Marcelle woke with a start as Madame Maxime shouted to get her student's attention.
"Wake up! It is morning, wake up! Your beds will be transfigured back in to chairs with you still lying in them if you don't all get up right now!"
Marcelle jumped out of bed and begun to change in to her school robes, casting a disillusionment charm on herself, as everyone did in these close quarters. She fastened her corset as tight as it would go, which was still considerably loose as it had belonged to her mother and was very old. Marcelle appreciated beauty, and had many eccentric beauty routines, using crafty spells she had learnt and homemade remedies.
When she was dressed, she removed the charm and moved out of the carriage for breakfast in the castle with everyone else. She sat down where she had the day before, again nobody sitting next to her. Marcelle was repulsed by the tiny creatures that served them food, she had learnt about Imps and knew their horrid ways.
While she ate Marcelle looked around, examining the Durmstrang and Hogwarts students. She had not had much experience with foreigners, Beuxbatons only accepting French students and not travelling at all when she was younger because of her family's poverty. One older Durmstrang boy that looked very, very tall (but it was hard to tell because he was sitting down) kept looking over to her and at many of the other guests. He seemed particularly interested in one Hogwarts girl with ghostly pale skin and really horrible glasses. She was sitting alone too. The boy seemed to be trying to ignore many people younger than him that were calling his name in loud voices. Petya, was it? Or Prokhor?
After they had eaten, those horrid little goblins came back and collected their dirty plates, and the headmaster of Durmstrang gave a speech. Aleksandrov, I think Madame Maxime called him, she thought. His words were welcoming and sounded like he was trying to appear jolly, but his eyes were cold. Marcelle could barely understand him, as she wasn't fluent in English, which he spoke, and he had a very strong accent.
When he had finished speaking, Marcelle left the room with everyone else and went in to the entrance hall. Producing the piece of parchment she had prepared earlier from her pocket, she surprised all the Beuxbatons girls by walking straight up to the Goblet of Fire, which was being given a wide berth by all the other students, and putting her name in. As she walked calmly away she heard a murmur of excited whispering, all the girls her age sharing the new gossip with everyone that had still been in the hall.
Several more students walked up and entered their names, a couple Hogwarts boys with red robes being cheered on by their peers. Pyotr was surprised again that the other girl with the ragged clothes he had seen at dinner yesterday had entered in the Tournament. If she gets picked, he thought, she won't last five seconds, she's so young. This was someone he could really have sympathy for. She was poor and fragile, and desperately needed the money, but there was no way she could win without serious training.
What Headmaster Aleksandrov had said in his speech was that the champions would be picked in exactly a week, so everyone who wanted to enter should put their name in before then. Pyotr was almost excited, but he was also deadly nervous. Of course, he hadn't written to his father to tell him, he was smart enough to know that he wouldn't appreciate being let down. But Pyotr was fairly confident that his opponents wouldn't be that of a nerdy girl with bad glasses and a poverty-ridden fourth year.
As Marcelle headed back to the carriage, she heard several people whispering about the Headmaster's speech. She became more and more anxious, convinced that he had said something important, that of course she hadn't heard. But there was no way she would ask anyone, and even if she did nobody would tell her. Marcelle didn't have any friends. It didn't matter. If she got picked she would know, and if she didn't she would also know. Trying to cam herself down, she sat down on her bed and started thickening her hair with a useful charm she learnt in a class once. Beauty was always calming to Marcelle.
Ignoring the other student's stares, she continued with many of her other beauty routines, all the time repeating comforting words to herself. At the end of an hour she was almost certain of three facts. One, she looked amazing, apart from her frayed robes, which she couldn't fix no matter what charms she used. Two, she would get picked as a champion in the Tournament. And three, she would win.