her dreams were worse than ever, with green flashes of light, screaming like someone was being tortured, a graveyard, a boy hitting the ground because he'd been killed, and an overwhelming feeling of darkness. elara told hermione, who wanted elara to go to dumbledore, but elara refused. she also made hermione swear not to tell harry or ron, because harry was already stressed about sirius, and ron can't and won't keep a secret.

to their surprise, though, 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.

"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. harry, ron, and elara grinned at each other. they knew hermione would rather eat bubotuber pus than miss such an important lesson.

moody began to beckon students forward in turn and put the imperius curse upon them. elara watched as, one by one, her 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.

harry almost fought the curse off, but he ended up doing a weird jump that sort of resembled a salmon jumping up a waterfall and hit his head against the desk. elara thought it was hilarious, but at the same time she was concerned.

"lestrange," moddy beckoned her forward after he finished praising potter.

elara moved forward into the middle of the classroom, into the space that moody had cleared of desks. moody raised his wand, pointed it at elara, and said, "imperio!"

it was the most wonderful feeling. elara felt a floating sensation as every thought and worry in her head was wiped gently away, leaving nothing but a vague, untraceable happiness. she stood there feeling immensely relaxed, only dimly aware of everyone watching her. although it was very therapeutic, elara felt very off-put by the feeling.

and then she heard mad-eye moody's voice, echoing in some distant chamber of her empty brain: flip a desk... flip a desk

elara made no movement.

flip a desk...

why? she asked in her head, i won't do it until you give me a good reason.

because i said so...

that's not a reason. elara subconsciously put her hands on her hips, a telltale sign she was annoyed.

flip the desk! NOW!

no!

the feeling washed away from elara. she came back to reality to see her classmates gaping at her. moody looked the slightest bit taken aback. elara felt her lips quirk upwards.

"well done!" moody's gravelly voice sounded, "look here everyone, she's fought off the curse with ease! never seen a witch or wizard this young do that!"

moody made her go under the curse four more times so she could demonstrate to her classmates how to effectively through off the curse.

all the fourth years had noticed a definite increase in the amount of work they were required to do this term. professor mcgonagall explained why, when the class gave a particularly loud groan at the amount of transfiguration homework she had assigned. she said that o.w.l.s. were close, but no one but hermione seemed to agree.

harry, ron, and elara were deeply amused when professor trelawney told them that they had received top marks for their homework in their next divination class. she read out large portions of their predictions, commending them for their unflinching acceptance of the horrors in store for them — but they were less amused when she asked them to do the same thing for the month after next; the three of them were running out of ideas for catastrophes.

meanwhile professor binns, the ghost who taught history of magic, had them writing weekly essays on the goblin rebellions of the eighteenth century. professor snape was forcing them to re- search antidotes. they took this one seriously, as he had hinted that he might be poisoning one of them before christmas to see if their antidote worked. 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. harry, ron, elara, and hermione returned to the castle at the end of the lesson in high spirits; seeing hagrid put down malfoy was particularly satisfying, especially because malfoy had done his very best to get hagrid sacked the previous year.

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 four, stood on tiptoe to see over the heads in front of them and read the sign aloud to the other three:

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.

"cedric diggory," said elara. "he's probably planning on entering the tournament."

"that idiot, hogwarts champion?" said ron as they pushed their way through the chattering crowd toward the staircase.

"cedric's not an idiot. you just don't like him because he beat us at quidditch. he's a really good student, and he's a prefect. not to mention, he's incredibly nice," said elara, placing her hands on her hips.

"you only like him because he's handsome," said ron scathingly.

"i do not. he showed me the kitchens back in second year!" elara said indignantly.

she did not notice harry whipping his head to look at her incredulously.

"he showed you the kitchens?" said harry in an odd sort of voice.

"yeah, i had just had another dream and he thought i looked a little pale. he got me tea and banana bread."

"why?"

elara didn't know why harry was so inquisitive about this. cedric was just being nice because that's how he is.

"probably because i looked like death," elara said nonchalantly and hermione stifled a laugh. harry and ron looked annoyed.

"are you sure he wasn't trying to do anything?"

"harry, i was twelve and he was fifteen."

"wasn't he still prefect? didn't he give you detention?"

"oh, no. mcgonagall had told all the staff and prefects that i'm prone to sleepwalking."

"hasn't he seen you before?"

"yeah, he's helped me back to gryffindor tower a handful of times."

"what -- why?"

elara detected a hint of jealousy from harry, although she had no idea why. ron and hermione were looking at each other, having a silent conversation.

"if you walk up in the middle of the castle at night with no recollection of how you got there, you're a little disorientated."

harry looked away. elara rolled her eyes. she had no idea why he was so curious about her accidental late-night adventures. she couldn't control her dreams. if she could, she would. the realistic night terrors were no fun, ever.

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 elara 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.

elara noticed too 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.

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.

harry, ron, elara, and hermione sat down beside fred, george, and aurora at the gryffindor table. once again, and most unusually, they were sitting apart from everyone else and conversing in low voices. ron led the way over to them.

turns out ludo bagman had given them leprechaun's gold. when ron was informed of this, he looked scandalized as he remembered that he had paid harry's back in leprechaun's gold. harry told ron that he hadn't even noticed, which seemed to send ron into another bad mood.

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, harry, ron, elara, and hermione hurried up to gryffindor yower, deposited their bags and books as they had been instructed, pulled on their cloaks, and rushed back downstairs into the entrance hall.

the heads of houses were ordering their students into lines. mcgonagall scolded ron for his hat being on backwards and parvati for her butterfly clip.

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. elara, standing between ron and harry in the fourth row from the front, saw dennis creevey positively shivering with anticipation among the other first years.

they debated on how they'd arrive until dumbledore called out that he sees the beaux batons delegation arriving.

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. some first-years called out stupid ideas of what it could be, but dennis creevey was the closest guess.

instead of a house, it was a large carriage being pulled by beautiful flying horses. 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.

elara 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 respect- fully. then elara saw 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 she had ever seen in her life. the size of the carriage, and of the horses, was im- mediately explained. a few people gasped.

elara had only ever seen one person as large as this woman in her life, and that was hagrid; she doubted whether there was an inch difference in their heights. yet somehow — maybe simply because she was used to hagrid — this woman (now at the foot of the steps, and looking around at the waiting, wide-eyed crowd) seemed even more unnaturally large. 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.

elara, 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. a few had wrapped scarves and shawls around their heads. from what elara 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.

beauxbatons left to warm up in the castle, leaving everyone else to wait for durmstrang excitedly.

"can you hear something?" said ron suddenly.

elara listened; 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. . . .

from their position at the top of the lawns overlooking the grounds, they had a clear view of the smooth black surface of the water — except that the surface was suddenly not smooth at all. some disturbance was taking place deep in the center; great bubbles were forming on the surface, waves were now washing over the muddy banks — and then, 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 elara saw the rigging. . . .

"it's a mast!" she said excitedly to harry, ron, and hermione.

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, elara noticed, seemed to be built along the lines of crabbe and goyle . . . but then, as they drew nearer, walking up the lawns into the light streaming from the entrance hall, she 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.

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.