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ღ chapter thirty five ( the fourth champion )
AS THE NEXT day was Saturday, most students would normally have slept in late. Jules, Aster, Harry, Ron, and Hermione, however, were not alone in rising much earlier than they usually did on weekends.
When they went down into the entrance hall, they saw about twenty people milling around it, some of them eating toast, all examining the Goblet of Fire. It had been placed in the center of the hall on the stool that normally bore the Sorting Hat after Dumbledore's speech last night. A thin golden line had been traced on the floor, forming a circle ten feet around it in every direction.
"Anyone put their name in yet?" Ron asked a third-year girl eagerly.
"All the Durmstrang lot," she replied. "But I haven't seen anyone from Hogwarts yet."
"Bet some of them put it in last night after we'd all gone to bed," Harry sighed. "I would've if it had been me... wouldn't have wanted everyone watching. What if the goblet just gobbed you right back out again?"
Someone laughed behind Harry. Turning, he saw Fred, George, and Lee Jordan hurrying down the staircase, all three of them looking extremely excited.
"Done it," Fred said in a triumphant whisper to the five. "Just taken it."
"What?" Ron asked blankly.
"The Aging Potion, dung brains," Fred said.
"One drop each," George added, rubbing his hands together with glee. "We only need to be a few months older."
"We're going to split the thousand Galleons between the three of us if one of us wins," Lee grinned.
"I'm not sure this is going to work, you know," Hermione warned. "I'm sure Dumbledore will have thought of this."
Fred, George, and Lee ignored her. "Ready?" Fred said to the other two, quivering with excitement. "C'mon, then - I'll go first-"
Jules watched, fascinated, as Fred pulled a slip of parchment out of his pocket bearing the words Fred Weasley - Hogwarts.
Fred walked right up to the edge of the line and stood there, rocking on his toes like a diver preparing for a fifty-foot drop. Then, with the eyes of every person in the entrance hall upon him, he took a great breath and stepped over the line.
For a split second Harry thought it had worked - George certainly thought so, for he let out a yell of triumph and leapt after Fred - but next moment, there was a loud sizzling sound, and both twins were hurled out of the golden circle as though they had been thrown by an invisible shot-putter. They landed painfully, ten feet away on the cold stone floor, and to add insult to injury, there was a loud popping noise, and both of them sprouted identical long white beards. The entrance hall rang with laughter. Even Fred and George joined in, once they had gotten to their feet and taken a good look at each other's beards.
