Chapter 162 — A Line on the Floor

The golden case was set on a stand near the staff table. Dumbledore waited for its bearers to move clear before reminding us that the prize was only one part of entering the Tournament.

‘The tasks demand judgement, knowledge and the ability to act under pressure,’ he said. ‘Our arrangements are intended to reduce the dangers of earlier Tournaments. They cannot remove danger altogether. Mr Crouch will explain an important condition agreed for this year.’

Crouch stood just as lightning flashed across the enchanted ceiling. Several first years ducked at the thunder, and rain began striking the high windows. The doors opened beneath the next rumble.

A wet figure stood in the entrance with his wand raised. He sent a spell towards the ceiling; the brightness faded and the thunder dwindled into silence. Rain continued against the glass while water ran from his coat onto the stone.

I noticed the startling blue eye before properly understanding what I was looking at. A leather strap held it over his left eye, and it turned independently of the natural one. His grey-blond hair was untidy, his face heavily scarred, and he made no attempt to look less interested in everyone staring at him.

Ron whispered the name Mad-Eye Moody. Seamus leaned across Dean to ask whether he meant the Auror, and I turned towards Ron for an explanation.

‘Alastor Moody,’ he said. ‘Dad’s talked about him. They say half the people in Azkaban are there because he put them there.’

That sounded like a figure which grew every time somebody repeated it. Even allowing for the growth, there ought to be some stories worth hearing. Moody came down the aisle on a heavy walking stick, metal catching the candlelight on his prosthetic left leg. People drew their feet out of his way.

Harry wondered why he had come. Dumbledore answered that after a brief conversation at the staff table, introducing Professor Moody as our new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. The applause began unevenly, and Moody acknowledged it with a small movement of his head before surveying the room from beside his chair.

He pulled a flask from his coat and drank. Ron asked what was in it, then abruptly lost interest when I suggested asking its owner.

Lupin had taught us to face things I had scarcely understood before his lessons. McGonagall had kept the subject going after he resigned. Now we had a teacher whose work involved finding people who used the magic I wanted to understand.

‘You look pleased,’ Harry murmured. I corrected that to interested, which made him smile. ‘That’s usually the same face.’

Crouch cleared his throat before I could dispute it. ‘Students wishing to enter the Tournament must be at least seventeen years of age,’ he announced, and waited through a second of silence before the Hall erupted.

Fred shouted a question which disappeared beneath several others. George demanded to know why nobody had mentioned this earlier, while Crouch stood with his hands rigidly at his sides. Whatever he had intended to say next would have needed a much larger voice.

I stayed seated. I was fourteen, and being able to name things I did better than some older students did not give me experience of every challenge the Tournament might contain. The rule also saved me explaining myself to everyone who thought beating a man at the campsite ought to make me eager for another public trial.

Fred climbed onto the bench and began something about being nearly old enough. Dumbledore’s voice cut through the noise before he finished, and George caught his sleeve to pull him down.

‘You are entitled to dislike the condition,’ the Headmaster said once the last protest faded. ‘Shouting at Mr Crouch will not alter it.’

Crouch inclined his head. The requirement applied to all three schools, he explained, before returning to his chair and allowing Dumbledore to describe the Age Line which would keep younger students from approaching the Goblet. His glance towards the twins lasted just long enough for the table to notice.

Fred looked offended by the suggestion that he might try to get past it. George looked as though the suggestion deserved further study. Dumbledore raised his wand towards the golden case before either could respond.

Its shining sides withdrew, leaving a rough wooden goblet on the stand. I blinked at the blunt carving and dark grain. Apparently its makers had spent the entire polishing allowance on the container.

Then blue fire rose from the bowl. Hermione leaned forward, whispering that it was smaller than she had imagined, while the light touched Dumbledore’s fingers without making him draw them away. The flames remained steady despite the draught from the doors.

‘An eligible student who wishes to enter should write their name and school clearly on parchment and submit it to the Goblet,’ he said. ‘You have one week to consider the decision. Entries close before dark next Thursday, the eighth of September. The champions will be announced that evening.’

People around us began calculating birthdays and considering rivals. Dumbledore waited for their attention before continuing, his hand resting beside the blue flame.

‘Selection by the Goblet constitutes a binding magical contract. Do not submit your name for a joke, a dare or a moment’s applause. You are volunteering to undertake the tasks.’

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I had wanted to know how the cup chose. If its decision committed somebody to all that, the answer mattered rather more than an account of how old it was. I whispered to Hermione, asking whether it would explain its choice, but she did not know. Nobody at the front volunteered to tell us.

Dumbledore reminded us to welcome our guests and that lessons would begin in the morning. Ron made a pained sound at the second announcement, then recovered when dinner appeared. For several minutes even the Tournament had difficulty competing with the serving dishes.

Dean remained interested in the phoenix, while Seamus reconsidered his prospects now the competition had an age requirement. Across the Hall Luna caught me looking and raised her glass. I raised mine, then passed Harry a dish which he had been too preoccupied to notice.

He ate slowly. When the plates were cleared, he took a folded piece of parchment from his pocket and looked at it before putting it away.

‘Tonight,’ he said quietly. I offered to come with him to ask for Dumbledore, and he agreed with a quick nod.

As the benches emptied, the Headmaster approached the Goblet with Crouch, Madame Maxime and Karkaroff. We stopped to watch him draw a circle with his wand held above the floor. A pale line appeared around the stand, closing without a gap, and the twins studied it with identical expressions.

Ron told them not to try anything. Fred pointed out that they had done nothing at all, and Ron assured him that this was the part he liked. George was still measuring the space with his eyes when we moved towards the doors.

McGonagall stood there directing first years towards their prefects. Harry waited until she finished, then asked to speak to Dumbledore about something from the summer he had not told him. Her attention sharpened as she looked from Harry to me.

‘Wait here,’ she said, and crossed the Hall towards the Headmaster. Behind us a candidate stepped over the new line, earning a cheer when the scrap of parchment vanished into the flames. Harry did not turn to watch.

Dumbledore heard him that night. We sat beside his desk while the feast’s noise faded into the distant life of the castle, and Harry asked me to stay. I kept quiet until the Headmaster wanted to know what I had seen of the man at the campsite.

I described the face before the fire, the curse aimed at Harry and the gap through which the man escaped. Dumbledore then asked Harry when his scar had begun hurting and whether any words from the dream remained clear. When Harry could not remember, he let him say so.

‘I thought I should write to Sirius,’ Harry said, his hands clasped between his knees. Dumbledore agreed without hesitation, and Harry looked surprised. ‘I’ve started a letter.’

‘Tell him what you have told me,’ Dumbledore said. ‘If this happens again, come to me as soon as you can.’

Harry asked whether the dream had been real. The Headmaster folded his hands and considered him over the desk.

‘We must take it seriously,’ he answered. ‘That is not quite the same as knowing what every part of it means.’

Harry looked disappointed, but he listened. Before we left, I asked where I should begin reading about curses and their counters. When Dumbledore wanted to know which curse, I admitted that choosing was part of the problem.

‘Begin with recognition and the limits of the defences you already possess,’ he said. ‘Professor Moody can recommend reading appropriate to his lessons. Bring me any particular question you cannot resolve.’

I would have liked him to name a book containing the answer to the campsite. Instead I left with more work and the familiar suspicion that I had wanted an entire subject compressed into a paragraph. On the stairs Harry let out a long breath, glad that Dumbledore had not dismissed his dream as nothing.

The following morning he told me Hedwig had taken his letter. He had collected her with his luggage after the feast, finished writing and gone to the Owlery before breakfast. I was pleased he had done it, and equally pleased when he accepted a second helping of toast.

By then the girl with the silver hair had acquired a name in every conversation near us. Fleur Delacour’s chances in the Tournament travelled along the tables with an astonishing quantity of information about her family. I learned the useful part from Fleur herself.

Luna and I were leaving the Hall when she stopped us with another Beauxbatons student to ask directions to the library. Halfway through my explanation I realised that two turns sounded identical unless she already knew the statue I meant. We were going that way, so I offered to show them.

Luna introduced us, and Fleur gave her name as we left the crowd around the Goblet. On the stairs I asked whether Beauxbatons taught anything like the phoenix we had seen the previous evening.

‘Of course,’ Fleur said. ‘But you would do better to ask the students who made the thing you admired. We did not make that one.’

It was a sensible answer, and I liked her for giving it. I asked about the butterflies instead, earning a brief smile and permission to direct those questions towards Beauxbatons.

In the quieter corridor beyond the stairs, Luna mentioned that people kept saying things about Fleur. Fleur observed that they had begun remarkably quickly, and Luna agreed that Hogwarts was efficient at that particular task.

‘Is there anything you’d like them to get right?’ Luna asked. Fleur looked at her properly then, slowing beside us.

‘My grandmother is a Veela,’ she said. ‘I expect that is what they have discovered.’ When Luna confirmed it was one of the topics, Fleur’s mouth curved. ‘Then they have managed one fact.’

I admitted they were discussing her wand too, which seemed peculiar before anyone had spoken to her. Fleur drew it partway from her sleeve, keeping it securely in her own hand.

‘A hair from my grandmother,’ she explained. ‘She gave it for the core.’

I looked from the wand to her hand around it. Luna’s fingers brushed the pendant beneath my collar before she told Fleur that it was a lovely thing to be able to keep with her. Fleur’s expression softened as she put the wand away.

We showed them the library entrance. Her companion repeated the route beneath her breath before following her inside, and Luna stayed beside me for a moment, pleased that Fleur had called the hair a gift.

‘I haven’t forgotten who gave me mine,’ I said, touching the silver shape through my robe. Luna took my hand, and we went towards the stairs together.

Over the next few days Fleur and Krum became difficult to avoid. People invented reasons to pass their seats, classrooms and whichever patch of ground Krum happened to be crossing. Letters arrived through friends of their writers, delivered with elaborate innocence, and both visitors became favourites before most of us had seen either in a lesson.

Cedric was the name most often proposed for Hogwarts. I found him beside the Goblet reading the posted conditions while two younger Hufflepuffs supplied advice neither could possibly have tested.

‘Not yet,’ he said when I asked whether he had entered. ‘I wanted to read this again.’

I congratulated him on that approach. He grinned, asking whether he had disappointed me, and I assured him I had been hoping someone would demonstrate it. Being old enough did not make the decision small, and he seemed to understand that despite the enthusiasm beside him.

When one of the younger boys declared that the Goblet could hardly choose anyone else, Cedric pointed out that other students could do well too. I suggested he had better make his own case, then.

‘I intend to,’ he said, looking down at the parchment in his hand. I left him considering the blue fire.