April 24, Beauxbatons. The student body is assembled in the Great Hall when the news finally arrive there concerning the Triwizard Tournament. Armand brandishes the latest issue of the Cri de la Gargouille:

  “Chère communauté de Beauxbatons, des nouvelles nous arrivent du front de Vendée. Le responsable du désastre du Tournoi des Trois Sorciers, Luc Millefeuille, a été guillotiné hier!” (Dear Beauxbatons community, news have arrived from the Vendée front. The one responsible for the Triwizard Tournament disaster, Luc Millefeuille, has been guillotined yesterday!) Armand announces.

  The student body, and especially the survivors of the Triwizard Tournament, gasps upon hearing that Luc was guillotined. They start whispering about how they couldn’t believe that it required him getting caught for other crimes before confessing to having sabotaged the Triwizard Tournament.

  But Ricardo raises his hand upon hearing that Luc was guillotined. “Qu’a-t-il fait pour se faire guillotiner?” (What did he do to get guillotined?)

  “La justice moldue a retenu son r?le dans le massacre de Machecoul, où il a empoisonné quarante prisonniers de guerre révolutionnaires moldus!” (Muggle justice retained his r?le in the Machecoul Massacre, where he poisoned 40 Muggle Revolutionary POWs!)

  Griet steps forward to shed some light as to why he became a Royalist. “Quand il avait démissionné, après le Tournoi, il avait déclaré qu’il ne pouvait plus cautionner les actions de la Convention Nationale! Jamais j’aurais pu voir venir ce sabotage, et je remets ma démission!” (When he resigned, after the Tournament, he declared that he could no longer caution the actions of the Convention Nationale! I could never have seen the sabotage coming, and I henceforth resign!)

  Alejandra raises her hand in turn. “Comment a-t-il saboté le tournoi?” (How did he sabotage the tournament?)

  Armand answers her. “Il a empoisonné le cocatris avec un poison indétectable. C’est la raison pour laquelle ?a a été aussi long pour l’attraper!” (He poisoned the cockatrice with an undetectable poison. It’s the reason why it took so long to catch him!)

  Once again, the student body is under the shock when they hear about how the Triwizard Tournament was sabotaged.

  Christine then asks Alejandra, who’s seated next to her. “Crois-tu qu’il cherchait à amener la guerre de la Première Coalition dans le monde des sorciers?” (Do you think he sought to bring the War of the First Coalition to the wizarding world?)

  Nacien asks another question to her. “Luc avait-il agi ainsi à cause de son allégeance royaliste?” (Did Luc act like this because of his Royalist allegiance?)

  Alejandra responds to both, drawing on what she knew of him in life. “Non, il est devenu un Royaliste après le tournoi. Et je vais vous dire la même chose qu’à Nurcan, je ne suis pas une Royaliste!” (No, he became a Royalist after the tournament. And I’ll tell you the same thing I told Nurcan, I am not a Royalist!)

  Griet comments on Luc’s Royalist allegiance. “Rien, absolument rien ne portait à croire qu’il soit un Royaliste avant qu’on arrive à Hogwarts. Il prétendait ha?r la levée en masse lors de son procès!” (Nothing, and I do mean it, nothing could have led us to believe he was a Royalist before we arrived at Hogwarts. He claimed to hate the levée en masse during his trial!)

  Paulinho rolls his eyes, his hand raised. “Levée en masse?”

  Nacien then answers Paulinho. “La levée en masse moldue est là pour agrandir l’armée; les sorciers en sont exemptés!” (The Muggle levée en masse is there to enlarge the army; wizards are exempt!)

  “Et je démissionne en tant que directeur!” (And I will resign as headmaster!) Armand announces to the student body, and faculty, before writing his resignation to the Ministère.

  Obviously, I don’t have the same level of expertise on the Revolution as Nurcan does. But I don’t think other wizards wish to discuss it with any kind of depth requiring Nurcan’s knowledge; they can make do with Christine, Nacien or me. I ought to write to her about this new development, along with the latest Cri de la Gargouille issue. Luc siding with the Royalists surprised so many, because, until the Triwizard Tournament, no one would have believed any wizard would take a side, and Nurcan was the first to openly declare her allegiance as a Revolutionary. Now, as a Revolutionary, she seems to be more like a pamphleteer, Alejandra ruminates.

  Alejandra then writes a letter to Nurcan about how the Triwizard Tournament led Luc to take a side in the War of the First Coalition, and what made this unthinkable to the eyes of so many in the wizarding world.

  Especially given Spain’s Ministerio de la Magia issued a statement that it will not intervene on the wizarding theater and declared the Revolution to be a strictly Muggle issue. Which she translates to French as well.

  After classes end, Alejandra rushes to Visigny’s owl post office to buy a copy of today’s Cri de la Gargouille, and then put the letter alongside it inside an envelope to send to Nurcan at Ilvermorny. Which cost her a total of 60 centimes.

  When Alejandra’s letter arrives to Nurcan at Ilvermorny a few days later, Jace, Vaidi, Sabrina and Nurcan are about to finish a meeting to finish a Potions assignment.

  On her way out of the library, Nurcan gets to the owlery to collect it. She hastily reads it, hyperventilating with every word, and rushes to both Jace and Vaidi, who are going to the Quidditch pitch for the game of the day:

  “The Triwizard Tournament has been sabotaged!” Nurcan announces to the other two survivors at Ilvermorny.

  “What?” Sabrina rolls her eyes, not having been at the TT, nor having heard of it before.

  “Who could have done this?” Jace asks her, under the shock of the news. “How?”

  “Really?” Vaidi gasps.

  “Beauxbatons’ headmaster and chief attendant of witchcraft provisions have both resigned once the saboteur, Luc Millefeuille, was caught and guillotined. Apparently, the saboteur used an undetectable poison on the cockatrice, and became a Royalist afterward!”

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  “Guillotined? Come again?” Sabrina asks.

  “A guillotine is a French machine used to execute people by making a blade fall on one’s head. But what got him guillotined was not the Tournament’s sabotage, rather, it’s him having killed Muggle Revolutionary prisoners of war!”

  Atateken asks the group. “What are you on about? Royalists, Revolutionaries, guillotines, what’s the meaning of this?”

  “You missed everything. Our home governments awarded us a six-month exchange here, on their dime, as compensation for the Triwizard Tournament’s cancellation, and we were discussing what led to the Tournament being cancelled!” Jace explains to Atateken.

  Luc went on to oppose the levée en masse after the TT ended. The Cri de la Gargouille article said that he claimed the Convention, and, with it, the Comité de Salut Public, threw French youth to the wolves! And the levée en masse caused war to break out in Vendée! Nurcan muses as the pitch fills up, especially as the residents of Adams also come for Ilvermorny intra-mural games.

  The game of the day being the game between Horned Serpent vs Wampus. Ishkode and Elias, who are seated close to Nurcan on the pitch, tell her about who to watch out for.

  “Suffice to say that, because Wampus’ goal-keeping has vastly improved, Horned Serpent’s only hope tonight is to catch the Snitch quickly…” Ishkode comments on Horned Serpent’s odds of winning.

  “And there are professional scouts in the stands tonight!” Elias adds.

  “From whom?” Nurcan asks.

  “Haileybury Hammers, a brand-new team, for one…”

  If Emmanuelle plays well tonight, maybe she could end up playing in Haileybury rather than Zhanjiang! Nurcan is left wondering, while the Horned Serpent chasers are trying their best to score on Emmanuelle, but to no avail. However, the Wampus ones score 140 points until a duel of seekers gets underway.

  Both Horned Serpent and Wampus fans in the assistance pray that their own Seeker gets it, the latter hoping that they could help secure the Quidditch Cup with a shutout. Which is what ends up happening.

  After the match ends, with a 290-0 Wampus win, Emmanuelle comes back to Nurcan:

  “Now Haileybury wants to offer me a contract for next season; I don’t know how to feel anymore…” Emmanuelle turns to her.

  “Maybe a rune casting reading could help you see more clearly; deciding on whom to sign on with is a major decision in the life of any pro Quidditch player. Speaking of rune casting, I think it’s a good idea to practice it…”

  “I guess, time to cast the runes!”

  But for this rune casting session, there’s also Jace, Vaidi and whatever friends they could bring in tow. Along with Nurcan’s. So Landon, Sabrina, Mektaq, Ishkode and Anne are all coming with the foursome.

  “Tonight, we will all cast runes. I must admit, in some ways, rune casting is much like tarot, in that it can be done by No-Maj, it requires drawing a set number of objects at random, and each of these objects carry special meanings!” Anne gives an overview of what rune casting is for someone who has no prior knowledge of rune casting.

  “There are only twenty-four runes as opposed to seventy-eight tarot cards, though, so that would be simpler if your memory isn’t too good!” Mektaq comments on how rune casting differs from tarot.

  “You usually want one rune for a short-term prediction, three for long-term ones. If, in a three-rune reading, you still want more clarity, you can draw two more, the top one will represent an action item, and the bottom, an issue…” Nurcan explains to the other 6.

  But I can feel I will hate rune casting the same as I would tarot: the dependence on chance will still remain, Nurcan muses as she watches Vaidi go in first and draw 3 runes.

  Relax, I took Ancient Runes at home, I should be able to do it here, too, but Meqtak made tarot sound like rune casting, only with more items than a set of Elder Futhark runestones, Vaidilute starts calming herself down when the first rune is drawn. Ehwaz. Then comes eihwaz and ingwaz.

  “Partnership, renewal and inner growth!” Vaidi reads the primary messages the 3 runes she drew tell her.

  “Doesn’t eiwhaz mean defense?” Jace asks her upon seeing eiwhaz as a second rune.

  “For the purposes of rune casting, runes can have up to five meanings apiece! Let’s say that defense is just one of its meanings, yew tree is another one, just as horse is an alternate meaning of ehwaz…”

  “One question, Vaidi: was rune casting covered in divination at Durmstrang?” Nurcan asks Vaidilute.

  “No. This was Study of Ancient Runes material!”

  “You definitely know rune casting, so I’d say you can transition to tarot just fine. The main differences between rune casting and tarot are the number of items to draw from, along with cards having a hierarchy. Other than that, they’re still going to carry a specific set of meanings!” Anne makes her assessment.

  “What does partnership, renewal and inner growth mean to you?” Emmanuelle asks Vaidi.

  “Let’s say that, until the end of last year, my partnership with academics was simply about getting the best grades possible, any learning was nice, but secondary, and this exchange allowed me to renew myself intellectually…”

  “Oh Vaidi, you may as well describe those Slytherins who keep going well into NEWT-level courses, and for whom learning is, at best, a means to an end!” Jace exclaims.

  “Then again, I see a future in which the lessons I learned this year, away from Durmstrang, will allow me to outgrow my past as an otlitchnitsa, and I suspect some of you could, too…”

  “Otlitchnitsa? What’s that?” Ishkode rolls his eyes.

  Vaidi struggles to find the right words in English to describe one. “I guess, someone who gets perfect grades, or nearly so, but struggles to use the material outside the classroom…”

  An otlitchnik or otlitchnitsa would often come from a relatively well-off family, but sometimes a low-income high achiever might become one if they feel education is their way out of poverty, tend to overwork themselves in pursuit and maintenance of their grades, and rarely have a specific talent, Vaidi makes a typical profile of otlitchniki in her mind. Maybe it’s because of my past as a study machine that the Goblet didn’t take me! And probably Jace, too, but Nurcan is the one who, of the three of us, feels least like it.

  “I guess, it’s my turn to cast runes!” Emmanuelle then takes 3 runes from the bag. Laguz, raidho, jera. “Intuition, journey, harvest. Let’s say that my intuition has been playing tricks on me at times, as I pursued Quidditch even when my dad has a stable career at the Bureau du Transport Magique. And that I feel like my life as a pro Quidditch player would be more rewarding if I help a brand new team achieve some success, rather than to face the pressure of playing for a more established team. Zhanjiang has one foreign player spot and CNQA teams place immense pressure on their import player, whereas Haileybury has no real pressure going into next season!” Emmanuelle makes an interpretation of her rune cast.

  “CNQA?” Landon furrows a brow while asking.

  “Chinese National Quidditch Association, the Chinese pro Quidditch league, if you will…”

  Zhanjiang is a team that struggles to hold on to their keepers, or to get anyone decent. As much as Bain-Maries fans anoint me as their savior, as far as I could make out… I guess a pressure cooker of a Quidditch market like Zhanjiang is no way to start a pro Quidditch career, Emmanuelle is also reminded of Gen’s career as a pro Quidditch player, and how Washington flew under the Quidditch world’s radar early in the team’s existence and in her career.

  “Clearly, you both improved a lot as diviners! My turn now…” Nurcan comments on both, while watching Jace draw his 3 runes. Perthro, kenaz, fehu. “Mystery, knowledge, wealth!”

  “What does mystery, knowledge and wealth mean to you?” Sabrina asks him.

  “Let’s say that why I put my name in the Goblet of Fire remains a mystery to me. Probably an attempt to capitalize on my magical knowledge, or to catch the eye of some girl from a wealthy family in hopes of marrying her after graduation, or get me on some other track to wealth, maybe starting some business with her, somehow!” Jace explains.

  “It’s clear that your readings’ vagueness are playing tricks on you two, Jace and Vaidi. However, if I may, Emmanuelle…” Nurcan comments on the other two before the keeper interrupts her.

  “I’ll sign on with Haileybury then!”