This one's quite long, and cheerful - enjoy it! because chapter after next things could get pretty dark

-----

Chapter 15 - Beards, Books and Beanies

Taking care not to wake Karina, Amara tiptoed to the porthole and placed her palms against the foggy glass, peering outside.

A series of small pebbles were hitting the window one after the other. Amara slid it open, with a little difficulty since there was a layer of century-old dust and dirt keeping it closed. She stuck her head out, looking down at the rock-strewn side of the lake, but there was no one below, no sneaky first-years trying to be funny by chucking rocks at the windows, no lost Bowtruckles or Doxies seeking shelter in the wooden shell of the ship.

But just as she was about to close it again and lay back on her bed, a voice spoke from beneath, one she recognised as George's.

'Right window, finally,' he was saying, as Amara poked her head out again and saw a half-visible George standing a few feet away from the side of the ship as a Disillusionment Charm wore off him. 'Think I woke up half the ship already.'

'George? What're you doing here?'

'Well, see, Amara,' he said, shivering slightly and huffing into his hands to keep warm, 'That Ageing Potion isn’t going so well and we just thought—’

'You’re actually doing it?' Amara sighed.

'Hey, it was you who thought about it,’ George said indignantly. ‘Anyway, we just thought you and Karina could help us with it—’

‘Karina’ll kill me if I wake her up now, and anyway, I’m not that good at Potions either...’

‘You got an ELG in Potions, that's like NEWT level—'

'No, more like OWL, but – look, we'll brew it tomorrow, I need to get some sl—'

'But it needs half a day to brew right!' George hissed loudly. 'We've only got until tomorrow!'

Amara stared at the red-haired boy, wearing only his pyjamas under his cloak, still in his bed slippers, which were now soaked in lake water.

'OK, fine...' Amara said, running a hand through her hair. 'I'll be down in a minute.'

*

'So, you snuck into the castle, past bedtime, and nearly got caught by a kerrtekker while breaking rules from both schools - vithout me?'

Karina fixed Amara with an accusing look as the two made their way out of the Great Hall to watch the last few students entering their names into the Goblet. Her cheeks were bulging with toast and she was wolfing down a bowl of porridge as she spoke, which was making her accent more obvious than usual.

'Trust me, you were better off asleep,' Amara yawned, examining a few inches of hair which had caught fire the other night after adding the wrong amount of porcupine quills over the fire. The two leant against the wall, having a clear view of the staircases and the Goblet standing in the centre of the Entrance Hall, circled by an Age Line ten feet around and surrounded by babbling students.

'Vhere are they, anivay?' Karina said, now munching on a sandwich she'd sneakily summoned away from a confused Slytherin. Her question was instantly answered as a loud pattering of feet on wood sounded across the hall, followed by gleeful laughs, and the twins came rushing down the staircase with their friend Lee, wearing wide grins.

They stopped to talk to Harry, Ron and Hermione, who'd just come down the staircase before them, and then, without waiting any further, Fred pulled out a piece of parchment from his pocket, all eyes in the Hall fixed on him, walked up to the line, and jumped over. George let out a triumphant yell and jumped in after him, but a second later they were both thrown out of the circle and had landed painfully a few feet away. Long, white beards had started to grow on their identically shocked faces, and soon the Hall was echoing with laughter, Fred and George joining in as they got to their feet and were ushered to the hospital wing by an amused Dumbledore.

Slightly teary-eyed with mirth, Amara and Karina caught up with Fred, George and Lee as they left the Hall.

'Some fine beards you grew there,' Karina chuckled, wiping her eyes as she steadied a howling Lee, who was having difficulty climbing up the stairs as he was doubled up and clutching his sides.

'Yeah, bummer it didn't work though,' Fred said, twirling his beard and grinning. 'That would've been some nice prize money if one of us won.'

'Still set on the joke shop, then?' Amara said, knowing the two had been searching for premises ever since their mother had confiscated a bunch of order lists for their products.

'Definitely,' George said as they reached the hospital wing, where an impatient-looking nurse was tending to a girl who was desperately trying to hide her own, two-foot long beard. 'Hey - there's an idea, we could do a range of Grow Your Own Beard products for the men's section. "Buy two and get double the price of one - even Dumbledore will be jealous".'

Amara laughed. 'Don't think anyone would buy them for personal use, though.'

'Are you insulting the beard?' George said, looking affronted at Amara as the nurse hastily pointed her wand at their beards and vanished them with a swish.

'No use getting all offended now, they’re gone,’ Lee grinned.

'Shame,' Fred said after they'd thanked the nurse and left. 'I was getting quite attached to it... So,' he added, clapping his hands. 'Who's up for some Quidditch, eh?'

*

The library was quite empty when Amara arrived a few hours later; a few lone students were sitting in corners, reading or finishing some due essays in the light of several lit lamps hanging from the ceiling. An elderly woman was dusting books and glowering down at a boy who was leafing through an encyclopedia in quite an ungracious manner, and, guessing that she was the librarian, Amara went up to her and asked in a low voice where she could find books on known dark wizards. The woman gave her a curious look before answering, then indicated a group of shelves in the back without a word. Muttering a thanks, Amara hurried to the back, ran her hand over a few of the books, then picked a leather-bound one which looked like it had never been opened, titled Wizarding Convicts, and searched the index for Lestrange. But it seemed only witches and wizards who were convicted before 1970 were listed, and there were certainly no Lestranges in there.

Grabbing a few books at random and setting them down at an empty table, Amara spent the next fifteen minutes trying to find the name in a passing sentence, until, finally, she came across something:

Amongst those put to trial and found guilty of allegiance to He Who Must Not Be Named were Antonin Dolohov, responsible for participating in the murders of Gibeon and Fabian Prewitt and in the torture of several Muggles; Bartemius Crouch Jr, Rodolphus Lestrange and Bellatrix Lestrange, all guilty of torturing Aurors Frank and Alice Longbottom into derangement

That’s horrible... Amara thought, staring at the page and wondering if these people... these Lestranges couldn’t possibly be—

‘There you are.’

Closing the book tight, Amara swivelled around to see a slightly breathless Karina, wearing what looked like a purple Puffskein-shaped beanie and her collection of lucky charms and bracelets.

‘Karina... wh—?’

‘What are you reading?’ she asked, genuinely interested, while Amara hastily levitated the books back into place and grasped Karina’s arm, walking away from the section.

‘Nothing, just - checking something,’ Amara said nonchalantly, steering them towards the door. ‘Listen, er - weren’t we going to the forest tonight?’

‘Yes, that’s why I was looking for you,’ Karina said, slightly wide-eyed, hair poking out from beneath her beanie. ‘We were going after the feast. You said you forgot something at the ship and you've been ages—'

'I just remembered something I had to check,' Amara said in a low tone, because the librarian was pointedly scowling at them. 'It's not snowing tonight, is it?' she added, wondering about Karina's outfit.

'It was in the Hall, after you left,' Karina said as they exited the library and made their way past the corridor, lit a dark blue from the twilight outside. She shifted her beanie nervously. 'I'm telling you, that's a bad omen - they've been trying to fix that ceiling all day, they said. So when it started snowing I summoned all my charms from my trunk to ward off the bad luck.'

Amara was just about to ask about the beanie, when Karina seemed to read her mind, cutting her off rather defensively. 'I had it charmed by a tribe leader from Ghana! It's ancient magic, but Fred and George keep making fun of it.'

'Oh,' Amara said, trying to take a fluffy, cross-eyed, pink-horned Puffskein beanie seriously. 'Er - well, that's just typical of them,' she tried saying scornfully.

'Yes, that's it, they don't even try to understand how useful this kind of magic can be. I mean, who knows how many times I've saved our necks with that Warder? Or how many tests we passed because we didn't say good luck to each other? You know that's bad luck, saying good luck to someone, don't you? And I only got my six ELGs with these lucky charms...'

She went on explaining the subtle importance of this branch of magic ('It's just the same thing with Divination, isn't it?), then diving into a speech about the latter subject, while Amara half-listened, that particular page from Followers of the Dark Path swimming into her thoughts...

'So, what are your chances of getting chosen, eh? Wouldn't get past a Kneazle, the both of you,' one of the twins was teasing.

Amara realised they were already sitting at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall, and the golden plates were already piled with food. The Hall had been decorated with a hundred pumpkins, carved by the students themselves into leering, glaring faces, live bats were fluttering above the noise, and the ceiling seemed to have been fixed, because all the snow had vanished.

'At least we could enter our names,' Karina was teasing back. 'But I'm betting on Pavlovitch,' she pointed her fork at a burly eighth-year sitting next to Viktor Krum at the Slytherin table.

'It's not all brawn, you know,' Lee said, matter-of-factly. 'Anyway, I just hope a Gryffindor gets chosen. You guys put your name in?' he asked Angelina and Alicia.

'Angelina did. I decided I'd better focus on my NEWTs this year...'

'Slacking, are you, Angelina? You know, you may be highly attractive, but girls can't work on looks alone.' Lee grinned and winked at Angelina, who gave him such a piercing gaze that he immediately shut up and turned back to his rice.

'Pot au feu, Amara?'

'What?' Amara looked up at George, who was holding a bowl of beef stew towards her. 'Oh, no, I'm OK.'

'Something bothering you?'

Amara smiled. 'Just the tournament, you know. Wondering who'll get chosen.'

'Thought you weren't that fussed on getting chosen.'

'I'm not, really,’ Amara admitted.

'...holds a crushed phoenix talon plucked on a Friday the thirteenth, it brings good health and avoids chaos,' Karina was earnestly telling Katie and Alicia, holding out one of her lockets. Amara turned her head when she heard this, wondering what new powers Karina’s lucky charms had acquired since the last time she’d worn them; now that she thought about it, wasn’t that particular locket the one full of Bubotuber Pus?

'I thought Friday the thirteenth brought bad luck?' Katie was saying, examining the locket over a jar of pumpkin juice.

'Not if you plucked a phoenix talon on the day,' Karina nodded persuasively.

'What happens if you add a chicken leg to it?' said Fred, grabbing the locket and opening it. 'Ugh, smells like gnome poo. What is this?'

'Give that back, Fred, you're spoiling the charm,' Alicia said.

'Not you too,' Fred groaned. 'Next thing you know, we'll be starting a cult.'

Karina snatched the locket back and secured it around her neck. 'You know, it's bad luck to meddle with a lucky charm,' she told him darkly, making Fred and everyone within earshot except for Katie and Alicia roll their eyes. 'Maybe you should take a closer look at your pumpkin juice before deciding otherwise,' she added. Fred glanced skeptically at his cup and did a double take, almost slopping it all over his robes.

'Amateur,' he said, dismissing Karina’s laughs, after realising the spiders in his drink were fake, plastic ones, but there was a sly look on his face that promised he would get back at her somehow. Someone was tapping on Amara's shoulder and she turned around, leaving Fred and Karina to their bantering, and nearly dropped her fork in surprise.

'Dita?'

'Hey, Amara,' the girl said, rather bashfully. 'Long time no see, huh?'

'Yeah... er - I was looking for you yesterday,' Amara said half-truthfully, making space and motioning for Dita to sit.

'I was in the hospital wing 'til this morning - bad bite from an Ashwinder,' said Dita, holding out a bandaged arm as she sat down and pulled a plate of pudding towards her, 'but it'll heal up all right.'

Amara nodded, feeling a bit awkward talking to her old friend, who, somehow, she'd rather lost contact with, and hadn't met for a few years; but Dita struck up a casual conversation about the Triwizard Tournament, and soon the others had joined in and Amara could quietly finish her lemon meringue pie, occasionally adding a comment here and there.

The plates were soon clean of food and the cups empty of liquids (and plastic spiders); the torches on the walls were dimmed as the chattering slowly diminished and a tense expectation filled the Hall, and Dumbledore finally sat up at the staff table to announce the champions.

-----

Let me know what you think