Harry Potter and the Great Old Ones

Chapter 286 The Triumph of the Three Kingdoms

The heavy rain continued to pound against the tall, dark windows.

Another clap of thunder boomed, rattling the glass windows. A bolt of lightning flashed across the gloomy ceiling, illuminating the golden plate. The remaining first course on the plate vanished, and in the blink of an eye, it was filled with desserts.

Hermione wasn't originally planning to eat it—

But she found Tyella's insults satisfying, and she was very hungry, so she reluctantly ate a few more bites of dessert.

"Alright!" Dumbledore said with a smile, looking at everyone. "Now we've all eaten and drunk our fill..."

"Pah!" Hermione said.

"...I must once again draw everyone's attention to the announcements I have to make."

"Mr. Filch, the gatekeeper, wants me to tell you that several more items have been added to the list of prohibited items in the castle this year. These include the 'Amitabha Gatling Gun,' a staff that can increase the user's strength and unleash a flash spell, and a 'Thor's Hammer'... The list has now grown to about 443 items. You can see it in Mr. Filch's office. Anyone who is interested can go and check it out."

Dumbledore glanced at Tierra, then his lips twitched a few times.

He continued: "As before, I would like to remind everyone that students are not allowed to enter the Forbidden Forest on the other side of the venue, and students below the third year of Hogsmeade are not allowed to visit."

"I would also like to inform you with great regret that the Academy Cup Quidditch Tournament will not be held this year."

“What?” Harry gasped, speechless. He turned to his Quidditch teammates, Fred and George. They stared at Dumbledore, mouths agape, as if too astonished to speak. Dumbledore continued, “This is because a large event will begin in October and continue throughout the school year, taking up much of the teachers’ time and energy, but I am confident that you will all enjoy it greatly. I am very pleased to announce that this year at Hogwarts—”

At this moment, there was a deafening thunder, and the door of the auditorium slammed open.

A man stood in the doorway, leaning on a long cane, and wearing a black travel cloak.

Everyone in the hall turned to look at the stranger when suddenly a forked bolt of lightning flashed across the ceiling, and Hermione gasped.

The lightning illuminated the man's face in a vivid light; Harry had never seen a face like it before.

His face looked as if it had been carved from a piece of rotten wood, and the sculptor had only a vague concept of what a human face should look like, and was not very skilled at using the carving knife. Every inch of the skin on his face seemed to be scarred, his mouth was like a crooked gaping mouth, and the nose that should have been prominent was missing. But what was most terrifying about this man was his eyes.

One of his eyes was small, black, and sparkling. The other eye, however, was large, round like a coin, and a bright, vivid blue.

The blue eye kept moving without blinking, turning up, down, left, and right, completely unrelated to the normal eye—then, the blue eyeball rolled over and went into the person's head, and all everyone could see was a big white eyeball.

A stranger approached Dumbledore. He stretched out a hand, a hand as scarred as his face.

Dumbledore shook his hand and whispered something to him, which Harry didn't hear. It seemed he was asking the stranger something, and the stranger shook his head without a smile and answered in a low voice.

Dumbledore nodded, gesturing for the man to sit in an empty seat to his right.

The stranger sat down, shook his head to brush his long, gray hair from his face, then pulled over a plate of sausages and held it to his mutilated nose to smell them.

He pulled a small knife from his pocket, poked it into one end of a sausage, and started eating. His normal eye was fixed on the sausage, but his blue eye kept darting around in its socket, scanning the Great Hall and his classmates—Tierra noticed that Moody's Magic Eye lingered on Harry and himself for a moment before looking away.

"Please allow me to introduce our new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher," Dumbledore broke the silence with a cheerful voice, "Professor Moody."

Normally, when a new teacher meets everyone, everyone will applaud and welcome him, but now, except for Dumbledore and Hagrid, no teacher or student applauded.

Dumbledore and Hagrid clapped a few times, but finding the applause echoing in the silent Great Hall sounded lonely, they had no choice but to lower their hands out of boredom.

Everyone else seemed stunned by Moody's strange appearance, staring at him intently.

Dumbledore cleared his throat.

“Just as I said,” he said with a smile, looking at the large group of students in front of him.

But the students remained staring blankly at Mad-Eye Moody.

"In the coming months, we will be honored to host a truly spectacular event, one that hasn't been held in over a century. I am delighted to announce that the Triwizard Tournament will take place at Hogwarts this year."

“You’re kidding!” Fred and George Weasley shouted.

The tense atmosphere that had hung over the auditorium ever since Moody entered was immediately broken.

Almost everyone cheered, and Dumbledore chuckled approvingly.

“I’m not joking, Mr. Weasley,” said Dumbledore. “But since you’ve mentioned joking, I’ve heard a rather amusing joke about a troll, a she-devil, and a goblin who all went into the same tavern…”

Professor McGonagall cleared her throat loudly, and then Tyella noticed that Professor McGonagall seemed to twist her leg and kick Dumbledore hard under the table.

“Oh, yes, it’s probably not appropriate to talk about this now… not appropriate…” Dumbledore said. “Where was I? Ah, right, the Triwizard Tournament… I believe most of you have already learned about the Triwizard Tournament from your parents, brothers, or your friends’ parents and brothers. If any of you still don’t know what this tournament is all about…”

Dumbledore smiled slyly. "Then go read a book."

“Of course, I know you all yearn to win the Triwizard Tournament trophy for Hogwarts, but for security reasons… the Ministry of Magic believes that an age limit should be set for this year’s competitors,” Dumbledore said with some disappointment. “We will only allow students who are seventeen years of age or older to register.”

"This isn't fair!" George and Fred shouted in unison, standing up and waving their hands in an attempt to get the rhythm going, but it was clear—

Gemini is still too inexperienced.

Dumbledore easily subdued them and immediately sent them to sleep.

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(End of this chapter)