523 Making preparations

Do not be mistaken to think that these things were very valuable though as the enchantments were simple things like having a certain spell on them or even one that hummed a tune. They were more gimmick items then real treasures but if one was creative they still had their uses. The scoring system for this task of his was also very fair as the more treasures someone got without taking injury the more points they got with the only nonoptional objective to be the rescue of the hostage that belonged to them.-

Nick chose to make that particular part the most difficult as there would be either a very powerful guardian or several weaker ones for the hostage. Programming the chamber to have the hostage treated like a treasure and not a person was a bit of a pain for Nick but he did it by creating a brooch that identified the person wearing it as the "Big treasure" that had the enchantment automatically set the guardians accordingly. As for the real treasures there was a short bit of runic code that had the chamber scatter and hide them both in easy to find and hard to obtain locations at the start of the task when a participant entered the chamber.-

The final touch was a clever use of the protean charm to show what was happening inside the chamber by having what was the equivalent to cameras floating at a certain distance in the air overhead that could be switched between on the screens outside to see the participants entire challenges. As only one participant could enter at a time this was actually a small trick on Nicks part to catch them off guard since they will think that their environment will be the same as the person who went before them.-

Setting up this task with all it's considerable details and facets took Nick most of September and nearly half of October. The rest of that time was spent in the one class he still took , divination , and relaxing. On October twentieth however he woke up with an entirely different goal in mind as he knew that Beauxbatons and Durmstrag would be arriving on the thirtieth. Heading into the common room nice and early Nick waited for two people in particular to show up. "Morning Nick , up bright and early like usual eh?" Fred said cheerfully as he entered the common with his other half George. -

"You know it , but I was actually waiting for you two in fact." Nick said with a grin. "Oh? And do tell what can we do for our bestest partner ever?" George asked curiously. Nick had never stopped helping the twins invent new prank items and funding their endeavors since he enjoyed seeing what they came up with. It certainly helped that they were actually pretty skilled at any branch of magic that could be used for pranks. Charms , transfiguration , potions , alchemy they surpassed most students in Hogwarts in each of the subjects they actually studied.-

The reason their grades rarely reflected this however was because they took an unorthodox path to learning the magic so they often had little knowledge on the usual topics that they would get tested on. "In a bout ten days or so I imagine the other schools will be arriving and since they will no doubt make a great showing of it I figured it would be a shame if Hogwarts reception of them was lackluster no?" Nick said with a mischievous grin. ""How can we help?"" the twins asked at the same time eagerly.-

It took some serious ninja level stealth but Nick and the twins managed to set up a welcoming spectacle for when the other schools showed up without anyone other than them knowing about it. It also took them about five days total to get it done though obviously not back to back as that would have made people suspicious. It was close as the last item was set in place on the twenty ninth at eleven at night. The castle had also been given an extra thorough cleaning to make it presentable for the guests with even the portraits that were a bit grimy getting scrubbed.-

The whole school was nervous about the schools arrival the next day and even the classes for that day were more bearable apparently. Nick wouldn't know since he didn't have any that day and had spent most of it double checking the preparations for the other schools arrival. Soon enough though the professors gathered up the students of every years and marched them out to the castle grounds in order of the youngest to the oldest to wait for the schools to arrive at about sixish.