The mass of students suddenly shifted from one side of the grounds to the other, peering through the windows built into the open corridors in the direction of the Great Black Lake.
Under everyone's persistent vision, a dark black pole broke the surface of the waters, following it the pole grew, thickened and rose until it revealed the observation deck and then the mast, along with the several feet tall ship was tossed out of the waters like the dive of a whale.
The ship landed back into the water with a heavy splash, sending waves of water swimming to the edges of the lake letting everyone watch in awe how the boat which was wet and was apparently just acting as a submarine slowly dripped water from all its holes before it came to a still on the surface of the black lake.
The ship slowly swam to the edges of the lake before a thick wooden plank fell out of its side and formed a bridge to land.
Everyone saw with excitement several students leave the ship without even a single trace of water on them.
"Look!! Victor Krum!!!"
"He was part of Drumstrang!?"
"Of course, you dufus!"
Behind the students was a tall, lanky man with the beginnings of a flowy beard like Dumbledore walking while holding a thick cream-coloured staff while he wore a warm-looking furry Russian hat.
Loki looked at the two headmasters that had arrived and felt a little silly.
'They're definitely not as strong as Dumbledore.'
'Madam Maxime might be close, but Kakaroff is definitely not. He feels like he's weaker than Snape even.'
When Kakaroff arrived near Dumbledore and Madam Maxime they spoke to each other softly and once they were all done, the headmasters began to lead the students to the Great Hall.
While the Hogwarts students sat in their rows, the other students joined in and made themselves comfortable at the tables of their friends.
But something strange happened when the Beauxbatons joined the Ravenclaw and the Drumstrang joined the Slytherin.
Fleur stood up from her table with some disgust looking at the boys on the Ravenclaw table and moved to sit beside Loki who was laughing at her while she did so.
"Arggh! Stop laughing!" Fleur complained angrily, whispering into Loki's ears while she maintained the smile that made her look pretty and infallible.
Loki just laughed harder but managed to cover his mouth in time to stifle it as his shoulders trembled.
"Can't you tone down your aura of beauty down?" Loki asked wiping away the tears that had emerged from laughing so hard.
"Hmpf. I'd die before I did such a stoopid thing."
"Then I guess you're going to have to learn to deal with teenagers treating you like some sort of divine specimen."
"I don't care for it." Fleur relaxed a little when the focus of the boys went from her to Loki but then shivered immediately after when she found the other girls from all the tables glaring at her.
'What in z'he world!?'
'Why are those little girls glaring at me for sitting bez'side zhim!'
"Miss, you're so pretty!" Fleur heard a girly voice from beside Loki and she looked at her.
"My name's Astoria! Welcome to the Slytherin table! Do you prefer something to eat? I can ask the elves for you!"
The little girl appeared to be extremely happy at having gotten a chance to talk to Fleur, so Fleur responded calmly.
"I woo'd like to have zhe onion soup please."
"French Onion Soup?" Astoria asked just to confirm and Fleur nodded, "Oui."
Astoria then to the surprise of many students, including some Hogwarts ones, knocked on the table and spoke the name of the dish she wanted to appear, "French onion soup with a little salt please."
The next second a bowl of French onion soup appeared on the table along with a salt shaker.
Astoria then turned towards Fleur while passing the bowl over to her using her wand, but she suddenly paused, "Oh! Silly me! I forgot to add a little bit of salt."
"Huh?" Fleur became a little confused.
'Zid the meaning get lost in translation?'
Even Loki was looking at her with some confusion.
Astoria then picked up the salt shaker and started to add some salt into the soup.
*Shake* *Shake*
*Shake* *Shake*
*Shake* *Shake*
Astoria then made eye contact with Fleur and-
*Shake* *Shake*
*Shake* *Shake*
"Do you want some more salt?"
"N-"
Loki picked up a goblet filled with water since all that salt was making him a little thirsty.
*Shake* *Shake*
*Shake* *Shake*
*Shake* *Shake*
"Oh let me just add a little more for extra help!" Astoria said cheerfully.
*SHAKE* *SHAKE*
"What are you doing Tory?" Loki asked with a slightly confused look.
"Oh! Don't worry. I just want her to die after eating this so that Sis doesn't have extra competition."
There was pin-drop silence for a few seconds on the table before Loki nearly spit out the water he was drinking while laughing hard.
Daphne hid her face behind her hands and banged her head on the table.
Tracey burst out laughing with Loki as the two of them were looking at the seemingly innocent Astoria.
Fleur was annoyed but she didn't say much else since she could see that Astoria was only joking.
"Hehe~ Please don't be so serious. I was joking." Astoria said as she knocked on the table and ordered another French onion soup.
But she paused while handing the bowl over to Fleur as she asked, "Or was I?"
The dinner was smooth after that with Fleur incorporating herself into Daphne's clique after Loki introduced her to all of them.
While Fleur spoke with everyone else at the table, Astoria secretly whispered her question to Loki, "You're not into her kind, are you? I mean you do know that she was a boy before right?"
Loki laughed and patted Astoria's head while whispering back into her ears, "I dunno, you tell me, is Daphne better than her?"
"Definitely! Whatever she can do, Sis can do better! I can guarantee it! She's just a faker!"
Dumbledore then unveiled the Triwizard Cup and explained to everyone once again about the rules regarding those who could put their names into the cup.
'When will they give me my Order of Merlin medal though?'
'I thought they'd do it at the opening ceremony…'
'I guess they're going to do it sometime later?'
The dinner ended smoothly with Loki skipping out on going to the dungeons since he preferred the Room of Conveniences instead.
Once there, Loki pulled out Nicholas's book for him about rituals and began to read it to design a ritual that could fulfil his demands of a new spell in his mind.
'The problem is a big enough sacrifice that will let them agree to spend their spirituality for such a thing.'
'Preferably the sacrifice is something that can continuously give them a profit over time so that they don't lose much and see this more as a transaction that they can support for their own benefits in the long term.'
'I could just steal their corruption to help them slowly regain sanity…but I haven't found a way to keep myself anonymous yet.'
'I need to study several normal spells and pick out all the common circuits in those spells so that I can analyse which parts of them relate to anonymity.'
'....I have another idea about all this…but I don't know if it'll work…'
Loki played with the Ring of Harvest that was on his finger as he thought if his new idea would work.
'As long as the target of my ritual is defined, and can't reject me, I can appropriate the system of magic for those other than a True God can't I?'
'I mean, isn't it mostly like summoning a spirit messenger?'
'As long as I use the right incantation, I can easily pinpoint the right person and make him bless the spell instead?'
'Hmmm...'
'It should be worth it…since if I can make something like this, I'm sure the spells that require a True God to bless them would just be a little more complicated.'
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