a/n: Been a while...oops...
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The next morning came all too soon.
For the rest of the night, I laid on the couch in front of the fireplace, fighting for sleep. Even after I had gone back to my dormitory and climbed back into my bed, sleep refused to come. I didn't feel tired, but I could feel that I still needed the sleep.
It wouldn't have mattered if I had actually managed to fall asleep in class that day anyway. No one could focus on the lessons during the day — not when the names were to be chosen by the Goblet of Fire that evening. Everyone was abuzz about the excitement tonight held. Those that had put their names in had mixed reactions. Some felt regret having put their name in, wishing they hadn't done so. Others seemed hopeful and almost too giddy at the thought of competing. The anticipation made the day seem to drag, but maybe that was just my lack of sleep finally starting to kick in.
By the time dinner had rolled around, I still felt no desire to eat. My dream from the night before still had my mind reeling, but when I was asked what was the matter, I only blamed it on my nerves. Somehow, that excuse seemed to work. But it seems that I only got lucky. Of course, there was chatter at the Gryffindor table that took the weight off of me. Speculation about who the three chosen would be. Fred hoped Angelina would be one of them, but I couldn't have disagreed more.
Dessert came and went, and suddenly, the Great Hall went quiet as Dumbledore stood at the front of the room, ready to speak. He turned to look at the Goblet for a moment, then said, "I imagine that the Goblet will be ready to make its decision any minute. Now, when the champions are named, I ask that they please come to the front, walk across the Great Hall, then follow the way into the next chamber. Once there, the three will receive their next instructions."
"Any second now," Lee whispered excitedly as Leilah smiled at him and squeezed his hand.
Suddenly, the flames turned a bright red, almost pinkish color. Out of the flame came a small piece of parchment, bits of flame burning off the ends. It flew away, Dumbledore catching it in his hand.
"The Durmstrang champion is Viktor Krum!" he announced.
The room let out a roar of applause, coming from a lot of Hogwarts students as well as some Beauxbatons and all of the Durmstrang students. Viktor stood from his seat, walking to the front of the Great Hall then heading for the trophy room. Moments later, another paper came flying out of the pink flames and landing into Dumbledore's palm.
"The Beauxbatons champion is Fleur Delacour!" he announced again.
As Fleur stood from her seat, most of her classmates looked less than pleased to know that she had been chosen. I exchanged some confused looks with Leilah and George, joining in with the clapping coming from the other tables; mostly the boys could be heard cheering for the blonde beauty.
"Wonder what's up with them," Leilah muttered.
"Can't be jealous, can they?" I muttered back. "'Yay for you! You might die!'"
Leilah chuckled, as well as Lee.
The flames turned bright red again and the third piece of paper came fluttering out, landing into Dumbledore's outstretched hand. "And the Hogwarts champion is Cedric Diggory!" he announced.
Most of the tables started to cheer, but it was nothing compared to the rest of the Hufflepuffs. Leilah and I cheered; meanwhile, the boys all stared longingly at the cup, frowning at the fact that none of them were chosen. Cedric rose, his lips outstretched in a large smile that spread to his cheeks. His fellow Hufflepuffs clapped him on the back, letting out whoops and hollers for him as he walked to the front. As he walked past my spot at the Gryffindor table, he flashed me a smirk, and I let out a shout for him, so did Leilah. Cedric walked to the front, taking the paper from Dumbledore as he shook his hand. Cedric walked to the next room, and Dumbledore faced the rest of the Great Hall.
"Excellent!" his voice boomed, the cheering dying down, "We now have our three champions. But in the end, only one will go down in history. Only one will hoist this chalice of champions!" With the flick of his wand, he lifted a cloth from the most magnificent-looking trophy I had ever seen in my life.
Crystal-clear, almost opaque. It shined a bright blue, a shining aura radiating around it. Made of pure silver.
"The Triwizard Cup!" he announced.
The cheering erupted once again, echoing throughout the Great Hall. Then, it quickly died down. Moments later, the flames started to stir again. Dumbledore turned to look, joining the dozens of other eyes trained upon the Goblet. Then, the flames turned that same bright red, as if getting ready to shoot out another piece of parchment — which is exactly what it did. It flied through the air, falling slowly, almost as if it was in slow-motion. There was a single moment, where the Great Hall all collectively held their breath. Dumbledore clutched it with his nimble fingers and looked at the crinkled piece of parchment incredulously.
He mumbled something, and it was hard to hear.
"What did he say?" Lee whispered harshly, followed by mutual whispers around the whole of the Great Hall.
"Harry Potter," he repeated himself, and the whispers stopped. Silence so intense that even the scurrying of a rat's feet could be heard from the other side of the castle.
My breath released, and I looked towards Harry. He crouched down, trying to hide as best as he could. Hermione was quick to push him.
"Harry Potter!" Dumbledore bellowed.
My head whipped around, looking at the fuming expression on Dumbledore's face. Red rose in his cheeks as he let out a breath.
Harry hesitantly rose from his seat and staggered down the aisle. Students shouted at him, calling him a cheat and stating the obvious, "He's not even seventeen yet!" I looked at him and felt bad for him. But I couldn't help but wonder if maybe he did indeed put his name into the Goblet somehow.
I pushed away the thought as soon as it had appeared; of course he wouldn't. Wouldn't he?
As Harry walked away from Dumbledore, all eyes were on him. There was a tense moment of silence that followed as Harry walked into the trophy room where the other victors had already assembled. Dumbledore turned to the rest of us and stood there for a moment, unsure of what to say next. No one dared say anything; I wasn't sure if it was just me, but it felt as if the next person to speak would get in trouble for saying anything.
"Prefects," he spoke, his voice echoing, "take your students back to their common rooms. Have a good night, everyone."
Durmstrang and Beauxbatons students left first, followed by the rest of us. The walk back to the common room was fairly silent. Others murmured among themselves, but even the prefects didn't have much to say. I looked to Ron and Hermione, who were nervously muttering things to each other. Ron looked angry, but Hermione had nothing but worry on her face. They kept turning back, as if waiting for Harry to come trailing up the steps; I knew better. Harry was not in good standing right now with the rest of the students, that much was obvious. What was harder to tell was how the rest of the professors would think of him after all of this.
People sat in the common room for a bit, but no one was really saying anything. Some tried to brush over it, the other first years didn't really understand, and some second years just moved on ahead. As for me, I told the twins goodnight and headed to my room. I was alone for the most part — a couple of other girls had already gone to sleep. I laid there, my mind racing. I couldn't help but think of Liam Blake, and the last time that I saw him.
I had been laying in my bed — the first time in my own bed since returning home from another year at Hogwarts. My father had gone to bed already. As exhausted as I was, I was just as excited to be home, to the point that I couldn't quite get to sleep. It had been a long year, and if I was being honest with myself, my bed felt too comfortable. Just as I attempted to close my eyes, there was the sound of a light tap on my window. Facing the backyard, my window was at the top of our small two-story home. A small neighborhood, houses mostly alike. It would've been easy to mistake mine for another, but not if you knew which one to look for. I knew who stood outside that window before I even opened the curtain.
Letting out a small sigh, I stepped out of bed and wrapped my blanket around my body. He stood with a hood over his head, but his eyes looked up at me. His curly hair peeked out of the dark hood, and he didn't do anything; he knew I would come down. I snuck down the stairs and outside, closing the sliding glass door behind me quietly. We met each other halfway, and I wrapped my arms around him tightly; it had been months since I had seen him last — Christmas, at best. He looked awful, with dark circles under his eyes and some new scratches on his face. I reached up and touched them.
"Who did this to you?" I asked him.
He pushed my hand away and moved his head. "Don't worry about that," he replied. "I'm fine."
I sighed, knowing that I wouldn't get any answers from him. So, I changed the subject instead. "Why are you here?" I asked. "Were you followed?"
"Would I really be here if I was followed?"
"Fair point," I said. "What's going on? You wouldn't be here if it wasn't important."
"There's been talk, Abagail," he told me, then he hesitated a moment. "They're planning something — something bigger than the whole Chamber of Secrets debacle a couple of years ago."
"Like what?"
"I don't know. You know that if I knew—"
"You would tell me, yes, but Liam, you would think they would trust you by now," I interrupted him.
"Things are a lot more complicated than you think, Abagail." He reached for my hand and slipped his fingers into mine. He stared at our hands, as if it was the only thing keeping him sane. "Things are changing, and this life — as you know it to be — it's going to change." He looked up at me, rubbing the back of my hand with his thumb. "And I don't think you're going to like the way that things are going to go."
I clutched his hand as he tried to slip out of my reach. I saw the sadness on his face, and the tears that threatened to form. He was terrified. "Tell me you'll be careful," I said softly.
"I can't promise you that," he replied without meeting my eyes.
"Don't say that."
"Abagail," he says, finally slipping out of my grip and meeting my eyes, "I'll tell you now — things aren't good. You're probably going to hear things about me, things that don't sound like me. But...that's the thing. War changes people. War turns us into people that we don't want to be, but we have to change anyway."
I kept thinking about that. I still thought about it as I laid there that night. It was obvious that something wasn't right about this whole thing, and that Harry was being targeted for something. This couldn't have been the plan that Liam was talking about, right? I mean, how was he to know that this would happen? The bright red flames from the Goblet played back in my mind, watching that piece of parchment fall into Dumbeldore's hand.
Like the flip of a switch, a plan was set into motion. Only, there was no telling how bad things were going to get.