“Wait! Students, I have a special announcement to make!” called Headmistress Mcgonagall. “Quiet! Thank you. Now, as you all know, there are other schools for magic. Of course our fellow European ones are Durmstrang and Beauxbatons. Every four years one of our schools hosts the Triwizard Tournament. This year, we are happy to host our sister schools in this adventurous and exciting competition. Let us give a warm welcome to Beauxbatons!”
Jenna, Aderan, and the rest of the school all turned towards the large doors into the great hall. They opened on their own, and in walked in a neat line of girls in pristine blue outfits, little butterflies fluttering about them. Jenna rolled her eyes as half the male make-up of Hogwarts followed the Beauxbatons girls with their heads. She caught Aderan staring at one particular girl with black hair and she swatted him on the arm.
“Sorry.” He looked down blushing and Jenna found herself giggling at him.
As soon as the Beauxbatons girls lined up in the front of the room, Mcgonagall raised her hands for silence and it fell for a second time. “And, of course, Durmstrang!”
Entering from the already open doors emerged some severely dressed boys with large staffs in their hands. They twirled and tapped them on the ground and a few in the front did flips and cartwheels. Another wave of females was giggling and smiling and trying to catch the eye of one of the boys.
Instead, Jenna cast a glance over at Roy who caught her look and made a gagging face and then rolled his eyes. Jenna nodded but was still smiling. She remembered her first year when she had seen her first Triwizard Tournament. Few years of students were lucky to take part in two during their school career. Everything was just as she remembered it, though, and maybe even better now that she better understood the world of magic.
Finally, the Durmstrang boys stopped at the front, some casting grins and winking at a few of the girls in the Hogwarts crowd. Jenna noticed this time that the groups from the other schools were mostly made up of older students. Few of the younger ones stood before the Great Hall.
“Let us make our guests very welcome. We will begin accepting entries for the tournament in two days time. In the meantime, off to bed, all of you. You still have classes tomorrow. Dismissed!”
The crowds of kids stood, a rush of the more social and popular students rushing up to meet the guest schools.
“Well, wasn’t that lovely?” Aderan asked rhetorically as he and Jenna stood to beat the rush to the dorms. If you could unload your things before everyone else, you were more likely to have more space for storage for the rest of the year.
Jenna nodded. “Still, I can’t wait. This will be so much fun!”
“Yeah, too bad none of us will be able to enter, though.” Aderan commented as they reached the staircase.
“You would enter?”
Aderan shrugged. “I think so. Maybe. Or maybe not. That’s more Roy’s thing, I suppose.”
Roy the Gryffindor. Probably more likely.
Jenna shrugged too. “I think I would try if I could. It would be fun. Plus goodness knows there could always be more girl champions.”
Aderan rolled his eyes and elbowed her lightly as they climbed the staircases. “Stick to your Quidditch, Frink.”
“Keep your quill in the ink bottle, Killistin.” Jenna retorted, gently pushing him back.
“Are you trashing my drawings?” Aderan made an exaggerated sad puppy face.
Jenna shook her head. “Never. Come on, let’s get there before the first years.”
~~~~~
Jenna finished unloading the last of her textbooks into her backpack, then jumped back on her bed. For a day of relative nothing, she was exhausted and ready to go to sleep. She reached up to close her yellow and black curtains when the rest of the girls from her dorm room stepped inside chatting nonstop among themselves.
Jenna was able to catch a few “Did you see that Rolitch boy?”
“Oh, I know! He was so hot.”
“Come on guys, see George Grannon? Way cute.”
“No way!”
Jenna rolled her eyes and pulled the curtains shut.
“Sorry, if ve’er keeping you up, Jenna.” came Kally’s voice. “Ewen I vill admit, you should haf been dere.”
“Well, even if I was easily torn down by boys - and I’m not - I imagine they’d all be gone by the first wave of girls tomorrow.” Jenna mumbled from her bed.
“Say whatever you’d like.” Said a girl named Hailey Halahan. “But that one boy Grannon was looking at ‘ya.”