Adventures of Harriet Potter

The Triwizard Tournament

Through the gates, flanked with statues of winged boars, and up the sweeping drive the carriages trundled, swaying dangerously in what was fast becoming a gale. Leaning against the window, Harriet could see Hogwarts coming nearer, its many lighted windows blurred and shimmering behind the thick curtain of rain. Lightning flashed across the sky as their carriage came to a halt before the great oak front doors, which stood at the top of a flight of stone steps. People who had occupied the carriages in front were already hurrying up the stone steps into the castle. Harriet, Ron, Hermione, and Neville jumped down from their carriage and dashed up the steps too, looking up only when they were safely inside the cavernous, torch-lit entrance hall, with its magnificent marble staircase.
"Blimey," said Ron, shaking his head and sending water everywhere, "if that keeps up the lake's going to overflow. I'm soak — ARRGH!" A large, red, water-filled balloon had dropped from out of the ceiling onto Ron's head and exploded. Drenched and sputtering, Ron staggered sideways into Harriet, just as a second water bomb dropped — narrowly missing Hermione, it burst at Harriet's feet, sending a wave of cold water over her trainers into her socks. People all around them shrieked and started pushing one another in their efforts to get out of the line of fire. Harriet looked up and saw, floating twenty feet above them, Peeves the Poltergeist, a little man in a bell-covered hat and orange bow tie, his wide, malicious face contorted with concentration as he took aim again.
"PEEVES!" yelled an angry voice. "Peeves, come down here at ONCE!" Professor McGonagall, Transfiguration professor, deputy headmistress and Head of Gryffindor House, had come dashing out of the Great Hall; she skidded on the wet floor and grabbed Hermione around the neck to stop herself from falling. "Ouch — sorry, Miss Granger —" she said. "That's all right, Professor!" Hermione gasped, massaging her throat. "Peeves, get down here NOW!" barked Professor McGonagall, straightening her pointed hat and glaring upward through her square-rimmed spectacles.
"Not doing nothing!" cackled Peeves, lobbing a water bomb at several fifth-year girls, who screamed and dived into the Great Hall. "Already wet, aren't they? Little squirts! Wheeeeeeeeee!" And he aimed another bomb at a group of second years who had just arrived. "I shall call the headmaster!" shouted Professor McGonagall. "I'm warning you, Peeves —" Peeves stuck out his tongue, threw the last of his water bombs into the air, and zoomed off up the marble staircase, cackling insanely. Harriet sighed in relief when Professor McGonagall vanished the water bombs — which were going to hit Harriet. "Well, move along, then!" said Professor McGonagall sharply to the bedraggled crowd. "Into the Great Hall, come on!"
Harriet, Ron, and Hermione slipped and slid across the entrance hall and through the double doors on the right, Ron muttering furiously under his breath as he pushed his sopping hair off his face. The Great Hall looked its usual splendid self, decorated for the start-of-term feast. Golden plates and goblets gleamed by the light of hundreds and hundreds of candles, floating over the tables in midair. The four long House tables were packed with chattering students; at the top of the Hall, the staff sat along one side of a fifth table, facing their pupils. It was much warmer in here. Harriet, Ron, and Hermione walked past the Slytherins, the Ravenclaws, and the Hufflepuffs, and sat down with the rest of the Gryffindors at the far side of the Hall, next to Nearly Headless Nick, the Gryffindor ghost. Pearly white and semitransparent, Nick was dressed tonight in his usual doublet, but with a particularly large ruff, which served the dual purpose of looking extra-festive, and insuring that his head didn't wobble too much on his partially severed neck.
"Good evening," he said, beaming at them. "Says who?" said Harriet, taking off her trainers and emptying them of water. "Hope they hurry up with the Sorting. I'm starving." The Sorting of the new students into Houses took place at the start of every school year, but by an unlucky combination of circumstances, Harriet hadn't been present at one since her own. She was quite looking forward to it. Just then, a highly excited, breathless voice called down the table. "Hiya, Harriet!" It was Colin Creevey, a third year to whom Harriet was something of a hero — and, she suspected, a bit of a crush.
"Hi, Colin," said Harriet warily. "Harriet, guess what? Guess what, Harriet? My brother's starting! My brother Dennis!" Colin said excitedly, Harriet wanted to groan as there were about to be two of them. "Er — good," said Harriet, hiding her annoyance. "He's really excited!" said Colin, practically bouncing up and down in his seat. "I just hope he's in Gryffindor! Keep your fingers crossed, eh, Harriet?"
"Er — yeah, all right," said Harriet. She turned back to Hermione, Ron, and Nearly Headless Nick. "Brothers and sisters usually go in the same Houses, don't they?" she said. She was judging by the Weasleys, all seven of whom had been put into Gryffindor. Though was sure she was likely wrong. "Oh no, not necessarily," said Hermione. "Parvati Patil's twin's in Ravenclaw, and they're identical. You'd think they'd be together, wouldn't you?" Harriet nodded as she looked up at the staff table. There seemed to be rather more empty seats there than usual. Hagrid, of course, was still fighting his way across the lake with the first years; Professor McGonagall was presumably supervising the drying of the entrance hall floor, but there was another empty chair too, and Harriet couldn't think who else was missing.
"Where's the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher?" said Hermione, who was also looking up at the teachers. They had never yet had a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher who had lasted more than three terms. Harriet's favorite by far had been Professor Lupin, who had resigned last year. She looked up and down the staff table. There was definitely no new face there. "Maybe they couldn't get anyone!" said Hermione, looking anxious. Harriet scanned the table more carefully. Tiny little Professor Flitwick, the Charms teacher, was sitting on a large pile of cushions beside Professor Sprout, the Herbology teacher, whose hat was askew over her flyaway gray hair. She was talking to Professor Sinistra of the Astronomy department. On Professor Sinistra's other side was the sallow-faced, hook-nosed, greasy-haired Potions master, Snape — Harriet's least favorite person at Hogwarts. Harriet's loathing of Snape was matched only by Snape's hatred of her, a hatred which had, if possible, intensified last year, when Harriet had helped Sirius escape right under Snape's overlarge nose — Snape and Sirius had been enemies since their own school days. Granted, Snape had his own hand in aiding Sirius' escape — having seen the proof of his innocence firsthand.
On Snape's other side was an empty seat, which Harriet guessed was Professor McGonagall's. Next to it, and in the very center of the table, sat Professor Dumbledore, the headmaster, his sweeping silver hair and beard shining in the candlelight, his magnificent deep green robes embroidered with many stars and moons. The tips of Dumbledore's long, thin fingers were together and he was resting his chin upon them, staring up at the ceiling through his half-moon spectacles as though lost in thought. Harriet glanced up at the ceiling too. It was enchanted to look like the sky outside, and she had never seen it look this stormy. Black and purple clouds were swirling across it, and as another thunderclap sounded outside, a fork of lightning flashed across it. "Oh hurry up," Ron moaned, beside Harriet, "I could eat a hippogriff."
The words were no sooner out of his mouth than the doors of the Great Hall opened and silence fell. Professor McGonagall was leading a long line of first years up to the top of the Hall. If Harriet, Ron, and Hermione were wet, it was nothing to how these first years looked. They appeared to have swum across the lake rather than sailed. All of them were shivering with a combination of cold and nerves as they filed along the staff table and came to a halt in a line facing the rest of the school — all of them except the smallest of the lot, a boy with mousy hair, who was wrapped in what Harriet recognized as Hagrid's moleskin overcoat. The coat was so big for him that it looked as though he were draped in a furry black circus tent. His small face protruded from over the collar, looking almost painfully excited. When he had lined up with his terrified-looking peers, he caught Colin Creevey's eye, gave a double thumbs-up, and mouthed, I fell in the lake! He looked positively delighted about it. Professor McGonagall now placed a four-legged stool on the ground before the first years and, on top of it, an extremely old, dirty, patched wizard's hat. The first years stared at it. So did everyone else. For a moment, there was silence. Then a long tear near the brim opened wide like a mouth, and the hat broke into song: