Outtake – The Goblet

(During chapter 23, sometime after 'To the brim')

"In the end, I daresay we needed him more than he needed us," Charity muttered after she'd taken her seat in the Great Hall, her right arm still resting on Karkaroff's. Explaining where she got her Durmstrang-style duelling habits was going better than she had expected, and she had to admit this pardoned death eater looked three times as good as the other one who'd been teaching Potions. Even in its simplicity, his garment was elegant and in the past few hours his bearing had been reflecting a balance of self-respect and grace. His minuscule gestures hinted at a desire to live up to a standard another Durmstrang had set high.

"Albus is world-known for arranging second chances, who am I to judge him for taking in the darkest wizard available." The Russian headmaster blinked at the other former death eater: Snape was coming from the direction of the Slytherin dungeons, greasy and gloomy as always. The white-coated wizard rubbed his left arm that was no longer held out for the witch. "Though as I heard, not even Grindelwald could break the curse on your school. That doesn't sound reassuring to me."

There was a moment of silence. The one-eyed wizard took a gulp from his flask, Hagrid broke off his chatter with Olympe Maxime mid-sentence.

"If it helps, I'm afraid too," Charity eventually admitted. "Afraid of We-Know-Who, I mean. But I've been told to react quickly and start planning ahead, not to bury my head in negligence like our Ministry was doing a decade ago." That statement earned a curious look from the Russian wizard, so she explained. "I know he's getting stronger. Sev is a good friend of mine and he's been bothered by his Mark too. He won't say it aloud, but I see him with that ultimately hateful glare at his own sleeve... I might be naive but I'm not stupid."

"At least you are not a target."

Karkaroff received a dry laughter for a reply. "I teach Muggle Studies, how can I not be?"

Remembering that she claimed to be ready to react, the Durmstrang headmaster quietly asked, "So what will you do?"

Burbage blinked at a guardian statue in the hall, then at the tiny professor a few seats away. "Join whoever will oppose him," she replied as if that was the most obvious choice. "Train our people to fight. Set a trap under the disguise of only protecting muggles."

"The young lady is clearly Grindelwald-trained," Moody growled from between Vector and the Beauxbaton headmistress. "We will see how well she will fare."

"She's braver than I am, Auror Moody," Karkaroff told the Defence teacher.

"Don't we all know that!"

"Boys, please!" Charity laughed in an attempt to dissipate the tension between the auror and former death eater. She never considered herself brave, only confident. Bravery was what Albus had been doing: organizing an international event that's dangerous even without her marked colleague giving his arm death-glares every week.

"Burbage is suicidal," the arriving Snape remarked. "Already taking on twice as much risk as she can handle."

She quietly disagreed. She'd been training hard for two years now: seven months with a dark wizard as her tutor and with a champion duellist as her training partner ever since. But she said nothing, Aberna... Gellert had always told her to take advantage of her unsuspecting enemies. 'Be like the dolphin,' he had told her; she should be kind, fun and utterly harmless until she needed to act, so nobody would suspect it when she revealed herself to be strong, fast and surprisingly ruthless.

"I doubt you'll ever hear a more flattering statement," Igor whispered into the witch's ear when Severus turned away for a moment.

She was about to whisper something back but Albus Dumbledore rose and announced now was the time for the Goblet to choose the champions for the Tournament.

"Let us see the heroes!" Alastor said dryly.

There were three rounds of applause as the old cup spat out the names of Victor Krum, Fleur Delacour, and Cedric Diggory. Charity clapped enthusiastically for each, her cheerful demeanour pulling even Karkaroff into a brief applause for each champion. The hall burst into excited chatter as the last of the schools was selected; students and staff alike eagerly discussed the upcoming competition.

Then suddenly blue light flared across the room and a confused hush dropped like a blanket. Every eye was riveted to the slip of slightly charred paper as it drifted down into Albus' outstretched hand. The wise headmaster stared at the slip for a solemn moment, then raised his head to announce the name. The clatter of a plate falling off the Gryffindor table rang deafeningly through the room as everyone turned to stare at Harry Potter. Miss Granger began to push him up, prodding the dazed boy into wandering up the aisle towards the door the other champions had taken.

"But..."

Yes, the night before, half the school had witnessed Harry flying over the age line on an ancient broom. Not only him, several Weasleys and a few Ravenclaws, and even some Slytherins had taken rounds as well.

"But our sheets were all red!" one of the Weasley twins shouted, looking at the tan parchment that Albus Dumbledore was holding.

"Red all over, and they had QUIDDITCH written on them!" the other Fred-or-George exclaimed.

"I wrote my own name!" young Malfoy joined the protests.

"That's not mine!" Harry protested as he came close to the table, not that he needed to have bothered as his voice rang across the hall. "Fred and George can attest, mine was howler-red and it read Quidditch!"

"Potter, I'm extremely disappointed!" Minerva said quietly, in that tone of voice that worked better than a shout. She had been lured to Hagrid's hut at the time of the broomflight, so hadn't been there to scold the boy at the time. "The Tournament is not the appropriate time for idiotic childhood pranks!"

"But only seventh years can enter!" Draco Malfoy's haughty expression was even more disapproving than usual. It was very rare for him and Potter to agree on something, but apparently the thought of Potter competing was enough for even these two boys to find common ground.

"ENOUGH!" Karkaroff eventually thundered over the other students that had begun to chip in with their opinions. "The three champions have been chosen. The little saboteur can go and fly his broom while we see to the adults' business."

"It's not that simple," the local Defence teacher glared, using his staff to push himself to his feet. "The goblet is an ancient magical artefact – a binding contract. Potter must compete, or risk his life and magic."

"But I didn't want to do it!" Harry protested.

"Alastor is correct." Dumbledore announced heavily. "However your name appeared in the goblet, you are now bound to it."

"Wait, Albus, you can't mean he'll COMPETE?" Karkaroff yelled.

"I won't!" Harry quickly agreed.

"You must, Harry," Dumbledore sighed, defeated. "You will, lest you lose your magic. I warned you not to meddle with the Goblet of Fire."

.

"This's insane!" Karkaroff growled the following day. "Just because Dumbledore cannot keep order in his own school, Hogwarts will have two champions!"

"It's not really worth fretting about," Charity tried to calm him. "What matters is that all four students survive, at least you have one less champion to worry about, and it's not your pupil who's underage."

"Like Albus ever cared about the age and survival of anyone?" Igor replied. "But this is nonsense! It should be T-R-I -wizard Tournament..."

"And it still is. Beauxbaton's champion is a witch, not a wizard."

A little further down the same corridor they spotted a number of Gryffindors arguing with the current Defence teacher. Charity couldn't put her finger on why she'd found Alastor Moody even stranger than usual; perhaps she was seeing things after she'd read Tonks's message about how her mentor had been avoiding her ever since the school term started.

"Auror Moody, good morning to you!" his colleagues greeted him.

He replied the same, then hurried over to them with his slightly lopsided pace. "We might have just found an explanation of Potter's mysterious entering," he announced.

"I suppose Albus will be happy to hear it," Karkaroff replied, his tone as cold as the winds of Siberia. Charity winced at the unveiled hostility, knowing that it would only create suspicion and rumours among the students. Yet, he wouldn't be the first reformed dark wizard she'd formed a tentative friendship with, not even the second. Some people really only needed a second chance.

As it turned out, the Hogwarts headmaster wasn't the least pleased by the theory Alastor had presented, and the other two weren't thrilled either. But it really made sense...

The Goblet of Fire had been spelled, centuries before, to pick a name from one wizarding institute each. Three is a magical number, and most of the time there were three schools participating. Unlike the other places, however, Hogwarts was magically constructed around the number four, and there was a single student who'd been trained at a fourth place. His education there had been temporary, but unquestionable and excessive.

"What are you talking about?" all three headmasters demanded, while Harry weakly protested that he wouldn't be representing a 'number four' of any sorts. He was ignored by Mad-Eye's entire audience.

"Potter will be representing Nurmengard," the retired auror announced.

"No!" Karkaroff shouted.

"He's right, Harry was trained by Grindelwald in Nurmengard." Charity pointed out in a calming voice. Just like Harry before, she was ignored so she allowed herself to fade to the back of the conversation. She was intelligent enough to realise that nobody would listen to her.