I saw Aizik again in the Great Hall when he tried to put his name in the Goblet yesterday after our tutoring session, only to have the age line Dumbledore had put down reject his entry near the blue flames. I guess he couldn't understand Mr. Crouch when he said no one under the age of seventeen could participate. He looked disappointed, and one of his "buddies" (as Merideth calls them) gave him a sorry pat on the back, but it didn't seem to help much. That was really the only reason he came, after all.

After seeing that, I felt a bit guilty about what I was about to ask of Professor McGonagall. I just couldn't see how I was going to be able to tutor someone that couldn't understand me verbally. Granted, the Durmstrang student working with the Ravenclaw Prefect did seem to exaggerate the slightest bit. He told me Aizik couldn't understand a word of English, but he seemed to know just a little. But that little wasn't helping me very much, or him, really, and I don't know the first sound of the Bulgarian language. I thought that it'd be best if someone else taught Aizik, instead of me struggling to get him to understand.

That was what I intended to say when I approached the professor's desk during our work time after I had finished. "Professor?"

"Yes, dear?" She looked up from her book, matching my whisper.

"Um... I've been... Considering some things with... Tutoring." Ask me why I was so nervous, I couldn't answer. I had an instant feeling of guilt for even starting to ask.

"I was meaning to ask you about that, my dear." She says, fixing her glasses. "How did it go with Aizik yesterday?"

"In all honesty, Professor... I don't think I can continue tutoring him." I had to force the words out.

"Why ever not? You've only tutored him for one day." She furrowed her brow. "If he's not being very respectful to you, we can get that sorted out."

"Oh, no, no, Professor. He's very respectful. He was trying very hard to understand me, but that's the problem. I can't understand him, and he can't understand me."

"Well, that's no reason to give up, now is it?"

"What?"

"Do you remember your first year with Professor Flitwick? How butchered and utterly feeble your spell casts were?"

"Well... Yes, but—"

"And do you remember how Merideth stuck by you and stayed after class with you to help with your tutoring with Flitwick so that you could pass his class?"

"Yes, of course. I would never forget something like that willingly." I turned to shoot a glance at Merideth; her red locks were fighting against her as she attempted to pull it back into a ponytail. I eventually heard the elastic snap. I'd give her one (again) when I get to my seat again. "Oh. I see what you mean, Professor."

"No one is a master of witchcraft their first day, my dear. We all need a little help sometimes."

"I didn't mean to—"

"I know. Now. You say you're struggling to communicate with the boy, yes?"

I gave her a nod, a bit curious about her inquiry. She leaned in her chair to look behind me. "Mister Ivanskov?"

"Ves, ma'am?" A Durmstrang student immediately shot up from his chair, rushing over when she waved her hand. His hair was grown out a bit, and his uniform was the slightest bit wrinkled. I could see him fighting the urge to salute her.

"Sienna, this is Stoyan," McGonagall says. "He is a very quick learner. Stoyan, this is Sienna, one of my best Gryffindor students."

Stoyan held his hand out to me, and I shook it with the slightest smile. "You're thinking of having him come to the tutoring sessions?" I asked the professor.

"No, unfortunately. I feel that Aizik will look to his classmate to simply translate for him. The goal is for him to learn." She says.

"Aizik Dharskov?" He asks with a quirked eyebrow. I nodded at him. "I'm his assigned tutor."

"So you're the one 'e spoke uv last night."

I could feel a bit of nervousness building in my throat. "I'm sorry?"

"Aizik is vreal vrate-vul, you know. 'eadmaz-ter 'ad a 'ard time arranging a tutor for eem. 'e spoke very 'ighly uv you."

"O-Oh." Well, that kind of made the guilt feel a bit worse.

"Miss Tresella is struggling to communicate with Aizik, Stoyan." Professor McGonagall says.

"'ow so?"

"Just... Getting him to understand the directions. Or, what I'm saying, for that matter." I answer carefully. "I don't know any Bulgarian."

"Aizik is a vuick learner. 'e vust needs a little lee-vay, I'm zure." He scratched the black hair on his cheek. "If getting 'im to learn the En-gliz is zhe goal, I can vrite down a vraze you can oose."

A wave of relief hit me hard, and a sigh escaped my lips. "That'd be wonderful."

He gave a smile and a wink before moving back to his desk, tearing a piece of paper from his notebook and writing something in surprising cursive English. "Zis zhould 'elp vith getting 'im to under-ztahnd." Stoyan handed his worksheet into Professor McGonagall as I read over his handwriting.

'Pov-tar-yay zled men
— Repeat after me.'

"'Repeat after me'?" I questioned, only to get a nod from Stoyan. "Don't be zcared to azk if you need anozher to use vith 'im. Vust try zhis one ver now."

I opened my mouth to speak just as the dismissal bell rang, and people began packing their things up.

"Remember! The drawings are happening today at dinner! Don't be late!" Professor McGonagall called after the kids that were leaving, and I was moving to pack up my things when a hand pulled my shoulder back lightly, and I found it to be Stoyan. "Bevore I vorget— Aizik vas 'oping you vould verk vith 'im zome avter the vrawings." He says. "'ee vas az-igned zome vork zhe virst vew classes, and ve can only vreally 'elp zo much."

"Oh, of course." I nod. "Tell him to meet me outside the Great Hall after dinner, and we'll head to the library."

Stoyan nodded and patted my shoulder before running to catch up to the other Durmstrang student that was in the class, almost instantly laughing with him.

"'omeone's made ah friend."

"Oh, don't tell me you're jealous." I turned to face Merideth, holding out an elastic for her hair. She only shrugged before taking the elastic and forcing her hair into a ponytail again. "O' big mahn Durmstrang? Nah." She fell silent, looking to the floor as she finished off the tie.

"What?" I raised an eyebrow as I shoved my books into my bag.

She was quiet for a moment before speaking the softest I've ever heard her. "'e's kind o' cute."

The smile that grew on my face made her freckles turn red. "Merideth Lindsay finally has a crush!"

She immediately shushed me as I laughed. "I never thought I would see the day!"

"Ya ain't gotta 'nounce it tah the entire school, See."

I rolled my eyes with a smile. "Come on. I want a front-row seat."

—«•»—

"Someone's in our spot." Merideth pointed to the very end of the table closest to the Headmaster and company's table.

"Then we'll just sit behind them," Merideth grumbled at my solution but plopped herself across from me behind Marley Matthews and Juliane Fisch. The Headmaster wasn't there yet; I heard a few first years joke how he might be combing his beard. They hushed up when Professor Snape, Professor McGonagall, and the Headmaster came out from the side door, Dumbledore taking his place in front of the flaming blue goblet. "Settle down, now." It only took us a minute before the room was quiet. Dumbledore smiled at this. "Thank you. Now, this is the moment we've all been waiting for: The Champion's Selection!"

The Beauxbatons and part of the Hogwarts crowd simply clapped where the other half of the Hogwarts crowd, along with the Durmstrang boys, gave loud cheers and stomps and yells. The Durmstrang boys were quiet the second that Karkaroff stepped forward and slammed his fist on their table. Hogwarts followed suit.

Dumbledore clapped his hands twice, and the lights went out. The goblet began to burn bright red flames and spat out a piece of paper from its ashes. Dumbledore was quick to catch it. "The Durmstrang Champion... Viktor Krum!"

Merideth sat on her knees to see where he was; she sat back when she spotted him, and I felt a heavy nudge on my back. I turned around fast to find Krum himself mouthing the word sorry to me and holding up his palms before moving up to stand next to the Headmaster. I nodded to him, not thinking much of it; it was a simple accident. The look Merideth gave me, however, was of pure envy.

The flames changed again, and the second piece of paper spat out. "The Champion from Beauxbatons... Fleur Delacour!"

I saw her stand from the very end of the Ravenclaw table, give a curtsy, and place herself next to Viktor after shaking his and Dumbledore's hands. Dumbledore looked expectantly to the goblet, and it shot out one last piece of paper for him. "And, finally, the Hogwarts Champion..." I leaned on the edge of my seat. Sure, I didn't enter. But I'd be rooting for the student, anyway. 

"Cedric Diggory!" 

Merideth joined mine and everyone else's cheers with her shout of "ROAST 'EM, 'UFFLEPUFF!" Cedric clapped my hand as he passed, and shook Viktor, Fleur, and Dumbledore's hands before placing himself between them, a beaming smile on his face. Dumbledore held up his hands. We fell silent. "Excellent! We now have our three champions. But, in the end, only one will go down in history. Only one will hoist this chalice of champions, this vessel of victory-- The Tri-Wizard Cup!"

We clapped and cheered for the three again, some of us (mostly Merideth) expectantly looking to our plates for the feast to begin. But any thought of food was erased when the flames of the goblet roared red again, and it fumed and grew until it spat out a small piece of paper. Dumbledore was quick to grab it and read it closely. "Harry Potter?"

"What did he say?" Merideth whispered, leaning over the table. I was quick to whisper back, "Harry Potter."

"That's bull-hawkey. The boy ain't even seventeen."

"Harry Potter!"

In an instant of that yell from the Headmaster did the black-haired fourth-year stand, slowly moving his way past us. When he came behind me, Merideth had to open her mouth and say, "You're deep in it this time, boy." I kicked her shin at the comment. The boy already had enough going on, probably. "Hush your mouth!"

"Ow! It be true, though!"

"That doesn't mean you tell him. I'm sure he already knows that!"

The entire room was silent, aside from the other random comments that came after him. Dumbledore didn't address us very much after that, he simply ushered the champions and Harry back through the door they had entered in, the other Headmasters and the Heads of House in tow. Mr. Filch placed himself in front of the goblet when they had left, stroking Mrs. Norris' fur as he stared on at all of us. The meals finally showed themselves on our plates.

I didn't feel much like eating at that moment.