Alas, we have arrived at the start of the Tournament! Hype, hype, hype. Full disclosure: this is the last chapter I have fully completed, so I've got some work to do. If my next update is a smidge late, I apologize. But who knows? Once I get back into writing, it's hard to stop and logging in to see more reviews puts me in a giddy, writing sort of mood LOL (FF is still having issues sending me emails, but we're making it work and I promise I read everything when I log in to update). Seeing the sun instead of gray clouds also helps, so we're on our way, friends.
Enjoy!
Bookcozy: I am sure Maine is much worse than Illinois in terms of winter, honestly. I'm not a cold weather kind of girl. Fall year-round is the ideal. You are correct about the timing of Nessa and George making up. I'm also not a big Snape lover, which I assume has become very apparent before now, but I do enjoy writing about their dynamic. Even if I do agree that him favoring her is just another sign of his glaring personal problems — he has many, unfortunately. The Molly vibes are also coming in strong, and, while I agree that they were breaking rules and that they would have deserved detention under other circumstances, intention is everything.
Gi-L-Ha: Thank you for reviewing! The end to the fighting is very soon, I promise (Next chapter, most likely). I am typically very shady about what I plan on doing in terms of the main characters, but since Harry is really more a secondary character, I think it's safe to admit that, yes, I do plan to keep Harry and Ginny within the canon plot for this. I had a long debate about whether it would be weird or not, but I'm also a big Hinny fan myself, and I just don't have the heart to split them into other relationships.
Chapter Fourteen
"You gave them detention?" Tori said incredulously.
As far as Nessa was concerned, it was far too early for this conversation.
She'd tried not to think about how much anxiety she was having because of her angry decision. She wanted to blame the stupidity of the entire thing on her increased stress, but she'd always been prone to overreacting when she was pushed too far. She needed to figure out how to remain rational when she was angry.
Of course, the other part of her wanted to refuse to acknowledge that she should have done anything different. Logically speaking, all three of them had broken school rules — with curfew at minimum, but she could probably swing trying to trick the impartial judge as well if McGonagall pressed too hard about it. Despite the fact that brewing an Ageing Potion itself wasn't against school rules, and none of them had drunk the potion by the time she'd caught them.
Tori was never going to let the entire thing go, however.
"I'm a prefect. I thought that was my job."
Tori stopped her with a hand on her arm, and gave her a long, blank look, crossing her arms across her chest. They were only halfway down to breakfast the morning of the thirtieth of October. The entire school was buzzing with anticipation as they made their way down to the Great Hall.
"Tell me that you are being deliberately facetious," she said when Nessa merely avoided her gaze and shifted from foot to foot.
"Tori, what's the big deal?" Nessa groaned, already wishing she'd chosen to skip breakfast instead of being subjected to her best friend's inquisition. "They get detention all of the time. It's hardly anything new for any of them."
Tori gaped at her for a long moment.
"Nessa, this is not about the detention —"
"What are the two of you standing in the middle of the corridor for?"
Nessa nearly sank with relief at the sound of her brother's voice behind them.
"We're having a riveting conversation, Harry," Tori said with an eye roll. "So if you could just mosey along —"
"I'll go with you!" Nessa said hastily before Tori could convince her brother to leave them alone again.
Harry looked between the two of them slowly, and Ron and Hermione shared a look with each other at the odd tone, but none of them commented on the oddness of her behavior. Tori glared at her and grumbled, "Coward," as they continued their way to breakfast. The Great Hall had been decorated overnight, just like everywhere else in the castle. Enormous silk banners hung from the walls, each of them representing a Hogwarts House: red with a gold lion for Gryffindor, blue with a bronze eagle for Ravenclaw, yellow with a black badger for Hufflepuff, and green with a silver serpent for Slytherin. Behind the teachers' table, the largest banner of all bore the Hogwarts coat of arms: lion, eagle, badger, and snake united around a large letter H.
Nessa was so busy admiring the banners that she didn't notice when her brother and his friends took a seat across from Fred and George. They were, oddly, sitting apart from everyone else and conversing in low voices. She hesitated briefly and Tori rolled her eyes, pulling her down into the seat next to her and eyeing the twins oddly.
Neither of them looked up from the parchment they were speaking over, and Nessa wasn't sure what she was supposed to be doing at the current moment. They hadn't seen each other the night before because she'd gone up to bed immediately, still fuming. McLaggen had walked silently next to her the entire time, giving her cautious looks and then made a run for it immediately when they'd reached the common room.
"It's a bummer, all right," George was saying gloomily to Fred. "But if he won't talk to us in person, we'll have to send him the letter after all. Or we'll stuff it into his hand. He can't avoid us forever."
"Who's avoiding you?" said Ron.
"Wish you would," said Fred, looking irritated at the interruption.
"What's a bummer?" Ron asked George.
"Having a nosy git like you for a brother," said George.
Ron looked at Nessa imploringly, but she merely cleared her throat and chewed awkwardly on her toast.
She was interested, of course, in knowing what they were talking about, but neither of them had acknowledged her at all, and she seriously wasn't sure she could handle another argument with them.
"Are the three of you fighting again?" Harry said slowly, looking between her and the twins, who were still refusing to say anything to her.
"No," they all said at once.
Tori rolled her eyes and huffed, busying herself with the scrambled eggs and grumbling under her breath about how stupid they all were.
"You two got any thoughts on the Triwizard Tournament yet?"
"We don't have to talk about that!" Tori said hastily. "We can stay well clear of entering the tournament."
There was an awkward silence again, with which the twins glared at their breakfast and Nessa blew out a breath before Ron spoke in another attempt to break the tension.
"Wonder what the tasks are going to be?" he said thoughtfully. "You know, I bet we could do them, Harry. We've done dangerous stuff before…"
Before Nessa could voice how unappealing she found that idea, Fred spoke over her.
"Not in front of a panel of judges, you haven't," said Fred. "McGonagall says the champions get awarded points according to how well they've done the tasks."
"Who are the judges?" Harry asked.
"Well, the Heads of the participating schools are always on the panel," said Hermione, and everyone looked around at her, rather surprised. "Because all three of them were injured during the Tournament of 1792, when a cockatrice the champions were supposed to be catching went on the rampage."
She noticed them all looking at her and said, with her usual air of impatience that nobody else had read all the books she had, "It's all in Hogwarts: A History. Though, of course, that book's not entirely reliable. A Revised History of Hogwarts would be a more accurate title. Or a Highly Biased and Selective History of Hogwarts, Which Glosses Over the Nastier Aspects of the School."
Nessa shared a look with Tori, having some idea of what was coming. The fact that no one in the school wanted to be a part of S.P.E.W. had not curbed Hermione's determination to pursue justice for house-elves. Harry and Ron had paid two Sickles for a badge, but only to shut her up — Neville Longbottom had done the same. Cedric had only joined because Nessa was part of it and had asked him ever so politely, so the only people who really cared about the entire thing were her and Hermione. Although to be fair, there had been some people who had seemed mildly interested in what she had to say, but were reluctant to take a more active role in campaigning. Many — like the twins, Tori, and Lee — regarded the whole thing as a joke.
This fact only seemed to make Hermione more vociferous, however. Nessa had had to tell her to stop cornering people in the common room last week and shaking her collecting tin under their noses. People were complaining, and while Nessa found Hermione's determination endearing and wholesome, she had better things to be doing than listening to everyone complain about the fourth-year girl when she needed to be doing her homework.
"You do realize that your sheets are changed, your fires lit, your classrooms cleaned, and your food cooked by a group of magical creatures who are unpaid and enslaved?" Hermione said fiercely.
Ron now rolled his eyes at the ceiling, which was flooding them all in autumn sunlight, and Fred became extremely interested in his bacon. George, however, leaned in toward Hermione.
"Listen, have you ever been down in the kitchens, Hermione?"
"No, of course not," said Hermione curtly. "I hardly think students are supposed to —"
"Well, we have," said George, indicating himself, Tori, and Fred, "loads of times, to nick food. And we've met them, and they're happy. They think they've got the best job in the world —"
"Even Nessa can attest to that," Tori said pointedly, smirking at her when she glared at her in response.
"Just because they're treated well here doesn't mean they are everywhere else," Nessa said, sighing sadly when George merely flicked his eyes toward her and acknowledged her in no other way.
"They're obviously uneducated and brainwashed!" Hermione began hotly.
"This has got to be the worst start of a birthday I've ever had," Tori grumbled, rolling her eyes.
Nesa felt a bit bad for her, really. Between her and the twins fighting and the arrival of the delegations, there wasn't much time for any of them to give her a proper birthday celebration. The twins were being closely watched by McGonagall, so the two of them had been entirely unable to sneak Tori off for a birthday prank, and Nessa was too busy dodging Tyler and Bethany's anxious tittering to do anything more than give her her birthday present and wish her a happy birthday. Although it was Tori, so her mood significantly improved at the sight of presents, and she was just as distracted by the schools arriving as everyone else, so she didn't remain irritated for very long.
There was a pleasant feeling of anticipation in the air from most of the students that day. Nobody was very attentive in lessons, being much more interested in the arrival that evening of the people from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang. When the bell rang early, she and Tori made their way back to the common room from the library where they'd been studying during their free period, deposited their bags and books, pulled on their cloaks, and raced back downstairs to gather on the steps outside the castle.
The Heads of Houses were ordering their students into lines by year.
"Weasley, straighten your hat," she snapped at Ron, who stood directly in front of her and Tori. "Miss Patil, take that ridiculous thing out of your hair."
Tori snorted when Parvati scowled and removed a large ornamental butterfly from the end of her plait. McGonagall gave her a hard look and Tori waited for the older woman to turn around before rolling her eyes to the sky as silence descended over all of them.
It was a cold, clear evening; dusk was falling and a pale, transparent-looking moon was already shining over the Forbidden Forest. Nessa, in the fifth row from the front, shifted from foot to foot restlessly, and tightened her cloak around herself to ward off some of the chill. Tori was shivering next to her, glaring at her professors as if they had control over the weather.
"Why couldn't we wait in the entrance hall for Merlin's sake?" she muttered to Nessa quietly, eyeing McGonagall closely. Ron, Hermione, and Harry were discussing how the schools would arrive. "I'm going to freeze my arse off out here."
Nessa snorted.
"Pity for all the men of the school, I'm sure," she responded dryly, rolling her eyes.
Tori smirked at her.
"Just because you have no arse to speak of doesn't mean you should be rude," she quipped. "It sounds like jealousy."
"You mean like when you complain that all my dresses are too big to fit your tiny chest?"
"They are not tiny!" Tori said indignantly, momentarily distracted from her careful watch of McGonagall to glare at her best friend. "They're a normal size. It's not my fault yours could take up multiple postcodes!"
"Don't be dramatic," Nessa said with a roll of her eyes. "That's not —"
"Could the two of you stop talking before I have to gouge my eardrums out, please?" Harry grumbled from in front of them.
"Or talk a little quieter at the very least," Ron said, his eyes glued forward and his ears a dark shade of red. "I'm going to throw up if I have to listen to Tori talk about this any longer."
Tori rolled her eyes and smacked him upside the head, causing him to swear viciously and earning him a harsh look from McGonagall. Tori snickered at him.
"What do men talk about?" Nessa whispered to her in confusion. "They act like we're ridiculous every time we talk like this."
"Well, I don't know about other men, but Fred and George are probably talking about how much they don't like you for giving them detention last night."
Nessa stomped on her friend's foot, hard. Tori swore quietly and returned the favor with a glare.
"I don't want to talk about this with you again," Nessa muttered to her, rubbing her squashed toes with the front of her shoe and trying to pretend like they didn't hurt that badly.
Tori had been trying to have the conversation with her for the majority of the day, and she'd managed to avoid it only because Cedric had shown up in the library and joined them in studying for a long while.
"I don't care what you want to talk about," she whispered back. "We have nothing better to be doing out here, I'm freezing, and you can't run away now. It's the perfect timing."
Nessa did not like agreeing that this was true, but there truly was no way for her to escape her best friend at the current time without risking an aneurysm from McGonagall. Her only real hope was that one of the schools would show up, but the darkening grounds were dead silent, and there was no sign that this would be changing any time soon.
Why they were taking so long was beyond her…
"What can I say that will end this conversation, Tori?"
Tori snorted and gave her a sideways glance.
"That you're going to apologize to the two of them, for starters."
"What?"
McGonagall shushed her loudly and she grimaced at her in apology.
"What do you mean, apologize?"
Tori rolled her eyes.
"Honestly, the three of you are driving me mental," she said seriously. "Yes, you need to apologize. Or at the very least have a conversation with George because you definitely overstepped last night."
"How do you figure that?" Nessa said, her indignance growing by the moment.
Before Tori could respond, Dumbledore called out from his position standing with the teachers.
"Aha! Unless I am very much mistaken, the delegation from Beauxbatons approaches!"
"Where?" said many students eagerly, all looking in different directions.
"There!" yelled a sixth-year, pointing over the forest.
Something large, much larger than a broomstick — or a hundred broomsticks — was hurtling across the deep blue sky toward the castle, growing larger all the time.
"What the hell is that?" Nessa said in alarm.
"It's a dragon!" shrieked one of the first years, losing her head completely.
Tori rolled her eyes to the sky.
"For Merlin's sake," she said in exasperation, at the same time Dennis Creevey cried, "Don't be stupid…it's a flying house!"
Nessa would have liked to have pointed out that a flying house was just as stupid, but his guess was actually closer. As the gigantic shape skimmed over the treetops of the Forbidden Forest and the lights shining from the castle windows hit it, they saw a gigantic, powder-blue, horse-drawn carriage, the size of a large house, soaring toward them, pulled through the air by a dozen winged horses, all palominos, and each the size of an elephant.
The front rows of students drew backward as the carriage hurtled lower, coming in to land at a tremendous speed — then, with an almighty crash, the horses' hooves, larger than dinner plates, hit the ground. A second later, the carriage landed too, bouncing upon its vast wheels, while the golden horses tossed their enormous heads and rolled large, fiery red eyes. There was a coat of arms on the carriage door — two crossed, golden wands, each emitting three stars — that opened immediately upon the carriage's landing.
A boy in pale blue robes jumped down from the carriage, bent forward, fumbled for a moment with something on the carriage floor, and unfolded a set of golden steps. He sprang back respectfully. Then a shoe the size of a child's sled, black and high-heeled, followed by the largest woman Nessa had ever seen in her life. The size of the carriage, and the horses, suddenly made much more sense. Several people gasped.
"Well, her and Hagrid will get on fine, eh?" Tori muttered from beside her, looking the woman up and down with interest.
The woman certainly could not have been an inch shorter than the Hogwarts gamekeeper, but she seemed even more unnaturally large standing at the foot of the castle steps in front of the wide-eyed crowd. As she stepped into the light flooding from the entrance hall, she was revealed to have a handsome, olive-skinned face; large, black, liquid-looking eyes; and a rather beaky nose. Her hair was drawn back in a shining knob at the base of her neck. She was dressed from head to foot in black satin, and many magnificent opals gleamed at her throat and on her thick fingers.
Dumbledore started to clap, and Nessa followed his lead, trying to resist the urge she had to stand on her tiptoes to get a better look at the woman. 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 Madam Maxime in a deep voice, her accent thick. "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.
Nessa suddenly remembered what they were out there for to begin with and directed her attention back to the carriage. A dozen boys and girls, all in their late teens, had emerged from it 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. Nessa found this rather stupid, considering, but the schools were all secretive about their whereabouts, so maybe the students hadn't known it would be chilly in this area.
They were all staring up at Hogwarts with apprehensive looks on their faces.
"'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."
Tori and Nessa shared a look — Blast-Ended Skrewts, they assumed. Nessa was grateful he'd given their care over to his fourth-year students because she'd seen them in passing and they looked terrifying.
"My steeds require — er — forceful 'andling," said Madame Maxime, looking as though she doubted whether any 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?"
"It will be attended to," said Dubledore, also bowing.
"Come," said Madame Maxime imperiously to her students, and the Hogwarts crowd pated to allow her and her students to pass up the stone steps.
"Well," said Tori brightly when they disappeared through the doors. "Now that that's out of the way…I'm happy to tell you why you should apologize to the twins."
"Imagine that," Nessa muttered to herself, having forgotten completely that they'd been having a conversation before the arrival of the Beauxbatons group.
Tori gave her a long look.
"I'm serious, Nessa," she said firmly. "If you want to give them detention, fine, but you can't give them detention just because they're doing something you don't agree with —"
"That's not what I was doing!" Nessa said indignantly. "They were breaking school rules —"
Tori covered her mouth with her hand and Nessa inhaled sharply at how cold her skin was against her face.
"Stop arguing and listen," she said with an eye roll. "I love you, Nessa, really, I do. But you're severely deluded sometimes, you know. You aren't right about everything."
Tori had always been brutally honest with her when she thought she was in the wrong, but the words made her bristle anyway. She preferred when Tori was snapping at the twins for being rude to her than when she was telling her she was being unreasonable. It made it difficult for her to be irrational when someone pointed it out.
Nessa shoved her hand away from her mouth and glared at her.
"What does being right have to do with it?"
"Everything," Tori said with a snort. "Look, I'm not saying I don't understand why you'd be worried about them entering — after everything Harry's done, it's really not a surprise. But they're old enough to make their own stupid decisions, and entering the Tournament and being hunted by Voldemort aren't exactly the same thing."
Someone hissed at her usage of the name from behind them, but Tori only muttered at them to quit being a baby and shut their trap. A bit unfair, if Nessa had to say so herself, because Tori had only recently gotten over her own fear of the name.
"So, what are you saying?" Nessa griped, pulling her friend's attention back to the problem at hand. "That I should just not give them detention for being out past curfew and scheming to break the rules to enter the Tournament?"
Tori sighed in a way that suggested Nessa was giving her a migraine.
"Tell you what," she said. "If you can look me in my face right now and tell me that the only reason you gave them detention was because they were breaking school rules, and not at all because they pissed you off and you wanted to force their hand, then I'll drop the conversation entirely."
Nessa hesitated in saying anything. She and Tori did not lie to each other, and she wasn't entirely sure if she could admit that it was only about breaking school rules. She'd not had much time to consider the situation objectively since it happened, but she'd been far outside her rational mind when she'd told them to meet Snape on Monday morning.
Would she have given them detention if it had just been about being out past curfew?
Her gut told her that she wouldn't have under normal circumstances — although, maybe she would have so she didn't have to hear McLaggen complain. Not because she truly cared about curfew all that much — she'd snuck out past curfew on multiple occasions herself and it seemed a bit hypocritical, all things considered. Course, she hadn't been a prefect then, but truthfully sneaking out past curfew was the least of her concerns. Typically, she took points and sent the students to bed if she found them out past curfew when she was on rounds. Which was likely the answer to Tori's question as it was, but she really did not want to admit it out loud.
Admitting it aloud meant that she really did have to apologize, and even though her heart tugged at her to smooth things over with George, her anxiety about the situation was entirely overwhelming.
"I'm taking your silence as admission," Tori said eventually when the silence dragged on. Nessa huffed in irritation. "Now can you go back to being the rational one, please? It freaks me out when I have to do it."
Nessa snorted and rolled her eyes, but she paused with her mouth open when the words fully registered in her mind. She gave Tori a once over out of the corner of her eye, and narrowed her eyes suspiciously.
"You are being very rational," she said suspiciously. "Why are you so calm today?"
Considering how quickly Tori had been to anger within the last two weeks, the sudden change in her demeanor was odd. Under the circumstances of the last few weeks, Tori would never in her life moved on from the crappy start to her birthday so quickly. She'd have gone on a tirade for hours before letting go of the fact that everyone's attention was on their own problems instead of her. Not to mention that she'd berated her best friend very calmly, rather than snapping at her for her stupidity, about her situation with the twins.
Aside from that, she looked much more relaxed than she had in a long while. She looked almost serene, truthfully — her shoulders relaxed, her fists unclenched, her eyes clear.
"One of us ought to be," Tori said, dodging the question entirely and looking out across the grounds again as if there were nothing more interesting to her than the arrival of the Durmstrang students.
"Oh my God, the two of you snogged again, didn't you?"
Tori's head snapped to her so quickly that Nessa jumped in surprise.
"What? How do you know that? He couldn't have told you when you two won't even —" Tori's eyes narrowed on her. "You told him to talk to me."
Nessa raised an eyebrow at her, a smirk blossoming across her face.
"It was the rational thing to do," she said coyly.
Tori glared at her for a long moment.
"Maybe I should have let you ruin your relationship," she grumbled eventually, looking forward again. "Since you can't keep your nose out of my business."
"That's rich, coming from you," Nessa snorted before giving her best friend a serious look. "I don't think snogging without talking is the way the two of you should be handling this, you know."
Tori was silent for a long moment, biting her lip anxiously, before rolling her eyes to the sky as if she were praying and sighing heavily.
"Well, he seems to agree with you because he stopped the entire thing and made me talk to him."
Nessa could not tell if the feeling bubbling in her stomach was relief or pride. Likely both because God knew Fred Weasley had severely botched the entire thing last time, and she had no doubt how difficult having a rational conversation with Tori could be.
"And?"
"And nothing," Tori sighed. "We're in the same spot as we were before, except now I can't pretend like I'm not at least partially interested in him in a way that's entirely inappropriate —"
"It's not inappropriate," Nessa said with an eye roll. "You're the one who's making this so complicated. You either have feelings for him or you don't."
"Don't make this sound so simple, Nessa," Tori snapped. "It's not at all as easy as that."
"It is," she said with a huff. "Your commitment issues are the problem here. You've never once cared what his mother has thought before…I don't see why you should start now. And if you're just going to go about snogging each other, and avoiding every other bloke in the castle who wants to kiss you then it feels like you're just avoiding the inevitable."
"I am not avoiding every other bloke in the castle," she muttered. "I am…focusing on my schoolwork."
Nessa blinked at her.
"You know, if I'm not allowed to be delusional, then you're not allowed to either."
Tori huffed.
"Fine," she said, crossing her arms. "I have feelings for Fr — him." She was eyeing Ron in front of them cautiously, but he seemed far too interested in his own whispered conversation. "Happy?"
Nessa grinned up at the sky in an attempt to keep herself from laughing.
"Only if you told him that."
"Well, I didn't," Tori said, rolling her eyes. "It barely makes any sense to me still. We were just friends less than six months ago, and now, we're…confusing."
"Well, that's sort of how relationships develop, you know," Nessa said with a condescending raise of her eyebrow. "I couldn't tell you the moment I started fancying George —"
"Please," Tori snorted. "You fancied him from the moment he came to break you out of that blasted house. Your knight in shining armor."
Nessa stomped on her foot again, irritated by the implication.
"I don't need a knight in shining armor," she said, shifting her foot away hastily when Tori went to reciprocate again. Ron turned to glare at her when she accidentally ended up kicking him in an attempt to save her toes. "And if that were true, I could just as easily have fancied Fred."
"Fred freaks you out."
"You all freak me out," Nessa said with an eye roll. "You can't pretend forever, Tori."
Tori sighed sadly.
"You sound like Fred," she said. "I'm not pretending anything. I just — it's a big deal. Telling him is one thing, but then telling George and everyone else, and pretending like their disapproval doesn't bother me…And if it doesn't work then it'll be very complicated —"
"It will work."
"How do you know?"
"Because it's the two of you, Tori," Nessa said as if this were entirely obvious. "You've known each other for far too long to mess the entire thing up. He kisses you one time, and you haven't kissed anyone else since —"
"Not true," she said. "I kissed someone right after —"
"And hated the entire thing," Nessa interrupted, and Tori huffed. "You nearly ripped everyone's head off in the last two weeks and all of a sudden you look like you spent five days on a beach vacation. Seems like a fairly obvious choice to me."
Tori blinked at her.
"I don't like you right now."
Nessa snorted and opened her mouth to say something, but there was a loud and oddly eerie noise beginning to drift toward them from out of the darkness.
"What the hell is that?" Tori said, squinting as if it would help her pinpoint the sound in the darkness in front of her.
It was a muffled sort of rumbling and sucking sound, as though a vacuum cleaner were moving along a riverbed…
"The lake!" yelled Lee Jordan, pointing down at it. "Look at the lake!"
From their position at the top of the lawns overlooking the grounds, they 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 been pulled out of the lake's floor…
What seemed to be a long, black pole began to rise slowly out of the heart of the whirlpool…followed by the rigging…
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. 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, there was a splash of an anchor being thrown down in the shallows, and the thud of a plank being lowered onto the bank.
People were disembarking; Nessa could see their silhouettes passing the lights in the ship's portholes. All of them seemed to be…well, massively built, truthfully. But as they drew nearer, it became obvious that their bulk was really due to the fact that they were wearing cloaks of some kind of shaggy, matted fur. All of them had their hair cropped short, and they walked in a weird sort of formation, as though they were readying for battle. But the man who was leading them up to the castle had longer hair, and was wearing furs of a different sort: sleek and silver, the same color as 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, Nessa could see that he was tall and thin like Dumbledore, but his silver hair was shorter, 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.
"Dear old Hogwarts," he said, looking up at the castle and smiling; his teeth were rather yellow, but the smile did not reach his eyes, which remained cold and shrewd. "How good it is to be here…how good…Viktor, come along, into the warmth…you don't mind, Dumbledore? Viktor has a slight head cold…"
Karkaroff beckoned forward one of his students. Nessa noticed him almost immediately, but Tori's shocked gasp and the tight grip on her arm were certainly confirmation.
"Nessa — is that —"
" — it's Krum!" Ron said in awe from in front of them.
"I thought you knew he was still going to school, Tori," Nessa said in amusement as she shoved them through the doors with the rest of the Hogwarts crowd, who filed after the Durmstrang students.
"I did!" she said, standing on her tiptoes to attempt to get a glimpse of the famous Seeker again. "But I didn't know he went to Durmstrang!"
As they recrossed the entrance hall with the rest of the Hogwarts students heading for the Great Hall, Nessa could see Lee jumping up and down on the soles of his feet to get a better look at the back of Krum's head. Several sixth-year girls were frantically searching their pockets as they walked —
"Are you going to get his autograph?" Nessa smirked at her best friend.
"Of course not," she said dismissively. "He'd never talk to me if he thought I was some crazed fangirl."
"So you're going to lie to him then."
"It is not a lie," Tori said indignantly. "I'm a fan, sure, but I'm not about to go making a fool of myself for him, now am I? Not like Ron is."
Tori nodded to the younger boy, who had shoved past the two of them and was trying to remain as close to Krum as possible. Nessa snorted, as they followed the rest of the students into the Great Hall for the Welcoming Feast and made their way to the Gryffindor table. The twins and Lee sat opposite Harry, Ron, and Hermione, so Nessa and Tori split to sit across from each other. Nessa watched in amusement as Ron, the twins, and Tori watched Viktor Krum bitterly as he sat at the Slytherin table. Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle looked very smug about this, and Malfoy leaned forward almost immediately to speak directly to Krum.
"Git," Tori muttered with an eye roll.
The students from Beauxbatons had chosen seats at the Ravenclaw table. They were looking around the Great Hall with glum expressions on their faces. Three of them were still clutching scarves and shawls around their heads.
"It's not that cold," said Hermione defensively. "Why didn't they bring cloaks?"
Nessa was surprised by Hermione's immediate distaste for the group of them, and raised her eyebrow at her.
"Hogwarts' location is kept a secret as well, isn't it?" she reminded gently. "Perhaps they weren't familiar with the weather in this area."
"It can't be much different than France, can it?"
Nessa supposed that was true, considering how close the other country was, so she didn't bother saying anything else.
"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," Ron said, still looking at Krum as though he'd not heard her or Hermione at all.
Hermione snorted and met Nessa's amused eye from around her brother.
"They look a lot happier than the Beauxbatons lot," said Harry.
The Durstrang students were pulling off their heavy furs and looking up at the starry black ceiling with expressions of interest; a couple of them were picking up the golden goblets and examining them, apparently impressed.
Up at the staff table, Filch was adding chairs. He was wearing his moldy old tailcoat in honor of the occasion.
"Why's Filch putting out four chairs, who else is coming?" her brother voiced before Nessa could wonder it herself.
When all the students had entered the Hall and settled down at their House tables, the staff entered, filing up to the top table and taking their seats. Last in line were Professor Dumbledore, Professor Karkaroff, and Madame Maxime. When their headmistress appeared, the pupils from Beauxbatons leapt to their feet. A few of the Hogwarts students laughed, but the Beauxbatons party appeared quite unembarrassed, and did not resume their seats until Madame Maxime had sat down on Dumbledore's left-hand side. Dumbledore remained standing, and a silence fell over the Great Hall.
"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, ghosts and — most particularly — guests," said Dumbledore, beaming around at the foreign students. "I have great pleasure in welcoming you all to Hogwarts. I hope and trust that your stay here will be both comfortable and enjoyable."
One of the Beauxbatons girls still clutching a muffler around her head gave what was unmistakably a derisive laugh. Nessa did bristle at this, and did not bother reprimanding Hermione when she made a disapproving comment toward the girl.
"The tournament will be officially opened at the end of the feast," said Dumbledore. "I now invite you all to eat, drink, and make yourselves at home!"
He sat down, and Karkaroff leaned forward at once to engage him in conversation. The plates in front of them filled with food as usual. The house-elves in the kitchen seemed to have pulled out all the stops; there was a greater variety of dishes than there normally were, including several that were definitely foreign.
"What's that?" said Ron, pointing at a large dish of some sort of shellfish stew that stood beside a large steak-and-kidney pudding.
"Bouillabaisse," said Hermione.
"Bless you," said Ron.
Nessa could not help the laugh that escaped at the words.
"It's French," said Hermione, "I had it on holiday summer before last. It's very nice."
"I'll take your word for it," said Ron, helping himself to black pudding.
Nessa was not as afraid to try the new dishes as Ron seemed to be, and after a moment's hesitation, took some of the stew and decided to try it. It had a strong, fishy flavor, but it was rich and warm. She liked it, personally, although Tori was giving her a disgusted look.
Nessa did not bother talking much as dinner progressed. The twins and Lee were discussing the tournament, and she wasn't interested in having that conversation again. Not that any of them appeared all too concerned with including her in the conversation either. Harry, Ron, and Hermione were interested in Krum and asking Hagrid about his Skrewts, which Nessa avoided talking about on principle.
The Great Hall seemed somehow much more crowded than usual, even though there were barely twenty additional students there; perhaps it was because their differently colored uniforms stood out so clearly against the black of the Hogwarts robes. Now that they had removed their furs, the Durmstrang students were revealed to be wearing robes of a deep bloodred. Nessa quite liked the color, truth be told.
"Excuse me, are you wanting ze bouillabaisse?"
Nessa tore her gaze away from the Durmstrang students to look up at the intruder. It was the girl from Beauxbatons who had laughed during Dumbledore's speech. She had finally removed her muffler. A long sheet of silvery-blonde hair fell almost to her waist. She had large, deep blue eyes, and very white, even teeth.
Ron went purple. He stared up at her, opened his mouth to reply, but nothing came out except a faint gurgling noise. Nessa covered her mouth with both hands to keep herself from laughing out loud. Tori was giving him a judgemental look, but he didn't seem to notice. Fred and George snickered from across the table.
"You 'ave finished wiz it?"
"Yeah," said Ron breathlessly. "Yeah, it was excellent."
Nessa snorted because Ron had not even touched it, but the sound attracted the prettier girl, who noticed her bowl of the stew.
"You are done wiz it, no?"
Nessa nodded.
"J'ai termine. Merci."
If Nessa had thought her beautiful before, it was nothing compared to the way she looked when she smiled at her for her use of French. It was blinding, almost painful, the way the smile transformed the beauty of her face. Ron made an odd noise in the back of his throat, and even the twins cleared their throats roughly.
The girl picked up the dish and carried it carefully off to the Ravenclaw table.
"You speak French?" Tori said immediately when the girl had left.
The twins and Tori were both staring at her in surprise, but her brother was the one to answer for her.
"She taught herself last summer," Harry said with an eye roll. "She wanted to read some French book Aunt Petunia has —"
"It was Les Misérables," Nessa said indignantly. "It's a very good book, you know —"
"We should have broken her out of that house far sooner than we did," Tori muttered to the twins. "Not even Hermione teaches herself new languages just to read a book, Vanessa."
Nessa huffed at her and opened her mouth to retort before she realized that Hermione, who would normally have taken offense to this, had not said anything at all. Instead, she was glaring at Ron. Ron was still goggling at the girl who had asked for the Bouillabaisse as though he had never seen one before. Harry started to laugh, which seemed to bring Ron back to his senses.
"She's a veela!" he said hoarsely to Harry.
Nessa rolled her eyes to the ceiling and gave Tori an exasperated look.
"Of course she isn't!" said Hermione tartly. "I don't see anyone else gaping at her like an idiot!"
Not entirely true. Many boys' heads had turned as she made her way across the Hall, and some of them seemed to have become temporarily speechless like Ron.
"I'm telling you, that's not a normal girl!" said Ron, leaning sideways so he could keep a clear view of her. It was a mistake — Tori was sitting next to him, and she too did not like when men gaped at veela if her previous attitude toward them at the World Cup were any indication. She immediately smacked Ron upside his head and shoved him away from her. Ron didn't even seem to have noticed. "They don't make them like that at Hogwarts!"
Nessa bristled at this, but Harry spoke before she could demand what that was supposed to mean.
"They make them okay at Hogwarts," he said, clearly without thinking, his eyes glued on the Ravenclaw table himself. Cho Chang sat only a few places away from the girl with the silvery hair.
Nessa couldn't help the teasing grin that spread across her face.
"Yeah, Harry?" she said innocently. "Who?"
Her brother's face colored red immediately as he turned back to look at his plate.
"No one," he said hastily. "I'm just saying — you know, objectively."
Nessa hummed in mock agreement, and Tori was laughing loudly when Harry glared at her in response.
"When you've both put your eyes back in," said Hermione briskly. "You'll be able to see who's just arrived."
She was pointing up at the staff table. Nessa followed her finger to see that the two remaining seats had just been filled. Ludo Bagman was now sitting on Professor Karkaroff's other side, while Mr. Crouch was next to Madame Maxime.
It made sense that the two of them would be here, considering they were the ones that had organized the entire event. They likely wanted to see it start. What didn't make sense was how quickly Fred and George straightened in their seats at the sight of the two men at the staff table. Nessa shared a confused look with Tori, who gave her a bewildered shrug and rolled her eyes pointedly.
When the second course arrived, there were a number of unfamiliar desserts too. Ron examined an odd sort of pale blancmange closely, then moved it carefully a few inches to his right, so that it would be clearly visible from the Ravenclaw table. Nessa rolled her eyes at him, but, thankfully, the girl who looked like a veela appeared to have eaten enough and did not come over to get it.
Once the golden plates had been wiped clean, Dumbledore stood up again. A pleasant sort of tension seemed to fill the Hall now from the rest of the students, and Nessa could see the excitement on her friends' faces as they stared at Dumbledore with great concentration.
The tension for her, however, had turned into horrible, uncontrollable butterflies of the worst kind. She was being dramatic, she was sure. Harry had no interest in entering the tournament, and the twins likely wouldn't succeed if Dumbledore's warning was to be believed. Her gaze drifted to Cedric at the Hufflepuff table. He was leaning forward eagerly, and grinning widely, his friends around him shoving him in encouragement. As if he sensed her gaze, he looked over to meet hers and winked, pulling a smile from her despite her concern for him.
"The moment has come," said Dumbledore, smiling around at the sea of upturned faces. "The Triwizard Tournament is about to start. I would like to say a few words of explanation before we bring in the casket —"
Casket? Nessa mouthed to Tori, who merely shrugged.
" — just to clarify the procedure that we will be following this year. But first, let me introduce, for those who do not know them, Mr. Bartemius Crouch, Head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation" — there was a smattering of polite applause — "and Mr. Ludo Bagman, Head of the Department of Magical Games and Sports."
There was a much louder round of applause for Bagman than for Crouch, perhaps due to his fame as a Beater, or simply because he looked so much more likable. Oddly, however, neither twin clapped, instead eyeing him sharply. Bagman acknowledged the applause with a jovial wave of his hand. Bartemius Crouch did not smile or wave when his name was announced. He looked odd in wizard's robes, Nessa thought, considering he'd been in a Muggle suit at the World Cup. His toothbrush mustache and severe parting looked very odd next to Dumbledore's long white hair and beard.
"Mr. Bagman and Mr. Crouch have worked tirelessly over the last few months on the arrangements for the Triwizard Tournament," Dumbledore continued, "and they will be joining myself, Professor Karkaroff, and Madame Maxime on the panel that will judge the champions' efforts."
At the mention of the word "champions", the attentiveness of the listening students seemed to sharpen, and the twins looked back at Dumbledore again. Perhaps Dumbledore noticed their sudden stillness, for he smiled and said, "The casket, then, if you please, Mr. Filch."
Filch, who had been lurking unnoticed in a far corner of the Hall, now approached Dumbledore carrying a great wooden chest encrusted with jewels. It looked extremely old. A murmur of excited interest rose from the watching students; Dennis Creevey actually stood on his chair to see it properly, but, being so tiny, his head hardly rose above anyone else's.
"The instructions for the tasks the champions will face this year have already been examined by Mr. Crouch and Mr. Bagman," said Dumbledore as Filch placed the chest carefully on the table before him, "and they have made the necessary arrangements for each challenge. There will be three tasks, spaced throughout the school year, and they will test the champions in many different ways…their magical prowess — their daring — their powers of deduction — and, of course, their ability to cope with danger."
At this last word, the Hall was filled with a silence so absolute that nobody seemed to be breathing.
"As you know, three champions compete in the tournament," Dumbledore went on calmly, "one from each of the participating schools. They will be marked on how well they perform each of the tournament tasks and the champion with the highest total after task three will win the Triwizard Cup. The champions will be chosen by an impartial selector: the Goblet of Fire."
Dumbledore now took out his wand and tapped three times upon the top of the casket. The lid creaked slowly open. Dumbledore reached inside it and pulled out a large, roughly hewn wooden cup. It would have been entirely unremarkable had it not been full to the brim with dancing blue-white flames.
Dumbledore closed the casket and placed the goblet carefully on top of it, where it was clearly visible to everyone in the Hall.
"Anybody wishing to submit themselves as champion must write their name and school clearly upon a slip of parchment and drop it into the goblet," said Dumbledore. "Aspiring champions have twenty-four hours in which to put their names forward. Tomorrow night, Halloween, the goblet will return the names of the three it has judged most worthy to represent their schools. The goblet will be placed in the entrance hall tonight, where it will be freely accessible to all those wishing to compete. To ensure that no underage student yields to temptation," he continued. "I will be drawing an Age Line around the Goblet of Fire once it has been placed in the entrance hall. Nobody under the age of seventeen will be able to cross this line."
Nessa was not familiar enough with Age Lines to know if this was true or not, but she severely hoped it was.
"Finally, I wish to impress upon any of you wishing to compete that this tournament is not to be entered into lightly. Once a champion has been selected by the Goblet of Fire, he or she is obliged to see the tournament through to the end. The placing of your name in the goblet constitutes a binding, magical contract. There can be no change of heart once you have become a champion. Please be very sure, therefore, that you are wholeheartedly prepared to play before you drop your name into the goblet."
And with that ominous warning, he sent them all off to bed.
You've made it through the last of the arguing, folks! We're making up next chapter, I promise. And the tournament has unofficially begun. So much to come!
Also, I don't actually speak French myself, so I apologize if anything typed now or moving forward is grammatically inaccurate in the French language. Google Translate is horribly inaccurate sometimes, but we're going to attempt it anyway. If there is anyone who knows how to speak French and anything I say is horribly wrong, let me know and I can update the chapter.
Up next: the promised make up and the twins grow beards