A/N: And now it has been updated on 07/23/2016

Chapter Five: Arrival of the Competition

The last two weeks of September passed without incident and the excitement of meeting the other schools grew throughout October until the morning of October 30th.

"Attention, students," Albus Dumbledore announced during breakfast, "In preparation for the arrival of the other schools, all classes today are cancelled." A loud cheer from the school, "However, I expect you to be dressed in your school robes and in front of the school at five o'clock, to welcome the other schools to our home. That is all."

Many students took that time to relax. Harry and Hermione took that time with a good book, while Ron, Neville, Dean, and Seamus got several good chess games in.

That is, until Neville beat Ron, who left angrily. There had been a definite change in Neville over the summer. He seemed more confident, more sure of himself. Not a total transformation, but it still showed itself to those who knew the boy rather well. He hadn't burned through any cauldrons in Potions and seemed to be better understanding the magical theory, even if he still needed help with actually casting the spells. But even that was only occasional. This had led him to having a new confidence about him and it was certainly helping him.

By 4:30, Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Neville had all changed and were making their way down the spiral staircase. The school had begun arranging itself out front, by house and year, Gryffindor on left, Hufflepuff next to them, then Ravenclaw, and then Slytherin. The first years were in the front, and seventh years were in the back.

By 5:00, they were all set up.

5:30 came and went without anyone showing up.

"How do you figure the schools are getting here?" Neville whispered to Harry, who shrugged, his eyes scanning the skies.

Then around 6:00, one of the students, a first year Ravenclaw, yelled, "There!".

From the clouds, had burst a massive carriage, pulled by, what looked like eight pure-white pegasi. It came down to rest about 50 feet from the front row of first years who looked nervous at the new arrivals. A small boy jumped down from the driver's seat, hurrying to side.

"Headmistress Madame Maxime and the Beauxbatons Academy of Magic have arrived!" he announced loudly, putting a small stepping stool to the side of the carriage. The door opened and a woman stepped out. Then as Harry watched, she straightened up to a towering height of almost taller than Hagrid.

"Dumblydor." The woman said through a thick French accent, as Dumbledore made his way over to greet her.

"Madame Maxime." He greeted, bowing slightly and kissing the rings on her fingers.

She moved off to the side and twenty-five girls and five boys exited the carriage, all dressed poorly for the cold of Scotland, as some immediately realized. "I ém noot late, I 'ope." She continued in her heavy French accent.

"Actually, Madame, you are the first one here," Dumbledore confirmed. As he finished, Lee Jordan said, "The lake! Look!"

Everyone's attention switched to look at the normally calm waters which had begun swirling. It became faster and faster, becoming a vortex until a mighty War Galleon surfaced, sails unfurled. As quickly as it formed, the vortex quickly did appeared as the ship slowly moved into shallower waters, the unfurled sails showing the crest of the Durmstrang Institute. Finally, it stopped and an almost impossibly long gang plank extended to the shore, followed by a man with a short, black goatee and shoulder length black hair, dressed in heavy furs. Smiling at Dumbledore, he embraced the elderly wizard.

"Albus."

"Igor."

'That just leaves the Americans.' Harry thought, everyone looking around to find them.

Then looking at the forest, he saw a person come to the edge, and create red sparks. Then came a hum he knew quite well, a sound that any non-magical-born student would recognize: An airplane.

Sure enough, looking up, he saw a plane flying by and dark shapes seemed to be jumping out of it in groups of two, bright red and white striped robes flapping behind them, looking a lot like their national Quidditch team, the American Eagles. 'Do they have a death wish?' He thought, as shrieks and frightened gasps from other students.

Harry watched the falling witches and wizards and chuckled as he guessed what was going to happen next. Hermione, on the other hand, looked mortified. Given her fear of heights, more specifically falling, it seemed perfectly reasonable to be terrified, but Harry had quickly figured that this was only a gambit on the part of the Americans, a way to impress others.

As he expected, every single one seemed to mount a broom and safely touched down. The last one had a rather tall staff that he stuck into the ground. A bird, a bald eagle, flew in landed on the staff and then transformed back into a man in his mid-thirties. 'Lots of flashiness, interesting.' Harry smiled, as Ron and Neville looked awed at their daring.

As the last touched down, Harry also saw five crates tumbling to the earth above them. Five wands went up from the Americans, and the crates slowed to a stop about six feet of the ground, before slowly being lowered. The man in front was watching his students, before turning back to greet Dumbledore.

Ten minutes later, the three schools had joined the stretched house tables in varying amounts. Slytherin got the bulk of the Durmstrang students, Ravenclaw got the bulk of the Beauxbaton students and Hufflepuff took on the bulk of the Americans, who looked around the castle in curiosity and awe. Only a few Beauxbaton students and Durmstrang students sat at the Gryffindor table. Looking along it, they already seemed to have gotten their fair share of people. Looking towards the back of the table, Harry saw five Salem students. Motioning with his head, he set off towards them with Hermione, Neville, and a grumbling Ron following.

"Hello, mind if we sit here?" Harry asked.

"Not at all," one of the boys replied, with a small smile. He had a lean build, though it was hard to make out, with short white hair and a small goatee to match, with blue-green eyes. The girl next to him had pink hair and and kind, brown eyes. The two of them were holding hands tightly, like a support mechanism. Harry sat down next to the boy, while Neville sat next to the girl.

On the other side of the table, there was a girl who looked surprisingly like Ginny, who Ron decided to sit next to. Two other Americans were there as well, and Hermione sat on the other side of them.

"I'm Alex," The boy with the white hair and goatee introduced himself, "This is Nova." He raised the conjoined hands with the girl he sat with. Nova offered the Hogwarts students a warm smile, and a rush of calm suddenly came over them all, like a warm blanket.

"And I'm Alice!" Chimed the redheaded girl, a spark of life bright in her blue eyes. "Be nice, or else I may just have to make you the subject of one of my portraits!"

"Oh no, not that!" Alex playfully teased her, rolling his eyes. "Anything but that!"

"It's nice to meet you all." Said the other American boy, seated across the table from Alex and Nova. "This castle was raised in the tenth century, was it not?" He had a shock of curly hair red enough to rival the Weasley family, along with a full beard. He continued to babble in this manner until the girl sitting next to him, who had up until that point been silent, reached up to press her hand over his mouth.

"You're being a nerd again. Hush." She ruffled his beard as he protested her touches. "Don't scare the kids, Angus." Angus pouted, and the girl went on. "Tegwen Faulkner, lovely to meet the lot of you." Her voice was deep and cool, giving the same hint of deep forest as the dark green color of her hair. Her eyes were a shocking shade of gold, and they met meaningfully with Angus's brown ones. "Do forgive his over-enthusiastic nature. As you can probably tell by his name and the unending history lesson, the guy really loves Scotland."

"I can't help it, Gwen, everything is just so amazing!" He pleaded with her. "I wonder if any of my ancestors came here?"

"I wonder if you'll ever stop talking." She leaned over to press a kiss to his cheek, promptly shutting him up.

The group nodded at each person before Hermione spoke up, "I'm Hermione, that's Neville, Harry, and Ron."

"Pleased to meet you all." Alice said smiling, while Nova looked curiously at Hermione.

"Hermione, like the Shakespeare character?" She asked.

"Yes. Unfortunately, my father was a huge fan of the name." Hermione replied, with a hint of a sigh. "So, what is the Salem Institute-" Hermione started before Ron cut across her.

"How did you guys get a Muggle plane?" His eyes were eagerly wide, same for Neville, who just appeared curious.

"It was a one time loan for our Headmaster." Nova said simply.

"And the whole jumping out of it?"

Alex smile genuinely, "Purely for the fun of it." Neville and Ron looked equally impressed, while Harry was grinning broadly and Hermione was trying not to.

"What do you mean, 'It was a one time loan'?" Hermione asked.

"Our Headmaster spoke with President Clinton, got that military drop ship and let us fly it over here." Tegwen shrugged. "The guy seems really fascinated with us, so he let it happen."

"Wait, so the Muggle leaders in the US, know that you guys exist?" Harry gaped in alarm, recalling how the Minister of Magic never really interacted with the rest of the population.

"Of course, your prime Minister knows that witches and wizards exist, I'm sure." Alex leaned forwards, releasing Nova's hand. Hermione shook her head, looking confused.

However, Harry nodded his head. "That makes sense. It's a good explanation of how they got the word out to muggles about Sirius Black, being a murderer."

Hermione shook her head again. "But what about the Statute of Secrecy?"

"That doesn't exist, in any major form, where we're from." Angus answered. "It makes sense that you have it here in Britain, though, seeing as how your population has been historically isolated and the sudden reveal of the wizarding population would cause panic." He took another breath to continue, but Tegwen cut him off again, as Dumbledore stood up to speak.

"It's so nice to see that we all wish to talk to our guests and make them feel at home. This whole competition is to promote international magical unity." He said, as he thought, 'And my own political standing.' before continuing, "Now, before we attend to business, let us feast." With a clap, the plates filled with food and people began to eat.

"So, why doesn't the Statute of Secrecy exist in the US?" Hermione asked, clearly confused.

"That's a rather long story." Alex answered, loading a few more food items on his plate, while Nova slapped his bicep. "What was that for?" He exclaimed, rubbing his skin.

"You know what it was for." She scowled at him.

"But there seems to be plenty of food." Nova glared at him, "Okay, I'll take less food. And I'm still growing." As soon as she looked away though, he stuck out his tongue at her. "Where was I?"

"You said it was a long story."

"Ah yes. Now, back towards the end of the Salem Witch Trials, the governor of the town and his wife were both magicals. She got charged with being a witch. Non-magic folk are weird like that, thinking its a bad thing. So, he called in a vote of no confidence and replaced the committee with one that consisted of magicals. The last three women that actually got axed off were magicals who were acting maliciously. But even as the trials had ended, there was still a common thought that magic is evil, so the Governor of Massachusetts set up a school for magicals. The magical families sent their sons there. They also took in the magical children of non-magicals, because they were at risk of being killed. You know, Christianity and all that."

Eager to help out, Angus once again chimed in. "This remained the same until 1961. President Kennedy had been voted in and our Headmaster decided to meet with him. They talked for a couple weeks, and finally the President allowed us to begin coming out to the people but warned us of the possible backlash. So we tried it and as it became more and more known in New England, many people were supportive. Not some of the more traditional churches, but they are becoming fewer every year. Some American companies have recently added a magical side too. But going back, the Statute of Secrecy wasn't put in place until 1693, a whole year after the end of the Salem trials. We really just ignored it." The entire dinner and dessert passed in such a manner, with everyone looking interested, Tegwen being the exception. She must have heard this spiel many times before. "Salem is also known as a hotspot for magical activity, because two separate ley lines cross, resulting in a wellspring of magical energies. The locals have come to accept us and we bring them all sorts of tourism, so it works both ways." Angus finished up, more for the benefit of the Hogwarts students.

Once the food was finished, Dumbledore stood up again to address the students. "Now that we have all have food, let me explain more of the tournament. The Quadriwizard Tournament used to be the Triwizard Tournament. But, in order to broaden the scope, we turned to ask if others would like to join. As you can see, the United States has accepted. Now, I must warn you. Because of the danger of these tasks, there is an age limit-" He was cut off by complaints from the students, which included Ron and the twins.

"SILENCE!" He roared, issuing a sound like a cannon blast from his wand, quickly bringing the hall back to order. "Now, because of the inherent and considerable danger of these tasks, the age limit is 17. No student under that age will be allowed to compete. I will be adding protections to negate any possibility of it happening. Each school will have one champion who must get through all three tasks. They will be judged by six judges, myself, Madame Maxime, Headmaster Karkaroff, Headmaster Williams, Bartemius Crouch Senior, and Ludo Bagman." Polite applause filled the hall as each person stood when they were called.

Waving his wand, a plinth appeared next to him, with a large, ornate, stone goblet on top. With a quick few taps of Dumbledore's wand, runes began glowing around the goblet and a blue flame popped into existence along the brim. "The Goblet of Fire." Dumbledore said simply, as it would explain everything. "This artifact will decide who shall compete. If you should wish to enter the tournament, simply write your name upon a piece of paper and throw it into the flames. But do not do so lightly. If you should be chosen, there will be no way out, except to finish the tournament. We will announce the participants during dinner, on October the 31st! You have until then to submit your name. Now, off to bed."

*'*_ _*'*

The Americans all huddled together in their tents after the feast was concluded. Alex, Nova, Alice, Angus, and Tegwen were all eager to discuss who would enter.

"I think that I should put my name in. I don't want you guys to get hurt." Alex stated. "Besides, we all know that I'm the strongest of our group."

To his side, Nova made a gagging noise. "Please, spare us the brave talking. You just want to do that thing where you insist upon sacrificing yourself for the good of the group. Oh, and so that you can catch Ashley's eye." Alex appeared to be flustered at her answer, so she decided to have some fun, "You do realize that she probably won't notice you, even if you are able to get into the tournament." Alex grumbled softly, folding his arms. "Anywho, I think that we should all put our names in, so that we can all be judged equally.

The group nodded despite the protests from the white-haired boy. "Guys, you can't be serious!"

"I'm entering, no matter what you say." Tegwen nodded, and Angus looked alarmed. "I want to show them how our system trumps theirs."

"Babe, what if you lose?" Angus grabbed her hand and squeezed it tight. "I don't want to lose you."

"It would take way more than some contest to kill me, you know that." She stood up, fishing a black lipstick from her pocket and swishing it on. "Come on, let's get some sleep. I'm gonna go put my name in tomorrow." During breakfast the next morning, three names were entered into the goblet: Tegwen Faulkner, Angus Baird, and Alex Yeltom.