When I reached the fourth book in Girl in Red, Neville Longbottom and the Cherry Champion, I had a choice to make. It was the Triwizard Tournament, one of the biggest events in the series. At first, I was going with the obvious approach: Rose would be entered into the Tournament, disassemble the tasks with relative ease in ever more ridiculous ways.

But as I wrote different ways for it to go, I found that I didn’t really like any of them. I talked with my friend, who’s been my patient beta reader throughout the series, and she suggested “Why not have Rose build the tasks instead?”

Thus, I had my new path forward. As I recently finished reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire with my son, I keep thinking back to everything I’ve done to handle the Tournament, so I wanted to write a post about it for my wildcard week.

Champion Selection: The Chosen Ones

“What’s your name?”

“Fred Weasley.”

“How old are you?”

“Obviously sixteen,” Fred said, then clapped his hands over his mouth.

“You’re not old enough,” Alavel said. “Clear away from the goblet, or we’ll have to forcibly remove you.”

“Which I’ll enjoy, so it’s up to you,” Taltria added.

With Rose helping with the tournament, I thought I’d go the extra mile and have her help with the goblet as well. So there were a few extra precautions for someone entering.

In Luna Lovegood and the Maniac in Maroon (third year), Rose constructed a pair of animated suits of armor called Nimblewrights. They don’t need to sleep, so Dumbledore asked her to have them patrol the goblet of fire, providing a constant set of eyes in case someone tried to get around the protections.

Dumbledore still drew the truth line, but Rose added another layer of protection: a spell called zone of truth. It’s exactly what it sounds like; you can’t lie when you’re inside it. The Nimblewrights asked three questions: “What’s your name?”; “How old are you?”; “Who are you entering?”. If they didn’t like your answers, you weren’t allowed to pass.

Despite this, Barty Crouch Junior came up with a workaround. Controlling his father (Pettigrew had been caught, meaning someone had to watch Voldemort, so Junior couldn’t directly be involved at Hogwarts), Junior had him put a name in the goblet, transfigured the parchment so it would look like the bottom of the goblet, then set a rune on it that would fade over time. The instant the goblet was activated, the rune finished fading, the transfiguration spell wore off, and a name was registered.

However, Crouch fought back against his son and got enough freedom to change the name. It had to be someone at Hogwarts, and there were few names he could think of, so he picked the first one that popped into his head.

Harry met Professor Dumbledore’s gaze, but Professor Dumbledore slowly shook his head.

Harry frowned, then realized that he was sitting between Professor Dumbledore and someone else. Someone that was always so quiet that even Harry often forgot he was there. He slowly turned around and realized whose name it was that was on that parchment.

Professor Dumbledore wasn’t looking at Harry; he was looking at Neville.

First Task: Orb in the Arena

“The first task was originally going to be dragons. Dragons! Come on! How boring is that?”

“I can see why you would think that’s a bad idea,” Hermione said.

“I know, right? I’ve seen this world’s dragons, and they’re pathetic. In my world, they’re the stuff of nightmares. Little children are told tales of dragons to scare them into following the rules. If you saw a dragon flying towards you, you didn’t stop and check if it was one of the nice ones, you just ran for cover and hoped it wasn’t hungry.”

As with any transformative work, you’ve got to set yourself apart. Why am I reading this instead of the original? What’s different? Choosing Neville for the champion instead of Harry was a good start, but the first task had to be original, more or less, while still sticking to the restrictions of the story.

The main restriction was that the champions would still retrieve something that would later provide them a clue.

At first, I thought about other creatures I wanted to use. I didn’t think of anything that interested me, so that ultimately led to a dead end. My inspiration for the task really came from a friend of mine. I had mentioned I thought the dragons would be boring, to which he replied (sarcastically) “oh yeah, dragons aren’t enough. Why not make the walls dragons?”

A note to anyone that sarcastically makes suggestions for my work: I will always consider them.

The walls didn’t end up being dragons, but I liked the idea of the walls firing on them. But that wasn’t good enough; I decided I wanted the object they grabbed – an orb – to be airborne. Even then, I wanted more. So I let my mind wander, and eventually came up with more: let’s have it move.

So here’s what we ended up with:

The arena wasn’t anything special. It was mostly stone, with the crests of each school engraved in the center around a giant “T”. A blue orb sat in the exact center of the insignia.

The moment he stepped inside the insignia of the three schools, the blue orb turned red, and the field came to life.

Red cracks bled out from the orb and slithered towards the outside of the insignia. They branched out around the crests, reaching past Neville, as the orb left the ground, followed not long after by the chunks of stone formed by the cracks.

As everything took to the air, it all spiraled and whirled around the orb. Even the platform beneath him flew around the orb, nearly throwing him off balance.

Most of those chunks of rock fired either lightning, acid, or fire towards the orb, which itself had a field around it pushing out anything that got near. Those specific threats were chosen because in the world of D&D, those are three of the main energy types. This gave a hint to both Neville and the reader that Rose had built this.

Also, as Neville found out, once you grab the orb, the entire thing collapses.

Neville grabbed onto another boulder, then leapt towards the sword. He nearly reached it when another boulder fell onto him. He leapt back, then looked at the field. All around him, the storm was collapsing. He tried to escape, but another falling rock knocked him onto his back. He climbed to his feet in an attempt to escape, but with the falling rocks, he couldn’t get out in time. All he could do was grab the sword in one hand, and the orb in the other. He returned the sword to his glove and curled up around the orb.

The Orb: Problem Solving

“[The orbs] activate tonight, so it won’t be long before they start to work them out.”

“Are you sure? You didn’t exactly make it easy for them.”

“Still easier than the eggs would’ve been! How were they supposed to guess water?”

“Well–”

“They’d guess! It’d take them forever to work it out, and it all came down to blind luck! This way, they’ve got to work together, and I know they’ll figure them out!”

I went through a few iterations with figuring out the orbs. The idea was that I wanted a riddle still, but it wouldn’t be more or less blind luck figuring out to put it in water. So instead, the riddle appeared on its own after a certain amount of time, and they had to solve it in order to activate the orb fully.

But after looking at the completed book, I realized I could do more with it. Dumbledore wanted to bring the champions together. Rose would honor that, but in an unnecessarily complicated way, because that’s what she does.

So when Neville’s activated, this is what he saw:

P os lacx ophn crzxx Iiz E nvowy kkap Z ysks oj tyx dpunp Blm lofore zg los jwrb Bx fca herkf tm ozeemaam O sice kocc uol rgbf taxk mszy

That is a Vigenère cipher. It’s outside the scope of this, but you can look it up on Wikipedia if you’d like to know more. Basically, you take a keyword, repeat it as many times until it covers the entire message, then add it to the message to get new letters.

The keyword in this case – at least for Neville’s and Cedric’s orbs – was Hogwarts. For Krum, it was Durmstrang, and Fleur, it was Beauxbatons. In Rose’s head, that meant they’d have to compare notes and work together to figure it out. The boys did, but Fleur was too busy being competitive to want to help. With help, they worked it out (Although as Hermione pointed out, Rose could’ve made it easier and just given each of them every fourth word of the riddle).

Here’s the solution:

I am pale with grief But I never weep I fade in the light But thrive in the dark If you learn my identity I will show you your next task

I needed something that would work for an activation. That one was straightforward: the moon. Bathe the orb in moonlight and you’d get your answer. That one would arguably be easier to come across by accident (which again, never would’ve occurred to Rose), but fortunately, no one did.

Instead of them only knowing that it was the lake, they were shown images of what they’d have to handle. Specifically, I wanted the path to the center to be revealed to them, otherwise it’d be blind luck (again) that they made it to the right place.

First, he saw a clock indicating eleven o’clock, which faded to an image of the Great Lake. In the image, he descended into the depths of the lake, coming to an abandoned underwater civilization. A platform stood at the middle of the ruins, upon which there were four people tied to poles. He couldn’t see the faces of the people, but they weren’t struggling, so he assumed they were unconscious.

The people became smaller as the view changed to show the ruins again, revealing underwater mines around the ruins. The four prisoners vanished from the platform, and a large vortex descended on the ruins, taking the mines with it. It all grew smaller and smaller as he returned to the surface, then the clock reappeared showing twelve o’clock. The moment the minute hand struck twelve, the whole thing was washed away, leaving the orb as it was.

Second Task: Girl at the Bottom of the Lake

“It’s regarding one of your ideas for the second task.”

“Which one?”

“The one that’s less likely to get them killed.”

Rose frowned and tilted her head.

“The one that doesn’t involve monsters from another world.”

“Oh, that one!”

This one is the most similar to its counterpart in the original book. Its still the Great Lake, they still need to retrieve someone from the bottom and bring them back within an hour. I’d considered the Forbidden Forest instead, but there’d be some issues. My issue with it was that Neville had already spent tons of time in the forest while Rose got him ready for the first task. She wouldn’t have been allowed to do this if the second task was in the forest. The issue Dumbledore would’ve had would’ve been that relations with the inhabitants of the forest would’ve been strained by Hogwarts deliberately dropping people inside.

So the lake it was. But Rose, being Rose, couldn’t make it that simple for the champions. My first thought was mines. My second thought was a maelstrom. My third thought was a kraken. I liked them all, but knew Dumbledore would not let her use them, so I got rid of the kraken. Fetching the hostages was still too straightforward, too simple, especially since the orb had shown them the way (again, removing part of the guesswork from this task – Harry only figured it out because Myrtle pointed the way). I wanted another challenge to it.

Back in first year, I’d invented something I called a “dimensional prison”. It’s an experimental spell developed by Professors Vector (Arithmancy) and Babbling (Ancient Runes) that takes a slice of the world and puts it in another dimension. In order to escape it, one must counter the runes that hold it in place. While this is going on, the prison is drawing its power from its occupants, slowly draining them.

I’m sure you can guess what’s coming: the hostages were put inside this, but with some modifications. It activates once a champion draws near, and puts him or her into a separate prison. The only escape is to leave with your hostage, but there are still apparently four hostages.

The four most important people to each champion were conveniently missing from the second task, reappearing as they all dove underwater. Once they reached the prison, one real hostage was there, and three fakes. The fakes all had something wrong with them: missing freckles, not wearing their signature jewelry, etc. It was up to the champions to decide which one was which. If they chose wrong, the prison would sap more of their strength.

I had another issue with the second task: it was boring. Not for the champions, but for the audience who are staring at an empty lake for an hour. They can’t see below; the merpeople had to tell Dumbledore that Harry had tried to save the other hostages. So I asked “Can Rose fix that?” Of course, as Rose would say “I can fix anything!” There’s a spell in D&D called Scrying, and more importantly, a stronger version of it called Greater Scrying. It displays an image of a person as they are at that moment on some sort of reflective surface. Like a lake. The greater version of it lasts for well over an hour. Rose cast this on the four champions and had the image come up on the lake, allowing everyone to see what was happening.

Once all four hostages had been saved, the maelstrom started. I didn’t want to put them in a maelstrom the entire time, because I couldn’t see any of them surviving it. Even then, Neville ran into some complications. Unlike in the original, Neville doesn’t have anyone helping him along. Rose knows what’s going to happen, but she promised Dumbledore she wouldn’t tell anyone. He isn’t good with magic, so he wields the Sword of Gryffindor, which he’s allowed to use in the tasks in place of his wand. He got a vine of Devil’s Snare that he attaches to the hilt, with the other end tied to his wrist. For this task, he has a piece of leather that attaches to the hilt. The leather has runes carved into it, enchanting it so that when he squeezes it as hard as he can, the sword will fly until it reaches air. This is how his hostage, Luna, Cedric, and Cho escape.

With the maelstrom pulling him back, Neville has to release himself from the sword so the other three (all tied to the sword with the vine) can get to the surface. Neville himself fails this task. The gillyweed wears off, and he drowns. Unbeknownst to everyone except Luna, Rose brings him back to life before anyone can verify that he’s dead. This decision I made for two reasons. First, I wanted it to feel more like it was challenging him. In the original, Harry feels too talented. He’s a fourth-year, but he’s beating six- and seventh-years. That doesn’t seem realistic; it seems like he’s using his main character powers to win. Second, I wanted to underline how out of touch Rose was getting. Sure, the other three had managed to make it to the surface, but Rose was more excited about the task than she was worried that her friend had died.

“D’so Thorthen alhel.”

Luna caught Rose’s voice over the sound of the crowd and Professor Dumbledore informing them that there was no need to worry. A moment later, Toad started coughing and spluttering, and Madame Pomfrey rushed to extract water from him.

Toad climbed shakily to his feet, aided by Madame Pomfrey. As he joined the other champions and scores were announced, Luna and Rose exchanged glances. Luna knew no one else knew what Rose had said, but she did. She’d heard almost the exact phrase in one of her dreams. Except Rose hadn’t been standing over Toad, she’d been standing over Princess.

Luna also knew that the maelstrom had been Rose’s idea. So for the second time that day, Luna looked at Rose and wondered if she were still looking at her sister.

Because “d’so Thorthen alhel” was Dwarven for “I wish Toad were alive.”

Third Task: Horror of the Clockwork Maze

The Triwizard Cup stood in the middle of the Pitch. It shone blue light in an aura around it, but none of them saw a maze, just an empty pitch. What they did see was Professor Dumbledore next to a red button that was bigger than Dumbledore himself. As they walked to a clearly marked boundary, he pushed the button, and the whole pitch began to shake.

Solid black blocks erupted from the ground and flew into the air. One by one, the blocks collided with one another, then began to shift around. They encircled the trophy, blocking it from view. Entire groups of blocks shifted at once as more joined to form a larger block. The way the blocks moved with one another reminded Neville of something. Neville couldn’t tell exactly how big they were, but he guessed they were exactly five feet by five feet by five feet, since that was how everything seemed to break down in Rose’s world.

The large block rose into the air as more blocks joined it. As they did, Neville realized why they seemed familiar. He’d seen the same motion hundreds of times since his first year at Hogwarts. Staring at a peculiar girl playing with a toy her best friend had gotten her for Christmas.

It was a puzzle box. The final task, the grand maze, was a giant puzzle box.

I LOVED THIS TASK!

Throughout Cherry Champion, the characters commented on how Rose had been absent for most of the year. With Hermione absent from Hogwarts, they’d assumed Rose was spending time with her. Hermione, to whom Rose was generally honest, knew the truth: Rose had been obsessing over this task.

That being the case, it had to be something spectacular, something that screamed “Rose made this”. The only requirement I had on it was that it had to be a maze, and the Triwizard Cup had to be inside.

At first, it was going to be a simple maze, filled with constructs made by Rose. To start with, that was good enough, until I got there. Then I started to think bigger.

In Dungeons and Dragons, there are creatures called clockwork horrors. They look like large beetles, with saws or pincers. There are four types, getting progressively more difficult. The strongest of the bunch is called an Adamantine Clockwork Horror. I’ve seen this thing nearly wipe out an entire party before. Instead of using a variety of monsters for Rose to make, I went with the horrors. As you get deeper into the maze, they got stronger, culminating with the Adamantine Horror. My original idea was to have it guarding the cup, but I thought “No, I can do better”. So I put the cup inside the horror.

Then there was the maze itself. When I put thought into it, I realized making it 3D would be perfect. But I went one step further, doing exactly what Rose would do: I made it a puzzle box, shifting and sliding while the champions were inside, filled with deadly constructs that made the other traps look like nothing.

But it’d be boring if they were wandering a maze forever. The inside of the maze is bathed in light. It starts purple, and, as the champions soon realize, it changes through colors of the rainbow, ending on red (Rose’s favorite color) in the center. So you know when you’re getting closer by the color, and the bigger constructs trying to maim you.

Neville meets with Fleur part way through the maze, and they work together to reach the center. When they get there, they find the cavern with the Adamantine Clockwork Horror. The four champions had to work together to beat it; it could (and did) easily take them on individually.

I worked through several iterations of this scene alone, trying to get it right. Having five moving fighters made it tricky. I won’t go into the details of writing a fight scene; that’s another post.

I did have to work out how Neville won this fight, because he does win the tournament, but it couldn’t be too easy for him. I went through several drafts until I got it right.

Unlike Harry, Neville struggled with each task. The first task collapsed on him. He pushed the rocks away and dragged himself to the starting tent to complete the task. He had to be pulled out of the second task after drowning. I wanted this one to be just as dramatic, making the readers wonder if he’ll make it out.

Fleur went down after Cedric stunned her. She was so determined to win, she was going after them rather than the clockwork horror. The horror took out Cedric, then disarmed Neville (not literally). While trying to work with Krum, Neville got stabbed in the side. He tried dragging himself back to the sword. He – and I – knew that if he could get within 30 feet of it, he could summon it to his hand (thanks to an enchantment Rose put on it).

I wanted him to fight for every inch. Not only did that show how much he’d grown through the book, but it gave more weight to his victory. I had an advantage that the original did not: this was Neville’s character arc for the story. It came to a dramatic finish, rather than feeling flat in the original. I believe this is because the original didn’t end with the tournament. It was only a stepping stone to Voldemort’s resurrection.

“I survived,” Neville breathed.

He drove the sword into King Bug.

“I lived.”

With a loud grunt, Neville forced the sword through King Bug’s body.

“And I win.”

King Bug stood motionless in the cavern, but after a few seconds, it began to shake. Pieces fell off its body, one by one, until the gem on its head fell. Once it hit the ground, the gem shattered.

The cup sat among the wreckage, casting a bright blue light on the red of the maze. The glow got brighter, and Neville saw his wounds heal. He reached down and picked up the cup. When he did, blocks shifted around and formed a pathway out of the maze. He and his recovered companions walked out into an applauding crowd.

Conclusion

Writing the Triwizard Tournament took a lot of time, but it was one of my favorite parts of Girl in Red. It still is. That’s not even mentioning everything else that went on in Cherry Champion.

I’m keeping that in mind as I go forward. All the work I put into my new stories will be worth it, like Cherry Champion was.

#Essay #GirlInRed

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