Chapter 46: The Goblet of Fire
"How do you morph your skin to be so soft?" I ask Tonks as we lay in bed. October 31st, 1994. Sixteen minutes past five in the morning. Harry Potter's bedroom, Ravenclaw Tower, Hogwarts, Scotland.
"Just kinda do it." She shrugs, but in the position she's laying in, 'to conserve space', it doesn't really work. "Lots of moisture, I guess."
"Where does the water come from, though?" I trail my hand along her side, down to her hip. "Where does anything come from where magic is concerned?"
"Psh, don't ask me – I just an Auror." She pokes my nose. "You're the one that's supposed to figure that stuff out."
"Huh? Since when was that my responsibility? People have been trying to do that for thousands of years." She laughs, blowing warm air across my chest.
"Then it's about time somebody gets it, right?" She reasons. "Just try and do it before your beard grows in." Tonks traces my jaw with her finger. "When did this start, anyway?"
"It's barely there, but last week. I figure it's Scar catching up to me, the mane is reaching over to my body too. I won't develop a full coat of guard hairs, but if I ever do decide to grow a beard, it will be a cross between Hagrid and Albus' – Which sounds absolutely amazing, actually." I explain, marvelling at the mental image.
"Will you get some wicked claws too? I've never really tried to have claws..." She holds up her hand, inspecting her newly pointed fingernails.
"I don't think my scalp could handle you with real claws." I remark. She drops her hand and grins at me evilly.
"What are you going to do today?" Tonks asks, lacing up her boots after dressing. She's wearing a bright yellow pixie cut today.
"Avoid the festivities, avoid my professors, and try and make progress with this." I have Hedwig's pixie orb in my hands. I'm not getting out of bed for another half-hour, at least.
"Whatcha gonna do to it?" She, cruelly, wraps the invisibility cloak around herself. I wonder if she's caught on that it's THE Invisibility Cloak. She'd probably be more hesitant about using "Death's" cloak if she knew.
"No idea. I'll try pixie gold, but I'm running low on that. I'll see if Hedwig's about later too."
"How can you run out of pixie gold?" She frowns,.
"Well, Baxter, my pixie friend, hasn't been around recently. Dobby can only go to pixie-land when he's with Baxter, so he can't just go and check on them." I run my chin. "I think I might've ignited a war by destabilising their entire economy with the sudden influx of gold."
"You started a war?"
"Maybe, I hope not. Maybe he just died, crushed by his wealth, physically, not metaphorically – It's been known to happen." I try and twist the orb to 'activate' it, or maybe solve it like my Rubik's cube. Tonks leans down and kisses my cheek.
"You have fun with that, I have to meet the French Aurors today."
"Brilliant. Maybe we should just be inviting more could-be assassins into Hogwarts." I sigh. "I don't trust most of the English Aurors either, actually."
"You don't trust anyone." She rolls her eyes, pulling the invisible hood up.
"Constant vigilance." I shrug. Tonks snorts invisibly. "Oh, and stay away from the outer grounds until I've dealt with the dementors?"
"Fucking dementors." She growls.
The only progress I've made on the orb in the hour I have spent in the chamber so far is… Nothing, actually. I snuck down here under a disillusionment charm, sat at my desk, orb in hand, and haven't learnt anything new. The orb is a sort of glass, but I can't see it's creation, so I can assume it as created with magic, rather than forged. Due to the nature of pixie magic, I can't see it's exact age as time is distorted around it. From what little I know of the pixie-land, it exists in some approximation of the fourth dimension, so crossing into, or out of, it creates a blip of feedback on objects that I look at.
"Nyssssa!" I call out in Parseltongue.
"Yesss, massster?" She is busy exploring Salazar's statue. I scoop the orb up into my hand and head over to her.
"What is this?" I hold the orb up to her current perch, on Salazar's moustache, for her to taste. Her tongue flicks around the closest surface of the orb.
"An orb, master." Brilliant. A lazy, sarcastic pet snake. Why does she mimic me so well?
"I'm far too aware that it's an orb, Nysa, but try and look beyond that, please?" I ask as politely as the serpentine language can allow.
"Ssspirit orb, master. A… Tomb?"
"It's a grave? For what?"
"No, no – A vault. I taste no death, master." Now that's interesting.
"Thanksss. Bring this up next time you want food." I quickly head back to my desk.
In the great words of Victor Frankenstein – It's alive!
Lesser know fact – Victor Frankenstein, upon his final capture in 1819, was sent to Azkaban as an infamous practitioner on Necromantic magiks. Nobody questioned the English's decision, despite Frankenstein himself not being English. The ICW ruled him as a danger to wizarding kind for his blatant disregard for the Statute of Secrecy.
Even lesser known fact – The Elder Wand was lost for several years in 1819…
But anyway, back to me.
The pixie's orb is a living thing, the magic contained within the orb is more akin to a consciousness, as is most magic, than an inert object. Excluding Tonks, when I try to 'psychometrise' living things, it doesn't work very well, so without exerting my ability onto the orb, I wasn't getting anything back, but, once I tried pushing, it all became clearer, but the downside is the pounding headache that I generally associate with touching too many books.
"Urgh." I groan. Maybe hitting my head on the desk hasn't helped the headache. I'll go a run as Scar, that usually fixes me up. There's a passage, more of a pipe, than leads out into the forest down here, it's only a short run to Hagrid's from there. Tea that's somehow hotter than the boiling point of water, yet remains liquid. Just what I need.
"I don' like it, 'Arry." Hagrid says, anxiously peering through his curtains at the floating demons. "Dementors, at Hogwarts." He shakes his head. "Ain't right, I tell yeh. Dumbledore won't let it stand."
"He's trying his best to overturn the ruling, Hagrid." I say, chewing off the cake part of Hagrid's famous Rock Cakes. Pumpkin, unsurprisingly. "It's beyond his jurisdiction, only the Minister can call them off now. Albus might be able to get the ICW on his side to put pressure on Cornelius, but then it's still his ego versus the ICW."
"We got no chance, then." Hagrid grumps, slumping back down onto his chair.
"How's it look out there?"
"At least six I could see jest from the window!" He takes a huge gulp from his giant mug, there's definitely something stronger than just his tea in there. I don't think that a mug full of fire whiskey would make Hagrid so much as slur his words, however. "To Lily and James!" He suddenly spouts out, raising his tea. Maybe he was drinking before I got here too, he doesn't have any classes to do today. I smile and tap my mug to his. Most people toast to me on Halloween, but I'm not the hero. "Something stronger?" Hagrid offers whilst pouring something into his drink. Can it still be called tea?
"Uh, no thanks, Hagrid." The only experience I've had with drinking alcohol is when Fudge gave me some whiskey in his office. "How much have you had?" He shrugs his giant shoulders.
"Only a bit." He says defensively, smiling broadly under his beard.
"Why do I have the feeling that I'd be comatose for a month if I had 'only a bit'?" An intoxicated Hagrid just seems to get a bit more anxious and a lot more jolly. It's very tempting to join him, and probably end up nearly getting killed whilst trying to shoot dementors out of the sky with his crossbow, but I need to be alive to witness the champion selection.
"Nothin' but skin n' bones, you are. Nowhere to put it!" He chuckles.
"Anyone's 'skin and bones' compared to you, Hagrid." This causes him to laugh even louder. "Say, Hagrid – Do you know anything about pixies?" I cross the hut and open the thick, tattered curtains to peer up at the infested sky.
"Pixies?" He hums. "We used to get a bunch o' pixies by our 'ouse every summer. Me Dad hated em, they always pick 'im up!" He pounds a large fist on the table, shaking it despite it's sturdy build. "Lil' blighters, they'd fly up from Cornwall when the weather got too 'ot. Wouldn't get to see 'em leave after I started Hogwarts, but they only stayed about a week into each September, anyways." He takes another deep gulp from his mug, wiping his mouth with a huge swipe of his hand.
"Do you know where in particular? In Cornwall, I mean. Doesn't narrow it down too much." I turn back to him and take a sip of my, rapidly cooling, tea.
"Don't rightly know." He strokes his beard thoughtfully. "Couldn't say. 'Nobody really knows where a pixie goes', as they say."
"Nobody really knows..." I repeat softly, once more staring out into the sky.
"It appears the Goblet is almost ready to make it's decision!" Albus' booming voice quickly kills any muttering conversations. Dinner had been uneventful, near enough everybody excitedly chattering on about the champion selection. The hall holds a general 'jollyness' today, like most Halloweens, and I've overheard talk of several parties happening tonight in the common rooms to celebrate the end of the war. It seems that they will be remembering the night for a very different reason than I do, At least I didn't have to put up with the pitying looks for most of the day.
My attention is drawn back to the present as Albus reduces the candle flames in the room to almost nothing, darkening the room. I catch his eye and quirk an eyebrow at the theatrics, he smiles a tiny bit. The fire within the goblet suddenly flashes from it's subdued blue to a harsh red flame, bathing the room in light once more. The goblet flickers blue for a moment before spitting a lightly smoking piece of parchment out of the top. I'm sure we all look like a bunch of idiots, every single person watching a tiny piece of paper falling slowly from the air.
"The champion of Durmstrang-" Albus' voices echoes around the hall. "Is..." Suspense. "Viktor Krum!" The hall bursts into cheers. Viktor receives slaps on the back from the other Durmstrang students and cheering from the rest. He looks pleased with himself as he walks towards Albus. Albus shakes his hand, exchanges a few words with him, then points out the doorway in the corner of the room. He raises a hand to call for silence again as Viktor goes out of sight. Once more, our collective attention is focused on the flaming goblet.
"An invisible person could've dropped their name in when Professor Dumbledore moved it a moment ago." Luna, sitting beside me, points out. She's right – Albus removed the age line when he levitated it.
"Let's hope nobody was stupid enough to do that." I whisper back to her.
"The champion for Beauxbatons..." He unfolds the parchment. "is Fleur Delacour!" Once more the tables begin to clap, congratulating the person foolish enough to enter a game where they'll most likely die. I, of course, join in. I think I hear a few wolf whistles as Fleur saunters down the centre aisle. I don't think some of these people are even hooked into her allure right now, they're just rude.
I mean she's pretty, but she's no Tonks.
But Tonks could be Fleur. There's a thought for another time.
"And last, but certainly not least, the champion of Hogwarts … Cedric Diggory!" Albus barely gets the last syllable out before people are on their feet, mainly from the Hufflepuff table, shouting and cheering. House of the Loyal and all that jazz. Cedric half-jogs towards Albus with a mile wide grin on his face and energetically shakes the wrinkled hand before taking off towards the door, giving his table a sheepish wave before descending down the stairs. The Hufflepuffs continues cheering loudly for while until Albus gets them to calm down. "And now they are decided, a few words from Mister Bagman..."
"It's not quite finished yet." Luna voices my thoughts perfectly as the goblet violently begins to sputter. Is it going to explode? I rest my fingers on my wand holster, ready to make a shield.
Rather anti-climatically, it spits out a fourth piece of paper. I've never seen it do that – A fourth piece from the goblet – in all the times I've seen it in the hall. I'd have been less surprised if it did explode, actually.
Albus catches the, lightly smouldering, parchment between his middle and index fingers, then carefully unfolds it. A look of… panic? No, not quite. His eyes meet mine.
"Harry Potter." He shouts.
"Ah fuck." I slap my forehead.
A/N: Ah fuck.
Enjoy.