The Great Hall glowed the color of candle-smoked gold and lake-blue fire that night. The Goblet of Fire blazed from its marble pedestal in front of the staff table, sending ripples of light across hundreds of enchanted plates. Students filed past the Goblet—Durmstrang boys swaggering, Beauxbatons girls whispering luck charms, Hufflepuffs in packs. Sixth-years from Slytherin observed from their table with the calculated precision of those who understood that ambition without results was merely performance.
Theodore Hale slouched midway down, surrounded by his loose circle: Laurel Vaisey, sharp and sarcastic; Adrian Pucey, Quidditch chaser with an easy grin; Graham Montague, all bluster. Not confidants. Never that. But they tolerated his presence in the way Slytherins tolerated anyone whose existence didn't directly threaten theirs. Theo had learned, over six years, to feed their egos with precisely calibrated humor—never threatening, always supportive, invisible enough to remain unbullied.
His background helped: a father who existed only as distant remittances, no family name of consequence, no political alliances worth courting. In Slytherin, this made him safe. Forgettable. He posed no competition, held no power, offered no insult. He simply was, existing in the margins, and Pucey, Montague, and Vaisey allowed it because allowing kindness to the powerless cost them nothing.
He lifted his fork lazily but hadn't managed a bite for minutes, watching the spectacle with faint amusement.
Laurel nudged him. "Pucey, you threw yours in?"
"Of course." Adrian leaned back, satisfaction radiating from his posture. "The Goblet recognizes true potential. Someone has to represent Slytherin properly."
Montague snorted, but there was an edge to it—territorial, defensive. "You? I've seen you miss Bludgers in practice. The Goblet would laugh itself out."
Theo smirked, the response automatic, a small gift to defuse. "Don't tempt it. Last thing we need is the Goblet developing opinions about our flying."
Laurel eyed Theo with something like amusement, though her tone carried a knife's point. "And you? Still planning to coast through your remaining years as Hogwarts' most forgettable student?"
The question stung more than she meant it to. Or perhaps exactly as she meant it.
"Why ruin six years of perfect mediocrity?" Theo replied, keeping his tone light, wry. "I've built a brand. Might as well see it through."
The table laughed—at him, not with him. He was used to the distinction.
Pucey tore parchment, wrote his name with deliberate flourish, and shoved the quill at Theo. "Tradition. Put yours in. Might as well participate in the spectacle."
"Tradition is passing exams without being noticed," Theo said, setting the quill down gently.
"That's cowardice," Montague said, and there was real disdain in it now—genuine Slytherin contempt for someone who wouldn't even try. "Tradition is ambition. Tradition is showing the world you matter."
The word hung there like an accusation.
Laurel leaned forward, her sharp green eyes glinting with something Theo couldn't quite name. "Go on, Hale. The worst that happens is absolutely nothing, which is already your default state."
There it was: the casual cruelty wrapped in humor. Stay small, stay safe, stay useful.
Theo laughed—a real laugh, the kind that came when you'd learned to laugh at yourself before anyone else could. "Fine. Scrap parchment only. I'm not wasting effort on something with a zero percent chance of—" He paused deliberately. "Well, anything."
She tore a corner from her notebook; Pucey conjured ink. Theo wrote Theodore Hale in slanted script. It looked absurd, like forging someone else's signature. He folded it once, twice, and stared at the distant blue flame.
"Well?" Laurel prompted. "Are you actually going to submit it, or will this also be performance?"
The word performance settled in his chest like a stone. She wasn't wrong.
He rose with deliberate drama, walked to the plinth amid scattered hoots and whistles—even a few Gryffindors joined, treating the moment as entertainment rather than significance. Theo tossed the parchment in: white flare, then calm. Anticlimactic.
Back at the table, Pucey clapped his shoulder with the warmth of someone congratulating a performing animal. "There. Man of destiny. Happy now?"
Theo settled back onto the bench, laughing as the Goblet's light danced on their badges. The conversation had already moved on—they were debating whether Krum or some unknown Durmstrang boy would be chosen. Theo was forgotten, which was precisely how he preferred it.
It would fade by breakfast. He was certain of it.
Dumbledore rose later that evening. His silver beard caught the Goblet's steady blue glow as every murmur in the Great Hall faded into thick, expectant silence. The enchanted ceiling overhead mirrored a starless night. Plates of half-eaten roast sat forgotten; forks hovered mid-air. Theo felt the shift—everyone leaning forward, breaths collectively held.
"The time has come," Dumbledore announced, his voice rolling clear and resonant off the stone walls, "to choose our champions."
The Goblet responded instantly. Its flame surged upward in a roaring geyser of scarlet and gold, sparks exploding like fireworks against the darkened ceiling. A single charred parchment twisted free from the blaze, drifting downward until Dumbledore's long fingers snatched it from the air.
"Viktor Krum—from Durmstrang!"
The Durmstrang section detonated in roars and stomping boots, metallic cheers echoing off the rafters. Krum rose, broad-shouldered and impassive, his face a mask of quiet resolve. Theo clapped along with his table as the noise crashed back like a released dam.
Moments later, the Goblet flared again—silvery-white this time, elegant tongues of flame licking higher. Another parchment spiraled out.
"Fleur Delacour—from Beauxbatons!"
Delighted gasps rippled from the Beauxbatons delegation, their silk-clad students rising in a shimmer of blue. Fleur glided forward with Veela grace, her silvery hair catching candlelight. Whispers of admiration buzzed through the hall; half the boys in the room were openly drooling, and Theo couldn't entirely blame them.
Silence fell heavier now. All eyes locked on the Goblet. Its flames settled into a deep, pulsing blue that deepened to molten bronze, the fire roiling like a storm-tossed sea. Theo's pulse quickened without reason. He shifted on the bench, aware of the worn wood under his palms. The air hummed with enchantment.
Then—a sharp crackle. Sparks burst outward in a violent shimmer, and a final parchment shot from the heart of the blaze, scorched and trembling, straight into Dumbledore's grasp.
The Headmaster unfolded it slowly, his half-moon spectacles glinting. His brow raised slightly as he read the slanted script. When he looked up at the hall, his blue eyes carried an intrigue that hadn't been there before—as though he'd just glimpsed something unexpected, something that warranted closer examination.
"The Hogwarts champion is—Theodore Hale."
The words hung in the air like a miscast spell. Dead, disbelieving quiet gripped the hall—no cheers, no gasps, just the faint pop of cooling flames. Theo's fork slipped from his fingers, clattering against his plate. His chest tightened; he exhaled sharply, the sound ragged in his own ears.
Laurel turned to him in slow motion, her sharp green eyes wide as saucers. "He said... you?"
Pucey gaped across the table, his easy grin frozen between horror and hysterical glee. "Blimey, Hale."
But from further down the Slytherin table, a different voice—Blaise Zabini's, cold and cutting—called out, "Did you rig the Goblet, Hale? Or are you just that desperate?"
The comment landed like a stone in still water. One of the older seventh-years smirked. Another said nothing, but their silence was contempt dressed in discretion.
Across the hall, Cedric Diggory half-rose from the Hufflepuff table, his handsome face creased in bafflement, hands hovering. No one clapped. Gryffindors exchanged confused glances; a Ravenclaw girl whispered aloud, "Theodore who?"
From the staff table, Snape's voice sliced through the stunned silence like a well-honed blade—low, commanding. "Mr. Hale. On your feet."
"That's impossible," Theo mumbled, his voice barely audible over the blood rushing in his ears.
But underneath the shock, buried beneath the panic, was something else. Something that had been sleeping since his Sorting six years ago, when the Hat had paused—actually paused—before placing him in Slytherin. He'd been ambitious then, hungry for it, until he'd learned that ambition without resources was dangerous. That wanting too much, too visibly, made you a target.
For one heartbeat, as his name hung in the Great Hall, that hunger flickered awake. Champion. The word tasted like possibility, like the version of himself he'd buried deep enough to forget existed.
Montague leaned in, choking on disbelieving laughter, clapping Theo's shoulder hard. "Well, mate, you've finally found a way to matter. Shame it's probably going to kill you."
The smile on his face was genuine, but it was the smile of someone watching a cockroach scurry—entertained, not invested. Theo was useful again, briefly, as a source of spectacle.
Adrian had gone quiet, his easy grin replaced by something calculating. He was already reassessing, Theo realized. Running the numbers on what a champion Theo meant for their circle's standing.
Laurel shot Montague a frantic elbow but couldn't hide her grin cracking through the shock. "You're chalk-white, Hale. Breathe." There was something almost kind in her voice now, the way one might speak to an animal before slaughter.
Whispers erupted, swelling like a rising tide. Theo pushed up from the bench on unsteady legs, the scrape of wood against stone echoing unnaturally loud. Laurel murmured quickly at his shoulder, her voice dropped low enough that only he could hear: "Lord it over us forever after this, yeah? At least you'll have that."
For a moment—just a moment—Theo let himself want it. Let himself imagine walking out of the Tournament as something other than Theodore Hale, background extra. Champion. Someone who mattered enough to be remembered.
He managed a weak, lopsided grin, though whether it was at her comment or at his own absurd hope, even he couldn't say. "Free Butterbeer for life. That's the deal."
That thin thread of humor steadied him. He drew a deep breath, tugged his slightly rumpled robes straight, and began the long walk to the front. The hall stretched endlessly—hundreds of eyes pinning him like specimens under glass. Slytherins watched with parted lips, calculation flickering behind their expressions as they reassessed him. Hufflepuffs looked almost sorry for Cedric. The Ravenclaw's question stung sharper than expected—Theodore who?—but Theo kept his chin up, steps measured.
It was a small rebellion, that straightened spine. A small refusal to crumble under their collective disbelief.
Dumbledore waited at the dais, his blue eyes meeting Theo's with a look that was puzzled yet oddly kind. "Mr. Hale," he said gently, gesturing to the shadowed side door, "if you would join the other champions through here."
Theo nodded mutely—throat too dry for words—and slipped past the Headmaster into the small antechamber. Warm firelight flickered off stone walls lined with dusty portraits. Fleur turned first, her luminous eyes widening in graceful surprise; Krum loomed by the hearth, arms crossed in a stony frown. Ludo Bagman beamed from a corner armchair, positively vibrating with glee, while Mad-Eye Moody lurked in the shadows, his magical eye whirring softly.
No one spoke. Theo hovered awkwardly by the door, hands shoved in his pockets. The moment stretched—four champions, three of them legitimate, one of them impossible. The humor bubbled up unbidden, his default survival mechanism kicking in at full force.
"I, uh... think your Goblet's broken."
A few uncertain chuckles from Bagman. Fleur's lips quirked upward. Even Krum's expression shifted slightly—whether toward amusement or contempt, Theo couldn't tell.
Before Bagman could respond with bubbly enthusiasm, a muffled roar shuddered through the thick oak door—the Goblet reigniting outside. Shouts and gasps filtered in, chaotic and rising.
The chamber fell silent. Dumbledore's blue eyes flickered with something unreadable before he swept back through the door. His voice boomed through the hall beyond, steady as stone: "Harry Potter!"
Absolute pandemonium erupted—jeers, cheers, furious arguments crashing like waves. The door banged open as a dazed Harry Potter stumbled through, glasses askew, his face a mirror of Theo's own shock—possibly worse, given that the entire school seemed to be screaming about him.
Theo blinked at him. "You too?"
Potter nodded miserably, voice hoarse. "Didn't enter. Swear it."
Fleur's lips curved into a cool smile, though her sharp eyes studied both of them with the detached interest of someone examining a puzzle—or possibly a threat. "Two champions from 'Ogwarts? Zis is most... irregular." She tilted her head slightly, her tone suggesting she found the entire situation amusing in a way that didn't bode well for either of them. "Ze Goblet makes curious mistakes."
Krum grunted something low and monosyllabic, folding his arms tighter. His scarred face remained impassive, but his dark eyes tracked the development with the focus of someone used to calculating odds, weighing variables, determining which threats to take seriously.
Bagman clapped his hands together, his round face flushed with delight. "Marvelous! Four champions—unprecedented! The public will absolutely adore this twist!"
Theo groaned, rubbing his temple. "Exciting's one word for it."