The sun hadn't quite properly set yet, but it had fallen behind the hills framing the Valley, dropping them into an odd, false twilight — the sky still bright, just starting to flush to the west, but their surroundings in shadow, colours muted. The towers of the castle overhead were still gleaming in the faded sunlight, the shadows slowly creeping upward inch by inch as Dorea watched. There was a stiff breeze blowing through, turned changing and gusty by the surrounding hills and the cliff the castle stood on, tugging at her hair from one direction and then the other, slipping up under her robes and along her neck. Grimacing, Dorea adjusted her scarf, again, but there was really nothing she could do about the wind blowing up her legs.
They'd only been out here for a couple minutes, and Dorea was already starting to get really bloody cold.
Standing in the line nearby, arms wrapped tight around herself and ducking her head against the wind, Pansy whined, "How long do they expect us to wait for them to turn up? I'm going to freeze out here..."
For perhaps the first time in their lives, Dorea found herself of the exact same mind as Pansy Parkinson. It might not have been so bad if the sun were still out, but this was miserable.
"It shouldn't be too much longer," Draco said from Pansy's other side. "They're supposed to arrive at six, and it's three before the hour now."
Dorea frowned. "Is that solar time? They might be using the official clock." The charm worked by querying the position of the sun (adjusted with some complicated arithmancy, not important), which meant it was almost always off of the 'actual' time, though more or less depending on where you were. The charm tended to be very inaccurate in Hogsmeade, due to the latitude and elevation — at Hogwarts they used local solar time for class hours and stuff, so the students (and staff) could use the time charm without any mixups, but that was different from the official Ministry time, sometimes by as much as a whole hour.
Leaning a little around Pansy, holding his arm out, Draco tugged down the sleeve of his robes, showing the watch on his wrist — oh, he did mean the official clock, okay then.
From opposite Daphne, Liz muttered, "I still think how time works on the magical side is bloody stupid."
"At least they don't have daylight savings time over here," Blaise said from further down the line. "That shite always confuses me."
"Ugh, stupid. I still don't know why the hell they do that."
Well, it had probably made sense back before electric lighting was common, but Dorea guessed that didn't really matter anymore, did it? "This is still a terrible idea. I don't know why they couldn't have just had us wait inside the Great Hall..." The larger first- and second-year classes might have made that a tight fit, she guessed, especially with all the guests...
There was a sigh from further down the line, and then a pair of tingly waves of magic, one right after the other — the wind abruptly cut off, and then it got noticeably warmer, heat pressing in against her, like sunlight or a space heater. "Oh!" Pansy chirped, immediately loosening the death grip she had around herself, straightening and pulling back her hood. "That's much better. Thanks, Liz."
"Sure."
Dorea was pretty sure Liz had only done it so they'd stop feeling miserable around her, but still, nice of her. Even if it was slightly intimidating that she could cover their whole row with palings like that...
The day when the teams from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang would arrive to inaugurate the Triwizard Tournament had finally come — conveniently enough, on a Sunday, giving the staff some extra time to get everything in order. The castle had already been spruced up over the preceding weeks, the dust lingering in out-of-the-way corners or unused classrooms vanished, some of the more conspicuously deteriorated furniture replaced, more common rooms for people to hang out in fixed up to accommodate their guests, even a few repairs made here and there. According to the Ravenclaws, they'd needed to take a different path up to their tower one day because one hallway had been swarming with elves, replacing a patch of eroded stone in the walls and some of the fixtures here and there. (There were signs of other repairs around, some of the less nice-looking spots Dorea was familiar with suddenly shiny and new, but most of them the elves had managed to fix without notice, the sneaky little things.) And it wasn't just the castle itself, the statues dotted around washed and smoothed over, some slightly glinting with protective lacquer, the lines touched up here and there; the suits of armour scattered all over the place (golems, supposedly, animated to defend the castle if attacked) had been polished to a shine, spots of rust dissolved away and repaired; the frames on all the paintings had also been cleaned and polished, some of them fully replaced, many of the paintings themselves touched up, defects repaired and the colours coming through more vivdly, the subjects excitedly chittering.
Filch hadn't done all the restoration himself, of course — the volume of artwork scattered throughout the castle, that would be far too much work for one man to do. A small team of artists (mostly apprentices) had been hired by the Board to assist him. He'd been spotted with his team multiple times, stalking through the halls — Norris trotting along at his ankles or contentedly napping in a corner or atop a statue — pointing at this piece or that, assigning projects to one of the artists or another, occasionally debating how exactly to go about something, passionately enough voices could be heard from adjacent halls. As far as Dorea knew, Filch's skills were mostly in painting — he'd been spotted touching up paintings a few times by various students, sitting cross legged on the floor with Norris in his lap, paints scattered around him as he delicately poked at a painting, taken down to lean against the wall, with a tiny little brush — a particular pair of assistants taking care of all the statutes, who'd also been spotted once or twice, crawling over a statue and debating one point or another in rapid Cambrian. Coming down from the Hospital Wing, Dorea had once seen Filch polishing one of the suits of armour. As she'd passed by, Filch had asked the thing to step off its plinth so he could get at the back, and it'd obligingly done so, clanking and clattering — Dorea had been rather startled, she hadn't realised those things could move at all when the castle wasn't under attack.
(Filch had gruffly but politely apologised for scaring her, which had just been kind of weird and awkward. Dorea had the feeling he was consciously being nice to her because Norris liked her, but she wasn't complaining.)
And the increased activity wasn't just in Hogwarts itself, there'd been people bustling around the Valley the last couple weeks as well. A team from Public Works had put up a sizeable but modestly-decorated building out on the grounds. Living quarters for the judges and any notables who might visit, supposedly — they wouldn't remain occupied the whole year, probably just for the couple days around the events, but it would just be convenient for them to have somewhere to stay overnight instead of needing to commute back and forth. (To and from foreign countries, for most of the judges.) There was also a new collection of little houses and blocks of flats and a respectably-sized bathhouse beyond the wards, opposite the train station from Hogsmeade. The little temporary village wasn't huge, by any means, smaller than Hogsmeade next to it, but considering Public Works had put the whole thing up in the space of a couple weeks it was quite impressive.
Though, the addition might not be temporary, Dorea had heard. Housing could be pretty expensive on the magical side sometimes, apparently the Ministry was already getting requests from people to sell off the modest little homes once the Tournament was over. That would be a more efficient use of the effort that went into them than just demolishing them once they weren't needed anymore, and would recoup the Ministry's costs, so Dorea thought that was pretty likely to end up happening. It would definitely be the largest addition made all at once to Hogsmeade, and quite likely the largest public housing project since the early 18th Century (necessary at the time due to refugees displaced by various wars and the implementation of Secrecy), which was curious to think about.
The little village was meant to house some of the officials needed to manage the Tournament, but most of it was set aside for family and friends of the foreign competitors, who, like the judges, might prefer to have somewhere to stay overnight before returning home. Though, there were still more additions being made even now — someone had pointed out that they could probably rent some of them out to spectators, both foreign and domestic, bring in some merchants and entertainment, have little festivals on the days of the events. Magical Britain didn't have public events very often, so exploiting the Tournament to have a few wasn't a bad idea just for that reason, and the rents and vendors' licences and taxes could bring in a tidy profit for the Ministry, so, all around a pretty decent idea.
Of course, it also probably helped that the Ministry was taking every opportunity they could to reform Britain's international reputation — building pleasant accommodations for guests and throwing a few nice parties had probably seemed like an obvious thing they could do for truly very little cost. Dorea had also heard that, in their messaging about the whole event, the Ministry were playing up that the final task happened to be scheduled pretty close to the fiftieth anniversary of Grindelwald's capture and the subsequent Communalist surrender. (It wasn't exact, off by a few months, and a couple countries had stuck it out for nearly another two years, but close enough.) Dumbledore had even been picked as one of Britain's judges, very thematic. Though they did have to be a little careful with how exactly they talked about it: after all, Aquitania and Daneland had both been on the other side of the war.
In fact, not only had their two guest countries and Britain been on opposite sides, but their soldiers had directly fought each other. The Iberian theatre had perhaps been the most brutal part of the war British forces had been involved in — the war in France, yes, but Britain had also been involved in the attempted invasion of Aquitania, alongside Spain and the northern Italian states. And it was an attempted invasion, because they'd never quite managed it: Aquitania was one of the Communalist-aligned states that had survived the war. They'd sustained serious damage from the attacks on all sides, had practically needed to rebuild their floo network from scratch, there'd been massive public works projects in the aftermath to house and care for all the refugees, but the government had made it through to the other side in one piece. The reparations they'd been strong-armed into paying to Helvetica and Genoa hadn't done their economy through the 50s and 60s any favours, but they were mostly recovered by now, one of the more stable and prosperous countries in the ICW these days.
They were still rather bitter about it, though — which was fair, considering the Italians had attacked them without warning, before Aquitania had even entered the war, and they'd been forced to accept the reparations in exchange for keeping Valencia, which Spain had attempted to straight-up conquer. (They'd had competing claims on the region since Secrecy, Spain had used the opportunity to try to settle the debate once and for all.) Britain wasn't one of the countries that'd directly screwed them over, but they had been part of the invasion forces, attacking from occupied France. It was very possible that, in the spectators' stands, there would be veterans who'd been in the same battles at the same time, on opposite sides — Dorea hoped they were being careful about security, because that could get very ugly, very fast.
Their Durmstrang guests would be less of a problem, due to the peculiarities of how the school operated. Anyone could attend Beauxbatons — it was where Aquitania sent their muggleborns, and also France, due to the war leaving their education system and government in complete disarray — but Durmstrang was a small, highly selective school, rather like Hogwarts in that way. But unlike Hogwarts, getting in wasn't a matter of what family you were from or who you knew, but a matter of aptitude — Durmstrang had entrance exams, which applicants needed to do sufficiently well on to even be considered for acceptance. The tuition was also rather expensive, also like Hogwarts. (Beauxbatons, on the other hand, was entirely supported by the Aquitanian government and donations from alumni, and didn't charge tuition at all.) Sort of like Hogwarts waiving tuition for muggleborns, Durmstrang would also accept a few scholarship students every year. Infamously, Grindelwald himself had gotten into the school through this scholarship programme — there'd been talk during the Saxon Revolution (well before war in Europe broke out) of ending it for that reason, but the government had threatened to retract the support they gave to the school if they did, and enough of the faculty and alumni approved of the programme that it hadn't ended up happening.
Daneland had been on the opposite side of the war, yes, British and Scandinavian soldiers had directly fought each other in the German theatre, yes — but Durmstrang was not a Scandinavian public school. In fact, most of the students probably weren't even Scandinavians. Given its famously high standards, Durmstrang tended to attract applicants from all over the ICW...and, due to the expensive tuition, mostly from wealthy or (current or former) noble families. For that reason, the culture at Durmstrang was significantly more conservative than the country it was located in. While Daneland might have fought with the Communalists (while not technically being Communalist themselves), it was quite possible that most of the students were actually from countries (or at least individual families) who'd been on Britain's side.
And, of course, the Headmaster had been a Death Eater — he claimed he'd been a spy from the beginning, tapped for the role by Daneland's security forces after Death Eaters had been spotted recruiting in the country, but nobody really took that seriously. So, there was that.
But there would be Scandinavian officials visiting, at the very least one of their judges was a government official of some kind — according to Andi, he'd even been one of the volunteers sent to Lithuania to prop up the infant Communalist government there in the opening moves of the war, considered something of a war hero back home (and a war criminal in Muscovy and Poland, naturally) — so it would still pay to be somewhat diplomatically delicate with the Durmstrang people too. Not as sensitive of a situation as the Beauxbatons people, but, well. If it were up to Dorea, she probably wouldn't have brought up the fiftieth anniversary at all, and wouldn't have picked Dumbledore as a judge in the first place — it wasn't exactly a secret that he disapproved of the governments of both countries, as well as the curriculum at both schools, if rather more Durmstrang than Beauxbatons — but nobody had asked her. There hadn't even been a vote on any of it, really. The judges had been picked by the Board, apparently still enough supporters of Dumbledore among them for him to be floated as an option, and the organisation of the Tournament was mostly being managed by the Departments of Education and International Cooperation — it'd been a Ministry project from conception, the Wizengamot had had very little input.
Not that the Wizengamot had raised a fuss about being shut out of it, since they had their own problems they were dealing with at the moment. Still, Dorea wasn't certain the angle they'd gone with was entirely wise. But it was too late to do anything about that now.
The day of their arrival had finally come, the excitement in the air so thick nobody had gotten practically any work done — Dorea had expected that, and gotten as much as she could of her reading and homework out of the way yesterday. It probably helped that they wouldn't be having class tomorrow either. Hallowe'en at Hogwarts was normally a half-day — the previous three years they'd run through fourth period, getting out of class for the day by four in the afternoon, leaving a couple hours free before sunset (when the traditional holiday technically started) — though the more religious students tended to skip class entirely, not coming back until evening classes on the First, after sunset (when the traditional holiday technically ended). The more religious students also tended to skip the Hallowe'en feast in the Great Hall, which they thought was crass and muggleish, instead having their own quieter thing out on the grounds, weather permitting, or somewhere else in the castle. Dorea had overheard some grumbling from a few of them in Slytherin: the staff tacitly allowed them to do their own thing on the holiday, normally, but this time they were actually expected to turn up, with the special event of the Tournament and all.
Which kind of sucked, but the Yule Ball was being held literally on Christmas, so, everybody was being screwed this year, she guessed.
A couple hours ago now, there'd been an announcement — the Headmaster's voice piped through the whole school somehow, like Snape could do within Slytherin — that they'd be finalising the preparations for the other schools' arrival, everyone please return to their common rooms so they'd be out of the way. When they got there, Snape had told them that they'd be expected to wear their uniforms for the evening, put their best foot forward and all that — preferably their proper, formal uniforms, with the cloaks and hats and everything, but he would understand if some of them didn't want to bother with the more obstructive accoutrements. (She probably hadn't imagined Snape's eyes flicking to Liz as he said it, she always had terrible trouble with the hat.) He'd finished with a lecture about being on their best behaviour with their international guests, that they would in a sense be representing the entire country in this little cultural exchange they had going on. Nobody expected all of them to be perfect little diplomats through the entire year, but do try not to do anything too embarrassing — and if you truly must, the Slytherin House Rules always apply.
(Dorea wasn't certain how the First and Second Rules applied in the present situation, but she was starting to get the feeling that Snape was kind of halfway joking when he said things like that. He was all serious and dramatic and intimidating all the time, so she hadn't noticed how very silly it seemed as an eleven-year-old — more familiar with him now, at least some of his persona was probably an act, for his own amusement. Hermione certainly seemed to think so, and it was true that he'd eased up on it a lot last winter at the Greenwood...)
She'd practically been able to feel the excitement sizzling in the air, all of Slytherin packed into the common room chattering and laughing — it'd even given Liz a headache, she'd retreated down to her room after asking Tracey to come get her when it was time to go — the general antsiness gradually increasing as the minutes dragged by. Maybe it would have been better if more of them had gone to find something to occupy themselves until it was time to go, but, Dorea hadn't thought of it either — showered and changed, actually bothered to do her hair properly (so it was less likely to be messed up by the hood of her cloak, which most students were using in lieu of the hat), got back up to the common room and belatedly realised there was still over an hour left. People had whipped out decks of cards, a few second-years started at gobstones before Eirian broke them up — the penalties could be kind of messy sometimes, and they did have somewhere to be — someone had conjured up what looked like a variation of table skittles Dorea wasn't familiar with, it got very noisy in places, a lot of talking and shouting and laughing.
Until, finally, Snape had returned, and they got going. Streaming up into the Entrance Hall, mixing with the Hufflepuffs as they made for the front doors — the Hufflepuffs' walk up to the entrance was pretty similar to the Slytherins' — the houses dividing again when they got outside. Apparently, the staff wanted them to split by house and line up by year, arrayed on either side of the path up to the doors, which was a bloody pain to actually get done, took a couple minutes for everyone to straighten themselves out.
From a couple spots away, Liz had immediately grumbled about not being able to see anything. Dorea couldn't see over the row in front of them either — she wasn't particularly tall herself, plenty of the third-years and even a couple second-years were taller than her already — but Liz was tiny, shorter than some of the first-years. Blaise made a joke about transfiguring her a step-stool, she'd punched him in the arm, prat.
(Were they friends now ? Dorea hadn't noticed, Blaise mostly hung out with older students...)
The Headmaster and some of the professors had already been out here when they arrived, bundled up against the cold, along with the Mayor and his family — apparently this counted as a special event the locals were invited to attend. Blaise's mother (with an assistant of some kind), who happened to be the Director for Education — apparently the same Mirabella Zabini who was the CEO of LES, a big computer company in Ireland, Dorea had assumed they were different people until Andi had mentioned the other demands on Zabini's time in passing — so was here representing the Board of Governors and the Ministry. The Department of International Cooperation was also involved, but they were busy these days, so Dorea didn't expect Barty Crouch to show his face very often.
(Also, Zabini couldn't actually be a serial killer, could she? Surely she would have been caught by now...)
Dumbledore was also already here, chatting with the Headmaster and assorted staff with Fawkes perched on his shoulder — the local phoenix had remained in the Valley when Dumbledore left, but obviously they were still friends — along with a woman Dorea didn't recognise, who she assumed was the third judge. She didn't know anything about Dianaimh Uí Bháinfhéigh specifically, but the Báinfhéighs were one of the wealthy not-technically-noble Gaelic families, she assumed she'd been picked for political reasons. You know, give the Gaels some representation at an international event, so they don't throw a fuss about it — Dorea doubted it'd make much of a difference, but might as well not make the national tensions worse while they were at it.
(It was also possible that they'd chosen a Báinfhéigh because they were one of a handful of Gaelic families who made a claim on Ravenclaw's legacy, theirs generally considered the strongest case — her husband had been a Báinféigh, the Gaels even called Ravenclaw Ródhaín Uí Bháinfhéigh and everything. That'd be a slightly silly reason, but it wasn't out of the question for someone on the Board to think inviting a descendant of Ravenclaw's to this whole thing as long as they were at it to be a good idea...though she was pretty sure the "Uí" meant she'd married into the family anyway? Whatever, not important.)
A couple minutes after the Slytherins and Hufflepuffs got settled, the Ravenclaws and Gryffindors showed up, more or less at the same time — the walk down from their common rooms was also pretty similar — lined up along the path opposite the Slytherins and Hufflepuffs from the doors. McGonagall had been prowling the rows of Gryffindors ever since, snapping at them to stand up straight or fix one bit of their uniforms or another — she'd briefly crossed into the Slytherin section at one point, lecturing at some of the first-years for a moment, before Vector intercepted her, after a brief conversation turning back to the Gryffindors with a huff.
(McGonagall wasn't the Deputy Headmistress anymore — whether or not the Slytherin first-years were properly observing the uniform rules was no longer her business.)
Not long after that, a familiar man with shaggy mixed-tone hair, dressed in a somewhat rough-looking bead-lined cloak, came loping up from the Forest, joined by a woman wearing a similar cloak, the pair flanked by two big damn wolves. The bright yellow/orange blondeish-looking one was familiar, but she couldn't tell whether the other wolf was the same one from last time; the woman must be the man's companion from before, in human form this time, presumably his wife (or something, Dorea doubted wilderfolk in the Valley had formal marriages). Apparently, this also counted as an event the nonhuman locals should be invited to. As the minutes dragged by, it became increasingly clear the centaurs weren't showing up this time — Dorea wondered if there was a reason for that, but it probably wasn't her business. Maybe they simply had their own holiday celebrations they didn't want to skip out on? Centaurs were obsessed with astrology and the turning of the seasons, but wilderfolk weren't exactly known for keeping to a calendar, so...
With the arrival of the wilderfolk, it seemed like everyone who would be coming was here — now they were just waiting for their foreign guests. And so they waited. And waited. And waited...
Thanks to Liz's palings, at least Dorea wasn't freezing anymore, but honestly, couldn't they have timed this better? Dorea wasn't the only one getting impatient, this was just tedious.
"Aha!" Dorea twitched at the voice, amplified with magic to carry over the crowd. She glanced up along the path, tipping onto her toes and leaning around a third-year's head, to see Dumbledore was pointing toward the south. "Unless I am very much mistaken, the delegation from Beauxbatons approaches."
A second amplified voice — it was hard to tell, the magic changing the timbre somewhat, but Dorea thought it was Headmaster Gamp — came a moment later, saying, "I do believe you're correct. The sentries are just now detecting Durmstrang as well. Alright, everybody, I am sorry about the wait, but we're nearly done. We'll greet our guests here before escorting them inside, and you all will follow after us. There are additional tables for our guests, but of course you may move around as you wish — I'm afraid few of our guests will speak English, which may be awkward if any choose to approach you, but simply try to do your best. There'll be some introductions before the meal, and afterward the Tournament will officially begin. And here Beauxbatons is coming in now, only a few minutes more, thank you."
The anticipation in the air had gotten so intense Dorea could practically feel it, hissing of whispers and the rustling of cloth as people shifted around, tipping up on their toes to try to see. Even with the crowd in the way, it wasn't difficult to pick out the Beauxbatons delegation — it helped that they were flying. A carriage drawn by flying horses, Dorea hadn't noticed it at first, the sky still light enough for the pale horses and pale blue carriage to all but vanish against the backdrop, only a faint impression of motion and a tinkling of sunlight against metal. The blot in the sky got bigger and bigger and bigger as the thing approached the Valley...and then bigger...and then bigger, Jesus that thing was huge...
The distances and the lack of landmarks up in the damn sky had thrown off Dorea's sense of scale, but as they came in for a landing — an almost deafening clattering and thumping of hooves, the ground seeming to vibrate under her feet, the carriage itself landing comparatively gently, likely due to weight-cancelling and cushioning enchantments — it'd become obvious how enormous the carriage was. For one thing, the horses, the horses were huge. Dorea had seen winged horses before, and horses were quite large animals to begin with — though the winged breeds tended to be toward the lighter end. But these things, Jesus. They had to be Abraxans — Dorea had heard of the breed before, but she'd never seen one in person. The product of a magical breeding programme, exploiting early modern blood alchemy (according to rumour, using dragon's blood), they were the single largest equine in existence — easily half again the size of a large draft horse, their snouts over Dorea's head, tall and thick and muscular — their coats all a soft golden colour, manes and tails and wings a pure snowy white. Supposedly, they were very difficult to keep, strong and willful, surprisingly intelligent and could even cast a limited range of not-so-accidental magic (sort of like unicorns) — not to mention the food needed to sustain them, look at the things! And not just the food, Dorea had read that Abraxans were healthiest with a steady supply of distilled grain alcohol, because of course.
And they had...two, four, six– a dozen of the things. Normally, people who kept Abraxans would only have a couple, managing a dozen was insanely difficult — not to mention expensive. You could probably recoup at least most of the cost by selling the foals you got from your tiny little heard — as rare as they were, healthy ones fetched a hell of a price on the international market — but still, absurd. Beauxbatons might be showing off, coming here with these things, just a little bit.
The carriage itself was bloody huge too. The size of a small house, made of...probably some kind of ceramic, dyed a soft pale blue, carved into intricate floral patterns, lining the windows and the edges covered in gold, glinting in the fading sunlight — probably actually bronze, but it looked gold. Sky blue and gold were Beauxbatons colours, so. The Abraxans might just be showing off, but Beauxbatons had had the carriage for some time, had long served as sort of mobile housing for the Headmaster and support staff, when they needed to deal with politics outside of the school. (Supposedly they even used to lend it out to the Aquitanian government now and then.) Still impressive, just, showing up in the carriage was actually normal for Beauxbatons, not consciously showing off...though Dorea wondered whether there was really enough room in there for their whole team...
As the Abraxans dragged the carriage up the path toward the main doors, turning onto the circle Hogwarts's own carriages used to turn around — prancing light and easy, seemingly not slowed by the enormous carriage whatsoever — there was some chattering from the students around her, heads craning around, pointing down toward the lake. Dorea couldn't see from here, too short, but from what people were saying it seemed Durmstrang had been spotted as well. By the chatter she heard, Durmstrang had come in their ship, which wasn't a surprise. It'd originally been constructed by the Swedish Empire back during the Age of Exploration, when big, multi-decked sailing ships had been common, but had sunk in the Baltic Sea during one of the wars in the region. Shortly after Secrecy, an enchanter who happened to be a sailing enthusiast stumbled across the wreckage almost entirely by chance, and got the mad idea in his head to resurrect the destroyed ship — instead of simply dredging the thing up, he'd patched it up enough to hold together and enchanted it to float, the whole process done at the bottom of the sea, like a madman. Once it surfaced, he continued with his repairs and enchanting, making the thing actually livable, sailed it around the world a few times with family and friends, practically living on it for decades, before finally gifting it to his alma mater.
Supposedly, while the ship did have a couple masts, it didn't actually use sails — instead there were enchantments to capture the wind, giving the pilot far more control (with less hands-on labour), making the ship quicker and more manoeuvrable than it looked. He'd also included a series of enchantments that allowed the ship to... Well, Dorea didn't understand it, but it was similar to that quick-step thing Dora and Liz could do? Like, the ship could sink under the surface, and sort of...phase out, shooting invisibly and intangibly through the water, fitting through gaps far smaller than the ship itself, before surfacing again at the other side, crossing the dozens or even hundreds of miles between in minutes. She assumed that was how the ship had gotten up to the Valley in the first place — the Lake did empty out into the sea eventually, but the waterway definitely wasn't navigable for a ship of its size. Viking longships had been able to make it this far, which was why there were trip wards out in the river — the "sentries" the Headmaster had referred to a minute ago — but one of the big damn warships from the age of sail, no, there was no way one of those would be able to get up here without strange, esoteric nature magic.
The ship was well-known, Dorea had seen pictures before, even more well-known than Beauxbatons's carriage. When the Scandinavians were sending an official diplomatic envoy to another magical government, and making a big formal production about it, they almost always used the same ship. (Durmstrang technically owned it, but they didn't have use of it very often, so it was frequently loaned out to the government.) There was even a whole ceremony about, coming into harbour, taking down the raven banners and replacing them with the modern Scandinavian flag before landing. The raven banner was innocuous to them, just a good-luck symbol ubiquitous on sailing vessels, but vikings had also used it as a good-luck symbol — a lot of people they did diplomacy with in the modern day had been frequently raided by vikings once upon a time, and still had stories about it, so swapping them out before landing was a sort of good-will gesture, signalling that they came in peace. Dorea couldn't see them from here, but she assumed at least a part of the delay in them getting up the cliff was due to them pausing for a moment to swap out the flags.
And there was a bit of delay, the Beauxbatons delegation reached them some long minutes before the Durmstrangers. The Abraxans clomped their way up the drive, coming to a smooth stop with the door of the carriage directly across from the main doors. There was a brief pause before the door opened, a man in a blue and black uniform — not a student, presumably an employee of the school — gracefully hopped the metre or so down to the ground, turned around to unfold a set of gold (bronze) stairs. Dorea could barely see that happening, but she could definitely see the first person out the door after him — if the carriage and its team of horses were absurdly large, at least the school's Headmaster was proportionately large.
Dorea was familiar with Olympe Maxime — Beauxbatons picking a half-giant to administer their school was the sort of thing nobles in Britain gossipped about. There were still giants deep in the Alps and Pyrenées, but very, very few, and half-giants were exceedingly rare. Not so rare as they were in Britain — Hagrid might very well be the only half-giant in the country — but you didn't see them walking around all the time in Aquitania either. Maxime had attended Beauxbatons, all the way through a Charms Mastery, while continuing to publish academic work taking a job as a dorm supervisor at the school. She'd been very popular with the students, apparently, and not just due to being friendly and helpful and generally good at her job, but also, well, she was kind of hard to miss, wasn't she? Back home she had a reputation as a very, er, impressive sort of woman — of course inhumanly tall, but still managing an air of elegance and feminine grace, generally considered by most Aquitanians to be a very classy sort of woman. Like, she'd literally appeared in fashion magazines a handful of times, her reputation back home was very different from the impression racist British nobles had initially given Dorea.
Supposedly, she was quite, er, popular with a lot of men back home, which Dorea was somewhat baffled by — seemed like it'd be really easy for her to hurt someone by accident while in the moment, so to speak — but that really wasn't her business. She'd never married, but there were rumours of various romantic liaisons over the years floating around, no idea how much truth there was to any of that...
The oversized woman (she had to be nearly twelve feet tall, Dorea doubted Dumbledore was higher than her navel) hung back for a moment, waiting for her students to spill out of the carriage. Dorea couldn't see well from here, flashes of hair in various shades, uniforms blue and white, by her general impression of the size of the clump of people maybe a couple dozen total? They would have brought everyone who planned to assist in the group tasks, not just those who were trying for Champion, they would need a pretty sizeable team. (Family and friends would likely travel here and back for each task, so it should just be the participants arriving today.) Dorea was pretty sure she'd spotted some adults as well — they would have brought the other two Aquitanian judges along with them — but she didn't have a good enough angle to really get any details. Once they were all out of the carriage, they started up to meet the Hogwarts staff waiting for them, the only one of them Dorea could clearly see was their Headmistress looming over them.
She knew the exact moment they got close enough for Liz to make out Maxime past the people around her — Liz let out a low, "Damn. That's a large woman."
"She's Mistress Olympe Maxime," Daphne said, in French, before switching back to English to add, "the Headmistress of Beauxbatons." Dorea was pretty sure the title was Maître for women too — like how women with a Mastery were addressed as "Master" in English, but almost never "Mistress" — but she guessed it wasn't important enough to correct her just now.
"You think if you stretch up on your toes you'll be able to reach into her pockets?"
"Wow, Tracey, you're right, I am tiny — nobody's ever made that joke before..."
After some moments of introductions, some chatter and hand-shaking going on between the adults — Dorea couldn't see very clearly from here, but that's what it looked like — the line of Hogwarts staff split enough to let the Beauxbatons people through. They'd all still be waiting out here for the Durmstrangers to catch up, but she guests there was no point in making their guests wait with them. Maxime and a few adults (judges, presumably) were at the front, chatting with Sprout, who'd apparently volunteered to show them to their seats, the students in a pack trailing behind the adults. Compared to the odd, archaic Hogwarts robes, the Beauxbatons uniform looked remarkably ordinary — pale blue blazers with black edging, buttons glinting gold, over a white undershirt of some kind, and, er— (Dorea tipped up on her toes for a second) —yep, trousers and skirts, looked like. Little different from the stereotypical school uniform in the muggle world, really. The design of the lapels and around the buttons did look somewhat dated, the blazer a little overly long, but not so obviously archaic as the robes a lot of people wore in Britain. Dorea liked the hats — sort of like a Tyrolean cap, but in the same sky blue, and worn at a skewed angle, very cute.
As the Beauxbatons students passed by, there was a harsh scoff from Pansy. Under her breath, Dorea wouldn't have heard it if they weren't so close, "Of course, they had to bring veela..."
Dorea was pretty sure she wasn't supposed to have heard that. Before she could think of whether she should say anything, someone behind and to her left was calling, "Liz! Hey, Liz! Cæciné, they brought Cæciné!"
The response actually came from Tracey. "Well of course they brought Arte bloody Cæciné, why wouldn't they have?"
"I didn't think she was old enough to compete — isn't she our age?"
"She isn't old enough to be a Champion, yeah, but remember, they were talking about group tasks..."
"Right, right. Well, I guess Hogwarts is fucked. That girl's a monster, pretty sure she'll be able to beat whoever our Champion is."
"I wouldn't be too sure," Liz said. "She's good, but she's not that tough."
"Didn't she kick your arse, only a couple months ago?"
"Get fucked, Selwyn."
"Was that a proposition? Unfortunately for you, I don't share your...proclivities."
"Oh for— Just, leave me alone." Dorea was pretty sure she heard Liz mutter "bitch" under her breath.
"What did you just call me, Potter?"
"Nothing — that nonsense you read making you paranoid?" Dorea wasn't sure what Liz was referring to, she didn't pay a lot of attention to Selwyn.
"That mouth on you, apparently you've been having it too easy lately, with Professor Snape and Sirius bloody Black looking out for you. Someone should teach you a lesson before that overconfidence gets you hurt."
"I'm sure you're just terribly concerned for Liz's safety," Tracey drawled.
Liz snorted, disdainful. "Are you saying you're going to teach me a lesson? Ask me for a match at the next club meeting, and we'll see how that goes."
"You got lucky with Monroe last year, I wouldn't go so easy on you."
"Well, seeing as how Katie kicked your arse across the arena, and we're about evenly matched, I'm not worried."
"That swaggering cunt isn't any—"
"Hey!" Selwyn cut off at the sharp snap from someone in the row behind her — Camilla Flint, maybe? "Would you two quit it already? If you want to knock the piss out of each other so badly, save it for the duelling ring."
"Gladly," Selwyn growled.
"Tuesday, then."
"I'm looking forward to it."
"Uh-huh."
The argument finally petered out, Selwyn in the row behind them falling into moody silence. Dorea let out a sigh, rolling her eyes — of course, she couldn't expect Liz not to pick a fight with someone over nothing. Was that what she called her best behaviour?
After a couple more minutes of waiting, the Durmstrangers finally showed up, approaching the drive from the path down the cliff to the boathouse. Dorea only caught a brief glimpse of them in the near distance before they moved enough to be behind the head of one of the third-years, she didn't get a good look until they were walking between the rows of Hogwarts students to the doors, the Headmaster and several other professors at the front leading them on. She recognised Igor Karkaroff instantly, she'd seen pictures in archived issues of the Prophet from the end of the war — tall and thin, pale platinum-blond hair in curls down to his shoulders, a clean-edged goatee framing his lips and extending down from his chin in a narrow beard. (Now that Dorea was looking at him in person, he looked surprisingly like a blond Snape, which was weirdly funny to her for some reason.) The only part of his outfit Dorea could make out was the long cloak a solid white, fur along the hem more silvery with occasional streaks of black. As he passed by where Dorea was standing, he was talking with the Headmaster and a few other adults, brightly grinning, laughing out loud at a comment from someone.
He seemed a lot...brighter and more cheerful than the impression Dorea had gotten from the pictures she'd seen — but then, in those he'd just been in Azkaban, frantically trying to bargain his way out. Not long after that Hallowe'en he'd been arrested by the Aurors — curiously, without putting up any fight at all — and had been sent straight to Azkaban instead of being kept in holding at the Ministry, as had been the practice at the time with Death Eater suspects. (There'd been concerns about their comrades attacking the Ministry to break them out.) His trial had been very short, basically just noting he bore the Dark Mark and summarily giving him a life sentence for treason; he'd managed to get a second hearing trying to trade names for leniency. Most famously, he'd been the one to initially point the finger at Unspeakable Augustus Rookwood — further investigation had revealed that Rookwood had been a critical source for the Death Eaters inside the Ministry, providing them intelligence about the floo network, weaknesses in the wards set by Public Works, the security arrangements around the Ministry and the Wizengamot, all kinds of things, resulting in his own conviction for treason.
Karkaroff never had gotten that leniency, though, his life sentence had stood. A couple months later, the Scandinavians had made a request for his extradition, so they could try Karkaroff for a list of crimes committed there. (Mostly abuse of the Dark Arts and murder, with some financial fraud for flavour.) Not wanting to annoy one of their major trading partners, Britain had agreed — but as soon as Karkaroff stepped foot in his home country, he'd been released, the charges his own government had filed against him to justify the extradition summarily dismissed. It turned out the crimes they'd accused him of had never even happened, just shite they'd made up to have an excuse to get him home. Instead of facing criminal prosecution, he'd spent nearly a year in a healing institute somewhere, recovering from his ordeal in the war and his brief stint in Azkaban, and after a brief career as a mediator of some kind in their government he was made the Headmaster of Durmstrang in 1990. Which, the Scandinavian government's treatment of him did seem to lend credence to his assertion that he'd been their spy from the beginning...
...but he definitely bore the Dark Mark — everyone who had it had murdered at least one person on the Dark Lord's orders. Dorea wasn't sure what to think about Karkaroff, honestly, it was complicated.
There was a lot of hissing and chatter among the Hogwarts crowd, several people outright pointing at the Durmstrang students walking by. Their uniforms were also rather ordinary looking compared to Hogwarts's, but had actually been an intentional anachronism at the time it'd first been designed. Like Hogwarts, Durmstrang actually hadn't had a set, formal uniform until at some point around the 16th Century — the trousers, thigh-length long-sleeved top, and the fur-lined cloak, all in brown and black and red, might not seem especially old-fashioned, but the original version had been designed in the time of doublets and hose, as a conscious reference to the period of the school's founding. And Durmstrang had supposedly been founded around the same time Hogwarts had, back when literal vikings had still been around, and supposedly trousers and tunics had been common at the time, so. Kind of the same idea as the Hogwarts uniform, really, just from a different cultural background.
(Dorea noticed the girls in the group were wearing trousers too, their uniforms indistinguishable — that was interesting, she wondered what was up with that.)
Anyway, tipping over her toes to look over the clump of foreign students, it took her a while to figure out what people were chattering about. It seemed Viktor Krum had come with the Durmstrang team — the same Viktor Krum who'd caught the snitch at the Quidditch World Cup just a couple months ago. That wasn't really a surprise, when she thought about it. She'd heard, in all the gossip about Krum at the time, that he was especially young, having been recruited up out of the youth league when he'd been only fifteen. The Continental model worked slightly differently, it wasn't unusual for their NEWT equivalent to take three, four, even five years, especially when the student was taking several subjects and needed the extra time — in Britain, you took the NEWTs after two years of study, but on the Continent you were done when you were done. Dorea wasn't sure how old Krum was, exactly, but she wasn't really surprised that he was still in school...especially since training for quidditch probably meant his Proficiency study was going more slowly than average.
Listening to the chatter going on around her, Liz was amusingly unimpressed by Krum being with the Durmstrang team — nothing like the almost breathless babbling from Draco to her other side, very excited about it, already debating with the people around him whether Krum would be their Champion. Draco was very sure he would be, but judging by the conversation to her other side, Liz and Tracey were assuming Krum was just a quidditch nut, and would be less successful with a more magically- and intellectually-demanding Tournament. Which was a silly thing to think — maybe Liz herself was forgetting that she was also a seeker, and on the duelling team, and despite her athletic activities was still reasonably close to the top of their class. Also, it was Durmstrang, Krum would have needed to pass their entrance exam like everyone else. But that wasn't really important enough to interrupt, so Dorea kept the thought to herself, shaking her head at the truly very silly conversations going on to both sides.
Once the Durmstrangers were through, they were finally allowed to go back inside, the orderly lines they'd been nudged into instantly dissolving as they headed for the doors all at once. With the oversized first- and second-year classes in front of them, it took a bit to get back into the Great Hall — the huge main doors had both been flung open, the bottleneck actually ended up being at the entrance to the Great Hall — but at least they were inside now. (Liz's attention must have wavered as the schools arrived, the palings fading, Dorea had started getting cold again by the time they were finally done.) Though, they might need to wait for a little bit for the Gryffindors and Ravenclaws to catch up, there really were a lot of kids at Hogwarts now...
Anyway, since Dorea had last been here at lunch there'd been significant changes to the Great Hall. The head table had been expanded, several more chairs added to its length. Two more guest tables had been added, parallel to the table in the middle of the room and perpendicular to the house tables, one laid out in a previously nonexistent gap between Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff, and the other between Slytherin and Gryffindor. Like the banners over the house tables, the new guest tables were also marked, the first table with Beauxbatons colours and the latter with Durmstrang's, the visiting students already sitting waiting. The Headmasters and judges were up at the high table, Maxime looking almost comically oversized sitting there with everyone else — she wasn't nearly as broad as Hagrid, but Dorea suspected she was even taller, the furniture up there couldn't possibly be comfortable for her...
Dorea noticed several people around her stare at the Beauxbatons table as they passed by. Not really a surprise, she guessed — Beauxbatons had brought veela, and they tended to be sort of infamously beautiful. In fact, Dorea caught herself staring at a grinning silver-haired boy (he seemed familiar, had she seen him somewhere before?), she had to wrench her eyes away, gritting her teeth against the warm, slippery magic on the air. It was so uncomfortable being around veela, honestly...
Oh, she didn't mean that in a racist way! She was just saying, the influence they had over the feelings of people around them was just kind of creepy, she didn't like it...
It did take a while for all the students to get back in the hall, Gryffindors streaming past Slytherin toward their table for at least a couple minutes after Dorea had already sat down. It was rather noisy too, everyone around her excited chattering, filling the large open space with a dull roar, clattering as people nudged the tableware — a table over a clunk and a tinkling of glass, people shouting in surprise, as someone spilled a pitcher of water. It was rather too loud, honestly, Dorea was tempted to cover her ears with her hands, wincing now and then at peaks in the noise.
Finally, everyone was seated, Gamp standing and raising his arms for silence. The voices gradually trailed off, in time a hush falling over the room, broken now and then with a light clunk of a goblet against a table, a cough or a hiss of a whisper. With as many people as there were in the Hall, even that noise was surprisingly loud — though that was normal, as many people as the other two schools had brought the room wasn't that much more full than usual. (It was still a little louder than usual, but Dorea blamed that on the excitement of the day, some of the younger students hardly seemed able to sit still.)
Gamp gave a brief little speech, though Dorea only understood some of it — none of it was in English, alternating sentence by sentence between French and Danish (presumably). Or, what British mages called "Danish", anyway, Dorea was pretty sure the language was actually closer to Swedish or Norwegian. From what Dorea did pick up in the French parts, welcoming their guests to the castle, some generic wishes about his hopes that everyone would get along during their visit — with a reminder that Hogwarts was an English-speaking school, and that was already a second language for many of them, so communication was going to be tricky, everyone just do your best and be patient with each other. Rooms had been prepared in the castle for them, but if they preferred to stay in their carriage that was fine (he presumably referred to the ship in the Danish translation), and they were also welcome to sit in on classes if they wished, though of course they were all held in English, unfortunately there was nothing to be done about that. (Supposedly they had made accommodations for their own education, bringing in tutors or whatever.) There was then a last bit about some announcements and officially kicking off the Tournament after dinner, that part also repeated in English, before he sharply clapped his hands over his head, apparently a signal to the elves to teleport up the meal.
The dinner was relatively uneventful, if rather more...loud and colourful than mealtimes tended to be. Excitement thick on the air, people's voices raising louder than usual, laughter constantly coming from here or there, it was very noisy, the bright, eager attitude of the crowd infectious. Dorea guessed this meal technically counted as a feast, despite not being one of the holidays they normally did that on — judging by the more varied, richer dishes set out, the presence of wine on the table especially indicative. (Come to think of it, the wine probably had something to do with everyone being so loud and silly.) There was even more variety in the food than there normally was at feasts, presumably foreign dishes to accommodate their guests' tastes. Dorea noticed a lot more seafood than usual — the smell was even noticeable, which Dorea wasn't a fan of, personally — some unfamiliar styles of bread, with a few sauces she didn't recognise. Actually, that one was aioli, she knew that one, by the look and smell that one was some kind of fruit base (meaning it was probably Scandinavian, they had a thing for berry sauces over there). They still had all the normal dishes at the Slytherin table, just with the addition of some foreign stuff speckled around, which was something new for people to poke at, at least.
People were also moving around rather more than usual. A few people here and there moving from one table to the other happened all the time — maybe dropping in on siblings or cousins in another house, or just visiting friends. It was pretty common for Dorea and her friends to sit with the Hufflepuffs, or sometimes the Ravenclaws, since the Slytherins in their group weren't really welcome at the Gryffindor table (especially after the incident in the common room last year), and bringing Hermione or Susan to their table often ended up sparking arguments. On special occasions they were expected to at least start at one of their house's tables, but if they wanted to pick up and move during the meal they were allowed.
And, of course, there was the addition of the students from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang. Due to Hogwarts's limited class size, and the relative unattractiveness of other options within Britain, it wasn't unusual for a lot of kids to be sent overseas for school — Durmstrang was preferred by the more Dark-leaning noble families, Beauxbatons the more Light-leaning ones, and also various middle- and upper-class commoners. (The Dutch school was also somewhat popular in the nobility, and the College of Paris with certain commoners.) Since the Academy in Oxford only went through OWLs, it wasn't unusual for families with the means to do so to send their kids off to Beauxbatons to continue their education — Madam Pomfrey had done exactly that, for example. Of course, getting a bunch of foreign students wasn't unusual for either school, as well-regarded as they were — and, in Beauxbatons's case, bloody huge, the campus practically a town in itself — Dorea wouldn't be surprised if at least half of the students at both schools were from outside of their host countries. They both taught classes in French (in addition to the local language) for a reason, it being the major international language on the magical side and all. Aquitania and Daneland both had more domestic schools, of course, Beauxbatons and Durmstrang in particular just had an especially international culture.
So, naturally, there were students from both schools who had relatives at Hogwarts — a few of them wandered off to say hello, sometimes accompanied by friends, in time creating little pockets of Durmstrang red and brown or Beauxbatons blue and white among the sea of Hogwarts black. No one ended up sitting at their table, though a couple people did come by briefly. A boy in Durmstrang robes — "Bertie" Yaxley, apparently — dropped by quick to say hi to Liz, nodding at a couple other people at the table, only for a minute before continuing on toward his relatives in Ravenclaw. Dorea had no idea what that was about, and apparently neither did anyone else, Tracey asked Liz how they even knew each other — weirdly, she didn't answer the question, unexpectedly uncomfortable until someone changed the subject.
(Dorea was aware Liz and Hermione had gone to Consualia at the Yaxleys', presumably he would have been there, but that wouldn't explain why she was being awkward about it.)
Their next notable guest wasn't from Beauxbatons or Durmstrang, or even any school at all. Like at the Welcoming Feast, the pair of bodyguard wolves were wandering around the room, sniffing around and making a nuisance of themselves — not really bothering anyone, the younger kids even kept trying to pet them again. Dorea thought the darker wolf was a different one this time, but the yellow-orange one was definitely the more adventurous one from before. (She was still pretty sure that wasn't even a colour normal wolves could be.) Like before, she — Dorea vaguely recalled that Liz had referred to this wolf with feminine pronouns — wandered around some, sniffing at the students and the tables, accepting pats from one person or another. One younger Gryffindor tossed a slice of meat of some kind, the wolf yipping excitedly and tearing after it, to the laughter of the little kids and startling people at other tables, looking around to see what was happening.
Not so long into the feast, she came around the back of the Slytherin table, loping casually along, before coming to a stop nearby, behind Liz. "Hello, again," Liz said, slow and cautious, apparently not sure how she was expected to react. The wolf let out a little huff, sat back — and then the light seemed to bend around her, her form contorting, reminding Dorea of Sirius changing back from a dog, and—
Dorea blinked. There was a woman standing where the wolf had been a second ago...or, a girl, she guessed — she wouldn't look out of place among the sixth- and seventh-years, couldn't be that much older than them. She was tall and scrawny, but not in an unhealthily thin way, visibly muscled, sleek and powerful, like a footballer, or some of the more dynamic duellists or quidditch players (like Liz, or Katie Bell). Her hair was the same blonde as her fur a second ago, long and shaggy, with occasional streaks here and there of a darker, orangish shade — the colour didn't look nearly as unnatural on a person as a wolf, the hints of orange maybe a little rare but not especially peculiar. (Someone with light reddish-blonde hair who spent a lot of time in the sun could look sort of like that, Dorea thought.) Her face was sharp and hard-angled, as absent of excess fat as the rest of her, skin slashed here and there with old scars. From fighting giant man-eating spiders, presumably. She was pretty young to be marked up that much, Dorea thought...but she kind of doubted that wilderfolk had a concept of childhood that extended past puberty, so.
Also? She was completely naked. Which, as taken aback as Dorea was by someone, just, appearing naked at the other side of the table, wasn't that much of a surprise? She meant, Sirius had mentioned that bringing things with you through the transformation could be difficult — while still getting used to it, he and his friends had had a few embarrassing and/or amusing wardrobe malfunctions. Apparently, the trick was to conceptualise your clothes and whatever else you were carrying as part of you, so they'd be taken with you through the transformation. Which required being familiar enough with wearing clothing that that was a natural thing for you to do — not to mention, being dressed before transforming into your animal shape in the first place — and wilderfolk weren't exactly well-known for their fashion, to put it mildly. The completely unintegrated ones, like here in the Valley, weren't known for wearing clothes at all — after all, literal wolves generally didn't need to.
It wasn't unexpected, really, but...this was just kind of awkward, wasn't it?
It got even more awkward when the wolf-girl made to sit down, wedging herself between Liz and Tracey. Tracey mostly just seemed irritated — she tried to block the spot, lifting her arm up to bar her, but the girl just pushed her way in, Tracey giving up with a huff and trying to make room — Liz ducking her head, cringing away, immediately shuffling aside as Daphne sidled down a little. (Not that there was much further to go, Daphne was already at the edge of the table.) She looked less painfully uncomfortable once the girl wasn't practically leaning all over her, but still not much better, flushed and fidgeting in place.
"Yes, here. Hello. You are girl from before, yes?" The wolf-girl's voice was low and husky, her English stilted and awkward — Dorea would guess she didn't use it often.
"Er. Yeah."
"I did think it. You smell different."
"...I had a shower." Just before dinner, she meant, it wasn't a reasonable guess that the soap and stuff might throw a literal wolf off a little.
The wolf-girl's head tilted at a thoughtful sort of angle. "Shower?"
Tracey let out an exasperated huff. "Here, if you're going to be sitting with us, take this." She undid the latch of her cloak, rather than just handing it to the wolf-girl reaching up to throw it around her shoulders.
The wolf-girl tensed at first, ducking, head jerking around to glare at Tracey — but then she relaxed after a second, apparently deciding whatever Tracey was doing to her wasn't a threat. As Tracey latched it closed again — over the wolf-girl's right shoulder, for some reason, covering her from the front but leaving her right arm free — she plucked at the cloth, eyes wide and curious. "Why?"
"You're making Liz over there uncomfortable." Oh, Dorea hadn't even thought of that angle — she'd just thought it was more Liz not liking being touched, but now that Tracey had drawn her attention to it, Liz's face really was very red. Her eyes kept flicking back to the wolf-girl before seeming to wrench her attention away, glaring up at the ceiling. If Dorea had to guess, Liz thought the wolf-girl was attractive, distractingly so — which Dorea wouldn't have expected, she didn't strike Dorea as particularly feminine — which, yeah, she could see how that might be uncomfortable.
"Liz? This is name, yours, yes?" Once she got a nod from Liz, the wolf-girl let out a little grunt, Dorea wasn't sure how to read that. "...Why?"
From there, they had a very absurd discussion about clothing, and why it was necessary. Throughout the whole thing, the wolf-girl would glance from person to person, with a wide-eyed, nose-scrunched, head-tilted expression Dorea decided to read as a frown — the girl's expressions seemed off, which wasn't unexpected. The wolf-girl was dubious, clearly didn't quite get it, but was nice enough to play along. She even apologised to Liz (extended to the rest of the table after a second) for breaking their silly human decency rules. It wasn't the most honest-sounding apology, still seemed to think the whole thing was silly, but at least she was trying.
The conversation from there was mostly monopolised by their new wilderfolk friend. They managed to procure a clean plate from somewhere, the wolf-girl curiously poking at the food on offer. At first, she tried to reach for things with her hands, but Tracey caught her wrist, explained about the serving forks and spoons and the like — the wolf-girl only had to be told once, amusingly even trying to spear a bun with her knife instead of just grabbing one by hand. Her attempts at using the silverware were very clumsy, repeatedly dropping things, letting out little snarls of frustration now and then. Dorea would believe she'd literally never used a fork before, Tracey's cloak was going to need a good wash after this...
Introductions went around, though they immediately ran into a road block when it turned out the wolf-girl didn't even have a name. She'd seemed rather bemused at the assumption that she did, toothily grinning at Monroe, letting out hissing little huffs Dorea decided to interpret as laughing under her breath. "Naming is human thing. Also centaur thing. We don't do this."
...Okay, then.
After a little discussion, the wolf-girl was convinced it'd just be practical to have one she could use talking to humans — in particular, Millie explaining that the wilderfolk back home often did that, at least the ones who had anything to do with humans ever. (Her grandfather, for example.) Of course, she really had no idea how you got a name in the first place, so Dorea guessed they were just going to...give this random wilderfolk girl a name, then? Liz suggested Isolde — Esyllt in Cambrian, but the wolf-girl couldn't pronounce that — since she was almost always depicted as blonde, and the wolf-girl was obviously a fighter, so that just seemed appropriate. (A common magical version of the story depicted Isolde as a Gaelic warrior-princess type, her escapades with Tristan a daring scheme to get her out of an unwanted betrothal to some Welsh king, apparently they were reading one in Cambrian class at the moment.) Avidly listening to Liz's description of the character, the wolf-girl paused for a couple seconds, and decided that sounded fine, and she was Isolde now. Easy enough.
The conversation continued to be dominated by Isolde, because apparently she had questions about literally everything. Dorea wasn't really surprised, given how curious she'd seemed poking around as a wolf, but wilderfolk clearly had very different ideas about etiquette — Isolde seemed to think nothing of completely taking over the conversation at the table, unselfconscious about interrupting people or butting in with more questions. Which was fine, Dorea didn't really mind that much. Some people did ask questions back, about what life out in the forest was like, which was at least somewhat interesting, an entirely different society doing its thing out in the forest where they weren't looking...if also rather horrifying, given the constant war with the acromantulae that'd been going on longer than Isolde had been alive.
(Apparently, there had been many deaths among the residents of the forest, centaurs and wilderfolk and whatever else. They really should have done something about that a long time ago — the acromantulae would have reached the school and the village eventually, yes, but allowing the colony to be established in the first place was extremely illegal, as well as a massive violation of their treaty with the centaurs. Not to mention all the deaths themselves, of course...)
Some minutes after Isolde had inserted herself at their table, Dorea stiffened at the feeling of a soft flush passing over her, a sort of giddy energy bubbling at her throat — but with a sly edge to it, excited but also teasing, having fun but not necessarily a nice kind of fun. Despite not having had a lot of exposure before, she still recognised the influence of a veela immediately. Gritting her teeth, she tried to focus, push off the foreign feelings, but it was frustratingly difficult — her occlumency was still very much a work in progress, and the shaky focus she managed didn't seem to slow down the veela's stuff the slightest bit.
Glancing around for the source, she spotted a trio of figures in the Beauxbatons uniform nearing their table from behind Daphne, one rather short and the other two rather taller. The shorter one was a girl with long hair a very pale whitish-yellow, held in a complex weaving plait folded over her shoulder, a blue and red ribbon of some kind threaded through it. Her face was round and soft, eyes slightly too large, strongly reminded Dorea of little Luna Lovegood. One of the taller figures was a girl, her features longer and sharper, hair cropped short in a dark, vivid red — an unnatural shade, either dyed or the product of blood alchemy. The other was a boy, with bright silvery veela hair — that'd be who the foreign feelings were coming from, then — the colour darker toward the base (sun-bleached?), so his eyebrows were still visible, thin and neat (plucked?), lips full and grinning, forming a dimple on the left side, gesturing energetically as he said something to the red-haired girl, long-fingered hands moving smooth and graceful and—
Dorea tore her eyes away to glare down at her plate, trying not to shift in her seat — their weird mind-magic stuff was bad enough, did veela have to be so damn pretty on top of it?
All three were vaguely familiar, the girls somewhat more than the boy, but Dorea couldn't place where she'd seen them before. The blonde girl walked up to the end of the table, standing toward the middle with her arms crossed and her hips cocked, the red-haired girl leaning forward propped against both hands, the boy leaning against one hip on the table. (The jacket was long enough to get over his hips, which Dorea only knew because she immediately leaned to see if she could make out his bum from here, hadn't even really meant to, just, dammit, bloody veela...) While Dorea took another couple deep breaths, trying to power through the veela-magic making her flushed and giddy, the blonde said simply, "Hello again, Liz."
For a second, Dorea wondered if this was the mysterious Clara — supposedly Liz's penfriend who sent the duck went to Beauxbatons — but only until Liz bit out a sigh and called her, "Artèmi."
Oh! It was Artémisia Cæciné, right. That would explain why the red-headed girl was familiar too — must be the lilin girl Liz had knocked out before getting knocked out by Cæciné in turn...which meant the feelings being pressed on her weren't just coming from the boy, lilin had the same kind of magic, for crying out loud...
With amusement Dorea could feel reflected bubbling in her own stomach (ugh, stop that!), the boy said, "Well, what a warm welcome. Aren't you happy to see us?" His French accent was rather noticeable, but it wasn't that bad, at least Dorea could understand what he was saying.
"Not particularly." The trio — Cæciné's duelling trio, presumably, Dorea remembered the one Katie Bell had barely managed to beat (before being flattened by Cæciné) had been a veela boy — didn't seem particularly offended by their reception, if anything oddly tickled. "None of you are old enough to be Champions, I'm guessing Maxime brought you to back up your Champion when you can."
Cæciné smirked. "Naturally."
The red-head said something...in French, Dorea didn't really follow it. Something about how Maxime obviously would have brought the best, she thought. Liz scoffed, rolled her eyes, said something that was definitely an unimpressed, that's cute, I'm ready for a rematch at any time kind of thing — Liz had beaten her in their duel, after all. Dorea didn't catch the red-head's response at all, but she suspected Liz didn't either, staring for a moment before glancing away, her face noticeably darkening. (The flush hadn't entirely gone away since Isolde sat down, but lightened enough that going darker again was easily visible.) That was kind of random, Dorea didn't know what— Oh, leaning over like that you could kind of see down the front of the girl's top — she did fill out that jacket rather more than Cæciné did, but Dorea still hadn't noticed until Liz acting weird drew her attention to it.
(But then, she'd assume she spent rather less time looking at girls' chests than Liz did.)
Cæciné was saying something else, probably taunting Liz about overconfidence — Liz had beaten the red-headed girl, but it'd been a close match, and Cæciné had hardly broken a sweat — but she didn't get the whole thing out. Leaning over the table, nearly getting her hair in her food, Isolde said, "What is this? What do they say, I don't know this."
"They're speaking in French, Isolde," Tracey said, a little exasperated. She reached over to drag a bit of Isolde's hair back, making sure it didn't end up over her plate.
The wolf-girl blinked, her head tilting. "What is this?"
So then the conversation was once again completely derailed by their wilderfolk guest, as they explained that humans actually had lots of languages, not just English — turned out, Isolde was aware of that, and even knew a few words of Cambrian, she'd just never heard of French before. To Cæciné's credit, she didn't seem to mind the interruption at all, was perfectly polite to Isolde — if she had any reaction to Isolde being wilderfolk, or figuring out she was naked under that cloak, Dorea didn't notice anything — which wasn't really a surprise, when Dorea thought about it. The Cæcinés were an old noble family, and even a Light one (they were literally the Caecinia family from ancient bloody Rome), but Aquitania was kind of famously liberal these days, and apparently some of her best friends were veela and lilin, so, not unexpected she wouldn't freak about a random wilderfolk girl at the table with them. (Supposedly Beauxbatons even had wilderfolk students now and then, though they were rather rare.) The Aquitanians even switched to English, to accommodate Isolde and whoever else was in earshot who didn't speak French — Millie's French wasn't really any better than Dorea's, so.
Or at least Cæciné and the veela boy — Évariste Delacour, apparently (familiar name, one of the larger veela clans in western Europe) — switched to English, it didn't seem like the lilin girl — Alexis Torralba, which didn't sound French (Catalonian, maybe?) — spoke any at all, the occasional comment now and then still in French (or some other language, maybe?), translated by Cæciné or Delacour. Obviously she knew some English, since she seemed to be following the conversation just fine, but—
Oh. Cæciné was in constant mental contact with her, translating the English. It'd only come up incidentally, since apparently the language some of Torralba's comments were in wasn't French, Liz had asked what was up with that — French was already Torralba's third language, after whatever their people spoke among themselves and Catalán, she knew some basic English but really not enough to follow along very well. So, Cæciné was just...picking up the slack for her.
That was...odd. Dorea realised their people already had their own mind magic thing, but that still seemed rather invasive to her — she certainly wouldn't be comfortable with Liz, just, inserting comments on what people were saying into her head. Sure, it was the only way Torralba could follow the conversation, but that just seemed like far too much to her...
Though apparently it didn't bother Isolde either — tugging on Liz's sleeve, she asked why Liz didn't just do that to explain all the silly human things for her, that seemed like it'd be way less confusing. Which inexplicably made Liz's face go really red again, didn't know what that was about...
Anyway, the conversation having mostly moved on from taunting — though there was still some of that, of course — Delacour reached over to pluck a handful of berries out of a nearby fruit bowl, and apparently that was a sign that they were settling in, should find some seats. There was some open space on Dorea's side of the table, they started drifting over here. Before Dorea fully realised what she was doing, she was springing up to her feet, stiffly climbed over the bench. "I was going to go say hello to some other friends, you can just— Um, here," she finished lamely, waving at the empty spot on the bench. And then she started off toward the other side of the hall, trying to ignore the warmth on her own face.
She'd already been getting a little irritated with Isolde completely monopolising their attention, but if Cæciné and her friends were going to spend the rest of the dinner bantering with Liz, that didn't sound like a lot of fun to Dorea either. Especially since she'd have to fight off Delacour and Torralba's magic the whole time, no thank you, she'd just go find somewhere else to sit.
After a little looking around, it seemed Mandy and Padma had joined their Hufflepuff friends at their table — or, most of their Hufflepuff friends, Susan and Hannah were missing. Oh, no, they were at the Beauxbatons table, chattering away in a clump of mixed Beauxbatons and Durmstrang uniforms, alright, then. Dorea slipped into a spot between Mandy and Sophie — which required some people shuffle around to make room, but people were moving around enough tonight that there was space for her — hello, yes, got a little crowded at her table, what were they— Gossipping about the Tournament, speculating what the tasks would be like, sure, this was much better.
(At one point, they went on a tangent about how very handsome the veela boys were, which, yeah, they definitely were that...)
The tables swapped over to dessert right around the time Dorea was moving. Like the dinner course, there were plenty of new things on offer, some of which Dorea didn't recognise at all — she ended up having a slice of some kind of rum cake which, according to one of the upper-year Hufflepuffs, was Aquitanian. It was good, so, who cares where it was from. Really, they could stand to have more variety at dinner in general — Dorea was aware that Padma got bored of the relatively bland British fare very quickly — but she realised getting enough food for hundreds of students could be difficult, especially since they'd have to find new suppliers, switching things up might well take way too much effort.
Not long after Dorea moved to the Hufflepuff table, probably less than an hour, there was a deep thunk, thunk, thunk, a wave of shuffling as people throughout the Hall looked around for the source of the magically-amplified noise — and then gradually falling quiet as they realised someone was standing in front of the staff table, clearly waiting for silence. That was Mirabella Zabini, today wearing an almost muggle-style sleeveless dress, the cloth a red so deep it was almost black, glittering a little in the light. (Dorea hadn't noticed the rather modern cut before, when they'd been outside she had a matching jacket over it.) Director Zabini definitely looked like she was from the Mediterranean — long curly black hair, skin a noticeably darker olive sort of tone — which did make sense, since she'd been born in Venice. The Zabinis were a large but solidly middle-class family there, not the sort of people who normally ended up sending their kids to Hogwarts, Dorea honestly wasn't sure how that'd happened.
Curiously, Blaise didn't look anything like his mother — and she was his biological mother, she'd already been a public figure at the time so the pregnancy hadn't gone unnoticed. He must take after his father more. Of course, Dorea had no clue who Blaise's father was — not to put too fine a point on it, but all of Zabini's husbands had been white — but she guessed that wasn't really her business.
(As happened every time Dorea saw Zabini, she was reminded of the rumours about her murdering her husbands, but they must just be rumours, surely she would have been caught by now.)
Once she had something approaching quiet — as many people as there were in the Hall, and how keyed up with excitement so many of the students were, it simply wasn't going to get properly silent — Zabini spoke, her voice magically projected through the room. "Good evening, students of Hogwarts, and welcome to our guests. I am Mirabella Zabini, the Director of Education here in Britain, and I have been chosen by the Hogwarts Board of Governors to represent us here during the Tournament." The Board had a seat reserved for the Director of Education, so the first-person pronoun there was appropriate. Zabini repeated herself in French, the assistant Dorea had noted before then translating into a language she assumed was for the Durmstrangers in the audience — it sounded vaguely Scandinavian, so. If they were going to have to pause to translate literally every line of her speech, this was probably going to take a while...but, if they wanted everyone in the room to understand, there really weren't any other good options. Dorea guessed they hadn't teleported the desserts away for a reason.
"First, I would like to introduce our judges. The performance of your Champions will be evaluated by a panel of nine judges — the Headmaster of each school, plus two additional judges selected from each host country." Pause for translation. "Our hope is that having an even number of judges hailing from Britain, Aquitania, and Daneland will make the panel overall more or less unbiassed — or, at the least, their biases will balance each other out, so it will be equally unfair to everybody." There was a bit of a drawl on her voice as she said it, some chuckling and muttering from the audience as she again broke for translation. "So, let's meet our judges, shall we?"
Zabini went through all nine judges, each standing as their name was called, starting with the Aquitanians, and then the Scandinavians, and finally the Britons. Maxime was introduced first, at her full height towering over the staff table, getting some polite applause, somewhat thin and scattered due to the racists in the audience — Dorea wondered how she was managing to sit at the same table as everyone else, honestly, that didn't seem like it'd be comfortable for her. Their second judge was a middle-aged man named Gassia Barthe, apparently a politician of some kind. (Zabini did mention his office, but Dorea didn't know much about the Aquitanian government.) The third was a younger woman, in a shockingly colourful and also unusually skimpy (by magical standards) dress, named Itxaro Aritsa — peculiar name, maybe Basque? — who was apparently a celebrity of some kind. Maybe a musician? Yes, some of the magic-raised Hufflepuffs recognised the name, she was a musician, alright then.
Not sure why Beauxbatons had brought some random celebrity to be one of their judges, but whatever.
From Daneland, Karkaroff was introduced first — giving the room a rather formal bow, complete with florid swirling of hands. (Dorea got the feeling he was being sarcastic somehow.) His reception was about as lukewarm as Maxime's, probably due to his...complicated history in their country. Vebjørn Oskarsson was the war-hero-slash-politician she'd heard Durmstrang was bringing. He looked like a perfectly-ordinary middle-aged man, like Karkaroff dressed in a surprisingly modern-looking suit — the shirt and vest were a little more elaborate than modern muggles went with, Oskarsson's rather more colourful than Karkaroff's with a lot of blue and green and violet (Karkaroff in the red and black/brown of Durmstrang, matching his students), would mostly just seem overly fancy and eccentric to muggles but not particularly magical — blond hair cropped at his shoulders and let loose in a shaggy mess, but his beard more contained, Dorea thought he even had beads plaited into it. Like Minister Mockridge, Oskarsson walked with a cane, presumably an injury from way back in the Communalists' intervention in Lithuania, but seemed lively enough otherwise, brightly grinning and waving at the crowd. The last was a younger, darker-haired man named Arvids Ivars, um, Dorea wasn't sure how to pronounce that — Zabini was being very delicate over the name, probably making sure she got it right. It almost sounded like "leaping", but then with an extra "sh"-like sound at the end...sort of. Dorea tried it out, whispering it to herself a couple times, but she couldn't get it right. (No idea what language this was supposed to be.) Anyway, he was a professional duellist, apparently. She'd never heard his name before, but Dorea didn't follow duelling, so that didn't necessarily mean anything.
Zabini then went on to re-introduce Headmaster Gamp, and then Dumbledore. The latter got a rather ambivalent reception, which wasn't really a surprise — Dorea noticed a lot of people at the Beauxbatons table weren't bothering to clap at all, and Dumbledore's reputation had always been complicated in Britain, the recent political developments not helping matters. He did get some applause, though, some of it just polite but a fair amount actually enthusiastic. His name was mud in the Dark, even more than it'd been before, but what had happened in the Light was a bit more interesting. Some people had turned on him completely, of course, some rather more vociferously — Amelia Bones had never gotten on with him that well, but she'd given a statement to the Wizengamot, about the acromantula colony and how much she dearly wished she could prosecute him for it (there wasn't enough evidence that he was in any way responsible, all falling on Hagrid instead); Augusta Longbottom, formerly a firm supporter of the Order of the Phoenix, had had a hard break with him, giving her own speech in the Wizengamot about being terribly disappointed that he'd wasted the promise he'd had when he'd been raised to the office back in the 50s; another more dramatic example was Justin Carmichael, the Director of Health and Family, previously a close ally of Dumbledore's but over the course of this year had gotten increasingly furious with him as one scandal after another hit, his statements strongly supporting Dumbledore being removed from the Wizengamot and Hogwarts (and the Potter trusteeship, earlier in the year) coming as something of a surprise.
(Dorea had heard (through Dora) that he'd gone on several vicious tirades against Dumbledore in his Department's offices, his subordinates rather taken aback by the normally easy-going good-natured man's anger. And the feud had spread to the Lord of the family too, Dumbledore's fall shaking them badly enough that the Carmichael's politics were very unsteady these days, something definitely going on with them.)
Some families had reacted like the Carmichaels, enraged or offended by Dumbledore's 'betrayal', some cutting ties with him simply for practical political reasons, but others had maintained support for him through the whole thing, some even digging in harder. Most of the scandals that had hit Dumbledore they found themselves on his side, making him seem even more sympathetic, prosecuted by the majority of the country for doing the 'right' thing. Sirius, for example, not intervening to stop him from being sent to prison without a trial might seem like a failure to protect one of his people (or fulfil the duties of his office), but some people found his reasoning as to why he hadn't convincing — the very same reasoning that many on the other side had found deeply offensive. After all, many in the Light didn't have any higher an opinion of the Dark than Dumbledore did, and that he was a Black in particular also made it very easy to believe he'd been a spy the whole time. The most famous spy (and thief and assassin) in magical British history had been a Black — Henry Black's granddaughter Nymphadora, also famous for finally defeating the Dark Lady Frances Cromwell after a long, horrifically deadly war — so they were kind of famous for it, it hadn't been a big leap to assume Sirius had simply been following in the family tradition.
Of course, the family tradition also included fighting against Dark Lords. Blacks had been instrumental in the defeats of at least three — most famously Cromwell and Ignatius Gaunt, the most successful Dark Lords in British history — but they'd never once been allies of any of them. But Dorea guessed that part didn't count, for whatever reason.
The acromantulae they made excuses about, like the Wizengamot pinning all the blame on Hagrid — it helped that Hagrid was half-giant, people could be shockingly racist about anyone with giant blood. Clearly, all that had happened there was that Dumbledore was just too trusting, his tendency to see everyone's better nature (like the good, pure-hearted person he was) too easily manipulated by someone who seemed, on the surface, to be mostly harmless. To some people, Dumbledore actually came out of the whole acromantula business looking strangely good, Dorea didn't quite get the logic, honestly. The situation with Liz was more difficult for them to paper over — it helped that Dumbledore's stated intent to put her somewhere she'd be out of the spotlight, and hidden from free Death Eaters that might try to take a shot at her, was rational enough...if not executed in the best way. There was no reason Dumbledore couldn't have handed Liz off to an ally of his, where she could get a proper magical primary education and everything, and just tell everyone she was a war orphan or something. So long as they kept the scars on her chest covered, her appearance wasn't that distinctive, hell, her adoptive parents could have just said they'd picked her up at one of the orphanages or sanctuaries dotted around the country. Nobody would have been the wiser. So, that decision was terrible, but the rest of it...
Well, people didn't exactly trust mind mages, and with the rumours of Liz abusing dark magic floating around, the fact that she'd chosen a former Death Eater as her new guardian...her image among many people in the Light wasn't great, to put it mildly. The parts people knew about her abuse, Dumbledore bringing her back there after running away, practically never having met her and not teaching her anything the future Lady Potter should definitely know, so forth and so on — it was shockingly easy for people to just assume Liz was lying, about all of it. Which was absurd, honestly, it was like they'd completely forgotten that the abuse, and things like Liz being left on the Dursleys' doorstep in the middle of the night, had been revealed by Skeeter, independently, all of which she'd learned from the Dursleys themselves, Liz had had nothing to do with that. Whatever. The point was, yes, some people in the Light thought how Dumbledore had handled Liz reflected terribly on him, but others had come to the conclusion he was being framed and smeared, and had only dug in their heels all the harder.
So, yeah, it wasn't really a shock that there were still people who liked Dumbledore, enthusiastically applauding his return to the school. No matter how delusional Dorea thought they were, at this point.
Anyway, the final British judge was Dianaimh Uí Bháinfhéigh — which Dorea also couldn't pronounce, but at least she was more familiar with Gaelic than whatever language those other names had been in. Dianaimh was a relatively ordinary-looking woman, probably in her thirties or forties, long curly red hair with some flowers plaited in here and there for flavour, wearing a plain but colourful dress — somewhat old-fashioned by muggle standards, with a corset and everything, but all sharp and dramatic in green and black and white. She was a healer(/midwife), apparently, according to Zabini had been selected as an authority on more esoteric witchcraft and stuff...impling there'd be some witchcraft-centred tasks, which was news to Dorea.
From there, Zabini went on a bit talking about the format of the Tournament, most of which Dorea already knew. The number of tasks, how they were spaced out, that sort of thing. Some of the tasks would allow participants from the schools, to actively support their Champion in the competition, but not all of them — information about the tasks, and how people who wanted to help would go about volunteering, would be given closer to the dates of the tasks themselves. Zabini did immediately tell them about the First Task, for the middle of the coming month: they were starting big with a huge, three-way (mock-)battle, teams of fifteen fighting it out. Since they would need time to get volunteers and practise working with each other, Zabini recommended that they all start putting together their teams immediately, as soon as they knew who their Champion was going to be.
Dorea felt very certain Liz would volunteer for the Hogwarts team. Even though it wasn't particularly likely the Champion would actually take her — Liz might be good, but she was only fourteen, surely there'd be better options...
At some point, Dorea noticed Glawcyn slip away — it was still slightly odd that their new groundskeeper was a nymph, but he seemed nice enough. (Though it wasn't that weird, when she thought about it, since the groundskeeper spent most of their time outside anyway.) Around then, Zabini transitioned into talking about the Champions. Since the tasks would be scattered over the course of the year, and some of them would require a good deal of preparation, the Champions would be excused from classes and exams and the like for the duration. Zabini recommended that they still go to class whenever possible, since it wouldn't do them any good in the long term to fall behind — of course, the Hogwarts Champion would still be expected to take the NEWTs, if they were a seventh-year, and it'd probably be better for the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang Champions to not delay whatever projects they have ongoing for too long either. (Most Proficiency exams required some kind of prepared project or paper in addition to the written and practical exams, though Dorea didn't know any details about it.) Champions weren't supposed to get help from Professors at their school, but they could recruit whatever assistance from their classmates that they wanted, or friends and family from outside. Each of the tasks would, of course, have rules particular to those tasks, so there wasn't a whole lot Zabini could say now, the Champions would be getting updates to what was expected of them as they went along.
Of course, they weren't supposed to get help from their professors, and they weren't supposed to sabotage each other outside of the tasks themselves — but a funny thing about rules, Zabini drawled, was that to get in trouble for breaking them one had to be caught. Cheating was something of a Triwizard Tournament tradition, so the organisers and judges fully expected some to be going on. When they did get caught, the judges would impose a punishment of some kind — mostly, docking points from their running total score, but they might also assign time-wasting busy-work to keep them away from their preparations for the Tournament, that sort of thing. If they were sabotaging each other, please don't do anything too extreme, keep in mind this was only a school competition. They could still be prosecuted if they seriously hurt anyone, so, keep that in mind.
(Dorea was a little taken aback that Zabini thought the warning was necessary, but she guessed she probably shouldn't be.)
"And how are the Champions to be chosen? Once, the Headmaster would simply choose a promising student, or would hold a test or competition of some kind, students vying for the privilege to represent their school." As Zabini paused for translation again, there was movement at the side of the hall — a pair of Hit Wizards were carrying a plain stone plinth between them, coming up behind was Glawcyn, his staff cradled in his elbow, carrying an ornate wooden chest with both arms. It looked ancient, the wood rough and craggy, braced along the edges and down the middle of the panels with bands of steel, the metal decorated with gold filigree in wandering curling patterns, speckled here and there with gemstones. (Created through alchemy, Dorea assumed, that would be a bit much for a school competition if they were real.) As they walked toward Zabini, through the open space between the front tables and the raised platform of the staff table, she continued with her speech. "On a few occasions, the schools would hold a little election, a Champion selected by the affirmation of their classmates. These different methods worked well enough, for centuries.
"In time Durmstrang found an advantage, winning several Tournaments in a row. Spies from Beauxbatons eventually discovered their secret, and demanded that it be shared with the other schools, to ensure a fair competition." While she again broke for translation, the plinth was set down in front of her, the Hit Wizards backing off to let Glawcyn, gently, set the chest down on top. Taking his staff to hand, he gently tapped the head against the chest, one, two, three times — as quiet with tension as the Hall was, Dorea heard a little click-clunk. "And so a new tradition was born," Zabini said, gripping a handle at the top of the chest. "Ever since, every Champion has been chosen..." Her voice fallen low, a short dramatic pause, Dorea could feel people around the Hall leaning in. "...by the Goblet of Fire." Zabini pulled up on the handle, the top and the sides of the chest lifting away, and—
There was a harsh roar, blue-white flames hungrily crawling out from under the chest and rising up in a cloud two metres high — screams and surprised shouts filled the air, people at the nearer tables scattering, leaning away from the... Actually, Dorea didn't feel any heat at all. As big as the fire was, she would expect to feel something — magical fire could be like that sometimes, and it was possible it was just an illusion. The panic wasn't necessary anyway, the fire snuffing out in a wave rising from the plinth up to the top of the cloud, leaving behind a low-simmering flame, held inside a plain, old-fashioned goblet. From here, it seemed to be carved out of wood (maybe bone?), the angles and curves rough and uneven, as though chipped into shape by hand, unlike the chest it was carried in absent of any decoration whatsoever. The blue flames inside shifted around, seeming to slosh back and forth, as though rising from some kind of liquid inside — or as though fluid themselves, shifting and curling and falling, like waves.
The Hall gradually calmed again, whispers shivering through the room, once it was relatively quiet Zabini continued. "Crafted long ago by the ancient tribes of the Great Steppe, to select from among their number a champion to face trials on their behalf. Scouting ahead for resources or enemies, to be sent on diplomatic missions, or to lead their people in battle, or other similar tasks." Pausing for translation again, Zabini ran her hand through the flames, multicoloured sparks dancing over her fingers — it obviously didn't hurt, the magical flames not producing the expected heat, and the colours were rather pretty. "It was captured by a prince of Novgorod during one of their wars with the Huns, but was soon lost, finding its way to the Baltic tribes, in modern-day Lithuania. Centuries later, it was again captured in war, this time by the muggle Swedish army — the King of Sweden then passed it on to the Headmaster of Durmstrang, who soon began using it to select their Champion for the Triwizard Tournament.
"The Goblet is no common enchanted object, but possess a mind of its own, ancient and alien and inscrutable. It sees into your mind, into your heart. Into your future. From the names put into it, it knows the best candidate for the task ahead of them — it will choose only the one who is most fit, most likely to succeed. When used by Durmstrang alone, it allowed them to choose the best possible Champion from among their candidates, winning them a series of victories against the other schools, their Champions selected through less certain means. And once they were discovered, the Goblet came to be shared by all three schools, ensuring through old magics the most exciting Tournament possible.
"After all, we are not nomadic tribes facing varied dangers, or a people at war. The Goblet no longer selects Champions to face the dangers of millennia past — this is a game, it's supposed to be fun. No, of all those who put themselves forward, the Goblet will select whoever it believes will put on the best show. Like in professional duelling, half the game of the Triwizard Tournament is down to showmanship. Do keep that in mind while considering whether you wish to volunteer," Zabini finished, a curl of amusement on her voice giving away the playful smirk Dorea couldn't make out from here.
Zabini did have some more details and warnings from there. In previous Tournaments, anyone was allowed to put their name in the Goblet — or even someone else's name, nominating them sometimes without even their knowledge — but this time the three schools had agreed to allow only people who'd reached the age of majority by Hallowe'en...which immediately got far more complicated than it sounded. The three schools were in three separate countries, which all drew the line in different places. Britain's was the lowest, at thirteen, though by convention they often wouldn't grant various licences to (or prosecute as an adult) anyone under the age of sixteen or seventeen, with some notable exceptions depending on particular circumstances. (And that was a matter of convention, it wasn't actually in the law.) For the average resident of the country, it was the highest in Daneland, surprisingly — people there weren't granted all legal rights until they became a parent, but they did accrue certain rights and freedoms around puberty (normally marked at twelve for girls and fifteen for boys), and then a second round at twenty. (There was an odd loophole, dating back to old tribal law, where people could be recognised as a full adult after surviving a battle, which in the modern day had been reinterpretted to allow recognition after certain career milestones, as well as to the victims of various kinds of assault, including rape — which seemed very strange to Dorea, but she guessed if it worked for them.) Aquitania also had multiple ages, sort of like Daneland with people gaining certain rights — particularly things like freedom of movement, privacy, making medical decisions for themselves without parental permission, that sort of thing — at fifteen, the rest coming in when they were twenty.
Apparently, that sort of multi-tiered age of majority was very common in magical societies all around the world, which did make a kind of sense — after all, people reached maturity gradually, so having them take on responsibilities for themselves could also be done gradually. But, with how complicated all this could be, there was no one age they could pick that could fairly be applied to students of all three countries. After a bit of debate, the negotiators had settled on seventeen, which they'd decided was a reasonable middle ground. Not perfectly fair to everyone, of course, but it would do.
Which meant that all the seventh-years would be able to participate, as well as any sixth-year whose birthday fell on or before Hallowe'en — which included, the Hufflepuffs quickly realised, Cedric Diggory. As that little bit of news spread around, there was an immediate storm of excited whispering among the Hufflepuffs, debating how likely it was the extremely well-liked prefect would become the school's Champion.
Given that the Goblet selected people based on how entertaining of a show they'd put on, and how very handsome and popular Diggory was, Dorea thought it was actually somewhat likely. And she guessed they'd find out soon, only had to wait twenty-four hours...
Zabini gave some last instructions about how to enter — it wasn't complicated, just write your name on a slip of paper and drop it in. There would be security around the Goblet to prevent anyone under the minimum allowed age from entering, in the form of an Age Line, which Dorea was aware was a kind of ward. (She had no idea how they worked, only vaguely familiar with them because Cassiopeia had used them to block off the more dangerous books and enchanted artefacts in various Black properties, but she assumed the staff knew what they were doing.) And then there were some warnings, about being very certain they wanted to participate before entering. The Goblet had a nasty habit of punishing people who failed to participate as expected — you wouldn't be punished for losing, or if someone hexed you badly enough you couldn't make it to a task, but if you intentionally failed to show up there would be consequences. Most often, a disfiguring mark of some kind, making your betrayal and cowardice obvious for all to see...and these marks were permanent, and normally very, very difficult to remove, even with blood alchemy. If you're not certain you'll be able to keep up with the competition, probably better to just not put your name in in the first place — nobody wanted anyone to get hurt, so, play it safe, please.
The Goblet would remain on its plinth, right here in the Great Hall, until the end of the Hallowe'en feast, at which time the Goblet would make its decision — hopefuls could enter their name at any time up to that moment. And that was all she had to tell them, "at long last," she could finally leave them to their dessert. Classes would be cancelled tomorrow, both for the holiday — for the benefit of their foreign guests, Zabini took a brief aside to explain that Hallowe'en was actually one of the most important holidays on the traditional Celtic calendar — and for the students and their guests to get to know each other...and for them to spend the whole day gossipping about who was entering their name and who they thought would be picked. She sounded slightly amused saying it, obviously thought the excitement of the event would be too much for anyone to pay attention to their classes anyway. Snacks would remain on the table until midnight, they could linger as long as they liked. Good night, everyone, and good luck.
Once Zabini was done, stepping back toward her spot at the staff table, the Hall immediately erupted into noisy chattering, sudden and loud enough Dorea winced. There was a lot to talk about, after all, the table around her taken over with speculating about the Champions — it was commonly assumed that Krum would represent Durmstrang, and that Beauxbatons's Champion would be a veela (they did have certain magical advantages, after all) — what the tasks would be like, how exactly the Goblet worked anyway, things about Aquitania and Daneland. The last two ended up being a bit of a distraction, the muggleborns had all kinds of questions for the magically-raised at the table — they'd mostly expected national borders to be the same on the magical side (despite being aware that Britain included all of Ireland and also Brittany), and didn't even know for certain what Aquitania and Daneland even were. No, Daneland wasn't just Denmark — though it did include Denmark — it was basically all of the Scandinavian countries. Well, okay, not all of Scandinavia, since it didn't include Finland or the Saami in the north...what, of course it didn't include Iceland, that wasn't really in Scandinavia, was it?
Talking about other countries in the ICW — Dorea didn't really know much about countries outside the ICW, with the exceptions of Egypt, Tunisia, and China, Padma knew way more about that than she did (her home country wasn't in the ICW, so) — and about how magical simulations of consciousness worked — basically just like natural consciousness, she thought, just with magic instead of brains (not an expert, but) — Dorea's eyes would occasionally be drawn to the Goblet, sitting on its plinth between the central guest table and the staff. Flames fitfully smouldering and swirling, magic faintly crackling in the air, it was honestly slightly creepy. Though Dorea didn't know how much of that was the Goblet itself, and how much was her knowledge of what the thing did.
Dorea wasn't old enough to enter, but even if she was she definitely wouldn't. This sort of competition wasn't her sort of thing, of course, but it was also just... Submitting herself to a binding spell, that couldn't be broken by a third party, the terms determined by a magical consciousness that nobody understood and couldn't really be communicated with, did not sound like a good idea to her. It didn't help that nobody knew for certain where it'd come from, or how it'd been made — their earliest knowledge of the thing put it in Scythian hands, bloody millennia ago, but even the people of the time had only had legends about how they'd gotten it. They'd believed it was a conduit of a sort, a line of communication between their people and one of their gods...which was also vaguely creepy. Dorea didn't believe this god existed, necessarily — the topic of whether magic in general was conscious, and could be called something like a god, was very complicated and not really worth waffling about at the moment — but the intent of the person crafting it, how they believed the world worked, would have had a deep influence on how the Goblet worked, how it made its decisions. Who the hell knew what kind of weird, ancient values and priorities were baked into the thing's very core? And it was almost impossible to communicate with it at all — apparently getting it to understand that they wanted three Champions out of three separate pools of entrants had taken literal years — so who knew how well it understood the modern Tournament, the standards by which their participation was to be judged? Using something so ancient and alien for a modern purpose seemed very reckless to Dorea...
No, sounded like a terrible idea. Dorea thought you'd have to be pretty damn foolish to risk subjecting yourself to the Goblet's judgement — even in some alternate universe where she was old enough, and happened to be the sort of person who did things like participate in the Triwizard Tournament, Dorea would never put her name in that thing. Not worth the risk.
Of course, teenagers could be reckless fools, so she guessed they'd just have to see who all would put themselves in. Adrian was a seventh-year, he was old enough. Personally, she thought Adrian was more handsome than Cedric, she definitely wouldn't mind him being their Champion instead — though, speculating with the Hufflepuffs about who it would be, she managed not to admit that was part of why she'd like watching him in the Tournament. Really, he was close to the top of his year, and was in the duelling team and everything...
(Dorea hoped nobody noticed the warmth on her face. Ugh, if her stupid pointless crush on Adrian bloody Pucey could go away sometime soon, that'd be great...)
By the way, yes, Karkaroff is canonically towheaded. To quote directly from the fourth book:
[...the man who was leading them up to the castle was wearing furs of a different sort; sleek and silver, like his hair.]
So he's a blond Snape now, I don't make the rules.
For those wondering about the judges with the unusual names, "Itxaro Aritsa" is indeed Euskara (a.k.a. Basque), Dorea guessed that one right. Aquitania includes the Occitan-speaking region of France, the Catalán-speaking region of Spain, as well as the Euskara-speaking region of Spain(/France). The name of the last Durmstrang judge is Arvīds Ivārs Liepiņš, which is Latvian. For complicated historical reasons, about half of Latvia is part of magical Lithuania, which also includes most of Belarus and a small sliver out of Poland (which is also larger on the magical side, for similar historical reasons). The point being, no, Daneland doesn't include any territory on the eastern/southern shore of the Baltic Sea, but the country does have significant ethnic minorities from the region — especially Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, and Prussians, due to the events of the war fifty years ago. Liepiņš was born in Daneland, but his parents are from magical Lithuania, war refugees who decided to stay in Daneland rather than go back home.
I'm very unhappy with this one, particularly the final third or so, but I don't feel like lingering over this chapter any longer than I already have. I've been feeling completely fucking miserable lately, in large part due to insomnia — over the last week, we've started replacing the flooring in our house, and also starting a big vegetable/fruit garden, which are both neat things, but I'm nocturnal, and Leigha and her dad have woken me up poking at one thing or another at stupid hours of the morning. Not complaining, exactly, I'm actually weirdly excited about the garden part, just saying, no sleep makes Sandra bad write.
Also, I'm trying not to lose momentum for this fic, other projects shoving their way into my attention. I might start trying to write for other things, keeping my primary writing session for this fic but adding one later at night for a secondary project, to hopefully vent the bottled up stuff, you know. Not The Long Way Around or Children of the Gods, unfortunately, haven't been feeling them at all for a while. I've had By Gods Forsaken in my head lately, and also a new Star Wars crossover — pre-Disney EU, Beth is being escorted to King's Cross to leave for her fifth year when aliens attack, oh my god what is happening fuck fuck fuck (the Yuuzhan Vong found Earth first, because the Potter luck is fucking over the whole planet now) — and also occasionally an original fiction story, which started off as a Southern Vampire Mysteries fanfic but gradually transformed into something completely unrecognizable, pulling in a lot of my worldbuilding from other projects, it's a whole thing. There's also a spin-off of this fic, but I'm trying not to be distracted by that at least until we get to the point when it diverges from this one. If people have strong opinions of which they'd like to see, I may or may not take that into account — though, the last one would be difficult to actually post, I'd have to put it somewhere else and I'm not sure what I'd do...maybe figure out a way to exploit the existing infrastructure of Substack or something like that...
Oh, and if you're wondering what happened to the YouTube thing, I was really ill for like a week, interrupting my planning/research, and then a lot of shit happened in general, and I just got distracted. That may or may not still be down the road, we'll see.
Right, more than enough from me. Until next time.