Note; this will be the final chapter of Arc 2, which will (probably) be the shortest arc in this fairly long story. Stay tuned, and enjoy.
During everyone's first week of school—a hint of anticipation was in the air.
Once in a blue moon, Alice or Zander would glimpse into the main hall whenever they walked by it, seeing an older student from one of the three schools strolling across the age line and flicking their name into the goblet, slowly diminishing either of their chances to be chosen for the tournament as the week carried on. Neither of them spoke on the matter, as they both felt a slow rising anxiety around the situation now—not to mention, much of their time was dominated by distraction after distraction.
Aside from lying awake at night and dwelling on their life matters, they hardly had time to speculate about the tournament; they now had a steady stream of schoolwork to keep up with, and a new social routine was blossoming for them at Ilvermorny as well. It had become fairly commonplace for Jeremiah and Theo to wave them onward after classes and escort them all manner of places during their free time, all of them goofing off and practicing spells in the courtyards, flying for fun whenever the Quidditch field was empty, and wandering into Berkshire whenever they felt the need to adventure farther.
None of them had yet spared the time to drink together at the Endzone. Weekends were the prime time for drinking, as Jeremiah and Theo knew, but once the first weekend came, and once everyone was finally briefly free from the obligation of schoolwork, it would be fresh after the names of the champions were chosen by the Goblet of Fire. They hadn't yet adventured the American Aisle together, either—but it wasn't just due to a lack of time or interest. Zander was still troubled after surprisingly seeing his father in a shady area there—and beyond that, Vance Calloway seemed to be nesting in the corner booth of the Endzone every time they visited, always sipping coffee, flipping through Magic Massachusetts, and keeping a vigilant eye on the back hall, almost as if he was monitoring every witch or wizard who might visit from the American Aisle—which, considering his job description, made plenty of sense for him to do.
So, as they adjusted to the new routine with a touch of anxiety in the air, they all resolved to do their fun plans later, as they had all school year to do them.
Still, as the days passed by, the slight anxiety in the atmosphere seemed to be steadily growing, as if a sense of urgency was slowly infecting the castle, and something of monumental import was just on their horizon.
And it truly was—because the Triwizard Tournament was nearly here.
The day before the tournament was set to officially begin—just before the time would come for the Goblet of Fire to choose its champions—Zander found himself wandering the halls alone, just after leaving dinner early, slipping away when he was certain no one was looking. He knew it wouldn't be long before the moment of truth came—and the Goblet of Fire would reveal who from all three schools would be partaking in the tournament all year—but drawing the names from the goblet would only happen after everyone else had finished dinner, and that was still a little ways off. So, he simply wanted to wander, to walk off all his nervous energy and anxious thoughts, simply wishing this suspense would leave him be already.
Then, a set of quick footsteps soon trailed after him, following him down the hall and slowing to a stop by his side.
Tobias paused and caught his breath, pushing up his glasses and giving him a look.
Zander halted there, squinting questioningly at him. "What…?"
"No, nothing, I just…" Tobias uttered, hesitating and surveying him closely. "You've been quiet all day. Are you vorried?"
"No," Zander replied. "I can handle the tournament."
Tobias sighed. "I didn't mean vorried for you."
Zander fell silent, biting his lip and glancing down.
"Well," he muttered seconds later. "I've seen a lot of Hogwarts students put their names in aside from her and me. Odds are, she won't even get picked… so there's not much to worry about."
Tobias stared, his eyes narrowing. "Vhat if she does?"
Zander gave him a caustic, flattened expression, barely flashing a smile before he marched on.
Tobias shot him a look from behind, breaking into a brisk stride after him.
"You really don't think she has a chance," he ranted as he speed-walked after his friend. "Zat is why you're not worried—you don't think she's even good enough."
"It's not about being good enough. It's about odds," Zander responded, pocketing his hands while he walked. "And the odds aren't on her side—so, no, not worried."
"Zander," Tobias breathed, grabbing his sleeve and pulling him to a stop, forcing him to face him again. "Ze Goblet of Fire doesn't select based on any sort of popularity, or past wins, or points systems. It selects people based on things that nobody has ever understood."
Zander huffed out a breath, simply staring at him.
"And that means… you cannot even know ze real odds," Tobias disclosed, giving him a serious look. "None of us can."
"Tobias… look at me," Zander said, facing him fully and raising his brows at him. "Do you honestly think that Alice would get picked over me?"
Tobias took slightly back, his brow furrowing.
"And that's not to say she's incompetent or anything," Zander added just after reading his expression. "That's just to say—considering the kinds of skills that you need to fight in a tournament like this, and considering the kinds of skills Alice has, compared to the kinds of skills that I have—do you really think she would actually get picked over me?"
"You can't plan logically around a magical item like ze Goblet of Fire," Tobias mumbled, gently shaking his head. "Maybe it doesn't choose ze people who would already be the best at it. Maybe it chooses ze people who need to endure the tournament to become the best."
"Oh, right—and I'm sure that works like a charm," Zander chided coldly. "So, tell me—what happened the last time a Hufflepuff got picked for the Triwizard Tournament? Didn't go too well for him, did it?"
Tobias reeled back and stared him, looking aghast.
Zander gnawed his lip again, this time harder, glaring at the floor and instantly feeling a rush of regret. He let out a sigh, raising his hand and nodding.
"Okay," he mumbled. "That may have been too far…"
"Vhat is wrong with you?" Tobias breathed, still ogling him as if he'd gone mad. "Vhy are you being so… vhy are you being so…?"
"What, Slytherin? I'll tell you why. Because—yes—I am bloody worried," Zander snarled through gritted teeth, suddenly rounding on him and making him rear back again. "And all I want—all I want in this Godforsaken world—is not to think about it anymore, and for that stupid bloody cup to just spit out my name and stop dangling me in suspense already!"
The two of them stood alone in the hall, sharing a long, tense stare with one another.
"You can't protect her from everything," Tobias said somberly.
Zander huffed out another breath, fuming silently at him.
Tobias, however, only wore a face of empathy.
"Y'know—that—that's rubbish," Zander griped, stepping forward and waving a finger at him. "I know for a fact it is—because I know I am willing to do anything to look after the people I care about. Even things that none of the people I care about could do!"
Then—he stormed past him, preparing to march off.
"Like ze Cruciatus Curse."
Zander's foot skidded on the floor—stopping dead, making a face, and slowly turning back around to face him.
Tobias gazed into him with a grave, solemn visage.
"Did you think nobody heard vhat you were about to do…?" he said softly, making a step toward him. "Ve were all in ze chamber… and I heard vhat you were about to do to Valefor when ve got there. It's not enough to win for someone else, or to successfully protect someone else. It's not enough to simply defeat a bad situation. You von't stop it there. You have to take it farther… and you have to do vhatever drastic thing is necessary to make sure the bad situation can never arise again."
Zander stared, then tossed up a hand, cocking his head and laughing.
"So?" he hissed.
Tobias sighed heavily. "So… nothing. It is a hard burden, and sometimes, it is necessary. But, ze problem is… you believe it's your job to do so. You believe you're ze only person strong enough to do so. You believe it always has to be you. And zat…"
He moved forward, pressing a finger to Zander's chest.
"Zat is pride," Tobias said definitively. "And pride can destroy you."
Zander glared heatedly into his friend, raising his brows, tilting his head, and slowly spreading his arms open.
"Let it try," he growled.
Tobias read him, sighing deeply once more.
"It's not trying," he mumbled. "It's winning."
"You guys!" Alice's voice echoed from down the hall.
Zander and Tobias both turned, seeing her striding out from the enormous doorway of the main hall, waving for them to come back inside.
"It's not gonna be long now!" Alice grinned, hurriedly waving them back. "C'mon! You don't wanna miss the champions being announced!"
Zander and Tobias stared down the hall at her, then met eyes with each other again, both frowning with serious visages.
Then—deciding to dismiss the argument for now—they marched down the hall and joined her.
"Emmett. Emmett, it's nearly time for… oh."
Crowley knocked on his door and pushed it open, peering around and suddenly falling still.
Arius's room appeared the same as it had a week ago—except for the huge paper on the wall, which was covered by a massive, elegant drawing of a gigantic tree, complete with many roots and branches. The branches showed faces and names of many members of Alice's family, and the tree was tall and wide enough to cover the entire large paper now—but it hadn't stopped growing there. The ink was stretching out past the paper now, crawling onto the ceiling and the wall, reaching out and slowly unraveling more and more branches, where even farther distant family members would eventually be shown.
Arius stood in the center of the room, goggles and hat on, hand gently stroking along his chin, and his attention was locked onto the humongous inked tree on the wall.
Crowley's eyes slowly began to narrow, giving him a bizarre sort of stare.
"O… kay," he uttered, inching into the room and nudging the door shut. "Ahm… Emmett… should I be worried?"
"No," Arius murmured, transfixed by the tree.
Crowley moved closer, stopping by his side and giving the inked tree a once-over. The first branch near the bottom showed Samuel, Melody, and Alice—but two branches above them, from past generations, showed many people with the surname Callihan, and across from them were a few branches with many Irish surnames that neither of them personally recognized.
"M'kay." Crowley crossed his arms, his black cloak crinkling as he did. "So… why did you feel the need to make a family tree for Alice?"
"Curiosity," Arius mumbled distantly.
"Ah-huh… I gathered as much," Crowley uttered tonelessly. "The source of that curiosity is what I was wondering about."
Arius fell silent for several seconds, his expression strangely intense.
"Valefor told them they'd been marked by the Seal of Shadows… and then they told you," he said softly. "And I have been racking my brain, trying to determine exactly why Xyler and the Seal of Shadows would mark Zander and Alice both."
Crowley's brow hardened, wearing a serious face while he listened.
"Because… well, genuinely, they're both very good at their own particular skillsets… but with Zander, it was much easier to understand from the get-go," Arius pondered aloud. "Zander comes from a well-to-do family, he's a protégé at dueling, and he's a Slytherin, meaning a recruiting faction of revolutionaries would probably determine that he's more likely to jump over to their side… not to mention, I and a handful of aurors have been suspicious of his father for a long time now, and his father might be allied to them already. As far as why Zander was marked for recruitment… I get it. There are a lot of reasons for him to be marked. But… with Alice…"
He released a heavy cloud of breath, lowering his hand from his chin and staring intently into the giant inked tree.
"Flying… elemental magic… and coming from a simple, down-to-earth little family that runs a carnival in Ireland," Arius murmured thoughtfully. "None of those things strike me as a particular skill or attribute that a faction of revolutionaries would look for in their recruits. With Alice, I don't get it. I can't imagine why they would want her, or how her skills could be useful to their particular types of agendas. But then… then, I thought…"
Arius slowly folded his arms, nodding once at the inked tree before him.
"I thought… what if it wasn't about her current skills? What if it was about her potential…?" he said seriously. "And how would anyone in the Shadow Hand know of Alice O'Heidein's potential? Well… simple. They'd take a look at the track record and see what kind of stock she came from, just like they've presumably done with countless other witches and wizards so far. The ones that come from promising stock are probably marked for recruitment. And there's one thing about it… one strange suspicion that I just can't shake…"
He turned, giving Crowley a deep, intense stare from behind his dark lenses.
"Ireland," Arius said gravely. "All of these families… so far… are countless, countless Irish families. I'm seeing scarce few of any surnames that are anything but Irish in her lineage, and this tree's already spanned farther back than the time of Grindlewald."
Crowley returned his stare with a severe, reflective expression, making a mild nod and slowly coming to the same realizations.
"And all the wizarding families who disappeared into the Irish bloodlines are… all the concerning ones," Crowley mumbled grimly.
"Yes—and that's not all," Arius added, breaking into movement and tapping his finger to the tree, moving it from one name to another. "Look here—Samuel O'Heiden, Sean O'Heiden, Mickey O'Heiden, Patrick O'Heiden, Abraham O'Heiden—all the men in Samuel's line for several generations—they have all been Slytherins, Trocar. As far as I can tell, Alice is the first Hufflepuff to ever happen in this family."
Crowley squinted at him. "How do you know they've all been Slytherins?"
"Because I found them all today," Arius told him, jabbing a finger over at his bed, where a monstrous old book lay open. "I may have stepped into Hogwarts from the blue box and found some records from our library's restricted section. That particular book contains a lot of information about which families are connected to which back home."
Crowley glimpsed at the giant book, then back. He opened his mouth to speak, but then he paused, spotting an interesting name on the inked tree and waving a finger at it.
"Marvin Callihan," Crowley said. "He's on here, too."
"Yes—the inventor of the Wizard Dreadnought," Arius affirmed with a nod. "A historic celebrity of unparalleled skill, both of her parents having only Irish heritage, and a long line of Slytherins on her father's side—all of these things put together mean she might be far more powerful than she could possibly even know."
"If her family descended from any of those families… then that would certainly give the Shadow Hand a good reason to mark her," Crowley knew. "That's all potential, right there. And… judging by the fact that a lone stranded wizard from this family managed to mend an entire war machine with no schooling or training whatsoever… I'd say her mother's bloodline might have just as much potential as whatever is in her father's."
"Trocar," Arius said intensely. "I really think that Samuel and Melody both descended from all those problem families from way back when. And if that's true… if both of them were related to those families in some way or another…"
"Then Alice got a double-whammy of power through inheritance," Crowley muttered. "She's a secret gold mine of power… and the Shadow Hand know it."
Arius nodded, glancing up at the top of the tree and sighing. "We'll have to wait for this to be finished before we know for sure, though."
Crowley squinted at the top as well. "How long d'you suppose that'll take?"
"Well… it's got to go through a lot more generations before it can show me anything telling," Arius sighed. "It's likely to consume this entire room, too… but it won't get to that point for quite a while…"
"I don't suppose that book will tell you what you need to know."
"No… that book only covers the past two-hundred years. I need to look farther back than that."
"Ah."
They paused, staring at the tree with thoughtful expressions.
"One thing may give us a hint beforehand, though," Crowley mumbled. "The Goblet of Fire."
Arius hesitated, turning to him questioningly.
Crowley returned his look with a serious stare.
"The Goblet of Fire knows potential, too," he stated. "And… not that it's a sure thing at all… but if Alice is chosen by the Goblet of Fire, then… well… that means we might be right on the money with all of our suspicions about her here."
Arius nodded, then turned and gave him a double-take. "Oh—it's almost time for that, isn't it?"
"Yes. We need to go," Crowley agreed, marching away and opening the door.
The two of them set off, marching down the hall and venturing down the stairways.
When they reached the main hall—Fontaine, Akamine, Raven, and all the other teachers were gazing across the room at them from their table, waiting patiently for them. All of the other tables were filled with the students of Hogwarts, Ilvermorny, and Mahoutokoro, and it appeared that everyone had finished with their dinner now.
Arius and Crowley approached the front, Fontaine and Akamine both strolling around the teachers' table toward them. They gathered around the Goblet of Fire, staring across the enormous crowd and waiting for a wave of hushing to travel across the students before any of them began to speak.
"Here we are… ladies and gentlemen," Fontaine said to them all, gesturing across the crowd before motioning to his side, where the ancient Goblet of Fire stood.
Alice stared across the room from the back of her usual table, inhaling a deep, bracing breath.
Zander was beside her, also staring fixedly at the goblet and the headmasters as the anticipation began to grow inside even more.
"At long… long last," Fontaine said, gently placing his hand to the Goblet of Fire, the atmosphere of the room now thick with the deepest, most intense sense of seriousness ever to affect the air of Ilvermorny. "The Triwizard Tournament… right here, tonight… is finally about to begin."
End of Arc 2.
To be continued in Arc 3 - The Triwizard Tournament.