"Drink, Alastor?" Dumbledore offers, an amber decanter glinting in his hand. His old friend puts up a hand from his plush armchair.
"No, no, I'm off all that." His eyes flicker uncomfortably away from the Headmaster, as all present politely ignore the reason as to why that may be. He was quick to return to the matter at hand, as well. "My concern stays the same - and in agreement with yours, Albus."
"I suppose everyone changes," McGonagall said, hopefully. "Mellows." She sounded doubtful of herself, knuckles trailing softly across the wood table.
"He's as much a fanatic as the son turned out," Alastor disagreed. "Boy learnt something in that house. Old Barty picks now to learn the art of vacationing? Without so much as a by-your-leave?"
He turns to Albus Dumbledore, who despite his age and generally bright clothes, cut an intimidating figure stood by his star gazer. "It's happening again," he said softly.
"Absurd," Severus hissed. He was leaned against a wall, as far as humanly possibly from the rest. "There is no indication - "
"You yourself told me the Mark was - affected - "
"Which was likely just a reaction to it being cast at the Cup," he says. "To leap to the conclusion that Bartemius Crouch has been killed - " McGonagall gasps. "Or if you would prefer the word 'taken'," he sneered, "as not to offend your delicate sensibilities - and then, to furthermore believe that he is behind this..."
"Perhaps he is not," Alastor said. "But Barty's sudden lack of work ethic is not benign and you can swear me by my magic on that."
"Yes," Dumbledore said. "That much we know to be true."
"Do we know anything," Severus muttered.
"Do you?" Moody said sharply, grinding his jaw in a furious, sudden motion.
Snape turned his head to the side, and said no more.
"I am indubitably grateful to have your presence here, Alastor," said Albus. "I saw that retired life would not suit you, but there was little I could do about that. And yes, I do hope you could impart - something - upon the students... in such times."
"Not an incredible leap of logic," the old Auror said. "But I could do without the return of war to soothe my retirement."
"What makes you sure?" McGonagall asked. "One anomaly - "
"Crouch was not the first," Dumbledore told her, heavily. "And he will not be the last. We haven't found any of the others." Alastor snorted from his chair.
"We never did."
"It is imperative that we stay apprised of the students," he tells McGonagall. Enlightening her as to why she was there at all. "Ensure they feel they can rely on their teachers. I have often found that the most important information is learned from the ears of the least recognised - that being, at the moment, children."
"It is unlucky that Potter and his friends didn't see anything at the Cup," Alastor said. "I would bet my eye that the caster of the Mark would lead us to the heart of it. And nothing out of Weasley?"
"Percy remains adamant that Mister Crouch is on a holiday, as per the short note sent to him a couple weeks ago. Despite it having been over, well, three weeks today?"
"Hm."
"I can say, with a great amount of confidence, that Percy Weasley is not working for Voldemort, Alastor." The man in question raises his eyebrows with distrust, while Snape twitches violently in the corner, still silent. "He is faithful in his belief it is a holiday."
"And that's a tragedy alone," McGonagall adds. "That a nineteen-year-old boy, no matter how organised, is essentially running our Law Enforcement Department."
"You go and try convincing Fudge that Barty's gone," Alastor welcomed her. "No matter how much Barty's history intimidated Cornelius, he knew how essential he was to running the shitshow."
"Severus," Dumbledore said, addressing his Potions Master directly for only the second time that night. "Karkaroff will expect a warm welcome. Please, get some rest. For that matter, we all should."
A mile below, in the Slytherin commons, a pervasive chill was leaking through the large windows from the icy waters of the lake. It was early hours still, and yet very few students could be found sleeping. Today was the day that the other schools would swarm upon the stone walls of Hogwarts.
"Where is it?" Henrietta was muttering to herself. Whatever it was, Blythe hoped she wouldn't be accused of taking it. Because she had, in fact, generously borrowed herself one of Henrietta's eyeshadow palettes. It was lodged under her bedside table at the moment, and she was going to return it - just when Henrietta wasn't looking, of course.
Studiously ignoring her friend, she twirled her wand through her hair again - unsure if the curling brew would really last until evening. She had such resistant hair. Perhaps it wasn't worth wasting anyway. She could save the rest of it for the holidays instead.
"Flo," she called. "Have you got any clue what time they're coming?"
"You're the one with a dad in the Ministry," she scoffed. "No idea."
"Hardly think he'll answer me on idle gossip," Blythe said. "Unfortunately. Besides, I've waited a month without asking after any extra details. Knowing about the ball was good enough, wasn't it?"
"A shame still that we haven't got our own anyways," Henrietta said with a satisfied smile, in her grasp a thin tube of eye-brightener.
"We did," Hestia reminded her. "Then there was a terrorist attack because of the open floo."
"It was ages ago," she argued.
"Twenty years ago isn't that long when you're about three hundred."
"Dumbledore's not that old, my grand da went to school with him."
"Yeah right," Henrietta scoffed.
"Did too!"
"We've got a ball now, anyways," Henrietta said. "Never mind the rest. Hogwarts Ball is over, dead, let it pass on. This Yule Ball is going to be even better. Internationals," she practically sighed.
Blythe shifted her wool vest down a bit, so that the unbuttoned top of her white dress-shirt would fold over it at the curve of her chest.
Henrietta twisted her mouth. "Where's your tie? Snape'll have you."
Feeling defensive of her attempted fashion choice she asked back, "Where's yours?"
"I'm getting it," Henrietta said, turning her back and flouncing out of the washroom.
Flora and her exchange a knowing look.
Having classes at all that day was a waste. No one paid the slightest bit of attention. Potions must've seen half the school's cauldrons melted, and Blythe's own transfiguration class was assigned just a reading, after Yatin Bhagat accidentally turned her arm inside out. As the day wore on it was clear the other schools weren't arriving at lunch. Really, that just left dinner.
"Else how are we meant to mingle?" Hestia considered. "They've got to let us have a meal together, I'd think."
"Clever," Blythe said. Hestia was quite right, too. They had Vector for last, and she announced that the other schools' representatives would arrive to the north of Hogwarts, from the direction of Hagrid's through the ruined courtyard. Apparently the method of transportation was just too large to accommodate out front for Beauxbatons.
That lead to a lot of speculation as the school poured out the back from all stairwells and directions.
"Do you think they'll fly in on dragons - "
"Hungarian Ironbellys!"
"Of course the courtyard out front isn't big enough - not half the school can fit in there, let alone the new students."
"Carpets - they haven't banned them in France - "
"What if it's the castle they've - "
"That's far too big to fit out by the cabbage patch, Briar."
"-mentors?!" Blythe heard a younger girl shriek up ahead. "Don't be an idiot, Ron!" She whacked a Weasley, judging by the distinct orange shade - the youngest, Blythe thought. The only Weasleys she really kept appraised of were the twins. Fit, they were... and trouble.
"Fawley, give me some space," Paula none-too-gently tried to elbow into her spot.
"Shove off," she said and pushed the Ravenclaw back. Hestia barked at her to which Paula looked... appalled. Blythe let her mouth turn up in the corners. Looking behind them to the school, it was luminescent from the other side of the wooden bridge. Lit faintly by melted candles among the ruined courtyard, more students were pressing against the stone walls there - not venturing as far as they had to the grassy knolls across the ravine. The large clocktower had a soft glow in the encroaching evening light, like cream butter. Hogwarts looked impressive, and a romantic, a spiralling outline against the night sky. Approaching it from the back was no less of a view.
"I think I'll melt if I have to go to the Yule ball with a Hogwarts boy," Henrietta was saying.
"Melt goodly?"
"Badly," Henrietta said to her, horrified. Blythe knew that, but had pressed for a laugh anyway.
"Take Thanes," she offered, eyes tracking between the tree line and the mountain ridge.
"Can't take adults to a school dance, there's just no way. So it's got to be a foreigner."
"Who'd ask you here?" Cassius snorted, appearing from the shifting sea of students. He pushed a younger student out his path so thoroughly the young boy looked disoriented. "And if your own folks won't, why will the newcomers? Bit full of yourself, are we."
"So I'm ugly," Henrietta said flatly. "Is what you're saying - "
"No," Cass said, eyes wide. "Blythe, I didn't say that, did I?"
She smiled halfway. "Wasn't listening."
"I called her conceited," he explained in such an exaggerated manner that even as Henrietta huffed and her turned her nose up to him, it was good-naturedly. That might also be because Henrietta's small crush on Cassius was working double-time to enhance his natural charm.
"Ah, I see."
She wasn't sure what she had been expecting, but monstrous horse-drawn carriages and a pirate ship were not it. At least the horses were beautiful - though not as beautiful as the Beauxbatons students, not by half.
As the now added-upon student body filled the Great Hall with deafening chat, the foreign students went to as directed to the front of the room in two distinct groups: blue and red. The blue group were French - cloth of soft, clinging material and loafers of a warm leather. A very tall woman with a very French haircut stood behind them. Dumbledore had come to greet her and they were already speaking rapidly.
The other party was Durmstrang's contingent. Their dark red wool pullovers and brown wooden trousers were swathed by fur lined cloaks of further brown. They had these little, cute fur caps, too. It looked all terribly Russian, though no one was really meant to know where Durmstrang was located. It was north, evidently, though that could be a design style of convoluted trickery.
Their Headmaster stood stock-still behind them, a man with tanned skin and a strong, black goatee. He wasn't ugly, per se, but something in the way he stood to the way his face soured at the sight of his students shifting on their feet - Blythe didn't like him very much. He looked like a troublesome man. Described in the way her father would delicately put about his friend's, Ms. Quirke's, romantic partners. On the other hand, Vector was already blatantly checking him out. Blythe prepared herself - far in advance - for tales of heartrending pain at the hands of the Durmstrang Headmaster sometime in class.
She was seriously giving him a look over, and Blythe began to wonder if Vector should take a sip of water, before she crawled over ... like a fellow in the desert, for an oasis shaped as a goateed man.
Dinner was delayed, it seemed, as the minutes tickled by and an array of Ministry staff poured out of the staff door on the far right of the Head Table. Among them was the elusive if famed Barty Crouch, and Ludo Bagman. He used to be a Quidditch player for the Wasps, who were genuinely awful ever since he'd left. There was also a couple other names to faces that Blythe recognised through shoulder rubbing with her father. Some she didn't, of course, but Amelia Bones was here - she was Head of the Department for International Magical Co-operation. She was chatting with her brother Edgar, who worked in an MLE sub-department, though Blythe wasn't sure which. Most interestingly, Diggory's dad was among the group. He worked in Creatures, she thought, so she was very interested into why he was here.
"Is that Amos Diggory?" Henrietta said into her shoulder with a smile. "Cedric can't age like that, it'll be a crime. What's he doing here anyway? Isn't he in Creatures?"
"Me mam thinks children are wee beasties," Patricia said from down the bench.
"What Ministry classification are you, then?" Cassius snorted.
She flipped him the finger, but it did nothing for her suddenly red face as some of the boys snickered. Blythe rolled her eyes, but some quiet spark of indignation was within her. Patricia wasn't all that beastly.
Henrietta found it uproarious, on the other hand. Regardless of the idle chatter, all eyes were glued to the head of the hall - the sea of alluring foreigners and government personnel.
Dumbledore, eventually, goes to take the reins at his eagle lectern. Hush falls over them all like snow will in a month's time.
"We welcome on this fine evening, a grand assortment of contenders from both Beauxbatons and Durmstrang Institutions, for the Triwizard Tournament." Some lone whistles broke out, but still, Dumbledore commanded the room.
"I introduce Madame Olympe Maxime, Headmistress - " he splays a hand out to his left, which indicated a very tall, distinct woman with thin brows that gave her a look of permanent displeasure. "And Headmaster Igor Karkaroff." Who stood on his other side. Not a muscle of the man's so much as twitched.
It was appropriate now for them to break off into light clapping, which was rather thunderous considering how many Hogwarts students roamed these hallowed halls.
Blythe elbowed Henrietta and pointed out a Beauxbatons boy who was slickly combing his hair back with a hand. "Could be Flint's twin," she said over the din.
Once the proper amount of clapping was over and done with, their Headmaster continued.
"The Triwizard Tournament is, foremost, an act of international cooperation. The world is great and big, and full of people such as yourselves. However it is more known for its deadly trials, and personal prestige won. Those past their seventeenth birthday — "
This was interrupted with much less pleasure. The Weasley twins were trying to start up a grand booing over at the Gryffindor table. "May participate by electing to enter their name into the running." With a flick of his hand, Dumbledore silenced the entire lot of them. To their credit, the Gryffindors took it lightly. The twins tried to shout as loud as they could into the silent void Dumbledore had made for them, laughing at each others' faces while doing it.
The faces of their Professors on the other hand… as embarrassed as half the other students. "The Summoner's Goblet will be used, as it traditionally was. It will be here by tomorrow night, surrounded by an Age Line enchanted by my very self…" His left eyebrow seemed to quirk towards the Weasley twins. "And you will have a week to make the choice — those above age, as we've said. Now let us join in bread and drink together. Welcome your new fellow students for this school year, and do try to remember why this Tournament was established."
"To prove who's better," Hestia muttered, none-too-quietly.
With a grand clap of his palms, Dumbledore managed to jolt all four tables into lengthening themselves. This additional space was now all along the places where, most coincidentally, seventh years were sat. Dismissed by their own Headmaster and Headmistress, the foreigners began to break off to fill these gaps.
"Makes sense he'd sit them with the seventh years," Blythe said. "All the same age then."
"We'll meet them later," Henrietta said off-handedly, craning her neck for a better look at the closest contingent of Durmstrang students.
The evening was altogether more tiring and yet underwhelming than the girls had expected. Blythe let her eyes wander to the Beauxbatons Headmistress again. She was ridiculously big-boned — almost taller than Hagrid. She wondered if there had been some sort of mishap when she was younger. Sympathy coursed through her. How awful it must be to live with the obvious consequences of a magical misstep.
"She's huge," Cass said point-blank, watching her own gaze.
"Don't be such an arse," Blythe scolded. "But, yeah. Terrible, isn't it? But things happen that not even Mungo's can fix."
Karkaroff was seated next to Vector, and despite the predatory gleam in her eye he looked quite pleased for it. She was beautiful, just with a terrible dating track record.
"Vector on the move," Blythe told her friends.
"Something else for her to go on about," Flo said. "And to think I was getting tired of the Plymouth fellow - and his cousin - story."
Blythe thought Vector just liked a spot of drama, no matter how much it made her drink or cry or whatnot. And as she watched the two at the High Table she really believed it, because she could've swore she saw revulsion curl its way into her Professor's mouth. It didn't pass after she took a sip from her glass, and yet didn't stop her from placing a risqué hand on Karkaroff's arm.
"Anything but class work," Blythe murmured, to a light chorus of agreement, finally letting her gaze move on. Snape was glaring interchangeably between the Gryffindor table and Professor Moody. Which was just classic Snape, really. Like Vector enjoyed a self-starring drama, Snape needed a good, venomous glaring. Probably helped him sleep at night.
They spent the rest of the meal discussing the foreign students they spotted. Cass and Terence started rating the girls to which the Carrows protested.
The events of summer were far behind, with new, kinder excitements ahead. Though the ground was still rocky with Terence, perhaps it was better that way. Blythe sighed internally as the night crept on into the end of dinner. In the excitement of the foreign arrivals, she'd neglected finishing her Defence work. Adrenaline wearing down left the reality of school to set back in as they headed for the dungeons.
Late night study it was.