Chapter 11 - Preliminaries

Nov. 13th, 1994

This afternoon, after lunch, Maxime summoned me.

"Make yourself presentable," she told me curtly. "You are to go up to the castle in an hour. There is the Wand Weighing, which is the official start of the Tournament, and a photo session for the press. - What's the matter?" she added. I suppose I must have looked rather exasperated at hearing about the press.

"It's just - I hate it! I mean, everybody gawking and getting out of their wits..." I stopped abruptly. I had never said anything like that to her before, and I suddenly felt terribly embarrassed. To my surprise, there was something like a smile on her face.

"I understand," she said almost softly. "It must be quite a nuisance. Well, there's nothing much that can be done against the veela charm in your hair, as you will be well aware of, but there is a spell that will at least soften down the strongest effects; basically, it will allow men to keep their wits together, - such as they are, - so they won't annoy you too much."

I had never known there was any such spell, and my first reaction was anger at her for not telling me earlier. But I pulled myself together and begged her in my friendliest and most humble voice to teach me that spell.

"I'm afraid it has to be performed on you by somebody else," she told me. "Apparently, it goes back to Merlin himself, who invented it as a protection against the real veela spell. Also, it wears off after two hours or so, so I wouldn't put too much trust in it, if I were you."

"No matter, it's better than nothing," I replied. "I expect you'll go up to the castle with me, so please perform it as soon as we enter."

She agreed to do that, and I duly went to make myself 'presentable'.

+++

I put a lot of work into doing my hair, and I enjoyed it for the first time in ages, knowing about the spell Maxime was going to perform on it. Dressed in my sky-blue robes, and a thick scarf wrapped around me against the cold wind, I finally accompanied her up to the castle, almost jogging to keep up with her enormous strides.

At the steps to the great door, she stopped and pointed her wand at my head. "Coma obscurata!" I heard her say. I must try and look up this spell as soon as possible; perhaps there is some modification, so that I can perform it on myself.

When we entered the entrance hall, the grimy caretaker was fumbling around with a broom in a corner. Really, I don't see why they keep him. I've never seen him do any real work; the only thing he seems to be doing is spreading an almost tangible atmosphere of spite. He'd definitely not last a week at Beauxbatons!

Maxime summoned him with one of those imperial gestures of hers, and he slouched over to us.

"Lead us to where the Wand Weighing is taking place!"

He muttered something unintelligible and motioned for us to follow him. Presently, we arrived at a door, which he opened for us.

We were in a small classroom; most of the desks had been moved to the walls, and some had been placed in front of the blackboard and covered with a length of scarlet velvet. On one of the chairs behind this long desk, Bagman, the ministry official, was sitting, who rose at our entrance.

"Welcome, welcome!" he said, smiling profusely and walking towards us, his hands extended. Obviously, he wanted to shake Maxime's hand, but the way she presented hers left no alternative for him but to kiss it, and I had to suppress a smile. She really knows ho to establish social differences!

Viktor Krum was standing at one of the windows in that typical skulking posture, gazing out moodily into the gathering dusk. He didn't even look up when we entered. His headmaster was standing next to him, his expression not much friendlier.

Cedric Digory, on the other hand, came straight up to me. "Hello," he said with a friendly smile, "I mean - bon jour - "he corrected himself as Maxime gave him one of her severe looks. I had to grin at that. She can be very intimidating.

"Do you mind if I talk to Fleur a bit?" he inquired politely.

"Oh, go along," she said off-handedly, and went over to talk to Bagman.

"Cho told me about your excursion yesterday," Cedric said. "She rather likes you, and she says it's not your fault all the guys get crazy about you. So she thinks there's no harm if I'm being friendly with you, as long as I don't fall under that charm of yours, too." He grinned in a slightly embarrassed way. "So I put an Equanimity charm on myself, just to be on the safe side ... I hope you're not fed up now or something," he added hastily, "but I wouldn't want to hurt her for anything."

"That's so sweet of you! No, of course I'm not annoyed. You don't know what this means to me, this is about the first time in ages that I can talk to a boy without him getting in a state of drooling half-wittedness. An Equanimity charm? That is interesting - "

The door opened again, and two more people entered. One of them was a small paunchy man with a large camera, the press photographer, obviously. The second person was a woman in her late forties, to whom I took an instant dislike.

She was wearing perfectly tasteless magenta robes that would perhaps have been all right on a girl twenty-five years younger, but on her just accentuated her plump figure. Her absolutely unnaturally blonde hair was set in highly artificial elaborate curls, the stiffness of which put additional stress on her heavy-jawed mannish face. Thick fingers with about five centimetres of crimson nails completed this picture that would have almost been pathetic but for the distinct malevolent glint of the beetle-black eyes.

"Wonder who she is," Cedric said.

"Probably some reporter," I replied, "she has brought that photographer along, hasn't she?"

Indeed, the fat man with the camera was regarding everyone in the room with something of a professional's eye, and of course, his interest at once turned to me. I'm sure if Maxime hadn't performed that charm, he'd have been all over me with his camera already.

There was a knock on the door, and Harry Potter entered, looking around him in a bewildered manner. Again, it struck me how small and almost forlorn he looked. It's really hard to imagine he did all those things Cho has told me about.

As soon as the ministry official, Bagman, noticed Harry, he jumped to his feet to greet him exuberantly, a little too exuberantly, for my taste, and explained what the Wand Weighing was all about.

"And then there's going to be a little photo shoot," he went on, indicating the ugly witch in the magenta robes, "This is Rita Skeeter, she is doing a small piece for the Daily Prophet."

"So she really is a reporter," Cedric said under his breath. "I hope she can write better than she looks."

"Yes," I replied, grinning. "What with all those beauty charms, I'd never have thought her possible. But I'm sure she thinks she's smashing."

"Well, she IS smashing, I'd say," Cedric grinned back, "If you think of the original meaning..."

The Skeeter woman had spotted Harry at once and was now descending on him in a vulture-like fashion, her scarlet talons stretched out, and a false smile plastered on her face that made her even uglier. She was saying something to Bagman, and presently she grabbed Harry's arm and steered him out of the room before he had quite realised what was happening.

"Poor boy, hope she's not eating him alive," Cedric muttered.

We went on chatting for the next few minutes, interrupted only by the arrival of the second ministry official I had seen at the first feast, but whose name I didn't remember, together with another wizard, an old man with large pale eyes, whom I had never seen before. But from the way everybody greeted him, I judged he must be someone important.

"Mr. Ollivander!" Cedric explained, "of course, he's the British wand maker; he'll inspect all our wands to see they are in god working condition."

"Will you all take your seats now, ladies and gentlemen?" Bagman's voice rose above the general murmur. "The Weighing ceremony is starting soon."

While the judges, Maxime, the Durmstrang headmaster, and the two officials, took their seats behind the velvet-covered desks, four chairs were magically arranged for us next to the door. Cedric sat down on the chair at one end of the row, so I took the one next to him. It hardly surprised me that Viktor Krum very deliberately chose to sit at the far end of the row, leaving an empty chair between him and me.

A minute or two later, the door opened once again, and headmaster Dumbledore entered, followed by Harry Potter and Skeeter, who settled down in a corner, a quill poised and trying (unsuccessful, to my mind) to look unobtrusive.

After Dumbledore had introduced him, Mr. Ollivander stepped forward from his place by the window, and the ceremony could finally begin.

Unsurprisingly, being the only girl, I was called forward first and handed over my wand.

In his expert hands, it emitted some beautiful pink and golden sparks, but I was rather surprised how easily he recognized the veela hair in it.

"I've never used veela hair myself, of course," he said. I'm still angry, now that I'm writing this down. What does he mean - 'of course'? What's wrong with a 'temperamental wand' as he called it? The way he was talking he could do with a bit of temperament, if you ask me!

Anyway, he produced a bunch of flowers (I must admit they are beautiful flowers, in this vase next to my bed), and returned my wand, apparently satisfied with its condition.

Cedric was next. Ollivander claimed to remember his wand well (I can't imagine how he can, he must have been selling hundreds of them over the years), and started into a story about the unicorn (a male unicorn, of course) he had taken the hair from that was inside the wand.

"You treat it regularly?" he asked by way of conversation, and I couldn't help feeling he was a lot friendlier to Cedric than he had been towards me.

"Polished it last night," Cedric said proudly.

A shower of golden sparks drew my attention to Harry, who was sitting in the chair next to me. Apparently, Cedric's words had made him think that his own wand could need some polishing, too, and so he had started surreptitiously to rub at it with a fold of his robes, which had made the sparks go up. It was quite an endearing reaction, and I couldn't suppress a smile. However, Harry noticed it, and he must have interpreted it as condescending or something, because he blushed, clenched both his hands tightly around the wand and stared fixedly at them in his lap. I felt sorry for him, but I didn't see what I could do.

Ollivander got Cedric's wand to emit a couple of silver smoke rings. (If that's what normal wands do, give me my 'temperamental' one any day!)

Viktor Krum's wand was found to contain dragon heartstring, and for a test, a couple of small twittering birds were conjured up that flew out of the window. I was a bit disappointed; I would have expected something more dramatic from a dragon heartstring wand.

Finally, it was Harry Potter's turn.

"Ah yes, said Ollivander, his pale eyes gleaming with sudden interest. "How well I remember."

For some reason, he spent much more time examining Harry's wand, but did not say anything about its core. However, I considered the fountain of wine that he made shoot out of it a bit childish. What's the use of if you don't intend to drink it, anyway?

I had expected the whole thing to be over after this, but I was quite mistaken.

"Photos, Dumbledore, photos!" Bagman, the official, shouted. Really, his exuberance reminds me of a small boy, sometimes.

First, there was to be a group picture of all the judges and champions. This proved extremely hard to do, as Maxime was far too big for the photographer to get her into the frame. After a couple of fruitless experiments, they finally made her sit down, and all the rest had to stand around her. I noticed with some amusement that the Durmstrang headmaster kept fingering his ridiculous goatee, looking around trying to be noticed. Of course, the photographer tried to get me in the centre of the picture, but his attempts were thwarted by the Skeeter woman, who kept dragging Harry forward. The poor boy looked quite embarrassed by all the unwelcome attention and tried to get away, but she was unrelenting.

After the group shootings, Skeeter insisted on separate pictures of each of the champions, which took quite some time, too.

Thankfully, I was first again; Maxime's spell must have been wearing off in the meantime, because the photographer's eyes were slightly glazed when he started walking round me taking his shots, and if this had lasted any longer, he might very well have demanded to take more indecent pictures of me.

At last, after a short look at Maxime, who nodded agreement, I got up and fled out of the room.

+++

At dinner, I told Cho about the afternoon and congratulated her on having Cedric as a boyfriend. She promised to try and look up the 'coma obscurata' charm. This would be lovely, perhaps she can learn to do it, it would help me a great deal. Funny, how these two spells fir in with each other; I'd be surprised if that Equanimity one did not go back to Merlin, too.

By and large, it's been a good day, and I feel happier than I've been feeling for a long time. I do hope I'll get a chance to go to the library some time, there are loads of things I want to research. And I must not forget to send an owl home first thing tomorrow morning.

AN:

Lu – Thanks for your review!!! This is one of the few that are really helpful. Yes, it is quite some blunder, but I completely forgot about Harry and Ron not being on speaking terms. Thanks for pointing it out. Well, here's the Cedric/Fleur interaction for you. Hope you like it. Of course, doing anything on the Harry/Fleur level is next to impossible as I don't want to contradict The Book, so I'll have to carefully develop her feelings towards (who knows, perhaps also FOR) Harry, while any concrete interaction must be limited to the few encounters described in GoF. If you can think of any way out of this dilemma, let me know.