Natsu Dragneel and the Goblet of Fire

The Triwizard Tournament

Through the gates, flanked with statues of winged boars, and up the sweeping drive the carriages trundled, swaying dangerously in what was fast becoming a gale. Leaning against the window, Natsu could see Hogwarts coming nearer, its many lighted windows blurred and shimmering behind the thick curtain of rain. Lightning flashed across the sky as their carriage came to a halt before the great oak front doors, which stood at the top of a flight of stone steps. People who had occupied the carriages in front were already hurrying up the stone steps into the castle. Natsu, Gray, Lucy, Gajeel, Levy, Sting, and Rogue jumped down from their carriage and dashed up the steps too, looking up only when they were safely inside the cavernous, torch-lit entrance hall, with its magnificent marble staircase.

"Blimey," said Sting, shaking his head and sending water everywhere, "if that keeps up the lake's going to overflow. I'm soak - ARRGH!"

A large, red, water-filled balloon had dropped from out of the ceiling onto Sting's head and exploded.

Drenched and sputtering, Sting staggered sideways into Natsu, just as a second water bomb dropped - narrowly missing Lucy, it burst at Natsu's feet, sending a wave of cold water over his sneakers into his socks. People all around them shrieked and started pushing one another in their efforts to get out of the line of fire.

Natsu looked up and saw, floating twenty feet above them, Peeves the Poltergeist, a little man in a bell-covered hat and orange bow tie, his wide, malicious face contorted with concentration as he took aim again.

"PEEVES!" yelled an angry voice. "Peeves, come down here at ONCE!" Porlyusica, Deputy Headmistress and the school nurse, had come dashing out of the Great Hall; she skidded on the wet floor and grabbed Lucy around the neck to stop herself from falling.

"Ouch - sorry, Miss Heartfilia -"

"That's all right, Professor!" Lucy gasped, massaging her throat.

"Peeves, get down here NOW!" barked Porlyusica, straightening her pointed hat and glaring upward.

"Not doing nothing!" cackled Peeves, lobbing a water bomb at several fifth-year girls, who screamed and dived into the Great Hall. "Already wet, aren't they? Little squirts! Wheeeeeeeeee!" And he aimed another bomb at a group of second years who had just arrived.

"I shall call the headmaster!" shouted Porlyusica. "I'm warning you, Peeves -"

Peeves stuck out his tongue, threw the last of his water bombs into the air, and zoomed off up the marble staircase, cackling insanely.

"Well, move along, then!" said Porlyusica sharply to the bedraggled crowd. "Into the Great Hall, come on!"

Natsu, Gray, Lucy, Sting, and Rogue slipped and slid across the entrance hall and through the double doors on the right, Sting muttering furiously under his breath as he pushed his sopping hair off his face.

The Great Hall looked its usual splendid self, decorated for the start-of-term feast. Golden plates and goblets gleamed by the light of hundreds and hundreds of candles, floating over the tables in midair.

The four long House tables were packed with chattering students; at the top of the Hall, the staff sat along one side of a fifth table, facing their pupils. It was much warmer in here. Natsu, Gray, and Lucy walked past the Slytherins, the Ravenclaws, and the Hufflepuffs, and sat down with the rest of the Gryffindors at the far side of the Hall, next to Nearly Headless Nick, the Gryffindor ghost. Pearly white and semitransparent, Nick was dressed tonight in his usual doublet, but with a particularly large ruff, which served the dual purpose of looking extra-festive, and insuring that his head didn't wobble too much on his partially severed neck.