Chapter 321: Chapter 320 Gratitude from the Longbottom family (2 in 1)
"Actually you can change your thinking, the small range of emission is not a problem, as long as you can make this antenna (pointing at the Broom Hunter that George is holding with a serious look on his face) effective against any model of flying broom, and then just make it flyable, you can basically be able to make it reach the flying range of a broom and create a zone of no aerial traffic by flying brooms."
Hearing Jon say this immediately made George, who was primarily responsible for the development of this thing, brighten up.
It would be difficult to expand its spell range, but if it could be made to fly then there would be no difficulty, and the only difficulty now would be in improving it so that it would work on all models of flying brooms.
But George and Fred were not in the mood to think about that at the moment, what really concerned them at the moment was Jon's attitude, and the fact that he had just made the suggestion clearly showed that he was not resistant to their research.
"So y-you are agreeing to help us keep it a secret?"
Jon said with a headache as he rubbed his temples.
"It's not a matter of helping you keep it a secret, as long as you remain at Hogwarts and in your Burrow, sooner or later the adults would find this out. And none of the things you guys are coming up with now are small tricks, can you really be sure that every experiment you do won't go wrong? And what to do if something does go wrong?"
George and Fred looked at each other, and Fred cleared his throat and said.
"We've certainly thought about these things, at home, we were both just conducting experiments that we were sure that has no risk, and we'd only be home for a short while, like Ron, this was our second time here."
"As for the day sooner or later when the adults will find out..."
Fred scratched his head, clearly, he hadn't even thought seriously about it before, or subconsciously avoided this question.
"Let's wait until the day we get found out, the most Mum will do anyway is give us a lecture and send us to the backyard to do the weeding."
Jon, however, saw through his thoughts and knew that he was actually avoiding it.
"You can't keep it to yourself all the time, or you guys didn't plan on telling Professor Dumbledore about these fine alchemical items once they would become fully developed?"
"Of course, it has crossed my mind." To that, George answered with certainty, "We had planned to come up with these things in the first place to help take the pressure off the professors and my family, but at that point, we were both still doing some minor fiddling and Professor McGonagall had always thought we were working on some sort of joke props, and even if we told them, they wouldn't have believed us unless we could come up with the finished product. "
The Weasley twins had never been any sort of fools, they were smarter than anyone else. They knew full well that they had no credibility in the minds of their professors, and that to regain such credibility they needed to show it through their actions.
As for those in Durmstrang, it was the first time they had met the twins, so they never knew what they had done before, that Mr Alpha, the librarian, did have a brilliant eye to discern talent, and Grindelwald had quite the drive and determination to offer an olive branch even to a Hogwarts student.
Well, just as he had been able to force Jon to be appointed as Durmstrang Professor of Transfiguration.
Jon looked at the 'Anti-Disarming Wand' and then turned his attention back to George and Fred.
"Although I think you have produced enough to change the minds of Professor Dumbledore and the others now, it seems that you yourselves feel that you still need time to prepare. This is not all that much of a disadvantage to you, you have signed a contract with Durmstrang for that anyway, and there is no shortage of support and aid, so let's wait until you are both all ready first and then surprise everyone."
There was a look of excitement in the eyes of both Fred and George.
"Of course, we will prepare a big surprise, honestly Jon, we have so many other ideas waiting to be tried out, things like this fake wand and the half-finished broomstick hunter are just some preliminary experiments, when we get the real results out, we will certainly blow everyone out of their minds!"
They made grand promises and Jon did believe the two had it in them.
Sometimes you had to admit that the thing called talent was just innate, Arthur excelled at alchemical transformation otherwise he wouldn't have been able to so successfully transform a Ford car into a magic car, and George and Fred had inherited exactly that kind of talent from him.
Both had researched varieties of joke magical props in the original book, but the difference in times brought out different versions of themselves.
Now it is their time to show off their talents.
Jon offered George and Fred some otherworldly perspectives, without bothering them much. There are enough things he needs to study, moreover, to be specific the twins are no longer studying ancient runes, rather what they are working on could well be described as alchemy.
Yes, he could read some ancient runes, but he had no knowledge whatsoever when it came to alchemy, so Jon was not so arrogant as to think that he could instruct an expert in the field as an amateur.
With that, he helped the twins hide their secrets for the time being and spent a week or so at the Weasley house in leisure, spending his days doing nothing but discussing muggle vehicles with Arthur, fetching fishing rods to go fish in a nearby stream with Hermione and Ron, or accompanying Gabrielle to help Ginny with her summer homework.
It wouldn't be until a week later, in the middle of July, that the planned trip would finally begin.
It had been a whole decade since the Weasleys had a family outing for which all their family members were present, as their previous circumstances in Britain really didn't allow them to do so, whether it is the twins, Ron and co. in the Hogwarts wagon, or the Weasleys working for Dumbledore in the Order of the Phoenix, they were all living a precarious life.
There was no guarantee that any of them would be able to eat their next meal in peace, let alone travel.
And this time it was not just because the situation had temporarily stabilised, but also because they are now in France.
While Arthur and Molly might have been here before, it would be the first time for any of their children, so the time and place could not have been any better chosen for their outing.
The Weasley family had packed up their things very early that morning, and they had planned this outing fairly well.
Arthur, in particular, had done a thorough research; of course, wizards wouldn't just head straight into the deep woods when they are going on an outing, the most places they would go would be muggle attractions and shopping malls, and he had even designed what kind of muggle clothes each of them should wear to prevent the mishaps that most wizards would encounter.
Arthur's preparation was indeed necessary, for example, Jon hadn't considered the fact that people in shorts wouldn't be allowed in some of the more distinguished venues.
He also seriously considered the problem of catching a cold when the temperature dropped in the evening by just wearing short sleeves and equipping everyone with a leather jacket specifically for this occasion.
Once everything was ready, the Weasleys, plus Jon, Hermione and Gabrielle, first went to a wizard-owned tavern in Lyon, where they planned to grab lunch and wait for the Longbottoms to meet up with them.
They were not made to wait that long, just as the server was bringing up the appetizers, Neville arrived with his dad.
Mr Longbottom's full name is - Frank Longbottom.
He is a man who, from the look of his face, gives the impression of being a very reliable wizard, with a face as firm and round as his own son's, and a figure which is not exactly tall but definitely not short either.
And as soon as he arrived at the tavern and met the Weasleys, or rather Jon, he stood with a serious look on his face, handed everything in his hands to Neville, and then gave a formal bow to Jon.
Jon, who was staring at an appetizer that looked like octopus meatballs, was startled and subconsciously tried to sidestep his position to avoid this salute from Frank.
However, Arthur grabbed Jon's arm and didn't let him succeed in avoiding it, and said very seriously.
"You deserve the gratitude you are receiving, Jon, there is nothing to avoid."
"In fact, after I got the news that night, I should have gone to see you, to express the gratitude of the whole Longbottom family, for which I wrote a letter over to Neville specifically, and it was he who told me that you were still recuperating and that it would not be polite to disturb you at that time, so I waited until now. Neville's grandmother, and uncle would have loved to thank you in person, but they are both too old to move around, so I was told to express their gratitude to you."
Frank spoke with unmistakable seriousness, his movements were obviously rather abrupt, and luckily there were hardly any other customers in the tavern besides the Weasleys, so it didn't attract much attention.
"Thank you for avenging Neville's mother Alice, the entire Longbottom family will remain grateful to you in the future, and whatever help you need will be available to you from any wizard with the family name Longbottom."
His promise was tantamount to putting the entire Longbottom family on Jon's back, as the Longbottom family that had died under the Lestranges was not just Neville's mother.
They are both pureblood families, but these two families can be said to have a blood feud, and Jon's recent killing of the main branch of the feuding families, Rabastan, Rodolphus and Bella, is indeed a great favour to the Longbottom family.
After being pulled back by Arthur and receiving such words of gratitude from Frank, Jon did not back away any further, knowing that Neville's father needed a psychological vent.
"Neville and I are friends, Mr Longbottom." Jon said softly, "And they both truly deserved to die no matter what."
"Their crimes are enough for them to die a thousand times over, but whether you did that to avenge us or not, it's indisputable that you are the one who avenged us." Frank raised his head, and it seemed like he could see that Jon was being a little uncomfortable, "We won't keep our favours at bay, and it won't change the friendship between Neville and you over this, but if you need any help over whatever may come your way, please do come and tell the Longbottoms."
His words were sincere and Jon could sense the seriousness in them, so he nodded solemnly.
"I will."
A smile appeared on Frank's face as if Jon's acceptance of the Longbottoms' gratitude was part of the purpose of his outing.
"Well, now that everything that needs to be said has been said, let's take a seat and have a quick meal, Frank, the kids are waiting impatiently and if we wait any longer we will all probably be able to proceed straight to our dinner arrangement."
Molly pulled Frank down to a chair and Neville hammered Jon on the shoulder, then followed suit and sat down at the table.
For the Europeans' dinner was the time for a truly big meal, so they had arranged for tonight's dinner to be served in the first seaside city where their trip would begin, and lunch was arranged at this Lyon wizard tavern with a fairly hearty French meal.
It was rare for so many people to get together and relax like this, whether it was for the Weasleys or the Longbottoms, or Hermione and Jon for that matter.
Hermione and Ginny were teaching Gabrielle how to style her hair; George and Fred were muttering and whispering to each other, keeping out of sight of the others and occasionally winking at Jon; Molly was asking her eldest son if he had any girls he might be fond of at the moment, and if he didn't know how to pursue a girl, as a mother, she could teach him.
Arthur, Charlie and Frank were discussing the fate of the Romanian Dragon Sanctuary, which someone had recently managed to acquire, and Neville was telling Jon and Ron about how bored he had been at home alone since the start of the summer holidays, and how he had asked his dad to let him stay with the Weasleys until the next academic year, no matter what, once the trip was over.
"I heard that all the tasks and time for the Triwizard Tournament have been finalised and that Professor Dumbledore just made a trip to Britain a while ago to finish all the preparations before the tournament started."
Neville had learned some of the inside stories at home and whispered to Jon.
"I've heard that the International Confederation of Wizards has also selected three judges, and not only are these men not from Europe, but they are all half-bloods, ensuring that they won't be pulled in by either side. But the list of judges hasn't been announced yet, it looks like they won't announce it until the day of the tournament."
Jon blinked, he was actually quite curious if this International Confederation of Wizards would include any wizards from his previous life's homeland.
"Any word on where the three judges are coming from?"
Neville shook his head.
"Not really, just heard rumours that the three judges were sent over by one wizard each from America, Asia and Africa."
Ron said with a grimace.
"Actually, if you ask me, it doesn't matter where the judges are from, but the tournament shouldn't be held at Hogwarts Castle, it's the Dark Lord's home base now, so if he really wanted to pull a trick on everyone else, wouldn't it be easy? I really don't know why Professor Dumbledore agreed to this in the first place."
In response, Jon, who had actually been to Hogwarts Castle and knew something of the inside story, shook his head and said.
"Don't look at the Dark Lord being Headmaster of that Hogwarts castle, that school isn't necessarily his territory."
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