Chapter Text
The secret had been spilled to Hermione over the summer, Pansy sitting with her black lace patterned tight clad legs draped over Hermione tanned ones. Both their hands a book held but very different pictures that almost seemed to clash.
Hermione with her nailed chewed to the quick, a polish that Pansy had attempted to coat her nails in, hoping that it would stop her nasty habit of chewing her nails till they would bleed, chipped and disappearing.
Her tan plain hands held her potion book tightly, a quill tucked behind her ear, a speckled of ink across her face mixing with her freckles that spread from her nose down her neck from her trip with her parents earlier that summer. Her mess of curls that almost had a mind of their own, pinned behind her ears with Bobby pins hidden around the pile that would be a bun on someone with hair that wasn't as thick and a mess of slight waves to beautifully coiled pieces. All things that made her hair knotting and creating more issues than they solved.
Pansy said it look prettier log though with her round cheeks, it evened her out, so she took the only female advice she had near here. And with what type of person Pansy was? It would be foolish to not listen to her.
Flipping the page of her thin novella written in runes for practice, her perfectly manicured fingers into thin points of black. Her hair a just as equally perfect cut bob, hitting her chin in a way thag made her jawline a soft but sharp angle. Her aura of a rich lady, but one you wouldn't want to mess with, not just a pretty face. All true.
Her boots making her move, switching which leg lay over the other as she spoke not looking from her page.
An event that has been in the talks of for years now.
Official.
Other schools.
Not exactly what it was but by what Pansy had heard and got information on they both devised it would be an even similar to one they had read recently called a tri-wizard tournament. With it being the specific schools that had help this even in the past.
So as they sat on the first day of the term and Dumbledore held out his hands with a wide smile and showed off the cup as well as explained what was happening, Hermione wasn't shocked. Looking over her shoulder her eyes meeting Pansys who had a look of triumph from being correct in the event.
The school for the next month was more of a buzz than any year she had been around school, besides maybe the two year that Gilderoy was a teacher, the previous teacher having gone missing. And their 3rd year when Sirius Black started and had been their teacher since.
It has been a huge deal that their teacher had been in Azkaban for years but was released their second year when his case finally went to trial as a new potion came out to tell who had been magically forced versus who was a willing participant in the ended wizadding world.
Pansys father had been one taken and imprisoned.
They didn't talk about that.
However the buzz in the air was something different. Less filled with gossip but more full of wonder and curiosity.
Those from France and the friends from the North. There wasn't much information on the other schools, a basic run down. A very evident level difference in their curriculum. Hogwarts was not the best that everyone around her believed.
There was also a wonder of the events, who would represent their school, all eyes were on the seventh years, the only ones allowed to participate.
Pansy had brought it up a couple times ro Hermione is she was going to enter. Each time Hernione scoffed but never gave an actual answer. How could she when she wasn't sure herself? Did she need the fame that came with it? No, but was their a part of her to wanted to see if she really was the smartest and most capable in their year. Or was it that stupid Gryffindor ego wanting to puff out her chest, just absolutely show off?
Either way, she eyes the goblet with its plain design but alluring scent of power and fame.
Shaking her head, the day had come for the arrival of the other schools, and there she was in a thick jacket waiting on the steps, like her classmates, whom she noted many opted for less bulky jackets to show off the clothes behind their robes.
Trying to not roll her eyes she watched with her arm wrapped around Pansys, soon she saw a white speckled in the sky, as it came closer the beasts pulling a carriage. "Wow they are show offs aren't they?" Pansy said as the carriage landed roughly and the door opened. Out came first a large lady, bigger than Hagrid Hermione noted as she stood with her back straight and behind the madame headmistress speaking to Dumbledore.
A sharp pain in her side she looked at Pansy with questioning a elbow to throw back before Pansy motioned for her to look as the students started to climb out. "It's Harry Potter." Pansy whispered behind a hand into Hermiones ear. Her eyes fell at the tan boy with a miss of black hair that fell into his forehead, his glasses placed on his face neatly, his scar the thing most eyes would see first, large, like lightning traveling over he eye ans onto his cheek. But her hazel eyes saw his green ones that were so bright against the pale blue uniform he wore, standing tall with some other students as they were lead into the school. His eyes passing over the Hogwarts students, and Hermione couldn't have almost sworn his eyes met hers even for a milosecond, but that was probably just hope.
As they waited, the powder blue clad students filed into the building, Hermione standing there, a flush in her face for staring at someone, let alone the boy she had heard of, read about, called the savior of the wizarding world. The reason that she was friends with the girl that sat by her. She knew he had gone to a different school, as his guardian had moved away. And even with that knowledge ans knowing he was her age she never would have guessed she would see him.
It wasn't until she felt the shaking from Pansy and a smaller voice pointing as the spoke at the Black lake. A ripple spread over the surface and slowly from the void of black that she knew was the lake rose a ship. One that resembled a ghost ship as it moved and swayed in a magical and ominous way.
Docking a board fell and out of the whole moved the new headmaster of Durmstrang, Karkaroff had been imprisoned a couple years ago, she had heard the change in the headmaster had changed quite a bit about how the school ran.
"OH Merlin, that's Malfoy heir Draco!" She loudly whispered at Hermione and her eyes moved to find who she was talking about. "My father wanted me to court him but his father choose to leave the country, im not sure the reason."
"Which one are you talking about?"
Her eyes raked over the group of boys and girls in fur and a deep crimson as a wave of them came following their headmaster.
"That's one, the blue eyes that look almost silver, paler than me, hair as pale as his skin."
It was the last detail that Hermione found him, his hair so pale it was like the snow that they most likely had come from with the looks of the layer on their uniforms. There was no color to his cheeks, his eyes full of ice and looking at no one.
Definitely not at the freckled, mess of a witch standing the stairs with her back so straight it was causing her knees to hurt. Certainly not.