Tournament Preparation, Consultation

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The link is also in the synopsis.

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[The chapter is edited by my Editor: Alan_Loo/AlanL]

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The next day, notices were drafted and put up on the notice boards in the common rooms and the places that had high activity for students to see.

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>>>> ABOUT THE TRIWIZARD TOURNAMENT <<<<

The delegations from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang will arrive at 6 o'clock on Friday, 30th October. Lessons will end half an hour early. Students will return their bags and books to their dormitories and assemble in the Great Hall to greet our guests.

Participation is mandatory. Absence from the Feast or any unsightly behaviour will have consequences.

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"Brilliant!" said Eddie. "I'll have Care on Friday. I'm seriously thinking about dropping the subject. I like Hagrid, but the man just demands too much." Eddie sighed. He was thinking about how much time he had had to spend observing and handling magical creatures to write his reports.

"The 30th, that's less than a week away. I can't believe we'll be sharing classes with two other schools." Marcus spoke, his eyes still looking over the notice, memorizing the spellings of the school names.

"Uh-huh... more customers," smiled Quinn. "Luna, we have to be prepared for them. Today we'll be going through the changes we'll make to accommodate them."

"Okay, I'll bring pudding," nodded Luna. "I hope they don't bring Nargles in. It would be a pity for the Nargles to return; they haven't done so since last year."

The three boys exchanged glances, nodding in recognition. They knew what Luna meant when she said Nargles. Since last Christmas, they had been making sure no one made fun of Luna, but they hadn't been sure hundred percent because Luna never told them anything, so hearing that the 'Nargles' had disappeared from her life was confirmation that she wasn't having any problems.

"They won't, Luna," said Marcus, smiling gently. "Your Nargle-repellant items must have finally worked."

The appearance of the notices around the castle had a profound effect upon its inhabitants. The Triwizard Tournament seemed the only topic discussed in the following week. Lots of rumors started to spread from student to student as if they were a highly contagious virus; who was going to apply for the Hogwarts champion, what the tournament would ask for, how the students from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang would differ from each other, etc.

Quinn noticed, too, that the castle seemed to be undergoing an extra-thorough cleaning. Several grimy portraits had been scrubbed, much to the displeasure of their subjects, who sat huddled in their frames muttering darkly and wincing as if they had raw pink faces. All armour started to gleam and move without needing to hear squeaking noises. Argus Filch, the caretaker, was so ferocious to any students who forgot to wipe their shoes that he terrified a pair of first-year girls into hysterics.

Other members of the staff seemed oddly tense too.

After a stressful and challenging class, McGonagall could be heard reprimanding Neville about his dismal magical skills —he had knitted cactuses on his ears— and begging him not to show this to the delegations. Flitwick, who had used a stack of books to make himself taller so that he could see above the podium while teaching, would fall down multiple times a day. Sprout almost had a killyshoot weed breakout in one of her greenhouses, which nearly reached the other greenhouses in a single night and came dangerously close to destroying other produce. Snape would be more snappy at the students, which, in consequence, would make their lives a little bit miserable every second both inside and outside his classroom.

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However, Quinn wasn't worried about it. The tensions that grew between Prefects and Professors didn't affect him. He was used to dealing with multiple different people everyday and knew the language of the people he was going to handle. There were cultural differences that he would need to look out for, but other than that, Quinn was all set up for the job.

Quinn went on his day without change. He had a lot of work to do, and one day only had twenty-four hours in it.

Currently, he stood in front of a raised table deck, his eyes focused on the task in front of him. On the table sat a wooden quad-stand, and atop of that stand was fixed a tri-clawed gripper. His hands were by the sides of the stand. From his fingertips, a pulsating red sphere with magical yellow threads moved into the gripper.

"Test #41," said Quinn, and a fountain pen scribbled Quinn's words.

The yellow threads of magic glowed intensely as Quinn poured in the magic. The red sphere began to change, with veins appearing all over the sphere. Quinn's face brightened as he saw positive progress, but his joy was a bit too early as the red sphere began to squirm and wriggle before the sphere turned into a blob of goo and dripped on the stand.

"For the love of -!" groaned Quinn and waved an irritated hand over the mess for it to vanish as if it was never there.

With a face that seemed as if he had sucked on a sour lemon, Quinn said, "Result failure, compilation failed. Reverting the process back by ten stages to Test #31." Quinn had made a development decision on Test #31, which was supposed to come together on Test #41, but he had being wrong, as Test #41 had shown.

"Ugh, back to the drawing board." With another wave, potion vials, beakers, burners, herbs, preservation jars, among other things, flew across the room to their respective places.

A paper slid across the table, and with a fountain pen that Quinn had grabbed out of the air, Quinn started to write out some notes. He did as such whenever he made some progress or to correct something.

*Ding, ding* Quinn heard the familiar charm his office had. A customer had arrived. He cleaned up and walked out to greet the student-in-need. He found...

"Ms. Granger," he said, before turning to her companion, the redhead, green-eyed girl. "... Ivy." The think tank of the Golden Squad was standing in his office. Something he hadn't been expecting anytime soon. Not after the memories associated with this office in particular.

"How may I help you, ladies?" he said as he sat down. He invited them to sit down as well. The duo wasted no time in doing so.

Quinn expected them to start right off the bat, but they didn't. After a little while, he noticed their expressions and the general vibe that was between the two best friends.

"Did you two fight or something?" asked Quinn, noticing that the two faces were facing slightly away from each other and the light crease between their brows.

"She's being stubborn," said Ivy, giving Hermione a subtle side look.

"She's being archaic," said Hermione, full-on glaring at Ivy.

"Huh, that is... interesting," said Quinn, humming. A fight between the inseparable power duo? Not something you could see every day. "... what I don't understand is why are you two here? Don't get me wrong, I'll be happy to solve your conflict, but you know..."

"We are here so that you can stamp some sense in her head," said Hermione with a tinge of viciousness.

"Not from where I'm sitting. You're the wrong one here," spat Ivy. She said that with such fury that it seemed Hermione was an offending stranger.

"Hoho, I see, tell me, then. What's the issue here? I would love to help," said Quinn. The two girls were so busy glaring at each other that they didn't hear the laugh in Quinn's voice and the glitter in his eyes.

"House-elves!" exclaimed Hermione with some heat. "There are house-elves at Hogwarts and not some, but hundreds of them! Did you know about this?"

Quinn blinked his eyes, and he immediately understood what they were fighting about. He had never been so fast in deducing something. He was very familiar with what was going to follow.

"Yes, Ms. Granger, I'm aware of the presence of house-elves in the castle," said Quinn; he regularly met them when he dropped by the kitchen.

"Then you must know that they don't get paid! Or get holidays! They have never heard about sick leaves or pensions! They. Are. Being. Treated. As. Slaves! Besides, there is not a single mention of them in Hogwarts: A History! What is this!" This was the first time Quinn had heard as much passion from the top scorer of her year and, if he was honest, he was a little surprised by its intensity, even though he knew it was coming.

"See?" scoffed Ivy jutting her chin towards Hermione with her arms folded, a derisive smile on her face. "Hear the nonsense she's spouting? This idiot has no idea what she's talking about."

'Daamn~!!!' thought Quinn. He was enjoying this a bit too much.

He turned to Hermione and asked her a question, "Ms. Granger, may I ask why you came here? You know that I'm a pureblood who has been born and brought up in a magical household and community."

"-I…! I-I didn't think of that," replied Hermione. For a moment, it looked like she would be able to restrain her anger a bit. She glanced at Ivy and saw her smirking and that... brought the frustration and anger back.

"You could've simply gone to Professor Potter. She is a first-generation witch just like you but, unlike you, she has been a part of the magical community for way longer," said Quinn.

"She's too busy with the tournament preparations. We decided not to disturb her," explained Ivy.

"I see, let me ask you something, Ivy. Why do you think it's alright for the house-elves to work under these conditions?"

Ivy shrugged in answer, "They obviously like to do work. I haven't met a single house-elf who doesn't like to work, so why take it away from them." To Ivy Potter or any person who had grown up in the magical community, the existence of house-elves was common sense.

"Look what she's saying! As they like to work, let them work. They are obviously brainwashed for who knows how long, and now all of them feel like their current situation is something normal," said Hermione.

"Okay, I understand the crux of the matter and what seems to be the problem," said Quinn, nodding. "I understand both of your positions. Your background and upbringing are the reason behind your thoughts. However, unfortunately, none of you are right, I'm afraid."

Their arguments had no logical or solid reasoning behind them.

"I guess I'll have to explain to you why house-elves behave as they do. I hope that by the end of my explanation, both of you will have a level of understanding behind house-elf behaviour," said Quinn.

"House-elves are magical beings. In fact, on average, they use more magic than we humans do every single day… Unfortunately, they don't possess magic of their own."

The expression of surprise and confusion was evident on both of their faces. Ivy, because she hadn't been taught that fact, and Hermione… Well, she knew through books that house-elves used magic to perform household tasks, so she didn't clearly understand what Quinn meant.

"They don't require a focus to perform magic because their internal focus is potent enough for them to perform a wide range of magic but, in exchange for that versatility and magic conduction, they lose out on the internal source of magic. If we, humans, didn't have our intelligence, we wouldn't be the dominating magical race on the planet; we don't have that naturally potent internal focus that so many other races have."

Like their non-magical counterparts, magical humans' intelligence was why they could be the top race capable of hunting more powerful races like Dragons, Nundus, Thunderbirds, among many other powerful races.

"Unlike us, who have a magical core in our bodies, house-elves lack that. They can perform magic, but they aren't able to garner it… but nature and evolution granted them a way to gain magic. They evolved with the ability to draw magic from an external source," smiled Quinn, thinking about the wonders of magic and magical creatures. "The source? A few races were compatible with them, humans being one of those races. And because humans populated the earth more than any other compatible races, house-elves gravitated towards humans."

"They have the ability to use magic in return to slave-like life, that doesn't sound like a fair deal to me," argued Hermione.

"To us humans? Yes, that isn't a fair deal, but house-elves aren't humans. Magic shares a deeper connection to them than to us. They need to perform magic to feel free; without it, they feel restricted, their existence bound. Their life without magic isn't great at all."

In some cultures, house-elf blood was used as focus cores because of their potent internal focus core. It wasn't used in any of the wand-using countries because of the image house-elfs had, but a few countries had no qualms using house-elf blood.

"In some ways, you're both correct," said Quinn to both of the girls. "House-elves don't have to serve to use their magic, but after being under the rule of humans for generations, they have eventually understood that if they took care of their houses, then humans would give them magic. Repeat that for centuries, and you'll get a race that has servitude as a normal part of their lives; they have accepted it and crave for it because their instincts tell them that this will get them magic. I guess, 'brainwashing' might not be the correct term, but it's close. They enjoy work because it allows them to use magic, and if they do their job correctly, humans will be happy and thus they'll keep getting magic."

"Polly!" he called, and with a pop, there was a house-elf standing on the table.

"Why little master call me?"

Ivy and Hermione watched with interest and surprise at the house-elf that stood on the table. They had seen house-elves, but this one was different from the others. She wasn't dressed from a dirty pillowcase or rags but in a clean toga. She had a simple crest of crossed wands, with a galleon on the intersection and behind that was a peacock with its plume spread.

Magic, money, and wisdom.

"This is Polly, the West family house-elf. She's part of the family. I wouldn't be able to imagine a day where she isn't family," said Quinn.

Polly turned to see two girls sitting in the chairs, and then looked at the table. "Little master had guestys and gave no tea? Missy Rosey no be happy."

"It's fine, Polly; they'll be leaving in a bit," smiled Quinn before turning to the girls. "The problem isn't servitude. It's the way humans treat house-elves. You don't need to free them because their lives would become miserable if you do that. What you need to do is change the way they are treated."

He turned to Polly and asked, "Who are you bound to, Polly?"

"Little master's father's fathers."

"And has grandfather ever mistreated you?"

"No, the big master is good."

Quinn turned back to the girls and continued, "Polly is family. Yes, she does most of the housework, but that's because it's her life. We don't stop her from doing things essential to her life. She has her own interests. Polly likes to learn new recipes, new ways to clean the house… she likes to find paints that go well with each other, and myriads of other things. She is her own individual, and we respect that... Nothing special, just basic humane treatment."

"Little master need Polly?" asked Polly, looking impatient.

"... No, Polly, I just wanted to prove a point."

"Okay, Polly go now. Polly busy." And then she popped away without another word.

"I have a question," said Ivy, unfolding her hands. She leant forward.

"Ask away."

"Are all house-elves here connected to the Headmaster?"

"Oh, no," said Quinn, shaking his head with a small smile. "One hundred and thirty-seven house-elves would bee too much of a load for one person. The house-elves are connected to the castle; they are connected to Hogwarts."

Hermione raised her hand in question, "But you said..."

"Hogwarts is a special place, Ms. Granger," said Quinn. "It is filled with us students, and that has changed its nature to a mystical one. I haven't found the reason yet, but house-elves are compatible with Hogwarts."

Hermione and Ivy stayed silent for a moment.

Quinn didn't disturb them but took out two half-slips of paper and started writing on them.

"Thanks for explaining... I would have gone down a different path if I didn't know this," said Hermione.

"I know," chuckled Quinn. He slid two half-slips across the table. They stopped when they were before the girls. "This is for the both of you."

The girls picked one slip each and looked at them with confusion. On the paper, they saw a charge of three galleons for a consultation session.

"Apologies if I assume wrong, but I split the bill," smiled Quinn and looked at them.

Ivy looked up from her bill. She said with an expression of disbelief,

"You are rich!"

"I know," nodded Quinn. "Believe it or not, the rich care more about money than the poor… Now, pay up."

Their meeting ended with Quinn smiling at the sound of galleons hitting his table.

"Happy to be of service."

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Quinn West - MC - Cough up the money, lassies.

Polly - House-elf - Little master can be silly. Wasting Polly's time.

Ivy Potter - Red cat - Short 3 galleons, but made up with Hermione.

Hermione Granger - Brunette Cat - Short 3 galleons, but made up with Ivy.

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