While Alejandra makes for the Great Hall for lunch, Nurcan, on the other hand, is approached by Relja. They start talking to each other in Turkic, of which the convo is a loose translation:

  "I really hoped that you would get chosen by the Goblet when my name didn't come out..." Relja confides in her.

  "Why? Even after the name of Durmstrang's champion came out, I only had three-sixteenths chance to compete myself! On top of that, my power is a little low..." Nurcan seems to be shaking.

  "There's no denying your intellect would compensate for your magical shortcomings. Especially since you don't feel like a girl who would struggle using magic outside of a course!"

  "Then again, I knew going in that brains weren't enough in the Triwizard Tournament!"

  "You're definitely a better fit than Britta. I'm a little confused. But, on the other hand, you seem to be awfully afraid of openly admitting something you hold dear..."

  "My guess is that it has something to do with the Irad-I Cedid! At home, no biggie, I could live with it so long as I don't reveal its wizarding origins openly, people seemed to like it. Here? I feel it has become a liability to me, especially up until the Goblet chose the champions!"

  "How do you feel it has become a liability?"

  "I wonder how familiar you are with the French Revolution, beyond the early stages..." Nurcan sighs, but feels the need to hide her stance towards it.

  "I feel like the French Revolution forced Austria to withdraw from Serbia, they didn't gain a whole lot from the Treaty of Sistova!"

  "Because The Rise of Miss Irad-I Cedid dealt with its early stages!"

  "How do you live with the Revolution at school?"

  "Even at Beauxbatons, there's only a handful of people who know about it, and most of them are either people I personally interacted with, or people who were caught in its crossfire. But I feel like, if the wrong person knows about it, I could suffer consequences that could dig my own grave!"

  "Yet the fiscal reforms advocated for in the Irad-I Cedid made you a Revolutionary!"

  "I only really wished for betterment of relations between Muggles and wizards. I chose public policy as my vehicle to do so. A fairer tax system is the first step!"

  "The problem is that you acted as if just being a Revolutionary was dangerous to assume openly in the wizarding world!"

  "I got hexed over a forecast of how long the Estates-General were going to take, and that was without me expressing any policy position back then!"

  "You would think policy positions would be the root of the dangers you describe..." Relja sighs.

  "Of course, wanting to use fiscal policymaking to get better wizarding cooperation with Muggles would be dangerous to assume openly, let alone the more radical stuff Muggle Revolutionaries advocate for!"

  I didn't expect wizards in second year of magic school to have any kind of political sophistication when the Estates-General were underway, so I was virtually unable to discuss policy positions with my peers back then, even with Alejandra! Nurcan gets flashbacks of the whole cahier de doléances adventure prior to the Estates-General, three years ago. But so much has changed in the Muggle world since.

  "Let's say that the Ottomans are perhaps the best-positioned to achieve what you desire. You, Miss Irad-I Cedid, must have realized by now that someone must set the example! Be the change you want to see!"

  "What the Ottomans showed was that Muggle populations were more willing to accept cooperation with wizards if used as a last-resort measure. On top of that, you must be one of the few at Durmstrang who still find redeeming qualities in Muggle-borns!"

  He makes it sound like the mere label of Revolutionary would, in the wizarding world, imply a certain type of policy positions! Nurcan ruminates, while she feels like Durmstrang students aren't actually not all bad towards Muggle-borns, despite its reputation for its student body being hostile to them. Relja might be the only one here with whom I could discuss these things! But I guess maybe the admins told them not to mistreat Muggle-borns while here...

  But as Nurcan gets to Potions class, she tries to think about the whole essay about the implications of the rejection of Urg the Unclean's peace plan for New France (which was defined by that plan as being what became Muggle-Upper and Lower Canada thirty-one years later, i.e. last year).

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  This time around, Swoopstikes, the NEWT-level teacher, has 2 sixth-year sections as opposed to one in History of Magic; Nurcan is in the one with Gryffindors and Ravenclaws.

  "Today's class is on Amortentia. But before we begin, please welcome our newcomers from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang who were sorted into ether Gryffindor or Ravenclaw!"

  As with History of Magic, they are invited to introduce themselves in alphabetical order of last names. The Durmstrang female Ravenclaw goes first:

  "I'm Vaidilute Marcinkeviciute, Ravenclaw, originally from Durmstrang!" she tells the class in a heavy Lithuanian accent. "Please apologize, my last name is very difficult to pronounce, so you may just call me Vaidi!"

  "I'm Nurcan Topkara, Ravenclaw, originally from Karakalem, but I was on exchange at Beauxbatons!" Nurcan reveals the cold, hard truth, causing others in this class to question whether one can go on exchange while you're already on exchange at another school.

  However, the mere mention of Amortentia makes Nurcan harken back to her memories of a mock Triwizard Tournament task just a few days after she faced her Boggart on the opening day of TT training, and the clue engraved on the Model 1777 Charleville musket said Boggart wielded.

  But, of course! Ingredients include pearl dust, honey, Tribulus, rose petals and hazelnuts! These were things that we were made to look for while battling creatures guarding them! Nurcan is then reminded of how to prepare the potion from that mock task.

  While everyone else seems a little troubled trying to ensure their potions have the right colors and consistency, Swoopstikes is a little bewildered to see Nurcan get to the mother-of-pearl sheen characteristic of the potion so well. Especially since every ingredient is weighed and minced (or crushed in the case of pearl dust) before it's put in the collapsible cauldron.

  "Nurcan, you seem to do potions so well, with such precision!" Swoopstikes comments, while smelling the potion. Which smells like ylang-ylang for some reason. "Five points to Ravenclaw!"

  "Oh, thank you..."

  "If you want to know what happens when you drink too much this potion, just ask me!" Vaidilute adds, from behind Nurcan.

  I drank this potion on a dare last year, I was so obsessed with that guy that I had to down several cups of antidote for it to wear off! Vaidilute gets flashbacks of her previous experience of drinking it, while she can feel her neighbor is about to fail to brew it.

  After class, Vaidilute walks up to Nurcan while she feels like Nurcan brewed the best potion of the gang, but abstains from drinking.

  "Did you brew this potion before?" Vaidilute asks her.

  "Yes, Vaidi, but this potion reminds me of a drill for the Triwizard Tournament!"

  "How so?"

  Nurcan then proceeds to tell Vaidilute about her Boggart, how it held an allusion to Amortentia during a mock TT task, and then the other mock TT task about brewing it, prior to returning to the library to finalize the History of Magic assignment with Alejandra, Jace and another Ravenclaw this time. But before Vaidi leaves her to her own devices:

  "I can't believe your Boggart is some Muggle!" Vaidi gasps, upon hearing about how her Boggart was a Royalist grenadier, but Nurcan struggles not to tell her about what Royalists are, much less about their policy positions.

  "So, to you, grenadiers are just Muggles like any other?" Nurcan pronounces grenadier as in French. "I guess, in some respects, they are..."

  Maybe Durmstrang folk are actually nicer towards Muggle-borns than I remembered. Then again, for some, the Triwizard Tournament would be their first exposure to them, and they might not let the more prejudiced compete, so maybe Relja and Vaidilute aren't representative of what Durmstrang is really like, any more than I would be representative of Beauxbatons to them, Nurcan reflects on her whole experience of dealing with both Relja and Vaidilute.

  By then, Nurcan also realizes that, even if the rebellion didn't spill over into New France, the MoM might have feared for the public safety risks giving both wand-wielding goblins and werewolves a say in New France's wizarding governance Urg's peace plan called for. Even in such a sparsely populated region.

  "You seem to go for the cost of goblin and werewolf relocation, the public safety risks of wand-wielding goblins pose, and the potential resentment of local wizarding populations towards a goblin-led wizarding government, causing the revolt to spill over into New France!" the male Ravenclaw summarizes the talking points of the other 3. "You might want to structure your essays so that these points flow into each other!"

  "The problem is that goblins often tended to keep their real policy agendas hidden until their implementation begins. So even though wizarding New France didn't suffer nearly as much as Muggle New France from the Conquête, it's possible the MoM saw any potential peace arising from the plan as being very fragile!" Jace comments on this aspect, while Alejandra and Nurcan review what they wrote on these points.

  I guess, material has gotten so difficult that I might have no choice but to ask for help across houses! At least in History of Magic... Alejandra comes to a grim realization that, maybe, with Jace, Nurcan et al, she might be able to get an occasional Exceeds Expectations in that subject. Here everyone must lean onto each other!

  The writing of the essays continue for hours, almost until the library closes, especially as both Alejandra and Nurcan struggle to write the essay in English. As such, they both need help to get through the language aspect, even though their ideas seem sound to them.

  "Thank you. Without you, I would never have thought about how the New France wizards would have reacted to their leadership being replaced by goblins!" Jace comments on the two's contributions in a very soft voice.

  "And I don't think my classmates would have either! On international topics, they tended to adopt the British POV, while you two take a bigger picture!" the male Ravenclaw causes Alejandra to blush.

  Once they're finished, they then return to their respective common rooms to go do their assignments for their other course of the day.

  Which, for Nurcan, is about Everlasting Elixirs, and hence about how to ensure that both half-lives would be infinite.

  Or at least one of them: a potion that never runs out would have an infinite storage half-life, whereas a potion whose effects last forever has an infinite effective half-life.

  So you need an ingredient that neutralizes what causes a normal potion made with it to decay, or casting a spell with the same effect. Which one depends on the ingredient with the lowest half-lives; potions' half-lives tend to correlate with those, she tries to think of an introduction.