The hall fell silent as the Goblet of Fire burst into flame once again. Dumbledore caught the smoking scrap of parchment and read it aloud:

"Harry Potter."

The hall immediately burst into murmurs, but fell silent again as the Goblet flared up once more. With some consternation, Dumbledore caught the new scrap and read aloud:

"Gred and Forge Weasley." His brow furrowed as he stared at the paper. "Do we even have a-"

"That's us!" shouted the Weasley twins.

"But my dear boys, you need to compete under your legal-" He caught another scrap and read it aloud. "Loony Lovegood."

There was immediate chortling from the Ravenclaw table. "Oi, Loony, let's see if your stupid creatures will protect you from the Tournament!" a fifth-year boy cried through his guffaws. A girl with scraggy long blonde hair and protuberant eyes smiled serenely.

"I'm very honored," she remarked as another name flashed from the goblet.

"Severus Snape."

"What?" screamed the professor in question, jumping to his feet. There was sniggering from the Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, and Ravenclaw tables, only for those so amused to immediately whirl towards each other and shoot them questioning looks. Apparently there had been quite a few submissions.

Karkaroff rose from his seat, turning an unpleasant shade of purple. "This is a farce," he snarled. "Dumbledore, your students have utterly disgraced this noble institu-"

Another name came forth, and Dumbledore read it aloud:

"Petra Peikoff."

Karkaroff sat down heavily in his seat, looking utterly stricken. Apparently that was one of his.

Madame Maxine looked increasingly smug as the list of Durmstrang names went on. To tell from Karkaroff's muttering and shamefaced looks, a few bullied students and two particularly loathed teachers had joined the ranks of Triwizard Champions, as well as three pranksters. "Well, Dumbly-door," she said at last, folding her massive arms, "eet seems that neither you nor Igor can be trusted weeth thees noble competition. We at Beauxbatons-"

Of course she was interrupted by the first name from her academy.

It would take hours for the list of names to be finished, during which there were several more waves of Hogwarts, Durmstrang, and Beauxbatons students who had apparently entered their name, that of a friend, or that of a student they deeply disliked. From discussions going on between the submitters ("they can't arrest us all!"), Confounding the Goblet had been the most popular approach, though Durmstrang had nearly even numbers for the Imperius (which was not illegal at their school, and whether even England's laws had provisions for Unforgivables cast upon non-sentient objects was unclear). Some had even tried Obliviation, which might explain the few blank or faded pieces of parchment that shot forth from the heavily-abused artifact. Several more obscure mind-affecting spells were being discussed, which more moral students were listening to with a mixture of indignation and fascination.

But, no matter what one's position on the matter was, only one question was on everyone's mind:

Who entrusted the selection process for a highly-prestigious, exceptionally-dangerous international tournament to a poorly-secured magical artifact, anyway?