A/N: I have the FF app on my phone now, so I can receive messages there too. Quite why they aren't shared, I don't know.

Chapter 45: Delegation arrival

"What terrible fate has befallen you that brings you to my carpet today?" Albus asks me after finishing whatever it was that he was writing whilst I lay face down on the floor in his office. If the house elves didn't clean this, I wouldn't want my face anywhere close to where all these dirty shoes have been.

"Hedwig broke up with me." My voice comes out muffled.

"Ah." Is all he says. I roll my head to the side.

"I knew it was coming, but… well I think I thought we had more time? I don't know." I let out a suffering sigh. "This is the best outcome for her though, I wouldn't want her to stay with me in the same way now that her feelings have changed."

"I have heard many times that if you love something, you should let it free."

"I suppose it's true. Now she is free to spread her wings, forgive the pun, and find her way. It's a shame I haven't managed to find a way for her to channel magic yet." I roll my head to the other side, looking over at Albus. "If she could, would she be able to enroll as a student here?"

"Unless she is a witch-"

"Which she isn't." I interject.

"Then it will be a decision for the board of governors." He finishes.

"Hmm." I roll over, onto my back. "She's a part of my family by law, so they can't kick her out into the normal world, so that's not a worry any more." I rest my arms behind my head. "Any ideas? On the magic part, I mean."

"Perhaps a staff, rather than a wand?" He strokes his beard thoughtfully. "But what then would be the focus?"

"I've tried her with a few different wands, precious metals, and even pixie gold." Albus' eyebrow quirks at the last one. "None of them worked. She could tell the difference between gold and pixie gold though, but the only other reaction was when she insisted on trying to hold mithril for as long as she could..." She still has the burn mark on her palm, three days later.

"A thought for another time." He announces, standing up and clapping his hands once. "As your familiar, she is welcome in the castle whenever you are." Free food and lodging – No problem with that. I climb to my feet and brush the lint off of my robes. I should put a lint repelling charm on them really.

"Oh, Why are you even up here, by the way? Shouldn't you be… well anywhere but your office?"

"Tradition is to have the Headmaster of the host school not meet with the other delegations until the entrance ceremony." He explains. "I feel I have already toed the line by welcoming them onto the grounds." They arrived earlier, about two hours ago now, but I wasn't outside with everyone else to watch, I can just watch in happen later. Maybe I should stop lurking in dark chambers next to basilisk corpses in my free time.

"How are the champions going to be picked?" I ask him, following on as he walks out of his office at a leisurely pace, despite the fact that dinner is due to start in quarter of an hour.

"I would have thought that you would have overheard something by now." I can hear the smile on his face.

"Bits and pieces about a goblet, and I sincerely hope it isn't anything to do with alcohol." The gargoyle slides into place beside us after we cross out into the corridor leading to the headmaster's tower.

"Ah, It is nice to know that some things still slip by you. I shall leave you wondering until the feast."

"I hate surprises." I grumble.

"Mister Potter! Where have you been?" McGonagall looks down at me disapprovingly after I arrive at the corridor leading to the great hall. I'm late for being early? "Never mind that." She pushes me towards the doors. "And Potter..." I turn back to her.

"Professor?"

"Straighten that tie." She looks at me disapprovingly.

"Aye-aye." I say under my breath. The whole staff has been frantically trying to impress upon the student body than we have to at least look neat and organised around the other schools, even if we actually aren't. Fake it 'til you make it.

In the past when the Tri-wizard tournament has been hosted at Hogwarts, they lay out extra tables for the other schools, this time the ancient hand-crafted tables look to have been transfigured to be longer, allowing extra room for this year's additional students.

Godric would be rolling in his grave if he knew what they'd done to his tables.

"Pssst." Did I just get…?

"Oh, I didn't think you'd be in here." Tonks is 'guarding' the doorway inside the hall. 'Guarding' apparently consists of leaning against the wall. She's wearing her fancy crimson Auror robes, which only come out for ceremonial occasions. Usually they're screwed up at in the bottom of a cupboard at home. The badge embroidered at the breast has some convoluted way of displaying Tonks' job and her current rank, although I don't think anybody even knows what the crest marking mean, despite claiming otherwise.

"Shack's gotta walk around in the cold all night, so I'm ain't complainin'." She grins.

"Poor Kingsley, Forced to actually work." She rolls her eyes.

"I am working. Dya know how hard it'll be once the food is rolled out?" She looks pained.

"You could-"

"Potter. Find a seat." McGonagall reuses the phrase for perhaps the thousandth time since being employed here.

"Sorry, Professor." My smile doesn't do much, or anything, to soften the glare. She turns on her heel and strides towards her seat. Tonks sticks her blue tongue out at me as I head for the Ravenclaw benches. I sit down beside Hedwig, who, in turn, is sitting next to Luna.

"You know what sucks?" Hedwig asks me as our elbows touch.

"Humans when confronted with a straw in their drink?" I suggest.

"No. Well, yes, but I was thinking of another thing." She shakes her head to get back on track. Clearly I just interrupted the rhythm of whatever she'd planned to say. "Breaking up with one person is bad enough, but two? In one day?" She slumps onto the table, resting her face in her arms.

"I'm sure you'll think of something." I say in a placating manner. "Tonks'll undersand."

"And you were so nice about it too." She continues to moan. Ah, the angst stage. "Both of you are too nice."

"I'd say I'm about thirty percent nice." I look over at Tonks, she's rocking back and forth on her feet. "Tonks is like… seventy, no sixty percent nice." Tonks spots me watching and winks.

"I wonder if she thinks about you as much as you think about her." Hedwig muses.

"Do I do that a lot?" This is answered by Hedwig scoffing.

"Only all the time. I don't even think you realise because it's going on in your head, I get the outside view of it. Almost every situation, even when some girl has an extra button or two undone and is trying to chat you up. You think 'Tonks would be laughing at me if she were here.' Or jokes you get excited to tell, then don't because nobody else would get it." She explains. "It's kind of sweet, really." Huh.

"Do you mind telling her that some time? That would earn me some major points." Not that I need points, but, as Bruce Forsyth frequently implies – Points mean prizes. Tonks winks at me after seeing that I'm watching her, but almost trips over as the doors burst open to admit the Durmstrang students. I think Albus said something a second ago. They come in two lines with chanting and staves, upholding the very… masculine image people tend to associate with the school. Halfway into the hall, the staves are abruptly set down and the acrobatics begins, I'm far more interested in the scorch marks left on the floor.

I can't wait to see what profanities Filch comes up with when he has to clean them.

"And now, the lovely ladies of Beauxbatons Academy of Magic!" Albus raises his hands and the doors open again. Why is there even an elaborate entrance like this? They've been here for ages already. Regardless of my opinion on the matter, the blue uniform-clad girls prance into the room. Butterflies and gymnastics. If Durmstrang is the 'manly' school, and Beauxbatons is the 'girly' school, where does that leave Hogwarts? The one with the worst name? Madam Maxime enters the hall after her students, accompanied by Fleur Delacour. A haze sets into the air as she walks by, I flinch my arm away from Hedwig and my vision instantly clears up. No desire to watch Fleur as she walks, was I feeling it through Hedwig? I glance over at Tonks, who seems to have missed the whole thing by peeking her head out of the hall, looking for intruders I suppose.

"Hedwig." I whisper, shaking her form the trance. Her dreamy expression sours into a scowl as she crosses her arms angrily. I can foresee this being a problem.

"You can feel it now?" She whispers back.

"Only with contact, which I shall avoid." The students watch as our foreign visitors seat at our, newly extended, tables.

After dinner, the tables are moved to allow room for the Goblet of Fire to sit in the centre of the hall. Albus very quickly had his age line in place to ensure nobody endangered their lives, nobody under the age of 17, that is. Ideally, I'd have liked to sit with him in his office for a chat tonight, but he has to go and be important, so instead I've opted to try and figure out if the goblet makes any indication to it's choice as they are entered.

From what I've witnessed, a tendril of magic reaches out from the goblet each time a piece of parchment enters it's range, no doubt it checks the name and school written on it before accepting it. One edge of the goblet, when approached, actually begins to read the entry outside of Albus' age line because, despite the age line being perfectly circular, the cup isn't perfectly in the centre, or maybe the enchantments upon the goblet aren't symmetrical? It's impossible to know. Well, not without vigorous inspection of the cup.

So far, every single entry, of which there have been 23, has evoked the exact same reaction from the artifact. The champions may well have already been chosen, and the magic decides exactly who it is later, or there might be a shift in it's magic if it decides when the name is entered. It's also possible that the goblet knows who it wants, and is just waiting for them to enter. All hail the omnipotent cup!

"What's so funny?" Tonks is now sitting on the bench behind me. "You've just been staring at it."

"Enchanter's humour." I say dismissively. "I'm trying to figure out who is picks, but I've got nothing yet." Tonks moves onto my bench. "Would you have entered in your seventh year?"

"Mmm. Maybe? Ask me again when we see how dangerous it is." She stretches her legs out in front of her. "How about you? If they do it again in a few years?"

"That'd be tempting fate." I laugh. "I'd definitely get chosen if I did, then every possible bad thing that could happen, every oversight in security and safety, would align to try and kill me. On top of everything else that's been going on, it'd probably finish me off." At least one of the champions this year is projected to die, even with the added safety. 'Safety' in the form of soul sucking demons. Lovely. "Spoken to Hedwig yet?" I see her nod in my peripheral vision.

"She said she was relieved that you didn't react badly." I look away from the goblet as she lets out a sigh. Long black, wavy hair. "S'like you said, it was always gonna happen."

"C'est la vie." I dig my cloak out of my pocket. "Here, saves you sleuthing about as a Ravenclaw student tonight." She stuffs it into the pocket of her robe.

"Oh, that reminds me – I brought that pixie orb with me like you asked. Think it'll work?" It was actually her idea in a letter.

"It transformed her, so it's probably our best chance." I shake my head as another entrant fails to evoke a different reaction. "I'm not going to my classes tomorrow anyway, Halloween n'all, so I'll see what I can find out about it."

"In your underground lair." She smiles teasingly.

"It's not a lair, It's a chamber." She rolls her eyes. "You be surprised how often Godric and Salazar would have the exact same exchange."

"You have to tell me about them some day. Tonight, maybe?" She asks, somehow making it sound suggestive.

"Sans the Auror robe?"

"Hmm, naked and listening to a story in bed? It'll be like we're still at home."

"I didn't say anything about being naked."

"You said without the robe." A sly smirk spreads across her face as she stands up.

"You're…?"

"Goodnight, Harry." She walks away, seemly aware of my lingering eyes.

Damn it.

A/N: The words just weren't coming to me for this one. By far the hardest chapter I've ever composed, hopefully you like it.

Relationships don't last forever, as much as we often may wish them to.

Enjoy.