章 178: Can't Screw the Rules Because I don't have Money
"Surely you must be JOKING!" said Fred Weasley loudly, eliciting a laugh from nearly everyone in the Hall.
"I can assure you that I am not, in fact, joking, Mr. Weasley," said Dumbledore with a hearty chuckle. "And please don't call me Shirley; from my experience of speaking to students, I'm fairly certain my name is Professor."
"Ahem," coughed Professor McGonagall loudly.
"Er— but maybe this is not the time… no…" said Dumbledore, "where was I? Ah yes, the Triwizard Tournament... well, some of you will not know what this tournament involves, so I hope those who do know will forgive me for giving a short explanation, and allow their attention to wander freely."
Even if Oleandra already knew most of the details, it wouldn't hurt to hear out the old man. After all, he'd accepted to have Hogwarts participate again, so the rules must have been amended in order to lessen the champions' odds of dying, be it accidental deaths or otherwise.
Basically, the Triwizard Tournament was created seven hundred years ago give or take, by Europe's three largest European magical schools: Hogwarts, the oldest of the bunch, Beauxbatons, the most French, and Durmstrang, the darkest. Each school needed to select one of its best and brightest to participate in a series of three magical tasks. The Tournament used to be held once every five years, but it ended up getting cancelled indefinitely due to the mounting death toll.
"However, our own departments of International Magical Cooperation and Magical Games and Sports have decided the time is ripe for another attempt. We have worked hard over the summer to ensure that this time, no champion will find himself or herself in mortal danger," explained Dumbledore.
And there it was: no mortal danger. What was this, a tournament for little babies?
"The heads of Beauxbatons and Durmstrang will be arriving with their shortlisted contenders in October, and the selection of the three champions will take place at Halloween. An impartial judge will decide which students are most worthy to compete for the Triwizard Cup, the glory of their school, and a thousand Galleons personal prize money," continued Dumbledore.
"Infinite glory…" said Oleandra dreamily.
"And a thousand Galleons to boot," Daphne said.
"Oh, right," said Oleandra glumly. "Mother took away our allowance as punishment for our little Nidavellir adventure."
"We need to win," said Daphne with determination. "Otherwise, how will we buy Lime Slime at Honeydukes if our allowance still isn't restored by next year?"
"Er…"
Oleandra could think of a dozen ways to gather some pocket money; but those either required work or going back to Nidavellir, the source of the punishment in the first place. And truth be told, Oleandra didn't want to do either at this very moment.
"Eager though I know all of you will be to bring the Triwizard Cup to Hogwarts," he said, "the heads of the participating schools, along with the Ministry of Magic, have agreed to impose an age restriction on contenders this year. Only students who are of age— that is to say, seventeen years or older— will be allowed to put forward their names for consideration. This is a measure we feel is necessary, given that the tournament tasks will still be difficult and dangerous, whatever precautions we take, and it is highly unlikely that students below sixth and seventh year will be able to cope with them. I will personally be ensuring that no underage student hoodwinks our impartial judge into making them Hogwarts champion."
Dumbledore's blue eyes twinkled as they flickered over to the Greengrass twins, who were wearing neutral expressions on their faces. He then looked over to the Weasley twins, who were looking downright murderous.
"I therefore beg you not to waste your time submitting yourself if you are under seventeen."
"I suppose that's that, then," sighed Tracey. "It was fun dreaming about being Hogwarts Champion while it lasted."
Oleandra and Daphne looked at each other with a slight smile on their lips, then back at Tracey. And in a rare case of twin synchronicity between the two…
"Oh, you poor, sweet, summer child," sighed Oleandra in an overly dramatic manner.
"Do you truly believe that things such as rules and regulations would ever stop us?" said Daphne in a similar manner. "Oh, Tracey, I thought you knew us better than that!"
"I know you said you don't care one whit about rules," said Tracey in annoyance. "But Dumbledore said he'd personally stop anyone too young from entering. Don't tell me you truly think you can hoodwink THE Dumbledore?"
"Manipulating the rules to our advantage has always been the Slytherin way. Now, Professor Dumbledore said, and I quote," Oleandra said, "Only students who are of age will be allowed to put forward their names for consideration."
"He also said," Daphne added, "I will personally be ensuring that no underage student hoodwinks our impartial judge into making them Hogwarts champion."
"Yes, and?" said Tracey, who was getting more and more irritated by the minute. "That's the problem, isn't it? How are you planning to bypass the headmaster, the greatest Wizard of our time?
"That's not it," said Oleandra slyly, "he basically admitted that it was possible to fool this impartial judge of theirs. That means two things: firstly, that the judge is not a person; otherwise, they'd be bound by the rules and couldn't be swayed; secondly, that if one of us is selected, then it doesn't matter how we made it happen, because we'll already have proven ourselves to be worthy to be the Champion, despite our age!"
"So what?" snorted Tracey. "That still doesn't solve the problem that you'll need to fool both the judge and Dumbledore."
"Even if he's Dumbledore, I daresay he still needs to sleep," said Daphne. "And I'm sure he's got other duties as well, whatever they might be; he won't be able to keep an eye on the judge at all times."
"Speaking of which, everyone calls him Professor, but he doesn't actually teach a class at Hogwarts, does he?" said Oleandra thoughtfully. "What exactly does he do around here?"
"Paperwork, no doubt," replied Daphne. "He's headmaster; he must be in administration."
"Making the greatest Wizard of our age do paperwork seems like a waste of his talent," said Oleandra, shaking her head in amusement. "Besides, at his age, he should have already retired ages ago."
クリエイターの想い 
Azure_Abyss
Azure_Abyss The problem with these long speeches in the original work is that I can't just gloss over them; they're full of necessary exposition. But I also don't want to CTRL-C CTRL-V the lot of it, so I always like to put my spin on them or summarize them in another fashion.
週次パワーステータス
-- 推薦
ランキング 
-- 推薦
チケット