The excitement on the air was thick enough that Liz could feel it from halfway down the stairs — she nearly turned right around, but after a breath kept putting one foot in front of the other, gritting her teeth.
Exactly what effect lots of people around Liz feeling lots of things had on her could vary wildly. When it was, just, normal shite, people preoccupied with their own business, their heads going in completely different directions from the people around them, that normally wasn't too much of a problem...on good days. It could get distracting, Liz pulled this way by one thought and then that way by another, but it wasn't too difficult to ignore. On bad days, it could get overwhelming, impossible to focus on anything for very long at a stretch, eventually Liz would just have to give up and retreat behind the wards around her room until the headache went away. If people were feeling the same thing, for the most part, that was less distracting, but could be even harder to shut out, the similar feelings kind of reinforcing each other (like constructive interference, she guessed), the magic in the environment so thick with it it was completely impossible to avoid taking it in.
Sometimes that wasn't so bad. When people were having a good time, like during Solstice at the Greenwood or the party after the World Cup — or parties at Hogwarts, sometimes, it varied — everyone else's happiness and excitement and pleasure flowing through her was a hell of a rush. Having a little bit of alcohol just made it even harder to resist, just, let it carry her away, completely overwhelmed but not really in a bad way? She didn't quite know how to describe it, but it was really fun, sometimes. Of course, the same effect could also be a bad thing, if the people around her were feeling something negative — like when she'd been made practically catatonic by everyone freaking out over the firebombing of the Gaelic camp, for example.
It'd occurred to her that that might be a serious problem, in emergency situations, but she didn't know if there was anything she could do about it. Especially since she was a Seer, so even working on occlumency (which she didn't really want to do anyway) wouldn't help that much — occlumency might block the mind magic part, but the psychometry part would just go right through it, like how a wall wouldn't stop an earthquake. If she had warning, that mind-shielding spell she'd learned way back before first year would help...some, at least, not cutting it off entirely but hopefully blocking enough for her to get herself out of danger. That was really the best idea she had...unless she wanted to carry a grounding potion on her for emergencies, but those tended to deaden the other senses as well, and had mild to moderate sedating effects, so that might do more harm than good in an emergency...
(Severus had suggested a couple times that they might try experimenting with different grounding potions if her Seer stuff started getting too much for her, but she was extremely reluctant to try...and that was before Miss Eva had mentioned, as an aside while talking about the different kinds of Seers, how miserable being put on grounding potions as a teenager had made her. So, yeah, just had to deal with it, she guessed...)
The happy kind of excitement that went on at parties felt very different to Liz from the anticipatory kind of excitement that cropped up, say, before a quidditch match, or exams, or holidays, that sort of thing. Getting carried away by the happy kind of excitement could be a lot of fun — she was pretty sure it made her kind of silly, but she was always too out of it to care at the time, and so far nobody had brought up her out-of-character behaviour with her after things calmed down, so. The other kind of excitement could be kind of miserable, though, and she wasn't entirely sure why. It made her, just, inexplicably nervous, keyed-up, sometimes tense enough to make her skin crawl, hyper-aware of everyone around her, sometimes even jumping at unexpected noises...which then tended to draw attention to her, people wondering or even asking what was going on, which just made her more uncomfortable...
Yeah, she tended not to like those times much. There were reasons that she often retreated to her room when a quidditch match was coming up, or would go off to revise alone (or just with one or two people) in the weeks before exams. Even that week or so between the end of exams and leaving school at the end of the year could be miserable, though it did depend on who she was around — people who obsessed over their marks or whatever could make her really uncomfortable, but if there was something to distract them (like drinking gin and getting silly playing games and shite shut up in her room, for example) then it wasn't so bad. Probably better for Hermione's mental health to not obsess over that stuff so much, honestly...
Thinking about it, some of her reaction, especially the skin-crawling and the intrusive awareness of everyone around her and the jumping at noises, it seemed a lot like Liz is broken, PTSD-brain stuff. She got that, in principle, she just didn't know why, was the thing. What it was about everyone being excited that set her off like that. Maybe the keyed-up, anticipatory sort of feeling was similar enough to knowing she'd done something wrong and was going to get in trouble that Liz's stupid useless fucked-up brain got its wires crossed — that didn't make a lot of sense, the feelings weren't really that similar, but she didn't have a better explanation.
(She would say she couldn't wait until she was better, and this shite stopped happening all the time, but she'd never honestly believed that was ever going to happen. End up less of a mess than she used to be, sure, and get better dealing with what was left, but.)
The run up to the start of the Triwizard Tournament had already been a problem, at times. There was enough other stuff going on to hold people's attention that it hadn't gotten bad enough to bother her very often, but as Hallowe'en approached it slowly got worse, a couple times shoving Liz into one of her bad days with very little warning. (Luckily, Severus had already talked to all the new professors about her being a neurotic mess sometimes, so she could get away with just skipping class if she needed a break.) A few days ago, she'd exploited a bad day to meet with Daedalus and Sylvia, Nilanse popping her away to do it at Clyde Rock — rather short notice, but they'd managed it, if not until rather late in the evening in Daedalus's case. Which was convenient anyway, since seeing Daedalus after Sylvia meant she could read him in on what they'd talked about, so he could make sure all the necessary stuff was lined up.
With Hallowe'en coming up, Liz had been reminded that was kind of a big deal for mages, and hadn't Sylvia said it was normal for nobles to do things for their people on the holidays? And, all this literal nobility with literal vassals thing was still ridiculous, and made Liz very uncomfortable, but she didn't want to be an arsehole about it at the very least, so they should probably start doing stuff about that. Liz didn't know shite about the religion of all the people she was technically in charge of, and neither did Sylvia really — magical Britain could be surprisingly diverse, the only way to be sure about someone's religious beliefs was to ask them — but giving everyone the week off work and providing food and alcohol and stuff for a nice big feast was never a bad thing. Building on a suggestion from Sylvia, they'd also be sending toys and books and the like — they might be forced to pay taxes they couldn't really afford on money donations — to the various orphanages and sanctuaries in the country, and also the Ministry group home for werewolf children. (A lot of whom were technically muggles, because apparently muggles could become werewolves, the kids stolen away from their families after their infection, their deaths faked on the muggle side.) Liz was a famous war orphan, so that was just a nice thematic thing to do in general, and especially on Hallowe'en (for magical culture reasons she didn't really get), and the group homes for werewolves were miserable places, so.
It's not like all that shite would be breaking the bank at all, especially since Liz's personal expenses had gone down a lot now that she was back at school — not significantly if they counted her tuition, but James had paid for all that ahead of time when she'd been only six months old (in case he and Lily died and she ended up being fostered by someone with way less money sitting around) — so Liz didn't see any particular reason they shouldn't do it. Especially since the toys-for-orphans part would be good for her reputation, and with the mind magic and Severus and the rumours about the Dark Arts floating around, doing little things like that now and then wasn't a bad idea. Liz didn't care about her reputation in magical Britain, really, but it would make her life a lot more difficult if everybody hated her, and it was an easy thing to do, so fuck it.
Sylvia had noted that including the werewolves would offend some people — not saying they shouldn't do it, just stating a fact — but as far as Liz was concerned, they could all go to hell.
Everyone's excitement crowding her had been getting worse for a while, but when the Headmaster cancelled the rest of yesterday's classes and sent them to their dorms while the staff finished preparations, it'd gotten just impossible. Liz had barely managed to stick it out in the common room for ten minutes before she'd had to leave, hiding behind the wards until it was time to go. She'd already been tired, due to not sleeping well the previous night (nightmares again) and everyone's minds being so fucking loud all the time, so she'd used the opportunity to take a short nap, taking a sip of calming potion when it was time to leave her room again. It must have helped some, but she'd still been on edge while waiting for the other schools — which might have had something to do with her impatience with people complaining about the cold and snapping back at Selwyn — until she managed to get under the wards around the tables, which helped. People were starting to transition into the good kind of excited too, so, dinner hadn't been too bad.
Not at first, anyway. Isolde showing up had been...fine, Liz guessed. She could be a bit annoying sometimes, but she was amusingly blunt about things — and, honestly, it was unexpectedly nice to not be the only person around who didn't get normal people things, for once. And she got Liz being fucked up without it really needing to be explained. Like, she'd kind of been crowding Liz a little at first, but had backed off pretty quickly, and was way more careful about nudging her after that. Which might seem kind of innocuous, obviously she wouldn't be bumping Liz as much once people made space for her, but since Liz was a cheating mind mage she was aware Isolde had been doing it on purpose — Isolde could get a bit jumpy sometimes herself, and she knew a lot of people who were a bit fucked up, what with the whole war with the acromantulae they'd had going on out there. So.
(Isolde had assumed Liz must also have been in a bloody war or whatever — probably as a bystander, she realised Liz was too young to have fought much — and Liz hadn't corrected her. Besides, Isolde had only thought it, and not said it, so that would have been an awkward thing to do.)
So, Isolde was fine, but Liz could have done without the people around having racist thoughts, and some bloody clothes. The cloak had been something — Liz knew for a fact that Tracey had it turned the way she had to be less distracting for Liz specifically — but it hadn't really stopped the constant stream of pervy thoughts about Isolde being naked under there, and really pretty fit, honestly, and– argh, stop it stop it! Liz had spent a frustrating percentage of the feast from that point on distractingly, er, preoccupied, she was certain she'd been blushing the whole fucking time. And people had noticed, too — Liz might have gotten away with it before people knew about her, assume she was just uncomfortable, but not anymore, apparently.
At least Daphne hadn't been annoyed about Liz getting frustratingly distracted with pervy thoughts about another girl. If anything, she'd just seemed to be amused by it — which Liz didn't entirely get, but sure, she'd take it.
On the other hand, Isolde didn't give a damn if Liz went poking around in her head — now that she'd decided Liz wasn't a threat to her, anyway — which could also be weirdly nice sometimes. It was a little uncomfortable, since she was self-aware enough to feel Liz in there, but it turned out wilderfolk didn't entirely understand the concept of privacy (in case the showing-up-totally-naked thing hadn't given that away), and mind magic completely got around the language barrier, even for people who technically didn't have a native language at all, which continued to be very neat, so it was just convenient for communication reasons. On the other other hand, Isolde could feel Liz's magic and, like Daphne, thought it was kind of sexy. She wasn't, like, constantly distracted by it (the way Liz was by the showing-up-totally-naked thing), it wasn't like she was even doing anything about it, just occasionally noticing it now and then — but even that was really weird to see, it always made Liz inexplicably uncomfortable. She couldn't say why, really, it just did.
So, Isolde showing up, mixed bag.
Artèmi and her trio partners showing up was also a mixed bag. They were kind of fun, sure, and playful banter was at least something she could keep up with — she was way better at that than smalltalk, honestly. But the Beauxbatons girls were distractingly pretty (more Alexis than Artèmi), and the weird veela/lilin mind magic stuff could be a bit much. Apparently, the sort of teasing they were doing was... There was an obvious sexual note to it for the two of them, almost like flirting, Liz guessed? They weren't being serious about it, no, just playing around, but they were throwing the feeling out at everyone around them bloody constantly, and Liz was already annoyingly turned on by Isolde sitting right next to her being distractingly sexy (she even smelled nice, like herbs and smoke), adding the veela/lilin stuff on top of that was, just, why?!
Eventually, Liz was trying very hard to sit perfectly still, because moving too much could vary the pressure on distracting places in distracting ways, but it was all she could do to try not to be too obvious about how extremely worked up she was. She sort of managed it, Daphne the only one who noticed (and was mostly amused by it) — though, all three of the Beauxbatons students could also tell, because mind mages and also apparently veela and lilin were fucking cheaters. No one else from Hogwarts seemed to notice, anyway. And yeah, that was pretty fucking embarrassing, but at least none of them did or said anything to draw attention to it, just politely pretended that they didn't know that she was horribly preoccupied, tense and twitchy, she could barely even think straight, completely missed what people were saying multiple times, trying to sit perfectly still and keep her breathing normal, which was pretty fucking impossible, since even wearing knickers had become terribly distracting, she could feel the fabric damp and clinging to her skin, stop it stop it stop it!
People around shifted more toward the bad kind of excitement during parts of Blaise's mum's speech, which helped cool her off some. Not a lot, preoccupied enough that a fair amount of it just bounced off, but some. She hadn't lingered in the Great Hall long after the speech, making up an excuse to get the fuck out of there. Of course, walking hadn't helped, exactly, things moving around and uuggghhh. Gritting her teeth, she'd done her best to act as normal as possible until she was alone and could finally take care of that problem.
She'd ended up crying again, because of course, she always did after the really hard ones.
After cleaning herself up, she'd gone back into the common room, completely unsurprised to find a party going on — a bit crowded, but people were having enough fun that it didn't bother her too much. She hung around for maybe a couple hours before sneaking off with Daphne, for the obvious reason...and ended up crying again, because of course.
(Daphne had suggested Liz stay the night — with assurances that they didn't need to do anything, just sleep — but nope nope nope, Liz was not ready for that, not at all. Especially since she was well aware for cheater mind-reading reasons that Daphne slept naked, ah, yeah, she was just going to go back to her room now...)
(Of course, since Daphne had put the thought in her head, Liz had been too preoccupied to sleep...until she took care of that, again. Because her brain, just, would not shut the fuck up these days, it was very annoying.)
She'd woken up this morning in a surprisingly good mood — getting off multiple times last night probably had something to do with that, and maybe the crying too? As much as crying fucking sucked when it was actually happening — her body hadn't gotten any less stupid, kept trying to fight it, it hadn't stopped hurting, every fucking time — she had noticed that it tended to bring her back to baseline, sometimes even feeling kind of... "Chill" was the only word she could think of. Kind of worn out, she guessed, but not really in a bad way, just... She didn't know how to describe it. Kind of like the low, almost pleasant ache she could get after a duelling practice or whatever, but in brain stuff instead? She assumed there were weird brain chemistry reasons, she didn't understand it and didn't really care — the point was that she usually felt pretty good, sometimes even hours and hours afterward.
Unfortunately, that good mood hadn't lasted very long. Liz had thought the tension on the air had been bad yesterday, but it was even worse now.
It was like a low buzz, a constant noise digging away at her ears, completely inescapable and unignorable. She'd noticed it immediately on reaching the common room — even two months into the year, a lot of the first- and second-years still went up to breakfast together, so there were a fair number of kids in the room. The volume went down a little out in the halls — the wards around Slytherin insulated them from outside magics (like scrying), but also partially contained things going on inside, like how a noise seemed louder in a small room than it would outdoors — but the buzz got louder and louder and louder as they climbed the stairs, practically slapping her in the face when they got to the Entrance Hall.
The Goblet of Fire had been moved out here at some point since Liz had left last night, set on its plinth in the middle of the Hall, surrounded by a crowd of people. As they passed by, a few people stepped up to drop little slips of paper into the fire — the flames flickering a deep, sunset red each time, rainbow sparks dancing over their fingers — a clump of Beauxbatons students then shouldering through the crowd to put in their own names. The feelings coming off of the crowd were a mess, the room ringing with hissing of gossip and shouts of laughter and arguments, but there was far too much tension on the air, the buzzing clawing at Liz's skin, her breath catching on her throat, she completely missed Tracey saying something about one of the Hogwarts students who'd just put their name in, just, ugh. It wasn't any better in the Great Hall, even worse, since there were more people in here, and everyone's minds were on the Tournament, who would be picked and what would happen next, the buzz deafeningly loud, not just Liz's ears ringing but her entire bloody everything, it was miserable.
The wards around the tables helped. A little.
A lot of the gossip at the table was about, yes, who'd entered their names and who the Goblet was likely to pick — apparently Adrian had put his name in late last night, that'd be pretty cool — but also about the foreign students just in general. The Durmstrangers had all gone down to their ship overnight, but it seemed the Beauxbatons students had accepted the Headmaster's offer of rooms in the Castle — off of a gallery in the lower levels of the east wing somewhere which, ironically enough, had most recently been used to house recruits being trained up to join the invasion of France back during the Revolution, refurbished over the summer for their guests. (It seemed slightly odd that the Ministry had used Hogwarts for that, but Liz guessed the Castle was mostly empty, and it wasn't like magical Britain had a lot of other big public buildings that would be better.) People had very mixed feelings about the Beauxbatons students, which made the conversation rather loud and confusing for Liz, all the thoughts and feelings pummelling her enough she could barely follow what people were saying out loud.
Some of it was about the ones they knew anything about, because some of their names were familiar. In particular, several members of Beauxbatons's duelling teams had come (in addition to Artèmi's trio), and it sounded like Durmstrang had brought their entire senior division team. (Like Hogwarts, Durmstrang was small enough that they most often only sent one team for each division.) Some were notable for other reasons — at least three played in national youth quidditch leagues, for example — and they even ended up playing a little bit of the how everyone is related to everybody else game, which was bloody tedious. Of course, there were Beauxbatons students who happened to be British citizens, some of them relatives (even close relatives) of Hogwarts students, but France and Aquitania did both used to have noble families, the survivors of whom sometimes sent their kids to Beauxbatons, and intermarriages over national borders had happened all the time, for various reasons.
Most of the people at their table were probably related to Artèmi somehow, for example. The Cæcinés were seriously fucking ancient, and also bloody huge — and the long-standing rivalry between England and France before Secrecy meant Cæcinés had intermarried with British nobility (both magical and muggle) countless times, for silly diplomatic reasons. Liz even got a whole long story about a feud between the Cæcinés and the Blacks going back...well, probably all the way to the literal Roman Empire, actually — Dorea knew about it, but had no idea how it'd started, just one of those things —there'd been dozens of Black–Cæciné marriages, once or twice every generation for centuries until about a hundred years ago, done consciously to prevent the two magical families from going to war. (As big and powerful and well-connected as they'd both been at the time, that would not have ended well for anybody.) Artèmi wasn't the only one related to British mages through their silly arranged marriage nonsense, there were several others, one Draco noted was probably a distant cousin of Liz, their family had intermarried with the Potters at least a couple times. (As a consequence of something to do with the international apothecary trade, apparently...though she did wonder why the hell Draco knew that.) There was even a Rosier with them — the Rosiers had a seat on the Wizengamot and everything, but they considered themselves a primarily French family, so.
Multiple times, people assumed that the names they didn't recognise were muggleborns, which was very silly. Beauxbatons wasn't like Hogwarts, they let anyone in, they were probably just normal mages. Some of them might be muggleborns, sure, but it was still a stupid assumption to make...
That was how the talk about the humans from Beauxbatons went, anyway — as many as half of their people were veela or lilin. Which, Liz still wasn't entirely sure what the difference between the two was? She meant, "veela" seemed to all have light magic, and "lilin" all had dark magic, obviously, but other than that they didn't seem any different to her. Obviously they were distinct from each other, but, in the way that different humans were distinct but also all the same kind of thing, veela and lilin were all like that. Liz was pretty sure it was just like mages having light or dark magic, and it wasn't anything more than that. Some of the other people at the table were a little shocked by that idea — in British law, veela were considered beings (and sometimes even part-human, allowed to carry wands and everything), but lilin were dark creatures — but the more non-racist people around really weren't. According to Daphne, veela and lilin — or People of the Song, as they called themselves — considered themselves to be one race, they could have kids with each other just fine (which one they were most often inherited from the mother), and even got very annoyed when they were treated as separate things, so, yeah, sounded like Liz's impression was completely right.
The things Liz had heard about their people were very mixed. On the one hand, from less racist books she'd found in Severus's library, or things Tamsyn had told her, veela/lilin had an extremely ancient culture. Like, about as ancient as it was possible for ancient to get. Their capital, somewhere in the Armenian Highlands, was one of the oldest cities in the world, dating back to around the time agriculture had started being a thing — their written history didn't go back that far, obviously, but it was thought that they'd had the same town in that spot, continuously, since at least 7000 BC, predating the earliest human civilisation in Mesopotamia by...maybe a thousand years? (Liz didn't know exactly.) The city even still existed today, but they didn't let humans visit anymore, due to a violent incident, like, four thousand years ago? (Ridiculous.) Theirs was the oldest known written language in the world — except the goblins', who weren't even from earth, so were cheating — and there were even stories about them teaching writing to humans in Mesopotamia...or maybe they'd just inspired the style, there was debate about what had actually happened. In fact, they'd had writing so long, more or less continuously, that they had written records noting the rise of the first human civilisations around them, early trade and diplomacy going on in the region — including an unbroken line of Empresses, passed down parent to child (with only a few interruptions due to civil wars and the like) stretching back for approximately six and a half thousand years, making them the oldest royal family in the world there's historical evidence for, having ruled four times as long as the closest human competitor (Japan's, apparently). They claimed the family were even the direct heirs of the people who'd lead the ritual which had created their people in the first place, which must have happened around, like, twelve thousand years ago? but of course there was no actual evidence of that, just myth.
They'd been around for nearly as long as agriculture, was the point, and were literally the first known civilisation native to this planet. Which kind of made the typical racist line of oh, humans are better and smarter than everyone else, we're truly civilised and everyone else are barely sapient animals look even more like complete fucking shite than it did just on its own. They weren't quite as impressive as they used to be, having fared badly in a few wars over the last thousand years or so — they'd sided against going into Secrecy, and in the effort by humans to force them to play along they'd lost, like, a third of their population, they were still recovering from the whole mess — but still.
On the other hand, a lot of the stuff she'd read or heard about them was very, very negative. A very common impression British mages had was that they were evil, manipulative sex vampires — sometimes the veela were nice, friendly sex vampires, but that was a distinction most common in Light families. (The Light thought dark magic was evil, so obviously lilin, who had naturally dark magic, were inherently untrustworthy; veela had naturally light magic, though, so the less racist Light people, like Dumbledore, tended to be fine with them.) That veela and lilin were all manipulative, flighty, shallow slags was an extremely common opinion even among people who weren't super racist about it. You could feel different ways about it, but that much was just considered fact.
Which, Liz didn't think that was entirely wrong? Like, she'd asked Tamsyn about this once, after bumping into a few of them at the duelling tournament, and there was something to that. Supposedly, a big group ritual in the fucking Stone Age had given them all their magic powers — the ability to turn into big damn birds, their fire magic, an even longer lifespan than mages — but since it'd happened in the fucking Stone Age and they hadn't really known what they were doing, they hadn't made the transformation properly self-sustaining. That is, all those things took energy to do, but their bodies didn't produce enough energy to keep it going, slowly burning off their souls to fuel it all. So, to stop themselves from slowly going insane and eventually dying, they had to regularly subsume energy from other people to replenish themselves — mostly from humans, but any being would do. This was mostly done through emotional resonance — projecting a feeling at someone, making them feel the same thing, and pulling up what they needed through the contact (which kind of reminded her of how demons work, actually) — which could theoretically be done with any emotion, but since the veela/lilin would naturally need to feel it too, they preferred to use positive ones. They didn't need to have sex with the person they were subsuming stuff from, but Tamsyn had said they almost always preferred to, just because it was more fun that way.
(Their communities had a bunch of human members too, who, according to Tamsyn, had the same rights as proper veela/lilin in their internal government. They did need the humans around to survive, but despite stories about them keeping people like livestock or whatever they were equal partners in their civilisation, and always had been, it was a whole thing.)
Hence, manipulative sex vampires — in this one case, the crazy racists weren't getting it from nowhere.
And people could be fucking neurotic about sex even in normal situations, so that people might be a bit squeamish about veela/lilin for that reason wasn't really a surprise, when she thought about it. She didn't see how it was anyone's business, but whatever. People could also be very silly about mind magic, so...Liz didn't think that one was entirely fair, actually. She hadn't spent a lot of time around them, but it felt like veela/lilin were, just, shoving out whatever they were feeling at the time — like how everybody all the time were sending out echoes of their emotions across ambient magic, just a whole fucking lot louder, enough that people who weren't mind mages or Seers or whatever could feel it. They could also do it intentionally, but, she kind of thought it was just part of how they communicated? Kind of like facial expressions, but with magic, and a whole hell of a lot less ambiguous. Liz thought it was annoying, yes, and kind of stifling when there was a lot going on at once, but it wasn't that much worse than just being around normal people.
But, Liz guessed she was a bit of a freak herself, so. She understood that the weird mind/soul magic stuff made people uncomfortable, she just didn't really care.
Most of the people at their table were definitely a little scared of the veela/lilin — they mostly tried to pretend they weren't, but they couldn't hide it from Liz. Which was kind of fair, Liz guessed, what with the ability to mess with their emotions and their weird wandless fire magic stuff, she didn't even blame them for it, really — and she didn't think the veela and lilin themselves would, either — but the less racist ones were worried being openly frightened of them might be interpreted as a racist thing, and the more racist ones didn't want their racist friends to think they were intimidated by the worthless subhumans. Even most of the non-racists didn't like them, at the very least just thought they were kind of creepy. Actually, not so different from how a lot of people thought Liz was kind of creepy, with the mind magic and all.
Of course, they also thought the veela/lilin were all super fucking pretty — because, of course, they were — which was making some of the racist ones feel hilariously conflicted.
Put together all the conflicting thoughts and feelings everyone around her was having, and the talk about the veela/lilin half of the Beauxbatons students was just giving her a headache.
Liz suffered through breakfast, only half-listening to the gossip, trying not to show how incredibly comfortable everyone's noisy fucking minds were making her. After what felt like far too long, Daphne and Tracey were finished eating, and Liz didn't want to be here anymore, so she stood up to get going. And cringed as soon as she passed the wardline — the buzz of the excitement on the air instantly had her skin crawling, tension settling in so sharp and sudden it almost hurt. She'd almost forgotten about that.
It seemed like everyone wanted to hang around in the Entrance Hall to watch people put in their names, or just sit around here or there and gossip, but Liz didn't think she could do that. Even by the time they got out the doors of the Great Hall, she was already starting to get twitchy, consciously taking slow, deep breaths to stop herself from freaking out like a crazy person, no, she did not want to stay here. After a short talk, they instead swung by Hermione — just leaving herself, almost certainly heading up to the library to wait out everyone else being silly and loud — and asked if she wanted to come down to Slytherin and hang out with them. They ended up going down with Millie (but not Dorea, who was hanging out with their Hufflepuff friends at the moment), Lily, and also Neville. They were supposed to ask for permission before letting non-Slytherins into the common room, which Liz had already done with Hermione and Lily, but not Neville. Oh well, it was probably fine, it's not like Neville was going to make trouble for anyone...
The common room was mostly empty, but they decided not to just sit out in the open here — Neville was nervous about trespassing in Slytherin, very silly — so they went down to the library instead. Hermione was amusingly jealous, apparently Gryffindor didn't have a library. (Liz knew Ravenclaw had one, but she didn't think Hufflepuff did.) Also, there were decks of cards and board games and stuff down here, so, there'd be things to occupy themselves with, this was fine. It was practically empty at the moment, everybody busy with the excitement of the day, meaning they were left more or less alone. A few upper-year Slytherins did come by now and then, giving the kids in Gryffindor robes curious looks, but nobody said anything about it or tried to kick them out.
The rest of the morning was...mostly fine. There was some gossip about the Tournament, some of their group sizzling with that same bad excitement, but it was only a couple people, that was quiet enough for Liz to ignore it. (She'd dipped into the bathroom for a second to take a sip of calming potion, and that helped.) They'd spent most of the morning playing some magical card game — she meant, normal cards, but a game mages had come up with — the rules of which Liz was really only halfway familiar with, but it was just to have something to do while they talked, so.
She could have done without the teasing. They paused the game to take a bathroom break at one point — Tracey and Millie also went off to the kitchens to pick up some drinks and snacks — and Liz and Daphne used the break to have a moment. They'd been gone longer than Liz had realised, everyone had beaten them back to the table by at least a couple minutes, and everybody knew what Liz and Daphne had just been up to. At least the teasing didn't last very long, because apparently how uncomfortable they were making her was extremely obvious — which was itself kind of embarrassing, but Liz guessed she'd take it.
(Liz was certain her face was very, very red, so hot it almost hurt.)
Over the course of the morning, Liz noticed at different times Lily, Tracey, and Millie all think that Neville was getting kind of cute — Millie, who happened to be sitting next to him at the card table, even got a little flustered over at it times. Liz hadn't really noticed, but then, she was super gay and all...although, now that her attention had been brought to it, he had filled out a bit. He'd been kind of squat and pudgy before, but over the last year or so he'd shot up like a weed — nearly as tall as Millie herself, and still kind of awkward and gangly about it, but having more body to spread the baby-fat around made a big difference — and he wasn't nearly as shy and stuttery as he'd been back in first year. Liz assumed actually having friends had done him some good, like Hermione, and she vaguely remembered something about him having basically zero confidence in his magical (or academic) abilities, had even referred to himself as almost a squib a few times, but she thought getting reinforcement from the study group had helped there too. He wasn't top of the class, or anything like that, but he did pretty decently well, and his spellcasting was even a lot better these days — more in charms than transfiguration, he had nearly as much difficulty with transfiguration as Liz did. So, he was also just a lot more confident and friendly than he'd been before, which also made a difference, when Liz thought about it she really wasn't surprised that girls (who actually liked boys) might start to like him a little.
Liz was aware that the Gryffindor boys (and some Ravenclaws) would sometimes tease Neville about all of his friends being girls. She had the feeling the other boys were going to start feeling very differently about that pretty soon.
Eventually, it was getting into lunch time, but Liz didn't think it was a good idea for her to go. The bad excitement on the air was terrible, and she was well aware of how getting pushed into a bad mood from random people's shite could fuck her up for the rest of the day — if she forced herself to stick through lunch, after how bad just breakfast had been, it was possible she might be too worn out to make it to dinner. And it was Hallowe'en, and the Champions would be selected, so she really should try to be there, if she could. Besides, she wasn't hungry. She told everyone to have fun without her for the afternoon, and she'd just hide in her room and relax, make sure she had the brain-energy for tonight. Daphne and Hermione in particular were reluctant to just leave her alone, which was very silly, but they'd all agreed.
By the time she was finally alone, she'd still been a little worked up from sneaking off with Daphne, so she went ahead and took care of that. After that, she was actually hungry — she swung by the kitchens to get a snack at, like, two in the afternoon. Otherwise, she spent the whole afternoon in her room, poking at her reading for various classes, going over some of the notes her mother had left behind. It was very possible to stitch defensive enchantments into normal clothing, though if you put too much power into it they might catch fire — apparently a leather or a sturdy fabric like denim or, like, tweed were ideal, but Liz didn't exactly wear a whole lot of those — and also her body hair was starting to bother her, turned out Lily had included a potion for that. (Lily explicitly said it wasn't for pubic hair, but she was pretty sure if she used a couple imperturbable charms to block off anything sensitive, it should be fine. Another potion in here was for acne, which wasn't something Liz had a problem with, but Lily suggested doing basically the same thing with that one, so.) Liz didn't plan on using the exact enchantment Lily had designed as a basic version for light (normal, everyday) clothing, since most of it was for shielding against mind magic and scrying — not only did Liz not really need that, but it would interfere with doing mind magic too, which would actually make her less safe. She'd have to write one herself.
Of course, defensive enchantments were a new one for her — she had several enchanting projects under her belt by now, but they were all comparatively simple things — so it would take a bit of research to actually come up with anything. And also maths, to make sure she didn't set herself on fire, ugh...
The hair-removing potion wasn't that complicated, but she was missing one of the ingredients she'd need, so she copied the directions on less important paper and set it aside for later. (She was being careful not to damage Lily's notes, didn't want to lose them.) She did get some reading for class done, but most of the afternoon she spent glancing back and forth between Lily's notes on defensive enchantments, her Runes books, and her own slowly growing notes. By the end, she had a basic outline of three different scripts, but she'd keep poking at it, ask Babbling and maybe Severus if it looked okay. Oh, and she'd need to test what the channelling threshold of the clothes she planned to use was, so she knew what she had to work with, but she didn't know how to do that...
It occurred to her, while looking over the basic maths, that you could actually fit some pretty good enchantments on a corset — you'd take the boning out, carve dozens of tiny runes all along each one, both sides, and then put them back in and seal it up. Depending on what the cloth bits were made out of, you'd still have to worry about exceeding the channelling threshold, but it was worn close enough against your body Liz thought you could cheat, and design the enchantment to draw on your magic to power itself, which should lower the burden significantly. Kind of like the ring Severus had given her ages ago, to detect poisons and stuff (and also block scrying, probably why Sirius hadn't been able to find her last summer), but much more complicated. But she thought that would technically be a kind of warding, just drawing from her instead of ambient magic, and she didn't know enough to even begin to design that. Also, magic-made corsets already had enchantments on them, she'd need to get a blank one, and did muggles even sell those anymore? Also also, she didn't have the tits for that sort of thing yet. Definitely worth keeping in mind, though, she quick jotted down some notes on the idea to go back to later.
(Liz thought it was slightly absurd that she was considering designing her own clothing enchantments — and even, depending on how her research into different kinds of cloth went, maybe even making her own clothes from scratch — but she liked making things, and it wasn't like she had anything better to do with her time, so why the hell not. She remembered seeing things on the subject at Flourish and Blotts, there must be charms and potions and stuff, she should check an owl-order catalogue...)
Anyway, Liz sort of lost track of time jumping between her Runes books and jotting down notes, by the time she checked it was actually a little after she'd intended to leave. Quick getting back in her robes and everything — she'd just thrown on a random dress to go to the kitchens — oh jeez, her hair was fucking all over the place, when had that happened? Oh well, it's not like it ever behaved anyway. Trying not to feel self-conscious about it (she was so sick of her hair), she finally left her room, heading straight up through the completely empty common room. Yeah, she was maybe a little bit late to dinner, oops.
She started feeling the excitement of the crowd long before she even reached the Entrance Hall. Like invisible claws in the air, poking and scratching at her skin, growing denser as she approached the stairs, with each step she climbed. Before long it was intense enough that her skin was crawling, her breath catching in her throat. Halfway up the stairs, her step hitched for a second — she, just, did not want to go up there. But she forced herself to keep moving, she knew her absence would be noted, she didn't want people to worry. (Or, more to the point, ask her uncomfortable questions about it later.) Besides, the holiday feasts were always good, and they normally had spiced wine and cider at the table on Hallowe'en, there was normally at least one that wasn't too overwhelmingly sweet...
It turned out, she actually wasn't as late as she'd thought — when she got up to the Entrance Hall, the Goblet and its plinth were gone, but there were still people streaming through the doors into the Great Hall. Right, good. She'd been somewhat worried turning up late would be attention-drawing, and she'd rather not get stared at by everyone at once, thanks. At the back of her crowd as she was, her appearance went completely unnoticed, which was the way she liked it.
Ducking her head against the weight of the tangled mess of feelings on the air — too much for her to keep straight, hot and cold and smooth and sharp, pressing in on her from all directions at once — Liz made for the back Slytherin table mostly from memory, her eyes on her feet. Daphne had left a spot open for her, unsurprisingly, and once she was under the wards around the table it was...better. Tension was still pretty thick around her, making her antsy and slightly twitchy, but, it wasn't that bad.
Daphne leaned in close, her hand finding Liz's knee under the table — close enough that Liz felt a little warm, Daphne's perfume tingling in her nose. "Are you alright?"
She shook her head. "I'm fine, it's just, a lot." Apparently feeling warm wasn't just in her head, she caught people from multiple directions noticing she was blushing already, just, ugh. Frustrated by her own body continuing to be fucking stupid — she didn't know why her face had to get so bloody red all the time, she hadn't even noticed her getting flustered was obvious from the outside until she'd caught Hermione thinking about it (she thought it was adorable) — it took her a second to finish her thought. "I'll make it through dinner." Speaking of which, there were already snacks and drinks on the table — let's see if any of the wine was any good...
(Liz was aware that relying on alcohol to get through big events and parties and shite probably wasn't healthy, but if everyone's minds weren't so bloody loud she wouldn't have to.)
The Hallowe'en feast wasn't that bad — or, it could have been worse, at least. The feasts around holidays tended to have extra stuff going on, in addition to the higher-than-usual-quality food. It was typical for a large fraction of the candles floating overhead to be replaced with jack-o-lanterns, the shapes of the faces throwing crazy flickering shadows around the room. Liz had learned a bit about that, and apparently it was a relatively new tradition, dating to Dexter Fortescue's time as Headmaster. It was a muggle Hallowe'en thing, originally from Ireland, and had only gradually trickled into the magical world...also, it'd started with fucking turnips or something, the ones at Hogwarts made oversized with magical additives, they'd only switched to pumpkins in Dumbledore's time. (Pumpkins were from America, apparently.) And, actually, the switch to pumpkin jack-o-lanterns under Dumbledore was where mages' thing for pumpkin juice had become a thing: the juice actually did have pumpkin in it (if a rather small amount, for flavour), something the elves had invented so all the innards didn't just get wasted. The elves did all the carving, of course — supposedly, it was a chore mostly given to the younger ones, partially to train them how to properly use knives and also just because it was fun — and the innards were saved for various things (the juice, and also pies and candies and stuff), the seeds roasted with spices and sold off as snacks to someone or other. (The school sold off a lot of stuff they made on the grounds, for a little extra income.) Anyway, the students had liked the stuff, for whatever inexplicable reason, and wanted it after graduation, so it quickly ended up becoming a thing.
Which explained Hermione's questions about it. (Besides the obvious why the hell would anyone drink pumpkin juice?) Way back in first year, she'd pointed out that pumpkins were native to America, so the 'tradition' of serving pumpkin juice at Hogwarts couldn't really be that old. Turned out, it wasn't — Hagrid had planted the first pumpkins here, so it couldn't go back further than the 60s.
So, the jack-o-lanterns were kind of neat, Liz liked the effect of all the overlapping shadows. It was pretty common for there to be a flock of bats flying around in the Great Hall, which wasn't nearly as unsanitary as it seemed — the first time she'd gotten a good look at them (maybe second year?) Liz had been able to tell immediately they weren't real, an illusion or something. (A very complex, solid-looking illusion, but still just an illusion.) Back in second year, Dumbledore had arranged for music played by a bunch of animated skeletons — the real musicians had been elsewhere in the castle, playing to an empty room, the movements they made simultaneously reproduced one-to-one by the skeleton-shaped constructs, which was a neat trick — but the entertainment mostly came in the form of the castle ghosts putting on dramatic reenactments of their own deaths. A lot of the local ghosts had had pretty violent deaths, lots of tragedy and betrayals, so they had plenty of drama on hand to milk, playing it up for the kids.
Some of the performances could get kind of gruesome — apparently ghosts had some control over the form they took, so they could make illusions of weapons and fire and even blood-splatters, on a couple notable occasions even their guts spilling out. (Often, these were 'interrupted' by Peeves, appearing out of nowhere through the 'dying' ghost to throw confetti over the audience to shrieks and giggles.) Didn't seem like the kind of thing that would be allowed at a school with children as young as eleven — Petunia would definitely flip out if Dudley's school put on a show like this — but apparently mages had very different standards for what was appropriate to show to kids.
There was normally a greater variety of food, this time even more than usual, with foreign stuff on the tables too. Liz had noticed that there tended to be a lot of, like, apples and nuts and stuff — apparently that was actually a proper magical Hallowe'en thing, one of the few things at Hogwarts that really had anything to do with the holiday as it was recognised by religious people. This time, the feast was kicked off with a surprisingly solemn speech from Gamp, interrupted every sentence or two for translation — all on the approach of winter and the inevitability of death, but new life coming out of death, the return of spring equally inevitable, those who yet lived should embrace life for as long as it was theirs, even while acknowledging the echoes of the dead around them and that they would one day join them, ending on a sort of bittersweet high note — which was apparently also a rather Samhain-y thing. The party and the silly decorations and the over-the-top play-acting and the joking around, none of that was appropriate for the traditional holiday, but Liz guessed Gamp at least acknowledging it was better than nothing.
(Liz was aware that a lot of the more traditional, religious mages found Hallowe'en at Hogwarts deeply offensive, but you couldn't please everyone.)
None of that was bad, really, but the holiday feasts were always way more noisy than usual, the hundreds of young people all around completely failing to contain their excitement — raised voices and laughter ringing in the Hall, their feelings filling the air as thick as pudding. She could hardly breathe, on the bad days. And they were even more keyed up than usual, with the selection of the Champions approaching, the Goblet on its plinth in front of the staff table, moody blue flames flickering. The mix was agonising, pounding in Liz's head and twisting in her stomach and clawing at her skin.
But it could be worse — honestly, it wasn't that bad, probably the least overwhelming holiday feast so far. It helped that people had things that weren't Liz to focus on — Hallowe'en in particular tended to be bad for that — but also the wards around the tables made a big difference. The feelings broadcasted by the dozens of people at her table all mixed up were still a bit much, but relative to dealing with the entire bloody Great Hall, it was reduced enough to be manageable.
Of course, people were allowed to move around during the feasts, but Liz didn't want to have to leave the wards. So instead a few people came to them — Hermione and Lily and Neville, Sophie and Sally-Anne, enough that their friends were taking up this whole end of the table. Which, Liz would prefer fewer people to keep track of, but this was fine. Besides, these were all people she got along with...decently well. Sally-Anne still wasn't quite over the gay thing, but she was getting better about it, so it wasn't a big deal, it was fine.
Better enough about it that it probably wouldn't have even occurred to her if Daphne hadn't drawn her attention to it. Daphne wasn't doing anything as obvious as out and snogging her in public — it wouldn't bother Daphne if they did, but she knew it would bother Liz — but they were sitting very close, Daphne's hand sometimes dipping under the table to dance over her leg or play with her fingers. And, as they often did when sitting next to each other, Daphne had crossed one leg over, Liz's left leg tucked under hers — she'd pulled the hem of her robes up a bit, enough for their legs to touch, making Daphne's mind much louder, her feelings constantly brushing up against her, flowing in and out with each breath. (Which did a pretty good job of drowning out the worst of the stuff at the table, so Liz didn't mind.) Naturally, Daphne used the contact to tease her, idle and sometimes very conscious sexy thoughts fluttering through, now and then another of those explicit imaginings of hers.
Which, naturally, was getting Liz very worked up, in public, again, because apparently Daphne liked messing with her like that. And Daphne was fully aware of what she was doing to her — when their minds were in contact like this, Daphne didn't get nearly as much from Liz as Liz did her, but it did go both ways. (Well, technically it only went one way, but Liz's mind was partially inside Daphne's mind, so she could still pick up some stuff.) Daphne definitely enjoyed teasing her...though Liz wasn't sure what that feeling was, exactly, but she had no doubt it was a positive one. She'd probably stop if Liz asked her to, but it was kind of fun, no matter how embarrassing it was to be very turned on sitting in the Great Hall, surrounded by their friends...
Not that they could tell. Liz's face was red for a pretty big fraction of the feast, sure, but they assumed she was all shy and flustered from sitting so close to Daphne — which they mostly just thought was cute, so. (It did keep reminding Sally-Anne about the gay thing, but it was probably better for her to get used to it anyway.) Liz caught a thought from multiple people, that she was normally so cold and creepy and vaguely intimidating, not to mention a powerful mage and a scary duellist, but sit her next to her girlfriend and she quickly turned into a red-faced, awkward, stuttering mess. Wait, was she actually stuttering? Liz had hardly noticed, ugh. Anyway, Liz was getting the feeling showing that she did actually have feelings like a normal person was weirdly humanising, even to the people who knew her best, and didn't think she was a complete monster future Dark Lady or whatever, like a stupid percentage of the kids here did. Which was a little, well...
It was a little embarrassing, but she thought their friends seeing her being just a normal teenager was probably a good thing? Maybe. Not hurting anything, at least not enough to ask Daphne to stop, so.
(Hermione did guess Liz was getting worked up, but she didn't say anything about it, even implied, so Liz tried to pretend she hadn't noticed.)
The feast dragged into the evening, longer than an ordinary holiday feast would, hours and hours. Around them, the crowd got tenser and tenser, continually glancing up toward the Goblet or the staff table, the anticipation so thick on the air Liz unconsciously relaxed further into Daphne's mind to help block it out. As the dessert course dragged on — nothing nearby looked appetising to her, she didn't bother touching any of it — Liz belatedly noticed that she was physically leaning against Daphne too. Oops, hadn't meant to do that. It was possible she'd had too much spiced wine, but the feast really had dragged on a long time, she hadn't been paying attention. Oh well, everybody knew they were dating now anyway, and Daphne was warm, and she smelled nice...
Liz might have drifted half-asleep at one point — with Daphne's mind blocking out most of the Hall, it wasn't too loud in here, and she was behind on sleep. (If the nightmares could fucking stop, that'd be nice.) Still, they were in public, and, yeah, she'd definitely had too much wine. Oops.
(Daphne felt weirdly flattered, if that was the right word, and their friends continued to think she was being uncharacteristically cute, and not in a mean why, so she tried not to be too embarrassed about it.)
Finally, Zabini stood up, waltzed along the staff table toward the middle, where the Goblet waited. Not everyone noticed right away, a wave of hissing sweeping the Hall as people turned to shush their neighbours, a stiff, rigid quiet falling over the crowd before Zabini had even come to a stop. Liz was a little surprised that Zabini was apparently in charge for all the Tournament stuff — she'd expected Gamp would do this stuff, being the host — but she guessed someone from the Ministry was a more neutral party than anyone on the judges' panel. (If not totally neutral, since it was the British Ministry, but as good as they were going to get.) Her voice low, wavering with an edge of amusement, yet somehow carrying through the Hall, Zabini said, "The moment has nearly arrived. Our monitoring spells tell us the Goblet is very close to making a decision.
"The Goblet will return the names of our Champions — Durmstrang first, then Beauxbatons, and finally Hogwarts. There may or may not be pauses as long as a few minutes between Champions, the accounts we have of previous Tournaments are mixed. Dessert will remain on the tables until midnight regardless. Once your name emerges from the Goblet, you will be committed. The binding cannot be broken, you can no more back out than you can be usurped by one of your less fortunate classmates — once your name is called, the role of Champion is yours from tonight until June, whatever may come."
Which was one of several reasons Liz would have been very leery of entering her name, if she were old enough. Supposedly the Tournament was going to be a regular thing again, and she might be a Durmstrang student when the next one came around, and she'd thought she might go for it then. But she wasn't so sure about that anymore — she hadn't known how potentially dangerous the Goblet was before. She had enough scars and shite already, she didn't need to be marked as a coward or whatever on top.
...She had a funny feeling, though, watching the blue flames in the ancient Goblet flickering and swirling like waves. She couldn't put words to it, exactly. Familiar, like she'd seen this before — of course, she had seen Zabini standing behind the Goblet in that exact spot before, at dinner last night, but...
She'd never actually gotten close enough to feel the magic of the Goblet, too many people in the way. But she had the feeling that, if she did, it'd feel very familiar.
"Once I call your name," Zabini continued, "stand and go through that door right back there." She pointed at a normal-sized door in a rear corner of the Great Hall — the same one Severus had brought her through to give her her report, back in June. "A short flight of stairs will lead you down to a sitting room. After all three Champions have been selected, Tournament officials will join you for further instructions, and to answer any questions you may have. As was mentioned at dinner yesterday, the First Task is only a couple weeks away, and there will be—" Zabini cut herself off, glancing at the Goblet — there had been a shiver through the flames, a few colourful sparks flickering just for a second, very subtle. "Here we are. Some mood-lighting if you please, Headmaster."
At a wave of Gamp's hand, half the candles went out, the rest dimming, throwing most of the Hall into shadow — the remaining candles moodily flickering, the stars through the ceiling twinkling. A surprised gasp ran through the Hall, followed by excited hissing, people all around leaned in toward the Goblet, practically sitting on the edge of their seats. The tension on the air so thick, Liz grimaced, cringed away, turning further into Daphne's mind. She was rather excited too, but was still as soft and warm as always. Liz had originally thought that was some kind of emotion (though she wasn't sure what to call it), but by now she was certain this was just what Daphne's mind was like — she had no idea what that meant, or even if it meant anything at all, but it was comfortable, so she didn't really care.
The shadows were thick through most of the Hall, but there was still a circle of light around the Goblet, sparkling off the fabric of Zabini's dress, earrings and necklace and rings glinting, her face shadowed and dramatic. (Blaise's mum was very pretty, Liz was trying not to notice.) It wasn't coming from the Goblet, the colour was wrong, but there was no obvious source, almost like an invisible spotlight somewhere up in the ceiling — magical lighting could be like that sometimes.
Only a few seconds after the light dimmed, there was a crackle, and then a fwoosh — the fire in the Goblet abruptly expanded into a cloud a dozen times larger than its previous volume, the burst of light almost too bright to look at. People shouted and screeched in surprise and excitement, some even in fear, which was very silly, it was just an illusion...or, maybe it wasn't, actually. Liz had assumed it was fake because she couldn't feel it — no heat, sure, but some magical flames didn't give off heat, but she couldn't feel the magic either. Of course, if it were an illusion she should be able to feel that. She was momentarily confused, but then just shrugged it off. The wards on the table must block off her sense of magic, too.
The fire condensed back to its previous size, but then shrunk further, only a little thimbleful of flame peeking out of the Goblet, before loosening again — as the fire expanded to fill the Goblet as before, a single thin filament of blue flame shot upward, fading to a more natural orange before vanishing entirely. A little slip of paper was left behind, fluttering down through the air.
A flick of her wand, and the paper was summoned straight to Zabini, the woman somewhat awkwardly plucking it out of the air. (Very pretty, but not particularly athletic, Liz guessed.) Zabini drew out the moment longer than necessary, the tension of the crowd around them crystallising to a razor-focus, gently turning and unrolling the slip of paper. Finally, she called, "The Champion for Durmstrang is Viktor Rumenov Krum."
The crowd around her erupting into applause, Liz frowned — unlike seemingly everybody she'd heard talk about it, she hadn't expected Krum to be picked. He was a big professional quidditch star, after all, and she knew more than most how much constant training and practice that took, she was rather sceptical he had much time to put into his magical education. Maybe he'd been a promising student before getting big in quidditch — he'd have to have been, to have gotten into Durmstrang in the first place — but surely he would have fallen behind his peers with fewer obligations on their time. She'd heard a rumour that one of the Tasks involved quidditch somehow, so obviously he'd been an asset for that one, but for everything else...
Oh well, whatever. She guessed she'd reserve judgement until she saw how he performed. Krum was a rather unassuming-looking bloke, tall but thin, with an overlarge nose and heavy brow that seemed to give him a permanent frown. He stood, shoulders hunched, and made straight for the rear door with absolutely no ceremony whatsoever — she didn't think he was even smiling, seemingly unaffected by being picked — ignoring the cheering of the crowd. Liz guessed he was probably used to applause by now, didn't really consider the attention anything special. Before long, he was through the door, vanishing into shadows.
It took a bit for the crowd to settle down, the applause dragging on despite Krum not even being in sight anymore, excited chattering as people discussed the Viktor Krum being one of the Champions. From further down their table, she caught Draco already discussing the odds of him winning, Liz rolled her eyes — they didn't even know who the other two Champions were yet, ridiculous. Zabini didn't even try to get control of the crowd, just waited. The noise cut itself off when there was a hissing of sparks from the Goblet, a second streamer of fire shooting out of the top, releasing another slip of paper.
Krum's had just looked like normal paper, but this one was dyed a sort of pink, shaped like a crinkled little circle. Liz had seen those in one of the shops in the main magical district in Paris — they were basically magical sticky notes, for...presumably whatever the hell the muggle version was used for, she honestly didn't know. It was hard to say for sure from here, but she thought that was one of the fancier, decorated ones, more useful for, like, writing down your floo password or the location/time for a meeting and passing it to someone, that sort of thing. Something a student might have had on hand to put their name on, so. Zabini summoned the pretty little piece of paper to herself, the tension again crystallising around her, enough Liz cringed. "The Champion for Beauxbatons is Fleur Delacour."
The applause this time was far more mixed, Liz caught a few whiffs of displeasure from further down her table — "Delacour" was the name used (in French) by one of the biggest veela clans in Europe. One of Artèmi's trio partners was a Delacour, he must be related to the Champion somehow, though it was impossible to guess how closely. (It was a very big family.) A girl in the Beauxbatons uniform stood from their table, made her way toward the door out, her steps smooth, almost seeming to glide more than walk. She had straight, waist-length hair of an unnatural-looking shiny silvery colour, vaguely reminding Liz of her invisibility cloak — a somewhat common veela hair colour, she'd noticed — and was also stupidly pretty, of course, delicate face round-cheeked and button-nosed and just generally perfect. As she got closer to Zabini at the Goblet, Liz noticed that she was surprisingly tall, slender and graceful. Unlike Krum, she actually reacted to the (ambivalent) applause, pausing near the Goblet to give a little curtsy to the staff table, and then another out to the Hall, face pulled into a bright toothy grin—
Liz realised she was staring, wrenched her eyes away. Stupid pretty veela...
By the tone of the continued muttering after Delacour had gone, unflattering thoughts lingering like a bad smell, Liz had a feeling the locals were going to be predictably racist about Beauxbatons's Champion not being human. Beauxbatons did have a pretty sizeable nonhuman student population, and veela and lilin had certain magical advantages, so there'd been a good chance that was going to be the case anyway — by the thought she caught from Parkinson, they'd just assumed that the Goblet would have picked one of the 'proper' mages before any of the 'subhumans'. Which was fucking stupid, but that wasn't really a surprise, was it? You kind of had to be an idiot to believe in all that racist shite in the first place, so. Still, she wondered whether Delacour had any idea what she was getting herself into, most of the Hogwarts students and the British press were not going to be very charitable toward her...
Delacour had been out of the Hall for a minute or two when the Goblet spat out another burst of sparks, a final stream of blue fire stretching for the ceiling. As Zabini summoned the slip of paper to her, the air crystallised even harder around Liz, enough it was hard to breathe — she squeezed her eyes shut, focussed on her breathing for a moment, slowly drawn in and out, trying to stay calm. (She hated feeling trapped.) Somewhat muffled by the tension dense around her, her voice wavering, Zabini called, "And finally, our Champion from Hogwarts is...Cedric Diggory!"
From her table, there was mostly a sense of resigned disappointment — a lot of people in Slytherin didn't like Cedric much, but they could acknowledge he'd been one of the more likely possibilities — but the applause from the rest of the Hall was instant and deafening. Or, not from all the Hall, really — at the guest tables, Ravenclaw and Slytherin, it was mostly just polite, reserved clapping, noticeably more enthusiastic from Gryffindor, as well as the younger students, who were more likely to not have caught on to the inter-house politics here yet. (And also girls in general, Liz noticed, because supposedly Cedric was especially fanciable? Honestly, she could never guess which boys normal girls would like better — she could see what they thought, but she didn't really get it, you know.) The greatest of the noise was coming from the Hufflepuff tables. Seemingly the whole house had jumped up to their feet, cheering and screaming, dishes rattling as they pounded on the tables, jangling and—
Liz grimaced, reached for her wand and cast a noise-filtering charm around herself. Much better. Honestly, she realised Hufflepuffs didn't exactly get recognition very often, but it was only a silly school competition, this seemed like way too much...
The raucous cheering dragged on and on and on — even Sophie and Sally-Anne had joined in, despite being over here at a Slytherin table, on their feet clapping and whistling, practically bouncing on their toes in excitement — it took Cedric unreasonably long to get up to the front of the Hall, delayed by countless pats on the back and that funny wrist-clasping thing mages did instead of normal hand-shakes, some people going as far as outright hugging him. Eventually he managed to stumble his way out of the crowd, dark hair tousled, a bashful sort of grin on his face, even a little pink on his cheeks. He sauntered his way along the staff table, a noticeable bounce to his step, the cheering propelling him on. A couple metres away from the door, he stopped and turned around, dipping in a colourful formal bow, drawing several more decibels from the ecstatic crowd. Even after he was gone, the cheering went on, and on, and on...
Thanks to her paling, the noise wan't bothering her too much, but Liz had another problem. What she'd initially read as the crowd's anticipation so thick around her it turned the air almost solid, like water in the process of freezing, the pressure seeming to crystalise against her, her sense of other people's minds distorted and— It hadn't gone away, with Cedric's selection. It had the previous two, but this time the pressure lingered, only seeming to grow harder and harder, the force building, Liz's skin crawling and her breath hitching, she tried to concentrate, but it wasn't going away, and—
"Liz?" Daphne's hand tightened on her leg, the warmth of her mind lurching with confusion and concern. "What it is?"
"Something's wrong." Her voice came out thin, breathless, the freezing pressure around her not letting her draw in enough air — she was starting to get a little light-headed. She struggled to take in a deep breath, her throat barely letting it through, her chest shivering. "I don't know," she snapped, answering the question in multiple people's heads before anyone could ask. "It's a Seer thing, I think, but it isn't— I don't know."
The pressure only building worse and worse, the people around her shot each other glances, the tension squeezing her in so thick and cold she could barely read them. She did catch that Hermione was about to suggest going to get Severus, or maybe Pomfrey — Liz must look really bad if she thought that was necessary.
Before anyone could do anything, the Goblet shot out another burst of sparks. Zabini had been just starting in on a speech — Liz hadn't heard a word — but she cut off, turning a frown on the Goblet. There was a short pause, and then the fire flared, and—
A spell lanced across the Great Hall in a blink, dark and snarling — aimed right at Liz. She shoved herself away from the table, instinctively trying to dodge it, but it zeroed in on her, striking before she could even draw her wand. Overbalanced, she toppled over backward, landing hard on her back, but she hardly even noticed, the curse stabbing into her, dense and sharp and implacable, a thousand burs hooking into her. Liz scrambled to push them out — panic seizing her chest, she could feel her own magic flaring out of control under her skin — but they stubbornly dug deeper, deeper, threading themselves together, forming a noose of sticky dark magic. And then it cinched tight, locked around her, she tried to push it away, slip out from underneath it, but the thousand burs kept it held fast, she couldn't get it to budge at all.
Even as she kept fighting it, shaking and dizzy — the cupboard door rattling and Vernon's face turning purple with the force of his ranting, she hated feeling trapped — the edges seemed to dissolve, the curse becoming less like itself and more like her. The shape remained, she could tell, imprinted onto the pattern of her own magic, leaving her altered — permanently.
That all happened in a blink, leaving Liz lying on her back on the stone floor, the incomprehensible mess of hundreds of thoughts and feelings battering her, sending her reeling. Iron bands clenched tight around her chest, her throat so thick she couldn't breathe, the echo of it thick on the air like a bad smell. Shakily, her hand went to a pocket, the calming potion there — before belatedly remembering she couldn't take it right now, calming potions and alcohol didn't mix. A strangled, frustrated groan grinding its way out of her throat, she pushed herself up to a seat, her head spinning, pressing her palms against her eyes, colourful spots sparking in the blackness, tried to block out Vernon's voice ringing in her ears, the ghostly hand gripping her shoulder and the fabric scratching at her chest, the minds surrounding her, pushing in, she couldn't—
She felt a hand on her shoulder— (Snap.) —she cringed, slapping it away. At some level, she knew that was Daphne, but the echo was too loud, she couldn't block it out, jumping at shadows, burning lines on her back throbbing, her head spinning, she couldn't breathe—
Cool and soothing, a compulsion crashed over her, the iron strangling her and Petunia's screeching and Vernon's hand and the throbbing heat all inundated, washed away in the flood. Liz came back to herself, curled on her side on the floor, shivering — everything kind of hurt, sore and tingling like after a work-out, her chest and her throat with a more burning sort of ache. Plus a dull headache, of course. Almost like after crying, similar but not quite the same thing. Still dizzy, confused — the blank smooth calm of the compulsion still filling her head slowing her down — she was dimly aware of Severus hovering over her, Daphne and her friends a little further back, the overwhelming noise of the crowd behind them.
...Crowd.
Sense gradually dripping back as Severus's compulsion faded away, Liz realised she'd just had a panic attack in the middle of the Great Hall, the whole bloody school and their international guests and everyone in full view.
Well. That was embarrassing.
"Are you alright, Elizabeth?"
The answer to that should be obvious. Odd, Severus wasn't known for asking stupid fucking questions. Feeling unaccountably weak and shaky, Liz pushed herself upright again. Trying to ignore the heat she felt building on her skin, her stomach squirming, she wiped at her face with a sleeve — ugh, she was leaking, she'd have to have this robe washed... "I can still feel it there." A rigid spot inside herself, similar in tone to the rest of her magic but holding its shape, as obvious to her as something hard stuck between her teeth, a splinter in her foot.
There was an unpleasant lurch in Severus's head, sharp and cold. "I'm afraid we must wait for it to resolve on its own." ...What? What the hell was it? "Can you stand up?" She grimaced — she kind of didn't want to, she wasn't looking forward to the eyes that would be on her as soon as she was out from behind the table — but she took his offered hand anyway, staggered up to her feet.
And immediately cringed at the countless eyes sharp on her skin, like wasps — of course.
Severus cast some kind of spell, magic flowing around her smooth and tingly, and the pressure of the minds against her immediately lightened, enough she let out a sigh. It wasn't all gone, she could still feel people's attention on her as a vaguely unpleasant pressure against her skin, but it was much less sharp and overwhelmingly awful. Still trying to get her balance (both physical and mental), Severus turned toward the staff table. He didn't raise his voice, instead doing that spell to carry it through the room, subtle magic glimmering under the words. "Proceed, Director."
Blinking, forcing her eyes to focus, Liz frowned up toward the Goblet — she had to tilt her head to the side, so she could see between Daphne and Hermione. Zabini was standing there, stiff and expressionless, another slip of paper in her hand. Liz twitched, what had just happened belatedly clicking into place. "Wait..."
Zabini didn't respond for a couple seconds, blankly staring at Severus. "I'm not certain this is wise."
"Read it."
Her eyes flicked down to Liz for a second, then over the crowd, a quick glance over her shoulder to the staff table. Liz saw a lot of frowning there, grimaces of...she couldn't be sure, couldn't feel their minds from here. Zabini let out a heavy sigh. Holding up one hand, the slip of paper held between two fingers, she said, "Elizabeth Potter."
She didn't know how that could be a surprise to anyone at this point, it was obvious what'd happened — but still a surge of emotion swept through the Hall, too mixed up for Liz to make any sense of, crashing over her intense enough to make her dizzy again. Muttering and hissing thick in the air, Liz had to raise her voice, nearly shouting to make sure she'd be heard. "That's total shite, there's only three Champions. It's literally in the name." Liz heard laughter from a few places, didn't know what that was about.
"Regardless, Miss Potter, I'm afraid—" Zabini cut herself off, turned to lean over the staff table. Talking to the Headmasters, but Liz couldn't hear any of it from here. Even if the table weren't covered with privacy charms — which it was — she suspected the increasing noise from the rest of the Hall would have drowned it out anyway.
After some seconds, the crowd around getting louder and louder, Liz's shoulders hitching up at the weight of their attention even through Severus's paling, Gamp stood, waving for quiet. It wasn't working, most people in the Hall weren't even looking at him — he clapped his hands, creating an unnaturally loud bang, must be some kind of wandless spell. "Miss Potter, join the Champions downstairs."
"I can't compete. I didn't enter my name."
"We'll discuss that downstairs. Please, go."
...Well fine, she guessed. Still feeling shaky and disoriented, Severus got moving a few seconds before she did. She slipped through her friends, most of them sending her worried, questioning looks. She just shrugged back — she didn't have any better idea of what was happening than they did. The Hall was mostly quiet as she walked between the tables, enough she could hear her boots clunking against the tile, the hisses low, interspersed with glances. Severus's paling was mostly still working, but there were enough eyes on her she still ducked under the weight, her chest clenching, a faint echo of the feelings in the hall pouring in at her, making her dizzy. She kept putting one foot after another, staring at the floor straight ahead, ignoring everything else as best as she possibly could.
As she got toward the front of the room, she heard clapping start from some of the front tables, filled with the younger Slytherins. Tentatively at first, and then gradually spreading and growing louder. Liz lurched to a stop, turned to glare at them. "Stop it." If she was being forced into this thing, that was a stupid fucking thing to be cheering about, just, shut the fuck up, you idiots...
A little bit of compulsion might have slipped into her voice, or the younger kids were just startled, the noise petered out pretty quickly, the kids staring wide-eyed back at her. Good.
Severus angled toward the Headmasters and judges, Liz turned toward the right, and the door out. As she left the grid of tables, the eyes on her started to drop away, the noise in the Hall increasing as people turned to their neighbours to discuss what the fuck just happened. She didn't pick up anything, meaningless white noise, but, by the general tone of the feelings on the air, much of it wasn't very favourable toward her — people were probably assuming she'd done something to get past the age line and enter, despite the fact that the Goblet had already chosen the Hogwarts Champion, she didn't know what the fuck had happened there. The shite they made up about her never made a whole lot of sense, it didn't need to make sense, they'd believe whatever they wanted to. Of course, it didn't help that she happened to be passing the Gryffindor tables at the moment, they tended to especially dislike her for no apparent reason. They were going to be a fucking pain this year, she just knew it...
It wasn't until she noticed that she could feel the hostility wafting out of Gryffindor that she realised Severus's spell was decaying the further she got away from him. That was fine, she guessed, she was going to be out of the Hall soon anyway. She'd have to ask him what spell that was later — it felt similar to her mind-shielding spell, but more effective at cutting off the Seer stuff. Not perfect, no, but better, enough to still be worth learning. She didn't know where the hell he got all this shite from, he always seemed to know the perfect spell or potion or whatever for any situation, it was ridiculous. He had been studying magic for decades, sure, and knowing how to react to complicated situations without a lot of time to think about it was just a thing healers had to do, but it was still impressive, was all, she had no idea how that man knew fucking everything all the time.
Liz slipped through the door, started clunking her way down the stairs, her breath coming a little easier as the weight of hundreds of minds around her eased with each step. This was fine. She couldn't really be bound to compete, the little knot of the curse still stubbornly dug into her notwithstanding — she hadn't put her name in, she was too young, and she didn't want to, obviously she couldn't. Severus would figure something out, he always did. Even as she thought it, she didn't really believe it — he'd already said, a couple minutes ago, that they'd have to wait for it to resolve on its own (meaning until the end of the Tournament) — but she still clung to the thought anyway.
Ringing in her head over and over, Severus would figure it out, he always did, it would be fine. She was fine. But no matter how hard she focussed — she was fine, she was fine — consciously breathing slow and deep, she didn't really believe it, a faint ringing in her ears, low panic clawing under her chest, the curse lodged inside her still and cool and unblinking.
(Liz hated feeling trapped.)
Yeah, we're gonna cut it there. This scene was originally planned to go longer, through the end of the night, but I decided very late in the process to start the next scene with the talk with the Champions/judges. The advantage is that I can get a chapter out for you all now, after being delayed for a couple weeks longer than expected, and also the scene would have been getting stupid long anyway. Maybe a somewhat awkward scene break, but it's better this way.
The delay is because I randomly decided to start that Star Wars crossover I mentioned, and then found myself completely unable to think about anything else. The fic will have four sections (possibly posted as separate files, we'll see), the first of which will have three parts — I've already nearly finished the first part, just a couple more writing days left, I think. I'm going to post that fic as I finish parts, just to make planning easier, keep it from getting away from me. The first part is already right around 61k words — I suspect the second part will be shorter, but the third part might go long — so these are pretty big drops we're talking about here. I'll probably spread the chapters out over a week or so. I'll almost certainly finish that before the next chapter of this fic, so keep an eye out for that, if you're interested.
I'm also in the process of whipping up a summary of the events after Episode VI and the major characters involved, so people who aren't familiar with the EU books won't be completely lost. Also, because this is me, I will be changing some of the Star Wars canon too, because the EU books have almost as much stupid shit in them as Harry Potter, and writing up the summary also helps me make sure I'm not missing anything important. You won't need to know any of that until the second section (and maybe even the second part of the second section), so that won't be being posted until later. I don't think it'll be necessary to read the silly nerdy summary, but if you feel like it, it'll exist.
Right, that's well more than enough from me for now. See you all next time.