Full Circle(Tomarry)

Chapter 19.

"At last," Dumbledore addressed the entire hall, "it is time. We are about to see who have been chosen to become our Triwizard champions!"

A roar of applause echoed throughout the crowd. People were literally jumping in their seats, eager to find out who was to represent each prestigious school.

At the turn of the hour, the Goblet's flame flashed an intense bright blue, flickering only once and surging up in fiercer flames as it spat out the first slip of parchment.

"Beauxbaton's champion is Fleur Delacour!" Dumbledore shouted, and the powder-blue clad students burst into enthusiastic cheering as Fleur stood up, smiling prettily as she confidently strode towards the Great Hall's side-chamber. Not before giving the smitten crowd an elegant curtsy, of course.

"Please not me, please not me," Harry kept muttering, fingers crossed as the Goblet spat out another name, to all his friends' amusement.

"Hogwart's champion is Cedric Diggory!"

"Yes!" Cho jumped excitedly for her boyfriend, giving a pleasantly shocked Cedric a big peck on the cheek before he followed Fleur's footsteps.

"I was kinda rooting for Angelina, but I suppose Cedric isn't a surprise," Ron muttered quietly, clapping for their friend like the rest of them.

"And finally, Durmstrang's champion is…" At a glance at the parchment, Dumbledore faltered for only half a second, but it was enough for Harry and Tom to straighten up in attention. Harry suddenly felt a sinking feeling in his gut. "Marvolo Gaunt!"

His stomach dropped.

To his credit, Tom showed none of his own shock, striding confidently up towards the chamber with only a distant acknowledgement towards the Hogwarts headmaster. Even as the rest of the Durmstrang contingent clapped loudly, Harry could still make out some murmurs of confusion, as none of them had even seen their classmate approach the Goblet at all.

Viktor, Harry noted with a sick feeling, did not look a single bit surprised.

.

"Marvolo?" Cedric looked incredulously at the apparent Durmstrang champion. "I thought you weren't entering the tournament at all?"

Tom gave the Hufflepuff prefect a thin, humourless smile. "Someone apparently decided otherwise for me."

"Vy vould you be here if not to enter?" Fleur asked, perplexed. "It eez a great honor."

Before Tom could say any more, their headmasters, Crouch, and Ludo Bagman entered the room to officially meet the three champions. Karkaroff looked stiff as he stood by Tom, and Dumbledore spared him a calculating stare before turning his attention back to the Ministry officials.

'Well,' Tom grimly thought as he barely listened to Bagman's rambling. 'At least it's not Harry in this mess this time.'

.

"At least it's not me in this mess this time?" Harry weakly smiled when Tom and Cedric were finally released from the long winded session with the judges. The group had snuck in an empty classroom to talk more in private.

"Small mercies," Neville wryly said as everyone else sighed, some in relief.

"I mean, with your luck you would've become like, the fourth champion or something," Ron added and Harry grimaced because yeah, that wasn't fun the first time and he wasn't actually keen on repeating it again. For the record? Swimming in the Great Lake in fucking February was the worst task of them all. If one discounted the Cedric dying part during the last one.