chm01: Dumbledore's reaction would depend on if Jen ever finds out he had a hand in he core issues. If not, he might think, "I made a mistake, but it was for the Greater Good"; if so, it'll be, "I made AAAARGH!" as she literally rips him in half.

InsanitySorrow 2.0: Did I ever imply that the Potters were the brightest bulbs in the box? :) Jen has a great deal of anger towards them, but when she does strike at them, it will be cold and calculated. I've read Beyond the Pale as well, and while I liked it, I don't think I'll ever be able to write an apathetic!Harry. Another story that's in a similar vein is Something Like Your Family by Luan Mao. It's just a oneshot, but quite good.

Dumbles is so sure he's right that he never reevaluated his conclusions. And you're right, all Jen plans to do is learn and build alliances for her post-Hogwarts life. Honestly, she's the heiress to an Ancient House; she doesn't need to overthrow the government to rule Magical Britain. She'll have all the political power she wants as soon as she graduates. The title came from Dumbledore (or as Jen called him, "the old goat-fucker") and Malfoy (another name for a donkey is a jack-ass : ) ).

Cytokinesis: As we get further along, her close friends will see more and more of the real her, but she'll keep up her facade when in public; if there's one thing working as a prostitute taught her, it's how to be a terrific actress. I'm undecided if Dumbledore or the Potters will ever find out about Candyland, simply because I'm not sure where they would possibly learn of it. Jen won't tell them, and the other Blacks wouldn't spit on those three if they were on fire. At the moment, Jen's just trying to create a social power base; the only endgame is increasing the political power of the Black family.

The second scene is a continuation of Jen's flashback from last chapter, and it's a little graphic.

Disclaimer: Was the Triwizard Tournament restricted to the students who were already of age? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whoever else she sold the rights to.

Chapter 16
The Goblets of Fire

That would have been more interesting if I were able to see what happened, Jen muttered internally as the Hogwarts students and their three hundred guests trooped into the Great Hall. As it was, she had been in the back of the crowd, which left the other schools just outside her sense's range and forced her to rely on Tracey's descriptions. The Beauxbatons contingent had arrived in a carriage supposedly straight out of a fairy tale, complete with winged horses – Abraxans, one of the older Hufflepuffs had said – and had a very unusual Headmistress. The mossy texture of the enormous woman's core reminded her of those rare visits to the continent Elsie had taken her on when they traded with a Spanish giant colony. In fact, now that she thought about it, the gatekeeper and Care professor had the same trait; his core was just so stale that it was difficult to tease it out. If weren't a near-impossibility, she'd think he never used magic!

Durmstrang, on the other hand, possessed a sailing ship that could apparently teleport between bodies of water if their arrival in the Black Lake was any indication. The lake was completely landlocked, so there was no way they could have sailed, even under the surface, to their ultimate destination. If their unique method of travel wasn't enough, one of the students was some famous Quidditch player, Crumb or something. Their Headmaster wasn't nearly as imposing, just a normal man.

And here we are on the ground, she thought idly. Soil, sea, and sky, how poetic.

She joined the other Ravenclaws at their table, which, along with the Gryffindors', had been moved towards the center of the hall. Taking a seat on the outer side so as to avoid any public confrontations with Potter-worshipers, she noticed the French moving to the table between her House's and the Slytherins' while the other Europeans – many seemed to speak German, but she also recognized some Russian and what she thought might be Swedish – found places at the empty table between the Badgers and Lions.

Dumbledore remained standing after all the students were seated. "Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, ghouls and guests. It is my great pleasure to welcome you all to Hogwarts, and I trust your stay will be both comfortable and enjoyable. The tournament will officially open at the end of the feast, but until then, eat, drink, and make yourselves at home!"

Dinner was an adventure. The elves had decided to make the guests feel more comfortable by providing dishes from their countries of origin; at least, that was her supposition as she lifted a serving of rabbit from a platter as it passed her. She was one of the few who did, however, most seemingly satisfied with eating food that was familiar.

The foreign students were the same way, as twenty minutes after the feast began, one of the Beauxbatons students came over to where she was sitting. "Excuse me, are you wanting ze bouillabaisse?"

It took all of Jen's control not to show the loathing and lust that suddenly filled her. She had no idea why she felt that way, but her instincts were screaming at her to teach the French tart her place, to rip the girl's limbs off and shove her head between her legs…

With a sharp mental jerk, she wrenched her thoughts back to a semblance of normality. She combed through the satiny weave of magic she could now feel emanating from the older girl and quickly found the subconscious compulsions dancing through it. French descent and a natural aura that inspires desire in men and jealousy in women, she has to be Veela. It wasn't mentioned in Bellatrix's book, but being bisexual must cause their innate magic to consider me both competition and prey, hence the conflicting emotions. "No," she said, concealing any hint of her earlier impulses, "feel free to take it."

"You do not mind?"

"Not at all. Honestly, I've never been very fond of fish." Clams, however, are another story entirely.

After the students had gorged themselves on the last of the puddings and soufflés, Dumbledore rose again and introduced two newcomers who had slipped in during the meal. "May I introduce Mr. Ludo Bagman, the director of the British Ministry's Department of Magical Games and Sports, and Mr. Bartemius Crouch, head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation. Without their tireless efforts, this competition would never have been resurrected, so please give them a round of applause." Once the clapping stopped, he smiled gaily at the sea of children.

"This is the moment I know you have all been waiting for, the start of the Triwizard Tournament. I would like to say a few words of explanation before we bring in the casket, just to clarify the procedure."

The entire student body was eerily silent upon his uttering the word 'casket', causing his voice to echo. "The instructions for the tasks the champions will face this year have already been examined by Mr. Bartemius Crouch and Mr. Ludo Bagman, who made the necessary arrangements for each challenge. There will be five tasks, spread throughout the school year; the first four are based on the qualities of the four Hogwarts Houses – Hufflepuff's loyalty, Gryffindor's daring, Ravenclaw's wisdom, and Slytherin's cunning – and the competitors will be scored by our two organizers, as well as Professor Karkaroff, Madame Maxime, and myself, based on how well they perform each task. The final contest will not be have a score, per se, but will decide the victor by who can first claim the magnificent Triwizard Cup.

"As you know, there will be two champions competing from each school, one senior and one junior. These six champions will be chosen by impartial selectors: the Goblets of Fire."

At his words, Filch, who had been lurking in the corner of the room nearest the Hufflepuff table, now wheeled a large wooden chest to the staff table. Dumbledore unlocked it with three taps of his wand and pulled out a gigantic, rough-hewn cup filled with flame and absolutely quivering with enchantments. Setting the Goblet on a conjured podium, he created another stand a short distance away and placed on it a second, silver cup, the same size as the first, that was also pulled from the chest.

"Students who are seventeen or older must write their name and school clearly upon a slip of parchment and drop it into the wooden Goblet if they wish to be a senior champion. Those striving to be a junior champion should follow the same procedure with the silver Goblet, which was forged by the goblins especially for this Tournament; any student between the ages of fourteen and sixteen may enter as a junior. To ensure that no one yields to the temptation of entering twice, I will be drawing Age Lines around the separate Goblets once they have been placed in the entrance hall. Unless you are of the proper age, you will not be able to pass. You have until dinner tomorrow night to submit your names.

"Finally, I wish to impress upon you that this is not something to take lightly. Once the Goblets select a champion, he or she is obligated to see the tournament through to the end. As the placing of your name constitutes a binding magical contract, be very sure that you are wholeheartedly prepared to participate before you drop your name inside. Now, I think it is time for bed. Good night to you all."

Luna practically glued herself to Jen as the students rose from their tables and made their way to their quarters, be they in the castle or in the vehicles outside. "So, you're sure you want to enter? This seems to be a rather extreme solution to your boredom."

"It's not just to have something to do with my time, Luna. I'm curious to see exactly where I stand in relation to our peers in a non-classroom setting, and the 'glory' the Tournament promises will be valuable political capital that I would be a fool to pass up."

"You and your politics," the younger girl huffed. "Why weren't you a Snake, again?"

She smiled. "Because this was safer for the Slytherins."

"You hurt me. I'm going to hurt you back."

Jenny raised the knife and slammed it into The Bastard's thigh, smiling grimly at his scream. She had created a soundproof barrier as soon as she entered, which meant he could yell all he wanted. No help would ever come. She sawed back and forth, the serrated edge tearing through his flesh.

Hot blood spurted from his wound, staining the wall, the bed, her face. Reaching in with the hand not grasping the ever-sharp blade, she conjured a fist-full of fire and pressed it against the severed artery; though the reek of burned meat turned her stomach, she would keep him from dying. It was too early for that.

Unfortunately, the addict didn't seem to appreciate her 'mercy'. "I'm sorry! Oh God, I'm sorry! I'll do whatever you want, just stop!"

"Shut up!" she snarled. "When you were in control, I screamed," she jerked the knife from his leg harshly and stabbed it back in, "and I cried," again she ripped it out, leaving another gushing pit, "and I begged. You didn't stop; you just kept going, harder and harder. You don't get to tell me to bloody stop!" Her magic, reacting to her rage, flew from her hand and shattered the bone she was working around, shards punching through his skin after shredding the muscle underneath. His wails became louder and higher in pitch.

The aroma of cigar smoke draped over her shoulders and brought a sickening giggle from deep in her belly. "Well, so much for that leg. Maybe the other one will give me what I need?" She created another fireball and flicked her wrist at the ruined limb. The flame reshaped itself into a crescent and sliced through the man's leg, sheets, and mattress, starting several small fires that she quickly dismissed. After pulling the bag of meat onto the floor at her feet, she crawled onto the soaked bed and straddled his remaining knee. She started sawing again, more carefully this time, and made liberal use of her fire to stop his bleeding.

By the time she finished removing his leg, The Bastard had screamed himself hoarse and could only whimper pitifully. She scooted farther up until she was sitting on his belly, then dropped the severed appendage onto his chest so he could stare in horror at the mangled surface. "Pay close attention, now. This is the grand finale, and I don't want you to miss it after enjoying the rest of the show." A wave of her hand sheared the thigh in half down its length, and another flung the leg through the doorway and into the living room; the only part not affected was the femur, one end splintered from the knife. She lifted it and hacked away at the damaged end, small chips of bone smacking him in the face.

"You know," she rambled to fill the silence, "Elsie, the woman who took me in after you four hurt me, said I had to shape the bone without magic – yes, yes, magic is real, and you've gotten an up close and personal look at it. Anyway, working with the bone has to be done completely by hand, something about 'not tainting the act'. Considering I've been torturing you for the last twenty minutes or so, I'm not sure it can be tainted any more, but I'm still doing it the way she told me because she's yet to lie to me. She's the only person who's ever treated me even half-way decent, which isn't something you'd expect from a serial killer." She ran her fingers over the sharp point she had whittled from the bone. "Of course, with scum like you and your friends running around, being better isn't that hard. At least they were quieter when they died, though that might have had something to do with her cutting their throats."

He didn't reply, so she slapped him in the face again to regain his attention. His incoherent moans gave way to a rough whisper. "Why? Why are you doing this? We dinn' know you were real. It was an acciden'."

"Accident?" The faint grin that had played on her lips as she worked vanished in an instant. "Accident? You raped me, you sick son of a bitch!" With strength belied by her small form, she flipped the bone over and rammed it into his heart.

The hum around his body slowed and finally ground to a halt, the spike sticking from his chest a grotesque mockery of a flag claiming virgin land. Jenny was alone again, the Presence having left her at his death, and she shakily removed her hands from the now freezing bone. Taking in what she had done, she threw herself off the bed and scampered to the far wall. If she still had her sight, she would have shut her eyes tight, but her magical sense refused to turn from the corpse. She screamed, all her pain, anger, hate, and fear mixing together in the sound, and flames surged from her skin.

x-x-x-x-x

An old black women stood in the streets outside the burning building, wondering if the child she had spent so much time on recently would walk out the door or be consumed by the fire. "Five more minutes, girly, then you're on your own."

Thankfully, she didn't have to wait long. Not two minutes after she gave her ultimatum, she spotted a small figure weaving through the flames. Out of the inferno came the girl; as she watched, the broken bone clasped in a tiny hand bubbled and flowed, reforming into a foot-long dagger with blackened, serrated edges. She smiled at the impossible event, for it meant the night was a success; the girl had created a Death Focus and was worthy of learning the secrets of Voodoo. "Good work, Jenny. I was worried you didn't have it in you."

"I'm not Jenny."

"What do you mean?" She slipped her wand and her own Focus – a bone from her father's skull – into her hands, but kept her voice even. It wasn't unheard of for vengeful spirits to possess initiates at this stage, and they had to be dealt with quickly and decisively before they could flee.

"I'm not Jenny. She died in there."

"Then who are you?"

"I don't know!" Tears cutting paths through the blood- and soot-streaked face, the girl barreled into her and latched thin arms around her waist. "I don't know anymore!"

She sighed as she patted the girl's back; obviously this was just the shock of her first murder setting in. Such a thing was completely normal, if not somewhat irritating. "Yes, it hurts now, but it'll fade, and soon you'll be able to kill without batting an eye. Welcome to a dark new world… Jen."

Jen shot up in bed with a harsh gasp. It had been years since she relived that night in her dreams, but she should have expected this to happen after remembering it earlier in the day. She pulled her legs to her chest and wrapped her arms around them; dwelling on Those Bastards, and The Bastard in particular, always brought that cold December night back to the front of her mind. Laying her head on her knees, she cried softly in the darkness.

Elsie had said the anguish and anger from her rape would eventually dwindle and be forgotten, as did all pains. In this, she was dead wrong.

Never before had Jen observed such extravagant Halloween preparations. Live bats swooped between the beams of the Great Hall, and hundreds of jack-o'-lanterns ruled each corner. Even the specters were taking part, stalking the younger students around the entrance hall or popping their heads out of the tables to much applause. The French students had their noses turned up at the ethereal antics, but the Durmstrang guests were laughing with unparalleled delight. Still, no matter how wonderful the entertainment, she really didn't see the point in having two feasts in as many days, a sentiment echoed by most everyone around her.

Finally, Dumbledore rose from the staff table as the last crumbs of food faded away. "The Goblets are ready to make their decisions, but first, let us set the appropriate mood." A sweep of his wand extinguished the torches, leaving only the candles in the pumpkins lit. She smirked unseen; as the only one unimpaired by the new conditions, she felt the large number of students who jumped in fright, including one of the seventh year Slytherins. Who knew almost a fifth of her schoolmates were still afraid of the dark?

"When the champions' names are called, please come to the front of the Hall and enter the next chamber." He waved his hand, and a door swung open to the side of the staff table. "Once you are all assembled, you will receive your first instructions."

The old man tapped his wand against the silver cup, and three orbs coalesced in the flames. The first leapt from the Goblet while tendrils of magic shot from it and wrapped around a French boy, swiftly mixing with his core. Dumbledore caught the scrap of parchment that emerged from the burning shell. "The junior champion for Beauxbatons," he called, "is Philippe Leroux!"

A cheer erupted from the table as the rather short young man rose and nearly sprinted through the door. Silence descended again, but everyone was shivering in excitement. If this is what they're like after just the first champion's choosing, I bet someone will have a heart attack by the last.

The second fireball soared into the air, the magical bindings latching onto a bulky girl at the Durmstrang table. "For Durmstrang, the junior champion is Ingrid Eberhardt!"

Stomping boots and snippets of a German song followed Eberhardt as she marched across the hall. Her expression may have been severe, but Jen could feel her exhilaration.

The final parchment erupted from the Goblet's flames, and Dumbledore frowned at it. "The junior champion for Hogwarts," he said in a slightly harsh tone, "is Jen Black!"

She stood and gave a sweeping wave to the number of Ravenclaws who applauded her selection. Only a few didn't, all of whom had bullied the younger housemates before Flitwick intervened, and she flashed a quick two-fingered salute at Chang, who had been proclaiming the entire day that there was no way that the Goblet wouldn't chose her as Hogwarts's junior. The other students who saw it just laughed and cheered louder.

Strands of magic from the Goblet floated by her, and she curled one around her finger before releasing it. Since the contract bound itself to the champion's core, she was free to do whatever she wished without worrying about punishment, even forfeit should she decide not to participate any longer. Of course, doing so would reveal to everyone that something was extremely different about her, so the situation would have to be dire for her to consider that action.

The Great Hall's side room was quite cozy, portraits covering the walls and a roaring fire warming the cold stone floor. She conjured a chair next to the fireplace and dropped into it. "Well, that was more suspenseful than I expected."

"Ja," Eberhardt said, "I thought my heart vas going to stop vhen Dumbledore called my name."

Leroux nodded in agreement and conjured a chair next to hers. "'Ow old are you, eef you don't mind? You seem much younger than we."

"Fourteen. I take you are both sixteen?"

They nodded in unison. "I vill turn seventeen next veek," Eberhardt added.

Before she could respond, the door opened again and the famous Durmstrang Quidditch player entered the room. "Viktor!" cheered Eberhardt.

"No surprise zere," Leroux muttered. "Eef anyone was going to represent zem, eet would be Krum. Oh, merde, I 'ave to work wiz 'ER?"

Her sonar alerted her to another champion, and the sudden surge of desire told her just who it was. Fleur Delacour had become Hogwarts's newest wank fantasy and enemy number one in a single night, her name on everyone's lips. Jen sighed with her French counterpart, but for a totally different reason; with the Veela a contestant as well, her self-control would be sorely tested.

The door opened for the third time, and the ever-cheerful Cedric Diggory joined the crowd by the fire. "This is going to be a smashing good show," he said. "It'll be fun competing with all of you!" He was the only senior champion who made a chair to sit in; Krum and Delacour were content to lean against the wall by the fireplace.

"I wonder how long they're going to make us wait?" she wondered aloud, and as if summoned by her question, the door slowly swung open, allowing Potter to slide in. "And of course the Golden Boy would be the messenger."

Before he could give a retort, Bagman scurried over and led Potter to the group. "Extraordinary! Absolutely extraordinary! Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce – incredible though it may seem – the seventh Triwizard champion?"

While many rape victims develop a fear of sex or intimacy, or become distrustful of men, there is a significant number who become hypersexual, perhaps in a subconscious attempt to regain a feeling of control over their own bodies. Jen is of the latter type.

I'm starting to wonder if the Ministry shouldn't have changed the name of the Tournament to Hexawizard, considering the number of champions involved.

Silently Watches out.