Through the next following weeks, Bella found her self less and less tired. Though the night mares continued...they were not as...petrifying. Face, Dean, and Sam continued sleeping in the common room on the floor or in the chairs, while Bella slept on the couch in front of the fire place.

Their lessons were becoming more difficult and demanding than ever before, particularly Moody’s Defense Against the Dark Arts. To their surprise, Professor Moody had announced that he would be putting the Imperius Curse on each of them in turn, to demonstrate its power and to see whether they could resist its effects.

"oh shit" Bella grumbled.

“But — but you said it’s illegal, Professor,” said Hermione uncertainly as Moody cleared away the desks with a sweep of his wand, leaving a large clear space in the middle of the room. “You said — to use it against another human was —”

“Dumbledore wants you taught what it feels like,” said Moody, his magical eye swiveling onto Hermione and fixing her with an eerie, unblinking stare. “If you’d rather learn the hard way — when someone’s putting it on you so they can control you completely — fine by me. You’re excused. Off you go.”

He pointed one gnarled finger toward the door. Hermione went very pink and muttered something about not meaning that she wanted to leave.

Moody began to beckon students forward in turn and put the Imperius Curse upon them.

They watched as, one by one, Their classmates did the most extraordinary things under its influence.

Dean Thomas hopped three times around the room, singing the national anthem.

Lavender Brown imitated a squirrel.

Neville performed a series of quite astonishing gymnastics he would certainly not have been capable of in his normal state. Not one of them seemed to be able to fight off the curse, and each of them recovered only when Moody had removed it.

“Potter,” Moody growled, “you next.”

Harry moved forward into the middle of the classroom, into the space that Moody had cleared of desks. Moody raised his wand, pointed it at Harry, and said, “Imperio!” It was the most wonderful feeling. Harry felt a floating sensation as every thought and worry in his head was wiped gently away, leaving nothing but a vague, untraceable happiness. He stood there feeling immensely relaxed, only dimly aware of everyone watching him. And then he heard Mad-Eye Moody’s voice, echoing in some distant chamber of his empty brain: Jump onto the desk . . . jump onto the desk. . . . Harry bent his knees obediently, preparing to spring. Jump onto the desk. . . . Why, though? Another voice had awoken in the back of his brain.

Stupid thing to do, really, said the voice. Jump onto the desk. . . . No, I don’t think I will, thanks, said the other voice, a little more firmly . . . no, I don’t really want to. . . . Jump! NOW!

The next thing Harry felt was considerable pain. He had both jumped and tried to prevent himself from jumping — the result was that he’d smashed headlong into the desk, knocking it over, and, by the feeling in his legs, fractured both his kneecaps.

“Now, that’s more like it!” growled Moody’s voice, and suddenly, Harry felt the empty, echoing feeling in his head disappear. He remembered exactly what was happening, and the pain in his knees seemed to double. “Look at that, you lot . . . Potter fought! He fought it, and he damn near beat it! We’ll try that again, Potter, and the rest of you, pay attention — watch his eyes, that’s where you see it — very good, Potter, very good indeed! They’ll have trouble controlling you!”

"Riddle, How about you?" Moody turned to Bella.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione tensed up hearing the last name. Bella glanced at them curiously as to why they reacted in such a manner, however she quickly  shoved it aside.

Face inched closer to Bella looking as though he wanted to protect her.

Bella looked up at him as he turned to her. She felt the hair stand on the back of her neck as he casted the Imperio on her. She heard a voice echo inside of her.  Stand.

"No" She says smirking as she sat back in her seat and put her feet up on the desk. "no i dont think i will"

The students stared at her in shock as she easily defied the curse.

Stand!

"No" Bella replied.

Moody watched her.

"You cannot make me break" Bella says looking at him pointedly. "you can try all you like. You will not win" She says firmly.

Bark?

"Mew" Bella smirked

"you are a pain" Moddy growled.

"i know" Bella replied in a sing song voice.

"so in other words" Dean says.

"The curse doesnt work on her" Sam finished.

"that is a good thing though" Face says with a grin.

“The way he talks,” Harry muttered as he hobbled out of the Defense Against the Dark Arts class an hour later, Moody had insisted on putting Harry through his paces four times in a row, until Harry could throw off the curse entirely, like Bella had been able to do, “you’d think we were all going to be attacked any second.”

“Yeah, I know,” said Ron, who was skipping on every alternate step. He had had much more difficulty with the curse than Harry, though Moody assured him the effects would wear off by lunchtime. “Talk about paranoid . . .” Ron glanced nervously over his shoulder to check that Moody was definitely out of earshot and went on.

“No wonder they were glad to get shot of him at the Ministry. Did you hear him telling Seamus what he did to that witch who shouted ‘Boo’ behind him on April Fools’ Day? And when are we supposed to read up on resisting the Imperius Curse with everything else we’ve got to do?”

"Thats because you can be attacked at any moment" Dean growled.

"you need to be prepared for anything" Bella added. "I get it...you are kids and everything, but kids are attacked too. You cannot rely on adults for everything. what if there isn't an adult around to protect you...what if the adult is the one trying to attack you?" She explained.

"Riddle!" They heard Moody from down the hallway.

Bella sighed. "I'll catch up" she promised as Moody hobbeled over to them. 

Bella turned and looked at Moody who had finally caught up to her as the rest of them left.

"Yes?" she asked.

"Ive got something you are going to want to hear" Moody says as he leads her back into the class room.

Bella followed him into the class room and over to the desk asfter shutting the door behind her.

"You have some nerve putting the impurious on me Bartemus" She added sounding annoyed.

"I told you i was putting it on everyone" Moody growled.

"I am still the dark lady." Bella scowled.

"It would have been suspicious had i not" Moody countered.

"Ugh fine" Bella grumbled.

"what i want to know...is why have you not done anything about that Raven claw girl" Moody says growling.

"No one plots a murder out loud Bartemus, I want it to be painful. I want her to suffer" Bella replied calmly "you have spoken to our lord?" She asked.

"Aye I have" Moody replied.

Bella stood there listening carefully as he spoke to her in hushed tones.

Later in tranffiguration, Professor Mcgongall explained that they would be recieving tons of work.

“You are now entering a most important phase of your magical education!” she told them, her eyes glinting dangerously behind her square spectacles. “Your Ordinary Wizarding Levels are drawing closer —”

“We don’t take O.W.L.s till fifth year!” said Dean Thomas indignantly.

“Maybe not, Thomas, but believe me, you need all the preparation you can get! Miss Granger remains the only person in this class who has managed to turn a hedgehog into a satisfactory pincushion. I might remind you that your pincushion, Thomas, still curls up in fright if anyone approaches it with a pin!”

Hermione, who had turned rather pink again, seemed to be trying not to look too pleased with herself.

"And Miss Riddle, in stead of turning hers into a pincushion, turned hers into a pet!" Mcgongall added.

"But it's so adorable!" Bella whined as the hedgehog looked up from where it was laying on her head.

Potions, though Bella had not been there, had turned out to be a very interesting day. They had been making a potion that is similar to a DNA test. The results came out....shocking for Dean and Sam. It wasn't until they met up later that they could finally tell Bella everything that they had learned.

"SO Potions was interesting" Sam says as they sat down for dinner.

"what happened?" Bella asked. Instead of answering, Both Sam and Dean looked at each other and then back to Bella.

"We were making this potion...It spilled on us." Sam explained.

Bella hissed. "are you ok?" she asked.

"uh..physically" Dean replied.

"ugh. Bella...Did you know you have siblings" Face asked cutting to the chase.

"siblings...Well yeah. I mean. Lily was my sister" Bella replied as she took a bite of her food.

"no i mean...Brothers" Face says hesitantly.

Bella stared at them weirdly. "My brother died a couple years ago"

"But...you dont know anbout any others?" Sam asked.

"Im sure there are some out there" Bella shrugged. "my father apperently gets around. Why?" she asked.

"uh well.."

"Our mother's name isnt Mary like we thought it was" Dean says sharply. "It was Marie."

Bella tensed up. "what? really?" She asked alarmed.

"Our dads are diffrent though" Sam says.

"who...who are your fathers?" Bella asked confused.

"Zeus" Dean says sharply.

"Hades" Sam whispered looking down.

Bella blinked stunned as she stared at them in shock. "wait...you...you are my brothers?!" She exclaimed causing several people to look over at them.

"could you keep it down" Dean grumbled.

"none of this makes any sense i mean....Then who is John? What relation does he have to us?" Sam asked.

"what does it matter?" Dean shot back.

"Im just saying...wouldn't you want to know?" Sam asked.

"What i want is to get drunk" Dean shot back.

Meanwhile Professor Binns, the ghost who taught History of Magic, had them writing weekly essays on the goblin rebellions of the eighteenth century.

Professor Flitwick had asked them to read three extra books in preparation for their lesson on Summoning Charms.

Even Hagrid was adding to their workload. The Blast-Ended Skrewts were growing at a remarkable pace given that nobody had yet discovered what they ate. Hagrid was delighted, and as part of their “project,” suggested that they come down to his hut on alternate evenings to observe the skrewts and make notes on their extraordinary behavior.

“I will not,” said Draco Malfoy flatly when Hagrid had proposed this with the air of Father Christmas pulling an extra-large toy out of his sack. “I see enough of these foul things during lessons, thanks.”

Hagrid’s smile faded off his face. “Yeh’ll do wha’ yer told,” he growled, “or I’ll be takin’ a leaf outta Professor Moody’s book. . . . I hear yeh made a good ferret, Malfoy.”

The Gryffindors roared with laughter. Malfoy flushed with anger, but apparently the memory of Moody’s punishment was still sufficiently painful to stop him from retorting.

When they arrived in the entrance hall, they found themselves unable to proceed owing to the large crowd of students congregated there, all milling around a large sign that had been erected at the foot of the marble staircase.

Ron, 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 —

“Brilliant!” said Harry. “It’s Potions last thing on Friday! Snape won’t have time to poison us all!”

Students will return their bags and books to their dormitories and assemble in front of the castle to greet our guests before the Welcoming Feast.

“Only a week away!” said Ernie Macmillan of Hufflepuff, emerging from the crowd, his eyes gleaming. “I wonder if Cedric knows? Think I’ll go and tell him. . . .”

“Cedric?” said Ron blankly as Ernie hurried off.

“Diggory,” said Harry. “He must be entering the tournament.”

Bella and Face look at each other and sigh.

"Isn't he that hufflepuff that keeps trying to flirt with you?" Dean asked as he nugled Bella's shoulder.

Bella scowled. "Can we not bring that up" Bella scowled.

“That idiot, Hogwarts champion?” said Ron as they pushed their way through the chattering crowd toward the staircase.

“He’s not an idiot. You just don’t like him because he beat Gryffindor at Quidditch,” said Hermione. “I’ve heard he’s a really good student — and he’s a prefect.” She spoke as though this settled the matter.

“You only like him because he’s handsome,” said Ron scathingly.

“Excuse me, I don’t like people just because they’re handsome!” said Hermione indignantly.

Ron gave a loud false cough, which sounded oddly like “Lockhart!” The appearance of the sign in the entrance hall had a marked effect upon the inhabitants of the castle.

During the following week, there seemed to be only one topic of conversation, no matter where they went: the Triwizard Tournament. Rumors were flying from student to student like highly contagious germs: who was going to try for Hogwarts champion, what the tournament would involve, how the students from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang differed from themselves.

They all noticed that the castle seemed to be undergoing an extra-thorough cleaning. Several grimy portraits had been scrubbed, much to the displeasure of their subjects, who sat huddled in their frames muttering darkly and wincing as they felt their raw pink faces.

The suits of armor were suddenly gleaming and moving without squeaking, and Argus Filch, the caretaker, was behaving so ferociously to any students who forgot to wipe their shoes that he terrified a pair of first-year girls into hysterics.

Other members of the staff seemed oddly tense too.

“Longbottom, kindly do not reveal that you can’t even perform a simple Switching Spell in front of anyone from Durmstrang!” Professor McGonagall barked at the end of one particularly difficult lesson, during which Neville had accidentally transplanted his own ears onto a cactus.

"i swear the last time i saw her this ruffled, was when a certain group of friends would prank the slytherins nonstop" Bella whispered to Face quietly.

When they went down to breakfast on the morning of the thirtieth of October, they found that the Great Hall had been decorated overnight. Enormous silk banners hung from the walls, each of them representing a Hogwarts House: red with a gold lion for Gryffindor, blue with a bronze eagle for Ravenclaw, yellow with a black badger for Hufflepuff, and green with a silver serpent for Slytherin. Behind the teachers’ table, the largest banner of all bore the Hogwarts coat of arms: lion, eagle, badger, and snake united around a large letter H.

Bella, Face, Dean, and Sam all sat down at the gryffindor table. Bella streatched a little before she picked up her fork and began eating her eggs hungerily. Since she had been taking nutreint potions and eating more, she had filled out rather well, though she was still very slim, she no longer looked like she was skin and bones.

The boys made sure to compliment her several times through out the day. She wasn't sure how to feel about their constant complimenting her, but she took it all with stride.

There was a pleasant feeling of anticipation in the air that day. Nobody was very attentive in lessons, being much more interested in the arrival that evening of the people from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang; even Potions was more bearable than usual, as it was half an hour shorter.

When the bell rang early, Face, Dean, and Sam hurried up to Gryffindor Tower, deposited their bags and books as they had been instructed, and rushed back downstairs into the entrance hall.

Bella had spoken to Dumbledore before hand. They were the only ones exempt from changing into their cloaks and school robes. Instead they wore their normal clothes.

The Heads of Houses were ordering their students into lines.

“Weasley, straighten your hat,” Professor McGonagall snapped at Ron.

“Miss Patil, take that ridiculous thing out of your hair.” Parvati scowled and removed a large ornamental butterfly from the end of her plait.

“Follow me, please,” said Professor McGonagall. “First years in front . . . no pushing. . . .”

They filed down the steps and lined up in front of the castle. It was a cold, clear evening; dusk was falling and a pale, transparent looking moon was already shining over the Forbidden Forest.

Bella, Dean, Sam, and Face were in the back row but was off to the side close to where Dumbledore was at.

. “Nearly six,” said Sam, checking his watch and then staring down the drive that led to the front gates. “How d’you reckon they’re coming? The train?”

“I doubt it,” Bella replied.

“How, then? Broomsticks?” Dean asked with a slight scowl.

"Hmm not exactly" bella replied looking amused.

"a boat?" Face asked seeing as that seemed to be the most logical.

"maybe" Bella sighed.

And then Dumbledore called out from the back row where he stood with the other teachers — “Aha! Unless I am very much mistaken, the delegation from Beauxbatons approaches!”

“Where?” said many students eagerly, all looking in different directions.

“There!” yelled a sixth year, pointing over the forest. Something large, much larger than a broomstick — or, indeed, a hundred broomsticks — was hurtling across the deep blue sky toward the castle, growing larger all the time.

“It’s a dragon!” shrieked one of the first years, losing her head completely.

“Don’t be stupid . . . it’s a flying house!” said Dennis Creevey.

"Now who is being stupid" Dean snorted. Flying house? seriously?

"dean be nice" Bella scolded.

Dennis’s guess was closer. than the dragon.

As the gigantic black shape skimmed over the treetops of the Forbidden Forest and the lights shining from the castle windows hit it, they saw a gigantic, powderblue, horse-drawn carriage, the size of a large house, soaring toward them, pulled through the air by a dozen winged horses, all palominos, and each the size of an elephant.

The front three rows of students drew backward as the carriage hurtled ever lower, coming in to land at a tremendous speed then, with an almighty crash that made Neville jump backward onto a Slytherin fifth year’s foot, the horses’ hooves, larger than dinner plates, hit the ground.

A second later, the carriage landed too, bouncing upon its vast wheels, while the golden horses tossed their enormous heads and rolled large, fiery red eyes.

Bella just had time to see that the door of the carriage bore a coat of arms (two crossed, golden wands, each emitting three stars) before it opened.

A boy in pale blue robes jumped down from the carriage, bent forward, fumbled for a moment with something on the carriage floor, and unfolded a set of golden steps. He sprang back respectfully.

Then a shining, high-heeled black shoe emerging from the inside of the carriage — a shoe the size of a child’s sled — followed, almost immediately, by the largest woman he had ever seen in his life.

The size of the carriage, and of the horses, was immediately explained.

A few people gasped.

As she stepped into the light flooding from the entrance hall, she was revealed to have a handsome, olive-skinned face; large, black, liquid-looking eyes; and a rather beaky nose.

Her hair was drawn back in a shining knob at the base of her neck. She was dressed from head to foot in black satin, and many magnificent opals gleamed at her throat and on her thick fingers.

Dumbledore started to clap; the students, following his lead, broke into applause too, many of them standing on tiptoe, the better to look at this woman. Her face relaxed into a gracious smile and she walked forward toward Dumbledore, extending a glittering hand. Dumbledore, though tall himself, had barely to bend to kiss it.

“My dear Madame Maxime,” he said. “Welcome to Hogwarts.”

"She hates me" Bella whispered to the boys.

"why is that?" Sam asked.

"I dated a girl that was from her school once...The girl was killed after about a year of us dating" Bella explained with a sigh.

"Oh...yeah..that would do it" Dean says.

"How did she get killed?" Sam asked.

"We were supposed to meet up for dinner. But before i could get to the place where we were meeting. A group of men attacked her" Bella explained. "madam Maxime blames me for it"

“Dumbly-dorr,” said Madame Maxime in a deep voice.

Dean snorted a little hearing how she said the head masters name.

“I ’ope I find you well?”

“In excellent form, I thank you,” said Dumbledore.

“My pupils,” said Madame Maxime, waving one of her enormous hands carelessly behind her.

Dean and Face, whose attention had been focused completely upon Madame Maxime, now noticed that about a dozen boys and girls, all, by the look of them, in their late teens, had emerged from the carriage and were now standing behind Madame Maxime.

They were shivering, which was unsurprising, given that their robes seemed to be made of fine silk, and none of them were wearing cloaks.

"where are they from?" Dean asked

"France" Bella replied. "dont get involved with them...they have veela blood" She explained.

"what does that mean?" Face asked.

"its.....kind of like a siren" Bella replied.

A few had wrapped scarves and shawls around their heads. From what Bella could see of them (they were standing in Madame Maxime’s enormous shadow), they were staring up at Hogwarts with apprehensive looks on their faces.

“ ’As Karkaroff arrived yet?” Madame Maxime asked.

"karkaroff was at one time a death eater" Bella explained quietly. "He betrayed the death eaters and gave up several of them to the ministry in order to save him self"

"oh he sounds like a real charmer" Dean says with a scowl.

“He should be here any moment,” said Dumbledore. “Would you like to wait here and greet him or would you prefer to step inside and warm up a trifle?”

“Warm up, I think,” said Madame Maxime. “But ze ’orses —”

“Our Care of Magical Creatures teacher will be delighted to take care of them,” said Dumbledore, “the moment he has returned from dealing with a slight situation that has arisen with some of his other — er — charges.”

“My steeds require — er — forceful ’andling,” said Madame Maxime, looking as though she doubted whether any Care of Magical Creatures teacher at Hogwarts could be up to the job. “Zey are very strong. . . .”

“I assure you that Hagrid will be well up to the job,” said Dumbledore, smiling.

“Very well,” said Madame Maxime, bowing slightly. “Will you please inform zis ’Agrid zat ze ’orses drink only single-malt whiskey?”

“It will be attended to,” said Dumbledore, also bowing.

“Come,” said Madame Maxime imperiously to her students, and the Hogwarts crowd parted to allow her and her students to pass up the stone steps.

They stood, shivering slightly now, waiting for the Durmstrang party to arrive. Most people were gazing hopefully up at the sky.

For a few minutes, the silence was broken only by Madame Maxime’s huge horses snorting and stamping.

But then — “Can you hear something?” said Sam suddenly.

Bella listened in carefully; a loud and oddly eerie noise was drifting toward them from out of the darkness: a muffled rumbling and sucking sound, as though an immense vacuum cleaner were moving along a riverbed.

“The lake!” yelled Lee Jordan, pointing down at it. “Look at the lake!”

"Why am i getting pirates of the carribean vibes here?" Dean asked.

out in the very middle of the lake, a whirlpool appeared, as if a giant plug had just been pulled out of the lake’s floor. What seemed to be a long, black pole began to rise slowly out of the heart of the whirlpool and then Face saw the rigging “It’s a mast!” he said to the others.

Slowly, magnificently, the ship rose out of the water, gleaming in the moonlight. It had a strangely skeletal look about it, as though it were a resurrected wreck, and the dim, misty lights shimmering at its portholes looked like ghostly eyes.

Finally, with a great sloshing noise, the ship emerged entirely, bobbing on the turbulent water, and began to glide toward the bank.

A few moments later, they heard the splash of an anchor being thrown down in the shallows, and the thud of a plank being lowered onto the bank.

People were disembarking; they could see their silhouettes passing the lights in the ship’s portholes.

All of them, Bella and Face noticed, seemed to be built along the lines of BA Baracus. but then, as they drew nearer, walking up the lawns into the light streaming from the entrance hall, he saw that their bulk was really due to the fact that they were wearing cloaks of some kind of shaggy, matted fur.

But the man who was leading them up to the castle was wearing furs of a different sort: sleek and silver, like his hair.

“Dumbledore!” he called heartily as he walked up the slope. “How are you, my dear fellow, how are you?”

“Blooming, thank you, Professor Karkaroff,” Dumbledore replied.

"So that is the death eatert traitor?" Dean says thoughtfully as he looked over Karkaroff.

Karkaroff had a fruity, unctuous voice; when he stepped into the light pouring from the front doors of the castle they saw that he was tall and thin like Dumbledore, but his white hair was short, and his goatee (finishing in a small curl) did not entirely hide his rather weak chin.

When he reached Dumbledore, he shook hands with both of his own. “Dear old Hogwarts,” he said, looking up at the castle and smiling; his teeth were rather yellow, and they noticed that his smile did not extend to his eyes, which remained cold and shrewd. “How good it is to be here, how good. . . . Viktor, come along, into the warmth . . . you don’t mind, Dumbledore? Viktor has a slight head cold. . . .” Karkaroff beckoned forward one of his students.

"Yeah, I bet he does" Dean muttered under his breath.

"these are the people that you are going to be competing against?" Face says looking over at Bella.

Bella takes in a shaky breath. "looks like it" She replied.

"i dont like this...are you sure that you can handle this?" Sam asked looking at her.

"ill be fine...in case anyone forgot...I have god blood in me" Bella says calmly as she began walking back towards the castle along with the rest of the teachers and students.