V3.2

The Goblet of Fire

October 13, 1994

"My name's Leigh Ann Nelson," she said, holding out her hand. "Born and raised in South Carolina, in the US of A."

She shook the outstretched hand. "Angelina Johnson, London," she said, smiling into the woman's wide hazel eyes. She had long, thick, dark brown hair and a dark olive complexion that looked like it tanned well. Her face was a long oval with high cheekbones, a well-defined chin, and a strangely-shaped nose that wasn't exactly straight, nor was it exactly small. With thick but shaped dark eyebrows, a high forehead, and a clear complexion, she was a naturally pretty girl.

"It's nice to meet wizards my own age. You have no idea how nervous I've been."

Fred turned to look at her, saying, "You sounded just fine giving out all of those commands." Angelina had never had problems distinguishing between the two cute twins. Her only problem had always been figuring out which one she thought was more attractive.

"Used to it, I guess." She shrugged her delicate shoulders, the only part about her that anyone would be able to call 'delicate.' Her arms were long and thin, though she seemed big-boned and slightly clumsy. From far away she looked smaller, but now that she was closer, Angelina could tell that she wasn't as "small" as the other women. Not that she was fat, but she was rounder, and wider. She seemed a little too soft to be in the military.

But suddenly her face turned stony. She stood up and saluted, her eyes hard, her face emotionless. Dumbledore stood up and cleared his throat. "Students, before we start…this is General George Harrington, Headmaster of the American Academy of Magic."

"Good to see you again, Dumbledore," the man said, all decked out in what appeared to be a part of the Army uniform. The two Headmasters shook hands. "Your school is magnificent! And the ghosts—wonderful, the Bloody Baron is! And Peeves… never seen such a pessimistic ghost, that's for sure. Can't have ghosts in the school, the parents tend to complain…I would love to have a poltergeist, you have no idea, Dumbledore!"

Dumbledore just laughed. "I am glad to see you well, old friend. We have prepared a seat for you here, with the rest of the staff. Please, sit."

The General turned around and saluted his students, who then stood with their arms behind their backs until their General sat and then sat down themselves.

"Sorry 'bout that," Leigh Ann said, smiling at them. All signs of seriousness were now gone. "Protocol. Now, what're your names, Gingers?"

Fred and George smiled at her nickname for them. "Name's Fred," one said at the same time that the other said, "Name's George. Good t' meet you, Leigh Ann."

She smiled brilliantly at them with straight white teeth before becoming distracted. "Good Lord above, is that Harry Potter?" She nodded her pretty head of brown hair towards The Boy Who Lived. She looked star-struck.

Fred and George explained the situation with Harry while Angelina tried to figure out where she knew Leigh Ann from. Her face looked familiar, but maybe she had gained too much weight and that was the reason it was hard to identify. AJ wasn't normally one to forget about something and it was irking her.

While talking to Fred and Ron, the woman was looking around at the school, simple curiosity in her eyes. She was admiring everything from the floors, to the teacher's table, to the teachers themselves. She had eyes that, although plain, were so full of curiosity that they rivaled even Hermione's. Dumbledore seemed to interest her the most.

Suddenly she snapped into alertness and said, "Oh, it looks like we're about to start."

Dumbledore was standing at the owl podium. "I must say that I have great pleasure and excitement in welcoming everyone to Hogwarts. I hope that your stay here will be both comfortable and enjoyable, and not to mention fun! The Tournament will be opened at the end of the feast. Officially! I now ask you to eat, drink, and commence in merriment!"

The plates in front of them filled to the brim, and Hermione noticed that the house elves in the kitchens had outdone themselves. She looked over to see that Leigh Ann's face had completely lit up at the sight, but then her entire face fell. She then picked up a small portion of chicken and herbs.

"What is that nonsense?" Fred asked as George poked at her measly plate.

"It's a meal that's meant to keep me down in weight," Leigh Ann said sullenly, picking at the food. "I mean, look at all of you. So thin…how do you do it? Three full meals a day, all you can eat, and half of you are stuffin' yourselves." She gave an indeterminable look to Fred, then George. "If I keep gainin' weight, I'll lose rank. Not that I care about weight, but I do care about my rank. A lot."

"That's horrible!" Angelina exclaimed, making a few people look at her curiously. "I mean, schools are schools, not exercise rooms! Why do you have to—"

"We have to stay a certain weight," Leigh Ann said a little quickly, her eyes narrowing as she looked away from the table. "That's all I know. I don't question my school's rules."

Angelina was slightly taken aback. She hadn't thought that it would be such a rough spot with the woman, but still, something wasn't right. Not that Leigh Ann wasn't a beautiful woman, but a school was a school. Could Leigh Ann stand to lose a few pounds? Of course. But Angelina had heard of the rigorous training that the AAM students went through and it didn't match Leigh Ann's physique.

"Isn't it stuffy in all of those clothes?" George asked quickly to break the tension, looking at all of the Academy's students.

"And all of those medals," Fred added, "what are those little colorful rectangles?"

"They're ribbons, and no, it's not stuffy. It's a little bit colder up here than where we are in America. It's not confusin', either, not when you're used to it. Now the Navy outfit, that's confusin'."

"Why?" Angelina asked, always one for knowledge. She also wanted to show Leigh Ann that she could do more than criticize weight and rules.

Leigh Ann looked at Angelina as if trying to determine what the athletic girl was made of. "Because they have one for each climate, and a different camouflage for every type of terrain. I'm glad I'm not in the Navy. Now they're stuffy. I should know, my sister's in there and she's as up-tight as they come."

"Where's she at?" Angelina asked, turning around to look for a brown-haired, hazel-eyed girl similar to Leigh Ann.

"She's only a Fourth Year, so she couldn't come. First through Fourth, Eighth and Ninth Years weren't allowed to come."

"Blimey, you have nine years of school?" Fred asked, horrified, as if someone had insulted one of his prank products. "How do you not go bonkers?"

Leigh Ann snorted. "We start when we're twelve, and aren't allowed to get magic until twenty-one or married, so we're grateful to go to school. And it could be worse. It's much newer than this place, and warmer, but less roomy. More grounds, though. Each Branch bunks with the rest, separate bunks for separate genders. The Navy lives at the docks, we live in barracks on land. The Marines get lodges, the lucky bastards, and the Air Force has hangers and lives with their planes."

Fred and George spent a few minutes asking what a plane was while Angelina laughed into her pork roast. Angelina was half-blooded, as her mom was Muggle but her dad was pure-blooded. She knew what a plane was, at least. When that conversation bored her, she asked one that interested her more: "How about Quidditch? Do you have teams?"

"Sure do, but I can't play to save my life." Ange looked up to see that Leigh Ann had almost choked on her drink. Her face was beet red under her dark tan. "It's not that I'm afraid of heights. But every time I get on a broom, I just get scared, not thinkin' that the broom will hold me. Then I plummet down. Nope, you won't catch me on a broom. Ever. I watch, though, and my mom taught me everything I know."

Mom. Angelina knew that she knew Leigh Ann's mom somehow. Maybe she'd been a professional Quidditch player?

Once the golden plates had been wiped clean, Dumbledore stood up again. Angelina noticed that Fred, George, and Leigh Ann were bristling with excitement, though she was just curious as to what was about to happen. She knew that she'd be too young to participate anyway, just short of two months.

"The moment has arrived," Dumbledore said, smiling broadly, kindly. "The Triwizard Tournament is about to begin. I would like to say a few words of explanation before we bring in the casket—"

"What, did someone die?" Fred asked, and Angelina saw that Leigh Ann smiled dryly.

"—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—" there was a smattering of polite applause that Leigh Ann seemed to be the most enthusiastic about— "and Mr. Ludo Bagman, Head of the Department of Magical Games and Sports."

Angelina and many of the Hogwarts students were louder when they applauded for Bagman. "Love that man!"

"Mr. Bagman and Mr. Crouch have worked tirelessly over the last few months on the arrangements for the Triwizard Tournament," Dumbledore said, gesturing to the room, and yet nothing in particular, "including the part of allowing our American comrades to join us. They will be joining myself, Professor Karkaroff, Madame Maxime, and General Harrington on the panel that will judge the champions' wins, ties, and unfortunately, losses." Suddenly Dumbledore smiled as if he sensed how disinterested everyone was about that aspect of the tournament. "The casket, then, if you please, Mr. Filch."

The caretaker skulked out of the corner of the Hall, approaching with a great wooden chest encrusted with jewels that looked extremely old, as if it would fall apart at any moment.

"You're right, someone's dyin'," Leigh Ann said, giving George's arm a tap, picking the wrong twin as usaul. "I think it's that old man." Fred almost couldn't keep his laughter contained.

"The instructions for the tasks the champions will face this year have already been examined by Mr. Crouch and Mr. Bagman," Dumbledore said as Filch set up the casket on the table in front of Dumbledore. "They have made the necessary arrangements. 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."

Leigh Ann looked like she was about to fall out of her seat in excitement. Fred and George weren't much better.

"As you know, three champions—now four—compete in the Tournament, 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."

The Headmaster then took out his wand and tapped the top of the box three times. The lid creaked slowly open, and he reached inside it and pulled out a large, roughly-hewn wooden cup. It would have been completely unremarkable had it not been full to the brim with dancing blue-white flames.

Dumbledore then closed the casket and placed the goblet carefully on top of it. "Anyone wishing to submit themselves as champion must write their name and school legibly on a slip of parchment and deposit it into the goblet."

"I wonder how that works," Leigh Ann said under her breath, her mind obviously racing kilometers per minute. "Is it a magical database of some kind? Interesting."

"Aspiring champions have twenty-four hours in which to put their names forward. Tomorrow night, Halloween, the goblet will return the names of the four 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.

"To ensure that no underage student yields to temptation, 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. Finally, I wish to impress upon any of you who wishes to compete that this Tournament is not to be entered lightly. Once a champion has been selected, he or she is obligated to see the tournament through to the end. The placing of your name in the goblet constitutes a binding, magical contract. 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."

"Yeah, good night for all of you," Leigh Ann grumbled with a yawn, rubbing one eye. "We've still got to build our barracks."

"Tough luck, mate," Fred said, standing up and yawning, causing Angelina to do the same. She was glad that she didn't have to stay up any later—she had to go practice Quidditch still. Even though there weren't any teams that year, she wasn't going to get soft! "We'll see you tomorrow, eh?"

"If I'm still welcome at the breakfast table," she said, sounding slightly hesitant.

"Of course," Angelina said, feeling confused. "Why wouldn't you be?"

Leigh Ann shrugged. "Just bein' silly, I guess. Well, sweet dreams, you guys. I'll see you in the mornin', and what an early mornin' it will be."

Hmm?