The Other Black Book 4

Chapter 16 - The Four Champions

Harry didn't move.

There was no applause. A buzzing, as though of angry bees, was starting to fill the Hall; some students were standing up to get a better look at Harry as he sat, frozen, in his seat.

Up at the top table, Professor McGonagall had got to her feet and swept past Ludo Bagman and Professor Karkaroff to whisper urgently to Professor Dumbledore, who bent his ear toward her, frowning slightly.

Harry turned to Ron, Aurora, and Hermione and the long table of open-mouth Gryffindors behind them.

"I didn't put my name in," Harry said blankly. "You know I didn't."

Both Harry and Hermione stared just as blankly back. Aurora didn't even look at Harry. At the top table, Professor Dumbledore had straightened up, nodding to Professor McGonagall.

"Harry Potter!" he called again. "Harry! Up here, if you please!"

"Go on," Hermione whispered, giving Harry a slight push.

Harry got to his feet, trod on the hem of his robes, and stumbled slightly. He set off up the gap between the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff tables. Aurora couldn't speak. The buzzing grew louder and louder. Harry reached the High Table, standing right in front of Dumbledore, the stares of all of the teachers and all of the students on him

"Well...through the door, Harry," said Dumbledore. He wasn't smiling.

Harry moved off along the teachers' table. Hagrid was seated right at the end. He did not wink at Harry, or wave, or give any of his usual signs of greeting. He looked completely astonished and stared at Harry as he passed like everyone else. Harry went through the door out of the Great Hall, and the tension broke.

As Ludo Bagman leapt from his seat and followed Harry into the room, the odd buzzing of whispered voices turned into a full swarm as everybody in the Hall asked each other what had happened. Questions were flying up and down the Gryffindor table, but Aurora couldn't hear any of them.

She had seen Harry's name come from the cup. She had seen the flames turn red and Dumbledore read Harry's name off of the slip of paper. But in her dream, it hadn't been in Harry's handwriting. Someone else had written it and put it in. If Harry's name had been called like it had in her dream, then someone else had put it in, and cast some spell on the cup to push his name out. If all of that was true -- it had to be a spell to create a fourth champion -- then did that mean the graveyard was real? The graveyard at the end of the maze... was that real? If that too was real... then the casting of the Killing Curse had to be. And the scream had to be too.

But who screamed? More importantly, who died?

Professor Dumbledore, followed closely by Mr. Crouch, Professor Karkaroff, Madame Maxime, Professor McGonagall, and Professor Snape, left their seats and went into the room off of the Hall.

Much of the hall was asking many of the same questions: How did Harry get his name in? How did his name get picked as the fourth champion?

The foreign students were asking why Hogwarts got two champions and they did not.

"You're quiet," Ron remarked coldly to Aurora.

Aurora didn't know how to respond, but eyes were now falling on her. The one student who was too stunned to speak. The girl who had too many names to count. The girl who had been Harry's closest friend since before Hogwarts. The girl who consistently got better marks than him, sometimes even better than Hermione. The girl who was tied to two families who were widely believed to use Dark Magic: the Blacks and (although no one would admit it out loud) the Malfoys.

She swallowed hard. "If... If I told you why, you wouldn't believe me," Aurora managed to say, hating how small her voice sounded. "But I didn't... I didn't help get Harry's name in the cup. I swear."

There was a thunk of wood from towards the High Table. Mad-Eye Moody, who had been watching Aurora with both his eyes, now stood and left to go into the room. Before he went into the room, although his back was towards her, she could've sworn she could feel him looking at her, as if he knew what she did. As if he knew that someone else had put Harry's name in the cup.

It was just suspicion, Aurora forced herself to realize, and likely it was her just not trusting their newest teacher -- for fair reason, each of their Defense Against the Dark Arts teachers have had some secret: Qurriell had Voldemort on the back of his head, Lockhart was a fraud, Lupin was a werewolf... But Moody was an Auror. Everyone knew that.

No one spoke to her, not sure whether to believe her or not, as Aurora continued to think, alone. The Tournament was dangerous, and Harry, despite being the most experienced fourth-year, wasn't nearly as experienced as the students participating, and there was the possibility that he would die in the tournament, due to his comparative lack of experience.

Was that the point? Was the green flash merely symbolic of death? Of Harry's death?

She had to send a letter to Sirius. Aurora joined the suspicious and curious students as they left to their dormitories, and like the others, she didn't go to bed. She sat at a table in the corner, not saying a word, writing a message to her uncle. He was likely the only one who would understand her worry... who would believe what she and Harry knew to be true.

Aurora rolled up her completed letter, which told Sirius (although she only ever referred to him as 'uncle') of Harry's entrance to the Triwizard Tournament, her graveyard dream, and their new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. She hoped it would look to any interceptors a letter of a student excitedly telling her uncle of events happening at school, and she had to squeeze out of the portrait hole.

Rose caught her as she left and followed her outside, pestering her with questions that Aurora did her best to shrug off until Rose gave up and turned around. Aurora walked across the silent castle, turning corners and climbing stairs to the owlery. She found Cooper, who hooted at her excitedly when he saw she had letter in her hand.

"Will you be able to carry this?" Aurora asked him as he fluttered to grab it. "It might be a bit big."

Cooper hooted insistently and took it in his foot.

"Would a thread to your foot be easier?" Aurora asked, holding up a thread.

Cooper let her tie it around his leg. Aurora told him to find Sirius and bid him good luck as the small brown owl fluttered out the window and into the night.