September faded out into a cooler October, crisp air and bright blue skies. The forest had erupted in bright yellow and the students had settled into the new school year. On the first Tuesday of October, Sean made his way, sleepily, downstairs to the common room, intending to meet Evelyn there before breakfast. Marlowe had acted on Sean's desires to stay wrapped up in the warm covers of his four poster bed and was running behind.

He was surprised to find Caiti downstairs as well - she, usually, was the latest to rise. This morning, she and Evelyn were clustered around the notice board with a number of other people. He came up behind them, assuming it was just the news of the next Hogsmeade visit or something, put his arms around both their shoulders, and, because he knew his sister hated it, leaned down and kissed her on the cheek.

Caiti turned to him, still bleary-eyed from the early hour but awake enough to glare at him. She wiped off her cheek. "Gross."

"Morning," said Evelyn.

Sean just laughed at Caiti and said, "What are you looking at?"

Evelyn ducked out from under his arm, going to pick up her bag which she had dropped on a nearby armchair. "Read it for yourself," she said. "But do it quick, I'm starving."

Caiti slipped away too, hammering up the stairs to the boys dorms to find out where Marlowe was. Sean turned back to the notice board which he now saw was taken over by a large sign listing further details of the Triwizard Tournament. Though Professor Osset and the faculty had been curiously silent on the matter since its initial announcement, Sean had not forgotten. He felt his stomach do a funny lurch, whether of nerves or excitement he wasn't sure, and continued to scan the sign.

TRIWIZARD ANNOUNCEMENT

"We are pleased to inform you that our Triwizard guests are to arrive from Beauxbatons Academy of Magic and Durmstrang Institute on Saturday, 8 October in time for a welcoming feast. At this time, the Goblet of Fire will be erected and submissions for champion will begin. We remind all students that only those sixth and seventh years who are of age will be able to put forth their name for this very dangerous competition. We also remind you that the competition is not only for champions - please be kind, courteous, and welcoming to our guests as we invite them to spend the better part of the year with us at Hogwarts, and remember that establishing strong ties between the magical communities of Europe is the true goal of this historic event."

Well, thought Sean, he hadn't learned much that he didn't know. But at least he was sure now when it would all, finally, begin. He couldn't wait to tell Marlowe, but by the glum look on Caiti's face when she came trudging downstairs again just then, he figured he would have to.

"Idiot," she said. "The one day I actually get up and he decides he's sleeping in."

Sean laughed. Caiti did not reciprocate. They made their way back to Evelyn, who was perched on the arm of a chair, legs stretched out in front of her. "Ready?" she asked.

"Ready," he agreed.

All through breakfast Sean was very quiet. His head was spinning again, with thoughts of the tournament, but this time, not all of them were excited. He would still put his name in of course, but more and more, he was realizing that this was no longer just a daydream about the future - it was real. He probably wouldn't even be chosen as champion anyway - he had heard Dominic Wilkie, a Slytherin who had always intimidated Sean, was going to put his name in.

But what if he did?

He had always imagined that the moment his name came out of the Goblet of Fire - if it did - he would be thrilled. He had imagined himself grinning, slapping people's outstretched hands for high fives as he made his way up the great hall to Professor Osset.

But what if he didn't feel that way? What if he felt the way he felt now at the thought of actually having to compete? Sick to his stomach, a little green: the way he'd felt before his first quidditch game amplified by a thousand.

"What's up with you?" asked Evelyn, eyeing him. He blinked, realized that he'd been staring at his fork without eating for several minutes - the bite of food he had intended to eat had fallen off - and sat up a little straighter, trying to brush it off. "Imagining your eternal glory?" she teased, nudging him.

"What?" he asked. "What- no. I just- I don't know, tired I guess."

"Oh come on, Sean," said Caiti. "You've been acting funny ever since you read that sign."

"Have not," he said indignantly.

"Have too," sang Evelyn. "Come on Sean, we all know you'll be champion. No need to be nervous."

"We do not all know that," he said quietly. "What about Marlowe? What about Dominic Wilkie?"

Evelyn rolled her eyes. "Wilkie looks tough, but he can't stun anything."

"And Marlowe?" he asked, raising his eyebrows.

"For what it matters," Caiti chimed in, "Marlowe thinks you'll get it too."

For some reason, this did not make Sean feel much better.

"Well," he said, stabbing at his sausage. "I think Marlowe'll get it."

"What do you think the other schools will be like?" asked Caiti, chin in her hand. She had already finished eating.

"I don't know," said Evelyn. "I hope they're friendly. It'd be interesting to become friends with someone who'd gone to school somewhere else. I wonder what sorts of magic they study regularly there that we don't."

"Yeah, well they might not be too keen to share it, seeing as we're in competition with them. Don't want to give away any useful secrets, you know?" Caiti said, thoughtfully.

"Yes, but didn't you read the sign?" asked Evelyn. "The point's not to win, it's to learn from each other and establish new ties."

Caiti gave her a wry smile. "That's what the adults say anyway. Not everyone will think like that."

"Well," said Evelyn, unable to deny this, "I'm going to try to think that way."

"I don't know," Caiti said. "If I know the person who's chosen... I'm going to be thinking of it as a competition first."

Evelyn seemed to realize that Sean had fallen quiet again, because she poked him in the side and said. "This is weird. Since when has it ever been Caiti and I discussing the tournament instead of you and Marlowe?"

"Yeah, well," said Sean. "Marlowe's not here to talk to is he. Wouldn't get out of bed."

Evelyn eyed him for a while in a way that made him feel uncomfortable. She could be searching when she wanted and Evelyn had a good read on people. She could pick out of you exactly the thing you were most trying to hide.

"You know, you don't have to enter, Sean," she said.

"I want to," he said firmly. "I'm just tired."

He saw the girls exchange a look, but he said nothing else on the subject.

---

"Saturday," said Marlowe at lunch, a glint in his eyes. "It's finally happening, isn't it?"

Sean, who had at least temporarily managed to banish that morning's ill feelings - perhaps some of it had to do with the presence of Marlowe - grinned. "Crazy," he agreed.

"One of us is going to get it," said Marlowe, for the dozenth time. Sean wished he wouldn't. He had been feeling guilty ever since Caiti had mentioned that Marlowe thought Sean, and not himself, would be champion. Sean had never once imagined anyone else's name coming out of the cup. Marlowe had been his scheming partner, his person with whom he could paint out elaborate fantasies of what everything would be like. But all those pictures in his head had starred him and not his friend.

What bothered him more than the possibility of self-centeredness was a growing sense that maybe his friends were right. Up until now, he had always - somewhere deep down - banked on the fact that he would never actually be champion. It was all a fun dream, a way to pass the time in history of magic when Professor Binns was droning on and on. If all three of them thought he would be chosen...

He didn't want to think about it yet.

He still wanted it. It had just never occurred to him to be scared until today. But he would not let Marlowe see that.

"I wonder how many students they'll bring," he said, interrupting Marlowe's long diatribe about what he thought the tasks might involve.

"Guess it depends how many want to enter doesn't it?" said Marlowe.

"Hope it's a Hogwarts victory, anyway," said Sean, scooping himself some more potatoes.

"Don't we all?" said Marlowe, looking dreamy.

"Is this right?" said Caiti suddenly. Next to Marlowe, Caiti had her charms book open on her lap and her wand out. She had been whispering something over and over again, practicing the wand motion with her finger. She demonstrated the motion again, a look of deepest concentration on her face.

Marlowe put his hand on her shoulder and peered over at the book. "Think so. Try it."

"Can't," she said. "Not exactly a good spell to do in the great hall is it?" She was practicing the Aguamenti charm which would make water spout out of the tip of her wand.

"Why not? Fill up your cup again," he said. She peeked inside to see how much liquid was left. It was about a quarter full.

"Problem is," she said, looking at her wand with a frown, "The couple of times I've actually gotten it to work, I can't get the water to stop coming out. I almost flooded the charms classroom last time."

With the image of Caiti and her classmates swimming through the classroom, Caiti's wand still stubbornly streaming out a steady jet of water, Marlowe erupted in silent, shaking laughter, and had to put his head down on the table while he contained himself.

"Shut up," Caiti said, although he had not said anything. She looked at her wand hopelessly.

Sean tipped the last of his pumpkin juice into his mouth and pulled out his own wand. "Watch," he said. "See if I'm doing something differently than you are." He demonstrated the spell and Caiti's eyes grew wide and round.

"Oh," she breathed. She pointed her wand at her own cup and filled it, grinning. "I did it!" she shrieked, clapping her hands together. "Marlowe you can look now. I didn't flood the great hall."

"Shoot," said Marlowe. "Might've gotten me out of Potions if you had."

"What'd you do differently?" asked Sean.

"It's that flick up at the end when you want it to stop," she said excitedly. "That's not in the book. Where'd you learn that?"

He shrugged.

"Well it's genius," she said, tapping her wand in her hand fondly.

Sean shrugged again. "More like instinct, probably."

"Kind of like you with potions," said Marlowe miserably. "Wish I had your instinct there."

"Hey, how'd it ever go with the antidote?" she asked.

"Oh, I think it was alright," he said. His hands had become very busy, fingers drumming on the side of the table or nervously running up and down his thighs. Sean was accustomed to this. Marlowe was an antsy person. He always needed to move.

"Grade coming back today?" she asked, smiling.

He nodded, looking queasy.

"Marlowe, you'll be fine. You made it perfectly with me."

"Yeah," he said, "Key words, with you."

"Well you took good notes and you did most of it yourself. I just pointed out some things that would help," Caiti assured him.

"This," said Sean, looking at Marlowe's face, "Is why I quit potions." Evelyn rolled her eyes.

---

The end of that week seemed to come even quicker than usual. Before Sean could really process whatever it was he was feeling - doubt? anxiousness? excitement? He wasn't sure - Saturday had come, as would, soon, the delegates from the foreign schools. He awoke early, but did not get out of bed for a long time.

Why was it that as soon as the Triwizard Cup was finally, legitimately in his reach, he was beginning to question whether he wanted it anymore? And that was the question, wasn't it? Did he, Sean, really, honestly want to compete in the Triwizard Tournament?

Yes, he assured himself immediately, maybe even defensively. He wanted this. Of course he wanted this.

But then, he was being stupid anyway. This was all assuming that he was chosen as champion and he probably wouldn't even get it. So what if his friends thought he would. They were his friends. They were supposed to think that. They were just being supportive.

But something was keeping him from really thinking that way. He just had this gut feeling, something deeper and more raw than shallow entitlement, that it was going to be him.

So then the question was, again, did he really want this?

Sean thought himself in circles coming no nearer an honest answer than he had been when he had first awoken. Only when he heard Marlowe get up in the bed to his right an hour later did he start to get a move on for the day.

They stood at neighboring sinks in the bathroom at the big circular countertop, brushing their teeth. Through a mouthful of toothpaste, Marlowe said, "So, this is it."

Sean spat into the sink, rinsed, and said, "Today's the day."

"You gonna put your name in after the feast tonight or tomorrow morning?"

"Dunno," said Sean, distracted.

"I was thinking tomorrow morning. It'll be more fun when everyone's down there you know."

Sean didn't usually mind being the center of attention all that much. He wasn't shy. But in this instance, he had to disagree with Marlowe. Putting his name in the Goblet of Fire with everyone watching felt like a lot more pressure than he was in the mood for. He didn't say what he actually thought, though. "Yeah," he said. "Definitely better."

---

At half past four, the students all donned their cloaks and headed outside to watch the arrival of their guests. Evelyn, who was always freezing without being outside, had her hands stuffed inside her sleeves again, and had sidled up to Sean for warmth. The sun had already begun to go down and was hanging low in the sky, casting a lukewarm orangey light over everything. She could see her breath, coming out in puffs of white vapor.

"How long do you think we'll have to wait?" she asked him, bouncing on her toes to keep warm.

Sean pulled her in front of him, hugging her from behind. "Dunno," he said, face right next to hers. She was glad her hair covered how much she had smiled. Unfortunately, though, while Sean hadn't seen, Caiti and Marlowe had. She caught them looking at each other with raised eyebrows and then pretending to vomit with silent, over dramatic hand gestures.

She thought she even heard Caiti whisper, "God, just kiss her already," but she couldn't be sure because at that moment, the lake had begun bubbling up wildly and the crowd around them was chattering loudly, fingers pointing at the place where something seemed to be trying to make its way out of the icy depths of the water. 

Evelyn stood on her tiptoes to see over the heads of the people in front of her just in time to catch the mast of a giant ship cut through the surface of the lake, water spilling off around it as it was displaced. Large billowing sails and a gigantic wooden deck followed the mast, and then the first few rows of what seemed to be several floors worth of windows. For a few minutes, water continued to tumble over the edges and Evelyn wondered how it couldn't be flooded, but as soon as it had stopped running off, the boat seemed to be impossibly dry.

Magic, she thought, was truly unbelievable. It still sometimes struck her the way it had seven years ago when she had first entered the wizarding world, when everything had been new and abnormal.

Finding a gap between the heads in the crowd, Evelyn spotted a trapdoor opening to the decks below, from which a thin and rather severe looking blonde woman was emerging.

"Is that the headmistress?" she asked.

"Gotta be," said Sean.

"Couldn't tell you," said Caiti, sounding annoyed. "As I can't see anything." Her head only rose to the shoulders of most of the people around her.

The woman stood by on the deck, waiting for her students - around fifteen, Evelyn guessed, boys and girls all dressed in heavy fur cloaks - to join her. The students looked around curiously, at the grounds and the castle; Evelyn wondered how it compared. Their headmistress waved them towards her and began making her way down a set of wooden steps that had extended from the side of the ship to the ground. The students followed her onto land again and they all approached Professor Osset who smiled warmly at their guests.

Evelyn could not hear what they were saying when the woman reached him, but then, pointing his wand at his throat first, the headmaster spoke in a magically amplified voice. "Will you all join me in welcoming the delegates from Durmstrang Institute and their Headmistress, Professor Petrov." Evelyn clapped along with everyone else, noticing that the Durmstrang students looked rather uncomfortable.

A few people near the front had begun to exchange pleasantries with the newcomers. She could see them shaking hands and asking how their journey was. Only a minute or so passed, however, before everyone's attention was pulled once again, this time towards the skies. 

Swooping in over the forest was an ornate carriage, gold and white, pulled by a number of the largest horses Evelyn had ever seen, each of them a stunning palamino. The carriage landed clumsily on the lawn, the horses galloping into a walk until they were able to stop. This time when the headmistress stepped out of the carriage, Evelyn knew Caiti had had no trouble whatsoever seeing her, even over the heads of the people around her for her eyes had gone wide and she had let out a low "Woah." The headmistress had to be the tallest woman Evelyn had ever seen.

"She makes me nervous," Caiti whispered and Marlowe laughed at her.

"Be nice," he said.

She was followed out by her students, adorned in powder blue uniforms and all normal sized. For the second time, Professor Osset went to meet the new arrivals, murmuring a few things to her which Evelyn could not hear. Her tapped his throat with his wand again. "And now, please join me in welcoming our delegates from Beauxbatons Academy of Magic and their headmistress, Madame Maxime." Everyone broke out into applause once again. Sean with his arms still around Evelyn, clapped in front of her, his hands just underneath her own. She leaned back into him, turned her head, a bunch of red hair catching on his buttons and said, "None of them look very happy, do they?"

Sean frowned, glancing back up at them. "You're right. They don't look to impressed with anything." He looked back at her and Evelyn, realizing how close their faces were, felt heat rising in her face despite the cold. She turned away again to face the newcomers.

They had been outside nearly forty five minutes already and her fingers and toes were numb. She kept scrunching up her nose trying to bring some warmth back to it. It was getting darker outside and the breeze had picked up into a wind. Luckily, Professor Osset was now leading their guests inside and the Hogwarts students had begun to follow at the end of the line.

Sean finally let go of her so she could walk but she wished he hadn't.

Behind her, she heard Marlowe whispering something about making a bet to Caiti. "If they don't get together by the time of the Yule Ball," he was saying, "you have to kiss me."

She heard the sound of a dull slap, the impact taken out by the layers of cold-weather clothing, and a short giggle. "I'm betting it takes till the end of the school year anyway."

Once again, Evelyn was glad Sean did not seem to notice. He was always in his own head, deep in thought about something or other. She had never been more glad of it.