“All right, students, please exit in an orderly manner-”
Professor McGonagall stood up to maintain order, and after a crackling commotion, the young wizards strode out of the great hall, arguing with each other.
At the Faculty’s table, Felix pulled the chair back for Madame Maxime, “Oh, thank you.” She rose gracefully and whispered, “Don’t forget you are a school board member of the Beauxbatons… You are always welcome to be a guest to our carriage.”
“As you wish, ma’am.” Felix said with a smile.
He watched as Madame Maxime left with her students as the crowd automatically parted the way for them, at which point Hagrid approached him.
“Can you bring me with you?”
“Pardon?”
“When you visit them as a guest, can … you please bring me with you?” Hagrid asked shakily as he watched the tall figure disappear from the great hall doorway with an expression of fascination, “I mean, if it’s ok, those Abraxans will probably need my attention… I need to check them directly.”
Felix looked at him with strange eyes.
Hagrid immediately smoothed his hair and collar, “What’s wrong, is something wrong?”
“No,” Felix said softly, “I’m worried about those horses.” Who knew if Hagrid would actually let something ‘happen’ to them in order to make his lame excuse more real.
At that moment, an angry voice came from the entrance –
“Yes, that’s Harry Potter. Have you seen enough?”
Felix looked over at the voice and saw the image of Moody and Headmaster Durmstrang confronting each other. The fake eye of Moody seemed too appalling, causing Karkaroff’s face to turn frosty white even with a few students around him.
But Karkaroff’s reaction is clearly beyond the bounds of normal – a mixture of anger and biting fear. Felix is no stranger to this expression, having had many people look at him with the same look, now that Karkaroff would next-
“Back off?” Felix said playfully.
Sure enough, Karkaroff didn’t dwell on it much, waving his hand as if he was avoiding the plague, and walking away with his students.
The students who were blocked in the back clamoured as they tiptoed to look over the shoulders of the others to watch the back of the departing Durmstrang delegation.
“This night is not going to be quiet.” Felix said.
“Yeah, I guess some students will choose to register during the night …” Hagrid echoed dreamily, “By the way, do you have any recommendations about good perfumes?”
…
“You think Karkaroff and Professor Moody know each other?” Harry asked while following the crowd up the grand staircase.
“That’s right,” Ron affirmed, “Look at their faces, it is obvious, I guess they both have an old grudge against each other for sure.”
They returned to the dormitory, Dean was guarding the door and seemed to be holding back a laugh, “Harry, I think you need to come over here for a moment, there’s a guest waiting for you …”
Harry walked over curiously, to see a Niffler Valen sitting on his bedside table with a pile of exquisite little things in front of her – Galleons, a gold necklace, a thermostatic pendant, a grey hourglass …
Ron looked at the stacked-up Golden Galleons, and his eyes were unable to move away from them.
“Merlin’s beard ah …”
Harry seemed to think of something, he crouched in front of Niffler Valen and asked tentatively, “You want to exchange with me, is it about that Muggle coin?”
Niffler nodded vigorously.
Ron laughed so hard that he shivered, “Ouch!” He held onto Neville’s four-poster bed, nearly ripping the curtain off: “It, it can remember well, from the day school started, a full two months have passed since then, and it still does not give up …”
Harry hesitated for a moment, the muggle coin is a testimony to his thousand times of Apparition practice, he kept it as a memento, but since he has learned magic, he does not really value it, not to mention that this thing was given to him by Uncle Vernon.
He rummaged through the box and handed the coin to Valen, “It’s yours.”
Niffler immediately took the coin, her two little black eyes glowed, and her little hand kept caressing the angular coin. After a while, she seemed to have made up her mind and she looked over a bit, pointing at the trinkets in front of Harry, gesturing for him to pick one.
“No.” Harry refused.
But Niffler insisted that he must pick one thing, otherwise the Great Demon King would know about it and would nag her to death.
“Kiki!”
She patted her chest, indicating that she is here to make a deal.
Harry mulled it over for a while, before moving his fingers around, feeling indecisive. Niffler nervously stared at his finger, watching him intently, and eventually, that hand-picked up the inconspicuous hourglass, and “phew~” Niffler breathed a sigh of relief and relaxed.
When Niffler gathered her treasure and nimbly disappeared from their sight, Ron couldn’t hold his tongue anymore: “Even if you don’t want Galleon, that locket is still good, I’ve heard about it from Fred and George, that little locket can keep the temperature constant at the optimum range, so you don’t have to wear a cloak in winter.”
Harry shook his head, “This is also good.” He fiddled with the dusty hourglass a few times and casually placed it on the table.
“Yeah well,” Ron muttered, “I doubt it’s worth two sickles unless it’s an antique …”
The next morning.
The students gathered around in disarray when an extra thin circle of gold lines appeared on the floor in the center of the entrance hall, and the Goblet of Fire is placed on the sorting stool, in the middle of the gold lines.
“They are too bold.” Hermione said with a shocked look on her face, in front of her, the Weasley twins and Lee Jordan jumped to their feet, holding a small bottle with a shallow layer of clear liquid in it.
She looked beyond the crowd – Professor Hap had been standing just a short distance away, leaning against the wall and watching them with a grin on his face as he crossed his arms.
“Just one drop,” Fred gulped down the Ageing Potion enthusiastically, “and we’re all just a few months short.”
“That’s right, let’s make an example for you guys.” George said to Harry and Ron as he followed suit and drank the potion.
Hermione immediately glared at Harry and Ron.
The two looked away sheepishly, each with a vial of Ageing Potion tucked into their pockets, and Ron stammered, “We prepared your share, Hermione, do you need it …”
Hermione looked exasperated and turned her head away from them.
Harry did not say anything, the moment arrived, he hesitated about it, he could not help but ask himself: if Fred and George really succeeded by putting their names in, what would he do?
The twins walked into the Age Line and waved at Felix, who stood aside with a smile.
“We love you to death, Professor.” Fred said.
For a moment, Hermione thought they had succeeded, but the next thing she heard was a sizzling sound, and the twins were thrown outside the golden circle, with Lee Jordan pulling his outstretched leg back in horror.
The twins rose from the ground crying ” Ouch, Ouch, Ouch “, and the people around them laughed – they had long white beards growing out of their chins. Even the twins, themselves, can not suppress their laughter.
Felix came over from the wall, carefully looked at them, and said teasingly, “I heard this morning that Miss S. Fawcett from Ravenclaw and Mr. Summers from Hufflepuff were brought to the hospital wing, and I thought that there must be some more distrustful little wizards. So I’m purposely waiting here to see …”
Fred and George looked at him mournfully, the beard on their chins fluttered, not to mention how comical it looked.
“I warned you.” Dumbledore appeared in the entrance hall and said in a low, amused tone. He came closer, examining the twins’ bright, shiny white beards as he said, ” Any luck, Felix?”
“No one made it, a little second-year wizard threw a paper ball in there, and it was spat out by the Goblet of Fire …”
Perhaps the demonstration effect of the Weasley twins was so obvious that after the morning interlude, there were no more young wizards who tried to cross the age line without being old enough.
The Hogwarts students watched with rapt attention as the preparatory champions from the other four schools lined up to throw their names into the Goblet of Fire, the blue-white flames on the cup licked their fingers and blazed intensely as they turned red and sputtered a little spark.
“Where are our people?” A young wizard asked eagerly.
“Coming!”
Another young wizard said excitedly as Cedric, Roger Davies, Collins Foley, and Angelina approached in pairs, followed by the chosen students.
One by one, they tossed their slips of paper into the Goblet of Fire, their faces filled with anticipation.
————
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