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In the Goblet of Fire, students were supposed to put their name and the name of their school in the Parchment they put inside the Goblet.

It is clearly stated that Fred wrote "Fred Weasly, Hogwarts", in his.

But when the parchments come out, the school's name isn't there. It simply says 'Harry Potter'. Why?

Since no one was surprised at the absence of school name, I don't think this was the result of Moody's Confundus charm.

Tushar Raj
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2 Answers2

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Warning: largely speculation

The wording is unclear. It is never shown exactly what is on the parchment that is spat out of the Goblet. Dumbledore states that after submitting their parchment...

Tomorrow night, Halloween, the goblet will return the names of the three it has judged most worthy to represent their schools.

We can read that two ways - it returns only the names, OR it returns the exact parchment that was deposited in the Goblet in the first place, school and all. If the school Champions were announced in school order I'd just say the former for simplicity, but Dumbledore doesn't announce the school until he's actually read the parchment so...either he knows all of the possible candidates and their schools from memory (which, given that it's Dumbledore, seems fair enough), or the school name is written.

Given this quote

Next moment, a tongue of flame shot into the air, a charred piece of parchment fluttered out of it ­ the whole room gasped.

I'm going to suggest three possible answers to your question.

  1. The Goblet just returns the name of the candidate on a piece of parchment. This is not the same piece that was submitted. This requires the basic assumption that Dumbledore can remember a few dozen students names and school affiliations.
  2. The Goblet returns the original piece of parchment, but the name of the school is charred off. Depending on how you read the above quotation, this may be a stretch.
  3. The Goblet returns the original parchment, but Moody called the new school "". That's right, he named the new school blank, what you'd call in computing an empty string. This way he has a fourth school, and Harry's would seem to come out with just his name on it.
DavidS
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    So the Goblet was a program and Moody hacked it!! LOL. Moody is 'The One' – Tushar Raj Apr 16 '15 at 09:54
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    @Area51DetectiveFiction - Only when he realises 'there is no goblet' O.o – LepelLeLama Apr 16 '15 at 11:03
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    @LepelLeLama: Lol. Now I'm wondering if Moody's magic eye can see the Matrix! – Tushar Raj Apr 16 '15 at 11:05
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    @LepelLeLame The reader is The One, once they realise...there is no Moody... – DavidS Apr 16 '15 at 11:08
  • I'd go for option one. I assume it's fairly easy to remember (all) the students from Hogwarts, for Dumbledore, and certainly those who would be able to be chosen. Krum was already famous, so no hard task there. And did Durmstrang allow other students to enter? And for Fleur, well she has a French name, and is a girl. So not that hard to deduct then were she goes as he might have not known her, but Durmstrang did not have any girls (with them).

    Also, if he read their name first, as you've written, their would also be some cheering from their school/house making it somewhat obvious.

     – Don_Biglia Apr 16 '15 at 12:00
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    @ThomasDB: That would be a design flaw. Say there are two guys named Thomas DB and David S in both Hogwarts and Durmstrang. The goblet chooses David from Hogwarts and Thomas from Durmstrang. Without the school name, who is to say it's not the other way around? – Tushar Raj Apr 16 '15 at 12:04
  • @Area51DetectiveFiction: True, but since there's a small pool of students to pick from and also from different regions from Europe, it makes equal names less likely in the end. If there were three British schools participating this would be more of an issue. But even within the same school that could give such problems. Then we could ask why they don't have to put down their year, their class, their Hogwarts ID, their... – Don_Biglia Apr 16 '15 at 12:26
  • @ThomasDB: I just said it was a design flaw. I know that probably it didn't cause much trouble, but that doesn't mean the flaw isn't there. Also, the idea of Hogwarts ID sounds kick-ass. It could be in latin, right? – Tushar Raj Apr 16 '15 at 12:30
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    +1 for solution #3! Makes sense that he could confuse the goblet into thinking there were 4 schools competing, and thereby cause it to choose a champion from the fourth fictional school as well. And Harry, being the only student at "", would definitely be chosen. – Ken Zein Apr 16 '15 at 14:08
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    @KenZein I can't really claim any ownership of the four schools idea, "Moody" himself suggests that this is what happened (as a way to put himself above suspicion). – DavidS Apr 16 '15 at 14:30
  • Depending how sophisticated the parser is, maybe he just needed to misspell the school name? – GalacticCowboy Apr 16 '15 at 16:41
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    Crouch/Moody must've used SQL injection to fool the goblet into thinking There Are Four Lights er... schools. – Chahk Apr 16 '15 at 16:51
  • @DavidS Yeah, but I like the empty string aspect, adds some cybersecurity/scifi to what sort of has a medieval mood to it – Ken Zein Apr 21 '15 at 13:50
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    The goblet is a lie – Zanser1609 Jul 03 '15 at 11:36
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I think that Dumbledore probably just knew who the candidates were (he would know his own students and the other two schools were all-boys and all-girls respectively), and I think all the students would as well - they would obviously know their own school students, and it probably wasn't hard to figure out where the other contestants came from (especially when the candidate in question was standing in their school uniform with cheering classmates). Also, cheering would probably drown him out even if he tried to read the school.

Faheem Mitha
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Super Yakob
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  • Parvati and Padma were now sitting at a distant table with a whole crowd of Beauxbatons boys, and Hermione was once more dancing with Krum. – Alex Aug 08 '18 at 19:11
  • “and the other two schools were all-boys and all-girls respectively” That’s a movie invention. In the books, all three schools are co-ed, as shown by the quote above. – Thunderforge Sep 15 '19 at 22:04