"Eternal glory, be brilliant, wouldn't it? In three years from now, we'll be old enough to be chosen," Ron says.
Harry and Holly look at each other, "Yeah, well, rather you and us," Holly says, Harry nods.
A little while later, the Weasley twins come into the Great Hall, cheering, "Thank you, thank you, well lads we've done it," George says.
"Cooked it up this morning," Fred tells them.
"It's not going to work," Hermione says in a sing-song voice.
"Oh, yeah, and why is that, Granger," Fred asks.
"You see this? This is an age line. Dumbledore drew it himself."
"So?"
Holly rolls her eyes, "So a genius like Dumbledore couldn't possibly be fooled by something pathetically dimwitted such as an age potion," She tells the twins.
"But that's why it's so brilliant," George says.
"Because it's so pathetically dimwitted," Fred tells Holly.
The twins look at each other and grin, "Ready, Fred?"
"Ready, George."
"Bottoms up," they say in unison.
After drinking their potion, the boys jump over the age line. When nothing happens, they cheer, and everyone claps. Fred and George put their names into the Goblet. The flame fires up, and they're flung across the room onto the floor. When they get up, they have full heads of grey hair and beards.
"You said…"
" Fred, you said…"
The twins roll around, fighting on the floor, and the crowd cheer. The room suddenly becomes silent as Viktor Krum walks in and puts his name in the Goblet as well. As he drops his name in, he turns and smiles at Holly. Holly blushes and smiles back, Hermione smiles at Holly, while Harry and Ron stared at her.
"What's that about," Ron asks.
"Nothing," Holly says and goes back to reading her book.
On Halloween night everyone gathers in the Great Hall, Dumbledore stands in front of the Goblet of Fire, "Sit down, please. And now the moment you've all been waiting for, the selection of the champion!"
Dumbledore approaches the blue flame, and it glows red. A name comes out. Everyone looks on anxiously, "The Durmstrang champion is... Viktor Krum."
The Durmstrang crowd cheer as Viktor makes his way into the back room. The blue flame glows red again, "The champion from Beauxbatons... Fleur Delacour."
The Beauxbatons girls cheer as Fleur walks up. Another name comes out, "The Hogwarts champion is… Cedric Diggory."
The Hogwarts student cheer, but none louder than Hufflepuff, Cedric smiles and makes his way to the back room with the other two champions.
"Excellent! We now have our three champions! But in the end, only one will go down in history. Only one will hoist this chalice of champions, this vessel of victory, the Tri-Wizard Cup!"
People cheer, but the goblet glows red two more times, and two other names fly out. Dumbledore takes it and reads... "Harry and Holly Potter."
Everyone in the room gasp as the Potter twins look at each other, horrified. Dumbledore yells their names again, "Go you guys, for goodness sake," Hermione says.
Harry and Holly slowly walk up. Dumbledore gives them their paper. Voices in the crowd shout out, "They cheated, they're not even seventeen yet."
Harry and Holly walk past Dumbledore and head into the back room. Upon entering, the three champions stare at the twins, "What is it," Fleur asks, "Do zey want us back in ze Hall?"
The twins stand there and stare at the three champions. Viktor looks at Holly and notices how distressed she seems. He walks up to her and takes her hand, "Holly vhat is the matter?"
"Viktor-"
But before Holly can answer him, Dumbledore and the other Professor storm into the room, including McGonagall, Moody, and Snape. Dumbledore walks straight up to Harry and grabs him by both arms, "Harry, did you put your name in the Goblet of Fire?"
"No, sir."
"Did you ask an older student to do it for you," Dumbledore asks.
"No, sir."
"What about you, Holly?"
"No, sir, I didn't either."
"You're sure?"
"Yes, sir," The twins said at the same time.
"But of course zey are lying," Madam Maxime says with Karkaroff agreeing with her.
"The hell they are. The goblet of fire is an exceptionally powerful magical object, only an exceptionally powerful conjurer could have hoodwinked it. Magic way beyond the talents of two fourth years."
"You seem to have given this a fair bit of thought, Mad-Eye," Karkaroff says.
Moody steps closer to him, "It was once my job to think as dark wizards do Karkaroff perhaps you remember?"
They begin to argue again, accusing the twins of cheating. Holly gets fed up with all the bickering, "Oh, for Merlin's sake! I swear on my magic I did not put my name in the Goblet," She says as she pulls out her wand.
The room brightens and then settled. Seeing as how Holly is still alive, they cannot refute the fact that she is not lying. Harry does the same thing with the same results. Dumbledore looks over, and Barty Crouch Senior, "We leave this to you, Barty."
Barty turns around and looks at Dumbledore, "The rules are absolute, the Goblet of Fire constitutes a binding magical contract.
Mr. and Miss Potter has no choice; they are as of tonight... Tri-Wizards champions."
Viktor frowns at hearing this news. The last thing he wanted was for Holly to get hurt in this competition. Once the declaration has been made, the champions leave the room, Fleur heading back to her carriage, Cedric to the Hufflepuff Common Room, and Viktor back to his ship. The Potter twins stand there for a moment then make their way to the Gryffindor Common Room.
When they get there, Holly and Harry find Hermione standing outside the portrait hole, Harry's brow furrows, "What's wrong, Hermione?"
"I wanted to let you two know that Gryffindor is having a party for you to congratulate you for tricking the Goblet."
"We didn't enter our names," Holly tells her.
"I know you didn't. I could tell by the look of horror on your faces. But…"
"But what," Harry asks.
"Ron seems to think that you two somehow cheated and is upset."
Holly and Harry look at each other, "You're joking, he honestly believes that we would do something like that?"
"Yes."
Harry sighs and rubs his forehead, "Alright, I'll talk with him."
"Good. Let's go inside."
Harry looks at Holly, "Ready, Hol?"
Holly takes a deep breath and takes Harry's hand, "Ready, Harry."
Harry lets go of Holly's hand, and they enter the portrait hole. As soon as they enter, everyone in the Gryffindor Common Room begins to cheer, "You should've told us you'd entered!" Fred says to Holly.
"How did you do it without getting a beard? Brilliant!" George roared over the sound of the music.
"We didn't," Holly said, "We don't know-"
But Angelina had now swooped down upon them; "Oh if it couldn't be me, at least it's a Gryffindor —"
"You'll be able to pay back Diggory for that last Quidditch match, Harry!" shrieked Katie Bell, another of the Gryffindor Chasers, "We've got food, Harry, Holly come and have some —"
"I'm not hungry," The twins said at the same time.
"I want to go to bed," Holly said.
"Yeah, me too."
But the Gryffindor's wouldn't hear of it. No one wanted to hear that the twins weren't in the mood to celebrate. No one wanted to understand that the twins didn't put their names in the Goblet of Fire. All anyone wanted to do was party and congratulated the twins for fooling the Goblet. Eventually, the twins were able to make it upstairs to their dorms, where Harry had it out with Ron because Ron refused to believe that the twins were innocent.
But not everyone was happy that Holly and Harry were entered in the Triwizard Tournament. Everyone outside of Gryffindor was livid. The twins could hear people whispering behind their back that they were cheaters. And then the badges started showing up. As the twins walked to potions class together, they started seeing people wearing badges that read, Support Cedric Diggory. The REAL Hogwarts Champion. And then the person pressed the button into their chest, and the message upon it vanished, to be replaced by another one, which glowed green: Potters Stink!
As they walked to Potions, Holly and Harry would see people wearing those pins and sneering at them. Harry was getting mad, but Holly kept her head down. When they got to class, they immediately noticed that Ron was sitting with Hermione. Ron sneered at them when he spotted the twins. Harry was about to say something to Ron when he felt his sister's hand on his arm, "Forget about him; it's not worth it." They went and sat down at their table and waited for the lesson to start.
"Antidotes!" said Snape, looking around at them all, his cold black eyes glittering unpleasantly. "You should all have prepared your recipes now. I want you to brew them carefully, and then, we will be selecting someone on whom to test one. . . ." Snape looked right at Harry.
At that moment, there was a knock at the door; It was Colin Creevey; he edged into the room, beaming at Holly and Harry, and walked up to Snape's desk at the front of the room.
"Yes," Snape said curtly.
"Please, sir, I'm supposed to take Harry and Holly Potter upstairs."
"The Potters have another hour of Potions to complete," said Snape coldly. "They will come upstairs when this class is finished."
Colin went pink. "Sir — sir, Mr. Bagman wants them," he said nervously. "All the champions have got to go; I think they want to take photographs. . . ."
"Very well!" said Snape. "Potter, you and your sister take your bags and get out of my sight!"
The twins quickly gathered their belongings and left the classroom. Meanwhile, Viktor was making his way to where the other champions were. He had noticed that a lot of the Hogwarts students had Potters Stinks badges on, and little by little, his anger started to rise. He couldn't believe that these people would think that Holly and her brother would enter such a dangerous tournament. Even if Holly hadn't sworn on her magic that she didn't put her name in the Goblet, Viktor would have known that she and her brother didn't. They looked too terrified when they entered the room the night before. Besides, he didn't think that Holly was the type of person that would lie about something like this.
Viktor walked into the room where he was told to go and saw that Delacour and Diggory were already there, along with his headmaster and the headmasters of the other schools. Viktor walked in and made his way to the corner, after seeing those badges, he wasn't in the mood to have an idle conversation with anyone. As he looked around the room, Viktor noticed that Ludo Bagman and Barty Crouch Senior were there as well. Viktor automatically noticed that Holly and her brother had yet to arrive. Viktor stood there with a stone expression on his face and waited to get this wand weighing out of the way.
At that moment, the Potter twins entered. His eyes zeroed in on the beautiful red-haired girl. Ludo Bagman notices them enter and bounds over to them, "Ah, here they are! Champions number four and five! In you come, Harry, Holly, in you come . . . nothing to worry about, it's just the wand weighing ceremony."
Harry and Holly look at Ludo, confused, "Wand weighing?" Holly asks.
"We have to check that your wands are fully functional, no problems, you know, as they're your most important tools in the tasks ahead," said Bagman. "The expert's upstairs now with Dumbledore. And then there's going to be a little photoshoot. This is Rita Skeeter," he added, gesturing toward the witch in magenta robes. "She's doing a small piece on the tournament for the Daily Prophet. . . ."
"Maybe not that small, Ludo," said Rita Skeeter, her eyes on Harry and Holly.
Her hair was set in elaborate and curiously rigid curls that contrasted oddly with her heavy-jawed face. She wore jeweled spectacles. The thick fingers clutching her crocodile-skin handbag ended in two-inch nails, painted crimson. Holly instantly disliked the woman. She looked at her and Harry like they were lambs to the slaughter.
Holly sneers at the woman, but when she sees Viktor standing in the corner, her green eyes brighten, and she smiles at him. Viktor gives her a small smile and nods. This did not go unnoticed by Rita; her eyes sparkled at the insinuation.
"I wonder if I could have a little word with Harry and Holly before we start?" she said to Bagman, but still gazing fixedly at Holly. "The youngest champions, you know . . . to add a bit of color?"
"Certainly!" cried Bagman. "That is — if Harry and Holly have no objection?"
Before they could answer, Rita forcefully grabs Holly by the arm, "I'll start with Holly, we'll a little girl talk," She forcefully pulls Holly out of the room and towards a broom cupboard.
"Why are we in a broom cupboard?"
"For a little privacy, that's all. Now, I only want to ask you a few questions. How does it feel to be a Tri-Wizard Champion and only twelve years old?"
"Fourteen."
"Yes, and does it weigh heavily on your mind be the cause of your parents' death?"
"I thought you were here to ask me questions about the Tri-Wizard Tournament?"
Rita gives Holly a shark-like grin, "Alright, dear. Tell me how long have you and the Bulgarian Bon Bon been dating?"
Holly looks at her in surprise, "We are not dating. I only just met him."
"Of course you aren't, dear."
Holly watches as the green quill begins writing on its own, "Viktor and I are not lovers!" Holly cries.
"Just ignore the quill, dear."
Holly glares at Rita, then suddenly, the notepad and quill burst into flames startling Rita. Holly smiles at her, "I think this interview is over." Holly stands up and makes her way back into the room where Harry is waiting for her.
When Holly returns, Harry can see that she's fuming, "Are you alright, Holly?"
Holly takes a deep breath, "Fine, just give me a minute, 100, 99, 98…"
Harry's eyes widen, he knew that Holly was royally pissed if she had to start counting backward to calm down. A few moments later, Rita comes in with soot on her face; she glares at Holly, who glares back. Rita then reaches for Harry, but Holly takes a step towards her. Viktor smirks as he watches Rita take a step back and instead goes back towards the judges. Viktor smirked at seeing the fear in that Skeeter woman's eyes.
At that moment, Professor Dumbledore comes into the room, followed by an older gentleman with grey hair and silver eyes, "May I introduce Mr. Ollivander?" said Dumbledore, taking his place at the judges' table and talking to the champions. "He will be checking your wands to ensure that they are in good condition before the tournament."
"Mademoiselle Delacour, could we have you first, please?" said Mr. Ollivander, stepping into the space in the middle of the room.
Fleur Delacour swept over to Mr. Ollivander and handed him her wand.
"Hmmm . . ." Ollivander said. He twirled the wand between his long fingers like a baton, and it emitted several pink and gold sparks. Then he held it close to his eyes and examined it carefully. "Yes," he said quietly, "nine and a half inches, inflexible, rosewood, and containing . . . dear me."
"An 'air from ze 'ead of a veela," said Fleur. "One of my grandmuzzer's."
Holly smirks at Harry; he lightly pushes her. Holly had told Harry that Fleur had to be a veela because of the way all of the boys were reacting when she arrived.
Mr. Ollivander ran his fingers along the wand, apparently checking for scratches or bumps; then, he muttered, "Orchideous!" and a bunch of flowers burst from the wand-tip.
"Very well, very well, it's in fine working order," said Mr. Ollivander, scooping up the flowers and handing them to Fleur with her wand.
"Mr. Diggory, you next." Fleur glided back to her seat, smiling at Cedric as he passed her.
"Ah, now, this is one of mine, isn't it?" said Mr. Ollivander, with much more enthusiasm, as Cedric handed over his wand. "Yes, I remember it well. It contains a single hair from the tail of a particularly fine male unicorn; must have been seventeen hands; nearly gored me with his horn after I plucked his tail. Twelve and a quarter inches, ash, pleasantly springy, it's in fine condition. You treat it regularly?"
"Polished it last night," said Cedric, grinning.
Mr. Ollivander sent a stream of silver smoke rings across the room from the tip of Cedric's wand, pronounced himself satisfied, and then said, "Mr. Krum, if you please."
Viktor Krum got up and walked towards Mr. Ollivander. His eyes flash to Holly as he walks by. Viktor thrust out his wand and stood scowling, with his hands in the pockets of his robes.
"Hmm," said Mr. Ollivander, "this is a Gregorovitch creation unless I'm much mistaken? A fine wandmaker, though the styling is never quite what I, however . . ." He lifted the wand and examined it minutely, turning it over and over before his eyes. "Yes . . . hornbeam and dragon heartstring?" he shot at Krum, who nodded. "Rather thicker than one usually sees . . . quite rigid . . . ten and a quarter inches, Avis!"
The hornbeam wand let off a blast like a gun, and several small, twittering birds flew out of the end and through the open window into the watery sunlight.
"Good," said Mr. Ollivander, handing Krum back his wand. "Mr. Potter, if you would."
Harry got to his feet and walked past Krum to Mr. Ollivander. He handed over his wand, "Aaaah, yes," said Mr. Ollivander, his pale eyes suddenly gleaming. "Yes, yes, yes. How well I remember."
Mr. Ollivander spent much longer examining Harry's wand than anyone else's. Eventually, however, he made a fountain of wine shoot out of it, and handed it back to Harry, announcing that it was still in perfect condition.
"Which leaves, Miss Potter."
Holly stands up and makes her way over towards Mr. Ollivander. He smiles at the young woman. "Yes, Fir with a phoenix feather core, 11" and reasonably supple flexibility."
Ollivander takes just as long with Holly's wand as he did with Harry's. He makes a fountain of water shoot out of Holly's wand and hands it back, announcing that her wand as well is in perfect condition.
"Thank you all," said Dumbledore, standing up at the judges' table. "You may go back to your lessons now — or perhaps it would be quicker just to go down to dinner, as they are about to end —"
"Photos, Dumbledore, photos!" cried Bagman excitedly. "All the judges and champions, what do you think, Rita?"
"Er — yes, let's do those first," said Rita Skeeter, whose eyes were upon Harry and Holly again. "And then perhaps some individual shots."
Holly sends her a fierce glare causing the woman to stammer, "Perhaps, perhaps we can do the individual shots later."
Behind her, Holly hears Viktor snort at Rita's reaction. Holly looks up at him and smirks. After the group picture is taken, Holly, Harry and the other champions head down to the Great Hall for dinner.