Her face relaxed into a gracious smile and she walked forward toward Dumbledore, extending a glittering hand. Dumbledore, though tall himself, had barely to bend to kiss it.

"My dear Madame Maxime," he said. "Welcome to Hogwarts."

"Dumbly-dorr," said Madame Maxime in a deep voice. "I 'ope I find you well?"

"In excellent form, I thank you," said Dumbledore.

"My pupils," said Madame Maxime, waving one of her enormous hands carelessly behind her.

We now noticed that about a dozen boys and girls, all, by the look of them, in their late teens, had emerged from the carriage and were now standing behind Madame Maxime. They were shivering, which was unsurprising, given that their robes seemed to be made of fine silk, and none of them were wearing cloaks. A few had wrapped scarves and shawls around their heads.

"I like those uniforms" Amy said

"Yeah, they certainly look more comfortable and high quality than ours" I added

" 'As Karkaroff arrived yet?" Madame Maxime asked.

"He should be here any moment," said Dumbledore. "Would you like to wait here and greet him or would you prefer to step inside and warm up a trifle?"

"Warm up, I think," said Madame Maxime. "But ze 'orses —"

"Our Care of Magical Creatures teacher will be delighted to take care of them," said Dumbledore, "the moment he has returned from dealing with a slight situation that has arisen with some of his other — er — charges."

"Probably the skrewts" Demelza snorted.

"My steeds require — er — forceful 'andling," said Madame Maxime, looking as though she doubted whether any Care of Magical Creatures teacher at Hogwarts could be up to the job.

"Zey are very strong. . . ."

"I assure you that Hagrid will be well up to the job," said Dumbledore, smiling.

"Very well," said Madame Maxime, bowing slightly. "Will you please inform zis 'Agrid zat ze 'orses drink only single-malt whiskey?

Amy and I laughed

"Wait what?" I said "Horses drink Whiskey?"

"Well, you learn something new every day" Amy said

"It will be attended to," said Dumbledore, also bowing.

"Come," said Madame Maxime imperiously to her students, and the Hogwarts crowd parted to allow her and her students to pass up the stone steps.

"Do you reckon Durmstang will arrive in the same way?" I asked

"Nah, it'll defo be different" said Demelza "They'll have their own unique way. They come from a much colder region"

"You'd hope so, or even Hagrid would struggle" Amy added

We stood, waiting for the Durmstrang party to arrive. Most people were gazing hopefully up at the sky. For a few minutes, the silence was broken only by Madame Maxime's huge horses snorting and stamping. But then —

A loud and oddly eerie noise was drifting toward them from out of the darkness: a muffled rumbling and sucking sound, as though an immense vacuum cleaner were moving along a riverbed. . . .

"The lake!" yelled Lee Jordan, pointing down at it. "Look at the lake!"

From our position at the top of the lawns overlooking the grounds, we had a clear view of the smooth black surface of the water — except that the surface was suddenly not smooth at all. Some disturbance was taking place deep in the center; great bubbles were forming on the surface, waves were now washing over the muddy banks — and then, out in the very middle of the lake, a whirlpool appeared, as if a giant plug had just been pulled out of the lake's floor. . .

Slowly, magnificently, a ship rose out of the water, gleaming in the moonlight. It had a strangely skeletal look about it, as though it were a resurrected wreck, and the dim, misty lights shimmering at its portholes looked like ghostly eyes. Finally, with a great sloshing noise, the ship emerged entirely, bobbing on the turbulent water, and began to glide toward the bank. A few moments later, we heard the splash of an anchor being thrown down in the shallows, and the thud of a plank being lowered onto the bank.

"Bloody fucking hell" said Amy, her eyes wide

"That's magnificent" Demelza added

"I think Durmstrang have drawn first blood here" I said

People were disembarking; we could see their silhouettes passing the lights in the ship's portholes. All of them seemed to be built along the lines of Crabbe and Goyle . . . but then, as they drew nearer, walking up the lawns into the light streaming from the entrance hall, we saw that their bulk was really due to the fact that they were wearing cloaks of some kind of shaggy, matted fur. But the man who was leading them up to the castle was wearing furs of a different sort: sleek and silver, like his hair.

"Dumbledore!" he called heartily as he walked up the slope.

"How are you, my dear fellow, how are you?"

"Blooming, thank you, Professor Karkaroff," Dumbledore replied.

Karkaroff had a fruity, unctuous voice; when he stepped into the light pouring from the front doors of the castle they saw that he was tall and thin like Dumbledore, but his white hair was short, and his goatee (finishing in a small curl) did not entirely hide his rather weak chin. When he reached Dumbledore, he shook hands with both of his own.

Demelza was chewing her lip as she watched Karkaroff

"You alright mate?" I asked

"Something seems off about him"

"Who, Karkaroff?"

"Yeah"

"What?"

"I dunno, just got a feeling" and she didn't elaborate

I exchanged exasperated glances with Amy. First Hermione with Matilda, now this? I quickly pulled out parchment and a quill and scribbled a note, handing it to Amy.

"We've got some investigating to do. Matilda and Karkaroff. Tommorow"

Amy read this and nodded.

If Hermione and Demelza weren't going to let us in on their suspicions, we would just find out what we could by ourselves.

Suddenly thought we were distracted completely from this by the person who had just been beckoned forward by Karkaroff.

"No. Fucking. Way" Amy said slowly. "Surely that is not who I think it is"

"Yeah it is mate" Demelza replied "It's Victor fucking Krum!"

I'd completely forgotten that Krum was still in school, and now my memory of reading his description in the World Cup final programme came back to me "At just 17, Krum will attend his final year at Durmstrang from this September. The future seems to hold no bounds for this man"

"Of course!" I exclaimed, slapping my hand to my forehead. "It said he was still in school in the World Cup Final programme, why didn't I mention it sooner?!"

"We need to get his autograph!" Amy cried, as we followed the Durmstrang party inside.

"I think the whole school will have that idea mate" Demelza said. "Let's wait for a bit, we'll have all year to do it"

"Like you'd wait if it was Gwenog Jones" Amy snapped back, and Demelza and I blushed. It was true, we were both massive Gwenog fangirls.

As we sat down at the Gryffindor table, we saw that Beuaxbatons were with the Ravenclaws, and Durmstrang the Slytherins, who were looking very smug about this, especially Avery, Mulciber and Yaxley, as well as Sarah Bagman, who was sitting right next to Krum, the lucky bitch! Why do people like her get shit like that in their favour?! Malfoy and Sarah started talking to Krum right away.

"Yeah, that's right, smarm up to them" said Ron scathingly. "I bet Krum can see right through them, though . . . bet he gets people fawning over him all the time. . . . Where d'you reckon they're going to sleep? We could offer him a space in our dormitory, Harry . . . I wouldn't mind giving him my bed, I could kip on a camp bed"

"It's not that cold," said Hermione, pointing at the Beauxbatons, who were still clutching scarves around their heads "Why didn't they bring cloaks?"

"Guess they're used to it being warm all the time in the South of France" I said