Roger Davies was in the entrance hall, sitting on the marble staircase, waiting for the doors of the Great Hall to open for lunch, when Argus Filch came down the stairs at his funny half-running trot. Roger looked up from the textbook he'd been reading and watched as Filch went across the hall to the announcements board beside the great big hour glasses of gemstones which counted the house points, unfurled a rather large notice sheet, and proceeded to hammer it onto the wall using nails he held with his lips. He was balanced on a little stool he'd pulled out from behind the hour glasses, stretching  to reach the top corners of the notice, his bandy-legged stature making it a bit harder to reach than it ought to have done. Roger closed the text book, keeping his index finger in his place, and stood up, headed over, and stood behind Filch, looking up at the notice.

TWIWIZARD TOURNAMENT

The delegations from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang will be arriving at 6 o'clock on Friday the 30th of October. Lessons will end half an hour early. Students will return their bags and books to their dormitories and assemble in front of the castle to greet our guests before the Welcoming Feast. Proper house attire is required and students are asked to arrive promptly by five-of to assure we are assembled when the delegations arrive. Students are expected to be on their best behavior!

Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster

Roger stared up at it with wide eyes. Filch nearly stepped on him when he climbed down from the stool and cursed under his breath as he waved for Mrs. Norris to follow him away, but Roger barely noticed any of that. He was too busy staring at the notice with a funny feeling in his stomach.

He'd been having awful feelings about the tourney, ever since that Divination class when Trelawney had said she'd seen the grim. The worst of it was that no matter how much he discouraged it, Cedric Diggory was still persisting on entering the tournament.

"Don't be superstitious," Diggory had said when Roger had brought it up while they'd waited to go up to the next divination class. "She doesn't even know which one of us she's talking about when she predicts the grim!" Cedric had shaken her head, "She should at least be able to tell that much, one would think."

It was true, Trelawney had stuck to a blanketed worry about all three of them, waving her hands and looking at them with watery eyes magnified by her glasses.

The only good thing was that everyone was so busy gossiping and speculating about the Tournament itself - what might the challenges be? who would be Hogwarts champion? - and the delegations, that they'd completely bypassed the usual macabre tradition of teasing the students selected as Trelawney's grim victims by attempting to guess how they were to die and when.

The Weasley twins had attempted to take up a false bet but no one was willing to actually put any sickles or knuts down on any of the grotesque options Fred and George had come up with - after all, not a single prior year's victim had actually died as a result of her predictions. Everyone had learned their lesson the year before when Fred and George took up a similar bet. Harry Potter lived through the werewolf attack everyone assumed had been the grim that Trelawney had predicted, and the Twins officially declared themselves the winners as nobody had guessed exactly Professor Lupin turns out to be a ravenous werewolf that attacks Harry Potter on the full moon night while being mind-controlled by the notorious murderer, Sirius Black.

"Tough luck on all of you, but there are no refunds for false guesses!" George had said, "Ta ta, and thanks for playing!"

"Come back next year!" Fred had added.

Rumor had it that they'd purchased a business license with the money they'd collected, though no one could tell what precisely their business was. But Ernie Macmillan of Hufflepuff said that his father, who worked in the business registration offices at the Ministry for Magic, had told him that the Weasleys had been by to visit him over the summer and had asked Ernie if he knew where the twins had gotten the money. But Fred and George themselves artfully dodged every question Roger presented to them on the subject.

Roger would be a liar to say that he hadn't been a part of the bets - putting his two sickles on Snape is the Grim and Harry dies by a potions exam goes wrong, which Fred had hilariously illustrated on the flyers they'd handed out for advertising their gambling bracket. However, Roger did feel rather guilty about it now; given how awful being one of the grim victims of this term felt, he wished he'd been a bit kinder to Harry Potter and all the other previous victims.

Suddenly Roger realized he'd been so deep in thought that several people had gathered around him to look at the notice on the wall and he was surrounded by jostling bodies attempting to get closer to have a look. Chatter erupted immediately, loud and punctuated by squeals and shouts as everyone in the castle started talking about the arrival of the delegations - and on the eve before Halloween, too!

"I wonder if Cedric knows? Think I'll go and tell him!" Ernie Macmillan, speak of the devil, was saying as he broke away from the crowd, hurrying toward the corridor that led away to the Hufflepuff common room.

"If I know what?" Cedric Diggory's voice came from behind Roger, even as Ernie disappeared thinking he was going to find Cedric. Roger turned 'round to find Cedric had somehow worked his way through the crowd to stand right beside him.

"Delegations from the other schools are coming," Roger answered. "Halloween."

Cedric read the entire ntoice outloud. "Students are expected to be on their best behavior," Cedric finished the notice and a grin played upon his lips. "Hear that, Fleet? It's the petrificas totalus for you, mate."

"Reckon that means we're meant to bring the fireworks, actually," Fleet's eyes sparked excitedly.

Cedric laughed. "No, I don't reckon that's what they wanted you to get of it."

Herbert Fleet grinned. "What kind of welcome is a welcome without fireworks?"

"The proper sort, Mr. Fleet!" came McGonagall's voice from behind him.

Fleet turned about and faced her, "Oh right, of course," Herbert said, but his lips quivered with the grin.

McGonagall sighed and shook her head at him as if she was wondering what she was to do with him. Luckily for her, Herbert Fleet wasn't particularly her head ache to deal with. Poor Madam Sprout.

The boys watched as she threw open the doors to the Great Hall and lunch officially got underway... and thank goodness, too, Roger thought. "See you lot," he said quickly, hurrying for the stacks of sandwiches now piled on the house tables.

Roger was at the Ravenclaw table, eating his sandwich and crisps, when there was a tentative tap on his shoulder and he looked up from his textbook, still chewing the bite of his sandwich he'd just taken. Cho Chang stood behind him, her almond face flushed as the gaggle of girls she usually sat with further down giggled uproariously, watching her approach Davies.

"Roger?" Cho said, her voice a melodic little sound, something like the twittering of a bird on a Spring day. "Might I ask you a question?"

"Yeah, what's the matter?" he asked.

"You know Cedric Diggory?" Cho asked.

Roger shrugged, "A bit."

"It's just - I was wondering - if perhaps - you might - you might introduce me to him sometime?" she asked, and the flush to her cheeks grew redder as the other girls down the bench let out a new peal of giggles at the question.

"Introduce you?" Roger asked.

"You know, so - so I might say hullo to him now and then... when I see him... 'round."

Roger stared at her for a moment, then realized why she was asking. "OH. Oh. Um. Yeah, I can introduce you sometime."

"Alright. Thanks," Cho said - and just like that she scurried back to her group of friends.

Roger turned back to his textbook.

Girls -- honestly, he thought. 

Suddenly something hit the back of his head and Roger turned 'round again to find the Wesley twins, sitting backwards on the Gryffindor bench so they were facing Ravenclaw. They were holding a bunch of grapes each, and George was chewing one, a great grin on his face as Fred snickered. Roger looked down at the floor and saw a grape laying there.

"Stop throwing fruit at people."

"Stop wine-ing," Fred said and George guffawed loudly at the pun. "We have questions for you."

"Bunches of them," George added, holding up his grapes.

Roger rolled his eyes, "What do you idiots want?

"We heard it through the grapevine that you are exceptionally good at charms."

"Yeah and that you're currantly on track for an Outstanding."

Fred threw a grape in the air and caught it with his mouth. He grinned at Roger, chewing.

"I'm alright at them," Roger said. He was being modest. HIs work in Charms was by far the best in the school and he'd considered going to Uni to study Charms Theory and hoped to one day apprentice under Flitwick himself. "Why?" he asked, eyes flicking between the twins.

"Know any that could age a person?"

"Just a couple months."

"Maybe a year."

"Nothing so dramatic, really."

"We want to keep our good looks," the said in unison.

"Stay sexy," Fred said.

"Keep the ladies flocking," George added.

"I do enjoy a good flocking," Fred said with a snicker and George snorted.

"You're flocked up," George snorted.

"Eyyy flock off," Fred answered.

They both turned to Roger at the same time, then, and said, "So do you?" at the same time.

Roger rolled his eyes. Chaos. They were chaos. "No." He turned back to his textbook.

"No you don't know them or no you won't tell us?" George asked.

"Both," Roger answered without turning about. "If I did know one, I wouldn't tell you."

"He's not a very nice one, is he, Fred?" George said.

"Not very nice at all, that one," Fred answered.

Roger sighed. "It's debatable whether what you're asking for would even be a charm anyway - changing a young person into an old person may be something you do in Transfiguration, debatably... Although, I mean, you're technically changing the age property, which would be a charm... I suppose it's a matter of whether you want the age to change or the appearance of the age to change... but it's really not possible to change the actual age unless you're employing the use of a time turner to alter the date of birth and that really gets into ---"

Two grapes hit him in the back of the head.

"Stop it," he said without turning 'round.

Suddenly he was being pelted with grapes.

"I swear to Merlin and his bleeding take two points from Gryffindor for every grape you throw!" he said, turning 'round quickly, and Fred and George laughed uproariously, turning 'round to face their own table. Roger rolled his eyes and turned back to the textbook.

A grape hit him squarely in the back of the neck.

He turned back 'round.

Fred was grinning. "Two points ain't going to make or break the house cup and - blimey, look at you. Like a wetted hen. How was I to resist?"

"Yeah, the opportunity was too flocking grape," said George.

"Ayyyyyyy," said Fred, and the pair of them high-fived.

Roger rolled his eyes and got up, frustrated, taking his textbook with him, as well as a second sandwich, and started off back across the great hall. He came around the corner of the stairwell, looking down at the textbook, which he'd opened against his forearm and was reading as he walked, when he nearly tripped over Hermione Granger.

"Whoa, whoa --" Roger caught himself on the bannister as Hermione dove out of the way. His sandwich landed squashily on the staircase and the textbook made an echoing thud as it hit the floor. 

"Oh I'm sorry!" Hermione cried out.

"It's alright," Roger said, though he was actually quite annoyed. Especially about the loss of his sandwich. He sighed and waved his wand to disappear the mess of corned beef and mustard and bent for the textbook. "What're you doing sitting on the stairs, Hermione?" He picked up a copy of Teen Witch that she'd had balanced on her knees, which had fallen and been bent up under his textbook, and handed it to her.

Hermione smoothed the cover and flushed, quickly turning it over so the cover was down and facing up was a full page advertisement for Whitney Wendell's Tooth Whitening Solution. A very beautiful witch kept smiling and there was a ping of bright light that flickered off her teeth each time her lips parted that called attention to the brilliance of her teeth, which were all perfectly straight and lovely. "Oh I was just - waiting - for - for Harry and Ron," she stammered. "They're still eating and I was finished." She looked down at the smiling witch and looked horribly embarrassed and covered up the magazine with her elbows, looking up at Roger Davies.

"Alright..." Roger said with a shrug. He started to go up the steps.

"Roger?"

He turned around and looked at her. "Yeah?" he asked, stopping midway up so one leg was up a step higher than the other.

She'd twisted on the step to look up at him. "I saw you talking to Cho Chang before."

"Yeah?"

"Do you fancy her?" Hermione asked.

Roger shook his head, "She was asking after Diggory."

"Oh," Hermione said. "She fancies Diggory?"

"I reckon," Roger shrugged. "Why?"

"No reason, really," she answered. Then, "What is it that boys fancy most in - in girls?" Her face turned very, very red at this.

Roger shrugged, "Dunno, I reckon it's different for each of us, isn't it?"

Hermione nodded, "Yes I suppose it is."

"You alright, Hermione?"

"Yeah, yes, I'm quite alright, Roger, thank you."

"Alright. Well, you ought to wait somewhere else before somebody else trips on you, alright?" he said.

"Yes, you're right, of course," Hermione nodded.

"See you 'round, Hermione," Roger said and he trotted off up the steps, leaving the bushy-haired Gryffindor and her magazine behind and headed for Ravenclaw Tower.