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Thanks to: '-Magical Moonshine-' (who figured out what Fred and George are up to), ImaginationGurl, Kukaburry and greenluvr14. You guys are immense :)
Chapter 8: Foreigners
Mia, Fred and George hurried to the entrance hall along with half of Gryffindor. Everyone was laughing and shrieking, pushing and shoving, excited about the foreign students finally arriving. When everyone was lined up outside (in the cold) professor McGonagall walked up and down the line, snapping at students to improve their appearance.
"Weasley, straighten your hat," she told Ron, making Mia and the twins snigger. McGonagall carried on down the line.
"Weasley!" She snapped at Fred, "Give me the Wet-Start Fireworks!"
Fred groaned, before taking out the firework that was poking out of his pocket. He handed it to McGonagall, before digging around and taking out three more. McGonagall shot him a disapproved look, before carrying on down the line.
Everyone stood in silence, waiting. Some students were look around, and a few of the shorter students were bouncing up and down.
"Aha!" Dumbledore called, finally, "Unless I am much mistaken, the delegation from Beauxbatons approaches!"
"Where?" several students yelled.
"There!" a girl in Slytherin pointed to the sky. Mia squinted, a large shape was hurtling towards the grounds.
"IT'S A DRAGON!" a short first year from Hufflepuff shouted.
"Don't be stupid! It's a flying horse!" someone from the front of their line yelled. He seemed pretty much right.
A massive blue carriage landed metres away from the first line of students, along with massive horses.
The door opened, and out came the tallest woman Mia had ever seen. She thought she might even have been taller then Hagrid. Her sleek hair was tied up in a bun, and she had an air of power and respect surrounding her.
Dumbledore started to clap, and everyone followed suit. The woman and Dumbledore had a quick conversation, and Mia managed to catch that the woman was called "Madame Maxime" and that she couldn't pronounce Dumbledore's name right, calling him "Dumbly-dort".
Madame Maxime's students got out of the carriage, shivering in the cold. Another quick conversation involving words like "Karkaroff" something about Hagrid and "single-malt whiskey". The Beauxbatons students trotted inside.
Now, a lot of the Hogwarts students were looking up into the sky.
Mia sighed and leaned her head against George's chest, her eyes trained on the black point between the stars and the moon. George absentmindedly rapped his arms around her waist, pulling her closer towards him. Fred looked behind him and shook his head and rolling his eyes.
After a while, there was an odd gurgling sound. Mia looked up, wondering if it was just her mind playing tricks on her, but she noticed other students looking around as well.
She lent forward slightly, squinting at something that seemed to rippling a little way away.
"It's the lake!" she yelled. Almost instantly, everyone looked towards the Black Lake, and, sure enough, something began to emerge from the water.
"It's a mast!" Harry yelled, from further up the line.
Finally, a large, old-fashioned ship docked on the edge of the lake. People started to get off, and they walked towards the Hogwarts students. They were all wearing large, bulky cloaks covered in fur.
"Dumbledore!" hollered a man with smooth, silver hair who Mia guessed was Karkaroff. He was tall and thin, with a goatee and yellow teeth. When he finally reached Dumbledore, he said, "dear old Hogwarts. 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..."
One of the boys at the front of the Durmstrang students hurried inside, passing Mia and the twins. He looked slightly familiar to Mia, but she couldn't remember where she'd seen him. Fred and George, however, were staring at the back of him with mouths slightly agape.
"Merlin…" Fred breathed.
"It's Viktor Krum!" George said.
"The seeker from Bulgaria?" Mia asked.
"Uh-huh," Fred and George replied.
Finally, the Hogwarts students were allowed back into the warm castle, after the Durmstrang students. The Durmstrang students had sat at the Slytherin table, and Beauxbatons at Ravenclaw. Both tables were looking rather smug about this.
The teachers entered the Hall, and the Beauxbatons students leapt up, standing for their Headmistress. Fred and George laughed, along with several other students, but the Beauxbatons' paid them no mind.
"Good evening," Dumbledore said, standing, "ladies and gentlemen, ghosts and, most particularly, guests, I have great pleasure in welcoming you all to Hogwarts. I hope and trust that your stay here will be both comfortable and enjoyable." Mia heard a girl from Beauxbatons laugh.
"The tournament will be officially opened at the end of the feast," said Dumbledore. "I now invite you all to eat, drink, and make yourselves at home!"
He sat down and plates filled with food, the typical, English food they got at Hogwarts, but also food which Mia had never even thought of. Like a weird stew that seemed to be made from fish.
"What do you think of them, then?" Mia asked.
Angelina, who was opposite Mia and the twins, shrugged, cutting up a slab of pork, "they seem alright," she answered.
Across the Hall, a Beauxbatons girl stood up from the Ravenclaw, and walked over towards Gryffindor table. She was tall and thin, with silvery blonde hair and glowing skin. Definitely beautiful.
As one, Mia, Angelina, Alicia and Katie raised their eyebrows as several of the boys, including Fred and George, stopped eating to look at her.
Mia glanced at the three Chasers, and then whacked Fred around the head.
"OW!" he cried, "What?"
"Didn't your mother tell you it was rude to stare, Fred?" she asked, sticking carrot in her mouth.
Mia watched with sympathy as the girl talked to Ron, who was having trouble stringing together half a word and she left with a pot of the weird fish stew thing.
Once they'd had dessert, Dumbledore stood up once more. Mia, Fred and George leaned forward.
"The moment has come," Dumbledore said, smiling, "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."
Mia clapped quietly along with the rest, she hadn't noticed him arrive. Or Ludo bagman.
"And Mr Ludo Bagman, Head of the Department of Magical Games and Sports."
Everyone clapped much louder. Fred and George clapped on either side of her, but not as enthusiastically as she would've thought, considering the Quidditch legend he was. She just shrugged it off, making a mental note to ask them about it later.
"Mr Bagman and Mr Crouch have worked tirelessly over the last few months on the arrangements for the Triwizard Tournament," Dumbledore went on, "and they will be joining myself, Professor Karkaroff, and Madame Maxime on the panel that will judge the champions' efforts. The casket, then, if you please, Mr Filch."
The caretaker brought a large wood crate with jewels and gems stuck over it. One small first year in Gryffindor stood up on his bench to see better. It didn't make much of a difference.
"The instructions for the tasks the champions will face this year have already been examined by Mr Crouch and Mr Bagman," said Dumbledore, "and they have made the necessary arrangements for each challenge. There will be three tasks, spaced throughout the school year, and they will test the champions in many different ways. Their magical prowess, their daring, their powers of deduction, and, of course, their ability to cope with danger."
Mia held her breath. She would be seventeen in a couple of weeks, surely she could sneak past whatever stopped underage wizards and witches entering.
"As you know, three champions compete in the tournament," Dumbledore continued, "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."
Dumbledore tapped the chest with his wand. The lid opened slowly and Dumbledore took out… a wooden cup. For a second, Mia felt utterly disappointed. Then she saw the fire. The white flames, licking the air.
"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," said Dumbledore. "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." He looked around the Hall and paused for a second.
"To ensure that no underage student yields to temptation," Mia swore his eyes flicked to her and twins for a second, "I will be drawing an Age Line around the Goblet of Fire once it has been placed in the entrance hall. Nobody under the age of seventeen will be able to cross this line."
"What's an Age Line?" Mia muttered. Fred and George just rolled their eyes, and a seventh year across the table from them shushed her. "Don't shush me!" she whispered to him, furiously. George's hand fell onto her knee, telling her to shut up. She rolled her eyes and caught up to what Dumbledore was saying.
"-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." Dumbledore sat down and got into a conversation with Crouch.
"An Age Line!" Fred said, smirking as they stood up. "Well, that should be fooled by an Aging Potion, shouldn't it? And once your name's in that goblet, you're laughing, it can't tell whether you're seventeen or not!"
"What's an age line?" Mia asked, whining a little.
"An Age Line is, as the title suggests, a line which stops anyone under a certain age passing it, usually to get to something else. In this case, the Goblet of Fire," Hermione explained in her best teacher voice, "But I don't think anyone under seventeen will stand a chance," she continued "we just haven't learned enough..."
"Speak for yourself," George replied.
"You'll try and get in, right Harry? Ron?" Mia asked, turning to them. They didn't answer and Mia shrugged, walking out of the Great Hall with the twins.
"Right, so, tomorrow, we come down here, drink the Ageing Potion, and put our names into the cup," Mia said, as they wandered up to Gryffindor Tower.
"Yep, sounds like a plan, George?" Fred said, looking at his brother.
"Mhm, perfect," George replied, slinging his arm around Mia.
On Halloween morning, Mia woke up when she was thrown off her bed by Alicia.
"AH!" she screeched as she sat up, her covers falling over her head.
"Fred and George want you downstairs," she said, "something about a potion?"
Mia groaned and rubbed her eyes. She got dressed quickly and hurried down to the common room, plaiting her hair as she went.
"Good morning!" Fred said cheerily, when she came into view.
"What?" she asked, slightly irritably.
Fred rolled his eyes and held up three small vials, filled with clear liquid. It took a second for Mia to catch onto what they were, but when she did, she said, "oh, right!" and snatched on of the vials off of him.
George took the other vial off of his brother, and they glanced at each other.
"Cheers," Mia muttered. She and the twins clanged their vials together, before tipping them up over their mouths.
A drop of the sour tasting potion fell onto Mia's tongue, and she dropped her hand.
They looked at each other.
"Did it work?" Mia asked.
"Guess we're just gunna have to trust it…" Fred replied, shrugging.
"Right, let's go then…" they left the common room and rushed down the stairs. When Mia tripped and nearly fell flat on her face, they started to laugh.
Harry turned around and Mia and the twins smiled gleefully. "Done it! Just taken it!" Fred told them, grinning.
"What?" Ron asked, Mia rolled her eyes and looked over to the wooden, flaming cup.
"The Ageing Potion, dung brains!" Fred replied.
"One drop each," George said, looking at the cup as well.
"We only needed to be a few months older. Well, they do," Mia pointed to Fred and George, "I only need to be few weeks. And we'll split the thousand between us when one of us wins," she finished.
Hermione noted the when, not the if one of us wins. It was when one of us wins. She rolled her eyes.
"I'm not sure this'll work." She said, "I'm pretty sure Dumbledore would've thought of it!" The twins ignored her and Mia rolled her eyes.
"Ready?" Fred asked, Mia and George nodded enthusiastically. "Right, I'll go first, then…"
Fred walked up to the silver line surrounding the cup. Everyone in the Entrance Hall was looking at him. Mia's eyebrows quirked as he stepped over the line.
"WOO!" George leapt over the line and Mia was about to follow… when there was a faint sssssssss noise.
She ducked as Fred and George flew out of the circle, landing with a dull, but loud thud on the hard floor.
"Ouch, that's gotta hurt!" she muttered.
When they looked up, she burst out laughing with the rest of the Hall. Fred and George now had long, white beards. They started to laugh too, standing up.
"I did warn you," Mia whipped around, a small smile still playing on her lips.
Dumbledore was standing there, looking at the newly bearded twins with an amused expression. "I think you should go and see Madam Pomfrey, she is already tending to Miss Fawcett of Ravenclaw, and Mr Summers, of Hufflepuff, both of whom decided to age themselves up a little too. Though I must say, neither of their beards is anything like as fine as yours." Dumbledore turned to leave and Fred and George glanced at each other, then went along one of the hallways towards the Hospital Wing.
"I told you it wouldn't work," Hermione said, smiling a little. It was really a smirk, but the amusement of what had just happened overshadowed any smugness.
"Good thing I didn't cross the line, then, weren't it!" Hermione rolled her eyes and trotted into the Great Hall. "HEY! WAIT UP!" Mia yelled, running after Fred and George.
Mia, Fred and George sat at the Gryffindor table later that day, with Fred and George now beardless, waiting to find out weather they got a half-decent champion. Seeing as it most definitely wouldn't be any of them…
The rest of the day had been rather boring. It had taken just five minutes for the beards to fall out, and Mia had learned a very interesting remedy that she might use in her future career as a Healer. Plus, maybe she could give it to Fred and George to use it in future products for Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. She'd spent about an hour with Angelina (who'd forced her to do her Potions homework) and when she'd got back, Fred and George were unusually quite again. But that ended quickly as Peeves decided to attack them with some kind of weird, purple goo. Mia was sure Fred had put some of it in his pocket.
Angelina, Alicia and Katie sat down opposite them, Angelina with a very hopeful expression on her face. "Hope you get it, Angie!" Mia told her. Angelina had told her she'd entered when they were doing Potions.
"Thanks," Angelina replied, biting her lip.
The feast didn't seem like such a big deal. Not after last night. Mia picked at bits of pork and lamb, then only had a few spoonfuls of black forest gateau. But she still laughed when Fred and George retold the morning's events to the three Chasers.
Finally, the plates cleared and Dumbledore stood up. "Good luck!" Mia whispered to Angelina, who just smiled and looked up to the Goblet of Fire.
"Well, the goblet is almost ready to make its decision," Dumbledore said. "I estimate that it requires one more minute. Now, when the champions' names are called, I would ask them please to come up to the top of the Hall, walk along the staff table, and go through into the next chamber where they will be receiving their first instructions."
He waved his wand and all the lights in the Hall went out, except for the ones in the pumpkins, casting an eerie glow around the room.
Suddenly, the fire turned bright red, and Mia leaned forward. A piece of parchment shot out of the Goblet, and Dumbledore caught it.
"The champion for Durmstrang… will be Viktor Krum."
The Bulgarian Seeker stood up and walked sullenly into the small side chamber.
"He could at least look a little happy!" Mia said, clapping politely.
"Bravo, Viktor!" Karkaroff bellowed, "Knew you had it in you!"
Soon, everyone fell silent, as another piece of parchment flew form the flames.
"The champion for Beauxbatons," said Dumbledore, "is Fleur Delacour!"
The girl who had taken the weird fish stew thing from Harry and Ron the previous night stood up and flipped her hair over her shoulder. She slid down the gap between the two tables, nodding at Madame Maxime before she entered the side chamber.
When the hall was silent once more, the final piece of parchment fluttered into Dumbledore's hand.
"The Hogwarts champion," he called, "is Cedric Diggory!"
Angelina looked down at her empty plate, a down-hearted expression on her face. "Sorry, Angelina," George called over to her. He had to call, the amount of noise coming from the Hufflepuff table as Cedric Diggory walked along it.
"Well, we now have our three champions," Dumbledore said, smiling, "I am sure I can count upon all of you, including the remaining students from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, to give your champions every ounce of support you can muster. By cheering your champion on, you will contribute in a very real—"
The headmaster stopped speaking, looking at the once-again red flames of the Goblet.
"Is that meant to happen?" Mia asked. George shrugged.
Dumbledore looked at the parchment that had come out of the flames…
"Harry Potter."
Mia looked down the table at the fourth year boy, who was sitting thunder-struck. People around the Hall started to talk. "But… but he's only fourteen!" Mia said, "He can't do this!" her voice rose ever-so-slightly. George didn't say anything, even Fred was speechless.
"I didn't put my name in," she heard him say to his Ron and Hermione, "You know I didn't."
"How the heck did he do it?" Fred asked.
"I dunno… what else is there other then an Ageing Potion?" Mia replied.
"Harry Potter!" Dumbledore called again. "Harry! Up here, if you please!"
"Go on," Mia watched as Hermione pushed Harry off the bench. She watched as he walked up to the long table, slowly. He stopped at the top and Mia leaned around George so she could see.
"Well... through the door, Harry," Dumbledore said. Harry passed slowly through the door.
The talking in the hall slowly got louder and louder, until everyone was shouting.
"I think," Dumbledore shouted, "that we should all be getting to bed… Now!"
Everyone immediately stood and flooded out of the doors.
Well, I think that turned out ok. Hopefully you did as well
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