The Triwizard Tournament is an ancient and prestigious magical competition held between the three largest and most famous European schools of witchcraft and wizardry: Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Beauxbatons Academy of Magic, and the Durmstrang Institute. It was originally designed to foster friendly relations and international magical cooperation. The tournament traditionally took place every five years, with the host school rotating among the three participants. A single champion was chosen to represent each school. These champions competed in three highly dangerous and demanding magical tasks designed to test magical prowess, daring, and powers of deduction. A panel of judges, typically the heads of the participating schools and Ministry officials, scored the champions' performance in each task. The champion with the highest total score at the end of the third task was declared the winner, receiving the Triwizard Cup and eternal glory. A key social event of the tournament is the Yule Ball, a formal dance held on Christmas day to promote goodwill between the students of the three schools.
The tournament is governed by a strict set of rules enforced by powerful magic. The central magical element in the selection process is the Goblet of Fire, a crude wooden cup filled with blue-white flames that acts as an “impartial selector.” Students wishing to compete submit their names on a piece of parchment into the Goblet, which later ejects the names of the chosen champions. Entry into the tournament constitutes a binding magical contract. Once a champion is chosen by the Goblet of Fire, they are magically bound to see the competition through to the end and cannot withdraw. For the revived 1994 tournament, a new rule was instituted by the Ministry of Magic restricting entrants to students who were of age (seventeen or older). To enforce this, Albus Dumbledore cast a powerful Age Line around the Goblet, a golden circle that prevented any underage student from crossing it to submit their name.
The Triwizard Tournament was established around seven hundred years ago. The history of the tournament is fraught with danger, and the death toll eventually became so high that the competition was discontinued. The final tournament before its long hiatus took place in 1792, ending in disaster when a rampaging Cockatrice escaped and injured the heads of all three participating schools. After centuries of inactivity, the tournament was revived in 1994 through the efforts of the Department of International Magical Cooperation and the Department of Magical Games and Sports, led by Bartemius Crouch Sr. and Ludo Bagman, respectively. Extra safety precautions were implemented, but the tasks remained exceptionally dangerous.
The revived Triwizard Tournament is the central event of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Hosted at Hogwarts, it was intended to be a symbol of a new era of magical cooperation.