I am so sorry. I had hoped to get this out much sooner. Unfortunately, I began writing most of my latest chapters and new short stories right in the middle of a move. I had hoped I could beat it, and get this out before the chaos. But unfortunately, it never happened. Also, the annoyance which is not having access to the internet was another drain on my patience.
Anyway, I am back.
Enjoy.
The Hell of Fourth Year.
Charlotte stood still as Helga washed off the healing potions which had been inside the tank she'd been in for the last few hours. She had never particularly been a very healthy girl when compared to one of the other teenagers her own age in Hogwarts or in a muggle school, mostly stemming from the abuse she'd taken from the Dursleys before she had escaped to the streets; she might have spent some time been taken care of by the Salvation Army although the tight bastards had turfed her out onto the streets again until she had reached the realisation society truly did not give a damn about its own citizens, but thanks to her access to the storehouses of supermarkets and using whatever money she pinched here and there to buy good food, Charlotte had done her best to become as healthy as she could despite her lifestyle.
As she let Helga wash the potion off of her body, Charlotte couldn't take her eyes off of the reflection in the mirror. She had never really known a healthier person as limber as the one in the mirror could be here. She had never been truly strong, but seeing the healthier girl in the mirror who was slightly taller than she had been before looking back at her, Charlotte couldn't believe so many years had passed and she had even caught a glimmer of this girl in her life.
"Thank you," she said softly as she continued to look at her reflection, cursing herself for never once trying to seek out alternative magical medicines to repair the damage she'd received.
Helga smiled. "You're welcome," she said, but she looked down. "I'm so sorry for everything my House did."
Charlotte turned to the memory of the Hufflepuff Founder. She could hear the genuine regret in Helga's voice, see it in her body language.
Hufflepuff went on. "I don't recognise my own House anymore, none of us does. All of them have strayed, each one thinking they are embodying everything we were when in fact they're the opposite of what we had been."
Charlotte turned away, her stiff back making it clear this was one topic she wasn't interested in. And besides, she didn't want to get into some stupid debate about Hogwarts. But she couldn't help it. "There's only one Hufflepuff in your House who embodies what you represent, but the others only care for themselves, are only loyal to themselves."
Helga sighed. "You're right," she muttered sadly, wondering just how her House had fallen so badly. Something came into her mind as she caught sight of the girl. "You know," she began hesitantly, "we can repair the damage to your eye, we might be able to clone one."
Charlotte whirled around. "I never knew you could do that?"
"We can," Helga confirmed. "However it will take time."
Charlotte smiled. "I'd like that, thank you."
"I thought you might, so myself, Salazar and Rowena have already begun the cloning process, but it will take the best part of a year to repair the damage."
Charlotte sighed. "There's always something like that."
"Yes," Hufflepuff conceded grimly. "That's the problem with that type of magic. There are so many things that can go wrong, or you have to keep check of everything it isn't funny."
Charlotte grunted while she dressed in a simple shirt and trousers (Helga didn't see it as very ladylike, but Charlotte had pushed it out of her mind), and she went out again to meet with the other Founders. She'd had time to think in the healing tank; while it was fascinating the Founders of Hogwarts had survived in this manner, albeit without their original selves, she didn't know what they planned to do with her.
She sat down and took in the group, but she had so many questions on her mind she couldn't ask them right away since she needed time to get her act together.
"You have questions?" Ravenclaw observed.
Charlotte took a deep breath, holding back her frustration these people were still going through her mind without thinking of her privacy. "Why did you help me?" she asked the number one question on her mind.
The Founders looked at each other; Charlotte wondered what was going through their minds, but because she didn't know them that well she couldn't come up with anything definitive.
Gryffindor rubbed his moustache thoughtfully. "We…feel responsible for everything that has happened. We tried to get Dumbledore to stop, we pleaded with him through the Sorting Hat to stop this madness before it got out of hand like it has done many times before."
"Well, that worked," Charlotte quipped, knowing from experience Dumbledore believed he was always right and would never change his stance.
Ravenclaw snorted. "Dumbledore has never heeded anything we've said to him; he doesn't know whom he is speaking to, but he knows Hogwarts is essentially a living being with us in control. He believes he is right."
"That sounds like him," Charlotte commented.
"Why didn't you go into Slytherin, Charlotte?" Slytherin asked, looking at her curiously.
Charlotte lifted her one good eye and focused on the Slytherin Founder curiously. "I beg your pardon?" she asked, noticing how attentive and curious the other Founders were, clearly they weren't expecting the question either.
"Why didn't you go into Slytherin?" Slytherin repeated.
Charlotte leaned forward slowly. "I thought you already knew? I mean, you lot have been rooting through my head," she finished looking pointedly at them.
The question made little sense to her. These people were supposed to have access to her mind and her brain, so they would have known about her reasons behind not being sorted into Slytherin.
"We do, but there were parts of your thought processes which didn't make any sense."
Charlotte didn't believe that. "Okay. I'll tell you, although I don't see the point. When I first came into the magical world," she began thoughtfully as she remembered those early days, "everyone had so many expectations of me. I didn't care about any of them, but I knew Albus Dumbledore was my enemy. I noticed it early. Not only had he placed me with my abusive muggle relatives, but he also had a vested interest in everything I purchased in Diagon Alley. He had Hagrid scrutinise everything I bought when we were shopping, which only made me distrust him even more.
"When I went to Hogwarts, I had already discovered I could leave the magical world and Dumbledore if I studied for my OWLs, but the only way to do that was if I kept my head down. I didn't know at the time what Dumbledore would do to me if I didn't, but I wasn't going to try to do anything really stupid to attract his attention, so I just kept my head down," Charlotte explained. "That meant being sorted into Gryffindor and having to put up with the morons in that house."
Charlotte smirked at Gryffindor when she said that, grinning at the affronted look on his face.
Slytherin smiled at her, showing off a pair of fang-like teeth. "You would have made an excellent Slytherin, my dear."
God, those things must terrify the crap out of anyone who gets on the wrong side of this guy, Charlotte thought to herself, shivering at the thought of being on the receiving end of a smirk with those fangs revealed during a fight.
Slytherin's smile became a cruel smirk. "Oh, believe me, they do terrify the crap, as you say, out of people. Ah, the number of times I've unsettled people," he finished wistfully.
Charlotte sighed and looked away while she tried to shore up her occlumency barriers although she had a feeling it would do little good since she had been doing that for some time now. "Okay," she changed the subject and looked at the Founders. "I think I've satisfied your curiosity, now you can repay the favour. What do you want with me? If you want me to clean up this school, forget it; I want nothing to do with Hogwarts."
"We don't need you to do anything for us," Ravenclaw said.
"We can take control of Hogwarts at will, and we have plans already in place to relieve Dumbledore and any teacher we feel is not living up to the vision we had for this place," Helga wrung her hands for some reason Charlotte didn't know and didn't really care to know about, but she picked something out of that.
"You guys don't seem to be happy about the thought of taking Hogwarts over," she observed after a minute of studying the four Founders.
"We're not," Slytherin replied.
"The reason why Hogwarts has lasted this long is that our minds were uploaded into the school," Gryffindor explained. "That's it; while we have the means of appearing in front of students, and even taking over if certain events occur beyond the current Headmaster and faculty's control, we really shouldn't need to do anything like this."
"So….when your bodies died, you uploaded your minds into the castle?" Charlotte was struggling to understand.
"Yes," Slytherin nodded, although all of the Founders knew where the teenager was going with this.
"But surely Hogwarts has been like this for years, if not centuries," Charlotte said, "why bother now?"
"Actually, you're wrong," Slytherin said, seemingly the spokesperson for the Founders. "Hogwarts has never been like this. Yes, there was always a sort of rivalry between the Houses. At we time, we thought it would be good for morale among the students, help encourage them to do better. You see, Hogwarts was meant to create elites in the Wizarding World. Our society had always been fragmented, and it wasn't helped education varied from coven to coven. When we came together to do something about it, we came up with the idea of sorting students by their personalities. I would take the cunning and the ambitious, Helga, the hardworking and the loyal, and so on. The idea was to create four elites who would shape our community forever."
"Well, it's certainly done that," Charlotte spat.
She had been listening to Slytherin and she had been growing more and more annoyed these legendary figures had essentially been the start of the massive issues of Hogwarts. It stemmed from the Houses and the divisions between them. They were so wide the individual students never mixed with the students in other Houses unless of course the other students were aligned with their own agenda.
She knew her thoughts were being broadcasted to the Founders, but she didn't care.
"Surely you know about what the Houses have done to the minds of the students here, right?" Charlotte went on. "Couldn't you see when you did this the dangers inherent in creating Houses when you set the whole thing up?"
"Actually, we didn't," Gryffindor raised a hand up. "I will admit the creation of the Houses caused some dispute, but you have to understand we were trying to shape the future of the country. Unfortunately, we've failed. All we have done is cause pain for many generations of witches and wizards, Do you think we're proud of the House divisions, how everyone has these obscene ideas of what makes a Ravenclaw a Ravenclaw, or a Slytherin into a Slytherin? Do you think any of us," he didn't need to indicate the other Founders since Charlotte knew precisely who he was referring to, "wanted the future generations to lash out at each other simply because they went into a different House? Look at me; I wanted the brave and the honourable in my House? What do I get? I get people who lash out at students younger and weaker than they are, children who might actually want to do some good in the magical world, and over the years they end up becoming the dark wizards those idiots sorted into Gryffindor House not because those fools were right, but because they had gotten tired of the abuse. No, we wanted to create a society where our Houses would bring out the best in people. Alas, all it did was cause harm."
"The problem with witches and wizards throughout history, Miss Potter, is we place our heroes on pedestals," Ravenclaw sighed, "we place them there, believing them to be infallible gods who can do no wrong, and know everything. Unfortunately, we are not gods, we made mistakes. One of the biggest mistakes, and one we," she gestured around the room to her fellow Founders, "have been forced to live up to for years. We haven't done anything because our role in Hogwarts is to guide the castle throughout the generations while at the same time we learn all that is going on in the world to help us. We know we will need to change that stance, the only problem we're not certain how long it would take for us to change the magical world back into the opposite of where they are now."
"You want to change the magical world?" Charlotte scoffed. "Good luck. No-one in the magical world wants to change. In any case, what would you change?"
"That's where you're wrong," Hufflepuff was getting exasperated by the girl's lack of faith, but she knew a good deal of that ranged from the agony she was going through so she was willing to give Charlotte Potter a chance. "We knew we can change the Wizarding World. The first thing we would do would be to get rid of the teachers here. Too many of them might be doing their jobs well according to their remit, but take a look at some of them; many of them obey Albus Dumbledore, and they don't really care about the long term damage. One of the reasons why Dumbledore was able to place the ban on you was because of the Headmaster's order. However, the Headmaster's order is not absolute. We placed it there to ensure certain matters were used through, for the good and the wellbeing of the students."
Charlotte caught the emphasis in the Hufflepuff Founder's voice, and she got the feeling that the order Dumbledore had misused had been used in the past for something more beneficial. She wondered just how many times people had been abused by that same order, and not just by Dumbledore, but by other Headteachers down the years. She didn't want to know, but then a disturbing thought came into her mind, the headteacher used the order to abuse students in a worse way than the Dursleys did to her. She pushed that thought out of her mind when she caught sight of the Founder's expressions when they caught the thought. "You plan to replace Dumbledore? Well, you've got my vote, especially what he's done over the years," she said before she saw the flaw in the plan, "but how are you going to get away with that? Dumbledore is seen as a god."
"He won't have a choice," Slytherin smirked.
Charlotte eyed the Founder closely. She found she got along more with Slytherin, ironically enough, but the possibilities for what he might do were endless. "Okay," she said, changing the subject. "I still don't see where I come into this picture?"
"That's easy. We're going to help you train up to be the most powerful opponent in the Tri-wizard tournament," Ravenclaw said.
"You're going to help me, after everything that's happened in your school?" Charlotte said.
"Yes, my dear," Hufflepuff replied.
"You've done more for this school than anyone else, mostly because of self-preservation, but also because deep down you don't want anyone to suffer even if the same doesn't extend to your enemies," Slytherin said, "every one of the Champions in this current, and rather cruel, Tournament have their own supporters. You are certainly powerful by yourself, but to be honest, we are going to be helping you whether you like it or not."
Charlotte looked at him indecisively while she was trying to work out what the Founders got out of it in return, especially since they had made it very clear to her they were going to do something to rip Dumbledore's control away from Hogwarts.
Slytherin could see the girl was close to saying yes, but she felt she needed a push and he used the insight the Founders had gained from Charlotte's mind to help. "If you let us help you, we can help you in ways you cannot imagine. At the moment you don't give a damn one way or another about the tournament, but you have so many detractors out there, saying that you're an attention-seeking liar. Wouldn't you prefer to bloody their noses and rub it in at the same time if they saw you win?"
Charlotte thought about it. In truth she hadn't truly given any thought whatsoever about the tournament besides a few distant thoughts. Most of her concentration had gone into just finding ways of winging the tournament, but hearing Slytherin's point rang a bell with her. What if she did win the Tri-wizard tournament? What if she threw it into the faces of the people who had been sneering at her for weeks on end? The idea appealed to her greatly.
"Okay," she nodded. "I'm in."
XXX
Dobby popped into Charlotte's bedroom in the windmill and gently shook the girl awake. Charlotte moaned before she woke up. "Dobby?" she croaked.
The House Elf smiled. "Good morning, Chazzy Potter ma'am!"
Charlotte snickered at the perky House Elf, gazing affectionately at him. Dobby had a repertoire of names under his belt and he loved alternating between them regularly. "Good morning to yourself Dobby, how are you and Winky this morning?"
The House Elf blushed at the question. "We is good, Chazzy Potter."
"Why did you wake me?"
The House Elf's demeanour shifted and Charlotte saw he looked displeased. "There be a wand testing ceremony for the Tournament you need to attend," Dobby said, his massive tennis ball-like eyes focusing sadly on the sealed eye. The three smarter Hogwarts Founders had already harvested enough genetic material from Charlotte's original and slashed eye, and they had begun the healing process. Unfortunately, for the time being, to keep the wound clean they'd had to seal the eye with a magical glue.
Dobby and Winky had been horrified by what Charlotte had gone through, but they were thankful for the Founder's help, although they were surprised by their mistress' new allies.
Charlotte sighed. "Okay, Dobby," she told her friend who she knew wanted very much to go after the people he felt were responsible for what had happened to her eye, and while she agreed she didn't want him to get hurt. "Let me have a shower and let me get dressed, and I'll be downstairs in a few minutes, okay?"
The House Elf nodded and popped away, leaving Charlotte alone. The dark-haired girl got up and went into the shower where she washed her hair. She'd recently gotten it cut short into a low-maintenance haircut. Charlotte privately liked the way the new style, and the sunglasses, gave her face a harder appearance, and after she had let the water trickle down from her head for a second before waved her wand and dried it out completely.
As she got dressed in the same outfit of black running shoes, black trousers, black v-necked jumper which covered a white t-shirt which provided her with a lot of warmth, which she had needed on the streets of London, topped by her black leather jacket. She pulled out the long purple scarf out of her pocket and tied it around her head.
Charlotte shoved her wand into her pocket and she went to her bedside table and picked up a pair of green-tinted wraparound sunglasses and held them in her hand.
The Founders of Hogwarts had shown her they had the power to manipulate time to a limited degree, although to a more greater degree than the Time-Turners. For them she could spend up to a month studying when only a few hours passed for the outside world. Under their guidance she had learnt things about magic which were simply no longer taught anymore at Hogwarts, and it showed her just how limited and dumbed down magical education had become, and it made her wonder if Dumbledore was the only one to have done that over the years, or if the knowledge had simply been forgotten to all but a select few.
Charlotte had no idea.
But one thing she did know was she felt so much more powerful and skilled after spending the equivalent of half a year with the Founders, and she had certainly improved her spell repertoire in several fields beyond those taught currently at Hogwarts.
At the same time, Charlotte had been encouraged by the Founders to take a look into her parent's legacies. She had found a copy of their wills, and it disgusted her to the lengths Dumbledore had gone in meddling her life. At the same time, she had taken a look at the files her family had on the alliance. Charlotte had just thrown it away, rejecting it completely since she wasn't concerned much with the alliances of her family at this point. Instead, she had just written a lengthy letter of resignation from the school, along with some really good reasons why, and she planned on sending the letter's copies to the Ministry, and several news outlets so then the magical world knew her decision was not going to be changed. Ever.
Charlotte sighed and she opened the sunglasses up and she slid them onto her face. She gasped a little bit when the lens covering her empty eye socket suddenly received and transmitted information straight into her brain and it took the teenage witch a few minutes to recover and adjust for a second before she got used to the flow of stimuli entering her mind.
Charlotte looked at herself in the mirror and she shrugged. After a light breakfast, Dobby transported her to Hogwarts where she heard the mental voices of the Founders in her mind.
"Make sure they regret it, little serpent," she heard the distinctive voice of Slytherin say.
Charlotte smirked. "Oh, I intend to," she said under her breath.
"Show them the truth of the tournament. There's no greater enemy than the truth."
"Make Dumbledore regret everything he's done."
"And the teachers who are there. Remember, dear; they could have overridden Dumbledore's order, but they didn't."
"Oh, I intend to make them pay," Charlotte whispered. "No doubt about that," she added when she strode into the room where the Wand Weighing ceremony was taking place. It was taking place in one of the disused classrooms inside the castle which had been cleaned up for the ceremony and was as far from the rest of the school as possible so the students wouldn't be disturbed.
Charlotte opened the door slowly and took a look inside before she stepped into the room, stopping all conversation instantly as she strode into the room with her head held high while the light reflected off of the green tinted wraparound shades she was wearing. As she walked into the room, Charlotte had multiple photos of her new appearance taken. She knew in their minds, particularly the media, she was the most interesting person in the room. She had every reason to milk that to the full.
Charlotte just wanted the whole thing to be over with. Now. But before she could even make the effort to make herself comfortable, she suddenly felt someone grab her arm. Angry, the teenager wrenched her arm away and she caught sight of a woman with tightly curled blonde hair which was too white even by Malfoy's standards, wearing so much makeup on her face it made her look grotesque.
"Hello Charlotte, or can I call you Lottie? I am Rita Skeeter, Lottie, and I was hoping we could have a chat so you could tell me your story? There are many people out there who would be fascinated to know about what you have been through," Rita's face was split into a smile that she probably thought was charming, but it made her look disgusting.
Charlotte raised an eyebrow underneath her sunglasses as Skeeter began dragging her away towards a cupboard no matter what the teen said. She had heard of this woman ever since she had arrived in the magical world and what she'd heard had been more than enough to make her dislike everything Rita Skeeter stood for. She wasn't a journalist, she was a sensationalist. So many of the things she had written had made people look awful, but what made it worse was some of the things she said didn't seem like the type of information anyone would hand over freely. Charlotte had no doubt in her mind even if she trusted Skeeter, which she wouldn't, she would quickly regret it. In any case, the last thing she needed was some bitch making things harder than they were right now.
"Not a chance," Charlotte snarled and she wrenched her arm free from the woman's grip. "There's no chance I am going to have an interview with you only for you to spin it any way you like, just to sell your newspaper, although I have to congratulate you," Charlotte smirked suddenly, surprising them all, "if it weren't for the crap you write, I wouldn't have anything to line the litter box Nightstar uses, and I wouldn't have a plentiful supply of paper to use when I run out of toilet paper, especially a year ago when I had a bad time after I'd eaten something I didn't like resulting in an awful case of the runs and I found an article that was perfect. Seriously, Miss Skeeter," the girl asked, "how do you get your articles so perfect for the use of being soft, strong, and thoroughly absorbent?"
Rita Skeeter's look was one many in the room would treasure forever, especially for the British wizards and witches. While Charlotte's description of what she used the Daily Prophet articles was graphic and rather disgusting, they had to admit it was a use they hadn't expected. They had to admit the girl had won that one hands down since they hadn't seen the reporter so astonished in their lives.
All geniality left Charlotte's face as she snarled at the reporter. "Don't touch me again. You will regret it in more ways than one."
Charlotte walked off. In her mind the interview was over, if it could be called that, leaving a shaken Skeeter behind. She smiled suddenly when she met Cedric.
"Hi, Cedric," she smiled happily at the sight of him. She noticed quickly he looked worn out, worried.
Cedric gave her a sad smile while he studied her closely. He frowned slightly when he saw her sunglasses, and he wondered like everyone else what they were used for. "Charlotte," he decided to begin bluntly. "I am so sorry, I am so truly sorry about what happened-."
"Cedric," Charlotte cupped his face gently. "It wasn't your fault."
"I think it was. She saw together, she saw me hug you-."
Charlotte shook her head. "It doesn't matter now, the deed is done. I can't change it. You didn't cause this," she pointed at her sunglass covered eye. "Please, don't beat yourself up about it."
Cedric was about to argue when a nearby snort interrupted them. "Are you still showing off, little girl?" the haughty accented voice of Fleur Delacour announced the presence of the French champion. "Now she has finally arrived, receiving her daily dose of attention, can we not carry on, non?"
"You know what, it sounds like you've been listening to the greasy potions bastard in this school," Charlotte turned around slowly to face Fleur head on, "You also strike me as the type who likes making assumptions about others without getting the full details. Do you want me to show what this tournament has done to me?" Suddenly Charlotte's voice rose to an angry cat-like snarl. "You all will!"
With that, she yanked off her sunglasses and with her fingers she prised her sealed up eyelid and exposed the empty cavity.
Everyone looked on in horror, and Fleur covered her mouth and looked down. "Oh no you don't," Charlotte grabbed the French girl's face and with anger-induced strength, she grabbed Fleur's face and showed the French girl the empty cavity. "Take a good long look. Does it look like I'm asking for attention now?! What's wrong, you French slapper? Don't you like blood? You've all driven me near madness with your scorn, and now I've snapped."
With that Charlotte shoved the horrified Fleur away and she placed the sunglasses back on her face. She had noticed Dumbledore looking like he wanted nothing more than to be sick and horrified while McGonagall looked like she was either about to faint or burst into tears, while Sprout looked on in horror. Maxime looked horrified as well, but Karkaroff looked like he didn't know what he should think.
Charlotte sighed and walked off, hoping to be left alone, but she looked up and smiled when she found Cedric standing over her, holding out a handkerchief. "What's that for?" she tilted her head curiously up at him.
"You're bleeding," he replied.
Charlotte reached out a finger to her eye and it came away with droplets of blood. "Oh," she sheepishly replied. "Thanks." She dabbed the eye and she waved her wand over the hanky to remove the bloodstain before she handed it back to Cedric, who took it. He sat next to her.
"Do you really use Rita Skeeter's articles to line your cat's litter box?" he asked with a smirk.
Charlotte giggled. "Yeah, I do. She produces enough articles about people, it's impossible not to make use of them. In any case, they are rubbish; I've seen enough similar reporters in the muggle world, but compared to her, they're more subtle."
Cedric looked down and tried to stop himself laughing.
Charlotte carried on. "Of course, I need to be careful to remove the worst of the lead content in the paper since its toxic, but it's better than most. But truthfully," her expression became serious as she looked at him through her sunglasses which was a very odd disconcerting sight for Cedric since he had no idea what the sunglasses were actually for, "I don't want that woman anywhere near me, Cedric. Look at her right now."
Cedric did as he was told. He wasn't surprised when he saw Rita Skeeter watching them closely with a grin on her disgustingly made-up face, and he sighed mentally, guessing where this was going to go when she printed her next article.
"What's happening in the school at the moment, Cedric?" Charlotte changed the subject. "I haven't been in circulation for a bit."
Cedric sighed for real. "Dumbledore has finally come out and said you didn't put your name in the Goblet. Several of the teachers backed him up, but beyond that, not a lot. I've mostly been ignoring the Gryffindors and the rest of the school. It's just the hypocrisy that annoys me; Dumbledore knew you didn't put your name into the Goblet, but he placed that ban on the teachers stopping them from helping you."
"I doubted they would have helped," Charlotte pointed out, remembering what the Founders had told her about Dumbledore's actions in the past. "They could have said no to Dumbledore, Cedric; McGonagall would have had the authority to override Dumbledore's order. She's the deputy headteacher, and yet she seemed to have forgotten that. She could have. She should have. She didn't. What does she do instead? Fuck all. And my eye was slashed as a result because none of the teachers are smart to use their common sense."
Cedric noticed Charlotte had said it out loud, and her voice was loud enough to reach over the deputy headmistress. He glanced in McGonagall's direction, and he saw her look down in shame, shaking like she was about to cry but was trying to hold it in. He found he couldn't muster the sympathy for her. "What about you, Charlotte, what have you been doing?" he asked to change the subject.
Charlotte sighed. "I've been trying to find a way I can survive the tournament, Cedric. I've also been thinking about things…," she looked down.
"What things?" he asked mildly.
She looked at him. "Everything."
Ludo Bagman stepped forward before the Hufflepuff boy could ask her what she meant. "Excuse me, everyone," the ex-Beater beamed around the room, although his face took on a calculated gleam as he noticed Charlotte he quickly got a hold of himself. "The Wand Weighing is about to begin. But before we start, I should tell you we have decided on the First Task of the Tri-wizard tournament. The tasks will be broadcasted worldwide, meaning everyone in the magical community will be seeing you compete."
Bagman paused dramatically while he slipped his wand out of his pocket. "The First Task will involve an obstacle course, where you Champions will be expected to use your wits and your skills to outthink the traps which will be placed inside. Your objective will be to retrieve this," he flicked his wand and the image of a golden egg appeared in thin air. "The Golden Egg. There is only a single egg for you to collect, and it is imperative you collect it in order to win the task. There are three levels. The first level involves all of you fighting each other. All of you Champions are expected to have helpers in order to help you defend yourselves while you retrieve the egg."
"Do we have to choose these helpers, or do you do it for us?" Charlotte asked.
Bagman was surprised by the unexpected question from the youngest Champion, but he recovered quickly. "You are the ones who will choose, Miss Potter. You can place a list with me, and I will take the list to my Ministry Office to make it official. You have until the end of the week in order to decide and choose. Remember, you need at least twenty people to help you. Now," Bagman flicked his wand and vanished the image of the Egg, "the Weighing of the Wands. Our Mr Ollivander is waiting."
Charlotte quickly saw the elderly wand maker approaching. He hadn't changed much in the three years since she had last seen him, although he had changed his clothes, appearing less worn and more formal than before.
Krum went first, holding out his wand.
Ollivander took it in her hand and examined it closely. "Hmm, yes, an interesting wand…Gregorvitch, am I right?"
Krum nodded.
"Yes, I thought so….the rigidity and the rough-hewn shape is indicative of his work, however, he does so because he likes providing thickness to the outer shell of the wand. Hmm, ten inches," the wandmaker said, "Hornbeam wood, one dragon heartstring. Like I said it is very rigid, however it is in excellent working order, and," he flicked the wand and a display of vivid red sparks were sprouted from the tip, "in excellent condition, and is a perfect fit."
Ollivander handed the wand back to Krum, who took it with a bow.
Ollivander turned to Fleur. "Madame?"
Fleur stepped forward. She was still slightly shaken by the encounter she'd had with Charlotte, however she did her best to push that aside as she handed her wand over to Ollivander. He took the wand in his hands and examined it for a moment before he looked at her. "Yes, nine and a half inches…made from rosewood and inflexible. It contains…oh my, I can't identify it.." he looked at Fleur questioningly.
"A hair from a Veela," Fleur spoke up. "One of my grandmothers."
"Hmm, yes," Ollivander looked down at the wand. "Veela hair makes for a temperamental wand, especially if its not in the wielder's favour."
Ollivander flicked the wand, and a beautiful bunch of flowers appeared which the wand smith handed to her along with the wand. Fleur smiled and left, leaving the road open for Cedric.
Ollivander brightened when he saw the wand presented to him. "Ah. One of mine. I remember, yes, I remember it well. Twelve and a quarter inches, made from ash, and very springy, containing the hair of a particularly fine male unicorn. Very nearly gored me to death, but it is extremely well maintained, and in excellent condition."
Cedric nodded with a blush and nodded sheepishly. "Yes, I polished it yesterday."
Ollivander smiled and he flicked Cedric's wand, creating a rainbow display of fireworks before he handed the wand back over to Cedric.
Charlotte stepped forward and Cedric stepped out of the way to give the younger girl some room. Ollivander's smile faded and he looked at her sadly.
"They hurt you so much, didn't they?" he observed, studying her closely.
The girl nodded. She didn't see the point in replying, in any case Ollivander had probably seen the empty eye cavity, so what was the point?
Ollivander continued to look at her with sympathy. Charlotte raised a brow. "Pity?"
"A little bit," the older wizard said. "I am just saddened this has happened, especially under the watch of the current generation of teachers."
Charlotte snorted and folded her arms for a moment. "I never had any faith in them to begin with, Mr Ollivander. Just like I have never really trusted anyone. I've learnt my lesson; I put my trust in the security of this school. My eye paid the price. Next time I might lose my head, or my life. I am not going to let it happen again, just because the teachers are very stupid, and the students are allowed to run around like hooligans because Dumbledore refuses to punish them; if I had my way, Susan Bones would have been swinging from a rope by now. My family gave their lives for me to live. They didn't die for me to be shoved into something like this where I'm used as a publicity stunt, or someone my family had an alliance with would slash my eye out, or be used as a puppet for some old fool with delusions of grandeur."
The teachers winced, and McGonagall looked even more pained while Ollivander set a contemptuous look at Dumbledore before he turned to Charlotte. Everyone in the room knew how seriously an alliance was taken, they all know Charlotte's public statement would find its way into the Daily Prophet and cause more problems for the Bones family, and for Dumbledore.
Charlotte sighed and pulled out her wand and held it in the palm of her hand.
Ollivander's eyes widened and he looked at Charlotte in surprise. "Another wand?" he asked, seeing instantly it was nothing like the wand he had sold to her only a few years back.
"I've had it for some time. During my second year at Hogwarts, I was suspected of being the one guilty of attacking and petrifying students; stupid since if I really wanted to attack anyone, why would I advertise? Anyway, my original wand was damaged slightly, causing a minute crack to appear when someone attacked me. The incident made me realise the dangers of having a single wand, so I got a new one," Charlotte confessed; it went against the grain, especially since this secret was something she had kept for a while. "But before I'd done some research, and no offence while your wand was powerful, I always wanted something that spoke about my personality. In any case, I've started using this one more frequently since the bastard lions decided they were funny, and they caused extreme damage to the wand until it was nothing more than a splinter."
She smiled down at the wand while McGonagall and Dumbledore looked sick at her coldly spoken words. Rita Skeeter was enjoying herself while she wrote on her notebook.
It was black and was considerably longer than her original with the handle curled around it, but embossed in silver were a skull and crossbones symbol.
Ollivander stepped forward, but Charlotte pulled back slightly. "Erm, give me a moment, custom wands are security conscious, and this one certainly packs a number of punches," she warned.
She took the wand and ran a finger down the length.
"It's safe," she said simply before she handed it over to Ollivander, who took it gingerly since he had recognised the spell as representing the deactivation of a number of failsafes.
"Amazing," the old wand-maker whispered. "This is truly a work of art…Blackthorn and ash outer casing with an inner casing made from…ceramic?" he looked up at Charlotte who nodded before he resumed his examination. "Containing…oh my?" he gaped at her in awe. "A piece of Basilisk brain with pieces of fang, scales and venom in the veins."
Charlotte nodded while everyone regarded the wand with shock. "The piece of the brain is designed to give the spells I cast with more intelligence, the pieces of fang and scales are meant to provide the spells with sharpness and resilience, and the venom is just for more power."
"How did you find basilisk parts? They are notoriously rare!" Ollivander realised he had raised his voice a little too loud, but Charlotte took it with a smile.
"I killed a basilisk two years ago. I cashed in on some of the parts, made myself a small fortune and it earned me favour with the goblins," Charlotte said, not seeing Dumbledore look iller since he knew when word of this got out, then Snape would be furious at the loss of priceless ingredients. "They put me onto a wandmaker who made me this wand. Er, I'll show you the memory right now, but you'd better give the wand back. The defence plans will be fatal if you hold on."
Ollivander heeded the warning and he handed the wand back to Charlotte, who took it and she reactivated the wands defences before she placed the tip of her wand to her temple and projected the memory of the entire Chamber of Secrets mess.
Fleur clapped her hand to her mouth when she saw the memory progress, especially when she saw the younger Charlotte Potter confront the younger Lord Voldemort himself. She gasped in shock when she saw a phoenix swoop in and save the girl, who drew a magnificent sword out of a hat, only to get poisoned herself when she plunged the sword through the snake's mouth.
Viktor Krum did not know what to think. His opinion of Charlotte Potter was shooting up and up with every second although it had horrified him when he had seen the depths the Hogwarts population had sunken to. But seeing this…He had to accept the fact, especially when she plunged the basilisk fang into the diary containing the Dark Lord's younger self - how had he managed that? - and defeat him, only for the phoenix to save her life, the girl was a formidable opponent in battle.
Cedric knew full well his House had caused Charlotte a lot of pain and misery that year, but he had done little to stop it. Watching as the tiny girl fought such a monster which the teachers should have dealt with just a sword….it was unthinkable. Cedric knew Charlotte had struck a dozen blows to Hogwarts and the Bones family as well as the Daily Prophet, but this one…this one was the biggest punch. He had already apologised to Charlotte before, twice, but he had no idea what he could say or do to make up for his own mistakes.
Charlotte stopped the memory when it had reached the part where she had gotten to the part where she had gotten Weasley out.
"Good luck, Miss Potter," Ollivander smiled gazing at the girl with respect.
Charlotte nodded back. "Thank you, Mr Ollivander," she replied before she said to the rest of the room at large, "See you around."
Charlotte walked towards the door, pulling some of the people inside the room out of their surprise. They began calling for her to come back so she could answer their questions, but she ignored them.
Dumbledore called out, "Charlotte, wait!"
He flicked his wand out and sealed the door. Charlotte groaned and turned around. "What do you want?" she asked.
"We need to talk," Dumbledore replied, casting a quick glance around the room. "However, maybe if we do this in private-."
"No chance," Charlotte snarled. "Say what you've got to say and then piss off."
Everyone was surprised by the rudeness. Dumbledore himself was extremely stunned.
"What, did you really think after you'd heard me confess I didn't go anywhere near the Goblet of Fire, and then told the teachers not to do anything when I was attacked day after day I was going to speak to you again?" Charlotte asked before turning to McGonagall. "And what about you, Professor? I hope you're not thinking of trying to make amends. You might think it's childish, but wait and see this."
Charlotte projected another memory, this time showing McGonagall how she had walked into the Gryffindor common room and only narrowly stopped Ron Weasley from killing her cat. "After seeing that, do you honestly think I'm going to forgive anyone in Hogwarts? That I am willing to even speak to someone. Think again. Nightstar could have died, all because that fucking pig thought he had the right to kill my cat because he was the one doing it, to punish me for something I didn't even do, and you would have twinkled those fucking eyes of yours, telling me to forgive, turning a blind eye while keeping your head in the clouds, like always. As if I would. If anyone tries to kill my cat or any other animal I have, lets just say they won't have long before I make them pay. And if Weasley had killed Nightstar, I would have killed his sister, his brothers, and his parents, before maiming him. Then he would have had what he'd wanted; fame on a plate.
"Do you know what I don't get; why do you play games with other people's lives? Are you so bored you would drive students to become dark lords, as if Grindelwald was not enough, or even to suicide, and now you want to do the same to me when I just want to be left alone and live my life in peace? Don't I deserve that, a life of peace without you poking your long, broken nose where it doesn't belong? Stay away from me, you bastard. Your meddling will be the death of you one day, only I won't be the one to make you answer for it."
Charlotte flicked her wand at the door and unlocked it before she walked out. But her last question stunned the entire audience, even Dumbledore, whose face was pale.
