\ wherein the journey of her incredible life begins /
SEVERAL HOURS OF LISTENING to the rain patter against the windows later, through the darkness I could vaguely see the outline of the magnificent castle that awaited us. I heard the train doors open from down the corridor and stepped out of the compartment, now dressed in Hogwarts robes that Hermione had lent me, which thankfully fit perfectly.
There was a rumble of thunder overhead as the four of us shuffled out, Hermione's ginger cat hidden in her cloak and Ron's dress robes over Pigwidgeon's cage as we left the train, heads bent and eyes narrowed against the downpour.
The rain was now coming down so thick and fast that it was as though buckets of ice-cold water were being emptied repeatedly over our heads.
"Hi, Hagrid!" Harry yelled, and I followed his gaze to see a gigantic silhouette at the end of the platform.
"All righ', Harry?" Hagrid bellowed back, waving. "See yeh at the feast if we don' drown!"
"First years usually get to Hogwarts by sailing across the lake with Hagrid." Hermione explained to me, shivering as we inched slowly along the dark platform with the rest of the crowd. "Wouldn't fancy doing that this year, no thank you."
A hundred carriages stood waiting for us outside the station- however all of them had skeletal horses at the front, with reptilian features, and wide, leathery wings that slightly resembled a bat.
Harry, Ron, Hermione, and a boy with a plant in his hand climbed into one of the carriages, so I got into an empty one, but before the door could shut closed, three boys came in and sat down, one beside me and two across. The door shut with a snap, and a few moments later, with a great lurch, the long procession of carriages was rumbling and splashing its way up the track toward Hogwarts Castle.
"Hello," one of the identical ginger twins in the carriage said. "Are you Olive?"
"Yeah. Are you John?"
"Unfortunately, no; my name is Red, and this is Eorge."
"And I'm FG," said the boy with dreadlocks who was sat beside me.
"Nice to meet you all."
"And you as well, Olive."
"Joe."
"What?"
"My name's Joe," I said calmly.
"How come we've never seen you before, Joe?"
"I told you: my name's Lee. I'm a transfer student."
"Lee? Didn't you just-"
"Alright, Lee-"
"Sam."
"Alright, whatever-your-name-is, where'd you transfer from?"
"Beauxbatons, and I already said my name's Billy." The three of them shook their heads at me, grinning and sharing amused glances.
"Okay, Billy, how do you feel about pranks?"
.✫*ﾟ･ﾟ｡.★.*｡･ﾟ✫*.
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, I 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. Lee, Fred, George and I jumped down from the carriage and dashed up the steps too, looking up only when we were safely inside the cavernous, torch-lit entrance hall, with its magnificent marble staircase.
"Blimey," said Fred, 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 Fred's head and exploded. Drenched and sputtering, Fred staggered sideways into me, just as a second water bomb dropped - narrowly missing Lee, it burst at my feet, sending a wave of cold water over my sneakers into my socks.
People all around us shrieked and started pushing one another in their efforts to get out of the line of fire. I looked up and saw, floating twenty feet above them, 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!"
Professor Minerva McGonagall, Deputy Headmistress and head of Gryffindor House, had come dashing out of the Great Hall; she skidded on the wet floor and grabbed Lee around the neck to stop herself from falling.
"Ouch - sorry, Mr. Jordan -"
"That's all right, Professor!" he gasped, massaging his throat.
"Peeves, get down here NOW!" barked Professor McGonagall, straightening her pointed hat and glaring upward through her square-rimmed spectacles.
"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 Professor McGonagall. "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 Professor McGonagall sharply to the bedraggled crowd. "Into the Great Hall, come on!"
George, Lee, Fred, and I slipped and slid across the entrance hall and through the double doors on the right, Ron muttering furiously under his breath as he pushed his sopping hair off his face.
The Great Hall was incredible, 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. I parted from the twins and Lee, before suddenly finding myself holding a note. Frowning, I quickly skimmed through it.
Turn left, ten steps forward, two steps to the right
I looked up, attempting to see who was pulling this prank on me, but I saw a glimpse of a white beard in the direction the note read, so I quickly followed it to find myself in front of the great Albus [insert a thousand middle names I can't be bothered to remember because, oh! he sucks!] Dumbledore.
"Hello, Pheobe," he said, his eyes twinkling, and I followed his gaze to see the one and only Sorting Hat in his hand.
"How-?"
"I know a lot more than you may ever realize, but we must hurry this up, as nobody knows I have taken the hat and the Sorting will start any moment now. You will have all the time you need to ask questions later, however..." he set the hat on my head, which started talking immediately, although I couldn't figure out if Dumbledore could hear it or not, as his expression was completely neutral the entire time.
"Ah! Hello! I had to meet you several years ago...or was it in a few years? Hmm...this one's easy, no thinking required, really- GRYFF-"
"Ah, we'll just," Dumbledore plucked the hat off of my head, almost instantly silencing it. "Don't want to...hm. Well, Pheobe, you now know your house, so go along and sit at Gryffindor table- far right- and I do hope you enjoy Hogwarts."
"Thanks, sir," I said quickly, nodding towards him before walking over to the Gryffindor table, finding an empty seat across Harry and Ron, Hermione in the seat to my right.
"Don't you have to get Sorted?" Hermione asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Oh, I did, just now. Got Gryffindor-"
"Oh, that must be why McGonagall kept glaring at Dumbledore's empty seat," Harry said thoughtfully. I grinned and turned my attention to the front, where the Sorting had begun.
I watched intently as the trembling first-years went up to the stool at the very front of the room and had the old hat placed on their heads, before finding out which of the four houses they belonged to.
I thought it was odd that I'd gotten Gryffindor; the countless Sorting Hat quizzes I had taken online always said Hufflepuff, but then again, those weren't exactly top-notch and the most reliable.
"Hiya, Harry!" I heard a high-pitched voice exclaim excitedly as soon as the Sorting was over. I turned to see a boy with blonde hair and shining blue eyes gazing upon Harry.
"Hi, Colin," said Harry warily.
"Harry, guess what? Guess what, Harry? My brother's starting! My brother Dennis!"
Er - good," said Harry.
"He's really excited!" said Colin, practically bouncing up and down in his seat. "He just got sorted into Gryffindor, did you see, Harry? Did you see?"
"Er - yeah, I did," said Harry awkwardly. I grinned at his stiffness as Colin ran over to the other end of the table childishly.
I looked up at the staff table, seeing a couple empty seats. Hagrid, must have still been fighting his way across the lake with the first years; Professor McGonagall was presumably supervising the drying of the entrance hall floor, but there was another empty chair too, and I couldn't think who else was missing. I suppose I was too distracted to let it settle in that I was going to start learning magic alongside the wizarding icons I had practically grown up dreaming about.
"Where's the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher?" said Hermione, who was also looking up at the teachers. I swore under my breath as I remembered who it would be- Barty Crouch Jr, the man who would be responsible for an innocent Hufflepuff's death. My eyes scanned the Hufflepuff table, and it wasn't hard to spot the brown-haired, gray-eyed boy, who was laughing with some other Hufflepuffs.
sometimes i wish she told us. but she was right; she always was.
"Maybe they couldn't get anyone!" Hermione said anxiously, bringing me out of my thoughts.
My gaze fell back on the table, surveying the Professors some more.
Tiny little Professor Flitwick, the Charms teacher, was sitting on a large pile of cushions beside Professor Sprout, the Herbology teacher, whose hat was askew over her flyaway gray hair. She was talking to Professor Sinistra of the Astronomy department. On Professor Sinistra's other side was the sallow-faced, hook-nosed, greasy-haired Potions master, Snape. The guy who everyone fought over whether he was good or not-
spoiler alert, he wasn't/isn't.
On Snape's other side was an empty seat, which I guessed was Professor McGonagall's. Next to it, and in the very center of the table, sat Dumbledore, his sweeping silver hair and beard shining in the candlelight, his magnificent deep green robes embroidered with many stars and moons. The tips of Dumbledore's long, thin fingers were together and he was resting his chin upon them, staring up at the ceiling through his half-moon spectacles as though lost in thought.
I glanced up at the ceiling too. It was enchanted to look like the sky outside, looking desperately stormy. Black and purple clouds were swirling across it, and as another thunderclap sounded outside, a fork of lightning flashed across it.
"Oh hurry up," Ron moaned from beside me, "I could eat a hippogriff. "
"Hide Buckbeak," I rolled my eyes, before realizing what I had said, my shock reflected in Harry, Ron, and Hermione's faces.
"What did you say?"
"Er- it's a French word," I said quickly, "um, Buckbeak is French for...hippogriff."
"What-?"
"Yeah, I was- I was saying, hide hippogriff!"
"Oh-"
Professor Dumbledore had gotten to his feet. He was smiling around at the students, his arms opened wide in welcome, and everyone had gone silent. Ron picked up his fork in anticipation.
"I have only two words to say to you," he told them, his deep voice echoing around the Hall. "Tuck in. "
"Hear, hear!" said Harry and Ron loudly as the empty dishes filled magically before their eyes.
I suddenly noticed the pale ghost sitting beside us, dressed tonight in a doublet, with a particularly large ruff, who I instantly recognized as Nearly Headless Nick, who was watching the four of us eat with a mournful look on his face.
"Could you pass me the salad?" I said, turning my attention away from the ghost,
"Salad?" Ron repeated. "Who eats salad? Not that I'm against being healthy, but I had a salad once, and it tasted terrible. Nobody eats salads!"
"Rabbits eat salad, Ron," Hermione hummed.
"Right, well, I dunno if it's just me, but, Pheobe, you seem like a, oh, I dunno, human!"
"Well, I dunno, I've never had any of this fancy shit before." I shrugged mildly, unbothered.
It was true- since my Mum had died when I was young and my Dad was in the hospital, we didn't have much money. Just enough for school and a couple of outfits.
I lived with Sophia, of course, since I had nowhere else to go, but she wasn't exactly rich either. Besides the money she had spent on my Time-Turner- it was her birthday money. That was why I had been so reluctant for her to buy it. It was the most money we had ever seen. The three of them looked at me pitifully for a moment.
"But- no, yeah, I've been fine," I said suddenly, snapping myself back to reality, "it's okay, you don't have to pity me-" suddenly Harry grabbed a plate and Hermione and Ron started piling all sorts of foods on it. I frowned in confusion at them for a second.
"Erm- Hermy, could I have that salad, now-" instead, she pushed the plate the three of them had filled up towards me.
"Eat," they ordered. I raised en eyebrow.
"I- no, I-"
"Do you need us to feed you ourselves? Eat," Ron repeated firmly. "Look, there, that's Shephard's pie, and that one there's roast beef-"
"And that's Yorkshire pudding," Harry chimed in, pointing to something else on my plate.
"Oh, that's a cornish pasty- eat." I looked from the plate to the three of them, a smile taking over my face.
"Don't thank us, just eat."
"Eat." Ron said emphatically, before shoveling foods onto his plate and shoving a sizable amount of mashed potatoes into his mouth.
"A'ah, tha's be'er," he said through his mouthful as Hermione wrinkled her nose in disgust.
"You're lucky there's a feast at all tonight, you know," said Nearly Headless Nick. "There was trouble in the kitchens earlier. "
"Why? Wha' 'appened?" said Harry, through a sizable chunk of steak.
"Peeves, of course," said Nearly Headless Nick, shaking his head, which wobbled dangerously. He pulled his ruff a little higher up on his neck. "The usual argument, you know. He wanted to attend the feast - well, it's quite out of the question, you know what he's like, utterly uncivilized, can't see a plate of food without throwing it. We held a ghost's council - the Fat Friar was all for giving him the chance - but most wisely, in my opinion, the Bloody Baron put his foot down. "
The Bloody Baron was the Slytherin ghost, a gaunt and silent specter covered in silver bloodstains. He was the only person at Hogwarts who could really control Peeves.
"Yeah, we thought Peeves seemed hacked off about something," said Ron darkly. "So what did he do in the kitchens?"
"Oh the usual," said Nearly Headless Nick, shrugging. "Wreaked havoc and mayhem. Pots and pans everywhere. Place swimming in soup. Terrified the house-elves out of their wits -"
Clang!
Hermione had knocked over her golden goblet. Pumpkin juice spread steadily over the tablecloth, staining several feet of white linen orange, but Hermione paid no attention.
"There are house-elves here?" she said, staring, horror-struck, at Nearly Headless Nick. "Here at Hogwarts?"
"Certainly," said Nearly Headless Nick, looking surprised at her reaction. "The largest number in any dwelling in Britain, I believe. Over a hundred. "
"I've never seen one!" said Hermione.
"Well, they hardly ever leave the kitchen by day, do they?" said Nearly Headless Nick. "They come out at night to do a bit of cleaning. . . see to the fires and so on. . . . I mean, you're not supposed to see them, are you? That's the mark of a good house-elf, isn't it, that you don't know it's there?"
Hermione stared at him.
"But they get paid?" she said. "They get holidays, don't they? And - and sick leave, and pensions, and everything?"
Nearly Headless Nick chortled so much that his ruff slipped and his head flopped off, dangling on the inch or so of ghostly skin and muscle that still attached it to his neck.
"Sick leave and pensions?" he said, pushing his head back onto his shoulders and securing it once more with his ruff. "House-elves don't want sick leave and pensions!"
Hermione looked down at her hardly touched plate of food, then put her knife and fork down upon it and pushed it away from her.
"Oh c'mon, 'Er-my-knee," said Ron, accidentally spraying Harry with bits of Yorkshire pudding. "Oops - sorry, 'Arry -" He swallowed. "You won't get them sick leave by starving yourself!"
"Slave labor," said Hermione, breathing hard through her nose. "That's what made this dinner. Slave labor. "
And she refused to eat another bite.
The rain was still drumming heavily against the high, dark glass. Another clap of thunder shook the windows, and the stormy ceiling flashed, illuminating the golden plates as the remains of the first course vanished and were replaced, instantly, with puddings.
"Treacle tart, Hermione!" said Ron, deliberately wafting its smell toward her. "Spotted dick, look! Chocolate gateau!"
"Spotted what?!" I said, staring at him with furrowed eyebrows.
"Spotted d- NO, oh my fucking- no, Pheobe, no!"
"You said it!" I said, raising my arms in amused surrender.
"I meant the dessert! Spotted-" he grimaced, "now I can't say it."
When the puddings too had been demolished, and the last crumbs had faded off the plates, leaving them sparkling clean, Albus Dumbledore got to his feet again. The buzz of chatter filling the Hall ceased almost at once, so that only the howling wind and pounding rain could be heard.
"So!" said Dumbledore, smiling around at them all. "Now that we are all fed and watered," ("Hmph!" said Hermione) "I must once more ask for your attention, while I give out a few notices.
"Mr. Filch, the caretaker, has asked me to tell you that the list of objects forbidden inside the castle has this year been extended to include Screaming Yo-yos, Fanged Frisbees, and Ever-Bashing Boomerangs. The full list comprises some four hundred and thirty-seven items, I believe, and can be viewed in Mr. Filch's office, if anybody would like to check it. "
The corners of Dumbledore's mouth twitched. He continued, "As ever, I would like to remind you all that the forest on the grounds is out-of-bounds to students, as is the village of Hogsmeade to all below third year.
"It is also my painful duty to inform you that the Inter-House Quidditch Cup will not take place this year. "
"What?" Harry gasped. He looked around at Fred and George, his fellow members of the Quidditch team. They were mouthing soundlessly at Dumbledore, apparently too appalled to speak. Dumbledore went on, "This is due to an event that will be starting in October, and continuing throughout the school year, taking up much of the teachers' time and energy - but I am sure you will all enjoy it immensely. I have great pleasure in announcing that this year at Hogwarts -"
But at that moment, there was a deafening rumble of thunder and the doors of the Great Hall banged open.
A man stood in the doorway, leaning upon a long staff, shrouded in a black traveling cloak. Every head in the Great Hall swiveled toward the stranger, suddenly brightly illuminated by a fork of lightning that flashed across the ceiling. He lowered his hood, shook out a long mane of grizzled, dark gray hair, then began to walk up toward the teachers' table.
A dull clunk echoed through the Hall on his every other step. He reached the end of the top table, turned right, and limped heavily toward Dumbledore. Another flash of lightning crossed the ceiling. Hermione gasped, but all I could feel was dread, knowing that the man who had just entered wasn't who anyone thought it was.
The lightning had thrown the man's face into sharp relief, and it was a face unlike any I had ever seen. It looked as though it had been carved out of weathered wood by someone who had only the vaguest idea of what human faces are supposed to look like, and was none too skilled with a chisel. Every inch of skin seemed to be scarred. The mouth looked like a diagonal gash, and a large chunk of the nose was missing. But it was the man's eyes that made him frightening.
One of them was small, dark, and beady. The other was large, round as a coin, and a vivid, electric blue. The blue eye was moving ceaselessly, without blinking, and was rolling up, down, and from side to side, quite independently of the normal eye - and then it rolled right over, pointing into the back of the man's head, so that all we could see was whiteness.
The stranger reached Dumbledore. He stretched out a hand that was as badly scarred as his face, and Dumbledore shook it, muttering words I couldn't hear. He seemed to be making some inquiry of the stranger, who shook his head unsmilingly and replied in an undertone. Dumbledore nodded and gestured the man to the empty seat on his right-hand side.
The stranger sat down, shook his mane of dark gray hair out of his face, pulled a plate of sausages toward him, raised it to what was left of his nose, and sniffed it. He then took a small knife out of his pocket, speared a sausage on the end of it, and began to eat. His normal eye was fixed upon the sausages, but the blue eye was still darting restlessly around in its socket, taking in the Hall and the students.
"May I introduce our new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher?" said Dumbledore brightly into the silence. "Professor Moody. "
It was usual for new staff members to be greeted with applause, but none of the staff or students clapped except Dumbledore and Hagrid, who both put their hands together and applauded, but the sound echoed dismally into the silence, and they stopped fairly quickly. Everyone else seemed too transfixed by Moody's bizarre appearance to do more than stare at him.
"Moody?" Harry muttered. "Mad-Eye Moody? The one your dad went to help this morning?" he asked, raising an eyebrow at Ron.
"Must be," said Ron in a hushed, awed voice.
"What happened to him?" Hermione whispered. "What happened to his face?"
"Dunno," Ron whispered back, watching Moody with fascination.
"He's an Auror, must've been really bad hexes and stuff," I said in a low voice.
Moody seemed totally indifferent to his less-than-warm welcome. Ignoring the jug of pumpkin juice in front of him, he reached again into his traveling cloak, pulled out a hip flask, and took a long draught from it. As he lifted his arm to drink, his cloak was pulled a few inches from the ground, and I saw, below the table, several inches of carved wooden leg, ending in a clawed foot.
Dumbledore cleared his throat.
"As I was saying," he said, smiling at the sea of students before him, all of whom were still gazing transfixed at Mad-Eye Moody, "we are to have the honor of hosting a very exciting event over the coming months, an event that has not been held for over a century. It is my very great pleasure to inform you that the Triwizard Tournament will be taking place at Hogwarts this year. "
"You're JOKING!" said Fred Weasley loudly.
The tension that had filled the Hall ever since Moody's arrival suddenly broke. Nearly everyone laughed, and Dumbledore chuckled appreciatively.
"I am not joking, Mr. Weasley," he said, "though now that you mention it, I did hear an excellent one over the summer about a troll, a hag, and a leprechaun who all go into a bar. "
Professor McGonagall cleared her throat loudly.
"Er - but maybe this is not the time. . . no. . . " said Dumbledore, "where was I? Ah yes, the Triwizard Tournament. . . well, some of you will not know what this tournament involves, so I hope those who do know will forgive me for giving a short explanation, and allow their attention to wander freely.
"The Triwizard Tournament was first established some seven hundred years ago as a friendly competition between the three largest European schools of wizardry: Hogwarts, Beauxbatons, and Durmstrang. A champion was selected to represent each school, and the three champions competed in three magical tasks.
The schools took it in turns to host the tournament once every five years, and it was generally agreed to be a most excellent way of establishing ties between young witches and wizards of different nationalities - until, that is, the death toll mounted so high that the tournament was discontinued. "
"Death toll?" Hermione whispered, looking alarmed. But her anxiety did not seem to be shared by the majority of students in the Hall; many of them were whispering excitedly to one another.
"There have been several attempts over the centuries to reinstate the tournament," Dumbledore continued, "none of which has been very successful. However, our own departments of International Magical Cooperation and Magical Games and Sports have decided the time is ripe for another attempt. We have worked hard over the summer to ensure that this time, no champion will find himself or herself in mortal danger.
"The heads of Beauxbatons and Durmstrang will be arriving with their short-listed contenders in October, and the selection of the three champions will take place at Halloween. An impartial judge will decide which students are most worthy to compete for the Triwizard Cup, the glory of their school, and a thousand Galleons personal prize money. "
"Pheobe, your school! You're going to see all your classmates again," Ron said. I froze.
"What? No, what?"
"Didn't you hear? Your school's coming here!"
"Oh, uh, nice?" Ron frowned.
"Don't you miss your friends and stuff?"
"Yeah, yeah, of course!" I said, cracking my knuckles anxiously.
Why couldn't I have come up with a better excuse?!
"I'm going for it!" Fred Weasley hissed down the table, his face lit with enthusiasm at the prospect of such glory and riches. He was not the only person who seemed to be visualizing himself as the Hogwarts champion. At every House table, I could see people either gazing raptly at Dumbledore, or else whispering fervently to their neighbors. But then Dumbledore spoke again, and the Hall quieted once more.
"Eager though I know all of you will be to bring the Triwizard Cup to Hogwarts," he said, "the heads of the participating schools, along with the Ministry of Magic, have agreed to impose an age restriction on contenders this year. Only students who are of age - that is to say, seventeen years or older - will be allowed to put forward their names for consideration. This -"
Dumbledore raised his voice slightly, for several people had made noises of outrage at these words, and the Weasley twins were suddenly looking furious - "is a measure we feel is necessary, given that the tournament tasks will still be difficult and dangerous, whatever precautions we take, and it is highly unlikely that students below sixth and seventh year will be able to cope with them. I will personally be ensuring that no underage student hoodwinks our impartial judge into making them Hogwarts champion. "
His light blue eyes twinkled as they flickered over Fred's and George's mutinous faces. "I therefore beg you not to waste your time submitting yourself if you are under seventeen.
"The delegations from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang will be arriving in October and remaining with us for the greater part of this year. I know that you will all extend every courtesy to our foreign guests while they are with us, and will give your whole-hearted support to the Hogwarts champion when he or she-"
"Or they," I muttered under my breath, fiddling with the silver ring on my index finger, passed on from my mother. Dumbledore smiled.
"Or they, are selected. And now, it is late, and I know how important it is to you all to be alert and rested as you enter your lessons tomorrow morning. Bedtime! Chop chop!"
Dumbledore sat down again and turned to talk to Mad-Eye Moody. There was a great scraping and banging as all the students got to their feet and swarmed toward the double doors into the entrance hall.
"They can't do that!" said George Weasley, who had not joined the crowd moving toward the door, but was standing up and glaring at Dumbledore. "We're seventeen in April, why can't we have a shot?"
"They're not stopping me entering," said Fred stubbornly, also scowling at the top table. "The champions'll get to do all sorts of stuff you'd never be allowed to do normally. And a thousand Galleons prize money!"
"Yeah," said Ron, a faraway look on his face. "Yeah, a thousand Galleons. . . . "
"Come on," said Hermione, "we'll be the only ones left here if you don't move. "
Harry, Ron, Hermione, me, Fred, and George set off for the entrance hall, Fred and George debating the ways in which Dumbledore might stop those who were under seventeen from entering the tournament.
"Who's this impartial judge who's going to decide who the champions are?" said Harry.
"Dunno," said Fred, "but it's them we'll have to fool. I reckon a couple of drops of Aging Potion might do it, George. . . "
"Dumbledore knows you're not of age, though," I said pointedly.
"Yeah, but he's not the one who decides who the champion is, is he?" said Fred shrewdly. "Sounds to me like once this judge knows who wants to enter, he'll choose the best from each school and never mind how old they are. Dumbledore's trying to stop us giving our names. "
"People have died, though!" said Hermione in a worried voice as they walked through a door concealed behind a tapestry and started up another, narrower staircase.
"Yeah," said Fred airily, "but that was years ago, wasn't it? Anyway, where's the fun without a bit of risk? Hey, Ron, what if we find out how to get 'round Dumbledore? Fancy entering?"
"What d'you reckon?" Ron asked Harry. "Be cool to enter, wouldn't it? But I s'pose they might want someone older. . . . Dunno if we've learned enough. . . "
"You probably haven't," I chided, "besides, death? Hard pass, thank you- oh, for the love of fuck." I looked down to see that my foot had sunk right through a step halfway up the staircase. "The hell is this?"
"A trick step," said Harry plainly, taking my hand and pulling me up. "There's a bunch of them all around the castle."
"That's nice, it's good to know Hogwarts is basically a big riddle. Which step do you go in? Which staircase must you catch? What's the password? Which door do you go in?" I paused, before asking, "where are we going?"
"Gryffindor Tower," Hermione said as we began to see a large portrait of a fat lady in a pink silk dress.
"Password?" she said as we approached.
"Balderdash," said George, "a prefect downstairs told me. "
The portrait swung forward to reveal a hole in the wall through which we all climbed. A crackling fire warmed the circular common room, which was full of squashy armchairs and tables. Hermione cast the merrily dancing flames a dark look, and I distinctly heard her mutter "Slave labor" before bidding us good night and disappearing through the doorway to the girls' dormitory. Harry, Ron and the twins climbed up the spiral staircase which I presumed lead to the boys' dormitory when I found that I was holding a note in my hands.
Meet me in my office. I'm sure you have much to tell us.
A. D
P.S- I like cockroach clusters