Chapter Fifteen
The Great Hall was watching with eagerness as the four of us walked into breakfast the next day. We strategically sat down next to a bunch of seventh years studying who barely took notice of us.
“Potter forced to compete in Triwizard Tournament,” I read the headline as I picked up the Daily Prophet. “This is good. It does sort of imply that you are a helpless child, but that’s better than being an attention seeking liar. Rita calls into question the safety of other children at Hogwarts, that always gets people’s attention, and critizes both the Ministry and Dumbledore. Doesn’t bring up Voldemort by name, but the article mentions investigations into malicious actions by enemies of yours, which is pretty obvious. Fleur, Krum and the date of the first task are only mentioned on the second page.”
“How do you feel about an interview with Skeeter?” Hermione asked Harry.
“Ugh, really?” Harry asked.
“Maybe at the weighing of the wands answer a few questions, but don’t go to a secondary location for a full interview,” I suggested.
“The what now?” Ron asked.
“A formality, but they need to make sure your wands are working right,” Hermione explained.
Transfiguration was the first class of the day and McGonagall got straight into the lesson, pausing only to reprimand some of the Hufflepuffs staring at Harry instead of their textbooks. Herbology went similarly, although Sprout was less strict than McGonagall. We opted to eat lunch on our own in an abandoned classroom while researching invisibility spells. During DADA, Moody ordered us to remain behind after class.
“Hawk, I talked to Dumbledore, he confirmed your story. Potter, where are you at in learning combat magic?” Moody asked.
“Uh, I really only know basic spells, shield charm, stunner, expelliarmus, petrificus totalus and then a couple of explosives. But I’m not horrible at the moving around part of duelling or casting quickly. Zo said that wizards are stupid to not learn self defense or martial arts so we kinda did that ourselves in the Room of Requirement. I also have a basilisk skin set of dueling robes,” Harry said.
“Basilisk skin duelling robes?” Moody asked. “How did you get those?”
“The basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets that we killed in second year. Gringotts was more than happy to make us some robes in exchange for the rest of the basilisk,” I said.
“Friday, 9pm, the classroom to the left of this one. Be there on time,” Moody said. “Dismissed.”
“Given it’s Moody, we should probably get there an hour early and hide under The Invisibility Cloak until he arrives if you want to impress him. Maybe even two hours,” I mused.
In Friday’s potions class, a first year kid came in to announce that Harry was needed upstairs. Slughorn eagerly dismissed Harry from class, shaking his hand and wishing him good luck as he left. Draco scowled and made a rude comment.
Harry rejoined us at dinner and gave us a detailed account. Krum had seemed mildly interested but mainly indifferent to him while Fleur was sympathetic and had inquired about his training. They had all been given a handful of standard questions by Rita, Harry had not been dragged off for a private interview. The photoshoot of the three champions had gone well, the three of them posed together with Harry in the center.
We entered the classroom to the left of the DADA classroom at 8:00, shuffling slowly as we were all squeezed under The Invisibility Cloak. There were no desks, with the exception of the teacher’s desk at the front and scorch marks all over the wall. Moody probably used this for duelling practice.
“I would like to maintain that getting here this early is a stupid idea,” Harry whispered.
“It’s a great idea. Moody is a genius and we could learn a lot from him,” I replied.
“Only you would think that a crazy paranoid Auror is cool,” Ron whispered.
“It’s not paranoia if they’re really out to get you. And Moody’s a veteran. Of course he’s paranoid and jumpy. He’s probably the only adult besides Dumbledore who seems to be taking this seriously,” I replied.
“This is going to be a boring hour. We need to talk about something,” Hermione said.
“...What are your thoughts on blood magic?” I asked curiously
“Zo, what the actual fuck?” asked Ron, the only one of us with a wixen upbringing.
“I’ve been doing some research, there’s a loophole on blood magic books where you can’t buy or sell them, but possessing them and giving them to others is perfectly legal. And it’s not like, sacrificing a person against their will like you would think. Most of it is just like three drops of blood to superpower a spell. Or stuff like the blood quills that you have to sign with when you open an account at Gringotts, that’s technically blood magic. Harry’s mum killing Voldemort and the wards around the Dursleys were definitely blood magic.”
“Wait, Dumbledore said that it was my mother’s love that killed Voldemort,” Harry said.
“Yeah, that was part of it. But, mothers have died in protection of their children throughout history, that’s not exactly unique to your mom. She definitely did some sort of ancient runic blood ritual that involved sacrificing herself and when Voldy killed her, he couldn’t harm you and when he tried it backfired rather literally. But you know, she really loved you to do that and a mother’s love is a lot prettier story than probably illegal rituals,” I surmised.
“But, they’ve got to be illegal for a reason,” Hermione protested.
“Hermione, these are laws made by the Ministry. The Ministry which is incompetent and stupid and corrupt. If you look at other countries' laws, most blood magic is actually legal. Like, you have to be an adult, but that’s just common sense and the only things that are illegal are unwilling human sacrifice. Britain is way behind the rest of the world and labels a lot of things dark magic when magic isn’t inherently good or evil. I can give you the stuff I’ve been reading. It’s really informative,” I offered.
“Mum would flip out if she found out about this, but yeah I’d like to learn more. I mean, the Ministry is corrupt and if everyone else except Albion thinks so, then everyone else is probably right,” Ron said.
“Well, if my mom used blood magic to save me then-”
“Everyone shut up,” Hermione hissed. Her animagus form was a fox and she had the best hearing out of all of us ever since we became animagi. It belatedly occurred to me that having a conversation about illegal blood magic while waiting for an Auror might not be the best idea. But at least it wasn’t the worst idea we’d ever had.
A wand poked through the doorway and cast a handful of spells. Detection of other people spells, detection of other spells spells, anti-eavesdropping spells, and finally a spell to light the candles in the chandelier. Only then did Moody fully enter the classroom.
Harry pulled the cloak off all of us and stuffed it in his bag.
“Good evening professor,” Harry said.
Moody spun, cast a handful of nonverbal spells at us. We ducked the spells and straightened up once he had realized it was only us.
“How did you avoid my detection spells?” Moody asked.
“That’s our secret,” Hermione said.
“Alright, you’re going to pair off and duel each other. Weasley, Granger, you’re up first,” Moody barked.
“Zo, can you do the warding?” Hermione asked.
I cast a spell leaving them in a large enclosed circle that would not allow spells to get through. The spells hit the ward, the same way it would hit a wall and not hurt anyone else in the room.
They began the duel, each anticipating each other’s moves. We had duelled against each other hundreds of times each. By now, it was a carefully crafted dance as Hermione twirled away from Ron’s Depulso and fired off a stunner and a tripping jinx in quick measure. Hermione eventually got Ron when she somersaulted forward, swept his legs out from underneath him and summoned his wand. One of Ron’s biggest weaknesses was failing to anticipate the less typical tactics such as punches or kicks.
“Hawk, Potter, you’re next.”
Hermione cast the ward circle for us. Harry threw the first spell, an Expelliarmus, which I ducked and followed up with a silent Stupefy. We duelled in circles, casting and ducking and casting again. I eventually beat Harry when he dodged a Depulso and got hit by an Incarcerous. The moment’s surprise was enough to disarm him.
“Potter, you use Expelliarmus far too much and are hesitant to harm your opponent. Use some more aggressive spells. Weasley, you are failing to anticipate more muggle tactics that all of your friends are using. Throw a few punches and remember your footwork. Hawk, you are singling in on the battle in front of you. It may help you in a classroom setting, but in a real battle, you need to pay attention, an attack could come from anywhere, not just the person you’re duelling. Granger, you need to stop thinking so much about what spell you are going to use and just cast. A single moment’s hesitation can mean your death,” Moody said, criticizing each of our actions in turn.
“In addition, you all have refrained from more harmful spells. However I read the reports of your actions at the World Cup and it is clear that that does not apply to fighting actual enemies.”
“We sometimes do more intense duelling, but not that frequently as it usually ends in at least one of us needing to go to the Hospital Wing,” Hermione said.
“Good, now I want all four of you to duel me,” Moody instructed.
Before we could even reply, Moody cast some sort of fog spell, quickly followed up by a handful of stunners and immobilization charms. We formed a circle around Hermione, wildly casting spells into the fog as she tried to dispel the fog. Once it disappeared, the duel began in earnest.
Moody was better than any one us individually and was trying to outwit us to win against us together. We spread out over the room to try and circle him in, but that left us isolated and Moody quickly took Hermione down.
Given his peg leg, I thought it would be harder for him to dodge spells. However, the spells we cast at him he deflected with flicks of his wrist.
It was Ron that gained us the upper hand by setting fire to the edge of Moody’s coat. I struck out with a Depulso that sent him sliding back a few feet even though he deflected it. Harry cast an Expelliarmus at Moody’s back and then he was taken down by a triple stunner we cast in unison.
“Whew,” Harry said.
We all took a moment to catch our breath before continuing on. I turned around to cast an Ennervate on Hermione and then the next thing I knew, I was blinking up at Moody from the floor.
“Never turn your back on an opponent, even when you think he’s down,” Moody instructed.
“But, we stunned you,” Ron said. “Three times.”
“I’ve built up an endurance to stunners, combined with some protection runes. I was out for around a minute before I got up and caught you with your guard down,” Moody said.
“How did you do that thing where you catch spells with your wand?” I asked.
“It’s a minimized shield charm. It has a diameter of around two feet and can only block one spell. However it does not require as much magical energy as a regular shield charm so you can cast lots of them in a single battle. The incantation is Protego Minima. Try to cast it,” Moody barked.
We worked on casting the spell. Casting it was easy enough, but like all spells it required getting used to before one could easily do so. Moody cast Stinging Jinxes at us that we tried to deflect for another half hour before dismissing us with instructions to practice the mini-shield charms while duelling against each other.
Saturday afternoon was our HA meeting, more specifically, the meeting where we would decide on an image to serve as our logo/crest.
“Alright, we have twelve pictures assembled on the chalkboard. Everyone is going to come down group by group in an organized fashion to look at the photos. All of the photos have numbers. Then we will be voting on which image to use, same as the name, with anonymous ranked voting,” Hermione said. “Group One, please come down.”
The images were all beautiful and breathtaking. Picture One was a serpent, badger, eagle and lion holding a banner with the word Hogwarts Army written on it. Picture Two was the Great Hall, with the Sorting hat as the main image and each House’s banner hanging above it. Picture Three was a Hogwarts student with their back turned and a handful of Hogwarts staff and unidentifiable students facing them with the castle in the background. Picture Four was a handful of students on brooms, playing Quidditch with the hoops in the background. Picture Five was students on the moving Grand Staircase. Picture Six was a phoenix soaring over the Great Lake with Hogwarts in the background. Picture Seven a group of Hogwarts students with wands lit at the base of the castle. Picture Eight was the Hogwarts Express with students surrounding it. Picture Nine was a wand and a sword crossed surrounded by a circle of runes. Picture Ten was an image of Dumbledore with Hogwarts behind him. Picture Eleven was a design of circular glasses under a lightning bolt, clearly representing Harry. Picture Twelve the castle in the night with the night sky being that of Starry Night Sky by Van Gough.
“Alright, everyone. The votes are in and the winner is… Picture Seven,” Hermione announced.
I looked closer at the drawing, which was Dean Thomas’ work. The crowd of students were dressed in blue, green, red or yellow robes, representing the different houses. The faces were blank spots, the only identifying features of a student being their robe color, skin town and hair. At the very front, were four Ravenclaw students that were clearly supposed to be Harry, Ron, Hermione and I. All of the students were holding up wands with lit tips. Behind them was Hogwarts castle. The lit wands were the center of the image, providing light in the darkness which surrounded the students and the castle. It was well drawn, symbolic, detailed yet broad enough to be shrunk down to fit on a pin.
“Congratulations Dean Thomas. Please come up here for your ten galleon prize,” I said, digging out my money back and counting out ten golden coins.
“Now then, everyone is at or above their grade level. Well done, we were expecting this to take half a year at least. Now, today we are going to work on the Invisibility Spell. The incantation is Invisibilis and the wand movement is a circular movement around the head. The spell can be broken with a Finite Incantatem. Observe,” Hermione cast the spell on herself, disappearing from view. A moment later she reappeared.
“Now split off into the four groups and we’ll practice,” Harry said.
A few flurried hand movements later and the four of us each headed towards one of the four groups to assist.
The Ministry investigation into how Harry’s name got into the Goblet, turned up with predictably nothing. Dumbledore found out that Harry’s name had been entered as a Hogwarts Champion with a mixture of a Confundus and an Imperius Curse by someone who was definitely over the age of seventeen and was entered at roughly 3:45 am. It wasn’t much, but it was better than the Ministry. And perhaps most importantly, Dumbledore’s findings squashed the last rumors that Harry put his name in.
Hogwarts rallied behind Harry as his fame reached new heights within the bounds of the castle. Pins that alternated between reading Go Potter! and Hogwarts Champion with all four of the Hogwarts colors were being sold for two galleons each, courtesy of the Weasley Twins. Everyone was asking Harry what he was planning for the First Task and what his strategy was, even people he had never spoken to. Hermione had to convince Harry not to make a public announcement to “Fuck off and leave me alone” as Harry wanted to say.
I checked out a book on Occlumency from the Restricted Section with a note from McGonagall. Given all of my magic future knowledge, she was quick to approve my efforts to learn how to protect my mind. Andromeda, who was the only person trained in Occlumency I trusted to go poking around in my head, sent me an owl with advice and an offer to practice next time we saw her.
I began building up my Occlumency shields, finding that the method of envisioning a physical wall was most helpful. After reading the chapter on Mindscapes, I decided to immediately begin building my mindscape. It was supposed to help organize the mind and make it easier to access your own memories. The downside was that someone trying to break into your mind could find what they were looking for much easier. But booby traps, secret rooms and faked memories could take care of that issue.
It quickly became clear that Moody’s lessons were not confined to our weekly sessions. He had taken to attacking us in the hallways, our only warning being a shouted “CONSTANT VIGILANCE” before he attacked.
It was awesome. He would strike when least expected, starting duels in the middle of the corridors. Moody did use the less harmful spells, at least until the bystanders either cleared out or cast shield charms. Once he attacked from under his invisibility cloak, but several paintballs quickly revealed where he was. Moody didn’t try that again, saying it had taken hours to get the paint out of his cloak.
Our lessons involved learning to detect poisons, ward an area, cast rare spells, evaluate an enemy for strengths and weaknesses, solve cases, lay traps and so much more. Moody was treating us as Auror trainees rather than fourth year Hogwarts students. We were learning so much.
The weeks went by and soon the first task was upon us. The evening before, Dumbledore had summoned Harry to his office. He had checked that Harry had a plan and given him a black jersey with the Hogwarts logo on the chest. We had decided that it meant Harry could wear whatever trousers and shoes he wanted, including the basilisk skin trousers and boots from his set of duelling robes. And the basilisk skin trousers already had expanded pockets to fit Harry’s Invisibility Cloak in.
The first task fell on a Thursday. The morning classes were Transfiguration and Herbology. Both McGonagall and Sprout gave the four of us permission to leave class to prepare for the First Task. Both of the witches seemed concerned and asked if there was anything they could do to help.
With our morning cleared up, Harry decided that the time would be best spent relaxing and clearing his mind before the tournament. So Ron and Harry were playing chess in the Room of Requirement while Hermione read a book and I worked on building my Occlumency mindscape.
Rather than braving the Great Hall for lunch, Dobby brought us lunch in the RoR. After we were done eating, one of the Hogwarts house elves popped in, saying that Flitwick was waiting for Harry in the Entrance Hall. The RoR helpfully provided a door that led to a corridor right around the corner from the Entrance Hall.
Flitwick escorted us out to the edge of the grounds, where a large arena had been built with a tent on the side.
“Ms Granger, Ms Hawk, Mr Weasley, you should go find your seats. Mr Potter, please head inside,” Professor Flitwick said, gesturing for Harry to enter the tent.
“Good luck,” I said, pulling Harry into a hug.
“You’ll do great mate,” Ron said, giving Harry a hug.
“Remember, surviving is more important than winning,” Hermione said, hugging Harry.
Harry went into the tent with a last wave and the three of us went up to the stands. Ginny, Luna, Neville and Maggie were sitting together and waved us over. The dragon currently in the arena was a Welsh Green, according to Ginny who said that Charlie had told her.
Fluer was up first. She entered the arena and the dragon honed in on her instantly. She cast a long spell, probably more of a chant than a single word spell. The dragon sleepily laid down its head and began snoring. Fleur took of, scrambling over the rocky ground of the arena and towards the dragon. She carefully crept by where the dragon was curled around her nest, selecting the large golden egg. Holding the egg in one hand and using her wand in the other, she walked back towards the exit. Unfortunately, she walked too close to the dragon’s head and she let out a small stream of fire from her nostrils as she snored.
Ginny grabbed my hand in hers as Fleur’s skirt caught on fire. Luckily, she calmly let out a jet of water from her wand, soaking her skirt and putting out the fire. She hurried back into the Champions’ tent.
The dragon keepers came in to remove the Welsh Green and escort in a Swedish Short Snout. So Harry would likely be facing a Chinese Fireball or a Hungarian Horntail. And given his luck, it would be the Horntail.
A whistle blew and Krum walked into the arena. He began casting a series of spells at the dragon. His lips were moving, but it was too far away to hear what spells he was casting. One of the spells hit the dragon in the eye, causing her to roar in fury and lash out. Krum dodged out of the way and ran towards the egg nest. The dragon, partially blinded and very angry, whipped about. Her tail hit Krum in the chest, sending him flying right into the egg nest and - oh!
“Oh dear, he crushed the eggs,” Maggie said.
“Dragons are an endangered species, this is horrible!” Neville said.
Krum picked up the golden egg, which had not been smashed as it was made of metal and bolted. As he scrambled over the rocks to the exit, the dragon roared fire at him, which Krum jumped behind a rock outcropping to avoid and doused himself to put out the flames on his clothes. He hurdled back into the tent and the dragon keepers descended at once.
The next dragon to be brought out was the Hungarian Horntail, a monstrous, spiked creature roaring at the crowd. Whoever thought it was a good idea to have endangered nesting mother dragons fight teenagers was clearly insane. A whistle and Harry walked out.
Harry waved his wand over his head, the movement for the Invisibility spell but also pulling his Invisibility Cloak over his body and he disappeared. Bagman began jabbering about what Harry was doing, even though we literally couldn’t see what Harry was doing. Hopefully the judges wouldn’t take points off for Harry not providing adequate entertainment.
After a little while, the egg disappeared, pulled under Harry’s Invisibility Cloak. Bagman did not notice this. The dragon continued prowling around her eggs and occasionally snarling at the audience.
Harry pulled off his cloak mere feet from the exit of the arena, holding up the golden egg as the crowd cheered. The dragon noticed Harry and Harry quickly backed up a few feet into the tent.
The dragon keepers removed the Horntail. Bagman prattled on about the champion’s actions and mentioned that they would be out momentarily to receive their scores.
Four figures emerged from the tent. Fleur, Harry and Krum, supported by Madam Pomfrey with bandages all over his torso.
Fleur got her scores first. 10 from Wildsmith, 4 from Karkaroff, 9 from Dumbledore, 10 from Maxine and 8 from Bagman. Karkaroff was wildly biased against her naturally, just as Maxine was biased for her. Dumbledore was probably docking a point for the skirt on fire as there was room for improvement, but being fair. Wildsmith was also likely being fair and Bagman was going as low as possible without opening himself up to accusations of bias.
Next was Krum. 7 from Wildsmith, 9 from Karkaroff, 7 from Dumbledore, 6 from Maxine, 6 from Bagman. Between him being injured and crushing the eggs, he got a much lower score with the pattern of the judges holding the same. Wildsmith and Dumbledore were being fair. Karkaroff was being biased for him, although it was curious Karkaroff didn’t go for a 10. Both Maxine and Bagman went as low as possible while still pretending to be fair.
Finally, Harry stepped forward to get his scores. 10 from Wildsmith, 10 from Karkaroff, 9 from Dumbledore, 8 from Maxine, 10 from Bagman. Harry had gotten his egg without any injury or being detected by the dragon.
“Whooo! He’s in the lead!” Ginny said.
“Karkaroff gave him a 10,” I whispered in Hermione’s ear. She nodded.
“The original timeline?” she asked.
“4 or 5, I think. An 8 would be understandable given his performance, but a 10?” I replied.
“You think Moody had something to do with it?” Hermione asked.
“Yes, but not in the way you’re thinking. Moody is the biggest change in variable. And like I said, Karkaroff is a coward,” I said.
“This is just conjecture and he probably has some sort of diplomatic immunity,” Hermione pondered.
“I’ll look into it,” I said.
“Oi, you two, stop scheming. Harry won,” Ron said. “Fred and George are hosting a party on the sixth floor tonight.”
“Oh joy, a party,” I muttered.
The party was wild and noisy. Given it was in an abandoned classroom and we were all breaking curfew rather blatantly, the teachers must have decided to turn a blind eye for the night.
Everyone was congratulating Harry and wanting to talk to him. At one point he was lifted onto the soldiers of some Gryffindors as he held the egg over his head.
“Open the egg,” someone shouted. The cry was picked up until everyone was chanting “Open it”.
The piercing wailing had everyone cringing and covering their ears as Harry hastily slammed the egg shut.
“We should go research the egg,” Hermione said, leaping upon the excuse to leave the party early and dragging Ron to the door.
“We have weeks to research the egg,” Ron complained as we walked back to Ravenclaw Tower.
“The sooner the better. Zo, idas?” Hermione asked.
“Let’s get our swimsuits and meet in the Common Room,” I said as we approached the riddle knocker.
“Please tell me we’re not going swimming in the Great Lake,” Harry said.
“No, we’re going to the Prefect’s bathroom. I know the password and the bathtub is the size of a swimming pool,” I said. “Harry, bring the egg.”
It was all too easy to walk from the Ravenclaw Tower to the Prefect’s bathroom.
“Whoa. The prefects are living the good life,” Ron said as we entered the bathroom and pulled off our outer robes covering our swimsuits.
“This bathtub is amazing. It has everything you can imagine and the water stays at the temperature you want because of magic,” I said, entering the water and approaching the knobs. “Let’s see, bubbles, lavender scent, epsom salts, clear water, a little warmer. Any opinions on what else you want?”
“I really don’t think we’re supposed to be here,” Hermione said.
“It’s fine. I come here all the time. The dorms don’t have baths and this is so relaxing,” I said.
“As cool as this is, what are we doing here and why did we need the egg?” Harry asked.
“Oh yeah, it’s Mermish. Dunk it underwater and listen to the song,” I instructed.
Harry submerged himself underwater and listened to the song before coming up.
“So mermaids are going to steal something and I need to get it back?” Harry asked. “Are they going to steal my wand and the task is getting it back without using my wand?”
“You know, that would be really smart, but no. It’s not what, but who. They’re going to kidnap someone, probably one of us and you have to get your person back. If you don’t they’re not going to die, but you’ll probably get no points,” I explained.
“What?!? They can’t kidnap people for the task! That’s got to be illegal!” Hermione exclaimed.
“First of all, it’s wizard logic Hermione. Since when has Dumbledore followed child endangerment laws? Secondly, they probably need agreement or parental permission in the sake of minors. At least I hope so, because otherwise I will be yelling at Dumbledore,” I said.
“Mum would never agree to that,” Ron said. “Hermione’s parents are muggles and you don’t have parents.”
“Firstly, that’s rather problematic since both of you got mermaidnapped in the original timeline. Secondly, Heads of House serve as in loco parentis and as automatic magical guardians for muggleborns unless the muggleborns designate someone else. So Flitwick would have the authority to agree on behalf of Hermione and I cause we’re muggleborns. Heads of House also have in loco parentis authority for other students, but that’s mainly in the case of emergency medical situations and it’s rather unclear if they could approve it for you. I’m not sure about the French laws on that or if Fleur’s parents…” I trailed off.
“Fleur’s an adult,” Ron pointed out.
“No, I mean for her sister, whose name I’ve forgotten. Her little sister was the person she needed to rescue in the original timeline, but I know that the kid is a Beauxbatons students because Beauxbatons starts earlier than Hogwarts so Madam Maxine might serve as in loco parentis for her, but I think the girl is still in France?” I mused.
“I mean, didn’t Dumbledore technically kidnap me when I was a baby? And nobody called him out on it?” Harry asked.
“As fascinating as the legalities of Dumbledore kidnapping people is, we need to figure out how Harry is going to swim underwater for an hour,” Hermione said.
“I would recommend a Bubblehead charm. We already learned it cause of the stinkbombs that Fred and George use, but learning to cast it wordlessly in case it pops while underwater would be good,” I said.
“Then, you’ll need to figure out where the mermaids live. I can talk to Fred and George, they might have gone poking around in the lake,” Ron said.
“Or just use a Point-Me spell,” Hermione suggested.
“What if the person is behind wards?” Harry asked.
“We could make some talisman trackers with runes ahead of time, all wear one in case we get surprise kidnapped while going to class or something. That should be able to get through most wards and they aren’t going to make this impossible,” I said.
“That would work. I think I could make some up pretty easily,” Hermione said.
“And in the original timeline, Fleur got attacked by grindylows and had to turn back to get medical attention. If that happens, you need to rescue her sister as well. Even if she isn’t in danger, getting in Fleur’s good books is important. Their dad is Europa’s Minister of Foreign Affairs. Europa is probably Albion’s closest ally and our best chance of getting foreign aid against Voldemort. You rescue his little daughter, he’ll be more favorable towards us. Fleur’s parents will likely be here for the second task, if you rescue his daughter, follow up to make sure the girl is okay, try to just exchange pleasantries with him. Don’t do anything political, just be endearing,” I instructed.
“What are our political goals for international relations?” Harry asked.
“Firstly and most importantly, getting them to accept refugees. Lots of people will want to leave the country instead of going into hiding, especially the muggle families. If Europa can expedite magic green cards or whatever, that would be amazing. Then, getting Europa’s support in the ICW, their agreement to halt all dealings with Albion if Voldemort takes over and any potential Aurors or their equivalent sent to help. The last one is unlikely though. Mainly, refugees and international support. If Europa will stand by us, even if only in spirit, everyone else will take notice. It’s important to frame this as a terrorist who wants to take over the world and is starting in Albion rather than a civil war or even just a minor terrorist problem,” I explained.
“Do you know how much trade Albion has with Europa?” Harry asked.
“It’s more than any other country, but still not much. Each country could theoretically survive on their own. We mainly get luxury items from France, nothing that society couldn’t live without. You should talk to Andromeda though,” Hermione said.
“It’s certain foods like fancy cheeses, makeup products, clothes, wine. If every single country were to stop doing business and isolate Albion, it wouldn’t cripple society, just like bruise society. There would be less fancy stuff, less variety in foods, prices would probably go up. And if only Europa were to halt trade, it would be the upper class that gets hit the hardest simply because Albion imports fancy stuff from Europa,” I explained.
“Would it damage the general economy long term?” Hermione asked.
“I’m not sure, once again Andromeda might know. I’ve never taken anything above high school economics and wixen don’t really discuss the economy and business the same way muggles do. The magical world isn’t a capitalist society and it’s so much more small compared to the muggle world or even other countries because of European magical civil wars in the Middle ages. It’s really hard to tell,” I said.
“I don’t know what economics is, but what you said earlier is right. Albion could survive isolated from the rest of the world. Part of it is practicality, but most of it is British pride. If we’re not dependent on them, it’s less leverage and honestly we’re kind of snooty to the rest of the world and think we could do everything better,” Ron said.
“Yeah, magical Britain is really snooty to the rest of the world,” Hermione said. “Everyone says that Hogwarts is the world’s best school. It’s actually second to last according to the ICW.”
“Who’s last?” Harry asked.
“The one in Ngunawal, but that’s only because they didn’t agree to let people come and visit so it got last by default. Ngunawal is apparently wild and crazy and nobody really knows what’s going on there, but it’s more chaotic that Hogwarts,” Hermione said.
“Huh,” said Harry. “Wait, if I learned Mermish through the magic potions over the summer why couldn’t I hear it above water?”
“That wasn’t actually Mermish. Actual Mermish sounds more like harsh chittering and squeaks then shrieking. And underwater it’s either English or charmed to be your native language. It’s fancy spellwork on the egg meant to lead you to the conclusion that the second task is merpeople,” Hermione said.
“Well, we don’t have anything relating to the TriWizard Tournament for two and a half months,” Harry said, leaning back and relaxing in the hot water.
On Friday evening, Flitwick summoned all of the Ravenclaws to come to the Common Room after dinner.
“As part of the TriWizard Tournament, Hogwarts will be having the Yule Ball. This will be a chance to socialize and forge bonds with our guests. The ball will be taking place on Christmas Day from eight o’clock to midnight in the Great Hall. The ball will be opened by the champions and their partners. Dress robes will be worn. The ball is open to fourth years and up, although a third year may attend as someone’s partner. I expect everyone to be on their best behavior as representatives of Hogwarts.” Flitwick ended.