"𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐃𝐎 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐊𝐍𝐎𝐖?" Raya narrowed her eyes at her dad.

After the Irish team won the World Cup, Raya left with her dad to celebrate with the other players and their families. When she returned around the time the sun was rising, she learnt that apparently there had been Death Eaters roaming around, someone cast the Dark Mark, and she just happened to miss it all.

Sitting in her usual compartment on the Hogwarts Express, she and Cedric heard multiple parents and siblings talk about something about to take place.

Judging by the knowing glint in both of their parents' eyes, they knew exactly what it was.

"Nothing, nothing," Raya's dad raised her hand in mock-surrender.

"Dad!" Cedric groaned, trying to convince his own father.

"I don't know what you two are talking about," Amos Diggory raised his hands in the air. "Alphanso, have you any clue?"

"Not the slightest," Raya's dad grinned.

"I'll call Mumpty," Raya threatened.

"She's vacationing in Peru," Alphanso smiled innocently. "If you call her from her wonderful vacation, to yell at me — her favorite, by the way — that's not gonna end very well."

Raya scowled, "I don't like you."

"Love you too."

Fred and George entered the compartment, only to be bombarded by Raya and Cedric.

"Do you guys know?" Cedric asked. 

"Please tell me you know," Raya groaned. "I'm gonna lose my mind otherwise!"

"Are you guys talking about that weird thing that might make us see Charlie earlier and makes Bill want to come back to Hogwarts?" Fred asked.

"Uh..."

"We don't know either," George groaned, slumping into the seat next to Raya.

"No one's told us anything," Fred agreed.

"Well, you lot are useless," Raya muttered. "Ugh, dad! Can't you just tell us?"

"Huh? What was that?" Alphanso put a hand to his ear as the whistle blew and the train started up. "I can't hear you."

"Dad!"

"Love you, Raya," he kissed her hand through the window. "Send an owl when you find out the big surprise."

"Love you too," she muttered. "But I don't like you very much right now."

Alphanso laughed to himself as the train rolled away.

"I can't believe they're not telling us anything," Cedric groaned. "That's not fair."

Raya agreed silently, pulling out a book as the train continued towards Hogwarts. It was a Muggle book, having something to do with Sirens and pirates, and other fantasy elements. She rubbed her thumb over her Camp necklace, freezing as the action reminded her of Luke.

Stop, she had to force herself to breathe normally. 

She broke up with him. And really, it was for the better. She had her O.W.L's this year, and she couldn't be putting all her energy into Luke and studying, because then she'd have none left for herself.

And who said they'd never get back together?

It was an option, Raya made that clear. Just... not at the moment.

Raya shook her head, trying to lose herself into the book like she normally did. She didn't get much reading done as she spent more time focusing on the different gag candies the Weasleys were planning on making.

"Ton-tongue toffee?" she repeated, giving up on trying to read with the two of them in the same compartment.

Fred looked up innocently, "It's a candy that makes your tongue grow and grow and grow."

"I wanna give that to Snape," George muttered mischievously.

Raya scowled briefly at the mention of him. She had an okay opinion of him until last year, when he was willing to put an innocent man behind bars all because of a childish feud.

"You'll have to fight me for it," she muttered, rolling her eyes.

"Ooh, what'd Severus do to you?" Fred sat up, suddenly interested in this conversation. "Did he fail you in Potions?"

"I topped the class."

"Uh... did he embarrass you in front of the class?" George tried.

"I'm the only one who ever knows the answers."

"Did he murder the stuffed elephant I gifted you for your birthday back in second year?" Cedric asked.

"Don't you dare say something like that!" Raya's eyes widened in horror. "Ellie is absolutely fine, and Snape is now never allowed near her. Not that he was before. But don't say stuff like that."

"Okay, okay," Cedric raised his hands in alarm. "I was just stumped."

Raya nodded, taking her seat as the trolley lady arrived. They took multiple different snacks, sharing and trading amongst themselves.

Raya checked her watch, "Shoot! We've got a Prefects meeting starting right now. We'll be back soon."

Raya patted the twins' heads as her and Cedric went over to the compartment that held all the Prefects. She waved to Thomas, grinning at his matching Ravenclaw Prefect badge. 

They all took a seat, waiting as the Head Boy and Head Girl — Yanni and Selvie — explained their duties as Prefect. Basically, they had to make sure the other kids didn't do something wrong. Prefects could dock points, but it wasn't done often. Raya listened as they droned and on about how this year, the Prefects would have to be extra careful and on watch. They had a lot to do.

When Raya asked what they meant by that, they had shrugged.

Apparently, those were the orders Dumbledore had given to them. He said they'd find out more once they reached Hogwarts.

Raya rushed back to the compartment when the meeting was over.

"How was it?" Fred grinned at her.

"Let's talk about something else," she groaned.

"Anything else," Cedric agreed.

Raya laughed as they shared stories from their summers, Fred and George explaining the time Bill and Charlie fought each other with tables.

"How does that even work?" Cedric asked, laughing.

"They're Wizards," Fred shrugged. "There's got to be some spell for it."

"But still," Raya chuckled. "Fighting tables?"

Raya was still wiping her tears as the train slowed, signaling their arrival at Hogwarts. They got up, following the path to the carriages. Raya shivered, shuffling closer to her friends at the rain. They ran inside, finally out of the rain.

"I hate rain," Cedric muttered, shaking his head. "If we had to stand there any longer—"

"—Oh shit!" Raya jumped back as a large red water balloon exploded near her feet. "Fucking Peeves!"

Raya 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. People all around them shrieked and started pushing one another in their efforts to get out of the line of fire.

 "PEEVES!" yelled an angry voice. "Peeves, come down here at ONCE!" 

Raya moved to the side, allowing Professor McGonagall to come through.

Raya and her friends entered the Great Hall, running away from Peeves — though the Weasleys were cackling at his brilliant idea. They separated to go sit at their tables.

Raya was wringing her hair out when Thomas sat in front of her, Elias on her left. Her friends in Ravenclaw began to fill up the seats next to her, annoyed with Peeves as they tried to dry off themselves.

"I need to wash my hair again," Raya muttered, sniffing it. "It smells like rain."

"Ugh!" Meredith groaned, flopping her head against the table. Her curly hair nearly took two days to dry without a diffuser. Safe to say, she wasn't happy with Peeves.

"Oh, I almost forgot," Cierra turned towards Raya so suddenly, she almost fell off her seat. "Congratulations! You too, Thomas! I knew you guys were going to be Prefects since second year. Elias owes me three galleons."

"I knew I shouldn't have bet with money I didn't even have." He turned to Raya, smiling innocently, "Raya, my best friend in whole wide world. Can I borrow three galleons?"

"After you bet against me?" Raya exclaimed. "No way!"

"Aw man," he muttered.

"It's okay," Cierra grinned. "I don't need your money. Just buy me a sugar quill from Hogsmeade and we'll be even."

"I want Fizzing Whizbees!" Raya announced.

"I didn't place a bet with you," Elias tilted his head.

"But you bet against me, and I'm very hurt by it," Raya said, placing a hand to her heart. 

"Okay, fine," he muttered. 

Raya laughed a little at his dramatics. He knew Raya was only teasing him, and she loved how he was good at playing along.

The doors of the Great Hall opened, silencing everyone inside. Raya watched as Professor McGonagall led a line of first years to the front. She placed a three legged stool in the center, with a hat on it. One of the kids in line was drowning in Hagrid's overcoat. Raya was pretty he mouthed to someone in Gryffindor, I fell in the lake.

The hat broke into song, sorting the first years into their houses. Raya cheered whenever Ravenclaw was called out, but she was so hungry, she tuned the rest of it out to stare at her empty plate and imagine all the food she'd put in it.

Dumbledore got to his feet at the end of the Sorting, "I only have two words for you all."

"That was more than two words," Raya murmured.

"Tuck in."

Raya didn't waste time cheering to stick some food in her plate. She ate chicken and rice and a little bit of dessert.

Raya half listened to her friends' conversations, nodding along when she was supposed to, but otherwise remaining silent.

At the end of the feast, Albus Dumbledore got to his feet again. The buzz of chatter filling the Hall ceased almost at once, so that only the howling wind and pounding rain could be heard.

"So!" said Dumbledore, smiling around at them all. "Now that we are all fed and watered. I must once more ask for your attention, while I give out a few notices. Mr. Filch, the caretaker, has asked me to tell you that the list of objects forbidden inside the castle has this year been extended to include Screaming Yo-yos, Fanged Frisbees, and Ever-Bashing Boomerangs. The full list comprises some four hundred and thirty seven items, I believe, and can be viewed in Mr. Filch's office, if anybody would like to check it."

The corners of Dumbledore's mouth twitched. He continued, "As ever, I would like to remind you all that the forest on the grounds is out-of-bounds to students, as is the village of Hogsmeade to all below third year."

Raya raised her hand, which he acknowledged, "As our Miss Newbrooke has reminded me, the Wi-Fi password is LemonSherbet, capital l and capital s, no spaces."

"Thanks bro!" Raya typed it up.

"It is also my painful duty to inform you that the Inter-House Quidditch Cup will not take place this year."

Raya froze, mouth hanging open. 

"I called you bro," she was beyond offended.

This was supposed to be the year she was Quidditch Captain. She was supposed to train, and lead the Ravenclaw team to their victory. 

What could be more important than Quidditch?

Dumbledore went on, "This is due to an event that will be starting in October, and continuing throughout the school year, taking up much of the teachers' time and energy — but I am sure you will all enjoy it immensely."

"If it's taking up the Quidditch year, and it's not Quidditch," Raya muttered angrily, "I don't think I will."

"I have great pleasure in announcing that this year at Hogwarts —"

But at that moment, there was a deafening rumble of thunder and the doors of the Great Hall banged open.

A man stood in the doorway, leaning upon a long staff, shrouded in a black traveling cloak. Every head in the Great Hall swiveled toward the stranger, suddenly brightly illuminated by a fork of lightning that flashed across the ceiling. He lowered his hood, shook out a long mane of grizzled, dark gray hair, then began to walk up toward the teachers' table.

A dull clunk echoed through the Hall on his every other step. He reached the end of the top table, turned right, and limped heavily toward Dumbledore. Another flash of lightning crossed the ceiling.

Elias sucked in a breath.

The lightning had thrown the man's face into sharp relief, and it was a face unlike any Raya had ever seen. It looked as though it had been carved out of weathered wood by someone who had only the vaguest idea of what human faces are supposed to look like, and was none too skilled with a chisel. Every inch of skin seemed to be scarred. The mouth looked like a diagonal gash, and a large chunk of the nose was missing. But it was the man's eyes that made him frightening.

One of them was small, dark, and beady. The other was large, round as a coin, and a vivid, electric blue. The blue eye was moving ceaselessly, without blinking, and was rolling up, down, and from side to side, quite independently of the normal eye — and then it rolled right over, pointing into the back of the man's head, so that all they could see was whiteness.

The stranger reached Dumbledore. He stretched out a hand that was as badly scarred as his face, and Dumbledore shook it, muttering words Raya couldn't hear. Of course, Raya could control the soundwaves to hear it, but after this summer, she tried to limit how often she did it.

It brought back too many memories.

He seemed to be making some inquiry of the stranger, who shook his head unsmilingly and replied in an undertone. Dumbledore nodded and gestured the man to the empty seat on his right-hand side.

The stranger sat down, shook his mane of dark gray hair out of his face, pulled a plate of sausages toward him, raised it to what was left of his nose, and sniffed it. He then took a small knife out of his pocket, speared a sausage on the end of it, and began to eat. His normal eye was fixed upon the sausages, but the blue eye was still darting restlessly around in its socket, taking in the Hall and the students.

"He's creepy," Elias muttered.

"Five galleons he's the new Defense teacher," Thomas groaned.

"No one's taking you on that," Raya muttered.

"Operation sabotage?" Nathaniel asked excitedly. "We can bother him like we did Lockhart, right?"

"He's a little scarier than Gilderoy, isn't he?" Elias whispered. 

"We can take him," Thomas shrugged. "We'll see how the year goes."

The Ravenclaws sat back, a little excited at the idea.

"May I introduce our new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher?" said Dumbledore brightly into the silence. "Professor Moody."

It was usual for new staff members to be greeted with applause, but none of the staff or students clapped except Dumbledore and Hagrid, who both put their hands together and applauded. The sound echoed dismally into the silence, and they stopped fairly quickly. Everyone else seemed too transfixed by Moody's bizarre appearance to do more than stare at him.

"Wait a second," Raya muttered. "Moody? Mad-Eye Moody?"

"Who's that?" Elias asked.

"Fred's always telling me of some crazy guy who his dad always has to deal with," Raya remembered. "Apparently, he put a shit ton of Death Eaters in Azkaban, and now he's paranoid the families are out to get him."

"That's a fair paranoia," Nathaniel muttered.

Moody seemed totally indifferent to his less-than-warm welcome. Ignoring the jug of pumpkin juice in front of him, he reached again into his traveling cloak, pulled out a hip flask, and took a long draught from it. As he lifted his arm to drink, his cloak was pulled a few inches from the ground, and Raya saw, below the table, several inches of carved wooden leg, ending in a clawed foot.

Dumbledore cleared his throat. 

"As I was saying," he said, smiling at the sea of students before him, all of whom were still gazing transfixed at Mad-Eye Moody, "we are to have the honor of hosting a very exciting event over the coming months, an event that has not been held for over a century. It is my very great pleasure to inform you that the Triwizard Tournament will be taking place at Hogwarts this year."

"You're JOKING!" said Fred Weasley loudly.

The tension that had filled the Hall ever since Moody's arrival suddenly broke. Nearly everyone laughed, and Dumbledore chuckled appreciatively.

"I am not joking, Mr. Weasley," he said, "though now that you mention it, I did hear an excellent one over the summer about a troll, a hag, and a leprechaun who all go into a bar..."

Professor McGonagall cleared her throat loudly.

"Er — but maybe this is not the time... no..." said Dumbledore, "where was I? Ah yes, the Triwizard Tournament... well, some of you will not know what this tournament involves, so I hope those who do know will forgive me for giving a short explanation, and allow their attention to wander freely."

He began, "The Triwizard Tournament was first established some seven hundred years ago as a friendly competition between the three largest European schools of wizardry: Hogwarts, Beauxbatons, and Durmstrang. A champion was selected to represent each school, and the three champions competed in three magical tasks. The schools took it in turns to host the tournament once every five years, and it was generally agreed to be a most excellent way of establishing ties between young witches and wizards of different nationalities — until, that is, the death toll mounted so high that the tournament was discontinued."

"Death toll?" Elias looked pale, even though not many others seemed to mind.

"There have been several attempts over the centuries to reinstate the tournament," Dumbledore continued, "none of which has been very successful. However, our own departments of International Magical Cooperation and Magical Games and Sports have decided the time is ripe for another attempt. We have worked hard over the summer to ensure that this time, no champion will find himself or herself in mortal danger."

He continued, "The heads of Beauxbatons and Durmstrang will be arriving with their short-listed contenders in October, and the selection of the three champions will take place at Halloween. An impartial judge will decide which students are most worthy to compete for the Triwizard Cup, the glory of their school, and a thousand Galleons personal prize money."

The students broke out into excited whispers. A thousand Galleons was a lot.

But then Dumbledore spoke again, and the Hall quieted once more.

"Eager though I know all of you will be to bring the Triwizard Cup to Hogwarts," he said, "the heads of the participating schools, along with the Ministry of Magic, have agreed to impose an age restriction on contenders this year. Only students who are of age — that is to say, seventeen years or older — will be allowed to put forward their names for consideration. This—" Dumbledore raised his voice slightly, for several people had made noises of outrage at these words "—is a measure we feel is necessary, given that the tournament tasks will still be difficult and dangerous, whatever precautions we take. However, a student who is sixteen on Halloween may enter, as long as they have full parental permission. Please note, it is highly unlikely that students below sixth and seventh year will be able to cope with the tournament. I will personally be ensuring that no underage student hoodwinks our impartial judge into making them Hogwarts champion." His light blue eyes twinkled as they flickered over Fred's and George's mutinous faces. 

"I therefore beg you not to waste your time submitting yourself if you are under seventeen, or do not have full parental permission. The delegations from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang will be arriving in October and remaining with us for the greater part of this year. I know that you will all extend every courtesy to our foreign guests while they are with us, and will give your whole-hearted support to the Hogwarts champion when he or she is selected. And now, it is late, and I know how important it is to you all to be alert and rested as you enter your lessons tomorrow morning. Bedtime! Chop chop!"

Dumbledore sat down again and turned to talk to Mad-Eye Moody. There was a great scraping and banging as all the students got to their feet and swarmed toward the double doors into the entrance hall.

Raya and Thomas got up, leading the first year Ravenclaws to the tower.

They looked scared, and a little nervous. Raya wasn't sure if it was because of Hogwarts, or Mad-Eye Moody.

"Oh, you guys are gonna love Saul!"

REY WRITES!

thanks for reading!!

oh look, it's monday! i posted on time!!

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