught her eye and she smiled quickly, rubbing her arms to try and inject some warmth back into her body. She was glad when two Ravenclaw boys joined them in the carriage and started flirting with Kumiko as it gave her some space to fade into the background of the conversation. She'd feel better once she was dry, warm, and, most importantly, as far away from the thestrals as possible.
The rain worsened to a torrential downpour as the carriage drew up in front of the school, but Elizabeth barely noticed it this time as she hurried away from the creatures pulling the carriages.
The warmth of the entrance hall enveloped her like a friendly embrace. Within moments, she felt some of the ice melting from her bones.
"I hope the first years cross the lake okay," she said.
"I'll bet you five galleons one of them falls in – and they're a Hufflepuff," Kumiko grinned, wringing water out of her waist-length black hair.
"Yeah, because one of the Slytherins pushed them," Cedric said.
Then they were parting, Kumiko making for the Slytherin table while Elizabeth and Cedric headed for the Hufflepuff one. The hall looked as magnificent as always with its thousand floating candles, glowing golden plates, and bewitching star-filled ceiling. Each time she went back to the muggle world for the summer, the wonder of the magical world managed to impress her anew. She wondered briefly if it would ever stop dazzling her, then quickly stopped. She didn't want to think of the day when she would no longer be able to straddle two worlds.
"Are you alright?"
Elizabeth blinked rapidly, dragging herself back into the present. Cedric was watching her with obvious apprehension.
"Is it the Thestrals again?"
Seizing on the excuse, she nodded mutely. Cedric was her best friend, but she hadn't even been able to tell him how trapped she felt by her Dad's impending wedding. No matter how she tried to phrase it, it always sounded like she regretted being a witch, or that she wasn't happy for her Dad and his fiancé. She was. Very much so. She'd always wanted a sibling, had hoped for several years that her Dad would find someone else. It was just… complicated. Far too complicated to try and explain, even to Cedric.
"Where's the new defence against the dark arts teacher?" she said instead.
Cedric followed her gaze up to the teachers' table and frowned. Madam Pomfrey, who didn't usually join the start-of-term feast, was sat at the end of the top table. She smiled warmly at Elizabeth across the hall before turning back to Professor Vector.
"Maybe they got held up with the storm," Cedric suggested.
"Or Snape's found a way to do both jobs at once," Shaun Bowe, another sixth year Hufflepuff, said from Cedric's other side.
That, was too horrifying even to think about. One lesson with him was bad enough.
When the first years entered the hall at last, one of them drenched through and wrapped in Hagrid's coat, Kimiko broke into a fit of silent giggles at the Slytherin table. Though Elizabeth rarely took her teasing seriously, she was relieved when the boy was sorted into Gryffindor.
The subject of the Quidditch world cup dominated most of dinner. It seemed almost everyone else had been and Elizabeth found herself awkwardly on the edge of conversations, whether they be about Krum and the Irish's spectacular flying or the sudden appearance of the dark mark.
When pudding appeared, she pushed her apple pie around the plate, finding she had little appetite for it.
"You should have come," Cedric said quietly while everyone around them debated which moves the Hufflepuff Quidditch team should learn. "I know you wanted to."
She tried a smile. "I had a good holiday anyway. Besides, Dad needed the help moving; you've no idea how much longer it takes without magic."
"Kumiko wouldn't have minded paying," Cedric pressed, undeterred.
Elizabeth shoved her plate away. She might have been less annoyed if she hadn't been having this very same argument with herself for half the summer. "I know. But my dad and Summer appreciated the help. And I didn't want to ruin it for Kumiko by making her parents uncomfortable."
He grimaced. "They're trying –
Cedric cut off abruptly as the great hall fell silent. Dumbledore stood, magnificent in bright green robes, and had just started to speak when the doors to the great hall were flung open. The volume of the storm peaked just as a bolt of lightning illuminated the entrance hall, backlighting the man in the doorway like a horror movie villain. One of the first year Hufflepuffs shrieked.
"Mad-Eye Moody," Cedric breathed and she turned to him quizzically, argument forgotten. "He's a retired auror – one of the best. My dad says half the cells in Azkaban are full because of him."
The loud thunk of a wooden leg punctuated Moody's every other step and his face was more scars than skin.
"You need to re-think your career choices," Elizabeth muttered under her breath.
Moody took the empty defence against the dark arts teacher's seat at the high table and a cacophony of whispers broke out across the room. Dumbledore cleared his throat to try and regain the room's attention and was only half successful. The muttering dimmed, but most of the room still had their eyes fixed on Moody.
"As I was saying, this year Hogwarts is going to be hosting the Triwizard tournament –
"You're joking!" It was one of the Weasley twins (Elizabeth couldn't tell which from this far away).
Dumbledore chuckled. "Not quite, Mr Weasley. Though I quite understand your disbelief: it has been several hundred years since the tournament took place, due to its alarmingly high death toll."
Death toll? Surely he was joking? Excited whispers broke out around the hall, few others seeming to have heard the ,. She turned to Cedric, but his eyes were fixed firmly on Dumbledore as though the rest of the hall didn't exist. Elizabeth's stomach gave an unpleasant jolt.
"Naturally," Dumbledore continued, "We have worked hard with the ministry to ensure that no champions will be put in mortal danger this year. The selection of the Champions will take place on October 31st after the Durmstrang and Beauxbatons delegations have arrived. However," he raised his voice over the growing chatter, "we have agreed that, as an extra precaution, no student under the age of seventeen will be allowed to put themselves forward as champion."
Several students around the hall cried out in outrage. Predictably, the Gryffindor table were the most vocal, several looking positively mutinous, but a good many of her fellow Hufflepuffs were looking distinctly put-out.
"Seventeen? It's your birthday next week, isn't it, Ced?" Shaun nudged him. "You should go for it!"
"Yeah, absolutely! I bet you'd win." A pretty fifth year girl fluttered her eyelashes at Cedric and Elizabeth rolled her eyes. Ever since Cedric had won the Quidditch match against Gryffindor last year, half of Hufflepuff house seemed to think he was invincible.
She turned to Cedric, expecting him to return her exasperated look as he so often did in these moments, and but instead his eyes were shining with determination.
"What d'you reckon, Liz? A bit of glory for Hufflepuff house?"
Elizabeth hesitated. The need for an age restriction made her feel hollow and uneasy, like stepping into a room with the light off. But up and down the table people were exchanging excited grins with their friends and she could tell now wasn't the moment to voice her fears.
"Now, off to bed all of you." Dumbledore clapped his hands, saving her from having to answer. With a great scraping of benches, everyone in the hall began to move.
"We'd better get the first years," Elizabeth said, avoiding Cedric's eyes.
No sooner had they gathered the new Hufflepuffs together than Madam Pomfrey came bustling through the crowd of students.
"Miss James? A word if you please."
"Ah…" She looked around at Cedric, reluctant to leave him to deal with all the first years on his own.
He smirked, reading her mind. "What, you think I'm going to get lost between here and the entrance hall?"
She ignored him.
"Is everything alright?" Elizabeth asked when Pomfrey reached her. The matron's mouth was downturned with worry and she looked paler than usual.
"I think we'd better talk in my office."
As soon as they had entered the little room at the end of the hospital wing, Elizabeth let the questions she had been holding in spill out of her.
"What's wrong? Is someone hurt? Is it one of the first years?" Her heart jumped – surely if something had happened to her dad Professor Sprout would be the one delivering the news.
Pomfrey smiled at last, though it was a little grim. "Have a seat, Elizabeth." She gestured to the two straight-backed armchairs crammed between a desk laden with paperwork and bottles and a little brick fireplace.
"What's going on?" Elizabeth sank onto the very edge of one of the chairs. She'd been in the office before for supplies or to check a diagnosis with Pomfrey but she'd never been invited to sit before.
"As I'm sure you're aware, this tournament's going to be a dangerous business." Pomfrey settled into her own chair. "If you ask me I think the headmaster is - " She broke off and glanced at Elizabeth. " – Well, it's a dangerous business. I'd like to know I've got another set of hands around when it's time for the tasks."
Elizabeth was stunned. "Me?"
Promfrey raised her eyebrows. "Well, who else? Goodness knows, I've been trying to chase you out of the hospital wing for so many years that I expect you'd find a way to get yourself involved anyway." Then the humour faded from her face. The firelight shone off her eyes, making her look fierce but so very sad.
"I want you to think about this before you answer, Elizabeth. You're one of the most talented healers I've seen come through these doors in a long time; you have a knack for the people as well as the magic. Yards of kindness and patience to boot… but if these tasks go wrong, some of the things you might see…"
Despite the warmth of the fire, a chill settled deep in Elizabeth's bones. A cold fear she had a feeling wouldn't leave her until she was sure Cedric wouldn't be facing these tasks.
"I understand."
When she entered the common room, she found it empty apart from Cedric, who was waiting up for her in one of the patchwork armchairs.
"You said you'd think about it?" Cedric gaped at her once she'd finished recounting the conversation. "Liz, she said it would count towards your NEWT grades! And think about what St Mungo's would say."
"I know." She was curled on the sofa next to his chair, a black velvet pillow clutched to her chest.
"Then what's stopping you? Oh. Oh." His confusion cleared with the look she levelled at him. He sat forward. "Liz, I know those horse things always make you feel awful, but –
"Don't you dare tell me I'm overreacting," she snapped. She took a breath, calmed herself. "This isn't about my mum: it's about me not wanting to be the one who stitches your head back on after you get it knocked off."
"I haven't even been picked as champion yet!"
Elizabeth didn't smile.
"Look, Liz, Dumbledore's not going to let anything happen." She opened her mouth to remind him about the numerous dangerous incidents that had taken place in their time at Hogwarts, but he beat her to it. "This isn't some maniac attacking the school; they're tasks he designed. They'll be watching us every minute, have a hundred safety procedures in place."
His jaw was set. He wasn't going to be talked out of this, that much was clear. But he was right: he hadn't even been picked as champion yet. She didn't want to argue with him about something that might not happen at all.
She let her shoulders drop. "Just promise me, promise me, you're not doing this for your dad."
Cedric stiffened. Having spent a week at Cedric's almost every summer since first year, Elizabeth was well aware of how rocky her friend's relationship with his dad was. Amos Diggory was a kind enough man, but as far as he was concerned, there was nothing Cedric couldn't do. She had seen first-hand how wearing the pressure of his father's well-meant intentions was on Cedric.
For a while the only sound between them was the crackling of the fire and the occasional creak of a floorboard from the dormitories. When he spoke again, Cedric's grey eyes were hard and sharp as granite. "No. This time it's for me. For us." He stood abruptly and began pacing back and forth in front of the fire.
"One of the first years asked me if she could have another go with the sorting hat," he said, jaw working furiously. "She was ashamed to be a Hufflepuff. Ashamed."
Elizabeth winced, clutching her cushion tighter. It wasn't the first time one of them had needed to reassure an unhappy first year.
"I don't want to be the butt of everyone's jokes all the time. There's strength in being kind, and loyal, and hardworking and I swear to Merlin I'm not going to rest until I've proved it."
He came to a halt, a flush rising in his cheeks and Elizabeth understood suddenly that it was himself he needed to prove it to as much as anybody else. She stared up at him and he stared urgently back. Every teasing jibe Kumiko had ever made, every pitying look from a Ravenclaw, every dismissal from a Gryffindor, seemed to wash over her all at once.
She tossed the cushion aside and stood too. "Alright then. You'll put your name in the goblet and I'll stick your head back on if a monster rips it off."
"Deal." He grinned broadly.
God, she hoped she didn't regret encouraging him.
The first weeks of the year seemed to slip away like water through a sieve. Kumiko, who wouldn't be seventeen until the summer, shared none of Elizabeth's reservations about Cedric entering.
"Better you than that meathead, Montague," she'd said at breakfast the next morning while glaring daggers at the Slytherin quidditch captain. Like Flint, Montague held the opinion that a good quidditch player was built like a gorilla – something Kumiko, an exceptional flier, had never forgiven either boy for.
The three of them spent a great deal more time in the library than they ever had before in those first months. Ostensibly, Elizabeth and Kumiko were there to get through the mountains of homework their teachers had piled on them in their first NEWT year, but they spent a great deal more time helping Cedric research defensive spells than they did doing their own work.
While the weather was still warm enough, they often went outside to practice spells. Professor McGonagall had just begun teaching them to transfigure small objects into dogs or cats and Kumiko delighted in scaring jumpy second years by transfiguring the rocks they were sitting on. Meanwhile Elizabeth, missing the sea, took a break every half hour to wade through the shallows of the lake, trying to catch grindylows and teasing Cedric whenever he mentioned Cho Chang.
It all felt so very normal that Elizabeth's worry had almost faded until, while calculating the angle of Mars, she realised with a jolt what day it was.
"Tomorrow's October 30th," she said, making both Cedric and Kumiko look up from their work.
Unable to work in either House's common room and tired of madame Pince breathing down their necks, they had purloined a disused classroom on the fourth floor. Elizabeth was lying on her stomach with her books spread around her, Cedric balancing on the back legs of his chair as he read, and Kumiko practicing the Aguamenti charm out the window.
"Is that why you take Astronomy?" Kumiko asked, glancing over her shoulder as she balanced on the window ledge. "So you can remember which day of the month it is?"
"I wonder what the kids from Durmstrang will be like," Cedric said before Elizabeth could retort. "Dad always said it had a nasty reputation."
"Hogwarts would have a bad reputation too if its headmaster was an ex-death eater," Kumiko muttered darkly.
"What?" Elizabeth gaped. Cedric's chair fell on back onto four legs with a bang.
"Oh yeah." Kumiko folded her arms. "It's all half the Slytherins can talk about. They reckon we'd be better off with a Headmaster obsessed with the dark arts."
Elizabeth and Cedric exchanged a glance.
"What do you think?" Elizabeth asked slowly.
Kumiko, who rarely responded to direct questions with a truthful answer pursed her lips. She seemed to be weighing up her words carefully.
"I think we'd be stupid not to pay attention to what's happening. First the philosopher's stone, then the chamber of secrets being opened, Sirius Black escaping, the display at the world cup, people disappearing… Something's coming and we need to be ready."
"D'you think that's why Moody got the Dark Arts job?" Cedric asked. "So there was someone here who knows what they're doing to keep watch?"
She shrugged and turned back to the window, apparently not about to offer up any more information. Her back was ramrod straight and she didn't unfold her arms.
Elizabeth got slowly to her feet and crossed the room to sit beside Kumiko.
"We'll face it together, whatever happens."
"'Course we will," Cedric said.
They were quiet for a long time after that. A soft breeze through the window, ruffled her and Kumiko's hair, muddling fair and dark strands together. Cedric, still sat further from the window, remained untouched by the wind.
"When I said we'd face it together, I didn't mean quite so soon," Elizabeth muttered, tugging her cloak tighter around her as she, Cedric, Kumiko, and a Slytherin prefect named Dominic Harwood trudged through the frosty morning towards the enormous ship moored on the edge of the black lake.
"That's not the impression I got when you were begging Sprout for the job," Cedric replied drily.
"So that was the squealing we heard in the dungeons last night," Kumiko said, eyes wide with exaggerated surprise. "We thought it was a crowd of first years."
Elizabeth scowled at her friends. "Oh, shut it. As if you two aren't here to oogle Krum some more." In truth, she would have volunteered for almost anything which got her out of double potions, the ship was just a bonus.
Kumiko arched one thin, dark brow. "It concerns me that you think a hunk of wood is more interesting than the best quidditch player in the world."
"Why? You get about the same quality of conversation from both." Though at first Elizabeth had been eager to meet her best friends' idol, her excitement has rapidly cooled after Krum spent the welcoming feast scowling at anyone who came within two feet of him. She didn't particularly think fame was an excuse for rudeness, but the scandalised looks on Cedric and Kumiko's faces assured her they disagreed.
"I do hope I'm not going to have to listen to you lot prattling on for the entire tour," Harwood said as they reached the edge of the lake. "It's embarrassing enough that they sent Hufflepuffs, you don't need to open your mouths and prove you're idiots."
Kumiko's eyes flashed dangerously. "There are far worse things than being a Hufflepuff. Getting a T on your transfiguration OWL for example."
Elizabeth snorted with laughter, then instantly regretted it at the menacing look on Harwood's face.
"You want to be careful," he hissed. "Durmstrang doesn't approve of mudbloods," his eyes flickered over Cedric and Kumiko. "Or blood-traitors. It would be a shame if someone revealed your unfortunate parentage."
"I'm a half-blood," Elizabeth replied stonily.
Harwood's lip curled in a dark smirk. "Oh? Have you got a wizard parent somewhere who can prove that?" He swept away up the gangplank to the ship before any of them could reply.
"I'm going to curse him in his sleep." Kumiko was positively fuming.
"I could still get him from here," Cedric offered.
Elizabeth said nothing. The frigid winter air seemed suddenly much, much colder, biting through her cloak and settling like ice in her bones. Her mum's absence had always been a difficult subject for her, and having it thrown in her face by someone like Harwood made her feel smaller than ever.
"No," she sighed at last. "He's not worth the detention."
Kumiko looked as though she strongly disagreed, but she let the subject drop and the three of them boarded the ship, Elizabeth still trying to shake off her discomfort.
The Durmstrang students weren't out on deck yet and their absence made the dark ship feel like a graveyard. The sails were black and ragged, the boards under their feet dark as pitch and creaking with every step. The forecastle was twisted and jagged like warped metal and the lights glowing feebly around them were an eerie orange. Elizabeth usually loved ships, especially old sailing ships, but being on board this one raised the hairs on the back of her arm. Kumiko and Cedric exchanged glances with her, their faces waxy and pallid in the light.
A great rumbling started below them and for one ridiculous moment she thought the ship might be sinking. Then the door to the lower decks banged open and Professor Karkaroff strode out, his students marching behind him. They moved in synchronised step and once they were out on deck, arranged themselves in rows which resembled a squadron of soldiers.
"I hope this tour won't take long," Karkaroff snapped, sweeping his beady eyes over the four of them. "I haff better things to do."
"I assure you, the very last thing we'd want to do is inconvenience you," Kumiko said, in a tone so silky it suggested the opposite.
Karkaroff's flinty gaze fixed on Kumiko, his eyes narrowing.
Obviously sensing the same danger Elizabeth did, Cedric jumped in. "Professor Dumbledore thought that -
"Yes, yes." Karkaroff snapped, regarding Kumiko with open distaste. "Get on with it then."
Schooling his expression far better than Kumiko was, Cedric broke into an abridged version of the speech he gave first years. Elizabeth, who had memorised the monologue by heart, occupied herself with wasn't listening. She was too busy watching the lines of Durmstrang students, all holding themselves ramrod straight, arms tucked behind their backs, and heads turned at what looked like exactly the same angle, though surely couldn't be. Their uniforms were strangely lacking in individuality. No upturned collars, untucked shirts, or jewellery peeking from under robes.
She turned her attention to Krum, thinking from his display at dinner last night that if anyone was to flout the rules it would be him, and found him disappointingly immaculate. She should have looked away then, she really should, but something compelled her to keep staring. Perhaps it was the fact that the whole school had been talking about him, but she found herself examining his shoulders (rounded but surprisingly broad broad), his legs (long and lean), and his face (framed by short, ruffled dark hair). She'd overheard one of the Slytherin girls at breakfast say sniffingly that the only reason any girls liked him was because he was famous. While she was sure fame helped, it was obviously a drop in a very compelling ocean.
Viktor Krum had warm olive skin, a straight, aristocratic nose, and both jaw and cheekbones so defined she wondered for a moment if they were real. The true highlight though, were his eyes. Sharp as an eagle's, deep as the Grand Canyon and –
Looking right at her.
A tiny gasp escaped her and she tore her gaze away from him. Her heart stuttered, then took up a pounding beat that the Weird Sisters themselves would be proud of. She could feel his eyes assessing every inch of her as she stared determinedly at Cedric. She'd only been looking, she told herself firmly; No more than the rest of the school had already done. Thought now she thought about it, perhaps that was the point. If people gawped at her all day long, she'd be inclined to glare back on occasion too. A little ashamed of herself, Elizabeth did her best to keep her eyes fixed in the opposite direction, though she only ceased feeling Krum's heavy gaze on her when he, Karkaroff, Kumiko and Harwood led the way off the ship towards the castle.
The Durmstrang students, though largely stoic, were evidently less than impressed by the castle. Oh, they'd been bright enough to begin with, but once Hogwarts'… quirks had started to show, their expressions had fast become stony. Twice the party was cut in half by a staircase changing, Peeves had ambushed them on the fifth floor with an armful of chalk stubs, and Sir Cadogeon had chased them across three floors shouting at the students to stand and prove their worth. Most of the insults he flung at them seemed to be beyond their English, but the tone they were delivered in left little doubt as to his intent. By the time they were back on the first floor, Karkaroff's face was as dark and forbidding as a winter night.
Naturally, it was then that, with a frightened yelp, one of the boys misjudged the distance when hopping a trick step and sank thigh-deep into the staircase. His arms flailed, making two of his companions lurch back and knock a third down two steps and into Cedric. He would have gone flying had Elizabeth not wrenched on his arm to keep him upright. Several passing first years sniggered.
"Poliakoff!" Karkaroff roared, face drawn and furious. The laughter ceased as abruptly as a door slamming shut. The first years scattered. "I might have suspected you wouldn't even be able to manage a staircase." Durmstrang students melted out of their headmaster's way as he swept down the staircase toward the terrified boy.
As soon as she was sure Cedric was stable, Elizabeth hurried toward the purpling Headmaster, now berating his trapped student in relentless, furious Bulgarian. When he saw Elizabeth approaching, he dipped back into English to snap at her.
"Leave him. He can get himself out of this mess."
Elizabeth, who knew from painful experience that pulling yourself free was about as likely as pulling your own leg off, flashed a placating smile.
"Don't worry; it'll only take a moment to get him out. People get stuck all the time."
She reached for Poliakoff, who was staring at her with wide, horrified eyes but Karkaroff snatched her arm up in a grip hard enough to bruise.
"Did you not hear me?" His voice was low, and forbidding, his lip pulled up in an unpleasant sneer that exposed yellowing teeth. A frisson of real fear swept through her.
"He won't be able to get himself out," she said, forcing her voice to remain calm and firm. When Karkaroff's eyes narrowed she amended her statement. "Nobody can get out without help."
There was a tense, uncomfortable silence while Karkaroff stared at her. For wild moment, Elizabeth thought he might fling her down the steps, or demand that Poliakoff remain there until he dragged himself out. Then Krum appeared on the staircase above them, shouldering his way through the other students. He stopped at Karkaroff's side and muttered something under his breath in Bulgarian. Karkaroff released her, his eyes flickering to the silent crowd they'd gathered.
"Very well," he snapped. "If you wish to help the idiot then do so. None of my students will assist." Then he turned on his heel and marched away without a backward glance, sweeping up Harwood and a reluctant Kumiko. Krum didn't follow immediately, hesitating even as the other Durmstrang students turned away. He opened his mouth, took a step down towards her, and Elizabeth instinctively flinched back.
Krum froze. His dark eyebrows, which she only now realised had been drawn in concern, folded into a scowl. A moment later, Cedric appeared beside her and with one surly look at her friend, Krum stalked away.
"Nice of him to stick around and help," Cedric muttered.
Elizabeth didn't respond. She watched Krum slouch after the rest of the Durmstrang students and tried to crush the swooping sensation in her stomach.