Chapter Text
Feeling pleasantly full from a rich dinner, Harry debated with himself on whether or not to help himself to a large slice of treacle tart. The memory of Dudley having nothing but half a grapefruit during the entirety of summer break with only a spoonful of sugar to cope spurred Harry on, and he happily served himself a hearty slice.
Tucking into his dessert, Harry heard the conversations around him lull as many of his housemates spun their heads up towards the front of the Great Hall. Harry turned around to see that Dumbledore had stood up from his seat, great beard gleaming like polished silver in the torchlight, and walked up to the bronze-gilded podium that was carved into the form of an owl caught mid-flight.
Dumbledore cleared his throat once as he stared out across all four tables waiting for the chatter to settle. Harry nudged Ron, who was happily devouring his own dessert, in the ribs. Hermione was already twisting in her seat to focus upon the headmaster, her own sweet dish of candied fruit entirely forgotten.
“As you all well know, next week on the thirtieth will be when our brothers and sisters from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang shall join us for the remainder of this school year.” Headmaster Dumbledore began, his soft voice booming across the Great Hall. All around, students were turning in their seats to look upon the elderly headmaster with great interest. “I have received word from a spokeswizard from the International Confederation of Wizards that a delegate has been chosen to serve as an impartial judge for the entirety of the Triwizard Tournament.”
Whispers erupted throughout the Great Hall as people turned to their neighbors.
“A new judge?” Ron muttered under his breath, his attention directed fully on the headmaster. “What’d you reckon for?”
“To make the Tournament more fair, I presume.” Hermione answered back, though she looked a bit dubious. “What with all headmasters and British officials serving as judges, it would make sense to have someone who isn’t tied to the Ministry or any of the three schools to ensure fairness with the scoring.”
“And so,” Dumbledore continued on, his tone as pleasant as ever. “I hope that each and every one of you will be welcoming towards the Countess Alcina Dimitrescu once she arrives.”
Ron dropped his spoon into his half-eaten gooseberry fruit fool. He looked absolutely gobsmacked, and he wasn’t the only one.
Low, confused murmurs swept across the Great Hall from all four House tables like a roll of thunder. Harry saw from the corner of his eye that many of the older year Slytherins had begun to huddle together besides their neighbors. Turning his head, Harry could only just barely see Malfoy from over Milicent Bulstrode’s wide-set shoulders. The blond boy looked positively gleeful as he bent his head down to whisper something to an unfamiliar dark-haired boy seated beside him.
Harry’s stomach churned uneasily. Anything that made Malfoy happy has never meant well for anyone else outside of Slytherin House.
Dumbledore continued on over the whispers as though nothing had occurred. “Lady Dimitrescu shall be serving as a judge alongside each school’s respective headmasters as well as our Ministry’s own esteemed officials. Hogwarts will be pleased to host her for the entirety of the Tournament.” He said, and the whispers grew louder and louder until it nearly overtook the entirety of the Great Hall.
Harry, who had encountered both Ludo Bagman and Mr. Crouch earlier this summer at the World Cup, rather thought that a tad off. Neither of them had seemed very esteemed, what with Bagman’s seemingly lack of care towards authority and the overly serious Mr. Crouch’s attitude towards his house elf. He even turned back to make that comment to his friends, but stopped mid-way.
Hermione looked just as confused as Harry himself felt, but Ron was staring up at the headmaster as though the man had declared himself King of the Magical British Isles and pulled a screaming prepubescent mandrake out of the Sorting Hat to prove his claim. Just absolutely stunned.
“Ron?” Hermione, bless her inquisitive nature, asked with concern. The Weasley looked even paler than normal and he didn’t seem to remember how to breathe.
“The world’s gone mad,” was Ron’s simple, faint reply.
“Absolutely bonkers.” Fred supplied cheerfully as he sat down between Harry and Ron and then reached over to a platter of Yorkshire Pudding to help himself to a serving. George and Lee Jordan joined him a second later. “Dumbledore doesn’t look too happy, does he?”
Harry chanced a glance up towards the high table and saw that, true to Fred’s word, Dumbledore had seated himself again and seemed deep in discussion with a grim-faced Professor McGonagall. Even dressed in a set of merry lilac robes with shooting yellow stars did little to hide the tightness around Dumbledore’s eyes. The headmaster looked rather tense as he spoke with the Gryffindor Head of House.
“I don’t understand,” Hermione began, looking just as lost as Harry felt. “Just who is Alcina Dimitrescu?”
Ron, who had shakily brought his goblet up towards his lips, choked on his pumpkin juice. George had to slap him on the back several times before Ron turned to her.
“Cor, Hermione,” Ron whispered to her urgently, rubbing his chest with a grimace. “You don’t bring up a name like that in polite company is all I’m saying.”
“Mum would have our head if we did.” George agreed, helping himself to a bite of Ron’s fruit custard. Ron didn’t even seem to notice. “Bad luck to say the name. Not like You-Know-Who, of course, but still bad luck. Like what Muggles do in the mirror at night on a dare with that scarlet woman Mary, yeah?”
“What?” Harry asked blankly.
“Oh, for the love of-” Hermione began, looking exasperated as she turned towards the freckled redhead. “George, I’ve told you before that that is not how it goes.”
“Seems like something Muggles would do.” George countered back, shrugging his shoulders like it was all inconsequential. “Saying a name too many times and having to deal with the consequences. Sounds just about right.”
Hermione merely frowned disapprovingly at the older boy, seemingly unable to come up with a proper retort. Harry just stared blankly at them both, fully aware that he was missing something. He glanced back up towards the high table. Mad-Eye was talking low to both Professors Sprout and Flitwick, the light from the floating candles casting harsh, sharp shadows against the gouges about his face.
“I just don’t understand what the big fuss is about, is all.” Harry said aloud.
Hermione looked just as puzzled as Harry felt and was nodding along beside him, but Ron and his brothers looked uncharacteristically gloomy. The serious look Ron gave made something in Harry’s gut twist unpleasantly and he knew that he was, once again, revealing his ignorance of the Wizarding world. Raised by the Dursleys, Muggles who hated anything related to magic or freakishness, there were many things Harry didn’t know that wizards like the Weasleys took for granted.
Whoever this Countess Dimitrescu was seemed to be just another thing Harry Potter should have known about but didn’t. Hermione seemed to have come to the same conclusion if the tight, pinched look on her face said anything.
A quick glance around the Gryffindor table revealed many of Harry’s housemates, those he knew were raised in wizarding families, were clustered together and speaking undertone to each other or to their Muggle-born fellows who, collectively, looked rather lost and bewildered. Dean Thomas, Harry’s fellow age mate and a Muggle-born, was speaking with Seamus a few spaces down from them, and both boys looked rather grim.
“Harry.” Ron’s voice jerked Harry’s attention back to the redhead, who looked a bit green around the gills, for all that his tone was absolutely serious. “She’s a Dark Lady.”
Harry blinked at that, trying to wrap his head around it. He blinked again, and then again, before suddenly his heart seized as just what Ron just said finally hit him. “What, like Voldemort?” He asked incredulously.
Everyone around him flinched at the name and Neville, who was only a few feet up from them but obviously listening in, jolted so hard that he dropped his goblet and spilled pumpkin juice all over the crimson tablecloth.
“Blimey, Harry.” Ron hissed at him, voice low. “Couldn’t you just not say the name?”
Hermione recovered the quickest before turning her full attention upon the Weasley clan. If not for his own curiosity, Harry might have felt a tad bad for them; Hermione could be rather frightening when she wanted to be.
“So, she’s one of You-Know-Who’s followers then?” Hermione asked intently, leaning forward across from Harry’s left to look at the twins. “Dimitrescu is a Death Eater?”
At that, Harry couldn’t help but remember the World Cup over the summer and its disastrous end. That horrible scene with the Roberts family levitating in the air, mouths wide open in silent, painful screams. Cloaked figures swirling and laughing through the smoke, how their silver skull-like masks had gleamed in the torchlight. He shivered despite the warmth of the Hall, skin crawling uncomfortably like cold water had seeped down his back.
“No, not at all. She does her own thing, Dimitrescu.” George assured them, nicking a bite of Fred’s pudding for himself. “She sticks to her own part of the world. Though, I don’ reckon there hasn’t been a Dark wizard in the past few centuries that hasn’t tried to win her favor. Grindlewald tried, didn’ he?” The older boy directed the question towards Lee Jordan. “Binns mentioned it last year for our O.W.L.s before he went back on about goblin rebellions. She sent him packing.”
“Not all Dark wizards are Death Eaters, but all Death Eaters are Dark wizards. ” Lee told Hermione patiently. “Dimitrescu’s different. Always has been.”
Hermione seemed to have been caught up with a specific bit. “Centuries?” The girl asked, looking rather anxious. Harry’s heart clenched at the thought of someone like Voldemort living for centuries, killing who knows how many families and causing such wanton destruction.
“It’s one of the reasons why everyone is so afraid of her. There hasn’t been a Dark wizard who has lived nearly as long as she has.” Fred explained, batting away his twin’s spoon with his fork. “Most of the time they get themselves killed or caught sooner or later, but Dimitrescu has been around for ages. Even Grindelwald lasted only a few decades before Dumbledore stopped him and most wizards consider Grindelwald to be one of the strongest Dark wizards to ever live. I honestly doubt there’s anyone alive who can even say for sure how long Dimitrescu has been around for aside from, you know, ages.”
“And no one has thought to stop her?” Hermione asked them, looking absolutely horrified. Harry couldn't help but internally agree with her.
“No one can stop Dimitrescu.” Fred said, his tone almost casual save for the tight, grim line of his mouth that easily revealed his hesitance. “She’s been around for so long, knows so many spells and charms, that there isn’t anyone alive who can possibly challenge her. Maybe Dumbledore... She sticks to her own lot, Dimitrescu does. Keeps to herself most of the time. So most decide it’s just best to leave well enough alone, you know? No one wants to piss her off, else she’ll send out one of her daughters to deal with it.”
“What d’you mean?” Harry asked curiously.
“She’s like the bogeyman.” Ron spoke up. “You just don’t want her attention on you because nothing good can come from it. Parents will tell their children not to wander off or Dimitrescu will come and eat them, stuff like that.”
“Mum near had a stroke when Charlie announced he was going to be living at the dragon sanctuary in Romania,” Fred supplied cheerfully. “Mum was convinced Dimitrescu would find him and turn him into wine since that’s her territory and all.”
“... Please tell me that is some wizarding idiom I am simply unfamiliar with, Fred.” Hermione nearly begged, fingers running through her frizzy hair from stress.
The twins shared a glance between each other.
“All we’re sayin’ is that you don’t want to mess with anything related to House Dimitrescu. It’s all Dark Arts, Hermione, Dark as can be.” George told them. “They say if you even make the Countess even a tad angry she’ll send one of her daughters after you, and no one survives them. They’re absolutely mental. Dark witches as Dark as their mother. One of them was banned from dueling competitions a while ago, wasn’t she? Turned her opponent into a bloody smear and just laughed about it.”
Harry found it a tad unfair that neither had answered the question about the wine.
“Boys,” Hermione snapped at them. “The wine?”
Fred shrugged. “Dunno for sure. Most things are just stories and who knows how true they are, but most stories go that Dimitrescu has a penchant for taking the blood of virgins and turning it, or them, into wine. Most reckon she’s some sort of vampire.”
“Charlie would probably let it happen if it meant he got to see some of the dragons she has in her territory.” George smiled fondly. “According to him, Dimitrescu has several rare breeds you can’t find anywhere else.”
Lee snorted at that. “Your brother is mental about dragons.”
“And she’s just, what-” Hermione spluttered, her bushy-hair frazzled. “She’s just allowed into Hogwarts, a school, just like that?”
“Seems like it.” Fred shrugged his shoulders. “We’re as lost as you are, to be honest. She’s not the worst sort, not raving mad like You-Know-Who.”
“But not the best sort either.” Said George.
“How could Dumbledore allow such a thing to happen?” Hermione whispered, staring up at the high table. Mad-Eye had stood up from his chair to clunk his way over to Dumbledore’s side, bending low to mutter something in the man’s ear.
“I dunno. I suppose he doesn’t have much of a choice if the ICoW is the one sending her.” Ron said as he poked at his half-finished custard with his spoon, still looking rather queasy. “Blimey, they must be mad sending someone like that to Hogwarts.”
“Absolutely mad.” Harry had to agree.