Jeepers.
Ten
At Winchester Planetarium's Escalator
Harry saw sand staring back at him from the set of hourglasses that kept their House points. Ruby sand. Sapphire sand. Emerald. Counting down.
He had less than twenty-four hours to best Professor Dumbledore.
He rather wished he'd been given twenty-four months instead.
The headmaster had seemed to look directly at Daisy, crowded in amongst the students from all three schools, when he tugged on his beard and cast his spell on the floor and said, cheerily, "Nobody under the age of seventeen will be able to cross this line."
And the old codger was right.
Over the last weeks, Harry had uncovered several methods by which the headmaster might have prevented underage students from submitting their names to the Goblet of Fire, and he had deduced several workarounds for them—all but the Age Line, and, of course, the one that tested your blood. He shouldn't have been surprised, though. Had Harry been headmaster, he probably would have chosen the same method. But he had to figure a way past, and quickly.
If Harry couldn't cross the line to submit his name to the cup then someone else would have a chance to put Daisy in. And, given how matters always went wonky when his sister was involved, she would be selected. Even now, slumped against his shoulder, as they sat on the bottom marble step in the nearly empty entrance hall, Daisy had taken one of the scraps of parchment he'd written his name on and was idly doodling her namesake around an edited version. It now read:
Harry & Daisy Potter
Champions of
Hogwarts School
Grand prize winners.
Gryffindor House, 1994 AD
Protest as she might, Daisy wanted to be involved. Harry knew enough of her mind after all the time he'd spent searching in it for secrets. Daisy was worried for him. She was concerned that he might not be as capable as he thought he was, concerned that he would be hurt while trying to keep her safe. And she still nursed the small secret flame of desire: to prove herself, to be heroic, impressive. It was all rubbish, of course.
As for who might want to enter his sister in the Tournament... Harry had several suspicions, the most recent being Professor Karkaroff, the Durmstrang Headmaster.
Harry had seen open displeasure on the man's face when he had spotted where his prize student, Viktor Krum, had chosen to sit for dinner. And when Mr. Bagman had spoken, and Mr. Crouch, and they had ended the feast and crowded in the entrance hall to watch Professor Dumbledore place the Goblet of Fire, Karkaroff had ripped Krum away from the Gryffindors to stand with the Slytherins, whispering and pointing at Daisy all the while.
Setting Karkaroff aside, the next most likely suspect would be one of the children whose parents or relatives had been Death Eaters. Or were still Death Eaters.
The Age Line made it easy to rule out Malfoy and the rest of her gang, although Harry didn't think the girls, unpleasant as they were, had it in them to do something like that. Did they? And Lucius Malfoy had given Tom Riddle's diary to Daisy... but if Harry couldn't figure out how to get past the line, Malfoy certainly couldn't. And he had overheard the girls whispering to one another, talking about which older members of Slytherin House planned to submit their names for consideration. There was the sixth year fellow, Warrington, and the Quidditch Captain with the stretched-out face, Montague. But again, outside of petty House Cup or Quidditch Cup rivalry, Harry didn't know either boy to be outspoken when it came to Daisy Potter's defeat of the Dark Lord Voldemort. And perhaps that was why they would be perfect for the task.
And then Harry could not reconcile how the cup knew who was being entered, and if it was even possible to cheat it. His ratty storybook held no clues about that part. After passing the witch's test, Oter Haldingsson had gone on to face more fantastic trials—Could someone else get Daisy's name to come out of the Goblet if she herself hadn't submitted it?
Did it assess the qualities of the person submitting rather than the person whose name was on the slip? Had Apollonius Carrow been the true champion of Hogwarts all those years ago, or had Corvinus Gaunt been the real one? Was Harry worried over nothing?
No. Mad-Eye Moody was right. They'll always try the most obvious, just in case. The most obvious way to kill Harry's sister was to get her to compete in a dangerous magical tournament. And where was Professor Moody? Harry thought for certain that the man would have posted himself in the hall, watching the cup for suspicious activity, but after the headmaster had put it up and set the Age Line, the Auror had disappeared. Was he convinced of their safety? No, he must have been watching through the walls with his magical eye. That had to be it.
Harry sighed. His head was all circles.
At the center of the entrance hall, atop its jewel-encrusted casket, the Goblet of Fire burned blue, taunting him. It was as unremarkable to look at as he'd imagined, just an ancient wide-mouthed wooden cup. From this distance, he could barely even see that there were runes etched around the lip of the thing.
But if he could just get his name in...
"Have you finished your thinking yet?" asked Daisy. She itched her nose against his shoulder and yawned into his robes, and mumbled, "Or should we write our names down a few more times?"
"If I had been finished," said Harry quietly, "wouldn't I have said something?"
Daisy pulled away and gave him a level look. "Would you have?"
"If you would stop adding your name there, with mine, I might have," said Harry.
"Balderdash," said Daisy. "That manky cup can't pick two people at once, Harry. Each school is only allowed one champion." She laced her fingers and stretched her arms, stood, then looked down at him and sat again, bundling the tail of her robes underneath her as a cushion for the hard step. "How late are we going to wait up here? You've run through a whole sheaf of parchment trying and we've got nothing to show for it. We've got all day tomorrow, too, you know."
"No, we don't," muttered Harry. "Not really. What happens if we figure it out at noon and someone stops me from entering?" He stared at the flaming cup. "It's got to be tonight, while no one can stop me."
"Stops us," said Daisy. "I'm helping."
"Professor Dumbledore, he is odd man," said Krum, crouched at the bottom of the stairs in his furs. "Very great beard. He is smiling as he says these things. Be very certain. Cannot changing your mind. Contract is binding you to game." The Bulgarian was staring at a square of neatly cut parchment with his name and school scribbled in some sort of script that looked like a dyslexic Englishman had tried to reinvent Greek.
"The word is 'old'," said Daisy through a weary sigh. "He's an old man with a long beard."
"So you'll enter, then?" asked Harry, squirming away from his sister to watch Krum.
The Durmstrang students had gotten to writing their names immediately after Professor Dumbledore had called a start to the tournament, and each one of them had submitted themselves and then departed for their boat along with their headmaster. All but Krum. He had remained in the entrance hall alone, pacing. Then when he'd spotted Harry and Daisy on the steps, he came to squat, like a contemplative winter goose, at their feet. Now his small black eyes were half shut as he regarded the cup, then his ticket, then the great oak doors to outside.
"Durmstrang champion is bad fellow," said Krum, "if is not me." He stood and crossed to the Goblet; he didn't even register the Age Line as an issue. Harry swallowed his frustration. Krum, of course, was eighteen.
Krum stuck his fist over the blue flames and dropped his square of parchment into the cup. It fluttered down into the fire and disappeared. Then the flames turned briefly red and sparks popped over them in the air. He shook his head, then looked back to Daisy and Harry. "Nazdrave. Very good."
Then Krum bundled himself in his furs and slouched out of Hogwarts castle into the night. The twins were left alone in the entrance hall.
"He walks like a dog in boots," said Daisy, watching after him. "Aunt Marge used to do that to Ripper sometimes. Put him in boots."
"Did she?" said Harry. He leaned forward, settling his elbows on his knees. Krum had crossed with such ease.
The Age Line was a ten-foot diameter circle of seemingly molten gold set around the cup, a one-inch wide sea meant to keep bothersome children from getting themselves killed. Harry stared at it, digging his fingers through his hair. Was it superficial? Had it actually dug a trench in the stone? After his other tests, there was no harm in finding out, was there?
"She did," Daisy continued, oblivious to his struggle. "He wasn't very happy with them, though he didn't walk much, to begin with. Poor little bastard, having a mum like Aunt Marge."
"Watch that door to the dungeons, will you?" said Harry. The doors to the Great Hall were open, but there was no one about that he could see. It was late now. The caretaker and Mrs. Norris would be on patrol soon. "Let me know if you see Filch coming."
"What are you going to try now?" said Daisy. She huffed when Harry brushed her off and crossed to stand with his toes at the line. "Harry?"
"You'll see—just go stand at the door." Harry held his wand between his thumb and middle finger. If he could get it closer… and crumple his name into a ball, and just toss it over the line and into the flames... that might work.
"Kalliergo," said Harry, focused on the floor. It shifted. Rippled. The flags stretched up, a titch at a time, individually stone by stone, and the casket with the Goblet of Fire rose with them. The Age Line did not move. Closer now. If up was all right, then he would see what happened with closer. Holding an image of the Grand Staircase's floating sections in his mind, Harry raised his wand and directed the rising stone forward. It crept close and higher, a growing band of elongating stone straws. The Age Line didn't move. He battled a surge of triumph away and redoubled his focus. The Goblet inched closer, the stone rising like rows of misshapen chair spindles.
The casket was two feet away.
Half a foot. Three inches.
The Age Line moved all at once. It leapt, a molten gold hoop, and struck Harry across the chest, sending him sprawling. His spell ended. Harry sat up, winded and glowering. The stone was still stretched into thin columns with the casket atop, five feet closer than it had been before. And the Age Line had followed it, cutting a new circle in the ground.
"Close that time, though," chirped Daisy, peering at him from where she stood under the arch that led to the dungeons. "I thought we'd had it there."
Harry set the stone flat again and frowned all the way back up the Grand Staircase to the seventh floor.
"Perhaps," said Daisy, as they started down the hall that led to Gryffindor Tower, "we could have someone older enter for us. I overheard Hannah and Susan saying that Cedric was going to enter. Maybe we can get him to enter for us."
"You mean for me," said Harry sharply.
"Yes, yes. In this case 'us' means you, Harry," said Daisy, rolling her eyes.
"That won't work," said Harry. "At least I don't think it will. It has to judge the person who enters."
"Cedric does seem like the type, though, don't you think so?" said Daisy, she went slightly rosy, but didn't try to hide it. "If you distracted him I could probably switch his name out for yours..." Then she became flustered. "But I would have to get really close to him for that. That would be... but maybe I could, though."
"I don't think that'll work, either," said Harry. "What happens if he notices you, or someone else does?"
"Then this will be all for naught," said Daisy. "I would have to jump from the top of the Astronomy Tower to my demise."
"That's not funny," said Harry, grabbing her. "Don't say things like that."
"It's slightly funny," said Daisy, wincing. She pulled at his arm. "That hurts, stop."
"Sorry," muttered Harry. "I don't think we'll be able to trick anyone." He paused. "But if I wrote it in my blood? The ticket?"
"Yuck," said Daisy, hopping round to face him. "Wrote it in your blood? What would that do, aside from getting Madam Pomfrey to give you a thorough scolding."
"I don't know," admitted Harry. "It was just a thought." He cast a look down the hall back to the stairs. "I don't know how it could know who enters otherwise. If someone else entered Apollonius and he failed to get past the Second Task, maybe that Gaunt fellow had been the real champion. Perhaps the Goblet had judged him to be capable of passing the tasks."
"No!" said Daisy, suddenly serious. "No. Apollonius was the real Hogwarts champion. He was brave. And he didn't want any glory. He just wanted to make his mother proud, and the school. The other fellow was exactly what he called him—a slubberdegullion." She squinted at him. "I don't know how you could think otherwise."
"So then how did the Goblet pick him if he entered someone else's name, and they entered his?" asked Harry, running a hand through his hair. It must have been in an awful sweaty tangle by this point. He'd been pulling and touching and mussing it up all evening.
"It just knows," said Daisy with a shrug. "It's magic, Harry."
"Like that's an explanation," he muttered. "Magic has rules, Daisy. It's not just nonsense words and wand waving."
"I didn't say that!" said Daisy, thrusting her chin out at him. "You just don't understand the Goblet of Fire's rules."
"What happened to 'we'?" asked Harry. He snorted. "Or do you understand how the cup works now?"
"In this circumstance, 'you' means 'we'," said Daisy. She crossed her arms. "Maybe the fire can hear you thinking. Even if you don't put your name in. Maybe it knows who you are if you come near enough to it."
"So it can read minds?" said Harry. He quirked an eyebrow at her. "And you aren't just saying that because you're good at reading minds?"
"So what if I am," grumbled Daisy as he approached her. "You're just jealous."
"Am I?" said Harry, flicking her forehead.
"I wish you were," said Daisy. She stood on her toes to look him in the eyes. "You're too nice to me when I'm better than you. You aren't supposed to be."
"Why not?" said Harry. "You're my sister, I should be glad if you're good at something."
"Because it makes me feel bad when I get jealous of you," said Daisy. "And I don't like that."
"It's fine to be jealous," said Harry. He smiled at her and prodded her shoulder gently. "That just lets you know that you want something. You've got to use it as motivation."
"See there, that's what I mean!" said Daisy, falling flat onto her heels and waving her arms. "Now I'm jealous that you won't be jealous and it's going to drive me batty all night, and I was going to be kept awake anyways with all of Hermione's sobbing and questions!"
Harry's face fell like a stone cast into a well.
"Sorry," said Daisy quickly. Then she scowled. "But I warned you, didn't I?" She came close and pushed at his nose with a finger. "I told you to make her an honest woman. And now you've got her thinking you fancy blonde girls and girls who speak French of all things."
"And what's the matter with French?" asked Harry, swatting her finger away.
"Uncle Vernon hasn't taught me a lot," said Daisy slowly. "But he certainly does not like the French." She sniffed. "And he's particularly cross about something called a chunnel that lets the Frenchmen into our lands."
"Your Uncle Vernon's a caricature," said Harry. "And Hermione will be all right, won't she? You'll tell her that I don't actually fancy that French girl? That I just thought she might be a Veela?"
"Yes, as if that'll make it better. I'll tell her that you were still more interested in a fire-breathing French Veela than her, a human girl," said Daisy. She tapped her chin. "I'll expect you to get me something really odd when we go Hogsmeade next. Something interesting."
"Fine, done," said Harry, waving. He didn't feel like reminding her that they shared their parents' leftover gold, and they shouldn't be wasting it on nonsense. "Let's just get inside, the portraits are staring."
The common room was warm and dark and empty of people. The fire was burning low. Harry crouched to feed it another log and jabbed his wand at the embers to set them alight again. Daisy stood frowning at his back.
"Are you staying up then?" she asked, and then without waiting for his answer, "Do you imagine she's still awake? It's after one, but she's very good at sulking. I could stay with you."
"She's good at everything else," muttered Harry. He brushed some soot from his trousers and stood. "Why would you expect her sulking to be different?"
Harry dropped himself into one of the armchairs beside the fireplace. What was he going to say to Hermione? He didn't know what to say to girls who fancied him. He hadn't had that problem since primary school, and those relationships only lasted as long as lunchtime. And there were other quandaries at hand. The Goblet of Fire was more pressing than Hermione's crush. She could survive the next day without speaking to him.
"You don't sleep in the bed next to hers," said Daisy. She bit her lip. "I've got to do it eventually. I'll just go. See you in the morning."
Watching his sister frown her way up the stairs to the girls' dormitory, Harry felt as though he'd missed something. He heard the door creak open when Daisy reached the top, then again a slight creak as it closed. Then Crookshanks, Hermione's bandy-legged ginger cat, appeared at the landing.
Crookshanks looked like someone had staved his mother's face in with a shovel, and then flattened his father's head with a sledgehammer. He was thick, and furry, and had a large bottlebrush tail. Upon seeing Harry in the armchair, the cat sauntered down and came to sit before the fireplace.
"Have I ruined your evening as well?" Harry asked. "Can't get to sleep?"
Crookshanks didn't dignify him with an answer. He turned his squashed face and glared up with his bright yellow eyes.
"All right then," said Harry with a sigh. He gathered the creature up from the floor and settled him on his lap. Crookshanks gave a short, grumbly meow and shut his eyes.
Harry sat and watched the fire for a time, puzzling out ways he could get past the Age Line to submit his name.
Moving the cup hadn't worked. Levitating the parchment hadn't either—his tickets had burned up as soon as they neared the flames. It needed someone to submit them. And Harry found himself thinking that maybe the cup could read minds, and maybe it did perceive something of what was happening around it. Apollonius Carrow had been a brave sort of fellow, and he'd been crafty, and yet… honest. Harry knew that Daisy had snuck off to speak with the ghost again. He didn't know when she had done it, but it was difficult for his sister to leave people alone with their troubles. Harry half-thought it was a way to distract her from her own troubles.
Crookshanks stirred from his place, swatting Harry's hand with his tail, and settled again. Absorbed in his thoughts, Harry has stopped petting him.
"You're much too smart for a cat, I reckon," said Harry. "You've got to be a least half a kneazle." He thought about digging his copy of the Monster Book of Monsters out of his trunk to check, and then it struck him. Harry grabbed the large cat about the middle and held him up to examine him. "How old are you, Crookshanks?"
The proprietor of the magical pet shop had told them that the cat had been long waiting and unwanted for quite some time before Hermione came around, but it couldn't have been seventeen years waiting, right?
But Crookshanks was devilishly smart. He had figured out that Scabbers had actually been Wormtail in disguise. And he'd found Sirius and helped him get into the castle. Harry stared into the cat's liquid gold eyes and wondered. Yes. Crookshanks might not have been old enough, but there was another intelligent cat at Hogwarts that must have been qualified. And what could it hurt to try?
Harry settled Crookshanks back down on the armchair and pulled his wand from his robes. "If this works," he told the cat. "I'll marry your mistress."
He faced the stairwell to his sister's dormitory and said, "Expecto Patronum."
A huge silver raven burst from the end of his wand, trailing streamers of silver-white smoke. It gave a ghostly, caw! and it shook itself off. It flapped once around the room, then came to settle on Harry's shoulder.
"Yes, hello there," said Harry. The raven regarded him through silver eyes. Crookshanks perked up in his seat. He hopped onto the armrest and sat on his haunches, watching the bird curiously.
"Get Daisy up," said Harry to his Patronus. "Tell her to bring the Map. And quick." The raven cocked its head in acknowledgment and took off up the stairs. Moments later, Harry heard the dormitory door squeak. Daisy appeared on the landing, clad in her snitch pajamas and only one sock. The other was in her hand along with her shoes and the Marauder's Map. Harry's raven was perched on her outstretched arm.
"Have you figured it out then?" whispered Daisy, pattering down the stairs. She held his Patronus out to him. The bird hopped from her arm to his, pecked once at Harry's shoulder, then vanished in a swirl of silver. "Where are we going? What are we looking for?"
"One thing at a time," said Harry. "First you get your socks on. Then your shoes. Then we've got to find Mrs. Norris."
"Mrs. Norris!" said Daisy in hushed outrage. "Are you mad? We can't get detention, we'll miss our lessons!"
"Just give me the Map," said Harry. "We won't take it with us. We'll just have a look and then hurry down and scoop her up. And get a basket for Crookshanks, we'll need him, too."
"Harry," said Daisy, stunned with her sock in hand. "You can't have thought up a plan to get us into the Triwizard Tournament that involves the use of two cats."
"Nothing's for certain," said Harry, unfolding the Map. "But it can't hurt to try. And it might be our best chance."
"Cats," repeated Daisy. She tumbled onto an armchair and pulled on her shoes. "Well," she said, tossing her hair over her shoulder. "We have done worse. You'd better hope that Filch doesn't flay us."
"Nothing's for certain," repeated Harry; he tapped the Marauder's Map with his wand. "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."
