Chapter 174: An Unforgivable Entry

The selection did not begin at dawn.

Dumbledore dismissed the students to breakfast in their common rooms while the panel inspected the Goblet. Karkaroff protested that Hogwarts was manufacturing a delay. Madame Maxime demanded the same access to the evidence box as Dumbledore.

Both received it.

Edward and Harry waited in McGonagall's office with Hermione, Sirius, and Mrs. Weasley. The guardians had been summoned after Dumbledore found a second copied parchment in an unused classroom.

That one bore Harry's name.

Mrs. Weasley held Harry's shoulder. Sirius stood behind Edward. Neither guardian treated the false entries as a prank.

Amelia Bones examined both parchments. The imitated handwriting came from samples publicly available in school essays. The ink was ordinary. No spell trace survived.

"The dormitory copy may have been placed to frighten you," Bones said. "The classroom copy may have been discarded before use. We cannot assume either name reached the Goblet."

"What happens if one did?" Harry asked.

"The safeguards should reject an unattested entry."

"Should?"

Bones did not hide the uncertainty. "The outer safeguards were verified. The Goblet's oldest magic cannot be fully examined."

Sirius wanted the selection cancelled. Mrs. Weasley agreed.

Crouch joined by Floo and argued that the international agreement required the panel to complete selection once valid names had been accepted. Cancelling without proof of compromise could activate penalties in the school contract.

"Then inspect the contract," Hermione said. "Not only the cup."

Crouch looked irritated that a student had spoken. Bones asked for the contract.

The parchment arrived from the Ministry archive an hour later. Its language allowed postponement for evidence of tampering and cancellation by unanimous agreement of the three school heads. It did not require selection that morning.

Karkaroff refused cancellation. He believed the copied names were a Hogwarts scheme designed to weaken Durmstrang's preparation. Madame Maxime refused to proceed until her curse specialist completed another inspection.

They settled on sunset. The Goblet would remain under all three schools' guards. Every accepted name in the ledger would be compared with the witnesses. If the flame produced an unattested name, no one would assume it was valid merely because the Goblet produced it.

"Can the contract still bind the named person?" Edward asked.

Crouch answered reluctantly. "Possibly. Recognition and validity are separate magical questions."

That was the danger. The panel could reject a fraudulent result politically while old magic imposed consequences on the victim.

The solicitor marked another problem in the contract. It used the word champion without defining whether the status came from a valid entry, the Goblet's choice, or both. A fraudulent name could therefore create a magical duty without creating a lawful competitor.

Bones separated the possible consequences. The schools could refuse to recognize an invalid result. The judges could deny points. Neither decision necessarily removed a binding attached by the artifact. Political authority and magical effect had to be addressed independently.

Mrs. Weasley asked what would happen if Harry simply left Britain. The curse specialist could not promise that distance ended the obligation. Sirius asked whether destroying the Goblet would release a selected person. It might instead leave the attachment without its termination mechanism.

No dramatic solution survived examination.

Harry listened to the adults discuss him and finally asked for the choices in writing. McGonagall made a one-page list: remain under guard, leave with uncertain magical risk, attend selection, or request another postponement. Beside each, she wrote what they knew and did not know.

Edward received the same page. Equal information did not make their preferences identical, but it let both boys take part in decisions about their own danger.

Moody entered without knocking. "Move the two boys out of the castle until selection."

McGonagall's expression chilled. "On what basis?"

"If someone wants their names in that cup, keeping them beside it gives the attacker another chance."

"Removing them isolates them from the strongest wards," Sirius said.

Moody's ordinary eye narrowed. "You have an alternative, Black?"

"Guarded rooms, known staff, no unverified messages, and no travel."

The real Moody would value layered precautions. So might an impostor seeking to learn them.

Dumbledore chose separate guarded locations within the castle. Harry stayed near Gryffindor Tower with McGonagall and Mrs. Weasley. Edward used a room beside the Headmaster's office with Sirius. They could contact one another only through Dumbledore's phoenix Patronus.

The alliance cancelled its meetings. Draco objected until Edward showed him the copied parchment through a glass evidence cover.

"Who has access to your essays?" Draco asked.

"Every professor, several students, and anyone who borrowed notes."

"So everyone."

"Almost."

Draco offered to search the Slytherin dormitory. Edward refused. Snape and the Aurors had already done so under recorded procedure. A private search would contaminate evidence and turn suspicion into factional accusation.

For the first time, Draco accepted a refusal without bargaining.

In the guarded room, Edward had no work except waiting. That made Ash restless. Every footstep in the corridor became a possible intruder. Heat gathered in his palms twice.

Sirius made him name the present.

"Stone wall. Blue chair. Rain. Your terrible tea. Choice to wait."

"My tea is adequate."

"It is evidence of a crime."

The heat receded.

Dumbledore visited near noon with an update. The Goblet contained several layers of magic the panel could read and one sealed selection chamber it could not. The chamber recognized three school identities. A fresh line of magic lay beside them, faint enough that it might be an old repair or a recent addition.

"Could a fourth school identity make the Goblet select another champion?" Edward asked.

"That is one possibility."

"Could it carry more than one name?"

"Possibly."

Harry's false entry and Edward's could have been submitted under separate invented schools. Or one could be a decoy. The panel could not know before selection without breaking the Goblet and risking the stored contracts.

Dumbledore placed a second issue on the table. The locket fragments and diary residue had reacted faintly when the Goblet was brought into the castle. Both involved torn soul magic. The reaction might come from the ancient contract, not Voldemort.

Edward had been studying ways to distinguish ordinary enchantments from soul fragments. "May I compare the residue after the selection?"

"Under supervision and without exposing either object to the Goblet directly."

Sirius looked between them. "This is not the moment to invent a weapon."

"No," Edward said. "It is the moment to identify whether the sabotage uses the same kind of magic."

The distinction held.

Dumbledore approved a non-contact comparison with Snape and Professor Babbling. They would use preserved magical impressions, not living creatures, and no attempt would be made to damage a soul.

At sunset, bells called the school to the Great Hall.

Sirius accompanied Edward to the doors. Mrs. Weasley walked beside Harry on the opposite side. The students entered under guard and took their seats.

The Goblet burned in the centre, calm and blue-white.

The copied parchments remained sealed on the staff table where every delegation could see them.

Three legitimate champions should emerge.

No one in the hall trusted the word should anymore.

Edward chose to attend under guard. Harry made the same choice for his own reasons. Neither decision became permission for the adults to stop asking what each boy wanted.