Dudley, Dean and Ron decided to try their luck at putting their names into the Goblet of Fire that night. Dean figured that way, if it failed, nobody would see that they had failed. Seeing the logic in that, Dudley agreed.

So, at midnight, Dudley, who had fallen asleep was nudged by Ron. Neville had decided not to try and enter. Hermione too had refused, insisting that Dumbledore would have thought of invisibility cloaks.

They crept down to the Great Hall in silence. "Look," Ron whispered. "We're not the only ones creeping around."

They peered through the door and Ron swore under his breath. "It's Warrington—that bloke on the Slytherin quidditch team."

"We can't have a Slytherin champion," Dudley said in disgust.

They watched as Warrington walked over the Age Line and dropped a small piece of parchment into the goblet.

"I bet quite a few are doing it at night," Dean whispered. "I wouldn't want everyone watching."

After Warrington had left, the three crept forward.

"Shall we go together, or one at a time?" Dudley asked.

"One at a time," said Dean, make sure the cloak fully covers us.

"Hope this works," Ron said.

Dudley went first. He made sure not a single bit of his body was showing.

"On three," he said. "One—two—three!"

For a moment, it looked to have worked. He raised his arms in triumph.

There was a loud sizzling noise and Dudley felt himself being hurtled out of the circle, his cloak falling half off as he landed with a painful thud on the floor. Before he could work out what had happened, there was a loud pop, and he sprouted a long, flowing white beard.

Ron and Dean burst out laughing.

"What happened?" Dudley muttered, clambering painfully to his feet. He felt his chin, feeling the soft, white hair that had sprouted there.

"You …" Dean couldn't talk with laughing.

There was the sound of approaching footsteps.

"Shhhh!" Ron said, then laughed again as he caught sight of Dudley, who started laughing too.

"I was expecting that Fred and George Weasley would be foolish enough to try to cross the Age Line, but not you three" the unmistakeable voice of McGonagall said, coldly. "Ron, I suppose it is too much to ask that you follow the lead of Percy?"

"Professor, I …"

"Professor Dumbledore did warn you," McGonagall said. She did look amused, Dudley saw. Her mouth was twitching slightly.

"Hospital wing, Dursley. Weasley, Thomas—back to bed. And 10 points from Gryffindor each for being out of bounds."

Dudley could hear Ron and Dean still laughing as they returned to the common room. Dudley turned to go to get fixed up by Madam Pomfrey.

Dudley had his breakfast in the hospital wing. He was now beardless, though his chin was itchy. Madame Pomfrey was just fixing up a tonic for him to apply. Two more students had entered, both with beards also—Stella Farcett who was in Ravenclaw and Derek Summers of Hufflepuff. He was just finishing eating his toast when the door opened and Fred and George walked in. Both were sporting identical beards.

"Aging potion didn't work then?" Dudley said casually, snickering.

"Nope," Fred said with a grin. "I take it the invisibility cloak didn't either?"

"Tried last night," Dudley said, smiling.

"Wish Ron would have warned us," George said. "But he kept quiet the whole time. Git."

"I knew I should have smelt a rat by his grin," Fred said.

"Anyone else entered?" Dudley asked, while Fred and George took a bed to wait for Madame Pomfrey.

"Yeah, I heard Roger Davies from Ravenclaw did," answered Fred.

"We saw Warrington putting his name in last night—no beard," Dudley said.

"If he gets picked, I'm supporting Durmstrang," George said, grumpily. "No way am I cheering for a Slytherin."

Dudley met up with his friends later on and asked who else put their name in. They were with Ginny and Luna.

"Diggory put his name in earlier," Dean said, a little moodily. "Hope it's not him."

"Better him than a Slytherin," Dudley said in disgust.

"Oh yeah, that reminds me,' said Ron. "Bole and Derrick put their names in too."

Dudley swore. "No Gryffindors?"

Ginny smiled. "Angelina." She replied.

"Cool," Dudley said. "I hope she gets it. It'd be great to have a Gryffindor champion."

"Beatrice Haywood did too," Luna said.

"Who?" Dudley glanced at Dean who shrugged.

"Hufflepuff girl," Ginny explained. "She put it in while we were there."

"No Ravenclaws?"

"Roger Davies," Luna said. "I don't like him very much. And Eleanor Lamb—she's a prefect. Maybe some others did too."

"Hope it's Angelina," said Dudley.

"I hope it's anybody but a Slytherin," Ron said.

They passed the rest of the evening together. It was quite a cold day, so they sat in the common room, as close to the fire as they could get. Hermione sat curled in a chair reading while Dudley, Dean, Luna and Ginny had a game of gobstones. Ron and Neville passed the time comparing chocolate frog cards—a new edition all about famous goblins had been released recently, so Ron had quite a few he was missing.

At half-past five, they decided it was time to go down to the Halloween feast and, more importantly, see who the champions would be.