"What's taking everyone so long?" Theodore complained to himself as he stared through a misty window. Inside Hagrid's Hut where he was protected from the sharp coldness outside by the blazing fire was Theodore frustrated. Frustrated that forty minutes had already passed from when he told his assembled team to arrive at the minute and yet he was by himself — well, not entirely by himself. Hagrid had been looking after the Skrewts while in the snow, leaving Theodore to check over Fang slobbering over his shoes. At least he didn't hate dogs. And Fang was endearing, despite being the sloppiest dog he had ever seen.

It was one thing for Harry and Ron to come late, but Hermione would have been here even before Theodore. Hagrid's was the only place that he could think of without anybody disturbing them and he couldn't see anyone stopping them along the way. They weren't backing out, were they? Of course not. There was no reason to think so — but he hoped that they weren't having second thoughts. Theodore rubbed the mist off the window and squinted to catch a figure trudging through the snow towards the hut. About time.

He went to go sit back on the giant chairs that could seat two people at a time and waited until the knocking at the door was heard. "Well, Hermione, I may forgive you for being late but next time — oh. Gioveri, it's you. I mean, hello!"

The rush of frosty air was sucked in as Gioveri, padded in a thick woolly hat, a thicker coat and gloves followed quickly after, eager to escape the outside. "S-sorry about being late," he chattered, taking his hat off as well as admiring the inside of the hut. "So… am I the first one here?"

"Yep. Don't know what's holding up the others though. You ask people for just a bit of their time but even that's too much. Those treats on the table are from Hagrid by the way, you can help yourself." Gioveri took what looked like sweets in his hand, only they clinked like stones when he tapped them. "They're probably just like jawbreakers or something. Or not — they don't look edible, do they?"

Gioveri laughed a little bit as Theodore went to look out of the window once more. Fang had been preoccupied with slobbering over an unamused Gioveri while Theodore was struggling to see as ice was building up to haze his vision. He pulled his wand out, ready to cast a spell to melt it away when the sounds of rapid knocking came again. Theodore opened the door, expecting the other three to show but sighed when he saw long red hair under a blue hat rush by him.

"Hello to you too, Ginny," he muttered as Ginny immediately went to the fire, only acknowledging Gioveri's presence when he was pointed out by Theodore. "Now just for the others…"

"E-Elvira and Hermione… coming just behind," Ginny shivered as she raised her bare hands at a safe distance from the flames. Theodore rubbed the mist from the window again and squinted through — he could just make out two people trudging from afar near the castle. Better late than never, but he would much prefer early instead.

Knocks were finally heard as Elvira rushed in, followed closely by Hermione whose hair was unable to be stuffed in hat, catching snowflakes that soon began to disappear in the heat. Hermione ruffled her hair that she set loose from her hat; her nose and ears were prominently red, and even her eyebrows and lashes caught on some of the ice.

"Sorry for being late," she began when crowding over to the fire, saying a quick hello to Gioveri. "You didn't have to wait long, did you?"

"Uh, don't worry about it," Theodore replied without showing his annoyance that he was letting everyone get a free pass. The final knocks on the door indicated that the last arrivals had finally come and Theodore opened the door to see Harry and Ron smothered with ice all over. "What the hell happened to you guys? Actually, I don't care, we've got things to talk about."

"All Fred and George do in this place is tell jokes and piss me off," grumbled Ron, angrily ripping his hat off and shaking off the ice. "Counting down the days that they finally leave, I'm telling you."

As Theodore closed the door, he turned to see the personnel that he had assembled, feeling quite proud of himself that it turned out to be a pretty good selection, regardless of how obvious and how late he did so. He opened his mouth to tell everyone to gather around the table when —

"Hold on, hold on, hold on," Ron let out hotly, facing an unsuspecting Theodore. "You chose Ginny?! You really chose Ginny?! I thought that you were taking the piss, Theo!"

"Oh, come off it," Ginny spat back, not even letting Theodore get a word in, "as if you're a much better pick! Theodore said I could come because he trusts me to do the job, simple as."

"So you're conspiring behind my back now? Oh, I see how it is."

Theodore cut in, "No, you don't see anything, Ron, because nobody is conspiring. I just — I chose Ginny because she's… resilient. And more competent than you would believe."

Ron frowned at Ginny's smug face and said in a lower but unchanged tone, "Harry's got resilience."

"Well, he's here, is he not? Can never get too much resilience here — I feel like I'm saying the word 'resilience' more times than I have to. Can we sit, please?"

Still red in the face either from the cold or his anger, Ron continued to grumble and took off his gloves irritably as everyone finally gathered around Hagrid's giant table. Seeing as Hagrid's chairs were already larger than needed for guests, two people were assigned to each chair with Theodore standing instead.

"Alright, everyone's here, finally. Before we get into this thing, I want to introduce to you Gioveri from Ravenclaw," Theodore announced while aiming an open palm at the nervous boy. "Remember when the flame was whizzing all over the place and stopped on him? Has to be a good sign, right?"

Ginny raised her hand and instantly spoke, "By using that logic, why didn't you bring Cedric Diggory instead of Ron?"

"Oi!"

"We are not getting Cedric in here," Theodore sternly gritted through his teeth before clearing his throat. At least he would only endure Ginny's cheekiness for one task, hopefully anyway. He motioned his finger at his bag which flew straight at him and proceeded to rummage through until he found a stack of notes which he then laid upon the table.

"So for the last two days, I was reading up on what Hermione managed to gather about the possibilities of the trial and I've been writing down what I think it's going to be about," he continued as he handed out what were copies. "The thing is, I'm not that caught up on Arithmancy so I could be wrong but in conclusion: my guess is that this trial will be a gigantic puzzle. Questions?"

Nobody looked at him as they were trying to make out Theodore's scribblings which sometimes led off the page and around the back. Theodore wasn't that bothered about Harry or Ron not understanding but Elvira, Hermione and Gioveri not having a clue about what he presented made him feel a little uneasy. "Uh, guys… Hermione?"

"Hmm? Oh!" squeaked Hermione as she looked away from the notes — she had them in the air pointing to the window as if the light would reveal something. "Theo, I think I sort of get it? Whatever this "puzzle" is, is of abstract and extreme proportions but what I want to know is how on Earth did you come up with this?"

"Well I was only following what you wrote and told me so," Theodore replied as he sat next to Harry in the same seat. His cousin had set the notes down as he wouldn't submit himself to deciphering whatever Theodore wrote. "I don't take Arithmancy so I wanted to know what you thought. Gioveri, Elvira?"

The two looked at each other and back at Theodore, doubt easily running across their faces. Did Theodore spend two nights pinching himself to stay awake just to scribble nonsense? There was no way that what he wrote down was waffle.

Elvira continued to flip the notes around and began in a skeptic tone, "I won't lie to you, Theodore, this looks like a madman with no sleep had written this. Even I don't put this much effort into a subject as unattractive as Arithmancy."

"I like it…"

"I know you do, Hermione."

Theodore turned to Gioveri, hoping he'd receive a more positive angle instead but was met with more disappointment. "The start I understand: using Wenlock's Sequence, you basically predicted what you're first going to encounter in this puzzle. But…"

"But what?" sighed Theodore.

"Umm… everything sort of spirals into madness. I've — I've never seen something like this before, I'm sorry. M-maybe one of the older students could —"

Theodore immediately rejected the notion and leaned backwards in the chair. Suddenly he felt an uncomfortable amount of regret that was building up from not listening to Hermione earlier on. He was dead certain that they had to at least solve a giant puzzle — he had no clue on how it would look like or if they could even see it though. Worse part was that when he picked up his notes again, he was stumped at parts. His own notes. So much for a 'carefully handpicked collective' when all he was aiming towards was leading them to embarrassment.

"What if it's like a massive living puzzle that moves constantly?" Theodore switched his vision towards Ron's direction who had been quietly examining the notes in front of him.

"What makes you say that?" asked Theodore, leaning forward just a bit.

"Well… it's just a guess, innit? You both said that it's going to be a giant puzzle and that there's a sequence or whatever," Ron continued casually. "Maybe it's a sequence on the puzzle moving? I don't know, mate, haha…"

"And what's your basis on this?" Hermione abruptly asked, frowning as if she still couldn't make out any of Theodore's writings.

"I literally said that it was just a guess, Hermione. Isn't this your forte — aren't you supposed to get this?" Hermione grumbled and carried on flicking through the notes more forcibly than before. Ron turned back to Theodore and said, "Listen, if Hermione can't understand it then there's no point listening to me cus I ain't got no —"

Something clicked in Theodore's head as he cut Ron off, "No, no, you might be onto something here. You really might be onto something."

Hermione's frown grew stronger as she demanded Gioveri to look at her annotations of the notes, stringing him along to make sense of what Theodore had written. Theodore however was set upon what Ron had suggested, remembering that this was more than a recurring theme; at least it couldn't be just a coincidence. Nobody had ever pointed it out but Theodore noticed that Ron was rather intuitive, almost to the point where it seemed like all the nonsense that happened in Divination was working on him.

Tapping the table to get everyone's attention, Theodore cleared his throat to divulge on his clear improvisation on the matter. "Alright everyone, thanks to Ron's contribution — no, I'm being very serious, Hermione — I've understood that the next task is going to be tough, real tough. Tough and unpredictable. I know that it's pretty much last minute but often times, plans can go out of the window and it comes down to who wants it more. What we know right now is that we're going to be tested on teamwork and I know that everyone here is going to bring something for that win.

"That's why I want us to go in like this," Theodore continued as he slapped down his own copy of notes on the blank side which with a tap of his wand revealed their names in some sort of formation. "Hermione and Gioveri upfront so that if we come up against any obstacle, you two will be the first to solve it. Harry and Ginny are at the back — both of you are pretty gritty so we'll need that while Ron, Elvira and I will do support on both ends. Any questions?"

Like before, nobody answered but this time, Theodore could feel that everyone was at least onboard with that. Maybe he had to give a little thanks to the basic knowledge of football that he had for this but he truly believed that this was the way to go in. Who knew what they would face in the first trial, and even then the other schools could prove to be a problem. All that Theodore did know was that whatever was waiting for him was certainly nothing that he had seen before.

Once Theodore had deemed the makeshift team meeting finally over, Ron immediately called for a toast as he cited that they had escaped death several times to the point where it was just a normal Tuesday. Hagrid had offered to pour out his aged Pumpkin Juice with his oversized goblets — Harry, Ron, Theodore and Hermione all knew better but the others fell victim, queasy face after queasy face until it was too much. When they all said their goodbyes to Hagrid (Gioveri, Elvira and Ginny all sprinted to the castle, covering their mouths), the four was set for the common room, not exactly filled to the brim with confidence yet not nervous wrecks either.

"I just don't understand this," Hermione pouted as she and Theodore were a little behind Harry and Ron as they all crunched the thickening snow beneath their feet. "I can see some of my research, then it just goes completely insane. And you call me a lunatic…"

"Could be completely wrong, y'know. Remember, I don't take Arithmancy."

"And if you're right? Honestly, Theo, how could you come up with this from just reading my notes?"

Theodore sheepishly scratched his neck with a small grin. "I mean… half of it was guesswork from my Divination textbook — oh stop it, Hermione, it's basically the same subject. Only I've got a conwoman who's teaching me instead."

He looked back at her; her face was skeptical to say the least until he sighed and added on, "Plus I borrowed some of your books that you leave out when you're doing homework."

Hermione just shook her head, stashing her copy into her coat as they reached the castle side entrance where Professor Flitwick was disarming two second-years whose wands were at the ready. "Should've done Arithmancy with me. You clearly have a knack for it — but when do you not…?"

"Casual reminder that you were in all of my classes before you gave Professor Trelawney the finger and left the class," Theodore taunted, earning an elbow to the ribs as they passed through a crowd of students, both older and younger. "Alright, alright! But we already do a lot of things together, Hermione, and — I meant, w-what I meant to say was —" It was too late as those who they passed by had already clocked in and gave them stifled giggles and teasing smirks.

Given the overwhelming amount of popularity that he had garnered recently on top of the fact that he got attention from people prior, it was only a matter of time before everyone caught wind of Theodore and Hermione together. Safe to say that both of them were noticeably a bit embarrassed but no over the top reactions from either of them. They did up the pace a little bit however, seeing as Harry and Ron were nowhere in sight — but maybe they purposely slowed down once again, no longer in a rush to go anywhere as they found their fingers interlocked, slowly uncaring grins plastered on their pink, cold faces.

One more day. Theodore couldn't believe that went by so fast; so much had happened from the moment he was picked by the flame, and now he was less than a day away from leading his friends into a death tournament, supposedly. For most of the day, Theodore had been with Gioveri and Hermione making guesses on how exactly the first trial would be like, courtesy of Ron. Gioveri, like Hermione oddly enough, became a little more invested than before, still timid in his words yet was warming up to them both. There was still that odd feeling that Theodore got from him every time he would look into his eyes for moment, especially if Theodore would perhaps smile absentmindedly at Hermione. Training in Legilimency couldn't come soon enough — he was wasting time with Occlumency as he knew himself that he practically had it mastered.

It was safe to say that the school was still behind him as well, several wishes of good luck coming from almost every corner he stepped in the castle. He had no clue what they would say if he absolutely crumbled in the first trial. No use thinking so negatively when it was just around the corner. Even then, it was getting excessive with even the teachers being a bit too carried away with the praise. Lucky for him, he knew that one certain teacher wouldn't attempt to inflate his ego, although he was doing his very best to not compliment him either.

"… for all of that, and maybe it'd work out. It's just hard to predict what's going to happen though," babbled Theodore as he sat on the stool in the centre of Professor Snape's office, not acknowledging his godfather's irritated expression. Even though it was the night before the big day, Professor Snape insisted that one more Occlumency lesson would do Theodore good and Theodore, well… somehow, some way did he find a way to divert the entire lesson.

"I was thinking about asking Professor Moody if there's any spells that I could use, y'know, just in case but it might be too late and —"

"Enough," Professor Snape interrupted in a dull tone while rubbing his temple. It was a surprise that Theodore managed to go on so long. As Professor Snape stood up from his seat to directly face Theodore, he then droned on, "You're not here to lament on regrets of your procrastination, you are here because you need to learn Occlumency."

"Oh, it's fine, don't worry. Nothing is going into my head anymore — I ought to ask Professor Moody that one curse he talked about though; I think it was called the Reducing Curse? Something like that —"

Caught up in his words so much that he didn't even notice Professor Snape lowering his face to gain eye contact with him, Theodore once again felt the forceful hand trying to sweep through his head, attempting to claw through but it was closed off in a near instant. Theodore in the last moment fortified his mind, pushing the hand back with struggle until Professor Snape was completely purged from his head. He tried once more but Theodore was already guarded and it was clear that nothing was breaking him down.

A slight curl of Professor Snape's mouth appeared as he muttered, "Hmph… I didn't think that you would grasp this so quickly. Congratulations — your Occlumency training is complete."

"Finally… How — how long did it take for you to learn this then?" panted Theodore as he rubbed his forehead to ease his expected headache.

"In comparison to you, far too long."

"Huh…" was all that Theodore could respond with as he watched Professor Snape glide over to his desk and wave his hand over a cluttered mess of books to stack them. "Honest question: do you think that I can win it? Doomspell?"

Professor Snape glanced at Theodore from behind his shoulder and turned back to his desk. "You want an honest answer? The truth is that you are severely outmatched by your fellow participants, despite your talent at your age."

"Wow," whispered Theodore under his breath, feeling a bit betrayed that it was his godfather to tell him that — but those thoughts were cut short as Professor Snape didn't stop there.

"However… I was proven wrong about you when I didn't think that you would progress at all with Occlumency yet here you are. Perhaps I'll be proven wrong again, hmm?"

Theodore couldn't even hold back his smile, not caring that Professor Snape was blatantly hiding his face to not look back at him. "I… I think I can do it. I think I can win this."

He could see Professor Snape cease what he was doing for a moment, watching him hold still until he took in a deep breath and spun around — his face hadn't changed to suggest that he was smiling but it didn't even matter to Theodore anyway. "You've been here long enough and it's getting late."

"Yeah, it is. Don't want to go to a tournament half-awake," said Theodore as he started his way to the common room, but he then stopped when he was halfway through the door. Turning around, he then simply said, "Thank you," and left.

Theodore woke up the next morning feeling as if he had closed his eyes for a second, not even getting to sink properly into his slumber. Was that a bad thing? He certainly hoped not — it was like the universe was also a spectator that couldn't hold its nerve and wanted to fast forward to the next day.

Of course were Dean, Neville and Seamus the first to see the three boys, psyching them up with aggressive slaps to the back and words of encouragement. They had no clue on what to wear so just threw on their normal clothes and went downstairs, only to be met with deafening roars of cheer.

"Alright, calm down," could Theodore hear Professor McGonagall's shrill voice from afar. She soon came into vision; she reduced something that George had in his hand to ashes, prompting him to sulk. " I better not see that again, do I make myself clear? Riddle, Potter, Weasley, good, you're all looking alive and well. Where are the others…? Ah, there we go: Miss Weasley, Miss Granger and Miss Pierre-Sayre. That's everyone from Gryffindor. Now, as we all know that this is an important day and that we are representing our country, there is to be no tolerance for disrespect and tomfoolery! Everyone excluding the participants will need to assemble in the Great Hall as before while the excluded will travel by Portkey in the headmaster's office. The prefects will lead you there in short fashion — hurry along!"

The rest of Gryffindor chorused good luck to them as they began to empty out of the common room in single file until it was just the remaining six. "Now that that is out of the way, we can — Potter, Riddle, Weasley, where are your robes?"

Theodore had only just noticed that the girls were in the plain black robes that covered them along with their pointed hats in their hand. They seriously weren't going to compete in those were they? Professor McGonagall was quick to dismiss them to their dorm and check underneath their pillows.

"This is shite to walk in, you know," Ron's muffled voice complained as he let the robe cascade down his body from above his head. "Muggles got it good with the ties and jumpers, I'll give you that one."

Harry scoffed, "Try wearing Dudley's hand-me-downs for your whole life. Trust me, your opinion will change completely."

Theodore wasn't too big on the single robe either but it wasn't that much of a hinderance to him. At least, not now. Subtle hisses caught his ear nearby his feet as he knelt underneath the bed to see Viripin rub her snout against Theodore's nose.

"Good luck to you, Theodore. Don't come back here if you don't win."

"Oh haha," Theodore hissed back with sarcasm, then rubbing his finger just beneath her jaw. "Thanks, Viripin, really. I'll do my best."

"I know you will. Now go."

Theodore planted one more kiss on Viripin's head and crawled out from underneath his bed to see Harry and Ron wearing the robes over their normal clothes. The three merely nodded at each other and left the dorm to join the girls to then make their way to Dumbledore's office.

"Ginny, wait up!" Theodore called out as the last one through the portrait hole. "Your mum knows about this, right? That I picked you to compete?"

"Oh, that! Yeah, umm… you see the thing is that I-I may have, umm…" Ginny didn't even bother to try and continue as it was evident that she hadn't told her mum.

Theodore buried his face in his hands and grumbled, "Ginny, you of all people know that your mum babies you the most — what's she going to think if she suddenly sees you doing whatever out of nowhere?! Ah fuck, she is not going to be happy with me…"

"Well, she'll find out anyway, so let's go," Ginny quickly spoke while tugging at Theodore's sleeve. Ginny knew what she was doing and Theodore knew that he was going to take the full brunt of it when Mrs Weasley's inevitable outrage was to come. All he could do now was just pray Ginny came out unscathed.

The two soon caught up with the others as they went from moving staircase to moving staircase, finally reaching the corridor that led to Dumbledore's office and conveniently had Gioveri in his robe waiting by the gargoyle that guarded the stairway. He suddenly straightened himself upon seeing the others and blurted, "Professor Flitwick told me to go up here but I didn't know the password. Do, uh, any of you…?"

"Try Apple Twisters."

Gioveri spoke the password to the gargoyle who twisted and rose up like expected, revealing the staircase. Shock and amazement was on Gioveri's face upon seeing this and he shook his head to escape his daze to follow the others up.

Everyone except Theodore and Harry gawked at the sight of the wonderfully weird office that belonged to Dumbledore, pointing out various things until they realised that they were obviously not alone. Standing on either side of Dumbledore was Crouch and Fudge — for some reason they all shared the same expression of utter bewilderment. Maybe it was the robes that were a bit outdated.

"Is there a problem?"

Fudge cleared his throat and threw on a forced smile. "Nothing at all," he chirped. "Just — surprised, that's all! Didn't expect to see such a young cast. Albus, Barty?"

"I believe that Theodore has selected a great collection of talent," Dumbledore praised, "wouldn't you say so, Barty?" Crouch just nodded with a slight gruff and checked his pocket watch to remind them that the Portkey was going to be active very soon. "Of course, let's not waste any time. A lot of people are waiting on you. Everyone gather in a circle, please!"

Dumbledore with a twirl of his fingers summoned a thick rope with knots on both ends from his desk and with another twirl commanded it to form a circular shape so that everyone had somewhere to grab hold. Unfortunately, the rope was not very long which meant everyone was squashed together. Not comfortable in the slightest.

Feeling pressure build up inside, Theodore had to snuff it out. This was no time to get cold feet, not when there was no turning back. Theodore gripped the rope with more force, knowing that this was when he'd really introduce himself to the wizarding world. He was going to make it his own and he knew he could; after all he was Theodore Riddle. And with that did the rope begin to glow as Theodore gave his teammates one last look of confidence until in a blink of an eye was the office only occupied by an unfazed Fawkes who simply fluttered his scarlet wings and laid his head down to rest.

Quick author's note this time: the motivation to carry on this story is coming back. Hopefully it'll be the same as when I first started. If you're still here waiting for the next chapter then you're amazing. Until the next chapter. Later.