"Wow… eternal glory…" Hermione murmured next to me.

"Seems like a fair deal to me, don't you think?" Ron asked, smiling.

"Nah. After all I've been through, I'm content to let someone else take the sunshine," me, Harry and Ginny said simultaneously.

"Really, girls? Where's your sense of fun?" Darion asked.

"Gone when Tom Riddle took up real estate in my mind. I do not want to be put in that situation again," I told him.

"Fair enough." Further discussion was interrupted by raucous cheering.

"Yeah lads, cooked it up just this morning!" Fred cheered.

"What?"

"The Ageing Potion. Fred's gonna enter this Tournament, and win us the thousand Galleons." George told us. Hermione raised an eyebrow.

"I don't think Dumbledore is going to be fooled by something as pathetically dim-witted as an Ageing Potion," she pointed out. George shrugged.

"You try and stop Fred." Fred stepped over the Age Line between him and the Goblet of Fire. Nothing happened. He cheered, but the joy didn't last long. He got catapulted from the ring, joined by a long white beard appearing on his chin.

"Freddie, my boy, I thought you were immune to getting pranked."

"Yeah, well, how well did Flitwick's office go?"

"We agreed not to discuss this at all, let alone where firsties can hear!"

"Yeah, well, I'll tear your ears off!" Fred roared, before the two found themselves in a rather entertaining fight.

"…If anyone asks, I'm not related to them," Ginny pointed out.

"Agreed," Harry told her a split second before I did.

At long last, the day of reckoning had come. It was time for the Goblet of Fire to make its decision. Dumbledore, after the meal that may have well been an hour of drum rolling, dimmed the lights, and touched his hands to the Goblet.

"O Ignis Calix, et hoc dicite mihi ... quia qui electi sunt hoc anno?"

"Latin?" I asked. No response.

"Огненият бокал, който е шампион на това училище?"

A piece of parchment flew from the chalice. Dumbledore caught it, and read it aloud.

"Viktor Krum!" Viktor went to the room for the champions.

"Coupe de Feu, qui est le champion de cette école?"

A second piece of parchment, more like a hair tie, was sent out.

"Fleur Delacour!" Fleur went to the designated room.

"Goblet of Fire, who is the champion of this school?"

The third piece of parchment came out, and Dumbledore pointed to the champion dramatically.

"Cedric Diggory!" Only the Hufflepuffs cheered.

"We now have our three champions! The Goblet of Fire is to now extinguish!"

But rather than going out immediately, it shot out another piece before vanishing. This was not good, this was very, very not good…

"Amber Granger."

Let's pretend like that didn't happen. I didn't want this. I couldn't do this.

"Ginny, can you?"

"AMBER GRANGER?"

"Don't think I can. Sorry."

Never before have I felt so wronged. I stood up, and walked to the high table. Instead of entering the champion's room directly, I checked with Dumbledore to see the parchment. Written, in my very own handwriting, so there could be no mistake:

Amber Granger.

It was me. There wasn't a mistake. I turned around.

Harry, I'm sorry. I know how this must feel, being upstaged in something coveted.

If you truly share feeling, shouldn't he find you the worthier champion, as you did Ginny?

This is neither the time nor the place.

I took the parchment, and wandered into the champion's room.

"What is it? Do they want us back in the Hall?"

She thought I had come to deliver a message. I couldn't put into words the actual situation, no matter how much I would have liked to agree with her.

"…Granger, it's far worse, isn't it?" Cedric asked. I opened my mouth, closed it again, and looked away.

"Gentlemen, and lady, may I introduce… incredible as this may seem… the fourth Triwizard Champion?" The three champions looked at Bagman like he lost his Gobstones. It struck me how tall they were.

"Aha! Very funny joke, Mr Bagman!" Fleur seemed genuinely amused. I couldn't laugh with her.

"Joke? No… Amber's name came from the Goblet of Fire!" Cedric looked at me. I suppose he remembers the story.

"I didn't…" I told him, hoping he got both meanings. Before I could gauge his reaction, the teachers of Hogwarts and the Triwizard judges ran into the room.

"Amber! Did you put your name into the Goblet of Fire?"

"No, Dumbledore."

"Did you ask an older student to do it in your stead?"

"No…"

"Are you absolutely sure?"

"Yes, sir!"

"But of course, she is lying!"

"Like hell he is! The Goblet of Fire is an exceptionally powerful magical object. Only an exceptionally powerful Confundus Charm could have hoodwinked it. Magic way beyond the talents of a fourth year!"

"You seem to have forgotten that this one can cast Unforgivables, Mad-Eye. And forgive us for not quite believing you, but I have heard tales of you smashing a 'basilisk egg', before realising it was a carriage clock." Unforgivables? Did literally everyone have to bring that up?

"Mr Crouch? What is it in the rules for a hitch like myself?" I asked, hoping he'd relent and say I wasn't in the competition.

"…The rules are absolute. The Goblet of Fire constitutes a binding magical contract."

Contract? I have never heard that word with a positive meaning…

"Miss Granger, you have no choice. You are, as of tonight, a Triwizard Champion."

My legs turned to lead. I didn't know what to do with my hands. I chose to sink my face into them. Slowly, but surely, I started to weep.

There really wasn't much left of that conversation. The entire point was that they refused to tell us about the first task, and that we were exempt from end of year tests. I began to walk with Cedric for a short distance.

"Amber, I just want you to know… I believe you. The look on your face when you learned you had to participate! If you put your name in that Goblet, you are either exceptionally foolish, or a terrific actress. And you don't strike me as those types. Who do you think put your name in that Goblet?"

"Whoever it is isn't my friend. I have a strong suspicion Riddle is involved."

"Riddle?"

"Voldemort."

"Oh. Isn't that a little out there?"

"No. Who else would be cruel enough to coerce a little girl like myself to participate in life-threatening situations without help from her friends?"

"…Gotcha. Well, I have to go meet the Hufflepuffs. Hope they don't get too disgruntled."

"Congratulations, Amber!"

"I knew you could get over that Line!"

"A thousand Galleons? Blimey…"

"And no exams? You must be in heaven!"

"Can I hug you, Amber?"

Every single Gryffindor seemed eager to congratulate me for what Voldemort (for now I was sure it was him) had engineered. No one noticed the fresh tears that wandered down my cheeks, or my very out of it look, or the fact I kept trying to get to the girl's dormitory.

"Alright, people, enough is enough. Amber?" Ginny said. I nodded, and headed up to my dormitory at last.

"Hello, Amber," Hermione said in a steely tone.

"Hermione! Thank the goddess you're up here alone!"

"So… how was the selection?"

"Horrible. They're making me play…"

"Amber, we're sisters. We can tell each other the truth."

"But I am! I've never been more upset in my life! Well, maybe after Tom Riddle's vacation in my mind, but that was special circumstances."

"Amber, Amber, Amber… no end of year tests? A large amount of prize money? Eternal glory…? Sounds like the sort of thing you'd die for!"

"Not literally…"

"Yeah, right, you're going to literally die. I've seen you cast Unforgivables." Hermione closed curtains on her bed. I stared long and hard into them.

My sister doesn't even believe me… I've convinced Cedric, but how many others will believe him. Only he saw my face…

"Hey, Amber."

"Hey, Fay. How you going?"

"Decent. And I know you're terrible, so I won't ask. I believe that you didn't put your name in. Who else would sulk?"

"Thanks, Fay."

There's another one, Amber. At this rate, you can get the school on your side.

But… what if Harry doesn't believe me? Or Ginny? I might survive without Hermione, but without one of them…

Another Amber scene? Don't worry, the next one will be someone else...

But still, Amber's angst... Poor girl gets forced into the competition she didn't even enter, with an unfair reputation and simple proof to boot. That, and first person perspective makes anything much more exaggerated.

And I didn't balance the other language text. The Latin means roughly "Oh, Goblet of Fire, tell me this... who are the students who are chosen this year?" Don't bother translation. It won't work the way you expect it. The other two mean the English line used in the same context. Language!

Neither can live while the other survives...