Chapter Text
“Dad, dad! We are going to see Rose and Hugo!” Albus exclaimed as he ran up to Harry, and grabbed onto Harry’s leg, jumping up and down unable to contain his excitement.
“Are you going with us?” James asked ever so sweetly, even if Harry knew that James already knew the answer. It had been the same answer for as long as he’d been alive.
Even if Harry tried to keep work and his homelife separate, it didn’t work like that in practice.
“No, unfortunately not. I have work to do, but have fun meeting Rose and Hugo. You have been talking about this for half a week now”. Harry sighed with a smile, as he put on Lily her coat, and kissed Ginny on the cheek.
He waved through the window as the snowflakes stuck to Ginny’s fiery red hair, and James threw himself on the ground rolling around in the thirty centimeter thick snow. Ginny had to chase after him, tripping in the snow, but Albus on the other hand waved back at Harry, holding Lily’s hand, steering her against the floopoint about fifty meters from their home. They were unable to keep a floo in the house, since people kept popping up uninvited. People that wanted to thank Harry for saving the world.
Harry stayed at the window until his family had disappeared into the floo, he then turned back to his work. He was brewing a potion, something he had found himself doing more and more often as time passed. He was good at it, since there no longer was a professor or other students trying to ruin it for him.
He had been working on the potion for months, trying to find a way to get it to work like it should. During the last test he did, it had worked a little, but it didn’t keep the frog he tried it on alive for more than a few extra minutes. Harry had researched everything about life and death, and about magic that could keep someone alive, and that could kill someone. In the Draught of Living Death there were ingredients used to do the opposite of what they were supposed to.
Harry had figured out that Basilisk Venom was the fastest killing thing on the planet, that wasn’t a curse. It could kill a human in less than ten minutes, and make them unconscious after only three.
The steel cup was burning hot in his hand, and the venom looked black. It was from the basilisk that Harry had killed when he was twelve, but Harry had no idea on which colour the venom was supposed to have. He had tried to research it, but it was impossible to find anything about it anywhere. He had asked people who had handled creatures before, but none of them had an answer to him. The black venom, and the burning hot cup in his hand didn’t do much to tell him if it was supposed to look like that or not.
“The worst thing that can happen is that it doesn’t work”. Harry mumbled to himself as he placed down the cup with Basilisk venom and poured one fifth of the potion into another cauldron. The black venom, that had taken him weeks to extract from the basilisk teeth, was thick and the smell stung in his nose. It dripped slowly into the potion and when everything was blended, Harry waited. The potion slowly changed colour from a light green to a dark green, almost black.
Harry took a spoonful out of it and dripped on one of the frogs, after he had cut it open. The wound sealed, but right before it was completely sealed the frog exploded. Harry could not find parts of the frog. He found parts of the body and legs, but nothing of the head. Not an eye, not any part of the brain, nothing. It confused Harry but he wiped everything clean and turned back to the cauldron, only to see something he really didn’t want to see. Bubbles, big bubbles in the potion, making it look almost exactly like tar. One of the bubbles popped and it smelled like rotten flesh, the smell so intense that it made Harry gag.
He turned off the heat, but nothing worked. It was like the potion was boiling on its own. The bubbles were popping more and more often, and Harry could feel the heat from the potion from meters away. He searched for his wand, but couldn’t find it. His back hit the wall, as the potion started making sounds.
Harry stayed back against the wall for over ten minutes, before the potion suddenly grew quiet. No popping bubbles, no gurgling noises, but quiet. Eerily quiet. He slowly walked toward the cauldron and when he looked down into it, everything grew black.
He screamed higher than he ever had before, the pain being more than he could take. The floor came closer and closer, and he could almost not open his eyes. The pain was something he had only felt once before, in his second year at Hogwarts when he got the basilisk tooth in his arm. Fawkes had healed him that time, but now there was no one to heal him. Harry knew that he would be dead in minutes, so he curled up in a ball, hoping his tears would clean his cheeks from the burning.
He thought about Ginny, her smile, her laugh. Them flying through the sky the day she got accepted as a professional Quidditch player. A chaser. They had loved it, and then she had gotten pregnant with James. James Sirius Potter. The sweetest little boy you could imagine, but two years later Albus Severus Potter was born, and they understood that James was not as sweet as they thought. He was kind and he loved his brother, but he was a mischief maker, just like his namesakes had been. Albus on the other hand was the kind, smart and thoughtful of the two. He didn’t like to joke around as much as James did, and he spent much more time with Lily when she was born one year after him.
Lily Luna Potter was the smartest of the three. She loved learning, and she had started using wandless magic before she turned one and a half. Neither Harry nor Ginny told her not to, and Hermione taught her everything she wanted to know. Lily usually never talked, and Harry knew that it was since she was shy and she didn’t like to talk. She almost never said anything, but when she said something it was very important.
Harry felt himself fall into the space between life and death as he closed his eyes and curled together even tighter. Every muscle in his body cramping.
“Harry, Harry, wake up!” Someone shouted.
Harry opened his eyes and looked into a freckled face with a pair of deep blue eyes. A pair of eyes he had looked into so many times before. Ron’s blue eyes, and freckled face, even if he looked a lot younger than he did before Harry died.
“Ron?” Harry sounded as confused as he was, and he lifted his hands to see that he actually was physical. He was very confused as to why he still was alive, if he was alive…?
“It’s today the students from the other schools arrive. Dumbledore said they will be here after lunch, and we are excused from all our lessons today, not that Hermione will be happy”. Ron laughed, as Harry tried to figure out what time it was.
“You said the students from the other schools are arriving. You mean the Durmstrang and Beauxbatons students?” He said as he pulled on one of his schoolrobes, and tied his tie.
“Harry, are you having memory loss? Everyone has been talking about this since Dumbledore revealed everything about the Triwizard tournament during the welcoming feast”. Ron sounded confused, worried and excited, all in two sentences.
“No, I’m just tired. I didn’t sleep very well last night”. Harry lied as soon as the thought popped up in his head. “I was too excited for today”.
Ron nodded thoughtfully, and the second both of them had clothes on Ron pulled Harry down from their dorm, into the common room, where Hermione was already waiting. She smiled happily at them, but especially against Ron, something Harry noticed only because he knew she was in love with him at the time. Ron was oblivious enough to not notice how Hermione hanged on his arm, trying to get him to notice that she was a girl, and Harry wanted to facepalm. He had been just as oblivious to it when he was younger, and he was still sad about that. Everything could have turned out very differently if he just had noticed things.
“Harry, you are very quiet today. Why?” Hermione sounded concerned when she said it, but she kept smiling, since she had whispered it in his ear.
Harry smiled back at her, and slowed down so there would become a gap between the three of them, and the other gryffindors on the way to breakfast. “I didn’t sleep very well last night, and I have a headache right now”. The headache part was actually true. Harry had forgotten how bad the horcrux-headaches could get, since it was over thirteen years since he had gotten them last.
Hermione gasped and grabbed his arm, harder than he thought she could, and she looked him straight into the eyes, and whispered “Is it the scar again?”
Harry nodded sternly and Hermione placed a hand over her mouth, like she was shocked, but Harry noticed that she was smiling. “It is nothing, I feel like I am going to have a migraine. He is most likely getting stronger, and that means I have to be more careful”.
Hermione nodded, and they continued to walk, not finding Ron anywhere. She sighed, as Harry smiled, and almost started to laugh. He had seen Ron get pulled away by the twins, who both looked very happy. It was long since he saw George that happy, but in this timeline, or universe, or whatever it now was, Fred had not yet lost his life.
“Where’s Ron?”
“The twins pulled him away, somewhere in the middle of our discussion. I’m sure we will find him at the table together with them”. Harry said, as he felt his stomach coo on the thought of food. It was like he had not eaten for months, or even years.
Harry wondered how long time had passed in his original timeline, since he had decided that after he died he was transported into another timeline, for a while, because it was so comical that it couldn’t be real. He couldn’t have gotten another chance at life just because. Fate wouldn’t give him that chance.
Breakfast had been good, and talking about the students from the other schools was fun. Harry knew things that the others didn’t and he had almost said things that he knew he shouldn’t reveal, but most of the times he had been able to say that it was something he believed, and not something that was true.
Lunch had been long, and everyone had been chattering around him. The headache Harry had, had gotten worse and worse during the day, and this time around he knew why. Voldemort was happy, he knew that Crouch would place Harry’s name in the Goblet of Fire, and Harry would have to compete.
That was the one thing Harry wasn’t scared about. He was not scared, or even afraid that he wouldn’t survive the tasks. He had done it once, when he was fourteen years old, and this time he had the mental capacity of a thirty year old. Not that he had tried his magic abilities since he woke up, but he knew that he was stronger than when he actually was fourteen.
“Harry! Hermione! Look!” Ron screamed in excitement as the Beauxbatons carriage landed right in front of them.
Harry smiled, as he had forgotten how magnificent the carriage actually was. It was a light blue colour with hints of green in it, and the winged horses stomped into the ground. Most of the students looked surprised, or even scared, but as Harry looked around Draco Malfoy stood leaned against a wall, with one of his eyebrows raised. Theodore Nott stood beside him, talking to him, with the same nonchalant look on his face, but his eyes looked weird, like they knew too much, but Harry didn’t care very much. Crabbe and Goyle stood on one side of them, with their mouths open staring at the carriage.
It took Harry a few seconds to notice that the Durmstrang boat had started to come out of the water, since the Beauxbatons students were getting out of the carriage. Harry looked over but estimated that there was still over ten minutes before the boat would reach the shore, and he turned back to the Beauxbatons students. Fleur was walking together with Madame Maxime, and behind them there was a blend of both girls and boys, walking two and two, almost gliding inside.
“Harry, the girl walking with the headmistress, did you see her?” Ron asked, almost salivating over Fleur.
Harry couldn’t help but roll his eyes, looking over at Ron. Hermione had already elbowed him in the side like five times, but Harry was not happy with that. “Ronald Bilius Weasley, do not even think about it. Sure, she was beautiful, most likely has veela blood in her because of the allure, but she is over 17, so at least three years older than you. Secondly you don’t know her. Look over at the Durmstrang students now. They are leaving the ship now”.
Ron sighed, but turned his head only to see Viktor Krum and start fangirling directly. Harry almost started laughing, but he kept quiet. In their old life, back right before Hermione became minister of magic she had invited Viktor back, and Ron had still been fangirling over him. He finally got his autograph, and Harry and Viktor kept in touch after that. This time Harry was going to try and save Ron the embarrassment of everything that happened to him in their fourth year. Including telling Ron to ask Hermione out. Ron was the most oblivious person Harry knew, and that hadn’t let go of him in adulthood either.
The Durmstrang students walked out of the boat wearing red coats, with fur collars. Clothes that seemed too hot for the quite mild October weather in Great Britain. In the front was the headmaster Igor Karkaroff and Viktor Krum, behind them the rest of the boys walked… No, marched, and lastly marched the girls in the exact same outfit, just wearing skirts in the deepest of reds, looking like they had been dyed in blood.
When all the students had filled the Great Hall it was time for the Durmstrang and the Beauxbatons students to choose where to sit. Harry expected it to go exactly like it did in his last life, the Durmstrang students sitting at the Slytherin table, and the Beauxbatons students at the Ravenclaw table, but this time Viktor steered his steps against the Gryffindor table.
Ron’s eyes had widened, and so had many others, but Harry didn’t really care, he was just surprised that Viktor hadn’t decided to sit down at the Slytherin table, since Karkaroff most likely told him to sit there.
“Can we sit here?” He asked Harry with an ever so slight smile, and Harry could see that he had ignored half the table, just to ask him.
“Sure, take a seat”.
The Durmstrang students spread along the table, but Viktor sat in between Harry and Hermione, and Ron, who sat straight across from them, stared shamelessly at Viktor. Harry threw an apple on Ron that hit him straight in the face.
“If you don’t know who I am, I’m shocked but I can still… ehh… introduce myself, I’m Viktor Krum”. He looked uncomfortable as he talked, and Harry could hear that he was nervous.
“I’m Harry Potter, and I don’t know if you know who I am, and if you don’t, we kindly keep it like that. This is Hermione Granger, and that’s Ron Weasley. You can ignore him”. Harry smiled at Viktor, who smiled back, ever so slightly.
Ron looked angry at Harry for a few seconds, but he seemed to find the reasoning in what Harry said long before Harry actually had time to say sorry.
“Harry Potter. I haff heard about you. You saved the vizarding vorld, right?
“Well… You can kind of say that. I was a baby at the time, but yes, in most people’s eyes, I saved the wizarding world. In my own eyes I did not. Voldemort never left Great Britain, and even if he did he was nothing like Grindelwald or some of the other Dark Lords.
“Grindelwald. He vas a student at Durmstrang when he was young. His… ehh… Mark is still engraved into the vall of the school”. Viktor only picked at his food, like it was something that wasn’t edible. “Most of us valk around it, it still gives off bad magic”.
“That sounds horrible, good thing Dumbledore defeated him”. Hermione said with a smile, even though she sent Dumbledore a look of confusion.
“Vot?”
“You didn’t know Dumbledore defeated Grindelwald?”
“Yes, I knew that. I’m confused. Dumbledore vorked vith Grindelwald in the beginning. You knew that? Ve are taught everything about Grindelwald and Dumbledore. Someone found his… ehh… dnevnitsi… That is… D… Diaries. Someone found his old… ehh… Diaries, and they talked about…” Viktor lowered his voice significantly, and shot a look over his shoulder to look at Dumbledore. “They mostly talk about the relationship between Dumbledore and Grindelwald… Their romantic relationship, and then how either Dumbledore, Dumbledore’s brother or Grindelwald managed to kill the youngest Dumbledore child. Ariana”.
Harry stared at Viktor for about ten seconds, before he looked over at Dumbledore. Did you have to befriend your worst enemy to be able to kill them? Would that have made everything easier in his last life.
None of them said anything more after that. They all ate in silence, the only thing sound hearable was the sound of silverware scraping against their plates.
“Dear students and especially our guests, welcome to the feast. We welcome the Durmstrang students!” All the Durmstang students stood up and everyone clapped for them, before they took their seats again. “We also welcome the Beauxbatons students to Hogwarts!” The Beauxbatons students did the exact same, only that they bowed deeply against Dumbledore, and then their own Headmistress, Madame Maxime. “We will open our hearts for each other, and after we have done that I will tell you everything you need to know about the Triwizard Tournament”.
The Great Hall grew quiet, and the Hogwarts students were just as confused as the foreign students were. The hall lit up, with thousands of tiny fires all around, above the head of each one of the students and professors. The flames burned in the shape of hearts. Hearts that slowly opened revealing small notes that fell down on every single student and professors, heads at the same time.
Harry picked up his note and unfolded it so see one sentence on the paper.
Love Your Enemy, And Then Your Friend,
More Than You Ever Love Yourself
He smiled ever so lightly and looked over to see that Viktor had not yet opened his note. Ron and Hermione held up the notes against each other smiling, and Harry showed them his, reading theirs. Ron’s was weird.
Love Your Friend,
Until You Can’t
It was a hint that he should fall in love with Hermione, that he should notice her most likely, but it was too real. It felt like this was something the note knew about. Something the note should not know about. Harry’s own was weirder in the actual script but Ron’s was suspiciously accurate to what actually was happening.
Hermione’s was the most normal one even if it too hinted to her that someone already loved her.
Love Him,
Or Lose Him
It was shorter than either of Harry’s and Ron’s but somehow it had more meaning to it than any of their notes had.
Harry once again looked over at Viktor who had not yet opened his note, and Harry was not going to pressure him to look at it in front of everybody.
“Now when everyone has opened their hearts, and filled their stomachs, I can take first the Hogwarts rules for our guests, before I tell you about the Triwizard Tournament. The first and most important rule is that the forbidden forest is just that. Forbidden. No one goes inside, unless you don’t want to get out. No one is allowed to use magic on someone else, unless it is during a lesson with a professor’s permission. Our guests will join the seventh year, and some of them might join the sixth if that is the year they are in, but most of them will be in the seventh year.” Viktor looked a little distressed when Dumbledore said that he would be joining the seventh year. “Then there will be no Quidditch matches this year, since we have you guests here, but the pitch will be open for everyone who wants to play on their own, until early April when it closes for the rest of the school year.” Most of the students sighed, and Harry noticed that Viktor didn’t say anything, or make any sound at all. “Now, to the Triwizard Tournament.”
Filch carried in a heavy box, and placed it down right in front of Dumbledore, and it opened itself. A big goblet, the Goblet of Fire was revealed. Dumbledore waved on both Karkaroff and Madame Maxime and they all performed a long series of spells to turn on the Goblet. It started glowing in a beautiful blue colour.
“I will myself put up an ageline around the Goblet the second it is placed in the entrance hall. No student under seventeen will be allowed or able to enter. The possibility to enter is only tonight and tomorrow. Once you have entered there is no way back, if you are the chosen champion you can not back out. Keep that in mind”. Dumbledore finished his speech and Viktor sighed deeply.
“I haff never heard something about quidditch here being… ehh… turned off?” Victor said, but stopping at the end of sentence to think before trying to explain what he was actually meaning.
“You mean being cancelled for the year?” Hermione asks as kindly as possible, careful not to sound rude or like she knew more than him.
“Yes, yes, cancelled for the year. I brought my broom to train, but that is not really important. Vot is important, is that vere are your younger classes? Dumbledore said we join year seven, that is like your year? Vere are your tenth, ninth and eight year students?
Harry was confused, so he looked over at Hermione, who seemed just as confused as him. “What do you mean? We only have year one through seven”. She asked, with an uncertainty in her voice, that Harry hadn’t heard from Hermione before.
“You don’t haff younger students than this?” Viktor halfheartedly pointed to one of the first year students that sat a few seats away from them. “How old vere you ven you started Hogwarts?”
“Eleven”. It was the first thing Ron said to Viktor, but he said it normally, like he had understood that Viktor Krum also was a human, and that fangirling over him would not make anything better.
“Eleven!” Viktor looked completely baffled. “I vas eight. Eight years old when I started at Durmstrang, and before that I vas two years at a school closer to home, in… ehh… Bulgaria. My mother also taught me magic and the history of magic since I vas three.
“How many years do you go at Durmstrang?” Hermione asked, with the same look in her eyes that she usually had when she learned something new.
“Ve haff ten years. The start of the year is August 20th, and ve go on summer holidays 10th June.”
“Isn’t it hard to leave your family for so long when you are so young?”
“No, Herm-own-ninny, most of us have siblings or friends there. Most haff three or four children. I haff three siblings. Teodora, Yosif and Matea. Many of my friends haff more siblings than me. Five, six, some seven. Usually haff three”.
“But the oldest sibling?”
“Friends, and first 3 weeks parents use… ehh… Flying powder… I think… To get there, and visit daily. Then one more month a few days a veek. Slowly stopping the visits”.
“What about the muggleborns? Their parents can’t use the floo, nor can they apparate”.
“Don’t think you vill like this, but muggleborns are taught in different buildings, so I don’t know, and I haff never asked. Karkaroff doesn’t vant… thoroughbred ehh… unclean-bloods and the ehh… mud-born blended in the same buildings”.
Hermione’s eyes widened as Viktor tried to explain using the words he most likely grew up with translated to English, which made it sound horrible. For once Harry was very glad that it wasn’t them at Durmstrang or Beauxbatons.
“I don’t… I really hope you mean pureblood, halfbloods and muggleborns”. She mumbled a little quieter than she should have.
“Yes, I do, I did not know the real names for it in English”. Viktor said with a smile, and Harry could see Hermione’s shoulders lower themselves as she breathed out.
“And you are…” Ron asked quietly, but Viktor caught it.
“I’m a… Vot did you call it?... A pureblood”.
Hermione seemingly didn’t care, because now there was a heat in her eyes and she wanted to do one thing, and that was get to know more about the dividing of the students at Durmstrang.
“How are you students divided? Is it so that a muggleborn is forbidden from walking into the purebloods, or is it just that the lessons are divided?
“Ve haff the first three years completely separated. So ve sleep in different rooms, and haff different lessons. Then then ve turn eleven they stop parting us as much, only vith lessons. Ve start sharing bedrooms. One pureblood, one halfblood and one muggleborn. It is in the main foundation of the school. The founder. Isolde Durmstrang, she vanted everyone to be the same together. Blood didn’t change anything in her eyes, and that is true”.
“Are the boys you share a room with here then?” Ron asked, at the same time as Hermione opened her mouth to ask a question. She shot Ron a very irritated look, but she then smiled lightly and waited for Viktor’s answer.
“Yes. Over there,” Viktor pointed to a boy and a girl sitting close together, “Christian de Silva, and his wife Nicole. Christian is from Switzerland, and speaks eight languages. Halfblood”.
“He's married! How old is he?” Harry asked, before he could stop himself.
“He turned nineteen a few months ago, and they haff been married for nearly a year. As soon as they have graduated they will start trying for a baby”.
Harry noticed that Ron didn’t seem to think that was something big, but both he and Hermione turned to stare at Viktor, who smiled a little at them.
He pointed to another boy sitting at the absolute end of the table, with his long blond hair hanging down like a shield between him and the two girls he was sandwiched between. “That is Kar Ek and his triplet sisters Sunniva and Lusine. They are Swedish and muggleborn. I still have no idea how all three of them got magic, but that is my room mates”.
“You three seem very different from each other”. Harry said out in the air, thinking out loud.
“Yes, we are. Christian spends as much time as he can studying and learning new languages, vich is easiest for him right now since there are many different languages spoken at the school. He speaks German, French, Italian and Romansh fluently, and haff done since he was ten, then I haff taught him Bulgarian, and Kar him Swedish. Then he speaks English, without much of an accent, same with Spanish since his aunt on his father’s side apparently is married to a Spanish man, and he is learning five other languages that I can’t remember right now”. Viktor smiled lightly and he looked over at Kar. “Kar is quiet. He never talks unless he knows someone, something that people think I do too. I don’t, just so you know. I’m only quiet ven there are cameras around. I don't like the publicity. Well, back to Kar. He is the kindest person I know, and he loves to swim. Unfortunately that is not very easy at Durmstrang. There are some baths for the prefects and professors, but none for the regular students. He tends to swim in the lake we haff, but it is ice cold even during the summer. He is also really good at wandless magic, but that might be easier when you are… ehh.. Muggleborn”.
Hermione smiled lightly. “Back to what you told us before. The founder was a woman?” She was so excited that she almost bounced in her seat.
“The founder of Durmstrang vas a woman, but I think the feast is over now, so ve can talk more about her tomorrow, if that is alright. Karkaroff vill get angry at me if I’m late back to the boat, even if I’m his favorite student”.
“Yeah, sure”. She did not seem very happy about it. “See you tomorrow”. She smiled, as they followed Viktor out of the Great Hall, into the entrance hall, before returning to the common room.
It was almost midnight before everyone in the boy’s dorm had fallen asleep, and Harry could sneak out under the invisibility cloak. He ran, actually ran through the corridors to the library, where he found his way into the restricted parts without problem. He started searching for books about time travel, and did not find a singular thing that matched what had happened to him. It took three hours before he gave up, and was on his way to leave the library, when a book caught his eyes. The title was Age-lines, and Harry couldn’t help himself. He had to pick it up.
He looked through the book, and the most obvious thing was that no ageline actually stopped someone under the set age from entering. It had to do with mental age. So a teenager that thought like an adult could enter, but an adult that was too childish could not enter.
It gave Harry an idea. His name would be shot out of the Goblet whether he wanted to or not, but he could enter other people’s name, if Barty Crouch Junior could enter Harry’s name in the Goblet.
Harry put the book back where he found it and walked fast to the entrance hall, where there were some notes and ink placed out right inside of the ageline. Harry looked around and stepped through. No beard grew on his face, and he smiled. Then he wrote down one name on a note, and folded it in half.
Draco Lucius Malfoy
Hogwarts
Harry pulled out his wand and started to mumble a spell, a dark spell, he had learnt as an Auror, and when he was sure that there was a fifth school entered into the Goblet he peaked down into the Goblet. There was a divider which had divided the Goblet into 5 bigger pieces, and a smaller round piece in the middle. The smaller circular piece of the goblet had three paper notes in it. Harry guessed that in that circle there were the three tasks.
Each one of the bigger pieces lit up with the name of the school. There were three schools named Hogwarts, and Harry could see that in one of the Hogwarts there were four or five pieces of paper already, while one only had one piece of paper in it. His name. So he dropped the piece of paper with Draco’s name on it into the only empty part of the goblet.
Right before he walked away Harry rubbed his head, since he still had a headache and a name popped up in his head. He thought back to what was said his first time entering the Tournament. If entered, you lost your magic or even your life if you didn’t compete.
So Harry wrote one more note, and performed the spell once more, and dropped down the folded note into the empty compartment. The second he dropped it the three extra sections disappeared, and he walked away.
The next morning Harry woke up, still in his old school bed, and sighed. Apparently it wasn’t only one day he was going to spend at Hogwarts. He smiled and woke Ron up, before dragging him down to eat breakfast.
Hermione and Viktor discussed the founders of Hogwarts and the founder of Durmstrang. Viktor knew a lot about Isolde Durmstrang, a Swedish witch that had gotten dumped on a pair of muggles. She loved the muggles a lot, but they were unable to teach her any magic. She taught herself a lot, but she also found a few friends that had magic parents. Purebloods, who thought she was a muggleborn witch, and hated her for it. When Isolde then met her real parents, the minister of magic in Sweden, and her husband, she made everything better for the muggleborns in Sweden. There was only one thing missing, and that was a school that accepted everyone. Most of the smaller wizarding schools either didn’t accept muggleborns, or didn’t accept girls, and nothing in between. So Isolde made a school. She called it Durmstrang, even if it was her muggleparents last name, which she had kept.
She put in the rules, and a rule that most people thought was unnecessary, but Isolde knew that having the students spend ten years together blended, muggleborn, halfblood and pureblood, would improve society. The one rule she made was that in each room there had to sleep a pureblood, a halfblood and a muggleborn, only. The school grew for each year, and right before she died it was the biggest school in all of Europe.
Hermione had told Viktor about Hogwarts, and about the founders. He had asked questions about them that she had been unable to answer, and that had brought a light to Harry, Ron and Hermione that they almost didn’t know anything about the founders of their own school. They knew their names, and that was about it. They had no idea who their founders were, or why they even started the school. How they got to know each other, or how old they were when they made the school, or when they met.
They knew nothing about their founders, and Viktor's knowledge of Isolde Durmstrang made that very noticeable.
Viktor and Harry got together with a few quidditch players from the different teams and they played a match. Harry got the snitch, which he was really, really proud of. Harry and Viktor stayed on the pitch, as Viktor wanted to teach Harry some new things, and Harry obviously wasn’t going to say no.
They played quidditch for hours, showing each other tricks and when Hermione and Ron appeared again they looked stressed.
“Harry James Potter! Do you have any idea of what the time is right now!”Hermione screamed, angry, but mostly stressed.
“No…” He answered with a shrug.
“It’s five o’clock. The feast starts in five minutes! And I think Viktor wants to be there.” She backfired, still screaming.
Harry swallowed and turned his broom against the ground, going down as fast as he could, stopping right in front of Hermione and Ron, who started walking back into the castle, seconds after Viktor had landed.
They all sat down at the Gryffindor table, right in time as the food was served. Harry had not noticed how hungry he had been after they had played quidditch, and then been flying for hours and hours, missing lunch and almost dinner, so he ate faster, and more than he should have.
After a very long one and a half hours Dumbledore stepped toward the podium where the Goblet of Fire once again had been placed.
Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore:
Albus smiled big as he looked out over the students. Three champions would be chosen to compete. One Hogwarts student, one Beauxbatons student, and one Durmstrang student. The three of them would compete in deadly tasks that already had been entered into the Goblet. Three tasks that could kill someone that didn’t have enough experience with magic.
He cleared his throat and caught the attention of all the students and professors. They looked straight at him, and the international students' very distinct colours of clothing stood out from where they were sitting.
“Welcome. Now that everyone has filled their stomachs and maybe gotten some new friends, it is time for the Goblet of Fire to choose the three most suitable wizards or witches to compete in the Triwizard Tournament”. The Goblet lit up in red spitting out a paper.
Albus picked it up and read the name out loud. “The Durmstrang Champion is… Viktor Krum!” The Great Hall exploded in applause and Mr. Krum stood up and smiled, as Albus pointed him to a little room a few meters away.
The Goblet lit up again and I picked up the paper when it was still in the air. “The Beauxbatons Champion is… Fleur Delacour!” There was almost the same amount of applause this time, but it was possible to hear crying too. Some of the Beauxbatons students had broken down, crying, possibly since they didn’t get to be the Champion.
He once more took the note that the Goblet spit out, the final note. The Hogwarts Champion. “The Hogwarts Champion is… Cedric Diggory!” The Hufflepuff table broke out in violent applause, as did the Gryffindor and Ravenclaw tables. The international students applauded politely, and the Slytherin students did not do anything more than sit and look angry.
“That was the Triwizard Tournaments Champions. Durmstrang will be represented by Viktor Krum, Beauxbatons will be represented by Fleur Delacour and Hogwarts will be represented by Cedric Diggary!” The hall once again burst out in violent applause and Albus looked over at the Goblet expecting it to have stopped glowing. It had not. It flamed up once again, and out came another note. He slowly reached out and picked it up from where it had fallen down on the podium.
As he unfolded it he could hear Olympe. “Dumbly-dorr, zat is ze meaning of zis?! Zere are only three champions in ze Triwizard Tournament!” She sounded angry, and all Albus could do was unfold the note as he answered her.
“Unfortunately I have no idea what is going on, but the Goblet apparently has decided to choose another Champion”. He clarified for himself, Olympe and the students at the same time.
“The fourth Champion is… Harry Potter.” It is always Harry Potter. Always. It was him who defeated Voldemort on Quirrell’s head his first year, him who killed the basilisk and got Ginny out of the chamber his second year, and him who saved Sirius Black from the dementors his third year by using a corporeal patronus, and almost getting killed by a werewolf.
That is why Albus wasn’t very shocked that it was Harry James Potter’s name written on the note that the Goblet spit out his name.
Olympe and Igor walked down to him as he pointed to the room that the other three Champions were in for Harry to walk in. Olympe turned to him, only to look bigeyes at the Goblet. Albus had time enough to turn toward it to see it light up and spit out another note that Olympe caught before it had time to land on the podium. She opened it and looked at the note for a few seconds. “Draco Malfoy!”
Albus looked over at the Malfoy boy, and he looked scared for a few seconds. He was completely unknowing about his name being entered, that was easy to see. He slowly walked up to the podium where Albus stood. He looked first at Albus for a few seconds and then at the note. Back and forth a few times before he strode over to the room and ripped the door open and slammed it behind himself.
“Haha, another one, Dumbledore. How many students from Hogwarts do you want? You already have three, you don’t need anymore. We will still win with Viktor”. Albus turned to see Igor holding a note that most likely just flew out of the Goblet. “Let’s see who’s on this note. Can Mr. Tom Marvolo Riddle, come toward please?!”
Albus ripped the note out of Karkaroff’s hand and he stared at it for maybe a minute, before he was sure that it actually was Tom’s name that had gotten out of the Goblet. A name he had not seen written out in years, not more than in Tom’s diary that Lucius Malfoy gave to Ginny Weasley two years ago. It was a name lost in time, especially when it was Karkaroff, a well known Death Eater that read the name, and didn’t know who Tom was.
“Well come on, Tom, you entered yourself”. Karkaroff mocked in a cold tone, and Albus put a hand on his shoulder.
“Tom won’t come, he’s been dead for a little over thirteen years”. Albus’ voice was quiet, and cold, but it was loud enough for the professors and the students closest to hear him.
“Dead…” Karkaroff’s voice shook ever so lightly as he took a step aside.
Albus quickly looked at the Goblet, which finally had stopped burning, as he started walking toward the room where they had sent off five of the six Champions. Five teenagers that were going to compete against each other. Five teens where two of them were under the age limit by over three years. Five teenagers that maybe would have to compete with Lord Voldemort, over a stupid prize of one thousand Galleons and the Triwizard pokal. Something neither of them would be able to touch if Lord Voldemort actually had to compete…