Felix, Flitwick, Sprout, Snape, and Moody stood together, with Moody holding a long crutch and talking loudly with Flitwick.
“It’s a shame Professor McGonagall didn’t come, she’s the only one missing out of the four heads.” Flitwick said.
“That’s not essential, Professor Flitwick.” Moody’s low voice sounded, “We all discussed in advance before coming here today so she should’ve come, I simply came here to have a good laugh. I also want to see how these students will perform …”
“Minerva is going to preside over a meeting. Lupin is coming over today, and someone from behalf of the school board will be there too, so there has to be someone significant from faculty needs to be present there.” Felix understood the reason behind this and answered crisply.
“Is it about that magic lamp?” Moody said, as his magic eye darted towards Felix, “I’ve heard much about Future World Corporation, and The Daily Prophet has interviewed almost everyone they could in Diagon Alley to ask them what they think about the building that has suddenly appeared.”
Sprout said, “There was also that light show at the Quidditch World Cup, but that unexpected raid seems to have robbed it of its attention, so I wonder if they suffered any impact from that?”
“Not much of an impact actually, Remus even complained to me about the sheer number of orders he had to do and had to recruit some more people urgently.” Felix said, with a smile, he felt satisfied with the development of Future World Corporation.
The professors talked with each other, while Snape was silent, looking far more reserved than usual, wearing a black robe and clasping his arms in front of him.
At ten o’clock in the morning, the crowd gathered together in darkness, some sitting far away on the slope, spreading out a blanket and taking out various kinds of food, as if they are here for a picnic, and leisurely surveying the surroundings.
Felix looked at the professors, “It’s about time to get it started? How about–”
“We came to see the fun,” Flitwick pointed out, “Dumbledore assigned you to be in charge of the champion’s training, your thinking stone basin is the perfect tool for the job. You know I wanted to leave all my youthful memories in it, but I’m nowhere near as good as Dumbledore, so instead, I just decided to leave my memory when I won the Dueling Championships back then …”
In the faculty common room, Professor McGonagall organized several meetings dedicated to the selection and training of champion candidates, and for the sake of justifying Dumbledore’s act of assigning Felix, McGonagall brought out the Thinking Stone Basin to convince the professors, but she remembered the headmaster’s admonition and simply explained its usefulness. Later it was Flitwick who took the initiative to approach Felix and inquired about the details of it and then agreed with relish that he would also provide some part of his memory.
And apart from Dumbledore, McGonagall, Flitwick, and Felix himself, none of the other professors decided to do so, which actually shows that everyone takes their memories very seriously, and Dumbledore’s previous concern was justified.
Felix slightly yawned and walked to the front, pointing his wand at himself, then his voice carried far away as if he is speaking into the ears of his students.
“You should have read the bulletin board, today we are not going to select champion candidates, that is the task of the Goblet of Fire, what we are going to do is select a group of people with potential for special training. Most likely, our school final champions will emerge from these people. Even if they aren’t, they will still serve as student representatives, hosting students & professors from the four competing schools and will also participate in exchange events.”
Felix twirled his wand carelessly, “What would be considered as a champion?”
“A Sorting Hat would sort students into the four houses based on a person’s most prominent trait, and you might be thinking if only there is a ‘champion hat’ …”
The students below laughed under their breath.
“… You may also be thinking, I would pick the best students. This will require you to have a messy fight, or at the very least, let you show off your best magic. But I must remind you that the duration of the tournament is extremely long, which means that the latecomers can catch up, and the forerunners can fall behind at any time.
Strength is not the only criterion needed to be measured, otherwise, there would be no point in doing what we are doing today.”
Harry, Ron, and Hermione looked at each other, they had speculated about it when they arrived here, about whether they will compete with each other to see whose spell is stronger, but there is no uniform standard for that. Harry is the best at disarming charm, but even he knows that the professors will not consider only this one spell.
But the professors’ words were very different from what they thought, and professors didn’t seem to care about what they were capable of at all, which made Harry a little disappointed.
” We professors have gone through a lot of information and analysed about the past tournaments and have come to some conclusions. One of them can be shared with you, that is, the champions often have to face the most tricky difficulties, even trials goes beyond their capabilities, in that situation, a slight difference in strength does not really matter.”
“It is not always the strongest who wins the championship. You will find that there are more unseen obstacles in the way of your path to victory … So, I made a small suggestion, starting from the definition of a champion itself.” Felix stopped for some time, with his eyes twinkling keenly, “We are back to the question we started with, what counts as a champion?”
He stood straight and looked at the crowd with a sense of oppression, and the students felt their hearts sink as Felix asked the question again.
“Champions do not represent individuals, not a particular house, but a uniform name given to candidates by – Public. Over the summer, I went to Egypt and met a local witch, and I didn’t bother to ask her which house she is from, because in my eyes, she is the witch from Uagadou.”
The young wizards’ expressions couldn’t help but become serious as they straightened their chests, and the candy that one of the freshmen brought to his lips remained halfway in the air, then he looked around, and put it down. Luna clapped her hands and shook the hat in her hand vigorously.
“Since our Champions represent Hogwarts on the march towards glory, I thought that they should have some unifying characteristics -”
“Brave and fearless, with great courage;”
“Knowledgeable, intelligent with great wisdom;”
“Honest, loyal, resilient and integrity;”
“Firm and determined with their goals, as well as being calm with enough self-control.”
Felix smiled gently, “Of course, all the above are just good wishes, it would be lucky if we could have one or two traits from it.” Unknowingly, he is holding a suspicious black mist in his hand.
He pointed his wand at the black mist and made it rise quickly, soaring high into the air near the ceiling, and then a cloud of black mist slammed right down like a cannonball, dragging a long black smoke, smashing on the ground, and spreading out. The young wizards hurriedly avoided it, but found that the black mist did not stretch indefinitely, and stopped expanding when it swelled to a dozen feet and distorted into a large fading door, suspended in midair, six or seven feet above the ground, shrouded with black mist.
Underneath the black door, seven steps extended, their surfaces sleek like pitch-black mirrors, connecting one step by one step to the ground
“Walk in, come back out, if you get your invitation card, you’re in.” Felix said calmly, he looked at Moody, who is leaning on crutches, and the professors next to him, with a smile, “Let’s just leave this to the students, we can have a cup of tea together, and discuss the subsequent training in the meantime.”
None of them had any opinion, today they came over here to get together and express their importance to the school. The selection criteria had already been determined in the previous discussion, which is why Professor McGonagall felt comfortable with not showing up to deal with more important matters.
As they took a few steps out, “By the way,” Felix stopped and said thoughtfully, “I seem to have forgotten to add an age limit; there’s no need for students in other grades to actually …”
“No need to bother with that! Professor Hap,” Moody said hoarsely, gripping the cane in his hand, “the more it’s forbidden, the more people will try it, that’s what I’ve learned from experience this week!”
His one fake eye-rolled and retracted back into its socket, and he raised his thumb and pointed backward, where the Weasley twins were probing the black door, peering towards it, with only a few steps away, and one of them seemed to want to touch the top step.
The other Weasley twin noticed the professor’s looking back and hurriedly pulled him back, with both of them giving them an identical smile in unison.
“It’s a good idea that you want to test the students’ minds. But instead of making restrictions that will dissuade them, it’s better to let them try one by one, and recognize how much they are capable of.”
He tapped his wand hard and said in a strong tone, “Not everyone can be a champion.”
Felix looked at Moody, his eyes pausing briefly on him, and said without much thought, “You’re not wrong, Professor Moody.”
They left in a group and the students looked at them, watching as they opened the door of Classroom 7, as they walked out one by one, and with a bang, the door closed.
After a few seconds of silence, the students exploded into a frenzy, their eyes burning as they stared at the black door hanging in midair, shrouded with black mist, the seven steps stretching fluidly upward seeming to have a strange charm, attracting their full attention.
“Gulp!”
Harry swallowed down a mouthful of saliva.
———–
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