The dragon rider (Harry potter fanfic)

040

Slowly everyone went inside and sat down around the tables. Durmstrang sat at the slytherin table and beaxbatons sat at the ravenclaw table. Filtch has put out five extra chairs at the staff table. Of course I was sat beside karkaroff and the chair on the other side of me was still empty.

"Good evening ladies and gentlemen, ghosts and most particularly guests" said Dumbledore beaming around at the foreign students. "I have great pleasure in welcoming you all to Hogwarts. I hope and trust that your stay here will be both comfortable and enjoyable..... the tournament will be officially opened at the end of the feast but before the opening of the tournament and after you all divulge into the wonderful food we have a little show for you all but I now invite you all to eat, drink and make yourself at home!" He said sitting down and karkaroff leant forward at once and engaged with him in conversation, I knew that this was because if Madame maxine started a conversation with his first he would be forced to talk to me.

The food appeared on the golden dishes infront of us as usual. The house elves in the kitchen seamed to have pulled out all the stops, there was a great variety of dishes in front of us than I have ever seen, including several that where definitely foreign.

"What's that?" I said leaning over to Professor mcgonagall and pointing at a sort of shellfish stew that stood beside a large steak and kidney pudding.

"Bouillabaisse" she said

"Bless you, but what is it?" I said

"It's french" said mcgonagall "I had it one summer a while ago when I was in France, it's very nice"

"Well I'll take your word for it" I said, putting some shepherds pie onto my plate.

The great hall seemed somehow much more crowded than usual, even though there was barely thirty additional students there, perhaps it was the because their differently coloured uniforms stood out so clearly against the black of the Hogwarts robes. Now that they has removed their furs, the durmstrang students revealed to be wearing robes of deep, blood red.

Thirty minutes into the feast, my question of who was supposed to be sitting in the empty chair beside me was answered.

"Olivia! Oh I'm so happy we got seated beside one another" said a voice from the right of me. I looked to the right of me and mr crouch, percys boss was striding behind the staff table towards me.

"Oh for gods sake" I said under my breath as I saw him.

"Lovely to see you again" he said shaking my hand and plopping down next to me.

"And you" I said

For the next twenty minutes mr crouch told me a detailed first hand account of what it was like at the ministry after the quidditch World Cup and the death eaters. Something you should know about Barty crouch is he never really stops talking, and more importantly he never stops talking about himself or how dangerous his job is.

Eventually after dessert, the golden plates were wiped clean and Dumbledore stood up again and the great hall went quite instantly.

"Now if everyone could make their way slowly out to the marked out area on the grounds, heads of house will lead their houses and madame maxine will lead beaxbatons and Professor karkaroff will lead durmstrang" he said

"Oh shit!" I said forgetting I was supposed to be outside by now "excuse me Barty, must dash" I said standing up and walking quickly out of the great hall and out to the forest.

Harry's POV:

Professor mcgonagall stood up and lead the griffindoors outside to the lawn. She seamed both excited and tense.