61 Chapter 59 - Summoner's Cup; Logistics

***** Bonus Chapter ***** A/N: Ok so I've learned through writing this chapter that planning out a tournament logistically is a big pain in the ass lmfao. *****

Khan awoke very early the next morning, ready to get back to work and set up for his upcoming tournament that weekend.

Thinking about the previous night, Khan knew that he could not spend any more time attempting to bond with his new dragon, and earning her trust.

He was once again thrust in the middle of another plot after all.

And unfortunately, He was correct about Moody being an imposter, and he had been right about Voldemort being still alive, even casting an Imperius Curse on Mr. Crouch himself.

Who knew what kind of damage Voldemort was having Crouch do under the Imperius...

Not to mention, Khan had a lot of work ahead of him, regarding last minute tasks to prepare for the tournament, to say nothing of next week when he had to take over Defense teaching duties for a short period of time while Moody recovered.

As such, it was time he stopped taking personal time, and got back to work.

Making his way down to the Ravenclaw common room for once instead of simply floo-flashing around, clad in this typical Hogwarts Relic Robes, he decided to walk and first go to the Great Hall, intending to grab an early bite to eat.

While he previously would flash around the school to avoid crowds and his numerous fans, he had decided this morning to walk around instead, as he had another task to do.

Collecting the rest of his Sign-up posters!

He had placed them all over the walls of Hogwarts, littering the corridors, the very next day after their Hogsmeade trip, hoping to attract a larger amount of participants, building off the success of his first sign up day at Hogsmeade.

Khan had collected and counted over 500 participants from the first day alone, and he was looking forward to seeing the total number of participants who have signed up.

With such a large tournament with a huge number of participants for its first even, Khan's and Prof. Ronen's Summoner's Court Game would hopefully grow in popularity, and push the game to the next level!

Eager to start his walk early, and hopefully avoid most of the students, he began to make his way down the stairs, from the Ravenclaw common room, heading towards their tower entrance, which was guarded by a Giant Eagle Figurine.

Their Ravenclaw Tower/dorm was unique in the sense that their guardian asked them to answer in order to gain access to their dorm, instead of asking them for a password, as was typical for most of the other house dorm guardians.

Opening the door, he stepped out, and almost tripped!

Not expecting anyone outside the tower entrance, especially at this early an hour, he had rushed out, not watching where he was walking, and had almost tripped over..... a sleeping blonde student?

'Luna?' Khan recognized the Blonde of course. It was Luna Lovegood; the younger girl with the quirky attitude and knowledge of completely unknown wacky sounding things. He could not forget her, especially with the Prophecy she had given to him. 'Why is she sleeping on the floor?'

"Luna.... Luna!" Khan tried to gently wake her, to at least get her to move back into the common room. He was certain the floor was quite uncomfortable, especially since she appeared to be missing her Cloak. "Come on Luna.... Wake up!"

She simply stirred in response, finding a more comfortable spot on the floor, before stilling herself once more, apparently still deep in her sleep.

'Was she wandering the forest late again?' Khan took notice of the dirt and grass stains on the familiar pair of boots she had on. 'Well at least she brought my boots along with her this time.... but why is she missing her cloak now? And why is she sleeping out here? Could she not answer the riddle?'

It did not make sense. This girl was a Ravenclaw, and was a natural-born seer!

She had just given him a genuine prophecy not even a full week ago after all.

And in his experiences, those who were strong and gifted in divination, were also quite gifted and strong magically.

While Khan may not know much about Divination, Natty's mother was their previous Divination teacher, and she was quite the formidable witch and magical powerhouse.

And of course, Natty being her mother's daughter', was also quite gifted in Divination, to say nothing about her combat prowess, and animagus/wandless skills. She was so good in fact, that she went on to become Dumbledore's mentor.

As such, Khan had quite the respect for Divination, especially those who were gifted in it.

He refused to believe that this gifted girl, who knew of things like Wackspurts that he had never even heard of, in addition to also giving him a genuine prophecy, would not be able to answer a simple Riddle.

'Well, at any rate, I cannot just leave her out here...." Khan saw that she was not waking.

"Up we go!" Khan reached down, and picked up the smaller girl in a princess carry, intending to move her onto a couch inside the common room.

As if on instinct, Luna nuzzled her face into Khan's warm chest, unconsciously making herself more comfortable in his arms.

Khan took no notice of the squirming Luna, simply carrying her back inside the tower, and climbing the stairs, back up to the Common room.

Placing her down gently on the couch, Luna curled up into a cute ball, seemingly huddling in on herself, looking for the warmth she had just recently lost with Khan putting her down.

Khan noticed she was shivering a little bit, and decided to give her one of his old enchanted cloaks.

Pulling out an identical cloak to the one he was wearing out of his inventory, He proceeded to place it down over Luna covering her with the Relic Robes.

It was one of his older cloaks that he had previously worn earlier in his adventuring.

Unfortunately in the past, he was not as skilled in enchanting as he was now.

As such, He had outgrown his prior original enchantments, and had simply replaced his cloak at the time, with a newer enchanted one, simply transfiguring it to resemble his old Hogwarts Relic Robes.

In fact, he would go on to continue this trick of his, continually replacing his old robes, and transfiguring his new ones over the year. Every time he improved on his enchantments, or found another newer more powerfully pre-enchanted item, he would replace them.

This particular robe he was covering Luna with, was one of his first cloaks he had been experimenting enchanting with. As such, it had very rudimentary enchantments, missing many of the combat enchants Khan's current cloak had.

What it did have however, was a warming charm as an enchantment.

Finished with covering Luna in his old warming cloak, Khan felt satisfied that he had helped the strange blonde girl, and decided to continue about his business, heading out of the common room, and back down the stairs.

He had Sign up sheets to collect!

*****

"How about we give the upper year students byes for the first round." Flitwick suggested. "If we include the students from Beauxbatons and Drumstruang as first round byes...."

"Actually sir... That probably wouldn't work." Khan thought aloud. "We would have to add a 10th round with 1024 participants and give a large amount more participants bye-rounds if we were to go that route. It wouldn't just be the upper year students in that case."

It was the night before the First round of Khan's Summoner's Cup, and Jordan was currently with his mentor Flitwick, going over all the last minute logistics in the charms office.

Khan had finished collecting all the sign up posters later that morning, and it turns out They had received a number of last minute entries.

Their total number of participants they were looking at was quite the large amount, with many of the younger year students even joining.

In addition, the students from both Beauxbatons and Drumstruang had decided to join Khan's tournament, rounding out their total number to a healthy 609.

Unfortunately, with such a large number, the logistics surrounding the tournament grew exponentially more complicated, as both Flitwick and Khan were currently finding out.

Working backwards from the final round, they first calculated that 9 total rounds would be needed to crown a champion, with the first round needing a total number of 512 participants.

Thus they were met with their first challenge; with a total number of participants sitting at 609, they needed to figure out a reasonable way to fairly reduce the number by 103, which they were currently discussing.

"Perhaps we hold a sort of Preliminary round." Flitwick suggested, since his other suggestion had been logically shot down.

"Hmmmm like a play in tournament of sorts?" Khan answered him intrigued by his mentors suggestion.

"Yes exactly!" Flitwick squeaked excitedly. "That should increase the excitement of the tournament!"

"That... could work." Khan thought pensively. "We could have it for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd years, since Summoning spells are taught in 4th year charms."

"Yes, and we could throw it under the guise of ensuring that Participants are properly prepared!" Flitwick squeaked.

"There are.... around 128 total students who fit that criteria. That kind of works out almost perfectly." Khan stopped midsentence to do some quick counting. "These 128 students would all fight for the top 25 spots."

"Going with a play-in tournament style, everyone would compete round by round until there are 16 players left, who would have earned their spot." Thought Flitwick aloud. "Which would leave us with 9 spots left out of the 25...."

"How troubling." Khan responded with a frown, thinking hard about the problem.

"Ok.... how about this." Khan suddenly had a eureka moment. "The losers would enter their own tournament, a losers bracket of sorts, to compete for the final spots."

"That is a good idea.... but how are we to throw a tournament with the left over 112 students who lost?" Flitwick thought it was a good idea... but had to point out that single caveat in Khan's plan.

"That's where your first idea will come in!" Khan stated excitedly. "The 16 players who lost in the final round of the winners bracket will earn 1 round byes!"

"OH! What a great idea!" Flitwick was growing even more excited, with their plans finally coming together., bouncing up and down on top of a random mountain of books in his office. "The tournament rounds will work out perfectly that way."

"Exactly!" Khan was joining Flitwick in his excitement, also excited that their plans were finally being sorted. "And similar to the winners bracket, the participants would compete until there are 8 students left, who would have also earned their spot."

"Which would leave us with 1 spot left...." Flitwick's bouncing stopped, as he turned to ask Khan. "Do we throw another loser's bracket?"

"Actually sir, I had something else in mind."

*****

*** A/N: Ok so more of an ending note this time, since its more of an explanation/immersion note. I looked up the population of Hogwarts, and apparently JK has gone on record, stating the Hogwarts population is approximately around 1000+ students at any given time. So that would be about 150 per year.

Given that Summoning charm is a 4th year spell, then most year 1-3 students would not have learned it, unless they studied ahead. So accounting for those students from year 1-3 who would join (128/450), that would leave us with 322 students from the younger years not participating.

Next, we have students from both Beauxbatons and Drumstraung joining the tournament, who are not part of the original Hogwarts calculation, but luckily their participation is cancelled out by the upper years who are either too shy to join, too busy with their OWLs or NEWT studies to participate (*cough* ravenclaws *cough*).

Which leaves our total somewhere in the six hundreds. Honestly figuring out all these little details for the tournament so they made sense with accurate numbers was a lot more challenging than I expected. ***