"The Triwizard tournament began seven hundred years ago," Rowle said. "Supposedly it was to foster communications between young wizards of different nations. Each school would choose a champion, and they'd compete, with the schools switching out hosting duties."

He stared at us bluntly.

"They discontinued it because the death toll was too high, and two hundred years of Headmasters chose not to continue the tradition for just that reason. Were it up to me, I'd have preferred to have continued that tradition, but I was overruled by the Board."

I glanced at Draco.

Had his father been the one to push the vote, in favor of his master?

He looked at me, and then gave me the slightest shrug.

"That being said, we will do everything we can to protect the champions,' Rowle said. "It has been agreed that only adults will be allowed to compete."

There were groans in the crowd, along with a few cheers. Everyone seemed to be looking at me for some reason.

"That disqualifies Miss Hebert," he said. "Which opens the door for sixth and seventh years to put their names into the contest."

Everyone chuckled uneasily.

The first years were all staring at me with wide eyes, no matter what house they'd been sorted into.

"However, due to our very active club participation this year, I suspect that our chances are quite good," Rowle said. That was high praise of my group, considering that he'd only seen a couple of our training sessions.

I could see pleased grins on the faces of people in my group, even Ron Weasley. Despite his lackadaisical attendance to sessions, he'd still gotten good enough to beat students who didn't attend at all.

"The prize is a thousand galleons," Rowle said. "And I'm supposed to talk about the glory that will be won. Beauxbatons and Hogwarts are neck in neck in the records. I won't, though. I'll let you make your own determination about that."

"Durmstrang has never won," Draco said quietly. "Part of the reason that my father didn't send me there. Their education is substandard in everything except Quidditch."

"Let me be clear," Rowle said. "People have died in this contest; sometimes not just the contestants. If it were up to me, we wouldn't be doing this at all."

It was the school board pushing it, or someone in the Ministry, then. I frowned.

"Does that mean there will be strangers at the school?" I asked Draco.

"The kids from the others schools," he said. "Reporters, parents, Ministry members... a whole lot."

A lot of opportunities to slip in assassins, some of whom likely wouldn't be in their right minds. Worse, because we wouldn't know them, and because there would be so many, Master Stranger protocols would be difficult or impossible.

Draco seemed to understand my line of thought.

"It'd be bad for your reputation to be seen murdering someone's grandmother on the front page," he said.

"Maybe I just won't go," I said.

"And then if something happens that you couldn't stop?" he said. "Maybe to one of your friends?"

Scowling, I shook my head.

Being sniped at unsuspectingly from a crowd would be difficult to deal with. Worse, it would allow people on at least the outside grounds of the castle and would leave all kinds of opportunities for them to leave cursed items out.

"I won't forbid this," Rowle continued, but I'd ask that only those of you who are best at magic apply."

He was looking at my people.

They'd been the ones who'd been working the hardest over more than the past year. They'd had training in strategy, and not just in group tactics. They'd been trained in dealing with battles where they'd be the only ones fighting because they'd all be targets.

The seventh years from last year were already working as trainers for Dumbledore's muggle group, although they still reported regularly to me.

All of them looked at me.

Should I tell them to avoid the tournament? That would be the smart thing to do, but some of them could likely use a thousand galleons, and I'd intervene if there was a real problem.

I shrugged.

"Are you really a muggleborn?" a first year asked from across the table.

"Hasn't had the orientation yet," Draco said. He sighed, and he turned to the boy. "That's just what she wants us to think. Her mother was a boggart and her father was a nundu. Dumbledore had to put spells on her to keep her from murdering us all, but every time someone bothers her, those spells get just a little weaker."

"R...right," the boy said. "Sorry."

"That's a joke," Draco said. "But it's not far from being true. I'm going to have a discussion with all of you first years before you go to bed."

"You're giving the talk?" I asked.

"The school feels that I'm in the fortunate position of knowing you without being your enemy or your friend," he said. He shrugged modestly. "Who was I to refuse?"

It would have the further position of cementing the first years' opinion of him as an authority, not just about me, but about other things. Was Draco playing the long game?

Ultimately, I couldn't even resent him. He'd warned me, and all he was really doing was trying to help his family survive. If I won, he'd take credit for helping me. If Voldemort did, he wouldn't mention it.

"Right," I said. "Try not to make too many boggarts."

"I should have at least some fun with all of this," he said. "I'm doing a public service for everyone...the administration for not having to do the death paperwork, the first years who aren't that stupid, saving them from the trauma of what happened to their classmates... even the house elves for not having to clean the blood off the floor."

"Fine," I said.

Classes began the next day as though nothing had changed. I'd wanted to talk to Dumbledore about Luna.

Was she a Seer, or just a natural legilimens? I couldn't tell. I still wasn't particularly good at looking inside of people's minds unless they allowed me, at least not without being incredibly obvious about it.

I could use brute force to shove my mind into theirs, but that was obvious. The kind of subtle, non-noticeable mind reading performed by Dumbledore and Snape was still very difficult for me.

Snape kept his mental shields up all the time around me; as far as I could tell he never dropped them.

I was surprised to see that our Herbology assignment was to bottle bubotuber pus. I noticed that Draco kept watching me.

Was he worried that I was going to slip some into my pocket? If I had had this assignment during first year, he'd have been right to worry.

Now, though, I had three Ravenclaws doing it for me. While I had no need to use it for an attack, it was valuable for potion ingredients, and it was something that we wouldn't have to pay for.

Any extra could be made a gift for Pansy if she decided to be irritating again this year.

Professor Sprout seemed less suspicious of me this year; some of the muggleborn I'd saved from Dementors had been Hufflepuffs, and she seemed to have a long memory.

I'd been looking forward to the next class.

"I'm not sure how Hagrid is going to teach," Hermione said.

We were walking together, along with Millie and four Ravenclaws who were in my group.

Rowle had continued the policy of separating the Gryffindors and Slytherins, which meant that most of our classes were with Ravenclaws.

"Oh?" I asked noncommittally.

Hagrid didn't seem like the brightest adult to me either, but he seemed to be well intentioned. Likely the class would have a lot of hands on work and not much in the way of written assignments.

Not that I minded the written assignments now that I had mastered using the quill. A foot was apparently a single page, and they didn't expect us to do that many of them.

Mostly I was looking forward to any new creatures he'd show us, and any insight I could get on creating my own.

My holy grail was being able to create my own relay bugs. I'd been limited before by what Panacea was willing to make for me, but with enough of them, I'd be able to reach anywhere in the country.

There would have to be redundancies of course; the last thing I needed was for an errant mail owl to snap up the one link between me in Scotland and London at the wrong time.

The relay bugs would end up wandering off and possibly breeding, unless I stopped it.

Of course, a country full of relay bugs might not be the worst thing in the world as long as they weren't otherwise superior to regular ones.

Leaving them with a little extra might mean that I always had an ace in the hole. It would have been much more useful if I'd still had my full multitasking ability, although it was possible that even my passenger might not have been able to handle the information from every bug in an entire country.

"Why's Hagrid teaching anyway?" Millicent asked. "Wasn't Professor Kettleburn supposed to be teaching?"

"At least Hagrid is likely going to survive the subject better than Kettleburn did," I said. "He only had one arm and half a leg left."

"I've heard he was on probation sixty two times," Hermione said. "As a teacher! Hagrid has got to be safer than that."

"Is this class going to be that dangerous?" Millicent asked nervously.

"Just remember your training," I said. "And be careful. Animals can be unpredictable, no matter how well trained, and I doubt that Hagrid is going to have trained some of them at all."

I had to keep myself from freezing suddenly as we came into range of something I'd never experienced before.

They were shelled creatures, six inches long and they were blasting sparks periodically out of their nether orifices. I could tell that they were newborns, and I suspected that they would grow much larger. I didn't know what they were, but I knew I wanted some of them.

Fire breathing arthropods. I had to keep myself from squeeing.

I picked up the pace.

"Taylor?" Hermione asked.

"I'm kind of excited to see what Hagrid has waiting for us," I said. "This isn't just the kind of class you sit in a classroom for. We might get to see monsters!"

The others seemed less enthusiastic, but wasn't this part of the reason we actually went to magic school?

Rounding to the other side of Hagrid's hut, we saw Hagrid standing beside several large boxes.

"Gather round, everyone," Hagrid said.

I was already staring into the boxes, careful not to let my control of the things become obvious.

"What are these?" Malfoy asked. His voice held an element of disgust.

Considering that they looked like insects and had a pungent smell, I could understand his reticence.

"Blast ended skrewts," Hagrid said proudly. "Newly hatched. I figgure we can make a project of raising them."

"Why?" Draco asked cautiously. "What are they for?"

"They've got poison stingers," I said examining one. "And the females suck blood. They shoot fire out their backsides."

I looked up at everyone else and I grinned.

"These things are amazing!"

Draco stared at me.

I had one of them in my hand, and I carefully set it back into the box.

"Five points fer Slytherin," Hagrid said.

"Can you train them?" Draco asked. "Maybe use them like attack dogs?"

He frowned at the things, considering. He'd learned a little about my way of thinking, and he was wondering just what I would do with a few hundred of these.

"How big will they get?" Hermione asked.

"Those are all good questions," Hagrid said. "Maybe we'll find out together."

"Let's try to feed them," Hagrid said.

"Maybe we should use gloves," I said. "Since they've got poison stingers and all. After all, even if they aren't very poisonous now, they might end up being a lot worse, and we don't want to get careless."

Hagrid frowned.

"Ye might be right," he said. "Better safe than sorry."

He sent a couple of Ravenclaws to pick up gloves, and in the meantime we tried throwing small bits of meat to them.

"I don't think they actually have mouths," Millicent said. "I wonder how they eat?"

"The mouth is on their underside," I said. "I had a good look at it. It's almost invisible, but it opens up."

Hagrid looked at me, trying to hide his look of surprise. In truth I'd discovered it because I could feel their mouths with their own sensations.

"They likely eat insects," I said. I could feel their hunger directed toward each other. "They'll probably start eating each other if you don't separate them."

"Why do you think they eat insects?" Hagrid asked.

"With your permission, I'll show you," I said. "If I can kill one of them."

Hagrid looked doubtful.

I plucked one of the screwts out of the box with my wand, and I stabbed it into the ground. It's shell hadn't hardened yet, and so it was easy.

I proceeded to use my knife to open the thing up, showing the class the interior.

"It's weird that they have internal mandibles," I said. "Most insects are specialized to either chew, drink blood, or vomit acid and then lap up what's left. It's unusual to have one using multiple mouth types. Is this a natural creature?"

Hagrid looked uncomfortable.

"The Ministry approved their creation," he said.

I shared a glance with Draco. He nodded. Part of the Tournament, then.

"That explains it," I said.

I tossed the remains of the skrewt into the closest box, and the creatures disinterest was suddenly gone. They were scrambling over each other and fighting to get to the remains.

"Yeah," I said. "I'd get more boxes."

I probably shouldn't have told him that; I likely could have siphoned off some of the Skrewts and installed them inside the castle walls. Unfortunately, I couldn't be sure that I wouldn't be taken away from the castle for some reason, and I'd hate to learn that some of them had eaten a House elf or a First Year.

Everyone else was looking pale.

"I've got a feeling that these are going to get a lot bigger," I said. "Maybe get lids on the boxes once they figure out how to fly."

Now everyone was looking alarmed. The thoughts of these things flying around the halls of Hogwarts unchecked wasn't anyone's idea of a good time.

"They don't have wings," Hermione protested.

"They can shoot fire out their butts," I said. "Which means they'll be able to jump really high at the very least."

I had a sudden fantasy of sending three hundred of these things after Voldemort's headquarters, undoubtedly some pureblood mansion. They could easily set fire to something, and because it wasn't a spell, it might even get through some of the standard defenses.

Or maybe not. However, waking up in bed with a dozen lobster sized scorpions might be enough to make almost anyone rethink their life choices.

"Five more points to Slytherin," Hagrid said. He looked stunned.

I was cheating, of course. I did know a lot about insect biology, both from first hand experience and because I'd intentionally studied in my minuscule free time as Weaver in an attempt to get better at what I did.

I fully intended to steal some of these, but I wanted to see what they turned out to be before I let them loose in the castle. Contrary to my confident speech, I really didn't know much about them.

I suspected that Hagrid didn't either, and if they were new, maybe no one did.

Nobody argued the ten points I'd gotten for Slytherin, but that was because I'd cheated to demonstrate knowledge no one else could know.

I'd have felt bad if I cared about the point's system at all.

In truth, I doubted that most of the people in my group cared about the points much either. Other than the opportunity to put your flag up at the end of the year, they didn't really mean much. It wasn't as though you won a pizza party, or your own blast ended skrewt.

"Say," I said to Hagrid once everyone but Millie and Hermione had left. "Just how do you breed new creatures anyway?"

"It's gen'rally illegal," Hagrid said.

"Do you use transfiguration?" I asked.

He shook his head. "These will breed true... mebbe... if they can breed. Might be sterile."

"They've got reproductive organs," I said. "But that doesn't mean anything if they're mules."

"You aren't planning on doin any... creative animal breedin, are you?" Hagrid asked uneasily.

"Well, I think it'd be cool if these things were smarter," I said. "And if they could actually fly."

"That's the sort of thing that gets ye in Azkaban," Hagrid said. "I knew a feller who bred a fire breathin chicken once. Turned out to be a bad idea."

"Oh?" I asked.

"Yeah," he said. "Chickens are pretty stupid, and fire breathin chickens like to set fire to just everything."

"How do you breed something to breathe fire?" I asked, interested.

He stared at me for a moment, and then said, "I think mebbe you'd better get on to yer next class."

I shrugged.

I'd find out about magical breeding one way or another, and if I thought the effort was worth the time, I'd do something with it.

"You wouldn't really make a fire breathing chicken, would you?" Hermione asked.

"Not a chicken, no," I said.