Chronicles Of Arth: Prince Of Shadows

"Antidotes!" said Snape, looking around at them all, his cold black eyes glittering unpleasantly. "You should all have prepared your recipes now. I want you to brew them carefully, and then, we will be selecting someone on whom to test one. . ."

Snape's eyes lingered on Harry, and Arth knew what was coming. Snape was going to poison Harry. Arth imagined Harry drinking bottle of poison and squirming on the ground waiting for Snape to give him the antidote.

Yep, Harry was screwed.

A knock on the dungeon door burst in on Arth's thoughts.

It was Colin Creevey; he edged into the room, and walked up to Snape's desk at the front of the room.

"Yes?" said Snape curtly.

"Please, sir, I'm supposed to take Arthur Kingscrown upstairs."

Snape stared down his hooked nose at Colin, whose smile faded from his eager face.

"Very well." said Snape. "Kingscrown - take your bag and leave."

Harry sent him an envious look as he swung his bag over his shoulder, got up, and headed for the door. As he walked through the Slytherin desks, Down With Gryffindor badges flashed at him from every direction.

"It's amazing, isn't it, Arth?" said Colin, starting to speak the moment Harry had closed the dungeon door behind him. "Isn't it, though? You being champion?

"Yeah, really amazing," said Arth.

"Good luck!" said Colin when they had reached the right room. Arth knocked on the door and entered.

He was in a fairly small classroom; most of the desks had been pushed away to the back of the room, leaving a large space in the middle; three of them, however, had been placed end-to-end in front of the blackboard and covered with a long length of velvet. Five chairs had been set behind the velvet-covered desks, and Ludo Bagman was sitting in one of them, talking to a witch Arth had seen before, who was wearing magenta robes.

It was Rita, Rita Skeeter. Ugh.

Viktor Krum was standing moodily in a corner as usual and not talking to anybody. Cedric and Fheur were in conversation. Fleur looked a good deal livelier than Arth had seen her so far; she kept throwing back her head so that her long silvery hair caught the light. A paunchy man, holding a large black camera that was smoking slightly, was watching Fleur out of the corner of his eye.

Arth reckoned that she was part Veela. Something about here reminded him about the girl from the Quidditch World Cup. That would also explain why she could sense him while his passive ability was on.

Bagman suddenly spotted Arth, got up quickly, and bounded forward.

"Ah, here he is! Champion number four! In you come, Arth, in you come.. . nothing to worry about, it's just the wand weighing ceremony, the rest of the judges will be here in a moment -"

"Wand weighing?" Arth said. "We are already doing that?"

"Yes. The expert said he didn't wasn't available any other time so it has to be now. He is upstairs now with Dumbledore in fact. And then there's going to be a little photo shoot. This is Rita Skeeter," he added, gesturing toward the witch in magenta robes. "She's doing a small piece on the tournament for the Daily Prophet. .. ."

"Maybe not that small, Ludo," said Rita Skeeter, her eyes on Arth.

Her hair was set in elaborate and curiously rigid curls that contrasted oddly with her heavy-jawed face. She wore jeweled spectacles. The thick fingers clutching her crocodile-skin handbag ended in two-inch nails, painted crimson.

"I wonder if I could have a little word with Arth before we start?" she said to Bagman, but still gazing fixedly at Arth. "The youngest champion, you know. . . to add a bit of color?"

"Certainly!" cried Bagman. "That is - if Arth has no objection?"

"As a matter of fact, I do-"

"Lovely," said Rita Skeeter, and in a second, her scarlet-taloned fingers had Arth's upper arm in a surprisingly strong grip, and she was steering him out of the room again and opening a nearby door.

"We don't want to be in there with all that noise," she said. "Let's see . . . ah, yes, this is nice and cozy."

Arth stared at her.

He could already tell that this was going to be shit.