Here it is, finally

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Chapter 12 - The Tryouts

‘At five’ turned out to be at five in the morning, before the sun had even started to rise. Apparently it was the first test, and a few had already given in to their warm beds after seeing that it had snowed a few feet over the night. Amara had practically all her exercise done after having to drag Karina off her bed and into the bathroom, locking the door after her to keep her from breaking out.

It took all her willpower not to lay down on her bed again as she pulled on her thickest clothes over her pyjamas and pocketed her wand safely, reminding herself that this would be her only chance of making it to Hogwarts. Karina’s alarm clock read three minutes to five when they were both ready.

Dashing down the stairs two at a time, they caught a glimpse of their common room before barging out of the door and sprinting across the corridor, the lanterns on the wall now only feebly flickering after a night in the cold. A few portraits complained loudly as the two rushed past and disturbed them from their slumber.

‘What if we’re not on time?’ Karina panted, as they arrived at the main door and went out into the snow towards the Quidditch pitch without a second thought.

‘Ve’ll make it. Still haff a few minutes left.’

It wasn’t Amara who answered. Stan had just joined them out of nowhere, and was running as if he hadn’t drunk one drop of Firewhisky the other night, but his attire was proof of how schnockered he was; what looked like a satin swimsuit and swimming goggles contrasted horribly worn under a blue trench coat and matching elf-shoes.

‘Well, you sure dressed up,’ Amara said, grinning.

He pulled his swimming goggles down and winked, making the other two roll their eyes.

‘You’ll freeze to death if you don’t get eaten by a Sphinx or a Wendigo,’ Karina said shrewdly.

‘Vhat? Ne... you do not think they’d—’

‘Who knows what we’ll have to get past,’ Karina went on, her eyebrows knitting with concern. ‘And I forgot my Warder in my trunk, so that’s not going to help at all—’

‘Oh, quit it,’ Amara said, ‘you know it doesn’t work.’

‘...how are we supposed to know how to repel Ördögs or scare off Banshees...’ Karina went on, as they neared the pitch.

The snowy tundra echoed with the sound of excitement and anticipation as the door to the stadium opened. About two hundred students had shown up for the tryouts; most were skulking on the benches, others stood waiting impatiently, and a few jogged around, stopping every few seconds to catch their breath in the freezing cold. At a table at one end of the court sat Karkaroff, Kysley, their Magical Creatures professor Stach, the Spells professor Ecklund, and a Quidditch teacher who was called Walberg.

‘Those will be our judges, then?’ Karina said, as Stan moved away towards his group.

‘I expected worse, to be honest,’ Amara muttered.

‘Yeah, at least Stach and Ecklund are all right.’

The Quidditch scoreboard had been altered to show the names of the judges and their votes, and a hovering enchanted clock above the judges’ table showed that the tryouts would start in just seven seconds; the door leading to the stadium was closing as the seconds ticked by. A few last students were struggling to get in as it receded inch by inch.

‘...Aaaand time’s up! Too bad for those who couldn’t make it!’

The Quidditch teacher’s voice reverberated across the vast stadium as he stood up and vanished the hovering clock. He waited as everyone stopped talking, then waited a longer time to double the tension. After a whole minute, he finally cleared his throat and smiled tightly. ‘Everyone, you may be wondering, what has led you here? What is it, that has urged your instincts to accept this quest, that quenched your heart’s sinews and saturated in your pulsating veins—’

One of the teachers coughed but the professor ignored them and quickly went on.

‘Yes. The Tournament has finally arrived, and today, as an attestation – to each your own – of how worthy your competitiveness and courage can truly bring the school its well-deserved glory...’

Amara and Katrina rubbed their eyes and sat wearily on a bench, the latter complaining about professor Walberg’s infinite speeches which they usually had to endure during every Quidditch lesson and which generally included him showing off his English vocabulary.

When a solid ten minutes had lapsed, and Walberg was satisfied that his audience was impressed with his bewitching, Browning-worthy speech, he went on to explain the rules and finally, the course of the tryouts.

Everyone forgot that they were drowsy and hungry and up before dawn, and instead listened closely to the three different obstacles they had to go through, one at a time, as the judges noted them.

The first obstacle, Walberg explained, was to test their stamina and agility; dodging spells while going through ten Quidditch goalposts successfully in two minutes. The second tested bravery and wandwork; fighting off a Dementor, a Boggart, and optionally, an Ördög (‘I told you,’ Karina hissed.) Lastly, the changing rooms had been changed into a puzzle to test their logic. If they didn’t come out within two minutes, they were immediately disqualified.

There was a pause after the professor finished explaining. ‘...How many of you are still up for it, then?’ he chuckled, as students glanced at each other and started murmuring.

Amara looked at Karina, who was half-heartedly staring at the doors leading out of the pitch.

‘It’ll only take five minutes, Karina,’ Amara tried. ‘Besides, you’re great at puzzles.’

Karina gave her a cynical look then shifted her eyes onto the stadium. ‘I can’t even produce a good Patronus.’

‘I don’t either, but it’s worth a shot. Anyway, if I do manage to get to Hogwarts alone, who can I count on to warn me about fire-breathing chickens and opera-singing skrewts trying to kill me in my sleep then?’

‘I got that Warder from a street-performing Seer in south Norway—’

‘That’s a very trustworthy resource.’

‘—and fire-breathing chickens exist. They’re bred illegally.’

‘...Very well, then!’ Walberg’s jaunty voice echoed across the stadium again. ‘It seems that no one has declined participation. Very chivalrous, students! Now... form a line, if you please... any first volunteers?’

A few raised their hands, including a boy, not much older than Amara and Karina, who they’d passed in corridors and seen him sulk in the library as a group of girls giggled a few feet away.

‘You know, that guy might have ten times more chance of getting in than us,’ Karina said, raising her eyebrows in an assuring sort of way.

‘Who, Krum?’ Amara said, looking over.

‘Ja, him. He was awesome with Bulgaria last summer.’

‘Yeah, I’d feel sorry for the other champions if he got chosen.’

‘Speaking of which,’ Karina mused, ‘how will they choose the champions?’

‘Dunno, more tryouts maybe?’

‘Like these aren’t enough already...’

They saw thirty students finish their tryouts without much trouble. It was true, nobody went near the Ördög’s cage, and a few spells gave their victims painful-looking blisters or five-foot long bean sprouts for ears, which made it pretty difficult to stay airborne – and out of the thirty, only four had been qualified, but after a while both Amara and Karina had a rough idea of how to get through.

Soon it was Amara’s turn and, rather hastily, she moved out of line and grabbed a broom from the crate of Firebolts, thinking that, if all else failed, at least she would have flown on the ‘elite broom’, as her Captain liked to call it. The school only owned a couple of these, and were only used once a year in the final Quidditch match. Amara’s team had only made it to the finale once, in her third year, and at that time the best brooms in the market were still the Nimbus 2000s.

She wondered if being a Keeper would tilt the odds a little in her favour, except that she was more used to blocking than dodging.

She had to make it to Hogwarts.

Amara mounted her broom and kicked off, the wind wailing in her ears as she reached high altitudes. A whistle sounded and she shot off towards the first goalpost. Professor Walberg had already started commentating in his cheery, exaggerated manner.

It wasn’t so hard, she thought, as she dodged a few jinxes and made it through the third hoop. One arm was balancing her whole body on the broom, while she held her wand in the other, deflecting all the spells she could.

When she had passed the fourth hoop a jet of electric red collided with the Firebolt and sidetracked her a few feet to the left. Taking the advantage of the distance between her and the spellcasters, Amara hastily put out the fire on the broom’s tail and batted at her singeing trousers. Deflecting all the spells was slowing her down too much, so she pocketed her wand and maintained a firmer grip on the Firebolt before shooting back towards the fifth hoop.

Past the sixth hoop… she was pushing her luck… past the seventh… only three left…

A cloud of frothy pink substance appeared out of nowhere and engulfed her whole. The Quidditch pitch vanished in a fog and the Firebolt started shuddering. Amara gripped on for dear life as pain jabbed at her head and the fog burned her throat, poisonously bitter. A thousand thin needles seemed to be poking at her skin.

Seconds later, the cloud had vanished and she realised the stadium had gone very quiet, except for the sound of someone furiously yelling and Walberg going crazy on the megaphone. It all felt detached from her as she tried to focus on staying balanced and gulped down breathfuls of fresh air.

Looking down, finally, she saw Professor Stach had left her seat at the judges’ table and was arguing with Kysley, who ignored her and instead went back to the judges’ table, leaving Professor Ecklund to calm down the Magical Creatures Professor.

That had been no ordinary jinx, Amara thought, thankful for the fresh snow as it settled on her skin and numbed the magic still lingering from the spell. That had been some sort of Dark magic. It had to be against the rules.

I can’t be disqualified now, she panicked, realising that well over two minutes had elapsed since she’d set off. Cursing Kysley under her breath, she looked towards the judges’ table, where Karkaroff was pleasantly sipping a glass of Firewhisky, his usual smile plastered on his face. He carelessly signalled for the tryouts to go on and waited expectantly.

Fuming, Stach took Kysley’s post and whistled.

‘Burke – back to hoop seven, and continue from there,’ she called out. ‘You have thirty seconds.’

Amara noticed that there were barely any spells coming towards her this time; Kysley must have been casting ten hexes at a time. She got very close to a Tap-Dancing Spell, which would’ve been very unlucky to get hit by, and as she passed the tenth hoop, she had to somersault to dodge a Tickling Charm.

She heard the whistle again and blew outwards, realising she’d been holding her breath for the past twenty seconds. Most of the students shouted encouragement as Amara landed on safe ground and waited for her score, eyeing the lock on the Boggart’s crate.

Stach drew her wand and formed a golden eight on the scoreboard. After her, Kysley gave an impetuous three.

Blood pounded in her head, mentally jinxing Kysley into a horned toad and adding up her score. She needed at least thirty points to move on to the next task.

Karkaroff also gave a three. That was fourteen in all. Professor Ecklund thought for a moment, then waved her wand and an eight appeared on the board. Twenty-two.

Eagerly, Amara looked at the last judge, Walberg, hoping for another eight. He’d given most students high scores so far.

‘That was a praiseworthy presentation of perseverance, Miss Burke,’ he said, accenting the ‘p’s so that everyone could notice his alliterative genius. ‘Although, may I add, that Sŭdiram Curse was very unfortunate,’ he added, glancing appraisingly at Kysley. ‘Nevertheless, you did well.’

With a flick of his wand, he formed a ten on the scoreboard, winking heartily at Amara, who was trying not to look too surprised. ‘Good flying, too.’

The second task proved to be much easier. Having Magical Creatures as an option, she was quite used to practising creature-repelling spells.

The Boggart hadn’t as much as formed into the dark, straggly-haired woman before Amara flung out her wand and recalled the sight of an ashen-faced Fred as two gnomes stole his wand and turned his outfit into a magenta Victorian dress that clashed horribly with his hair.

The Boggart was unrecognisable as its black hair turned bright apricot and the black robe turned pink. It decided to hop back into the dark confinements of its box soon after.

The Dementor wasn’t as easy. They had yet to actually practise the Patronus Charm against Dementors in Stach’s class, and Amara had only ever come across it in books.

A happy memory, she thought, walking up to the crate holding the Dementor and watching as Stach unlocked it. Playing Quidditch, maybe, or that time she and Karina had put into practice one of Fred and George’s favourite pranks, which consisted of ten Galleons’ worth of Dungbombs, Drooble’s Best Blowing Gum and Hickey’s Portable Slapping Hands. Their victim had of course been their least favourite teacher, Professor Kysley.

Grinning as she remembered trying to keep a serious face while seeing Kysley drenched in sticky blowing gum and being repeatedly batted at by the Portable Slapping Hands, she pointed her wand at the Dementor now emerging from the crate.

The familiar memories which tended to creep up on her unexpectedly in sleep formed again in her head, almost tangible. A tiny house-elf with green, tennis-ball sized eyes was being tortured by the cackling woman, then that Muggle girl on the bloody kitchen floor who couldn’t have been much older than Amara herself at the time, and that face, burnt and distorted until it was anything but human.

‘Expecto – Patronum!’ she shouted, eyes half-closed. A tiny wisp of light appeared.

Then she realised... the memory she was using wasn’t exactly happy, it was more the kind she’d use against a Boggart. Clinging onto her wand, which was slipping out of her clammy hands, she opened her eyes again and thought of playing Quidditch at the Burrow.

It wasn’t much of a Patronus. The transparent sheet of white that burst out of her wand just barely managed to thrust the Dementor a few feet back before it disappeared again and Amara’s hand fell to her side.

Stach’s own Patronus forced the Dementor into the crate then, the white lynx hopping on the lid as it locked.

‘Good first try, Burke,’ she said gruffly, rechecking the lock and ushering Amara to the judges’ table. Amara followed her, slightly dazed and stunned after facing the Dementor. She watched her score being added up on the scoreboard; thirty this time; then made for the changing rooms. She took a deep breath before going in.

Amara found the place had been reduced to a tiny square garden with a maple tree standing in the middle. The wall opposite was painted to depict a castle in ruins in a wide patch of grass, and on the side of the room was another enchanted clock. The maple tree had somehow been enchanted to grow a variety of apples, oranges and, quite bizarrely, pineapples. What looked like a riddle was carved into the trunk:

My name is a saturation, a city
I seem to have no poetic potential
While the others sing hand in hand
Pluck me from the branches
You will reach the portrayed land.

The point of the riddle was pretty simple, then, Amara reasoned. She had to pluck one of the three different types of fruits and the painting on the wall would somehow materialise.

The first verse was quite simple – the only fruit of the three which could also mean a saturation, a colour, was orange, but she wasn’t sure if a city called Orange actually existed. The next two lines weren’t as straightforward. No poetic potential?

Then it hit her. “While the others sing hand in hand” had to mean that apples and pineapples rhymed, and now that she thought about it, she couldn’t find a single word which rhymed with orange.

The clock on the side read one minute twenty seconds left. Amara exhaled noisily. Orange was her best chance. She plucked the nearest one and to her relief, the painting started to smoothly arranged itself so that Amara could now hear the crows calling in the derelict turrets of the castle. She hurried across the plane ground towards the door, and entered.

Amara found three more doors in her way, and another enchanted clock which read just over a minute left. The stone floor beneath was multi-coloured and seemed to be mixed up, and, looking behind her, she saw another, slightly longer riddle on the cobbled wall:

To which door you go through
Is not a choice you make
The three have locks and bolts
Neither wand nor hand can break
Alas, a charm you may use
A curse you could choose
Yet a wand will not do work
Without the proper swishing move.

So the doors are bolted and my wand is useless? Amara thought, absent-mindedly looking down at the multi-coloured stones. Those have to be of use somehow.

Kneeling down, she pulled at one of the stones and found that they could be rearranged, but how should they be? Tugging at a strand of hair in frustration, she looked back at the riddle, scrutinising the last few verses, then set to arranging the stones into the wand movement of one of the first spells she’d learned, the Unlocking Charm, glancing up at the clock every few seconds.

Once she’d finished, she waited for a fraction of a second, then got up and stepped back as the stones seemed to lock in place and the word “Alohomora” appeared in cursive handwriting on the middle door. With just twenty seconds left, Amara waved and murmured, ‘Alohomora,’ and watched as the door slowly opened into the pitch, her grin widening as she felt the full impact of the realisation that she was through; she was going to Hogwarts, finally.

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I hope you liked the chapter, although I must apologise for the epically horrendous riddles I came up with. Don't forget to comment