Nico di Angelo and the Goblet of Fire

Chapter 7: The Arrival of Beauxbatons and Durmstrang

Nico was absolutely exhausted. It had been nearly impossible to restrain Moody, and he probably couldn't have done it unless Moody's command had been to slap someone. Technically, he had slapped someone, it just wasn't the person Moody had in mind. Then since Moody had been shocked, he had sat back down. He couldn't resist the Imperius Curse if the caster had much stronger intentions. Well that didn't matter-he irritated Moody and that would cause him to avoid him. Nico realized that too late-he wanted to know why Moody was so suspicious!

Harry limped forward as they walked out of the classroom. He'd been the only one who could actually throw the curse off entirely on his own. "The way he talks, you'd think we were all going to be attacked any second."

"Yeah-talk about paranoid..." Ron said, who was skipping on every alternate step. He still had the aftereffects of the curse, but Moody said that it would wear off by lunchtime. "No wonder they were glad to get shot of him at the Ministry. Did you hear him telling Seamus what he did to that witch who shouted 'Boo' behind him on April Fools' Day? And when are we supposed to read up on resisting the Imperius Curse with everything else we've got to do?" As he spoke, Ron was glancing nervously over his shoulder to make sure Moody didn't hear anything.

Every fourth year student had noticed an increase in the amount of work. Professor McGonagall explained why when the class had a numerous amount of complaints at the amount of homework she was assigning.

"You are entering a very important phase of your magical education!" She told them, her eyes glinting maliciously behind her glasses. "Your Ordinary Wizarding Levels are drawing closer-"

"Aw, come on-we don't have O.W.L.s until next year!" Dean Thomas groaned loudly.

"Perhaps not, Mr. Thomas, but you need all the preparation you can get! Currently, Miss Granger is the only person in this class who can turn a hedgehog into a satisfactory pincushion. May I remind you, Thomas, that your pincushion still curls up in fright whenever there is a pin approaching!"

Nico was struggling to catch up with all the subjects except for Defense Against the Dark Arts, and the only reason he did fine in that was Moody paid attention to Harry so much he ignored Nico.

Professor Trelawney told Harry and Ron that they had received top marks for Divination on their journal of dreams, but they were less pleased when she asked them to do the same thing for the next month as well. They were running out of ideas. Strangely enough, Nico could easily come up with terrible punishments and he never seemed to run out.

'I will slowly suffocate in a jar as a terrible case of misfortune,' Nico scratched into his journal with a quill one night.

"That's horrible." Hermione said, who was writing her astronomy essay.

Harry laughed. "Terrible."

Nico didn't smile.

Meanwhile, Professor Binns, the ghost who taught History of Magic, had taken to assigned weekly essays. Professor Snape was forcing them to research antidotes. They took this one seriously, as he had hinted that he might be poisoning one of them before Christmas to see if their antidote worked. Professor Flitwick had asked them to read three extra books in preparation for their lesson on Summoning Charms. Even Hagrid was adding to their workload. He'd told them to observe the growth of the Blast-Ended Skrewts and make notes on their behavior.

Their class with Hagrid ended and the four made their way back up to the castle to see a notice:

TRIWIZARD TOURNAMENT

THE DELEGATIONS FROM BEAUXBATONS AND

DURMSTRANG WILL BE ARRIVING AT 6 O'CLOCK

ON FRIDAY THE 30TH OF OCTOBER. LESSONS WILL