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xcix. confronting cedric

"It's dangerous!"

"You're friends with the Weasley Twins, isn't nearly everything they do dangerous?"

"Not life or death like dangerous!"

Tori was bickering back and forth with Cedric Diggory during her free period. "I'm going to Herbology." Cedric said, "Can we talk about this later?"

"What? So you have time to decide to enter? Cedric Diggory — don't walk away from me!"

Cedric sighed, laughing as he turned to face her. "Tori, you're telling me, if you had the chance, you wouldn't enter?" That stumped Tori, because she knew for a fact she would if she had been allowed too.

"That's... that's not the point! Don't laugh at me! But because I can't, I've researched this stuff! Fred and George can't enter, Dumbledore's not stupid! But you can! Cedric — people have died!"

"Tori, the chance of I even getting pick is slim! Loads of people are putting their name in, so why can't I just get the chance? Plus, my dad would be pretty proud—"

"You could write an essay and make your dad proud, Ced! You could get seriously hurt! There have been all sort of tasks, like vampires—"

Cedric shuddered. "I hate vampires." He muttered, continuing on his path to Herbology. "Look, Tori. I'm entering, okay? You can't stop me."

"I'll stop talking to you."

"No, you won't."

"Damn it."

"I'm going to be late for class, goodbye Tori."

✧    ✦    ✧

After being swamped with her N.E.W.T. classes, Tori was still expected to help the twins and Lee make their potion. She knew this wasn't going to work, but she also knew she'd never hear the end of it if she didn't help them. It was honestly a lose-lose.

To protect it, the boys kept the potion hidden under the fourth unused bed in their dormitory. Tori had told them it was a bad idea but the three of them decided to stop listening to her. According to them, everything she said was just trying to scare them out of entering or trying to get the twins to cut their hair.

"It's grown so long..." Tori sighed, hiding her face in her Muggle Studies book. "You know deep down you like it."

"You can mop the floor with it," Tori replied, not looking up from her book.

When they arrived in the Entrance Hall the next morning, they found themselves unable to proceed owing to the large crowd of students congregated there, all milling around a large sign which had been erected at the foot of the marble staircase.

Fred, the tallest of the three, stood on tiptoe to see over the heads in front of them and read the sign aloud to the other two.

TRIWIZARD TOURNAMENT
The delegations from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang will be arriving at 6 o'clock on Friday the 30th of October.
Lessons will end half an hour early –

Lessons ending seemed to be the only good thing going on. Fred and George have realized Ludo Bagman had given them leprechaun gold for their winnings. They had tried to contact him several times, but it seems either Ludo was too busy, or he was avoiding them. Tori assumed the latter.

"It's a bummer all right," George was saying gloomily to Fred as Tori sat in front of them. "But if he won't talk to us in person, we'll have to send him the letter after all. Or we'll stuff it into his hand, he can't avoid us forever."

"Who's avoiding you?" said Ron, sitting down next to them. Harry took a seat next to Tori, giving her a grin.

"Wish you would," Fred snapped, looking irritated at the interruption.

"What's a bummer?" Ron asked George.

"Having a nosy git like you for a brother," George replied.

"You two got any ideas on the Triwizard Tournament yet?" Harry asked, glancing up at the teacher tables. "Thought any more about trying to enter?"

"I asked McGonagall how the champions are chosen but she wasn't telling," said George bitterly. "She just told me to shut up and get on with Transfiguring my raccoon."

"Those weren't her exact words." Tori rolled her eyes. "Wonder what the tasks are going to be?" Ron thought aloud. "You know, I bet we could do them, Harry, we've done dangerous stuff before..."

"Not in front of a panel of judges, you haven't," Fred replied, watching McGonagall take her seat. "McGonagall says the champions get awarded points according to how well they've done the tasks."

"Who are the judges?" Harry asked.

"Well, the Heads of the participating schools are always on the panel," said Hermione, and everyone looked around at her, rather surprised, "because all three of them were injured during the Tournament of seventeen ninety-two when a cockatrice the champions were supposed to be catching went on the rampage."

She noticed them all looking at her and said, with her usual air of impatience that nobody else had read all the books she had, "It's all in Hogwarts: A History. Though, of course, that book's not entirely reliable. 'A Revised History of Hogwarts' would be a more accurate title. Or 'A Highly Biased and Selective History of Hogwarts, Which Glosses Over the Nastier Aspects of the School'."

"What are you on about?" Ron sent her a confused look. "House-elves!" said Hermione loudly. Tori groaned. "Not once, in over a thousand pages, does Hogwarts: A History mention that we are all colluding in the oppression of a hundred slaves!"

Hermione has started this whole new campaign she called "S.P.E.W." to try and set house-elves free. Tori had bought a pin for two sickles just to Hermione would leave her alone about it. Her Sickles had been wasted, however; if anything, they seemed to have made Hermione more vociferous. She had been badgering Tori ever since, firstly to wear the badges, then to persuade others to do the same, and she had also taken to rattling around the Gryffindor common room every evening, cornering people and shaking the collecting tin under their noses.

"You do realize that your sheets are changed, your fires lit, your classrooms cleaned and your food cooked by a group of magical creatures who are unpaid and enslaved?" She kept saying fiercely.

Some people, like Neville Longbottom and Tori, had paid up just to stop Hermione glowering at them. A few seemed mildly interested in what she had to say but were reluctant to take a more active role in campaigning. Many regarded the whole thing as a joke.

Fred became extremely interested in his bacon (both twins had refused to buy a S.P.E.W. badge). George, however, leaned towards Hermione. "Listen, have you ever been down in the kitchens, Hermione?"

"No, of course not," said Hermione curtly, "I hardly think students are supposed to —"

"Well, we have," said George, indicating to Fred and Tori, "loads of times, to nick food. And we've met them, and they're happy. They think they've got the best job in the world —"

"That's because they're uneducated and brainwashed!" Hermione began hotly, but her next few words were drowned by the sudden whooshing noise from overhead which announced the arrival of the post owls.

Tori took the newspaper from her owl quickly. "Thanks, Athena," She ripped a chunk of toast off and fed it to her. Tori opened the paper, reading the headline.

"HOGWARTS HOSTS A TRIWIZARD TOURNAMENT!"

She read over the article, skimming what Rita Skeeter had to say about the tournament. Fred and George continued to get their glowering out before class.

part one hundred but chapter ninety-nine!

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