The Marauders - Order of the Phoenix Part Three

CXXXVI: Too Flocking Grape

Roger Davies was in the entrance hall, sitting on the marble staircase, waiting for the doors of the Great Hall to open for lunch, when Argus Filch came down the stairs at his funny half-running trot. Roger looked up from the textbook he'd been reading and watched as Filch went across the hall to the announcements board beside the great big hour glasses of gemstones which counted the house points, unfurled a rather large notice sheet, and proceeded to hammer it onto the wall using nails he held with his lips. He was balanced on a little stool he'd pulled out from behind the hour glasses, stretching  to reach the top corners of the notice, his bandy-legged stature making it a bit harder to reach than it ought to have done. Roger closed the text book, keeping his index finger in his place, and stood up, headed over, and stood behind Filch, looking up at the notice.

TWIWIZARD 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. 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. Proper house attire is required and students are asked to arrive promptly by five-of to assure we are assembled when the delegations arrive. Students are expected to be on their best behavior!

Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster

Roger stared up at it with wide eyes. Filch nearly stepped on him when he climbed down from the stool and cursed under his breath as he waved for Mrs. Norris to follow him away, but Roger barely noticed any of that. He was too busy staring at the notice with a funny feeling in his stomach.

He'd been having awful feelings about the tourney, ever since that Divination class when Trelawney had said she'd seen the grim. The worst of it was that no matter how much he discouraged it, Cedric Diggory was still persisting on entering the tournament.

"Don't be superstitious," Diggory had said when Roger had brought it up while they'd waited to go up to the next divination class. "She doesn't even know which one of us she's talking about when she predicts the grim!" Cedric had shaken her head, "She should at least be able to tell that much, one would think."

It was true, Trelawney had stuck to a blanketed worry about all three of them, waving her hands and looking at them with watery eyes magnified by her glasses.

The only good thing was that everyone was so busy gossiping and speculating about the Tournament itself - what might the challenges be? who would be Hogwarts champion? - and the delegations, that they'd completely bypassed the usual macabre tradition of teasing the students selected as Trelawney's grim victims by attempting to guess how they were to die and when.

The Weasley twins had attempted to take up a false bet but no one was willing to actually put any sickles or knuts down on any of the grotesque options Fred and George had come up with - after all, not a single prior year's victim had actually died as a result of her predictions. Everyone had learned their lesson the year before when Fred and George took up a similar bet. Harry Potter lived through the werewolf attack everyone assumed had been the grim that Trelawney had predicted, and the Twins officially declared themselves the winners as nobody had guessed exactly Professor Lupin turns out to be a ravenous werewolf that attacks Harry Potter on the full moon night while being mind-controlled by the notorious murderer, Sirius Black.

"Tough luck on all of you, but there are no refunds for false guesses!" George had said, "Ta ta, and thanks for playing!"

"Come back next year!" Fred had added.

Rumor had it that they'd purchased a business license with the money they'd collected, though no one could tell what precisely their business was. But Ernie Macmillan of Hufflepuff said that his father, who worked in the business registration offices at the Ministry for Magic, had told him that the Weasleys had been by to visit him over the summer and had asked Ernie if he knew where the twins had gotten the money. But Fred and George themselves artfully dodged every question Roger presented to them on the subject.