Chapter 92: The Arrival

The next morning I woke up to Harry not being there. Dean told me that he had actually left an hour before, which unless it was for Quidditch was not like him to get IP that early on purpose.

I quickly freshened up and got dressed and made my way down to the common room, where I ran into Ginny.

"Morning, sister."

"Morning, brother."

"Seen Harry about?" I asked.

Ginny blushed at the mention of his name. "I haven't actually. Isn't he usually attached to you?"

"Ho-ho! Such cheek in the morning." I said, pushing her head as I sat down beside her.

"Hermione hasn't come down yet, has she?" I asked.

"No." said Ginny. "Something to do with her hair."

I suddenly felt compelled to ask a question. "How have you been feeling? I've noticed you haven't been to Madam Pomfrey much."

Ginny had been going to the nurse for Dreamless Sleep potion. She had been having horrible nightmares.

Ginny started playing with the end of her skirt. "Better,I guess." she said. "I haven't had any nightmares for about a week, and that's not with the help of the potion. I don't see his face as clearly as I used to anymore."

I beamed at her. " That's brilliant." I said. "Soon you won't have them at all."

Ginny smiled. Hermione came down from her dorm, and nodded at me to follow her out the other room.

"Well, I'm here if you need to talk or anything." I said, getting up from beside my sister.

"Thanks," said Ginny, happily. "I'm here too."

"Now why would I want to talk about my grown man problems with you?" I joked as I walked out the door with Hermione.

"Where's Harry?" she asked as we climbed out the portrait hole.

"Dunno, he woke up before I did."

Hermione sighed. "Still in a mood I guess."

"Maybe."

We walked down to the Great Hall and sat down for breakfast. A few minutes later, Harry came and sat down across from us and told us how he had written Sirius and told he had imagined the whole thing, and not to come.

"That was a lie, Harry," said Hermione sharply. "You didn't imagine your scar hurting and you know it."

"So what?" said Harry, attitude dripping from his voice. "He's not going back to Azkaban because of me."

"Drop it." I said sharply to Hermione as she opened her mouth to argue some more, and for once, Hermione listened to me, and fell silent.

I knew that Harry was worried about Sirius, but he didn't need what he did thrown in his face.

Over the next couple of weeks, Harry seemed to keep a lot of his thoughts when it came to Sirius to himself. He always looked anxious when owls would come with mail, hoping for a letter. And when he didn't get one, he would shut down for awhile.

Our lessons were becoming more difficult and demanding than ever before, particularly Moody's Defense Against the Dark Arts.

To our surprise, Professor Moody had announced that he would be putting the Imperius Curse on each of us in turn, to demonstrate its power and to see whether they could resist its effects.

"But - but you said it's illegal, Professor," said Hermione, as Moody cleared away the desks with a sweep of his wand, leaving a large clear space in the middle of the room. "You said, to use it against another human was -"

"Dumbledore wants you taught what it feels like," said Moody, his magical eye swiveling onto Hermione and fixing her with an eerie, unblinking stare. "If you'd rather learn the hard way - when someone's putting it on you so they can control you completely - fine by me. You're excused. Off you go."

He pointed one gnarled finger toward the door. Hermione went very pink and muttered something about not meaning that she wanted to leave. Harry and I grinned at each other. I knew Hermione would rather eat bubotuber pus than miss such an important lesson.

Moody began to beckon students forward in turn and put the Imperius Curse upon them. I watched as, one by one, my classmates did the most extraordinary and hilarious things under its influence. Dean hopped three times around the room, singing that muggle song God Dave Our Queen, Lavender imitated a squirrel, Neville performed a series of gymnastics he would certainly not have been capable of in his normal state. Not one of them seemed to be able to fight off the curse, and each of them recovered only when Moody had removed it.

"Potter," Moody growled, "you next."

Harry moved forward into the middle of the classroom, into the space that Moody had cleared of desks. Moody raised his wand, pointed it at Harry, and said, "Imperio!"

Harry stood there, the same dazed look the others had in his eyes. Suddenly he bent his knees, as if he was going to jump.

He suddenly looked as if he was having an internal bat the with himself. Moody started shouting for him to jump onto the desk, but Harry wouldn't move.

Finally, Moody yelled it harshly, and Harry had both jumped and tried to prevent himself from jumping - the result was that he'd smashed headlong into the desk knocking it over, and, by the feeling in his legs, fractured both his kneecaps.

"Now, that's more like it!" growled Moody. "Look at that, you lot...Potter fought! He fought it, and he damn near beat it! We'll try that again, Potter, and the rest of you, pay attention - watch his eyes, that's where you see it - very good, Potter, very good indeed! They'll have trouble controlling you!"

Harry groaned as he rubbed his knees.

"The way he talks," Harry muttered as he hobbled out of the Defense Against the Dark Arts class an hour later (Moody had insisted on putting Harry through his paces four times in a row, until Harry could throw off the curse entirely), "you'd think we were all going to be attacked any second."

"Yeah, I know," I said, involuntarily skipping on every alternate step. Moody had me skipping about, and I wasn't able to shake it like Harry did. The effect was still somewhat on me, though Moody assured the effects would wear off by lunchtime.

"Talk about paranoid..." I glanced nervously over my shoulder to check that Moody was definitely out of earshot. "No wonder they were glad to get shot of him at the Ministry. Did you hear him telling Seamus what he did to that witch who shouted 'Boo' behind him on April Fools' Day? And when are we supposed to read up on resisting the Imperius Curse with everything else we've got to do?"

Us fourth years had started to notice a definite increase in the amount of work we were required to do this term. Professor McGonagall explained why, when the class gave a particularly loud groan at the amount of Transfiguration homework she had assigned.

"You are now entering a most important phase of your magical education!" she told us. "Your Ordinary Wizarding Levels are drawing closer -"

"We don't take O.W.L.s till fifth year!" interrupted Dean.

"Maybe not, Thomas, but believe me, you need all the preparation you can get! Miss Granger remains the only person in this class who has managed to turn a hedgehog into a satisfactory pincushion. I might remind you that your pincushion, Thomas, still curls up in fright if anyone approaches it with a pin!"

Hermione tried not to look too pleased with herself.

Harry and I were deeply amused when Professor Trelawney told us that we had received top marks for our homework in our next Divination class. She read out large portions of our predictions (thankfully, not the bollucks part), commending us for our acceptance of the horrors in store for is, but we were less amused when she asked us to do the same thing for the month after next. I for one had ran out of catastrophes.

Meanwhile Professor Binns had us writing weekly essays on the goblin rebellions of the eighteenth century. Professor Snape was forcing us to research antidotes. I for one took this one seriously, as he had hinted that he might be poisoning one of us before Christmas to see if their antidote worked. Professor Flitwick had asked us to read three extra books in preparation for our lesson on Summoning Charms.

Even Hagrid was adding to their workload. The Blast-Ended Skrewts were growing at a remarkable pace given that none of us had yet discovered what they ate. Hagrid was delighted, and as part of our "project," suggested that we come down to his hut on alternate evenings to observe the skrewts and make notes on their extraordinary behavior.

"I will not," said Ferret Boy flatly when Hagrid had proposed this. "I see enough of these foul things during lessons, thanks."

Hagrid's smile faded off his face.

"Yeh'll do wha' yer told," he growled, "or I'll be takin' a leaf outta Professor Moody's book...I hear yeh made a good ferret, Malfoy."

Us Gryffindors roared with laughter. Malfoy flushed with anger, but apparently the memory of Moody's punishment was still sufficiently painful to stop him from retorting.

Harry, Hermione, and I returned to the castle at the end of the lesson in high spirits. Seeing Hagrid put down Malfoy was like a cherry on top an enormous cake.

When we arrived in the entrance hall, we found ourselves unable to get though because of the large crowd of students congregated there, surrounding a large sign. Being the tallest, I stood on tiptoe to see over the heads in front of us and read the sign aloud to the other two:

TRIWIZARD TOURNAMENT

THE DELEGATIONS FROM BEAUXBATONS AND DURMSTRANG WILL BE ARRIVING AT 6 O'CLOCK ON FRIDAY THE 30TH OF OCTOBER. LESSONS WILL END HALF AN HOUR EARLY-

"Brilliant!" said Harry. "It's Potions last thing on Friday! Snape won't have time to poison us all!"

STUDENTS WILL RETURN THEIR BAGS AND BOOKS TO THEIR DORMITORIES AND ASSEMBLE IN FRONT OF THE CASTLE TO GREET OUR GUESTS BEFORE THE WELCOMING FEAST.

"Only a week away!" said Ernie Macmillan of Hufflepuff. "I wonder if Cedric knows? Think I'll go and tell him..."

"Cedric?" I asked blankly as Ernie hurried off.

"Diggory," said Harry. "He must be entering the tournament."

"That idiot, Hogwarts champion?"

"He's not an idiot. You just don't like him because he beat Gryffindor at Quidditch." said Hermione. "I've heard he's a really good student, and he's a prefect."

"You only like him because he's handsome." I teased.

"Excuse me, I don't like people just because they're handsome!" said Hermione, nose stuck in the air.

"Lockhart!" I fake coughed. Hermione pushed me.

When we went down to breakfast on the morning of the thirtieth of October, we found that the Great Hall had been decorated overnight. Enormous silk banners hung from the walls, each of them representing a Hogwarts House: red with a gold lion for Gryffiindor, blue with a bronze eagle for Ravenclaw, yellow with a black badger for Hufflepuff, and green with a silver serpent for Slytherin. Behind the teachers' table, the largest banner of all bore the Hogwarts coat of arms: lion, eagle, badger, and snake united around a large letter H.

They really went all out to impress these schools.

The three of us sat down beside Fred and George at the Gryffindor table. Once again, they were sitting apart from everyone else and conversing in low voices.

"It's a bummer, all right," George was saying gloomily to Fred. "But if he won't talk to us in person, we'll have to send him the letter after all. Or we'll stuff it into his hand. He can't avoid us forrever."

"Who's avoiding you?" I asked, sitting down next to them.

"Wish you would." said Fred, looking irritated at the interruption.

"What's a bummer?" I asked George.

"Having a nosy git like you for a brother." said George.

"The fuck did I do?" I mumbled.

"You two got any ideas on the Triwizard Tournament yet?" Harry asked. "Thought any more about trying to enter?"

"I asked McGonagall how the champions are chosen but she wasn't telling." said George bitterly. "She just told me to shut up and get on with transfiguring my raccoon."

"Wonder what the tasks are going to be?" I said thoughtfully. "You know, I bet we could do them, Harry. We've done dangerous stuff before."

"Not in front of a panel of judges, you haven't," said Fred. "McGonagall says the champions get awarded points according to how well they've done the tasks."

"Who are the judges?" Harry asked.

"Well, the Heads of the participating schools are always on the panel," said Hermione, "because all three of them were injured during the Tournament of 1792, when a cockatrice the champions were supposed to be catching went on the rampage."

We all stared at her blankly.

"It's all in Hogwarts, A History." she said, rolling her eyes. " Though, of course, that book's not entirely reliable. A Revised History of Hogwarts would be a more accurate title. Or A Highly Biased and Selective History of Hogwarts, Which Glosses Over the Nastier Aspects of the School."

"What are you on about?" I said, even though I knew what was coming, and by the look on Harry's face, so did he.

"House-elves!" said Hermione, her eyes flashing. "Not once, in over a thousand pages, does Hogwarts, A History mention that we are all colluding in the oppression of a hundred slaves!"

Harry shook his head and applied himself to his scrambled eggs. Even though we were beyond unenthusiastic about spew, it did nothing to slow Hermione's determination down. We had both paid two Sickles for a badge, but we had only done it to shut her up, which didn't work. If anything, it made Hermione more willing to pursue her goal. As much as I admired her drive, it seemed meaningless, as the elves loved to serve.

"You do realize that your sheets are changed, your fires lit, your classrooms cleaned, and your food cooked by a group of magical creatures who are unpaid and enslaved?" she kept saying fiercely.

Some people, like Neville, had paid up just to stop Hermione from giving them the death stare. Some actually seemed mildly interested in what she had to say, but didn't want to campaign. Many took the whole thing as a joke.

"Listen, have you ever been down in the kitchens, Hermione?" asked George.

"No, of course not," said Hermione, as if the idea was absurd. "I hardly think students are supposed to -"

"Well, we have," said George, "loads of times, to nick food. And we've met them, and they're happy. They think they've got the best job in the world!"

"That's because they're uneducated and brainwashed!" Hermione voiced, but her next few words were drowned out by the sudden whooshing noise from overhead, which announced the arrival of the post owls. Harry looked up at once, and saw Hedwig soaring toward him. Hermione stopped talking abruptly, as she and I watched Hedwig anxiously, as she fluttered down onto Harry's shoulder, folded her wings, and held out her leg.

Harry pulled off Sirius's reply and offered Hedwig his bacon rinds, which she ate gratefully. Then, checking to see if we would be overheard, he whispered what it said.

Nice try, Harry.

I'm back in the country and well hidden. I want you to keep me posted on everything that's going on at Hogwarts.

Don't use Hedwig, keep changing owls, and don't worry about me, just watch out for yourself.

Don't forget what I said about your scar.

Sirius

"Why do you have to keep changing owls?" I asked in a low voice.

"Hedwig will attract too much attention." said Hermione. "She stands out. A snowy owl that keeps returning to wherever he's hiding? I mean, they're not native birds, are they?"

Harry shrugged. "Thanks, Hedwig," he said, stroking her. She then took off again, clearly desperate for a good long sleep in the Owlery.

As the day went on, the school was too excited for the night to do any real schoolwork. When the bell rang early, the three of us hurried up to Gryffindor Tower, dropped off our bags and books, pulled on our cloaks, and rushed back downstairs into the entrance hall.

The Heads of Houses were ordering students into lines.

"Weasley, straighten your hat," Professor McGonagall snapped at me (I hated that stupid hat). "Miss Patil, take that ridiculous thing out of your hair."

Parvati scowled and removed a large butterfly barrette from the end of her plait.

"Follow me, please," said Professor McGonagall. "First years in front...no pushing..."

We all filed down the steps and lined up in front of the castle. It was a cold, clear evening; dusk was falling and a pale, transparent-looking moon was already shining over the Forbidden Forest.

"Nearly six," I said, checking my watch and then staring down the drive that led to the front gates. "How d'you reckon they're coming? The train?"

"I doubt it," said Hermione.

"How, then? Broomsticks?" Harry suggested, looking up at the starry sky.

"I don't think so. Not from that far away.."

"A Portkey?" I suggested. "Or they could Apparate. Maybe you're allowed to do it under seventeen wherever they come from?"

"You can't Apparate inside the Hogwarts grounds, how often do I have to tell you?" said Hermione.

"You have to tell me all the time, Hermione. I forget."

We waited for what felt like an eternity. My legs were beginning to hurt, and I was growing bored. Dean's head was resting on my back, as he had put in there, catnapping

And then Dumbledore called out from the back row where he stood with the other teachers.

"Aha! Unless I am very much mistaken, the delegation from Beauxbatons approaches!"

"Where?" said many students eagerly, all looking in different directions.

"There!" yelled a sixth year, pointing over the forest.

Something large was hurtling across the deep blue sky toward the castle, growing larger all the time.

"It's a dragon!" shrieked one of the first years, losing her head completely.

"Don't be stupid...it's a flying house!" said Dennis.

Dennis's guess was closer. As the gigantic black shape skimmed over the treetops of the Forbidden Forest and the lights shining from the castle windows hit it, they saw a gigantic, powderblue, horse-drawn carriage, the size of a large house, soaring toward them, pulled through the air by a dozen winged horses, all palominos, and each the size of an elephant.

The front three rows of students drew backward as the carriage hurtled ever lower, coming in to land at a tremendous speed - then, with an almighty crash that made Neville jump backward onto a Slytherin fifth year's foot, the horses' hooves, larger than dinner plates, hit the ground. A second later, the carriage landed too, bouncing upon its vast wheels, while the golden horses tossed their enormous heads and rolled large, fiery red eyes.

The door opened, and a boy in pale blue robes jumped down from the carriage, bent forward, fumbled for a moment with something on the carriage floor, and unfolded a set of golden steps. He sprang back respectfully. Then a shining, high-heeled black shoe emerging from the inside of the carriage (a shoe the size of my old toboggan) followed by the largest woman I had ever seen before in my life. A few people gasped.

The woman was massive, way taller than Hagrid himself, and he was a pretty big bloke in his own right. As she stepped into the light flooding from the entrance hall, we got a better look of her. She was relatively nice looking with large, black eyes and a rather beaky nose. Her hair was drawn back in a bun at the base of her neck. She was dressed from head to foot in black satin, and many magnificent opals gleamed at her throat and on her thick fingers. She looked like she could be on the Malfoy family. If they accepted her kind, that was.

Dumbledore started to clap, and we hesitantly followed his lead.

The woman looked nice enough as she walked forward toward Dumbledore, extending a hand dripping with huge jewels. Dumbledore, though tall himself, had barely to bend to kiss it.

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

"Dumbly-dort," said Madame Maxime in a deep voice and heavy accent. "I 'ope I find you well?"

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

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

Following the waving of her dog sized hand, we noticed that about a dozen boys and girls, all, by the look of them, in their late teens, had came from the carriage and were now standing behind the great woman. They were shivering, which was no surprise; their robes looked made of fine silk, and none of them were wearing cloaks. Someone should have given them a heads up. A few had wrapped scarves and shawls around their heads. Something was already rubbing me the wrong way about them. They were staring up at Hogwarts as if our school was beneath them.

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

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

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

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

"The Skrewts must be giving him a run for his money" I muttered to Harry, who snickered back.

"My steeds require - er - forceful 'andling," said Madame Maxime, looking as though she doubted whether Hagrid could be up to the job. "Zey are very strong..."

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

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

"His kind of animals." Hermione whispered up at Harry and I, causing me to choke on my laughter.

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

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

"How big d'you reckon Durmstrang's horses are going to be?" Seamus said, leaning around Lavender and Parvati to address Harry and Ron.

"Well, if they're any bigger than this lot, even Hagrid won't be able to handle them." said Harry. "That's if he hasn't been attacked by his skrewts. Wonder what's up with them?"

"Maybe they've escaped!" I said hopefully.

"Oh don't say that," said Hermione with a shudder. "Imagine that lot loose on the grounds."

It was a bit chillier now, as we stood and waited for the Durmstrang party to arrive. Hermione had put warming charms on herself, Harry, Seamus, Lavender, Dean, Parvati, and I, as we gazed up at the sky.

For a few minutes, the silence was broken only by Madame Maxime's huge horses snorting and stamping. But then I heard some kind of spooky creaking, followed by gushing water.

"Can you hear something?" I said to the others

A loud and oddly eerie noise was drifting toward us from out of the darkness: a muffled rumbling and sucking sound, were moving along a riverbed...

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

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

What seemed to be a long, black pole began to rise slowly out of the heart of the whirlpool

"It's a mast!" Harry said to Hermione and I.

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

People were getting off. All of them seemed to be built along the lines of Crabbe and Goyle at first look, but then, as they drew nearer, we seen that their bulk was really due to the fact that they were wearing cloaks of some kind of shaggy, matted fur. But the man who was leading them up to the castle was wearing furs of a different sort: sleek and silver, like his hair.

"Dumbledore!" he called heartily as he walked up the slope. "How are you, my dear fellow, how are you?"

"Blooming, thank you, Professor Karkaroff," Dumbledore replied. Karkaroff had a fruity, yet slick voice. When he stepped into the light pouring from the front doors of the castle we seen that he was tall and thin like Dumbledore, but his white hair was short, and his goatee (finishing in a small curl) did not entirely hide his rather weak chin. When he reached Dumbledore, he shook hands with both of his own.

"Dear old Hogwarts," he said, looking up at the castle and smiling; his teeth were rather yellow, his eyes seemed cold and shrewd. "How good it is to be here, how good...Viktor, come along, into the warmth...you don't mind, Dumbledore? Viktor has a slight head cold..."

It was as if my heart had stopped as I saw the boy that he had beckoned over walk towards him. I could have died right there. Without even realizing it, I gave Harry a right smart punch in the arm.

"Harry, it's Krum!"