𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧
"THE MOMENT HAS COME. THE Triwizard Tournament is about to begin."
The majority of the students in the hall had finished their meals by the time Dumbledore began his speech and turned their heads attentively to the Head Table where the Headmaster stood at the podium.
"I would like to give a few words of explanation before the casket is brought out. First, allow me to introduce Mr. Bartemius Crouch, Head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation, and Mr. Ludo Bagman, Head of the Department of Magical Games and Sports."
The two men rose for a moment from their added seats at the Head Table, whilst the students applauded in the pause of Dumbledore's announcements.
"Mr. Bagman and Mr. Crouch have worked tirelessly on the arrangements for the tournament, and they will join myself, Professor Karkaroff and Madame Maxime on the judging panel of the events."
At this moment, Filch came stalking forward with a scowl as he carried a large, jewel-encrusted chest and placed it in front of the headmaster.
"Thank you, Mr. Filch," Dumbledore continued. "The instructions for the tasks have been examined by Mr. Crouch and Mr. Bagman and they have made the necessary arrangements for the challenges. There will be three events, spaced throughout the school year, that will test the champions in a multitude of ways- their magical prowess, their daring, their powers of deduction, and their ability to cope with danger."
Gaia was sure she heard Harry let out a very quiet, "Hmf."
"Of course, there will be three champions in this tournament, one from each school represented. They will be judged and marked on how well they perform each task and the champion with the highest total at the end will be the victor. These champions will be chosen by an impartial selector; the Goblet of Fire."
Dumbledore took out his wand and tapped the lid of the casket in front of him. The students watched in mesmerization as the lid opened and the headmaster removed a large, smoking goblet with an eerily inviting blue glow to it.
"Anybody wishing to submit themselves as a champion must write down their name and school on a slip of parchment and drop it in to the goblet before this time tomorrow evening. At the Halloween feast, the cup will give us the names of the three most worthy of representing their school. Until then, the goblet will remain in the Entrance Hall for anyone wishing to compete. To ensure that no underage students submit themselves, I will personally be drawing an age line around the cup forbidding anyone under the age of seventeen from crossing.
"Finally, I wish to impress upon any of you wishing to compete, that this tournament is not to be taken lightly. Once a champion is selected, they are obligated to see the tournament through to the end. Placing your name in the goblet constitutes a binding, magical contract that allows for no change of heart once selected. Therefore, I ask that you be very sure you wish to compete before submitting yourself as a candidate. And now, I think, it is time for bed. Goodnight to you all!"
The students stood noisily as they filed out of the Great hall in deep conversation.
"An age line?" Gaia heard Fred Weasley exclaim, "That shouldn't be too hard to fool."
"But no one under seventeen will even be qualified enough," Hermione pointed out. "We aren't as equipped to succeed. It would be foolish and dangerous to try to trick your way in!"
"You hear that, George?" Fred quipped to his brother, feigning revelation. "We're foolish and dangerous!"
"Then it should be even more impressive when we make it to the finish line, eh Freddy?" George shot back jubilantly.
"I'd say so, Georgie," his brother answered, throwing his own arm around George's shoulder as they quite literally skipped off together to join Lee Jordan ahead of them.
The four younger students who the twins had left behind chuckled at their antics as they made their way towards the Gryffindor Common Room with all of the other students in crimson robes.
Within the masses of the Slytherin students, however, one particular Durmstrang boy navigated his way out of the sea of green and ran to catch up to the departing Gryffindors and approached the foursome from behind.
"Excuse me," the boy said as he joined the group. The four stopped at the sudden addition to their group and looked to examine the student who had come up to the left of Gaia.
He, like many of his fellow classmates, had sharp features, and shallow, pale skin. His jawline and cheekbones were especially strong, which paired well with his equally as defined eyes of nearly black. Under the layers and layers of warm fur, he had a tall build and dark hair that was just long enough to see a slight wave to his locks.
It was quickly clear that he was not there for all of them, as his eyes remained steadily on Gaia. "I'm sorry. I hope I am not interrupting, but I just had to introduce myself." His thick northern accent hung heavily on his words. "My name is Mikhail Volkov. May I ask who you might be?"
It took Gaia a moment to realize he was addressing her directly, even though her three friends had picked up on that quite clearly. "Oh, me?" she asked, to which he nodded. "Gaia."
"Gaia...?" Through his tone, she could tell that he was prompting her for a last name. Upon the quick realization that suddenly, there were dozens of new students in the building who did not know her as Bellatrix Lestrange's daughter, she felt quite opposed to letting go of that opportunity so quickly.
She hummed in confirmation as she nodded her head, pretending as if she simply hadn't understood his silent request and was merely clarifying.
"How beautiful," he replied, bringing a subtle blush to her cheeks. She was glad he hadn't pressed her for a last name. "Well I mustn't keep you, but I felt the need to introduce myself to such a lovely girl as yourself, and I do hope we see each other again soon, Gaia."
Feeling rather dumbfounded, but nonetheless flattered, she simply nodded and replied, "Thank you, Mikhail."
He nodded, (although it was so strong Gaia couldn't tell if it was instead a small bow), first to her, then to her three friends, before turning and walking somewhat quickly back to his peers, who had apparently waited for him.
Ron was, as usual, the first to break the ice, when he said without a note of insincerity, "What the hell was that?"
Gaia, who had not yet turned back around and was still watching Mikhail walk away, could give no answer other than a shrug.
"Gaia!" Hermione exclaimed, finally causing the girl to turn back to her friends. "You've got an admirer!"
"Wait a minute, hang on!" Ron stated. "How does a seventeen year old go for Gaia, of all Hogwarts girls?"
"Thank you for your confidence, Ronald," Gaia retorted sarcastically, finally finding words after the unexpected interaction. The four finally began walking in the direction of their common room again.
"Well no, not like that!" he replied defensively. "I just mean there's a lot of older, seventh year girls who are like, way more womanly than you-"
"More womanly?"
"Yeah, like Bailey Naughton."
"You're just saying that cause she wears like a triple D cup."
"Exactly. Womanly."
"I think Gaia has a lovely figure for a girl her age," Hermione chimed in, looking Gaia carefully up and down.
"Well sure," Ron replied, "But I mean not like Bailey Naughton's figure!"
"Oh my god! Can we please stop talking about this," Gaia exclaimed.
"You started it!" Ron shot back.
"And I regret it."
"Gaia, I'm sorry I didn't mean to say that you don't have a nice figure."
"Ronald, you're a menace."
"I'm a menace? "
"A ginger menace," she clarified.
"You don't have to bring my hair into this!" he protested.
"Oh so you can compare my boobs to Bailey Naughton's but I can't bring up your hair?"
As the two bickered like children the rest of the way to the common room, only Hermione seemed to notice how Harry had fallen farther behind the group with a thoughtful, forlorn expression on his face.
𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧
The next day, Gaia could be found in the Entrance Hall with Ron and Harry, Hermione a short distance away from them with her face buried in an Ancient Runes textbook. They had all chosen to come for a few minutes and watch people enter their names into the goblet.
"I reckon a bunch put their names in after we went to bed last night," Harry spoke up as the three of them observed the smaller than expected crowd in the hall, most of whom appeared to be watchers like themselves. "That's what I'd have done. Wouldn't have wanted everyone watching. What if the cup just spit your name back out again?"
Gaia and Ron laughed and watched as Fred, George and Lee all came bounding down the stairs into the Entrance Hall with wide grins.
"We've done it!" Fred announced, raising a small vial half full of clear liquid above his head proudly. "Just taken it!"
"One drop each," George added, "only needed to be a few months older."
"It's not going to work," Hermione said happily with a grin of satisfaction. "That right there," she pointed to the white chalk-looking line around the goblet, "is the Age Line Professor Dumbledore talked about. He drew it himself, and no student will be able to trick Dumbledore's magic."
Fred and George jumped to either side of her, while Lee stayed back and spread the anticipated word of their success to the nearby students.
"Well then," George said, "only one way to find out, eh Freddie?"
"I think you're right Georgie," his twin chimed in as the two whisked away from Hermione, ruffling her tangled hair in the process, and stepped up to the space just outside the line of the circle.
"Here goes nothing," Gaia heard Lee whisper under his breath, as the two redheads jumped together inside the boundary and stood frozen, waiting.
It appeared that the twins were just getting ready to celebrate the success of their plan when suddenly, very quickly, unruly white hair grew from their chins and stopped halfway down their chests. Their heads soon followed as the orange hair on both boys grew much longer and lost its color until it had faded into a silky white, reminding Gaia of Dumbledore.
The two boys turned on each other quickly, tackling one another and shouting declarations of blame ruthlessly as they tossed around on the floor. The other students began to gather and watch the strange fight, when the doors opened and all their eyes landed on Dumbledore himself, standing in the threshold with an amused grin and a twinkle in his eye. Even the twins had stopped their antics at his presence.
"I did warn you," he said through a light chuckle. "Might I suggest a visit to Madame Pomfrey? She has already tended to two other students who decided to age themselves up as well, though I must say neither of their beards are quite as nice as yours."
The brothers sulked and sauntered out the rooms with their heads low, as Lee followed behind them with roaring fits of laughter.
𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧
That night, Gaia sat with Harry, Ron and Hermione in excited anxiety at the Gryffindor table. Only a few more minutes and they would find out the chosen champions for the tournament. Of course, this didn't pertain to her in any way. She didn't have any relationship to any of the people she knew to be entering, (unless you counted Mikhail, which she did not), but she still found herself looking forward to the reveal. The entirety of the Hall seemed to be lacking in conversation this particular night; it appeared many others shared her interests and simply had nothing else to think about.
"The cup is almost ready to make it's decision," Dumbledore announced as he stood in front of the goblet. The blazing blue flames looked just as they had hours prior, but were now full of names of hopeful students who each bounced their legs or bit their fingernails at that moment. "I'd wager it will take about a minute more. Now, when a champion is selected, I ask that they please walk to the Head Table, pass along in front of the staff, and enter into the next chamber, where they will receive their first instructions."
As if on cue, the brilliant blue fire burned a bright red as sparks flew from the cup. The Hall held their breath as a charred slip of parchment was spit out of the flames and danced in the air before landing in Dumbledore's ready hand. He unfolded the paper and swept his eyes quickly across the words before relaying the message to his students.
"The Durmstrang Champion is... Viktor Krum."
The Hall burst into applause as Krum proudly made his way to the front of the room. "No surprise there," Ron exclaimed as he clapped as well.
As Viktor disappeared behind the door Dumbledore had directed him to, the cheers finally died down as they waited once more for the next reveal. Again, the flames, which had returned to blue, blazed red and shot out another slip of paper, which Dumbledore caught just as he had the time before.
"The Beauxbatons Campion is... Fleur Delacour."
The students once again erupted with cheers, particularly those wearing light blue robes, as one of them followed Krum's path.
"Ron, it's her!" Harry declared, pointing at the Champion as she strode away from them. As the four looked at her, they could indeed recognize the girl as the one who had been harassed by Ron the previous night.
Once again, the cup was blue, the crowd was silent, and nerves hung in the air.
This name flew out particularly fast in the storm of red flames.
"The Hogwarts Champion is... Cedric Diggory."
All the students exploded into screams of support, especially those at the Hufflepuff table, as their new champion stood with a smile and high-fived his closest friends, then made his way to Dumbledore at the front.
Once he had disappeared like the previous two and the clapping had died down for the third and final time, Dumbledore continued.
"Excellent!" he said with a wide smile. "Well, now we have our three champions. I know that we can count on the rest of you to give your representatives all the support you can. By doing this, you can-"
Before he could finish, the blue flames inside of the cup lit red for the fourth time that night. Gaia ran through the champions in her mind, as if trying to make sure she hadn't somehow miscounted, but even Dumbledore had been saying the selection was complete. She glanced briefly around the Hall to find everyone else wearing similar fronts of confusion.
Silence blanketed the students and staff, all of whom stared intently into the brightly beaming flames, waiting for what they all expected but none wanted to say in case they were simply imagining things.
Finally, after a seemingly much longer time than before, another slip was shot from the cup, burned on one side and turning gracefully through the air before landing in the headmaster's palm.
Hastily, Dumbledore opened the folded parchment. The crowd watched his eyes scan the words, then the students, before settling somewhere among the masses.
"Harry Potter," he spoke very calmly.
Gaia felt her heart clench. Harry had entered? Why? This didn't seem like what he'd want.
No, she reasoned with herself. There's a mistake. Cedric was Hogwarts Champion. Surely the cup can't pick two from the same school.
She finally shifted her gaze towards the boy everyone else had now turned to stare at. She sent him a questioning look, hoping words were not needed to convey her question.
He understood, and shook his head profusely.
And that was all she needed. She didn't doubt him at all.
"I didn't put my name in," he said quietly. He was trying to address the whole Hall, but had clearly failed. It sounded to everyone else as if he was saying it more to himself. "I didn't enter," he said loudly this time, then turned to Ron and Hermione. "You know I didn't enter."
The two just stared back at him blankly.
He turned to Gaia, a pleading look upon his face. "You know I didn't enter."
Though it was a statement, she knew he was looking for comfort. For confirmation.
She nodded. I know.
"Harry Potter, up here, please." Dumbledore said calmly after having spoken with Professor McGonagall for several seconds.
Harry's eyes tore away from Gaia's and he stared at the Head table, frozen.
"Go on," Hermione said, giving him a very light push. When it did nothing, she instead stood up and tugged on his arm. Finally, he reacted, and walked, stunned, forward.
After Harry disappeared through the door, the night became somewhat of a blur. Gaia could remember the other students immediately bursting into discussion about what had just happened, and that many appeared angry, but she couldn't describe what Dumbledore said to make them all back to their Common Rooms.
She did know, though, that she did not want to leave Harry alone. Seeing no avoiding the dismissal, she instead snuck out of the masses once they were in the corridors and slipped into the bathroom. Once she was sure the footsteps were all gone several minutes later, she entered the hallways again and made her way to the entrance of the Great Hall, leaning against the wall and waiting.
It felt like forever until someone finally emerged from the doors. Her heart fluttered in the hope it was Harry and fell upon the sight of McGonagall.
"Miss Lestrange," she demanded, "what are you doing here? You are supposed to be in your dormitory."
"I'm sorry professor," the girl sighed. "I just really wanted to see Harry. I was worried about him. I'll go back."
Now, Minerva McGonagall was a strict woman who rarely let her emotions surpass logic. But something about seeing the girl she had silently pitied for three years walk away from the first thing to bring her any sense of comfort in this school when she was only trying to do good pulled at her heartstrings.
"Miss... Gaia," she called. The Gryffindor turned around to face her professor. "The Champions will be coming in just a moment. You can wait here until then."
Gaia beamed and felt a strong urge to hug the woman, but decided against it. "Thank you, Professor," she said respectfully before watching McGonagall give her a kind smile and turn the other way to leave.
Just as the woman had said, the doors opened again only two minutes, later. First to come out was Viktor Krum, who looked rather cold and emotionless and gave Gaia no sign of attention. Next was Fleur, who crossed her arms and pouted her way to the Entrance Hall after shooting a nasty glare in Gaia's general direction, as if simply the presence of a person annoyed her further than she already was.
Next came Cedric Diggory, who appeared too deep in though to even notice the fourteen year old girl standing outside the door as he walked quickly back to his Common Room.
Gaia held her breath as she heard the next set of footsteps, and watched Harry emerge with a terribly tired expression on his face.
"Harry," she said, flinging her arms around him. It appeared he had not noticed her until then, as he was suddenly startled but then melted into the embrace. "This is ridiculous. Please tell me they're not making you compete."
He said nothing. Instead, she felt the short nod of his head in the crook of her neck. She pulled away to look in his eyes, keeping her grip on his forearms. He was not crying, nor were there tears in his eyes, but anyone could see the pain and fatigue that swam through his emerald irises. He sniffed quietly, looking briefly at his feet before meeting her eyes again.
"Thanks for waiting," he said gratefully. Gaia felt a certain stabbing pain in her heart at the conflict the boy in front of her was so clearly feeling.
"Any time," she said with a smile. "Do you want to talk about it now, or later?"
It seemed as if the question had surprised him, and he thought for a moment on his answer, before muttering quietly, "I don't know yet."
Gaia nodded. "That's okay. Do you want to walk back to the Common Room yet?"
He nodded. "But slowly. I don't want to get there too quickly."
Smiling, the girl answered, "You got it," as she removed her hands from his arms and led the way to the Gryffindor Common Room at a slow pace.
After several minutes of silence aside from their footsteps, Harry spoke up.
"You know something?" he asked as they made a small leap off of a moving staircase.
"What?" his friend asked.
"You're really good at stuff like this," he responded, looking at her from the side, though she was looking at the paintings on the wall.
"What do you mean, 'stuff like this?'" she questioned, waving to a portrait of a little boy on a pony.
"I mean handling people's feelings and stuff," Harry answered. "You're good at saying the right things. Asking the right questions."
Finally, she turned her head to meet his gaze, though she didn't have a response.
"And I think that's a little strange," Harry continued, "considering you didn't talk to many people before this year."
After a quiet moment of thought, she spoke up. "Can I tell you a secret?"
Harry nodded. "Anything."
Gaia sighed. "This is gonna be like, super grossly vulnerable and cheesy of me, so, you know, you've been warned. But... When you never really talk to anyone there's a lot that you hear. A girl crying in the stall next to you in the bathroom, or a couple talking in the common room when you're the only other person in there, but they kind of don't even realize you're in there. So I've heard a lot of people talking about being upset. And I always feel a little bad because I want to try to help them, ya know? But it'd be weird to confess that I was listening and I'm not sure they'd even want to hear anything from me.
"So instead, as pathetic as it sounds, I would just play out the interaction in my head. And because it's all pretend I can rewind as many times as I want to if I say the wrong thing. So I've kind of got down that you can't help someone until you know what they need. You need to ask, rather than just start spewing advice. Maybe they don't want advice. Maybe they just want to vent. Or maybe they want a distraction. And no one at home really check in on how anyone else is doing, emotionally, you know? The Malfoy's aren't exactly the biggest advocates of mental health awareness. So I just... want to help other people when I have the chance."
Harry didn't answer right away, he really reflected on her words. They had such thought behind them, such complexity that he had never experienced when talking to another person. This girl walking beside him had principals. She had values, priorities, goals. And suddenly, he found himself tickled with a strong desire to explore all of those things with her.
He thought, really deeply thought, about a good response to her confession. He racked his brain for anything worth saying after her words. But he felt inferior. Like there was no way to top, or even compare his trivial 14 year old thought to her far more mature mind.
"I'm glad we met," was the best he could settle for. And when she looked into his eyes, he didn't feel judged for his far less impressive reply. He could see that she genuinely appreciated his dumb four words.
And after a short, comforting pause, she smiled. "Me too."
𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧
a/n: it's 5:18am i vow to go to bed right after this note ah! okay but anyway GUYS i love this chapter because we get to see a ton of harry's emotions. he a little jealous in the beginning because of mikhail ;) and then of course he's terrified and finally we get a good look into his bond with gaia and i just love them ugh anyway. mikhail was not in my original draft of this book but i've thought about him and i have some interesting stuff planned so stay tuned (talking to you, my 4 engaged readers, according to wattpad stats!) anyway whether there's 4 or 400 people reading this i genuinely appreciate every single one of you so so much. please consider voting or totally commenting and letting me know your thoughts i would love to hear them! but that's all for tonight seeing as it is now 5:22am. love you all endlessly!! muah!