A crippled man stood in the doorway, leaning upon a long staff barely visible from the folds of his black cloak. His face was shockingly illuminated by a flash of lightning, revealing a frizz of grey hair over a madly moving eye. He limped to the teacher's table, a clunk emitting every-other step from his foot. Looking over at the rest of the students, his face was suddenly more horrifying. It looked like someone took a piece of ham and mushed it between their hands, before throwing it in the oven to dry. Lines of scars overlapped, with a diagonal slit for a mouth and his nose partially missing.
Dumbledore and the man conversed briefly, before Dumbledore turned back to all of us.
"May I introduce our new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher?" said Dumbledore, attempting to break the silence. "Professor Moody."
Only Dumbledore and Hagrid applauded, as we all dumbly looked on.
Moody seemed totally indifferent to his less-than-warm welcome. Ignoring the jug of pumpkin juice in front of him, he reached again into his traveling cloak, pulled out a hip flask, and took a long draught from it. It most likely was alcohol, or something of that sort. As he lifted his arm to drink, his cloak was pulled a few inches from the ground, and I saw a long wooden peg leg.
Dumbledore cleared his throat.
"As I was saying," he said, smiling at the sea of students before him, all of whom were still gazing transfixed at Mad-Eye Moody, "we are to have the honor of hosting a very exciting event over the coming months, an event that has not been held for over a century. It is my very great pleasure to inform you that the Triwizard Tournament will be taking place at Hogwarts this year. "
"You're JOKING!" said a boy from the back loudly. We all laughed, and Dumbledore smirked.
The tension that had filled the Hall ever since Moody's arrival suddenly broke. Nearly everyone laughed, and Dumbledore chuckled appreciatively.
"I am not joking, Mr. Weasley," he said, "though now that you mention it, I did hear an excellent one over the summer about a troll, a hag, and a leprechaun who all go into a bar. "
Professor McGonagall cleared her throat loudly, making sure that Dumbledore refrained from making an inappropriate joke in front of innocent 11 year olds.
"Er - but maybe this is not the time. . . no. . . " trailed Dumbledore, "where was I? Ah yes, the Triwizard Tournament. . . well, some of you will not know what this tournament involves, so I hope those who do know will forgive me for giving a short explanation, and allow their attention to wander freely.
"The Triwizard Tournament was first established some seven hundred years ago as a friendly competition between the three largest European schools of wizardry: Hogwarts, Beauxbatons, and Durmstrang. A champion was selected to represent each school, and the three champions competed in three magical tasks. The schools took it in turns to host the tournament once every five years, and it was generally agreed to be a most excellent way of establishing ties between young witches and wizards of different nationalities - until, that is, the death toll mounted so high that the tournament was discontinued. "
Death toll? What kind of stuff was Europe meddling with?!
"There have been several attempts over the centuries to reinstate the tournament," Dumbledore continued, "none of which has been very successful. However, our own departments of International Magical Cooperation and Magical Games and Sports have decided the time is ripe for another attempt. We have worked hard over the summer to ensure that this time, no champion will find himself or herself in mortal danger.
"The heads of Beauxbatons and Durmstrang will be arriving with their short-listed contenders in October, and the selection of the three champions will take place at Halloween. An impartial judge will decide which students are most worthy to compete for the Triwizard Cup, the glory of their school, and a thousand Galleons personal prize money. "
Everyone suddenly seemed interested in winning, causing me to nearly snort. Wizards were always the risky type, putting themselves in mortal danger for bragging rights and a good story to tell around the fire. As we age, it seems all the more we try to one-up our peers. However, I hold no interest in competing if I have to deal with near-death experiences. That's why I left Ilvermorny, after all. Hogwarts is probably more safe than the deathtrap overseas...
"Eager though I know all of you will be to bring the Triwizard Cup to Hogwarts," he said, "the heads of the participating schools, along with the Ministry of Magic, have agreed to impose an age restriction on contenders this year. Only students who are of age - that is to say, seventeen years or older - will be allowed to put forward their names for consideration. This -" Dumbledore raised his voice slightly, for several people had made noises of outrage at these words - "is a measure we feel is necessary, given that the tournament tasks will still be difficult and dangerous, whatever precautions we take, and it is highly unlikely that students below sixth and seventh year will be able to cope with them. I will personally be ensuring that no underage student hoodwinks our impartial judge into making them Hogwarts champion. I therefore beg you not to waste your time submitting yourself if you are under seventeen."
"The delegations from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang will be arriving in October and remaining with us for the greater part of this year. I know that you will all extend every courtesy to our foreign guests while they are with us, and will give your whole-hearted support to the Hogwarts champion when he or she is selected. And now, it is late, and I know how important it is to you all to be alert and rested as you enter your lessons tomorrow morning. Bedtime! Chop chop!"
Dinner ended, and I wandered back to the room with the boys.
"Bet people under 17 are going to try anyway," Finnigan mutters, causing me to scoff. "They're idiots if they do so."
"Don't you want prize money? 1,000 galleons!" Dean urges. "Not worth it," I respond. "Even if it's safer than past years, it'll still be stupid dangerous, that's why there's an age limit. That's like throwing an 11 year old in a professional Quidditch game." I take a sip of my pumpkin juice, ending the conversation on a high note.
"We did that in our first year, so why shouldn't we compete?"
I nearly choked on my pumpkin juice. "Excuse me, what?" I ask, as Finnigan nods.
"Harry Potter was our seeker first year, and has been since. He must be pissed now that we don't have Quidditch," Dean states, causing me to laugh.
"Isn't he, like, 11?" I ask, causing Finnigan to shake his head. "You're obviously not up to news. He's in our year. Don't you read the Daily Prophet?"
"We don't have that in America, we have the Daily Patriot."
"Patriot? Isn't that too American?" Finnigan scoffs as I laugh.
"Nothing is too American. Ilvermorny teaches us the basics of wordless magic at a young age so all we have to do is point-and-shoot, in true American fashion," I point out. "It'll be tough for me to adjust saying my words out loud around y'all."
We arrived at a portrait of a fat woman.
"Balderdash," Dean states, causing the painting to swing open. "That's the password, mind you. Step up!"
I follow behind them, gawking in awe. An old-fashioned room, warm with maroon overstuffed chairs and detailed Turkish carpets lined the room. A fire blazed next to tapestries depicting courageous events. Two staircases parted at the top, lined with students traversing up and down, with the occasional boy sliding down the wrong stairwell.
"Welcome, to your new home," Dean states as I nod. "Not too shabby..."
"Oi, you're bluffing! It's probably way better than whatever stuffy place Ilvermorny has," Dean groans as I laugh. "It's definitely different from here, in Wampus we had our own cabin-y room. It was... warm and nice."
"Very descriptive," Finnigan laughs. "I'm beat, I'm off to bed."
"Same as well," Dean turns back to me. "Sorry, you can't come to our dorm room."
"I wouldn't want to anyway, you probably all smell like B.O in there," my nose crinkles in mock disgust as Dean mock-punches me. "You're too cruel! And possibly too true. Night!"
The two boys run up as I wave them off, before heading up the opposite stairs to the fourth year dorm room. Inhaling through my nose, I creak the door open, looking inside. There were 6 four-poster beds, draped in luxurious red blankets detailed in gold thread, with a desk next to each one. Four girls were talking by one bed, as another girl was reading on her own bed. Glancing at the bed beside her, I saw my trunk was there, an empty desk to its right.
Stepping over to it, I noticed everyone's eyes were on me.
"Uh, hello," I greet, turning to them. "I'm Florence Murray."
"We know," a girl with braided pigtails says, before shaking her head. "That sounded rude, I meant we heard it at the feast. We just thought you were a first year."
"An extremely tall one at that. Fay Dunbar," a girl with big blue eyes and brown hair says. "The rude one is Blu Kentz."
"Lavender Brown," another says. Her curly blonde hair was pulled in low pigtails, tied back by a light purple scarf.
"I'm Kellah Darth," the last girl says, fiddling with her box braids. Looking over at the last one, who had looked up from her book, she looked me up and down with suspicion.
"Hermoine Granger."
"Well, it's nice to meet all of you," I clear my throat, as the all nod, before returning to their activities. Sitting by my trunk, I unpack it, looking at Merida that had curled up on someone else's bed next to another fat cat. Looking to the right, I saw it was Hermoine's bed.
"I'm sorry about my cat, I can move her-"
"It's fine," she responds, not bothering to look up from her papers. "Crookshanks is enjoying themselves, and I don't mind cat hair. Crookshanks sheds a new coat every week or so, anyway."
I laugh slightly at that. "I've made myself a couple sweaters from Merida's fur. I'm just surprised Crookshanks likes Merida."
"And why is that?" Hermoine looks at me, as if I was calling her cat mean.
"Have you seen my cat?" I question, as she turns to my cat, jolting back in shock. "Merlin!"
I laugh, shaking my head. "She came like that. I don't know how she lost her left eye, but that doesn't make her any less friendly. And she's pretty mangy, but I think that makes her even cuter..." I flopped back onto my bed.
Hermoine looks back at me, before looking back down at the papers in front of her. "The boys are here, you know."
I look at her in confusion, as she turns to me, looking slightly annoyed.
"The ones from the Triwizard Cup? Unless you normally run around with strangers-"
"No, sorry," I rub my brows. "A lot happened that night and I tried shoving it in the back of my mind so I could forget, it's nothing against you and them."
Hermoine huffed, looking back at her papers. "It couldn't have been too hard for you to just stay for five more minutes-"
"My dad died that night, and all that was left was a handful of him. I had to get back to make sure I didn't lose more of him-" I snap in a harsh whisper, before stopping myself mid sentence.
"I'm sorry-" she awkwardly apologizes.
"It's nothing," I exhale lowly through my nose. "I'm...I'm sorry, I usually don't snap at others. I've just been on edge since that night," I glance aside, fiddling awkwardly with my hands. "Can you...can you pretend you didn't hear what I told you? I don't want people knowing about it," I ask, as she nods.
"I'll tell the boys that you were injured and needed treatment, something about 3 ribs being broken," Hermoine makes up, causing me to smile lightly. "Perfect, thank you."
"I'm still sorry, though," Hermoine looks down, clearly feeling a bit guilty as I wave it off.
"If you want to make it up to me, let me sit by you sometime tomorrow, I don't feel like Dean, Finnigan and Neville would be the most reliable of people during class," I joke as she smiles.
"I'd be glad to."