(GoF) CHAPTER NINETEEN: The Four Champions

Ellie tried to focus as Dumbledore took to the stage to announce the champions from each school, but it wasn't easy.

She was at the Gryffindor table, at least. Cedric had tried to convince her to join him at the Hufflepuff table, but even her deal with Aleks wouldn't allow her to abandon her own House because of a boyfriend. He looked pleased enough, anyway, with the kiss; the smile he'd sent her after the kiss had told her that much.

"I don't get it," Ginny whispered to her as the blue flames in the Goblet of Fire began to sputter and spew as if readying to produce their first name. "You and Fred seemed so close the past few days. I was sure you were going to pick him."

Fred was a few seats away from them. He'd sent her a weak, gentle smile when they left the stage, signaling to her that he wasn't mad at her, but he and George had chosen seats with Lee and Angelina instead of her, Ginny, and the "Golden Trio."

"It's complicated," she whispered back as the first name came out of the goblet. It was the Durmstrang champion—Krum, of course. No surprise there.

"Are you going to stop being friends again?" whispered Hermione from the other side of her. "Weird that he didn't sit with us, isn't it?"

Ellie glanced reluctantly at Fred, who wasn't looking back at her. He seemed to be watching the goblet with determined focus. "We're still friends," she whispered back. "Everything's fine."

Was lying going to get any easier any time soon?

As the second champion's name emerged from the goblet—Fleur Delacour of Beauxbatons, who turned out to be the Veela-looking girl Ron had drooled over—Harry leaned forward and took over the whispering.

"There's no way, Ellie. No way you'd pick him over Fred. So can't you just tell us what's really going on?"

Somehow, that made her feel even worse. Harry only knew what her heart wanted because he'd learned it the hard way himself. How many more people was she going to hurt?

Before she could let herself come up with an answer for that one, the goblet sputtered out its third name: Cedric Diggory.

Time seemed to slow down as everyone around her burst into applause. She forced that same thin, fake smile onto her face as she rose to her feet with the rest of them, but all she could think about was that Aleks had been right—Cedric had been chosen.

Which meant Harry was next.

When she looked at Fred this time, he was looking back at her. In those warm, brown eyes of his, she saw the same thing she'd seen many times before—fear. Fear for her.

And, of course, love.

She tore her eyes away from Fred when Harry's name was called—just long enough to reach across the table, squeeze Harry's hand, and promise him, "It's going to be okay."

He didn't seem to believe her, of course.

She wasn't entirely sure she believed herself.


"Who would have thought it?" asked Dean an hour later when the bulk of them—save for Harry—had made it back to the common room. Harry, Cedric, Fleur, and Krum were still, as far as Ellie knew, in their little Triwizard meeting. "Harry Potter, getting past the Age Line and seeking eternal glory?"

"Don't be ridiculous, Dean," Ellie snapped, surprising herself with her own ferocity. "Harry didn't put his name in the Goblet."

"You mean to suggest someone else did it for him?" asked Ron, surprising Ellie even more. "Please."

"Is that really so hard to believe? As if Harry's never been targeted before?"

"Targeted, sure," said Seamus. "But if you want the poor bloke dead, surely there's easier ways—"

"That's enough," said Fred darkly, surprising all of them. Ellie hadn't even seen him come in; he and George had lingered behind when she, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny had left the Great Hall. "He didn't put his name in. End of discussion."

Dean, Seamus, and Ron fell silent at that as Fred and George made their way over to Ginny, Hermione, and Ellie—who were apparently the only ones who believed that Harry hadn't done it.

"I wish they'd all just clear on out before Harry gets back," said Ginny, frowning. "Last thing he needs is to hear them talking like that."

"Yeah—especially his best friend," grumbled Hermione, casting an angry glare in Ron's direction.

"El." Fred's voice was heavy. "Can I have a sec?"

But before she could answer him, Harry stepped into the common room.

He was greeted with applause, at least—that was something. But people were cheering him for the wrong reasons.

"In a minute," Ellie told Fred gently as she waited with held breath as Harry came over to Ron and they had an argument that, despite Ellie's inability to actually make out the words, clearly wasn't fun. Once that was finished, Harry came straight to her.

"I need to write to him again," he told Ellie darkly. "To… Padfoot. You with me?"

"Of course," Ellie said quickly. "Harry, I—"

"Come on," he interrupted, taking her by the arm and guiding her up the boys' staircase.

She shot Fred one last, apologetic look before disappearing with him.


"I just don't understand," Harry said as Ellie scribbled out a summary of the evening's events—minus, of course, the part where she had already known it was all going to happen, thanks to a certain blackmailing son of a Death Eater. "Why would someone do this to me? Aren't there easier ways to kill me?"

Ellie laughed dryly at that; it was close to what Seamus had tried to ask before Fred stopped him. She didn't have an answer for him, but she did know more than she was letting on. Was she really finding herself in the exact same situation she'd been in with Harry a year earlier—lying to him again?

"How'd it go?" she asked him, determined to change the subject. "You know, your little meeting with Bagman and Crouch and the others. Surely someone suggested just… not allowing you to partake?"

"The other headmasters did, certainly—Madame Maxime and Karkaroff. Kept saying the whole thing was rigged. But the rest of them had a very rules are rules approach."

"And Dumbledore? He just… agreed to let you partake?"

"He believed me, at least—that I didn't put my name in. But, yeah—he did."

Ellie shook her head at that. A school that required permission slips to attend Hogsmeade but forced its students to compete in life-threatening tournaments they never signed up for? She loved Hogwarts, but it wasn't without its flaws.

"How's it coming along?" Harry asked her, nodding to the letter. "Anything you want to add before we send it? Tell him about your annoyingly handsome new beau, perhaps?"

She shot him a sarcastic look at that, but she wasn't quite in the mood to be funny. The truth was, there was a lot she wanted to tell her father that she couldn't, and it made her heart ache.


By the time they sent the letter off with Woodstock and Ellie headed back down to the common room, it had thinned out substantially. Fred, George, and Ginny were still there, and Dean was a few dozen feet away, pretending to read while really ogling Ginny, but the rest of the common room was empty.

"Watch your back, Gin," Ellie told her friend with a small, half-hearted grin when she reached her. "Won't be long before he sends Seamus to ask you out for him."

Fred and George's eyes both bulged as they followed Ellie's gaze toward Dean's direction. "I'll hit him," George muttered, shaking his head. "One little sis was bad enough, but two?"

Dean glanced up at them at that, not having heard them but seeming to sense that they were talking about him. Frowning slightly, he rose to his feet and headed upstairs.

"Don't worry, George," Ginny said cheerfully as she, too, rose to her feet. "Just because he's looking doesn't mean I am."

"Right," said Fred, sounding just as irritated as his brother. "How could we forget you only have eyes for the Boy Who Lived?"

Ellie knew that his contention was about more than just Ginny's crush on Harry; he was annoyed that Ellie had gone off with Harry instead of talking to him and, of course, annoyed that she had ever dated Harry.

Ginny and George both took their departures at that, finally leaving Ellie and Fred alone to talk.

"Well?" Fred asked her. "Send your letter to Sirius?"

She nodded.

"And?"

"And… what? We told him about the Tournament. About Harry being picked."

"Right." His eyes were dark and angry, but unsurprised. "And nothing about the maniac who's using pictures of you and him to blackmail you."

"Not just pictures," she reminded him. "Locations, too. He knows where Dad's hiding."

"Or he says he does, and it's actually just rubbish! Why don't we just try and get the stupid picture? Break into his room, or—"

"Fred, be reasonable. His room is on that monstrosity of a Durmstrang ship. There's no way any Hogwarts students are getting onto it unnoticed—not even with an Invisibility cloak."

He nodded reluctantly, heaving a sigh. "Fine, then. So that's it. You're with Cedric now, and I've got to deal with it, as usual."

She sighed, too. They'd already gone over this, of course; none of it was new information. But she understood why he felt the need to say it again on the off chance that perhaps there was something they had missed.

"There's one thing we have now that we didn't have before," she pointed out softly.

He glanced back at her, still ninety percent pissed, but ten percent curious. "Yeah?"

"You're an Animagus now," she reminded him. "C'mon—lets go for a run."


I know it's frustrating, but waiting pays off, right? Surely this blackmail won't last forever... Stay tuned to find out!