Chapter 6
"You treacherous little mudblood!"
I cringed, looking up to see Damon marching down the spiralling steps of Ravenclaw Tower, where he'd almost certainly camped out to ambush me. Each step he took was well grounded and full of furious purpose, right up until Lyra sent him stumbling the rest of the way down with an opportune shove.
"Damon, you really shouldn't say... er..." Cassius began, trailing off awkwardly from behind them, "that."
"It's fine," I sighed. "His blood is just as muddy as mine. He can call me what he likes."
"You treacherous little mudblood," he growled again, as menacing as he could manage, which wasn't that much at all. "I can't believe you would lie to me-"
"-Us," Lyra amended graciously.
"-about putting your name into the goblet, and then actually have the nerve to beat me-"
"-Us," Lyra cut in again, giving him the annoyed side eye.
"Fine, us." Damon rolled his eyes in exasperation, sending me a 'can you believe her?' look.
"For the record, I'm happy for you," Cassius said, seeming several levels of uncomfortable with the situation.
I threw my hands into the air around my head, signalling for them to stop.
"Stop right there! I specifically told you I wouldn't put my name in, and I meant it. The bloody thing's malfunctioning!" I cried, more than a little annoyed. "I don't want to be the champion."
Ah, but what about the prize money, a little voice in my head reminded me. You and Thomas would be set up for years if you actually win.
Shaking off the thought, I folded my arms and stared at my friends expectantly.
"You expect us to believe that?" asked Lyra, her dark brows raised almost comically high on her forehead. "Everyone else in this bloody castle wants to be the champion, and you want me to think that the one person that didn't want to be chosen, the one person who supposedly didn't put their name in, got picked? You expect us to believe, that rather than you giving into temptation, a powerful magical object somehow broke and manifested out of nowhere the name and school of an actual student instead of picking one of the ones given to it? Really?"
Well, when she put it that way perhaps my theory had a few glaring holes. I just hadn't wanted to think of the alternative.
"Oh yeah?" I snapped, all my cool lost out of stress and mounting indignation. "What about you, huh? If I recall, you threatened to put my name in the goblet yourself! This kind of prank seems exactly up your alley!"
"You think I put your name in?" she shot back. Her dark skin became tinted with pink as her temper rose. "I wouldn't betray my friend's trust like that, but you! We all know how much you like to lie and keep secrets from us! That's far more likely than me deliberately lowering my own odds at being chosen by entering someone else that told me she didn't even want to compete!"
The reasonable part of my brain conceded that she made a fair point there. She was a Slytherin; ambition was practically in her job description.
"Whatever, I don't want to argue," I forced my voice to level out, trying to push past them up to my dormitory. "I'm going to sleep before we catch any of the teachers' attention and earn even more detention than we already have."
"Oh, no you don't, missy," said Damon, drawing me back by the shoulder. "You may not want to argue, but I-"
"-we," Lyra coughed.
"-do," he finished, lunging for Lyra to place a hand over her mouth. Cassius darted out of his way, lest he accidentally be sent tumbling down the stars in the scuffle.
"What do you want me to say?" I huffed, my temper itching to skyrocket once more, even as I pushed it back. "Obviously you don't believe me when I tell you the truth, so do you want me to lie to you? Is that it? What lie will satisfy you?"
"Guys..." Cassius began nervously.
"Well, someone put your name in," Lyra snapped, her voice rising to a near shout to be heard above Cassius's blustering and my own defensive pleas. "Why would anyone possibly want to put in another person's name and lower their own chances at being chosen? That's bloody idiotic!"
"Guys," Cassius pressed, more fervently than before.
We ignored him.
"Honestly, Alice, we aren't mad that you won," Damon objected, running a hand through his hair. "We just don't get why you're lying to us. Why can't you just admit you did it!"
"I didn't want to compete! All my money was gunning for you, remember?
"GUYS! You are bound to have awoken the entire castle by now," Cass hissed, grabbing me and Damon by our ears and dragging us up the stairs, kicking and screaming like children.
"Oi, what in the name of Merlin are you assaulting me for?" Damon demanded as he awkwardly clambered sideways up the steps. "She's the one who should be in trouble, not me!"
"Shut it!" he muttered.
That's when I heard it. The pounding steps chasing behind us up the tower and the colourful cursing of the caretaker, eager to catch students out of bed. Before I knew it, I was the one dragging Cassius up the stairs to the bronze owl guarding the Ravenclaw common room.
"What has six faces, but no smile?" it asked in its even, musical voice.
"We don't have time for that!" Lyra argued, slamming her fist against the door. "Just let us in!"
"This is why you aren't in Ravenclaw," I muttered spitefully, running through all the possibilities in my head. Why did the riddles always have to be so bloody vague?
"Not to pressure you, but any moment now would be great," Cassius said, looking worriedly at the shadow of the caretaker growing against the wall behind us.
"Though I'm still irritated with you, I'll admit that sooner would be better," Damon agreed.
"Just be quiet and give me a moment!" I hissed, massaging my temples as the steps grew louder.
By then, I could even hear the huffing of the caretakers breath, he was so close, but, like a diamond, I performed best under extreme pressure.
"Dice! The answer is dice!"
"That is indeed a possibility," the owl acknowledged.
The door swung open on its hinges, and not a moment too soon. We fell as one into a heap inside, allowing the door to slam shut behind us.
"I'm going to bed. You lot leave when you think the coast is clear," I ordered, pushing Cass away and disentangling my limbs from Lyra's.
"Oh no, you don't," she said, grabbing onto the hem of my robes. "We're not done here."
"Actually," I began, pulling my robes free with a sharp tug, "we are."
I spun on my heel and marched up to the sixth year girls dormitory, exhausted and fuming. How could they not understand that I was telling them the truth? My life was difficult enough without adding the extra drama of submitting my name into that absurd tournament. The last thing I needed was to worry about yet another thing trying to kill me, not to mention the fact that one of the champions already hated me for some reason, and I still had nearly a month of detentions left. Now, to top it off, those idiots were mad at me for supposedly lying to them.
"Great," I muttered, curling into my pillow. "Just great."
• — • — •
It did not go unnoticed the next morning when I sat with the Ravenclaws instead of the Hufflepuffs, nor did it go unnoticed that I was not alone, much to my mounting annoyance.
"Is there something I can help you with?" I asked, staring fixedly at the plate of food in front of me, not eating.
"I doubt it," the Durmstrang champion replied cheerfully, staring at me over steepled fingers.
"Then why are you looking at me like that?" No doubt consorting with another champion so soon after our argument would not make me seem very sympathetic to my suspicious friends.
"Like what?" he inquired a little too innocently.
"You know what?" I took a a deep cleansing breath and forced an insincere smile to my face. "It doesn't matter. We're opponents now, so whatever you want, I don't want to know."
Without further ado, I swung around on the bench, fully intending to make a quick departure from the Great Hall, only to walk directly into the form of another.
"Now, what are you two plotting about?" the Beauxbatons' champion, Nikolas, asked, eyes narrowed in suspicion.
I quickly stepped back, on the defensive.
"We were doing nothing."
"We were just deciding the best way to team up and take you out of the running to make our own odds better," Frey lied, grinning brightly.
"What are you doing?" I hissed, horrified, but the damage was done.
Nikolas glared daggers at us like his worst suspicions had just been confirmed. Evidently he thought my horror at Frey's lie was instead anger at having my "evil schemes" outed.
"I'm not surprised you would stoop to such low levels to win," he sneered. "You have no chance of beating me otherwise. By all means, continue."
He twirled around and marched off in the opposite direction, leaving me no chance to clear my name, though I doubted he would have listened anyway.
"Why did you have to say that?" I growled at Frey through clenched teeth. "Now he thinks we're conspiring against him."
"Aren't we?" Frey winked mischievously over his goblet pumpkin juice. "You said we were opponents. We don't have to be, at least, not yet."
"If I win, it will not be through cheap alliances, but my own cunning."
My words surprised even me. I was coming around to this whole champion thing far quicker than I could have anticipated. Sure, I was still annoyed — no one liked being forced into something against their will — but maybe, just maybe, it wouldn't be a complete disaster. Maybe if I won I could finally turn my fortune, along with my brother's, into our favour.
Frey, to my immense surprise, threw back his head and laughed, a laugh as sweet as tinkling bells. I wasn't sure what to make of the enigmatic foreigner. To be safe, I assumed he had to be playing some long con. We were opponents, after all. He definitely didn't come to Hogwarts to make friends.
"You are exactly how I thought you would be," he decided, still grinning coyly.
"What does that mean?" I groaned, feeling my sanity slipping like sand through my fingers.
He opened his mouth to reply, but was cut off by a voice over my shoulder.
"Is there a problem here?"