Chapter 166 — The Third Name

Ron told everyone not to laugh while laughing so hard he had to lean on Harry. George’s fingers disappeared into a beard every bit as impressive as Fred’s, and the twins began disputing who had measured the potion. Each attributed the important calculations to the other.

Fred tried to stand, caught a foot in George’s trailing beard and sat down again. That finished the few people who had remained quiet. I reached them as George seized his brother’s sleeve.

‘Can you both move everything you should?’ I asked. Fred cautiously flexed his hands before announcing that his dignity appeared to be missing. ‘That went before you crossed the line.’

George gave me a mournful look through the hair. Then McGonagall arrived, taking in the empty bottles and two rejected parchments before ordering both boys to the hospital wing. Fred began an objection and abandoned it at her expression.

They stood with their beards held clear, supporting each other with an exaggerated courtesy. McGonagall promised a discussion of the difference between an instruction and an invitation once Pomfrey had finished with them. She collected the bottles and parchments before following them out.

Ron reminded us he had warned them. Hermione agreed and suggested he enjoy being right, which pleased him almost as much as the warning’s spectacular fulfilment. Around the line, several younger students discovered an interest in dinner.

I had seen one method fail. It did not tell me everything the enchantment could recognise, or what the Goblet did with names which reached it. When the twins returned to the tower later without their beards, neither claimed to have discovered another approach. George kept rubbing his chin while Fred accused Pomfrey of failing to appreciate distinguished maturity.

For the next two days I attended lessons and returned to the compendium in the periods I had set aside. Progress was slow: one reference would clarify a difficulty while another introduced a confident claim its example did not quite support. I kept those separate, and could give Hermione more than the name of an impressive curse when she asked what I had learned. The restricted book stayed in my hands.

Luna found me on Tuesday just after I closed it. She inspected my closed notebook, declared the evidence convincing and invited me for a walk before I could reopen anything. We went as far as the windows overlooking the lake, where the ship’s reflected rigging broke across the ripples.

She told me about her lessons while I held her hand. I asked about a difficulty she had mentioned before, earning a pleased smile for remembering, and listened until she turned towards the book beneath my arm.

‘Does it have the answers you wanted?’ she asked. I admitted that it had some, along with rather more questions. ‘Will you tell me before you decide to do something with them?’

‘I’ve been reading.’ I stopped when she pointed out that she meant later, before I disappeared and returned smelling burnt. ‘Yes. I will.’

Instead of making another joke, I explained my interest in what had destroyed the diary and what else might damage a similar object. Dumbledore’s private suspicions stayed private; the question itself explained why a chapter on terrible fire had held my attention. Luna listened without interrupting.

‘I like having you to come back to,’ she said. I put the book on the ledge and turned towards her properly.

‘I like coming back.’ She held the front of my robe as I bent to kiss her. Outside, a lantern came on aboard the ship, and I remembered to collect the book before we started towards the stairs.

Thursday brought unfamiliar adults and extra chairs to the Great Hall. A photographer spent part of the afternoon asking students to stop walking through the picture he had not yet taken. The Goblet’s week was almost over.

Cedric told me at breakfast that he had entered the previous evening. He wanted to leave enough time for my promised cheer, though nothing too elaborate. I expressed regret at having to cancel the procession, and he laughed on his way back to Hufflepuff.

Before the selection I put the compendium in my trunk and checked my pouch. The prepared pieces were dry; the crumpled Body-Bind remained separately wrapped, and I left that packet in the trunk too. I expected to need my voice for a name other than my own.

Luna found an extra chair beside me and set a small flask between our places. It contained pumpkin juice she had asked to make in the kitchens, with a little apple giving it a sharper taste than usual. I complimented it sufficiently to learn that detail after my first enquiry had been judged inadequate.

Harry sat on my other side. Ron and Hermione found places opposite us, close enough to speak over the growing noise, while adults with notebooks occupied the edges of the Hall. The photographer was still negotiating with his camera.

Fudge’s name appeared on the programme beside a statement about international co-operation and public confidence. After the World Cup, I could understand the Ministry wanting pictures of people applauding. I asked Luna whether her father would be among those attending.

‘He doesn’t want his presence used to show how wonderfully everyone agrees with Mr Fudge,’ she said. ‘That’s what he told me when I asked.’

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I said I could imagine the letter. Apparently it contained other opinions too, but Ron interrupted before I heard them, pointing out Krum beside a witch in green robes. A quill wrote by itself in the notebook floating next to her.

Krum’s answers were short. We were close enough to hear him deny having said desperate, which the witch received with a laugh as though he had made a pleasant joke. The quill continued moving.

‘Rita Skeeter,’ Luna said. She knew the writing rather than the woman, she explained when I asked. Hermione followed our glance towards the green robes.

‘She makes events fit the story she wants,’ Hermione said. ‘And she seems to think a rumour improves any paragraph.’

I watched Krum move half a step away while Skeeter leaned closer. Fortunately she had not asked me anything, I observed, and Luna recommended drinking more juice while that remained true.

Fred and George passed between the benches with their own notebook, taking last-minute bets on Hogwarts’ champion. George insisted on payment before the result, saying that they had become suspicious of late inspiration. A small pile of coins changed hands near Hermione’s elbow.

‘At least they’ve stopped trying to cross the line,’ Ron said when she commented on their persistence. George reached us before she could decide how much of an improvement that represented.

I declined his offer to take my money. He accused me of setting a terrible example for someone in business, and I invited him to include that in his report. He grinned and went to find a more cooperative customer.

The names circulating around us were the ones I had heard all week: Krum, Fleur and Cedric. I understood why people expected them. I still wanted to know what the Goblet might recognise that the rest of us could not.

Dumbledore stood and waited for the last conversations to fade. Once the twins found seats, he announced that entries had closed and reminded us of the responsibility carried by selection. Cedric sat straight-backed at Hufflepuff, and I raised my cup when I caught his eye.

The candles dimmed at Dumbledore’s wand. Blue light spread across the Hall, silencing even the photographer’s requests to his equipment. Then the flames became a fierce red and threw up a scrap of parchment.

‘The champion for Durmstrang is Viktor Krum,’ Dumbledore announced, reading the slip he had caught. Krum rose into a crowd of classmates clapping his shoulders and pushing him towards the aisle.

He shook Dumbledore’s hand and went to the room beyond as directed. Ron applauded until he disappeared, then remarked that this part had seemed likely. The fire rose again before anyone replied.

Fleur’s name brought her face alight. She embraced the girl beside her, spoke quickly to Madame Maxime and came forward while Luna called her name. Fleur smiled towards us as she passed, then went to join Krum.

One place remained. I could hear Cedric’s name being whispered while Luna nudged the last of the juice towards me. I thanked her, poured it into the cup and took a mouthful as the Goblet flared.

Dumbledore caught the third parchment. He read it, then looked again while the expectant noise thinned into silence.

‘Oswald Mercer.’

The juice caught in my throat. I bent over the cup, coughing, while Luna put a hand against my back. Somebody laughed, but another person’s incredulous shout carried further than the first scattered applause.

Harry turned towards me, asking what had happened. I shook my head because breathing had become more urgent than answering. At the front Dumbledore repeated my name, holding the parchment in the light.

‘I didn’t enter,’ I managed. Harry stared at me while whispers spread through the people behind him.

I heard someone mention my age and another ask about Diggory. Ron half rose, beginning a question about what I had put in the cup, and I shook my head again. Luna’s hand remained on my back.

‘I didn’t,’ I told her. She said she had heard me, and I clung to that brief answer while the staff stood around Dumbledore. Crouch was speaking close to his ear.

Someone called out cheating. Another voice took it up, making the word travel far more easily than my denial. I stood, leaving Luna’s hand against my robe.

‘I did not put my name in that cup,’ I said. The people nearest us heard; I could not tell whether my words reached anyone beyond them.

A camera flashed. Snape came down the aisle and told me to follow him, cutting across my attempt to explain.

‘You can answer where the questions can be heard,’ he said. Harry moved to come too, and Snape raised a hand to keep him at the table.

I looked towards Hufflepuff. Cedric was standing, no longer clapping, but I could make nothing certain of his face at that distance. Luna released my robe and promised they would be there when I came back.

I left the cup on the table. At the stand Dumbledore showed me a parchment bearing my name and Hogwarts beneath it, written in a hand which was not mine.

‘I didn’t write this,’ I said. He directed me towards the next room, and I remained where I was long enough to add, ‘I didn’t ask anyone else to enter me either.’

‘I have heard you, Oswald.’ His eyes moved from the paper to my face. ‘Go through, please.’

Skeeter had stopped interviewing anyone. Her quill worked very quickly as I passed, and McGonagall touched my shoulder at the door, telling me to take a breath. I discovered I needed to. Behind me someone shouted about Dark magic, and I stepped out before answering.

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Luna kept her hand on the flask. The cup beside it was still half full, with juice splashed against the rim where Oswald had coughed. She watched the door close behind him.

Ron insisted that he must have done something. Harry turned towards him, repeating Oswald’s denial, but Ron asked how else his name could have reached the cup.

‘Someone put it there,’ Luna said. ‘That doesn’t mean it was him.’

Ron looked towards the front. Oswald had been reading things, staying after lessons and finding answers they had not seen, he argued. Hermione reminded him that Oswald had told them what he was studying.

Not every word, Ron pointed out. That was true enough; Oswald had never told any of them every word of everything he did. Luna did not think the gap supplied an answer to the shouting.

‘He’s kept things quiet before,’ Ron added less firmly. Luna agreed, making him turn towards her.

‘I saw him on Tuesday,’ she said. ‘We went for a walk. He told me what he was working on, and he wasn’t interested in entering.’

Hermione leaned forward. ‘We’ve seen parchment with his name on it,’ she said. ‘We haven’t seen who wrote it or put it in.’

Harry kept looking at the doors. ‘People were sure about me once,’ he said. ‘They thought hearing snakes was enough.’

Ron sat down slowly. Luna put the stopper back in her flask while the four of them fell silent. Oswald had promised to tell her before trying something dangerous, and she could not know everything that promise would have to survive. She knew the sound he had made when Dumbledore read his name.

She rose and said she would wait where he came out. Harry stood beside her, Hermione gathered her things and, after a moment, Ron followed them.