Loki Laufeyson and the Goblet of Fire

Chapter 9; The Three Champions...?

(Told from Loki's point of view)

Care of magical creatures went about as well as I expected it to. Which is to say— not at all. I could tell that the blast ended skrewts would only get worse.

When we got to the entrance hall, there was a large crowd of people gathered around the notice board.

"What is this now..." I mutter, fighting my way through the crowd. "Wait! It's the Triwizard Tournament delegations. They're arriving one week from now."

"Yes!" Harry exclaimed.

"I should tell Cedric." Ernie Maximilian of Hufflepuff says. He scurries off.

"Cedric Diggory is entering, huh?" I say, glaring after him. "Something tells me that he's going to get in for no reason at all. The lucky bastard."

"He's not a bastard." Hermione says defensively. "I don't know why you don't like him."

I scoff. "Some people have an aura about them."

The next few days the castle seemed to be having a big cleaning. The pictures were dusted and the banisters shined. Even the teachers seemed quite tense.

"Longbottom, kindly do not display the fact that you cannot even perform a simple switching spell in front of anyone in Durmstrang." Professor McGonagall had informed Neville during one lesson in which he had transformed his own ears into cacti.

On the day of the arrival, I walked over to Fred and George, who were sitting apart from everyone, talking in low voices.

"What's up?" I ask, sitting next to them.

"Can't you just read our minds?" Fred asked. I had showed them that trick last night.

"I'd prefer not to." I reply.

George sighs. "Mr. Bagman still hasn't paid us from our bet that we won."

"Damn." I say. "Next time I see him... I'll give him a piece of my mind, and yours."

We go through the rest of the day, until at last, when we were in the common room, McGonagall took us all down to the courtyard, where she critiqued people's clothes and shepherded them into line.

"How do you suppose they'll be arriving?" Harry asked.

"I don't know." I say. "We'll just have to see, won't we?"

Sure enough, the Beauxbatons arrive in a large, flying horse-drawn carriage. For a moment it gave me quite a shock, for I thought one of the horses flying it had eight legs...

Madame Maxime, the Beauxbatons headmistress, was huge. She stepped down from the carriage and greeted Dumbledore, and introduced her students. Her size was unable to be ignored, she was about as tall as Hagrid. Her students all looked incredibly cold, shivering in the weather.

Durmstrang arrived maybe ten minutes after the Beauxbatons lot. They arrived via a vast ship, gliding out of the black lake. Karkaroff was a normal sized man, who, when talking to Dumbledore, both of them seemed somewhat stiff.

"Harry— it's Krum!" I heard Ron exclaim beside me.

"What?" I say, looking around. "Sorry, you're blocking my view—"

I recognized Viktor Krum's profile when he passed me. I had a fleeting urge to grab his forearm and give him a warning, but it passed before I could decide.

We entered the great hall, Ron asking around for a quill for Viktor Krum to sign with. I ended up discreetly splitting up with the three of them to take a seat with Malfoy. Krum ended up sitting right beside him, and Malfoy looked so smug, that he didn't even recognize that I was there until I started to stroke his blonde hair.