A Message from the Author

Hi everyone,

I owe you a bit of an apology and an explanation for why I have been away so long. Unfortunately, my computer broke a little while ago. It is still away for repair, as the motherboard needs work done. Unfortunately, this means that I lost an enormous amount of my writing, including six chapters of this story, which hadn't been backed up before my computer crashed. I lost not only the chapters of this story, but also the original After the Battle of Hogwarts, some of my idea documents for the series, my Hunger Games stories, and The Great Prophecy.

It has taken a while to recover what work I can, and find the drive to get writing again. This chapter might be a little short, but I hope you enjoy it, and I could really use you guys support.

Thanks,

IronManRidingaNimbus.

The Magic's Edge

Gabrielle sat down to breakfast in the Neptune Lounge aboard the Queen's Gambit, sinking into a leather chair opposite her team mate, Natalie Campbell. Over the past couple of days, Gabrielle had tried her best to get to know her two teammates. Joshua was very quiet, and rarely spoke to anyone, in fact, the big boy had hardly been seen outside of his cabin except at meals, and Gabrielle began to wonder what hidden talents had caused the Goblet of Fire to choose him. Natalie, on the other hand, was very happy to talk to Gabrielle once she'd gotten her to open up a little. Natalie was a seventh year who shared some classes with Regina, her favourite class was Charms, just like Gabrielle, but Natalie was scared of flying, unlike Gabrielle. She had achieved Outstanding in most of her O.W.L's, which Gabrielle had come to learn were the equivalent of the exams she would've taken during her sixth year at Beauxbatons. Natalie was a Ravenclaw Prefect, although she was far, far less outspoken than Regina. She also seemed to have gathered a fair amount of information on the tournament, which she was sharing more of over breakfast to an eager crowd.

"Ilvermorny are the most successful team in the tournaments history, so Alma Aleron must have a pretty good team to have beaten them to qualify for this year. Mahoutokoro always seem to do well too." She was telling the seven or eight students around the table. "Hogwarts have never won, but Durmstrang have managed it once." This elicited a round of groans from the table.

"But what kind of events are we facing?" A Ravenclaw student piped up.

"Well there are different challenges for each tournament, there's an American fanzine that follows every tournament, that's where I found everything out. One year, there was a Safari Maze that ended with two students getting eaten by a manticore. The tasks have gotten a little safer since then. The Polar Region normally hosts a broom race, only Greenland and Iceland seem to do anything different."

"Have there been a lot of deaths?" Gabrielle asked the question that had been playing on her mind since the day her name had risen out of the Goblet of Fire.

"None in the last twelve tournaments," Natalie answered, giving Gabrielle's shoulder a squeeze. Gabrielle was supposed to inspire confidence in her team, but over the last few days, all she had done was run and hide in her cabin whenever there was the slightest wave, and jog around the promenade deck when it was calm. Natalie had been the one acting like a captain so far.

"Do you have a copy of the magazine?"

"Here, there's a lot more in the ships library too," Natalie said, producing a copy of The Tournament of Champions: America's Greatest Victories. Gabrielle sat and read until she had finished the entire magazine, and then returned the copy to the ships library, a vast room on the lower decks with every kind of book you could possibly imagine, and exchanged it for another, and another after that. Aside from being a little heavy on the American Propaganda – including a cringe inducing special edition that sang The Star Spangled Banner as the front cover was opened – the magazine was a wealth of information on past tournaments. There had indeed been a manticore attack, and it seemed as though Norway would indeed challenge everyone to a broom race. But there had been some wild and incredibly varied tasks, such as escape rooms in New Delhi, or the much more blunt and upfront wizards duel in the Brazilian leg of the 1872 tournament. Once, a task in Estonia was set which banned the use of Magic entirely, forcing competitors to solve an enormous puzzle using logic and brainpower alone.

What intimidated Gabrielle more than reading about the tasks was how good the other teams seemed to be in comparison to Hogwarts. Though the tournament had been running for almost eight-hundred years, only a handful of schools had actually won. The magazine kept a table on the back page, and once Gabrielle found the latest issue of the magazine, she was able to see just how much the Americans had dominated the tournament.

Most Wins in the Tournament of Champions

Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry – 44 (The schools most dominant period included a 14 tournament win streak. Ilvermorny usually trains hard for the tournament, owing to their fierce battle for qualification against rival School Alma Aleron.)

Alma Aleron University of Magical Humanities and Spellcraft – 15 (Always second best to their Ilvermorny Rivals, Alma Aleron are nonetheless a dominant force in the tournament, winning all but one of the tournaments that they have qualified for.)

Mahoutokoro School of Magic – 7 (Pride of the Asian Continent, Mahoutokoro demand respect from their opponents with their intricate spell-work, and immaculate flying.)

Kenya Kiara Magic Academy – 3 (The most successful African nation, Kenya Kiara is respected and feared, owing to their infamous 'Safari Maze' which claimed the lives of two students.)

Uganda Ugadao – 1 (Home to the famous Akimbo Manawa, the only two-time winner of the Tournament of Champions, Uganda were the surprise winners of the 1709 tournament.)

Durmstrang Institute of Magic – 1 (The only Western European Team to win the tournament.)

Gabrielle read and read, looking over previous tasks, trying to gain knowledge and confidence about what lay ahead. She had, at least worked out how the tournament would be scored, and thankfully it would not involve a winner-takes-all final task like the Triwizard Tournament. Each task won would earn your School thirty points, twenty for second place, and ten for third place; at the end of the tournament, the school with the most points would be the winner, and would take home the Ignatia Wildsmith trophy. Tasks could be set as one large event where all schools compete at once, or as a knockout tournament where one school faced another, the winner would move to the next round, and so on until only two schools were left. This, Gabrielle thought, could play to Hogwarts' advantage if they were drawn against some of the less competitive schools, and managed to make it through to later rounds. Her train of though however, was abruptly brought to a halt by an announcement from the ships captain.

" Ladies and gentlemen we will shortly be crossing into the Magic's Edge, for your comfort and safety please remain seated during the drop-over phase. We are expected to arrive in New Zealand in two hours." This news startled Gabrielle. Yes, they were on a magical ship, so it was naturally very fast, but even so, the interactive maps around the ship showed them to be somewhere in the North Atlantic Ocean, there was no way it could go from there, to New Zealand, in the South Pacific, in two hours. Gabrielle ran to the front of the ship, sprinting past bemused passengers on sun loungers until she stood at the bow, where a crew member was securing a piece of equipment to the forward mast. The water seemed to be flowing incredibly fast beneath the ship, and Gabrielle squinted her eyes to a foamy patch of water a hundred metres or so in the distance. It took her a few moments to work out what she was seeing. Suddenly she turned and screamed at the crew member, who had just finished securing a large spindly instrument with a black tank at the bottom to the foot of the mast.

"We're going towards a waterfall!"

"It's more of a big hole in the water really," the crewman replied casually.

"The captain needs to turn the ship around!"

"Couldn't do it now if he wanted to," the crewman replied once more, and Gabrielle suddenly realised how quickly the ship was now moving. "You didn't read your Welcome Aboard pack, did you? Ah well, you wouldn't be the first. You see, magic, all magic, gets weak and eventually dies out as you get closer to Antarctica, that's why it isn't on most wizard maps. It's too desolate, and dangerous for wizards to travel. Most magical ships don't like to use the Panama Canal either, too many muggles around. So, some genius created the Magic's Edge. Silly name, but it compromises a series of giant underwater tunnels that cut through the earth and create huge shortcuts, which enables us to get from here, to New Zealand in the quickest time possible."

Gabrielle didn't really care about the history of the Magic's Edge, all she cared about was not going over the waterfall. "You're supposed to be seated for the drop-over phase," the Crewman said, "but seeing as you're up here, I'll let you stand and watch, but I have to tie you to the railings." Before Gabrielle could protest, her hands were magically glued to the rails, and her feet stuck to the floor. She could hear the water rushing beneath them now, and looked ahead in horror as the bow of the Queen's Gambit shot over the edge of an enormous hole in the water. Foot after foot of ship shot out into open space, hanging almost comically above a raging torrent of water that pushed them further and further over the edge. Two parachute-like devices ejected themselves from the ships hull and sank back into the water. Gabrielle felt the ship lurch sickeningly beneath her, and just as the stern of the ship was about to leave the edge, the ship stopped for a moment, and then began to fall slowly into the hole. Gabrielle let out a scream, thinking that she was surely falling to her doom. The ship fell though open air for what felt like several minutes, before an almighty crash forced Gabrielle to open her eyes again.

The ship was gliding along at a marvellous speed, riding along a tunnel of rushing water. She was surrounded on all sides by glittering turquoise, and deep cobalt, mixed with a little shining green as well. The wind whipped at Gabrielle's silvery-blonde hair as the ship carved a path through the enormous tunnel. She saw smaller ships zip by, and even came across small holes in the tunnel with signs posted above them for Peru and Chile. "Pretty special, isn't it?" Gabrielle turned to see the crewman, her hands and feet coming unstuck. The device that had been strapped to the mast seemed to be letting out streams of what looked like dish soap, but as it continued to spray outwards, Gabrielle realised that the streams were fanning out around the top decks of the ship, encasing the entire ship in a giant bubble. "Gets a little hard to breathe the deeper you go," he said, gesturing to bubble taking place around the ship.

"So," he said, "the Tournament of Champions kicks off tomorrow. Are you feeling ready and prepared?"

Gabrielle pondered this for a long moment before answering. "As ready as I can be, I guess."