Apologies for slight lateness, been battling seasonal allergies all week and my mind was elsewhere around typical posting time. Many thanks to those who've reviewed over the last few weeks, things are atsrting to wrap up for the Veneficus trilogy writing phase, which will open up the time slots for me to work heavily on finishing editing the rest of AoM. *silent cheering* In the meantime, please R&R, and enjoy! ~F
Chapter Five
The Tournament Begins
Harry was excited for the first weekend training session in the Room of Requirement. From the looks of it, Hermione, Ron and Draco were also. Faykan and Hermione had come to an uneasy truce regarding house elves, meaning that neither would discuss the subject with the other present.
Hermione did; however, apologize for shouting at Faykan, and Faykan had apologized for saying that he'd stop speaking to her. They had gone ahead to the room before Faykan, as they remembered exactly the way it was last year, and had it form for them. Hermione had warmed up with some target practice, alternating between spells and arrows, while Draco, Ron, and Harry sparred with swords and wands. Several minutes later, Faykan slipped into the room, looking bothered and pressing his ear to the door to listen outside.
"What's wrong?" Harry asked him, but he held up a finger to his lips for silence. After several seconds he nodded to himself and walked over to them.
"I'm being followed wherever I go." Faykan said.
"What? By who?" Draco asked indignantly.
"Three Ravenclaw boys, in our year I think." Faykan explained, "They keep watching me in the Great Hall, in classes, or anytime they're present. Now one is trying to tail me all weekend I think.
"You're probably overreacting," Hermione said sensibly.
"Yeah, maybe…" Faykan said absently, and then he closed his eyes, concentrating.
The room began to expand, and a potion's lab appeared in the opposite corner from the sitting area, as well as several tables along the wall, on which models of human bodies were piled on.
"What're those for?" asked Ron nodding at the models.
"Healing magic," Faykan replied, "those models have all the parts of a normal being: heart, lungs, brain etc. One can program them to simulate a type of injury, and you can practice healing the wounds." Ron raised his eyebrows, impressed.
"And the potion lab?" Hermione asked.
"So I can work on making the Animal Spirit Potion, so you can get started on your animagus forms," Faykan replied, summoning a book from the far side of the room and setting it near the stone cauldron. He then pulled jars and bottles out of his bag, setting them up on the table nearby.
After emptying his schoolbag of everything in it, Faykan pulled the Palantír out and sent it flying gently across the room, back to the table in the sitting area.
"How long will it take to make that potion?" Harry asked as Faykan left the potion lab and joined them in the middle of the room.
"Oh, couple of months, should be ready around December or January… moon cycles you know…" Faykan said with a grin
They all grinned back at this statement; it would be worth the wait to learn to be Anamagi.
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Draco noticed a substantial increase in the fourth year's course work, and attributed it to the fact that their O.W.L.S were approaching quickly.
Draco, Harry, Faykan, Ron and Hermione were just coming from a wonderful Care of Magical Creatures lesson. Wonderful in the sense that Nott was put down spectacularly by Hagrid, who had reminded the class about what a cute bunny that Nott had made when the boy had complained about the lesson.
When they arrived in the entrance hall, they found themselves unable to proceed. This was due to the large crowd of students congregated there, all milling around a large sign that had been erected at the foot of the marble staircase. Ron, the tallest of the five, stood on tiptoe to see over the heads in front of them and read the sign aloud to the others:
TRIWIZARD TOURNAMENT
THE DELEGATIONS FROM BEAUXBATONS AND DURMSTRANG WILL BE ARRIVING AT 6 O'CLOCK ON FRIDAY THE 30TH OF OCTOBER. LESSONS WILL END HALF AN HOUR EARLY
"Brilliant!" said Harry. "It's Potions last thing on Friday! Snape won't have time to poison us all!" Draco rolled his eyes; Gryffindors had such an unimaginative impression of his godfather.
STUDENTS WILL RETURN THEIR BAGS AND BOOKS TO THEIR DORMITORIES AND ASSEMBLE IN FRONT OF THE CASTLE TO GREET OUR GUESTS BEFORE THE WELCOMING FEAST.
"Only a week away!" said a Hufflepuff boy Draco had never spoken to, who emerged from the crowd with his eyes gleaming. "I wonder if Cedric knows? Think I'll go and tell him..." and he hurried off.
"Imagine, a Hufflepuff as Hogwarts champion…" Draco said snidely, Ron laughed.
"Stop it," Hermione said, "I've heard he's a really good student, and a prefect."
"You only like him because he's handsome," Ron said scathingly.
"Excuse me, I don't like people just because they're handsome!" said Hermione indignantly.
Ron gave a loud false cough, which sounded oddly like "Lockhart!" Even Harry and Faykan laughed.
The appearance of the sign in the entrance hall had a marked effect upon the inhabitants of the castle. During the following week, there seemed to be only one topic of conversation for the rest of student body was the tournament.
Rumors were flying from student to student like highly contagious germs: who was going to try for Hogwarts champion, what the tournament would involve, how the students from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang differed from themselves.
Only their group seemed to be the calm in the midst of the storm, as Faykan kept them hard at work with their training between classes. Between stepping up their dueling and wandless spells, practicing basic healing, martial training, and their normal coursework, they were all significantly busy to have free time to speculate about the tournament.
Harry had discovered early on that his powers had grown since the dementor attack last year, and he could almost wield wandless spells as well as the rest of them, which alarmed everyone. If Harry's power was still mostly under the limits of the seal, and he was approximately at their level now, then how much more powerful would he become when the seal was removed entirely.
Faykan was pleased at Harry's progress, and pushed him harder than anyone else, Draco noticed. Fay was always trying to get Harry to try new and more difficult spells or to attempt a more complex combat technique. Not to say that he wasn't working Draco, Ron and Hermione like house elves…
Sometimes Faykan would stand over the cauldron in the corner, shouting commands and spells at them while simultaneously brewing, sometimes wielding wandless magic to keep ingredients adding themselves or the stirring rod moving while he demonstrated a wand movement or sword strike. It brought a new meaning to the word brutal, Draco thought.
Draco couldn't tell who was more paranoid, Faykan or Professor Moody. During his last lesson before Halloween, Moody announced that he would be putting the Imperius Curse on them all in turn.
"But, but you said that's illegal, Professor," protested Pansy Parkinson uncertainly as Moody cleared away the desks with a sweep of his wand, leaving a large clear space in the middle of the room.
"Dumbledore wants you taught what it feels like," said Moody, his magical eye swiveling onto the ugly girl and fixing her with an eerie, unblinking stare. "If you'd rather learn the hard way, when someone's putting it on you so they can control you completely, fine by me. You're excused. Off you go."
He pointed one gnarled finger toward the door. Parkinson scowled and sat up straighter in her seat defiantly.
Moody began to beckon students forward in turn and put the Imperius Curse upon them. Draco watched as, one by one, his classmates did the most extraordinary things under its influence. Vincent Crabbe juggled half a dozen large books for several minutes. Gregory Goyle recited complicated potion formulas he normally would have no ability to understand, let alone remember.
Nott was by far the most humorous. He tap danced around the room several times, singing love sonnets at the top of his lungs. Not one of them seemed to be able to fight off the curse, and each of them recovered only when Moody had removed it.
"Malfoy," Moody growled, "you next."
Draco moved forward into the middle of the classroom, into the space that Moody had cleared of desks. Moody raised his wand, pointed it at Draco, and said, "Imperio!"
Draco felt a warm, floating sensation beyond his basic Occlumency barriers, trying to lull him into a sense of complacency. He could hear Moody's voice, garbled and muted, "Remove your clothes…" immediately another voice, sounding like Faykan, imbedded upon a deeper, more powerful voice that resonated with strength and power, "He will not!"
Moody recoiled as if hit with a hurling hex. Staggering slightly, he looked at Draco, his mouth twitching in an amused smile, "Look at that, you lot, Malfoy threw it off completely. Very good, boy, very good indeed, you're stronger than I expected." As Draco took his seat, he noticed that Moody's magical eye was still watching him as he continued the lesson.
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When they went down to breakfast on the morning of the thirtieth of October, Hermione, Harry, Ron and Faykan found that the Great Hall had been decorated overnight. Enormous silk banners hung from the walls, each of them representing a Hogwarts House: red with a gold lion for Gryffindor, blue with a bronze eagle for Ravenclaw, yellow with a black badger for Hufflepuff, and green with a silver serpent for Slytherin. Behind the teachers' table, the largest banner of all bore the Hogwarts coat of arms: lion, eagle, badger, and snake united around a large letter 'H'.
They sat down beside Fred and George at the Gryffindor table. Once again, and most unusually, they were sitting apart from everyone else and conversing in low voices. Ron led the way over to them.
"It's a shame, all right," George was saying gloomily to Fred. "But if he won't talk to us in person, we'll have to send him the letter after all. Or we'll stuff it into his hand. He can't avoid us forever.
"Who's avoiding you?" asked Ron, sitting down next to them.
"Wish you would," said Fred, looking irritated at the interruption.
"What's a shame?" Ron pressed, turning to George.
"Having a nosy git like you for a brother," replied George.
"You two got any ideas on the Triwizard Tournament yet?" Harry asked. "Thought any more about trying to enter?"
"I asked McGonagall how the champions are chosen but she wasn't telling," said George bitterly. "She just told me to shut up and get on with transfiguring my raccoon."
"Wonder what the tasks are going to be?" said Ron thoughtfully. "You know, I bet we could do them, Harry. We've done dangerous stuff before..."
"Not in front of a panel of judges, you haven't," said Fred. "McGonagall says the champions get awarded points according to how well they've done the tasks."
"Who are the judges?" Harry asked.
"Well, the Heads of the participating schools are always on the panel," Hermione piped in, "because all three of them were injured during the Tournament of 1792, when a cockatrice the champions were supposed to be catching went on the rampage."
She noticed them all looking at her and explained exasperatedly, "It's all in 'Hogwarts, A History.' Though, of course, that book's not entirely reliable. 'A Revised History of Hogwarts'would be a more accurate title, or 'A Highly Biased and Selective History of Hogwarts, Which Glosses Over the Nastier Aspects of the School.'"
"What are you on about?" said Ron, while Harry and Faykan had looks of trepidation.
"House elves!" said Hermione, her passion flaring up. "Not once, in over a thousand pages, does 'Hogwarts, A History' mentions that we are all colluding in the oppression of a hundred slaves!"
"Valar above Hermione!" Faykan complained angrily, "have you even ever met a house elf?"
"Well, no," Hermione said.
"Well, then do you think you have a frame of reference from which to make assumption about what's good for them or not? Your condemning hundreds of thousands of witches and wizards over the actions of two individuals!" he spat at her. Hermione felt awful, she was rather jumping the gun with S.P.E.W.
"Tell you what Hermione," Fred said, patting her arm.
"How about we tell you how to get into the kitchens," said George.
"And you can meet the Hogwarts house elves," continued Fred.
"Then you can see how they think they have the best jobs in the world," finished George.
Hermione smiled, a new plan forming in her mind. She would meet actual house elves, and see what they truly wanted.
Just then a brown owl fluttered down, depositing a letter to Harry, and flew off again. Harry tore open the letter, and Hermione leaned over to see what was written.
Harry.
I'm back in the country and well hidden. I want you to keep me posted on everything that's going on at Hogwarts. Don't use Hedwig, keep changing owls, and don't worry about me, just watch out for yourself Don't forget what I said about your scar.
Sirius
"Why d'you have to keep changing owls?" Ron asked in a low voice.
"Hedwig'll attract too much attention," said Faykan at once. "She stands out. A snowy owl that keeps returning to wherever he's hiding... I mean, they're not native birds, are they? Don't worry about school owls though Harry, you can use my ravens, they'll be a lot less conspicuous."
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Severus frowned as the bell rang a half hour early for the student to prepare to greet the students from the other European wizarding schools. Honestly, Severus had very little interest in dealing with Karkaroff, Headmaster of Durmstrang and a fellow Death Eater, but Albus would insist upon it, on top of his other duties of potion making, teaching, and spying on Undol…
Speaking of the boy, Severus looked up to see that Undol hadn't left his seat, despite his bag and other items vanishing, along with his cloak and other clothes for the cold outdoors already on him, ready for the welcoming feast. "Yes?" Severus said irritably. What did the boy want to torment him with now?
"Sir," Undol said, standing and taking a few steps forward, "I was wondering if… that is, if you didn't mind of course… if you wouldn't mind…"
"Spit it out, Undol, I don't have all day…" Severus sneered irritably. Honestly, the timing of these students.
"I wanted to know if I could sometimes come and, you know… sometimes talk to you…" Severus raised an eyebrow. Why would a Gryffindor, this Gryffindor of all people, want to talk with him on a consistent basis?
"And the reason you can't talk to your Head of House is?" Severus responded snidely, hoping the boy would take the hint.
"Because Sir, you and I both know that Professor McGonagall doesn't actively talk with her students independently. And besides," the boy shifted, looking uncomfortable for a moment, "She'd never understand my concerns…"
"And you think I would, or would even want to waste my precious time chatting with a whining, moaning teenager?" Severus shot back.
Undol gave him a hurt look, and without saying another word, turned and left. Severus sighed in relief. Had the boy persisted, Severus did not know if he could have refused him for too much longer. Hadn't he sought the same thing when he was a Hogwarts?
Between Faykan and Lily, he had had all the people to listen to him that he had ever wanted. Perhaps if he hurried he could catch Undol before he left the dungeons…
No, no! If he spent time alone with Undol, Albus would expect him to wring answers from the boy, and that would only lead to long nights and many headaches for Severus. Yes, this was about him not wanting his time wasted; he had no concern that he would have had to betray the boy's trust if he accepted to talk with him…
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"Nearly six," said Ron, checking his watch and then staring down the drive that led to the front gates. "How d'you reckon they're coming? The train?"
"I doubt it," said Hermione.
The entire school was waiting in front of the school for the arrival of the people from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, all arranged by house and year on the steps in front of the castle. Harry stood in the fourth row, between Faykan and Ron. Everyone was quietly speculating how the foreigners were going to arrive.
"How, then? Broomsticks?" Harry suggested, looking up at the starry sky.
"I don't think so... not from that far away...
"A Portkey?" Ron suggested. "Or they could Apparate, maybe you're allowed to do it under seventeen wherever they come from?"
"You can't Apparate inside the Hogwarts grounds, how often do I have to tell you?" said Hermione impatiently.
"Whatever it is," Faykan said, "It'll probably be flashy and dramatic…" Harry was inclined to agree. He remembered what Mr. Weasley had said back at the campsite before the Quidditch World Cup: 'always the same, we can't resist showing off when we get together...'
And then Dumbledore called out from the back row where he stood with the other teachers, "Aha! Unless I am very much mistaken, the delegation from Beauxbatons approaches!"
"Where?" said many students eagerly, all looking in different directions.
"There!" yelled a sixth year, pointing over the forest.
Something large, much larger than a broomstick or, indeed, a hundred broomsticks, was hurtling across the deep blue sky toward the castle, growing larger all the time.
"It's a dragon!" shrieked one of the first years, losing her head completely.
"Don't be stupid... it's a flying house!" said Dennis Creevey.
Dennis's guess was closer... a gigantic, powder blue, horse drawn carriage, the size of a large house, was soaring toward them, pulled through the air by a dozen winged horses, all palominos, and each the size of an elephant.
The front three rows of students drew backward as the carriage hurtled ever lower, coming in to land at a tremendous speed, then, with an almighty crash it hit the ground, bouncing upon its vast wheels, while the golden horses tossed their enormous heads and rolled large, fiery red eyes.
Harry just had time to see that the door of the carriage bore a coat of arms (two crossed, golden wands, each emitting three stars) before it opened. A boy in pale blue robes jumped down from the carriage, bent forward, fumbled for a moment with something on the carriage floor, and unfolded a set of golden steps. He sprang back respectfully. Then Harry saw the largest woman he had ever seen in his life step out. The size of the carriage, and of the horses, was immediately explained. A few people gasped.
Harry had only ever seen one person as large as this woman in his life, and that was Hagrid; he doubted whether there was an inch difference in their heights. Yet somehow, maybe simply because he was used to Hagrid, this woman seemed even more unnaturally large.
As she stepped into the light flooding from the entrance hall, she was revealed to have a handsome, olive skinned face; large, black, liquid looking eyes; and a rather beaky nose. Her hair was drawn back in a shining knob at the base of her neck. She was dressed from head to foot in black satin, and many magnificent opals gleamed at her throat and on her thick fingers.
Dumbledore started to clap; the students, following his lead, broke into applause too, many of them standing on tiptoe, the better to look at this woman.
"My dear Madame Maxime," he said. "Welcome to Hogwarts."
"Dumbly-dorr," said Madame Maxime in a deep voice. "I 'ope I find you well?"
"In excellent form, I thank you," said Dumbledore.
"My pupils," said Madame Maxime, waving one of her enormous hands carelessly behind her.
Harry, whose attention had been focused completely upon Madame Maxime, now noticed that about a dozen boys and girls. By the look of them in their late teens, emerged from the carriage and were now standing behind Madame Maxime. They were shivering, which was unsurprising given that their robes seemed to be made of fine silk, and none of them were wearing cloaks. A few had wrapped scarves and shawls around their heads. From what Harry could see of them (they were standing in Madame Maxime's enormous shadow), they were staring up at Hogwarts with apprehensive looks on their faces.
"'As Karkaroff arrived yet?" Madame Maxime asked.
"He should be here any moment," said Dumbledore. "Would you like to wait here and greet him or would you prefer to step inside and warm up a trifle?"
"Warm up, I think," said Madame Maxime. She then gestured back toward the carriage. "My steeds require… err, forceful 'andling," she explained, "Zey are very strong..."
"I assure you that Hagrid will be well up to the job," said Dumbledore, smiling.
"Very well," said Madame Maxime, bowing slightly. "Will you please inform zis 'Agrid zat ze 'orses drink only single malt whiskey?"
"It will be attended to," said Dumbledore, also bowing.
"Come," said Madame Maxime imperiously to her students, and the Hogwarts crowd parted to allow her and her students to pass up the stone steps.
Thankfully, they only had to wait in the cold air several more minutes before a loud and oddly eerie noise could be heard drifting toward them from out of the darkness: a muffled rumbling and sucking sound, as though an immense vacuum cleaner were moving along a riverbed.
"The lake!" yelled Lee Jordan, pointing down at it. "Look at the lake!"
From their position at the top of the lawns overlooking the grounds, they had a clear view of the smooth black surface of the water, except that the surface was suddenly not smooth at all. Some disturbance was taking place deep in the center; great bubbles were forming on the surface, waves were now washing over the muddy banks, and then, out in the very middle of the lake, a whirlpool appeared, as if a giant plug had just been pulled out of the lake's floor…
What seemed to be a long, black pole began to rise slowly out of the heart of the whirlpool... and then Harry saw the rigging...
"It's a mast!" he said to Ron, Faykan and Hermione.
Slowly, magnificently, the ship rose out of the water, gleaming in the moonlight. It had a strangely skeletal look about it, as though it were a resurrected wreck, and the dim, misty lights shimmering at its portholes looked like ghostly eyes. Finally, with a great sloshing noise, the ship emerged entirely, bobbing on the turbulent water, and began to glide toward the bank. A few moments later, they heard the splash of an anchor being thrown down in the shallows, and the thud of a plank being lowered onto the bank.
People were disembarking; they could see their silhouettes passing the lights in the ship's portholes. All of them, Harry noticed, seemed to be built along the lines of Crabbe and Goyle... but then, as they drew nearer, walking up the lawns into the light streaming from the entrance hall, he saw that their bulk was really due to the fact that they were wearing cloaks of some kind of shaggy, matted fur. But the man who was leading them up to the castle was wearing furs of a different sort: sleek and silver, like his hair.
"Dumbledore!" he called heartily as he walked up the slope. "How are you, my dear fellow, how are you?"
"Blooming, thank you, Professor Karkaroff," Dumbledore replied. Karkaroff had a fruity, unctuous voice; when he stepped into the light pouring from the front doors of the castle they saw that he was tall and thin like Dumbledore, but his white hair was short, and his goatee (finishing in a small curl) did not entirely hide his rather weak chin. When he reached Dumbledore, he shook hands with both of his own. "Dear old Hogwarts," he said, looking up at the castle and smiling; his teeth were rather yellow, and Harry noticed that his smile did not extend to his eyes, which remained cold and shrewd. "How good it is to be here, how good... Viktor, come along, into the warmth... you don't mind, Dumbledore? Viktor has a slight head cold..."
Karkaroff beckoned forward one of his students. As the boy passed, Harry caught a glimpse of a prominent curved nose and thick black eyebrows.
He didn't need the punch on the arm Ron gave him, or the hiss in his ear, to recognize that profile. "Harry… it's Krum!"
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Albus smiled to himself as he chatted with Igor about trivialities concerning the tournament, but his mind was rapidly pulling ends together. Alastor had reported that Undol was becoming frazzled by the number of people watching him, helped along with repeated attempts at legilimency on Albus' part. His defenses were defiantly wearing thinner.
Now that the tournament was about to begin, the next phase of his ingenious plan could commence. Alastor was going to put the boy's name in the goblet of fire during the night, and if Albus knew Undol like he thought he did, he would be guaranteed to be chosen as champion. The added stresses and strains of the tournament upon everything else would finally reveal a crack in the boy's emotional armor, allowing Albus to shatter the child, and either discard or reforge him into another tool for the war against Voldemort.
Once the golden plates had been wiped clean, Dumbledore stood up again. A pleasant sort of tension seemed to fill the Hall now.
"The moment has come," Albus said, smiling around at the sea of upturned faces. "The Triwizard Tournament is about to start. I would like to say a few words of explanation before we bring in the casket, just to clarify the procedure that we will be following this year. But first, let me introduce, for those who do not know them, Mr. Bartemius Crouch, Head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation," there was a smattering of polite applause, "and Mr. Ludo Bagman, Head of the Department of Magical Games and Sports."
There was a much louder round of applause for Ludo than for Barty.
"Mr. Bagman and Mr. Crouch have worked tirelessly over the last few months on the arrangements for the Triwizard Tournament," Albus continued, allowing his gaze to flit over Harry and his friends at the Gryffindor table, "and they will be joining myself, Professor Karkaroff, and Madame Maxime on the panel that will judge the champions' efforts."
At the mention of the word "champions," the attentiveness of the listening students seemed to sharpen. He smiled again at his ability to command an audiences attention as he said, "The casket, then, if you please, Mr. Filch."
Argus walked over, carrying the jeweled casket that contained the Goblet of Fire to Albus. "As you know, three champions compete in the tournament," Albus went on calmly, "one from each of the participating schools. They will be marked on how well they perform each of the Tournament tasks and the champion with the highest total after task three will win the Triwizard Cup. The champions will be chosen by an impartial selector: the Goblet of Fire."
Albus tapped the casket with wand three times to open it, and pulled out the large, rough, wooden cup, its brim dancing with blue white flames.
Momentarily he sensed a powerful flare of anger from the direction of Undol, but what the reasoning was he did not know, but set aside the memory for later review.
"Anybody wishing to submit themselves as champion must write their name and school clearly upon a slip of parchment and drop it into the goblet," Albus continued, "Aspiring champions have twenty four hours in which to put their names forward. Tomorrow night, Halloween, the goblet will return the names of the three it has judged most worthy to represent their schools. The goblet will be placed in the entrance hall tonight, where it will be freely accessible to all those wishing to compete."
Albus continued, explaining that he would be drawing an age line around the goblet to prevent anyone under the age of seventeen from entering. In reality, its main purpose was to prevent Harry from entering, as he was far too valuable to put in such danger, but Albus wasn't going to mention that to anyone.
"Finally, I wish to impress upon any of you wishing to compete that this tournament is not to be entered into lightly. Once a champion has been selected by the Goblet of Fire, he or she is obliged to see the tournament through to the end. The placing of your name in the goblet constitutes a binding, magical contract. There can be no change of heart once you have become a champion. Please be very sure, therefore, that you are wholeheartedly prepared to play before you drop your name into the goblet. Now, I think it is time for bed. Good night to you all."
As the student went off to their common rooms, Albus sent a pointed look at Alastor, who nodded his understanding of his mission. And with that, Albus went to retire himself, smiling at a plan that was about to come to fruition.
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Severus was patrolling the corridors at around midnight, when he saw something peculiar in the entrance hall. Moody was standing near the Goblet of Fire, tipping pieces of parchment into it.
"Hello Snape," he said without turning around. 'Damn that blasted eye of his,' Severus thought as he stepped out of the shadow, "What are you doing, Moody," he sneered.
"Not that it's any of you're business, but I'm doing a job for Dumbledore, there's a name he wants entered for a student requested to be in the tournament, but cannot as he's in the Hospital Wing right now. Now, goodnight, Snape." And he limped away.
Severus had the feeling that Moody was flat out lying to him, but he could not prove his suspicions. But there was the fact that he distinctly saw Moody put two pieces of parchment in the goblet, as well as the muttering he had heard coming from the Ex-Auror's scarred lips.
Potential Spoilers Ahead, you have been warned!
So it begins, the tournament and its revolving plots. Albus starts his master plan to get Faykan to submit, and everything will start hitting the fan next chapter! cya next time! ~F