Chapter Text
Draco Lucius Malfoy:
“Draco Malfoy!” Dumbledore sounded angry, and surprised, in a mix that Draco did not like.
He could feel his heart pounding in his chest, and he looked over at Theodore for a few seconds. Their eyes met, and they shared a look. They both knew that Draco had not entered his name himself in the Goblet, he had been studying the whole night with Theodore, and the rest of their friends.
Go. Dumbledore won’t be happy about it, but didn’t you say you wanted to compete yesterday, now you will be able to do exactly that. So go”. Theodore said quietly, but kindly, and Draco stood up, and had to control every muscle in his body not to fall back against the table. He slowly walked against the podium, showing that he was powerful, and not scared at all. That he didn’t care, but on the inside his heart was pounding. He felt empty and at the same time heavy, like he was filled with stone.
At the podium he stopped right in front of the Headmaster and smiled ever so slightly, before he let his eyes slide over to the note Dumbledore held in his hand. Draco looked at his own name, written in a handwriting that wasn’t his, staring back at him, and then back at Dumbledore. He did that a few times, before he sighed and strode over to the room where the four other Champions had been pointed.
He ripped open the door with a little more power than he should have, and to make it seem like he meant it, he slammed the door behind him. He was irritated and didn’t notice the shouting until half a minute after he walked in.
Diggary was standing leaned against one of the walls, the older boy had a look on his face that said something along the lines of him not even being shocked since it was Potter. His muscles were tense, and he didn’t seem happy about being able to represent the school in the Tournament. His gray eyes met Draco’s, and he nodded at Diggory.
Krum mostly seemed worried about the fact that Potter was in the Tournament, and not that he had to compete against him, and Delacour was screaming at Potter in broken English. She broke into French sometimes and even if Draco understood her, it was obvious that Potter didn’t.
Draco stayed by the door until someone but Diggory noticed him, and it obviously was Potter.
“Malfoy”. He sounded both like he knew very much more than Draco, and that he wanted to understand why he was there.
“Yes, Potter”. Draco answered in the same tone as he usually did. “I’m also chosen, so miss, you can move over so that I can sit. Apparently the Goblet has gone crazy, and started spitting out random names, and it somehow knew that Potter over there, seems to like to be part of everything”. Draco kept talking about Harry outshining people, and everything like that, both to comfort himself with the knowledge that Potter wasn’t as special this time, and to tell the other Champions about it. To warn them about it.
Draco sat down besides Delacour, who gave him an offended look, and he knew that she just judged everything he had. She was stunningly beautiful, had veelablood in her veins, but Draco had realised only hours after she arrived, that she did not have the same kind of allure on him that she did the other boys. He had played it away as him being a Malfoy, but he knew that it was because of a different reason.
“C'est dingue, deux petits garçons qui participent au tournoi. Je ne sais pas du tout comment mes parents vont le prendre, moi qui vais les affronter, et peut-être même leur faire mal…” Delacour whispered to herself, as she was staring at the floor in a way that made it visible that she was nervous.
She was worried about hurting him and Potter, which Draco thought was pretty sweet. She was not angry about them being in the Tournament. She was afraid that she would hurt them, or that someone else would.
“Okay, I think we have to talk, all five of us”. Diggory said with a shrug. “The Goblet obviously has gone crazy, letting both Harry and Malfoy… Draco, enter. This changes everything for all of us”. He continued losing the tiny smile he had on his face. “This will be hard for us, who are over seventeen. Harry and Ma… Draco, you might get seriously hurt. There is a chance that one of you will be sent into Sankt Mungos and stay there for months. That chance is there for us too, but not as big. We have more power than you, and we know more spells. I would say that we could tutor you until the last task, since that will be the most dangerous one, but I also know that I’m talking about Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy”.
Draco smirked as he looked over at Harry, who had stuck his hands in his robepockets.
“Nervous Potter?”
“Yes, I am Malfoy, but so should you be”.
“Why?”
“Guess?! We are in a lethal Tournament that has killed hundreds, and we are competing against three seventeen year old wizards and witches. So I have all the right to be nervous. Viktor knows more dark magic than me, you and Cedric combined. Fleur is better at charmwork than either of us will ever be, since that is Beauxbatons’ specialty. Cedric is good at defensive spells, really good at it even, so we have some competition that will be hard to break through, even if they teach us everything they know”.
Draco sighed as Potter, showing that he didn’t care, but inside he was panicking since what Potter was saying was completely true. He turned his attention back to Diggary, still with a pounding heart, who once again started talking.
“Krum, Delacour, I will refer to you as Viktor and Fleur now. That is easier, and more personal, and we are all stuck in this together”. That earned a nod from Krum and a fast “oui” from Fleur. “Then we are back to square one. We have two fourteen year olds competing with us, and against us at the same time. I will be shocked if Harry doesn’t win in some way in the end, because he somehow always manages to do something crazy at the end of the school year, but right now I’m going to ignore that detail. So we have to tutor them. I will teach them some of the more advanced defence spells, and then I would want you to see if you could find something you can teach them too. We can make a layout tomorrow, because they will need guidance through this.” Diggory grew quiet and so did the room. Completely quiet, in a very uncomfortable silence.
“Sure, ve can help Harry and… ehh… Draco. Miss?” Krum started and looked over at Delacour. She smiled at him, but did nothing else.
Harry was moving his weight from foot to foot, and it was easy to see then he was nervous. Really nervous for what Delacour was going to say.
“Okay, we can ‘elp zem. ‘Arry, Draco, we will ‘elp you through ze Tournament. Cedric, you can choose a place for us to meet” Delacour said, with a smile that very easily was detectable as a false one. “And ze time”. She added after a few seconds.
“Of course Fleur. We will meet at the entrance to the Forbidden Forest at three o’clock tomorrow. Harry, Draco, does that work for you?”
“That’s fine for me”. Potter answered in a monotone voice. He kept shooting glances at the door, and then checking the time. It was like he was nervous someone would burst in and kill them all any second.
Draco nodded to show his agreement, and then right after Diggory started speaking with Krum, Dumbledore, Karkaroff and Madame Maxime burst in, looking worried. They looked over the five of them, and they realised that nothing had happened to them, they seemed very relieved. Draco did not understand why everyone was acting so weird.
Draco slipped one hand into his robepocket and found the note. The note that had somehow known more about him than he had.
The paper was soft, and easily bendable, so he started bending it and playing with it to distract himself from the thought that the headmistress of Beauxbatons was shouting at Harry, in French, and that she would most likely do the same to him in a few minutes.
She walked over to Draco after about two minutes, and she looked him in his eyes, even if that meant Draco had to look up at her, and she started shouting. She screamed about it being rude of him to enter his name, and that Hogwarts should not be allowed three champions. She kept shouting until she had gone through every single one of the reasons it was rude for Hogwarts to have three Champions.
Draco sighed and in perfect French answered her that “yes, it might have been purely rude of Hogwarts to have three Champions, but also that both him and Potter didn’t put their names in the Goblet, but it was since the Goblet that had gone crazy” and Fleur gasped. Madame Maxime had just looked at him for a few seconds before Severus had walked in. That made the room grow quiet, and he gestured for them to continue. It was just the normal stuff after that. Draco listened closely to the description of the task and what was going to happen, and what was legal. Not very much. After that Dumbledore, Karkaroff and Madame Maxime started arguing again and Severus managed to save him from their yelling, by saying that he had to get back to his dorm now. Or something like that, with a little bit more focus on his age, which meant Severus saved both him and Potter from the room, and Draco could see the relief in Potter’s face.
They had just gotten to know a few details about the first task, and the most important part was that it was twenty-fourth November and it was to test their daring and courage.
Draco was nervous about it, very nervous, because he was in Slytherin for a reason. He was brave, sure he was, but not like a Gryffindor, not like Potter. Potter could do everything without thinking about it more than once, Draco had to think through everything four or five times before he did it.
Draco’s bed is not as comfortable as it was in the morning. It felt weird being back in his dorm, but it might also have to do with the fact that he was the center of attention at that moment. The four other boys in his dorm, Theodore, Blaise, Gregory and Vincent, all were staring at him, waiting for him to tell them exactly what happened in the room.
Draco glanced over at Theodore, who smiled at him, and he smiled back, and then told the four boys everything. He told them about the task, about what the other Champions were like, and how the Professors had reacted. Blaise asked about Potter, and Draco had answered that Potter seemed to be just as shocked and surprised about everything that happened as Draco was.
Draco continued to answer the stupidest of questions that Vincent and Gregery kept asking, but the only thing he actually was able to think about was that there was quite a bit of possibility for him to die in the Tournament. There was a reason why Dumbledore had put up the age line. It was so that students under seventeen would understand that the Tournament was deadly. That hundreds of people had died in it, and many more had been fatally wounded.
Draco noticed that Theodore wanted to say something, and then he gave Theodore the chance, he blurted out that there had been another champion spit out of the Goblet. A boy named Tom Riddle, who Dumbledore said had been dead for soon fourteen years. That scared Draco very much. There was someone that was going to compete in the Tournament that had been dead for over thirteen years. That someone was going to have to compete, because it had been pulled out of the Goblet, after what his father had told him about it. The Goblet was one of the most ancient and dangerous things in modern wizard history.
After an hour and a half Gregory and Vincent gave up asking Draco questions that he didn’t want to answer, and walked out of the dorm. Blaise followed them with a book under his arm. It was only Draco and Theodore left in the dorm, and none of them knew what to do.
“So nervous about our OWLs next year?” Theodore asked quietly, while playing with a quill in his hand.
“Quite. If I fail them my parents won’t be happy since I have to take over after my father”.
“Like you of all people would fail your OWLs. That is impossible. You have the best grades of all the Slytherins.” Theodore laughed with a careless smile.
“Granger has better grades than me. Somehow a Mudblood has better grades than me!” Draco mumbles, irritated and his hands tremble ever so slightly at the thought of Granger being better at magic than him.
“She doesn’t count! She won’t get anywhere in this world.” Theodore exclaimed, even if both of them knew that it wasn’t true. They had both heard Severus mumble about the Brightest Witch of this Age, and it was easy to understand it was Granger he was talking about. Severus didn’t like Granger, he might even hate her, but he couldn’t not see that Granger was one of the smartest people he had ever met. She would get a long way in the Wizarding World.
“You know just as well as me, that that’s not true. How do you think your OWLs will go, Theodore?” Draco asked in a half mocking tone.
“Draco! Don’t call me Theodore. You know I hate it. It sounds so formal. Call me Theo.”
“Does Theodora work?” Draco laughed.
“No, stupid, it does not, but I think my OWLs will go fine”. Theodore answered Draco’s actual question, changing the subject back to what it was before. “I have over one and a half years left to study for them, and unless something really crazy happens in the next year and a half I think I will be fine.”
“What do you think you will do when you become an adult?” Draco asked, asking something he always had wanted to ask.
“Want to or have to?”
“You know what I mean”.
“I have to take over after my father, corrupting the world more, and I have actually never thought about what I would want to be if I didn’t have to take over as Lord Nott after my father. And you, do you have any dream job you would want to work at?”
“I have the same problem. I am Lord Malfoy, the second my father dies, but if I had the choice of actually choosing what I would want to work as I would become a professional Quidditch player. That is something I always dreamt about, especially when I was little”.
Theodore placed an arm around Draco’s shoulder and Draco felt how his stomach filled with butterflies. He knew it was stupid, because boys didn’t like boys. That was basically forbidden. Illegal. Everyone knew that. Especially Draco, he had heard it since he was only a few years old, and wanted to try on his mother’s clothes. That was the first time he felt the Cruciatus curse, but absolutely not the last. He had cried for hours afterward, but he also knew that it was stupid to try on girl clothes. He was a boy, and as one he had to marry a woman, fall in love with one, and make an heir.
“Draco, it’s getting late, we should go to sleep”. Theodore whispers into Draco’s ear, sending electric waves through Draco’s whole body.
Draco quickly nodded, and they got ready for bed. As Theodore changed into his pyjamas Draco couldn't help but look over, seeing Theodore’s slim figure, and muscular back.
Draco quickly turned his head back and changed into his own pyjamas, before saying goodnight to Theodore and getting in under the sheets.
Draco sat up staring at the ceiling for a few minutes, trying to calm his breathing. The nightmare he had was horrible, he dreamt about himself dying in the tournament. There had been blood everywhere, and he had seen his family cry over his dead body, as he tried to tell them that he was still alive. It had been so realistic that Draco thought it was real long after he had woken up.
He was still panting, but during that second he decided that telling his parents that he was competing might help him somewhat. His father might even be able to get him out of it. Out of the Tournament, and make him safe again.
Draco wrote the letter and he was very happy about how it turned out. Then he sent it away with his owl, Noire, and sat down on his bed, staring at his hands, which had been stained with ink.
“Draco? It’s the middle of the night, what is it?” Theodore asked quietly, and Draco couldn’t help but smile at him.
“I… I had a nightmare, it’s nothing.”.
“It’s something if you are awake, and shivering”. Theodore mumbled as he sat up. “Want to talk about it?”
Draco shook his head, and Theodore pats the bed next to him, with a faint smile. “Well, you are sleeping in my bed for the rest of the night. Come here”.
Draco smirked ever so slightly and sat down on Theodore’s bed next to Theodore. Then he got pushed into the pillows, and started laughing at the absurdity of the situation. Everything had been crazy that day, but Draco had never fathomed being able to sleep in the same bed at Theodore.
“We have to sleep now, our lessons start like usual tomorrow, and it is already two in the morning”. Theodore mumbled in Draco’s ear, and laid down beside him.
Draco felt Theodore’s arms around himself shortly after Theodore had fallen asleep, and his heart started pounding. The wrong kind of pounding, it hurt, like there was something sharp, like metal in his heart, and for each beat it broke him even more. He bit his lip over and over, and after what felt like hours he finally managed to fall asleep, but that was only after Theodore had moved even closer, and was laying pressed against him.
In some weird way Draco felt both the safest he had been in months, and the most scared he had been in months. And the blend was uncomfortable. Both made his heart pound, and made him both tense and relaxed at the same time. It was a weird feeling, but Draco managed to fall asleep.
Lord Voldemort:
The house was the exact same amount of disgusting as it had been when he had visited it when he was young, to kill his father, and cover up the tracks of him being a halfblood.
Voldemort hated the place, but he also knew that it was the last place anyone would search for him. It was the place he had told Pettigrew to take him to, even if he hated the place.
He heard someone apparate outside of the house and he reacted by screaming at Pettigrew to cover him up. Only a few seconds later a young man walked in. Barty Crouch Junior. One of his most faithful followers.
“Barty”. He hissed, in his usual manner.
The young man jumped ever so lightly and bowed deeply in front of Voldemort. At the same time Voldemort noted that Pettigrew had made his way out of the room.
“Do you have a rapport for me?”
“Yes, my Lord, I do. I entered Potter into the Goblet like you told me to. He is one of the Champions now, but there is one more problem. There were two other people too. Draco Malfoy is the fifth Champion, and I promise you my Lord, I did not put his name in the Goblet”, Barty said, his tongue playing in and out of his mouth.
“And who was the last one”, Voldemort said without showing any of the shock he felt about the Malfoy boy being in the Tournament.
“I don’t know who he is, but Dumbledore said he had been dead for a little more than thirteen years.”
“The name!”Voldemort shouted, having lost his temper with Barty.
“Yes, my Lord. His name was Tom Riddle…”
Voldemort took one shaky breath and then he went back to staring with bloodred eyes at Barty. An uncomfortable silence had formed in between them, and Voldemort could see on Barty’s face that he was scared.
“Crucio”. Voldemort said with a bored tone, and Barty fell to the ground screaming in pain.
Voldemort looked bored as he tortured Barty, but he was panicking inside. His old name was pulled from the Goblet, and from what he knew there were only a few chosen people that knew that name, and Dumbledore, he also knew. It was either someone new that had gotten to know about his old name somehow or it was Dumbledore who had put his old name in the Goblet.
Voldemort ended his Cruciatus curse on Barty, and sent the shaking young man away after telling him that a single word about anything suspicious could get him killed at Hogwarts.
About two hours later Voldemort started to worry about if he actually would have to compete in the Tournament. He, like everyone else that had spent a lot of time in the Hogwarts Library, knew that the Goblet of Fire was an old artefact. One that was so dangerous it could pull magic from a person, and even kill them. That scared Voldemort. That actually scared him, but Barty said that the first task was not until late November, so he had time to think it through. And even if the time was ticking and nothing was going in the direction that he wanted it too. It had not been going in the right direction in over fourteen years.
He almost called on Pettigrew when a pain worse than splitting his soul hit what was left of his body and he slowly fell out of the chair, hissing, as if he had forgotten that he ever spoke English. He hissed, and hissed, but Pettigrew didn’t seem to hear him.
He laid on the floor, trying to signal that he was in pain, until he started seizing and lost the ability to communicate. He kept shaking for eleven minutes and forty-seven seconds, before he managed to raise his hands up to his face. They were disappearing, and so was his whole body. Everything went black as a cloud of black smoke came from the armchair where Voldemort had been sitting. That was the last anyone ever saw of the Dark Lord Voldemort.
Harry James Potter:
The inside of Harry’s eyes lit up with a sudden light. It was only there for a second, and then it disappeared, but pain as painful as getting hit with the Killing Curse spread through Harry’s head.
He almost screamed, but decided in a split second to keep quiet since he didn’t want to wake anyone up. Harry slowly got out of bed, his feet hitting the cold floor sending shivers throughout his body. He shivered and shivered, like there was something missing, and he looked out of the window, seeing his reflection in it. He was bleeding profusely from the scar. Harry had not noticed it since the pain had been so intense, but it was subsiding, and becoming a dull throbbing pain, one that was like one of the lighter Horcrux-headaches.
He was really confused. Nothing like this had happened in his last life. He had never started bleeding from the scar, and he had only felt that kind of pain once. That was when Voldemort hit him with the Killing Curse the second time. When Voldemort’s soulpiece was pulled from his forehead.
Harry slowly started piecing things together, and he realised that that must have been exactly what happened. Something must have pulled Voldemort’s soulpiece out of his head.
“Is there a possibility he returns even earlier this time?” Harry whispered to himself, still staring out the window.
The Durmstrang ship still had some windows lit up, even if it was getting closer to three in the morning. Harry was not really able to see the ship, but he could guess himself to a shape standing on the deck. Someone who looked out over the lake.
Harry waited until the shape had disappeared, and went into the bathroom to wipe the blood off his forehead.
He sat down on his bed trying to figure out how he was going to fall asleep again. Not that he had to think for long, because his exhaustion made him fall asleep faster than he actually wanted.
He:
The young boy stared down at a pair of hands, a pair of hands that seconds ago had been clutching a note. The note had he himself written, and it only had one name on it. A name that he from then on was going to refer to himself as.
He looked up when he heard a sound that he had never heard before. It sounded like a wind through trees, blended with a scream. Shuddering he took a few steps toward, trying to figure out what was going on.
He had just been sitting on his bed in the Slytherin dorm, and now he was standing in a completely white space, with something happening over and over around him even if he couldn’t see it.
After looking around for minutes on end, trying to figure out how long it would take before he stopped dreaming, he could see how the white wall in front of him started getting pulled back. It was like the wall was soft, like halfdried paint, and someone pulled on it. It slowly started cracking, and it started swirling. He stepped back, trying not to get too close, since the wall-swirl was sucking him against it with a strength that scared him.
He backed until he walked straight into something. Looking around he couldn't see anything but he noticed quickly that there was no way of him getting through the wall on the other side, and the wall-swirl was spinning faster and faster for each second that passed. It sucked him against itself, and the edges of the swirl were starting to get blurry.
He screamed as it managed to suck him in, since he didn’t have anything to hold on to. Expecting to wake up he opened his eyes, and the first thing he saw was a forest. A dark black forest, and then he noticed the sky, it was a deep pinkish purple, but there were still stars shining.
He stood up, having to hold on to a tree to get his legs to stop shaking. His body aching like it had been put together piece by piece again and every time a gush of wind hit him he wanted to fall to the ground.
He kept looking around trying to find a way out of the forest. He did not find anything at all. Not a single gap in between the trees, nothing. It was darker than the deepest of nights.
The forest just got deeper as he walked, he felt like he had walked forever, but when the sun slowly rose over the trees, he sat down on the ground. He shoved his hands into the ground, the soft moss closing gently around his fingers. Listening to the sounds of the forest he heard hooves hitting the ground, and gigantic fangs slamming together.
It didn’t take long before he noticed that the ground was filled with small spiders going in a straight line deeper into the forest. He had seen that in a book. It talked about Aromantulas, and how the small spiders were pulled against the big ones.
He stood up slowly, wanting to get away from the spiders as fast as possible, since there were bigger spiders much closer than he would have liked, since he could hear their fangs slamming together.
He ran until his ragged breaths didn’t reach his lungs anymore, and he had to stop. He stood leaned against a tree for over an hour, trying to regain what strength he had before he ran. He did not have the energy to stay standing after that, so he sank down on the ground under the tree. The low branches offered him shelter from the rain that had started falling, but his clothes were already sticking to his body, making him colder and colder for each minute that passed.
He looked down on himself and his shirt was covered in blood. He unbuttoned it, and saw a wound he had not even realised he had gotten. It was not deep, but it was bleeding a lot. He searched from his wand to stop the bleeding, but realised that it still was laying on his bedside table. His hand trembled as he went back to the muggle methods that he was raised with. There had been a lot of wounded people in the war, and when he was a little younger he had been taught, even though reluctantly, to bandage and take care of wounded people.
That was after the first bombings of London, that hurt him more than he expected. It managed to miss the orphanage every time, but every time he was just as scared. The first bombing of London was in September, exactly on the seventh of September, and he had been out on the street, right outside of the orphanage, trying to use wandless magic for the first time. The bomb had landed about ninety meters from him, and it had shattered all of the orphanage's windows, but he had somehow not gotten hurt at all, and neither had the orphanage. He had walked out of the splinters of laying houses and laughed. Then someone had pulled him with them, and had him help the wounded. He had been thirteen years old, and when he last saw the orphanage, it had been the same situation in the whole of London.
Dead people laid on the streets for days after the bombings, and no one wanted to clean up, since there was a chance they themselves got bombed. He had thought that was crazy since there were bodies rotting on the ground, since they sometimes laid there for weeks, especially when there were only parts of the people left.
He ripped a part of his shirt and bandaged the wound on his chest, only looking quickly at the scars leaping all over his body. Scars he had not shown anyone. Scars that were hidden away from everyone. Scars that he had not yet accepted how he got them.
“I want to get out of here!” He cried to himself, and his shoulders started shaking as he burst out crying for the first time in years.
There was so much upon his shoulders that he didn’t know how to handle it, and then he got stuck in the forest, still having no idea on how he got there. That scared him. He had not felt this helpless in years, the last time he felt like this he had not yet started Hogwarts, and the rest of the children at the orphanage didn’t want to be close to him.
His hands shook, as he wiped the tears from his cheek over and over, trying to figure out what he was supposed to do. It was early morning, but he was completely exhausted, and he had not heard any weird noises in a while. He didn’t know if he was supposed to try and sleep, or continue walking to see if he could get somewhere that wasn’t the forest.
He curls together under the tree to get some warmth, breathing as quietly as he could. After only a few minutes his exhaustion made the choice for him, and he fell asleep.
The next time he gained consciousness it was light outside. The sun was in the middle of the sky, so he guessed at what time it should be. It should be around noon, so he had only slept a few hours.
He stood up, still on shaking legs, and he wanted to give up. So lay down and stay there until someone found him, even if he knew that if he did that no one would find him, not alive at least.
He walked slowly, over the course of a few hours, only meeting a thestral once, and it had let him pet it. It had been scary, but he had petted it, and it had let him up on its back. He had ridden on it for almost an hour and a half, when it abruptly stopped, and he could hear sounds of other humans.
He thanked the thestral by bowing deeply and petting it some more, before he kept walking against the sound of people. It still took him almost an hour before he reached the outskirts of the forest, and saw something he didn’t expect. He saw Hogwarts. That made him realise where he had just spent over twelve hours. In the Forbidden Forest.
He could have gotten killed any second there, but he survived, with only a wound he inflicted on himself, and a few scratches from branches and such. He sat down next to a tree, exhausted but happy that he had found his way back to Hogwarts. The thing was that he did not know who any of the faces that walked close by was. None of them realised he was there, and neither did he want them too, since he didn’t know how they were. He did not see a single face that he had seen even once before.
There was a big light blue carriage standing by a house that he had never seen before. He was able to see the lake too, and in the lake there was a gigantic ship. There were a lot of people going in and out of both the ship and the carriage.
He was confused, since that had not been there when he walked inside after his last lesson of the day, that had been herbology.
“Hi”. A voice behind him said, and he turned around faster than he thought was humanly possible.
Behind him stood a ghost. A girl. She didn’t look older than fourteen, and she was wearing a school uniform, with a ravenclaw tie. She smiled at him, and smiled back.
“Hi, what are you doing here?”
“I’m tired of haunting the bathroom, and the lake is boring with the ship, since it scares away the fish and the creatures. The more important question is, why are you here?” She said, as she crossed her arms, trying to look older. Not that it worked, it only made her look cute, and a lot younger. She uncrossed them and sighed. “Why would you answer me? I’m just a crazy bathroom ghost”.
“I… I was going to answer you, I was just admiring your courage. I would not have walked up to a stranger the way you just did”. He said as fast as possible, and since it was half true she took it as the truth.
“You think I have courage? I only walked up to you since I knew that you couldn’t kill me. Now tell me about why you are here, since that is not the correct school uniform anymore”. She smirked, with a bluntness that was only possible to have when you knew that no one could do something about it.
“I don’t know how I got here. I’ve been in the forest for over twelve hours, I think, and I can’t recognise anyone.
“What time are you from?”
“What?”
“You have the same uniform as me, and that one was changed only a few months after I died, so what time are you from, since anyone could realise that you are not from now”.
“Last time I checked a calendar it was the thirty-first of October nineteen forty-one”.
“You are since before I died. That’s a first. We must have gone to Hogwarts together, even if you seem to be older than me. How old are you?”
“I’m fourteen, but I turn fifteen in December. How old are you?
“I was born in nineteen twenty-nine, and I died when I was fourteen, at the end of my school year, but do math and I am sixtyfive, but I feel like I am fourteen, so that is what I tend to say.
“I’m sorry, but what is your name?” He asked after it got really quiet for a few minutes.
She grinned so big that it looked scary. “I’m Myrtle. Myrtle Elizabeth Warren, and I have to go now. I have to go back to haunting the bathrooms, since that is my role in this school”.
She ended the conversion very quickly and he watched as she flew away. He somehow had gotten fond of a girl that he didn’t even know. He only knew that she had a traumatic past, and that was enough for him to get fond of her. Not that he would ever fall in love with a ghost, but he felt like he understood her more than she might have thought he did.
He crossed his legs and laid down on the ground, looking straight up at the sky, that was completely clear. It was warmer than it had been at this time in his own time, because from Myrtle’s reaction he was in the future. Maybe he had made a bad choice in name. Maybe he should not have chosen a new name for himself.
He should not have made a new name, a french one, since he was allowed to follow Abraxas to France, and had realised that most english speaking people would not understand a word of what he was saying, but they would know the name he had chosen for himself, and not the name his mother had given him. Not that it was a bad name, it was just hard to have people not think he was muggleborn directly when they heard his name. It had been hard to try and get people to understand that he was a halfblood, and not a muggleborn. It had taken him two years to earn the trust from his friends in Slytherin, all because of his first name.
He decided in that second that he didn’t care how bad his name might be, but he was going to keep it. He was going to be Tom Riddle, and never Voldemort. Never. Tom Marvolo Riddle, and the biggest change in his name he could do was change his given name to Marvolo, even if it had a bad reputation in the rest of the houses.
Lucius Abraxas Malfoy:
Lucius took the letter from the plate that the house-elf held up for him. The neat writing that looked so much like Narcissa’s told him that it was Draco who had written him a letter, surely to tell him everything about the three Triwizard Champions.
Lucius opened the letter and smiled at the writing before he started to read.
Dear Father,
Today has been crazy. Let me first tell you about how Dumbledore started the whole tournament. He welcomed the other students, from the other schools. Viktor Krum is still a student at Durmstrang! Would I have been anyone else, I would have asked for his autograph, but he sat down next to Potter, so I am no longer interested in even thinking that again.
The Hogwarts Champion is Cedric Diggory, a Hufflepuff, which is unfortunate. The Beauxbatons Champion is Fleur Delacour, and the Durmstrang Champion Viktor Krum.
Then here comes the crazy part. The Goblet went crazy and spit out three more names. Potter, like usual, gets to be a main character, a name I’ve never heard before, and my name.
Father, I am one of the Champions. I will have to compete in the Tournament, and if there is one thing I don’t want it is that. If there is any possibility for you to get me out of the Tournament legally, without killing me or taking my magic away, I would be forever grateful.
I am good at magic, but not good enough to survive in the Tournament. It would be fun, but that is not overshadowing how scared I am. I would have to fight a Durmstrang Wizard, and they are well known for using dark magic against people.
Now I have ranted about that enough, and I am just going to tell you about the name that also came out of the Goblet. It was Tom Riddle. Dumbledore says he has been dead for fourteen years, that is what Theodore said at least.
I love you,
Draco Lucius Malfoy
Lucius threw the letter even if it didn’t get long, and Narcissa came running into their bedroom, only seconds later.
“What is it, Lucius, what is it?!” She asked, scared, after she had picked up the letter.
“Draco is a Triwizard Champion. The Goblet went crazy, with Draco’s words, and now he is expecting me to get him out of there. I can’t get him out of there. I studied the Goblet for months before it went to the school, the contract exists until you have competed in all three of the tasks. I will not be able to get him out…” Lucius’ hands were clutched around the sheets of the bed, and that was the only sign of anger he showed.
Narcissa sat down next to him, taking his hand, holding it against her cheek. He placed his arms around her and they just held on to each other for a few minutes without saying a word.
Narcissa cried into Lucius' shoulder, and he swallowed hard, trying over and over to not start crying. He loved Draco so much, he was their only child after years of trying, and now there was a possibility that he lost him. That they lost their son.
“What if he doesn’t make it…” Narcissa put words on both of their thoughts.
“He will. We will just tell him not to try and win, but to try and survive. Hopefully the older students realise that there is nothing he could do, and try to keep him alive. I’ll send him a letter explaining the situation, tomorrow”. Lucius sighed.
“Why tomorrow?”
“I have some research to do tonight, and I did not sleep last night, so I have to sleep some now instead… I know that there is no way to make the bond dissolve with legal magic, but there is always illegal magic, and that is something at least".
Narcissa sighed and kissed him on the forehead, and hugged him. He smiled and kissed her, before she walked out of the room. He on the other hand stayed sitting, waiting for something to happen. He thought back to Draco’s letter and realised pretty quickly that there was a name he recognised. Tom Riddle.
That name he had read over and over a few years ago. A name that was written in the diary that he had left to the Weasley girl. The Dark Lord’s diary. His old name, the one that they were never told to tell anyone about.
His father had told him about who the Dark Lord was as a teen, since they were the same age. Lucius had heard a lot of stories from when the Dark Lord was young, and how he became more and more evil for each year that passed, and became more and more of a psychopath as each year passed.
Lucius didn’t realise that Draco would have to compete against the Dark Lord, until he had already laid down to get a few hours of sleep, before he started to research, and almost had fallen asleep.
Draco said that the name Tom Riddle was taken from the Goblet, and that means that he was going to have to compete against the Dark Lord himself.
Lucius flew out of bed. “Narcissa! Narcissa! Come here quickly! Now, kindly!” He screamed as he pulled on a gown. He ran out into the corridor and
down to the living room, and he met Narcissa in the middle of the room.
“Are you hurt?” She breathed, worried.
“No, but Draco will be in a few weeks”.
“Did you have a nightmare?”
“No sweetheart, I just realised that Draco wrote one more name in the letter. Tom Riddle!”
“Is that important?”
“He would be very happy that you don’t know that name at all, but Tom Riddle is the Dark Lord. That was his name before he switched to the Dark Lord! Draco is going to compete against the Dark Lord in the Triwizard Tournament!”
Lucius had enough time to catch Narcissa, who passed out in his arms, and all he could feel was panic. He couldn’t breathe, he would lose his son in less than a month…