When Alex woke up the next morning, he found himself very reluctant to face the rest of the school. All right, the other Gryffindors supported him, and the friends of his cousins would also know that his being entered in the Triwizard Tournament was mistake and no fault of his own. However, there was no guarantee that the rest of the school would think the same. Certainly Slytherins like Theodore Nott and Pansy Parkinson wouldn't, and even if they did, they'd just see it as someone out to get him and hope that he'd be horribly injured or die while competing.

After an hour, however, his stomach told him that he needed to get some breakfast, since he hadn't eaten much of anything since three in the afternoon yesterday. With a sigh, Alex got up and changed out of his pajamas into a pair of jeans and the jumper Mrs. Weasley had made for him last Christmas. After tying his trainers, he tucked his wand into his front pocket, since he didn't feel like strapping on the holster, and headed for the bathroom to brush his teeth.

Once down in the common room, he realized that despite his hunger, he didn't want to go down to the Great Hall. Since Sirius had told him how to get into the Hogwarts kitchens yesterday, in the middle of one of the stories about the Marauders, Alex decided to go to the kitchens instead and beg some food off the house-elves (which shouldn't be hard to do, since they liked serving). That turned out to be unnecessary, for when he opened the portrait hole, he saw Ron standing there, his mouth open in the act of giving the password.

"I was going to see if you were up yet, and wake you if you weren't," Ron said once he saw his friend standing there. "Come on. We figured that you didn't want to face everyone else at breakfast, so Beth went down to the kitchens to grab some food. Neville went to get our meeting spot set up, and Hermione's going to be joining us once she's done talking to Vera. Your cousin wanted to pass on how the Ravenclaws are reacting to all this."

"Thanks," said Alex, feeling very relieved to hear this. He followed Ron to the Room of Requirement, where they arrived at the same time as Hermione and Beth, the latter carrying a basket of food and a stoppered jug of what smelled like orange juice. A door appeared in the wall and Neville stuck his head out.

"Oh good, you guys are here," he said, moving aside to let his friends in.

Once they were all inside, the door vanished, to not reappear until they wanted to leave. Hermione and Beth started passing out the toast, breakfast pastries, and hard-boiled eggs, while Ron poured out the orange juice. Neville handed everyone a napkin, and they sat down to eat.

After a few minutes of silence, other than the sounds of them chewing, Hermione spoke. "Vera said the Ravenclaws are taking this rather well, with the exception of a few people that are being stubborn about things. Other than those few, they're looking at this quite logically. After what Jonas and Ivan said last night, and with Vera and David further explaining things to the other Ravenclaws, they know that you couldn't have entered your name on your own. Ginny, Luna, Adam, and Leah backed your cousins up, so now the Ravenclaws are mostly wondering how your name got entered and why someone would do that. The general consensus so far is that the escaped Death Eaters are doing this in revenge, and using Theodore Nott as their person in Hogwarts."

"Well, I doubt Nott has anything to do with me being entered, unless he found some way to get past the Age Line," Alex remarked. "But the part about the escaped Death Eaters being responsible isn't that far off the mark. Being entered in the Triwizard Tournament is something Tom Riddle would want, since he apparently plans to use me to return to power and then kill me. Since people have died in the tournament before, he could pass my death off as that, and nobody would be the wiser. Well, other than you guys, the rest of the family, Sirius, Remus, and Dumbledore, but there's no guarantee that the rest of the Wizarding World would believe them if they tried to explain that my death wasn't an accident."

"Then you'll just have to be on your guard during the three tasks so that this doesn't happen," said Beth. "We don't want anything to happen to you. Also, the rest of the family, plus Sirius and Remus, are ready with advice and stuff."

"That reminds me, Vera wanted me to give you this, Alex and Beth." Hermione reached into her pocket and pulled out a hand mirror with a plain dark blue rim and handle. "One of your grandmothers sent it to her during the morning mail delivery, with a note that says the two of you are to use it to contact the family any time you need to, rather than having to go to Vera all the time to borrow hers."

"Oh, and we got a similar package from Sirius!" exclaimed Beth as Alex took the mirror from Hermione. "His note said that he and James Potter used them primarily when they had separate detentions back during their Hogwarts days and he wanted you to have James's mirror in case there was something you felt comfortable only talking to your ersatz godfather about."

Alex knew that Sirius had only written the 'ersatz' just in case the note fell into the wrong hands, since it wouldn't do for the wizarding world at large to know that Sirius was his godfather, and possibly provide a clue for Alex's real identity. He took the mirror from Beth and stuck it in his pocket, while the other mirror he handed to Beth, who immediately used it.

A minute later, Granddad Eli answered her call of "Romanov-Petrov family". "Did you need anything, Beth?" he asked.

"Not really, Granddad Eli," Beth replied. "I just wanted to try out the mirror, and see if any of the family had anything to talk about."

"Well, the rest of the adults are here, along with Sirius, Remus, Molly, and Arthur," Granddad Eli said. "Percy would be here too, except he couldn't take the time off work, since he took yesterday off to attend the Bar Mitzvah and today he has to help Mr. Crouch with the official start of the tournament. Molly's quite upset over Alex being a champion and keeps asking how it could have happened after everything that's been done to prevent it from happening."

"Do you think Professor Moody's theory about how it happened could be true, Granddad?" Alex asked.

"Oh, hello Alex. Your parents told us what Alastor Moody said. It does seem quite likely, unless Wormtail snuck into Hogwarts in his rat form. However, Professor Dumbledore has said that there is a spell on Hogwarts that would alert him if any unauthorized Animagi showed up, and Professor McGonagall was in her cat form from midnight until six patrolling the Entrance Hall, along with the other Heads of Houses, so she would have noticed if a rat appeared. Professor Moody and Professor Dumbledore were on shift between nine and midnight, and nothing would have gotten past them."

"What about bathroom breaks?" asked Neville. "Couldn't someone have gotten past when a teacher went to the bathroom?"

"I take it the entire quintet is there, since I heard Neville?" asked Granddad Eli. "In answer to your question, Neville, that's not very likely. As I just said, none of the teachers were alone on their patrols. There were always two teachers for each shift, so if one of them had to take a bathroom break, the other would still be patrolling."

"Rats!" swore Ron. "Then unless Moody's theory is true, the only way it could have happened is if one of the teachers on patrol was working for Riddle, or had him on the back of their head like Quirrell did in first-year. And we know that's not true. None of them are wearing a turban, for one thing, and for another, they're the last people to ever work for Riddle. Especially Dumbledore, McGonagall, and Moody."

"Maybe an older student was Imperiused to do it?" Hermione hesitantly suggested. "I didn't think that likely when Neville first suggested it over three months ago, but now that it's highly possible that Riddle wants to use the Tournament as a way to get at Alex..."

"That is possible, Hermione," Granddad Eli said. "And good for you, Neville, to have thought of it in the first place. We'll pass it on to Professor Dumbledore and he can look into it. But if an of-age student was Imperiused, he could have only been under the curse long enough to enter Alex's name and is now no longer under it, so Dumbledore might not find anything. And you known being Imperiused isn't something that can be easily proven or disproven, or half those escaped Death Eaters wouldn't have avoided prison right after the war by claiming they'd been under the Imperius Curse."

"So what now?" asked Alex. "I'm stuck participating in a dangerous tournament that I don't want to be in the first place. Even if I'm smart and know some advanced magic for age, that still doesn't mean I'm at the same level as two seventh year students and one sixth year student. I'm pretty sure Viktor Krum is like how my biological dad was, great at Quidditch and has brains, unlike some, how do Muggles put it, jocks. I know Cedric's definitely that, since he's one of the top students in his year. And he can juggle being Quidditch captain and prefect. As for Fleur Delacour, she may look as beautiful as a veela, but from my experience, there aren't lots of people that are all body and no brain, so I'm sure she can hold her own in the tournament."

"It's not impossible, either," Granddad Eli pointed out. "Alex, the tasks will be difficult, from what Percy said, but he also said that you should be able to get through them all intact, based on your knowledge and skills and anything your friends and family can pass on. Oh, and speaking of Percy, he said he's going to send you a letter within the next few days. He can't outright tell you what the first task is going to be without getting in trouble if he got found out, but he is going to drop a few hints and give you some general-purpose advice."

Ron exclaimed, "That's great of Percy to do that! Now as long as you don't have to fight dragons or something for the first task, Alex, I think you should be good."

There was an awkward silence from the mirror. "Granddad, you don't mean that Ron's joke about fighting dragons is true?" Alex, asked looking aghast.

Granddad Eli sighed. "You know that I also work in the Ministry, in the same department as Percy, as a interpreter. As part of my job, I had to help with the arrangements of bringing over some dragons from the Romanian preserve that Charlie works at. The only reason I can think of for dragons to be temporarily brought to Britain is for the tournament, so you may have to get past a dragon. I doubt you'll actually have to fight one, since even trained witches and wizards have difficulty with that. And for some reason, all the dragons are nesting mothers, which makes me think you and the other champions have to get something from their nests."

Alex groaned. "Now I have to figure out how to get past a dragon and probably take something from her nest. How am I going to do that? For that matter, how are the others going to do it? Especially since I now have some idea of what's going to happen, but the others won't. Will the other three just show up the day of the first task, wondering what's going to happen, and spend the hour before the task starts scrambling to come up with some way to get past a dragon?"

"True, it doesn't sound very fair," said Neville thoughtfully. "Cedric at least ought to know about the dragons, since he's a good bloke and friends with two of your cousins. Of course, it then gives Hogwarts an unfair advantage, so that means Fleur Delacour and Viktor Krum should know."

Alex stood up. "Then I'm going to find Cara and have her pass on the news about the dragon to Cedric. As for Krum and Fleur, I'm sure I can get Vera and Ivan to pass on the message to them, since they were sitting together at dinner. Thanks for telling us about the dragons, Granddad, and I won't let anyone outside the family know you said something, so you won't get in trouble. I'll talk to you later."

The door reappeared and Alex hurried out the Room. Luckily for him, he saw Ivan and Viktor Krum walking out of the Great Hall, and behind them were Vera and Fleur, in the midst of a group of Ravenclaws and the other Beauxbatons students. "Oh good," he said, and ran up to them. "Fleur Delacour and Viktor Krum? I need to talk to you two about the Tournament and what happened last night. Ivan and Vera, you can come along too, since you're my cousins."

Fleur stared at him, while Krum raised a brow before giving a grunt of assent. "Fleur, je suis sûr que mon cousin a quelque chose d'important à vous dire, s'il vous plaît donc venir," said Vera.

Alex blinked, before remembering that his cousin had learned French from their grandparents, who were fluent in the language. He himself had learned some of the language, but only enough to get around in it if he ever ended up in France. Meanwhile, Fleur considered what Vera had said, which sounded like she was saying that her cousin had something important to say and asking Fleur to do as asked. After a moment, she nodded. "Fine, I will come wiz you and hear what you have to say, Alexander Romanov. But only because ta cousine asked me to."

"Merci beaucoup, Mademoiselle Delacour," Alex replied, dredging up what French he remembered. "Pardon, mon français n'est pas très bien. Je sais un peu de français." (Thank you very much, Miss Delacour. Sorry, my French isn't very good. I know a little French.)

"It's 'très bon', not 'très bien', Alex," Vera corrected. "Now, if we're going to talk in private, let's go over there."

At this juncture, Cedric came out of the Great Hall, Cara with him. "Oh good, I need to speak to you too, Cedric," said Alex. "Could you please come with us? Cara, you can come too." Cedric and Cara exchanged puzzled looks, but did as Alex asked. Vera led the way to the room that the first-years waited in before the Sorting and quickly put a spell to prevent eavesdropping once everyone was inside.

Alex quickly explained about how he couldn't have entered his name and the theory that the escaped Death Eaters had something to do with this. Since that had been made clear last night, Fleur and Krum accepted that and assured him that they didn't blame him for being in the Tournament.

"Vera is a very lovely person," Fleur added. "She accepted me and is not jealous of me ze way some of my classmates are. It is not my fault zat ma grand-mère maternelle was a veela and I got some of ze beauty and charm. As she is ta cousine, Alexander, I believe ze zings she has told me about you."

Alex flashed Vera a grateful look, then said, "That's not the important thing I have to tell you. I was just talking to Granddad Eli with the two-way mirror my grandmother sent me. While talking, my friend Ron said jokingly that as long as I didn't have to fight dragons for the first task, I should be fine. My grandfather can't exactly tell me outright, since that would get him in trouble and he could lose his job in the Ministry, but there was an awkward silence from him. Since he couldn't confirm or deny it, that tells me we'll have to face dragons for the first task, probably to get something they're guarding."

"Vhy are you telling us this?" asked Krum, looking slightly suspicious. "I mean, your cousin said that you vere a good person, but that does not mean I expected you to do something like this."

Alex sighed. "I just don't think it's fair for me to know what the first task is going to be, but for you guys to find out the day of the task and have to try to think of what to do just before it starts."

"Don't forget, the Triwizard Tournament is also about international magical cooperation," Ivan added. "Sure, we all want our own school to do well and win, but that doesn't mean we can't help each other or have fun competing at the same time."

"You are right," said Krum, blinking. "Thank you for telling us about the dragons, Alex."

Fleur nodded. "Oui, merci, Alexander. Zat was kind of you. In return, if I should find out anyzing about ze other tasks, I shall tell you and ze other champions, or offer help if you need it."

Krum and Cedric said they would do the same, and that was when Alex was struck by an idea. "Why don't we all meet in the library later this week and work out a plan to get past the dragons?"

"Actually, that's not a bad idea," said Cedric. "The four of us working together would ensure that we all get past the tasks and lower the chances of any of us dying in the tournament, even if steps have been taken to make it less dangerous."

"Professor Karkaroff vould not like this, but I think this is a good plan," said Krum. "I am villing to work vith you all, and I shall just not tell Professor Karkaroff of the alliance."

Fleur nodded. "Madame Maxime will not be happy about zis, either, I zink, but zat does not matter wiz me. I zink all of us will have some time free on samedi, zat is, Saturday. We can all meet in ze Hogwarts library after lunch and do some research on dragons."

The other three agreed to this and then the four champions and Alex's cousins left the room, after Vera had taken down the anti-eavesdropping spell. On the way out, Cedric told Alex that the other Hufflepuffs, with the exception of Zacharias Smith, had seen sense and had all decided to support both Alex and Cedric. This cheered up Alex even more, seeing as most of the school didn't blame him for his name coming out of the Goblet of Fire. He thanked Cedric and returned to the Room of Requirement to tell his friends and sister about what had just happened.