"It this classroom here, just around the corner." Cedric told me once we were on our way. We entered a fairly small classroom where most of the desks have been pushed to the back of the room. In the center of the room, placed end to end, there were four desks in front of a velvet screen. Both Viktor and Fleur were already there standing in the center of the room near the desks. Bagman caught sight of Cedric and I at the door and leapt forward.
"Ah there they are Champions three and four! In you come, in you come, nothing to worry about, it's just the wand weighing ceremony the rest of the judges will be here in a moment."
"Wand weighing?" I asked thinking of clutching my wand close to my chest.
"We have to make sure your wands are full functional, no problems you know, as they are the most important tools in the task ahead. The expert's upstairs now with Dumbledore, and then there's going to be a little photo-shoot." Bagman told me gesturing to a witch in Magenta robes. "This is Rita Skeeter she's doing a small piece on the tournament for the Daily Prophet."
" I wonder," Rita Skeeter began, "If I could have a word with Allison before we start? The youngest Champion, you know to add a bit of color?"
"Certainly!" Bagman exclaimed "That is if Alice has no objection?" I did in fact have several objections but I wasn't given the chance as Rita Skeeter's red polished talons guided me out of the room.
"We don't want to be in there with all that noise." She told me dragging me down the hall. "Let's see, ah yes. This is nice and cozy." She said pulling us both into a broom cupboard.
"Do you mind if I use a 'Quick-Quotes-Quill?' It leaves me free to talk to you normally."
"A what?" I asked, having no idea what she was talking about. She simply smiled in response drawing out an acid green pen and a roll of parchment from an alligator skill purse. Smoothing out the parchment she placed it on a stack of crates that stood between us. She then placed the pen upright on the parchment and began speaking to it.
"Testing, my name is Rita Skeeter, Daily Prophet reporter." I watched the quill as it began to scribbled words across the parchment, though not exactly what she had said.
Attractive blonde Rita Skeeter, forty-three, wose savage quill has punctured many inflated reputations…
"Lovely." Rita Skeeter added a triumphant smile across her watchful face. Leaning in close she addressed me for the first time. "So, Allison…what made you decide to enter the Triwizard Tournament?"
"Uh-huh..." I answered much more focused on 'Quick-Quotes-Quill' as it danced across the page.
An ugly scar, souvenir of a tragic past, disfigures the otherwise beautiful face of the young Allison Potter, whose eyes… Self-consciously I touched the lightning bolt shaped scar that covered a predominate amount of forehead.
"Oh ignore the quill," Rita Skeeter told me firmly. "Now why did you decide to enter the tournament, Allison?" I didn't trust that quill as far as I could throw it, but I knew the only way to get myself out of Rita Skeeters clutches was to follow her request. Turning my eyes from the parchment I answered her question.
"Just Alice is fine. Most people call me Alice. And as far as the Twiwizard Tournament is concerned, I didn't enter. I don't know how my name got into the Goblet of Fire." Rita skeeter raised an eyebrow at that.
"Come on, Alice," she said my name in a thick syrupy way, like Pansy Parkinson did when she wanted one of her friends to spill the latest gossip. "There's no need to be scared of getting into trouble. We all know you shouldn't really have entered at all, but don't worry about that. Our readers love a rebel."
"But I didn't enter! I don't know how…" It was apparent she wasn't going to get the story she had hoped for and Rita Skeeter changed the subject.
"How do you feel about the tasks ahead? Excited? Nervous?" Of course I was terrified, but I wouldn't let that devilish quill of hers paint me as some little girl in over her head.
"Excited I suppose. I mean they've said there hasn't been a Triwizard Tournament in over a century."
"Champions have died in the past haven't they? Have you thought of that at all?"
"Of course I have!" I said insulted that she thought I hadn't.
"Naturally. Though you've looked death in the face before haven't you? How would you say that has affected you?"
"Um…" I tried the think of some of the things Emily had said earlier that morning, they seemed quite convincing when I was half awake."
"Do you think that the trauma in your past might have made you keen to prove yourself? To live up to your name? Do you think that perhaps you were tempted to enter the Triwizarrd Tournament because…"
"I didn't enter!" I grumbled getting irritated. "And I don't have to prove anything to anyone! I've been raised by a wonderful man who takes perfectly good care of me despite having a horrifying condition, and I've got a brother who'd do anything for me, and great friends!"
"Do you remember your parents at all?" she asked changing her tactic once again.
"No." I replied shortly.
"How do you think they'd feel if they knew you were competing in the Twiwizard Tournament? Proud? Worried? Angry?" No one ever asked me about my parents. Not Severus, not Remus, ans definitely not Harry. I didn't really know anything about them either, how was I supposed to know how they would feel? Rita Skeeter studied me as I turned down to watch her quill skate across the page.
Tears filled those deep brown eyes as our conversation turned to the parents she can barely remember.
"I haven't got tears in my eyes!" I exclaimed fighting to stand in the tiny cupboard. Before either of us could say another word the door to the broom cupboard was pulled open. Looking down at us, Professor Dumbledore stood taking in the scene.
"Dumbledore!" Rita Skeeter cried in a forced tone of delight, I noticed that her quill and parchment had suddenly vanished at the sight of him. "How are you?" She asked standing up and holding out one of her clawed hands. "I hope you saw my piece over the summer about the International Confederation of Wizards' Conference?"
"Enchantingly nasty." Dumbledore answered, his eyes twinkling as he deliberately avoided her hand shake. "I particularly enjoyed your description of me as an obsolete dingbat." Retracting her hand Rita Skeeter didn't look remotely embarrassed.
"I was just making the point that some of your ideas are a little old-fashioned, Dumbledore, and that many wizards in the street…"
"I would be delighted the hear the reason behind the rudeness Rita, but I'm afraid we will have to discuss the matter later. The Weighing of the wands is about to start, and it cannot take place if one of our Champions is hidden in a broom cupboard." The three of us hurried back to the classroom where we had previously been. The other Champions were sitting in chairs near the door. Thankful for an excuse to put some distance between me and Rita Skeeter, I quickly made my way over to the Champions and sat in the empty chair next to Cedric. Before us there was a velvet-covered table where Professor Karkaroff, Madame Maxime, , and Mr. Bagman all sat. Rita Skeeter squirreled away in the far corner of the room her Quick-Quotes-Quill out again, scribbling wildly on a fresh piece of parchment.
"May I introduce Mr. Ollivander?" Dumbledore addressed us Champions as he took his place at the judges table. "Mr. Ollivander will be checking your wands to ensure that they are in good condition before the tournament." Mr. Ollivander was the wand-maker who had sold both Harry and me our wands in Diagon Alley before our first year at Hogwarts. If I could trust anyone with my wand it was certainly the man who made it.
"Mademoiselle Delacour, could we have you first please?" Mr. Ollivander asked stepping into the empy space between the judges' table and us Champions. Reluctantly Fleur handed him wand over to him. He twirled the wand between his long fingers like a baton and it released a series of pink and gold sparks. He then held it up to his face, examining it.
"Yes, nine and a half inches, inflexible, rosewood and containing…dear me…"
"An 'air from ze 'ead of a veela." Fleur told him in her thick accent. "One of my grandmuzzers." I smiled at the idea of Fleur being part Veela. That would expain why Harry and Ron could barely take their eyes off her the past few days. I would be sure to share the information with them both was I was through with the wand weighing. Then I remembered that Harry wasn't speaking to me making me shake the whole idea from my mind.
"Yes. I've never used vela hair myself, of course. I find it makes for rather temperamental wands. However to each his own, and if this suits you." ran his fingers up and down the wand checking for scratches. He then cast a flower summoning spell and nodded satisfied with the result. "Very well, very well it's in fine working order." He handed Fleur her wand back, with the pile of flowers he had collected from the floor.
"Mr. Diggory you next." He instructed. Cedric passed his wand off without hesitation. "Ah, now this is one of mine, isn't it?" he smiled with a great deal of pride and enthusiasm. "Yes I remember it well. Containing a single hair from the tail of a particularly fine male unicorn, must have been seventeen hands; nearly gored me with his horn after I plucked his tail…twelve and a quarter inches, ash, pleasantly springy. It's in fine condition. You treat it regularly?"
"Polished it last night." Cedric beamed. I suppressed a snort. It didn't surprise me that a guy like Cedric Diggory had nothing better to do than polish his wand the night after finding out he was in the Triziard Tournament. I looked down at my own wand covered in fingermarks, a small nick on the tip of the handle. Mr. Ollivander sent rings of silver smoke from the tip of Cedric's wand, satisfied with its condition he returned it to Cedric. Next he turned to Viktor who thrust his wand out scowling, before Mr. Ollivander could ask him for it.
"Hmm…This is a Gregorovitch creation, unless I'm much mistaken. A fine wand-maker, though the syling is never quite what I…however, Hornbeam and dragon hearstring?" He asked Krum who continued to scowl but did nod in agreement. "Rather thicker than one usually sees, quite rigid, ten and a quarter inches…Avis!" A number of small twittering birds flew out the end of Krum's wand and continued on straight through an open window. "Good, good." Mr. Ollivander smiled as he handed Krum his wand back. "Which leaves Miss Potter." I gladly handed my wand over to wondering if he remembered what he had told both Harry and I when we purchased out similar wands. "Aaaaah, yes." His eyes gleamed and he turned the wand in his hands inspecting it from every angle. "Yes, yes, yes, how well I remember. Eleven inches mahogany, phoenix feather core." He turned to Dumbledore as the two shared some sort of knowing look. Mr. Ollivander spent much longer studying my wand, before casting a satisfying spell and returning it to me announcing that it was still in perfect condition. Dumbledore stood from the judges table smiling once again. "Thank you all, you may go back to your lessons now or perhaps it would be quicker just to go down to dinner, as they are about to end." I debating making an attempt to skip dinner when Mr. Bagman jumped excitedly from his seat.
"Photos Dumbledore, Photos! All the judges and the Champions. What do you think Rita?"
"Eh, yes let's do those first, and then perhaps some individual shots?" Taking the photographs was a painstaking process. Madame Maxime cast a large shadow over all of us wherever she stood, and the photographer couldn't stand far enough back to get her into the frame. Eventually it was proposed that she simply sit while everyone else stand around her. Karkaroff kept twirling his goatee around his finger in an attempt to give it extra curl, while Krum, attempted to remain half-hidden in the back of the group. Which seemed out of place for someone who should be used to having photos taken. Then again had Rita Skeeter not been forcing Fleur and I to the front and center of the photo, I probably would have tried the same thing. After several agonizing minutes we were free to leave the small classroom.