The next morning, discussion at breakfast revolved around the adventure of the night before. The Durmstrang students were intrigued by the tales from Blackwell and interested enough to want to learn more and try to craft their own staves.

"Is just big vand," Alexei said emphatically. "Bigger vand, can cast bigger magic."

Another boy sniggered. "I have bigger wand for you, Ovechkin."

"Could be advantage in the tournament," Viktor Krum said thoughtfully. "First task, though, they say only wands. But maybe later tasks."

"If we're going to be relying on trees to drop branches for us, we're going to need more trees," Draco pointed out. "You've only got one grove at your land so far, Hermione. It's going to take quite a bit more than that."

"Susan and Tracey have been working with muggle nurseries to get more," Hermione reminded him. "It's just a matter of sneaking off campus to plant trees. And everybody's been busy with classes and the excitement around the tournament."

"Plus we still need to detoxify the land," Theo pointed out. "We might be okay right where we planted that circle, because it's right over the ley line, but the rest of the land is still bad."

"We can help," Viktor Krum said. "At least… I can. I maybe should not to speak for the others."

There was a loud chorus of disagreement as several Durmstrang students clearly indicated that he could speak for them, gesturing emphatically as they said things in Bulgarian/Russian/not-English. Viktor looked like he wanted to laugh, while Hermione did laugh, amused.

"We would take all the help we can get, really," Hermione said, smiling. "Even if it's just digging holes and planting trees."

"Will take long time to grow," Dmitri said doubtfully.

"Our coven can make the trees mature faster," Blaise dismissed, eyes sparkling. "We just have to get them into the ground."

"Won't you need to prepare for the tournament?" Draco asked Viktor. "I can't imagine your headmaster would be okay with you planting trees instead of practicing."

Viktor scowled.

"Karkaroff is useless pumpkin-head," he declared. "He cares about status of being headmaster. He not care about actually running school."

"He will care about the status of you winning, though," Draco pointed out.

Viktor snorted. "He trusts me to handle myself."

"You just don't want to plant trees," Blaise teased Draco. "You don't want calluses on your soft hands."

Draco's face developed two spots of color high up on his cheeks, and the others laughed.

"I need you for something else important, anyway," Hermione told Draco, taking mercy on him. "The others can plant trees."

Draco cheered. "You do?"

He stayed at her side as the Slytherins went to Defense Against the Dark Arts after breakfast, insistent on knowing the details of whatever task Hermione had for him so he could get started immediately.

"What do you need me to do? I can handle it," he told her again. "I'm sure whatever it is is way more important than Moody."

Hermione sighed.

"Are there second-hand broom stores?" she asked him.

Draco blinked.

"You want a broom?" he asked. "Hermione, from the earnings you get from Twilfitt and Tattings, you could easily afford multiple new brooms—"

"I don't want a broom," Hermione said patiently. "I want to buy the Blackwell students brooms."

"The Blackwell students?" Draco looked thrown. "Why?"

Hermione lowered her voice as they walked, careful not to be overheard.

"Right now, they can only travel off the island eight days a year," she said. "If we want to potentially recruit them, we need a way of them getting to the Truth Circle, don't we?"

"Oh," Draco said. He frowned. "I didn't consider that."

"The hedges all seem to have functional brooms from somewhere," Hermione pointed out. "Can you look into it and ask around next Full Moon, when you're doing the werewolf protection ritual?"

"They don't really need me there anymore," Draco said, smiling slightly with pride. "They've gotten good at it themselves, and nearly all the tenancies are done. But yeah, I can go and help and ask around. I'm sure I can find out. I could find out sooner, probably – just need to visit them over the weekend someday."

"However you want to do it and investigate it, go for it," Hermione encouraged him. "The sooner the better."

During Potions, Harry pulled Hermione aside in the line for the supply closet.

"Ron's still not speaking to me," he said, annoyed. "He still thinks I put my own name in the tournament."

"Ron is just jealous," Hermione told Harry. "But that's no excuse for being a bad friend."

Harry sighed, running his fingers through his already messy hair.

"Can the coven meet soon?" he asked her. "Just us? I'd like us to kind of plan out what we'll do for the tournament so I know what to focus on."

Hermione's heart went out to him, and she nudged him affectionately.

"Of course, Harry," she said. "Tomorrow's Saturday – we'll have all day to plan together."

"Good." Harry scowled at a jar of newt legs that he pulled down from the shelf, some of them seeming to still be wriggling inside. "I'll need all the help I can to survive."

The coven met Saturday morning after breakfast to discuss Harry's entrance into the tournament. Hermione briefed them all on what had happened at the Wizengamot.

"Sirius is still fighting for you, but it doesn't look good," Hermione told Harry, apologetic. "And the Goblet audit seemed to throw everyone off the path. Now everybody cares more about 'Blackwell' coming out of the cup than the fact that you got entered at all."

"That's interesting on its own, though, isn't it?" Luna commented. "Nobody knows about Blackwell. How did Harry end up submitted under that school?"

"My guess is Harry being underage and physically being at Blackwell was enough to 'count' magically as being a student there," Susan said. "I don't think anyone purposefully submitted him under Blackwell, but just Confounded the goblet, and the goblet, it its Confounded state, managed to pick up on that Harry had another school's magical signature attached to him."

"I was thinking something similar, but maybe not the school's magical signature," Hermione said. "I don't know if that's a thing. But I severely doubt anybody purposefully put him in under Blackwell - they'd have put him in under one of the Big 11 Wizarding schools if they had purposefully picked a school. No, this feels more like a 'the goblet was confused' type of choice."

Plotting the plan to save Harry with the coven was harder than Hermione had hoped. The issue was they had no idea what they were planning for – the first challenge was supposed to test 'courage in the face of fire', with the champions having literally no idea beforehand what they might be asked to do.

Knowing how frighteningly literal the wizarding world could be at times, Hermione had penned Fire elemental ritual and scheduled it for the next full moon, but after that? They didn't know what to do.

"We need to make sure Harry has an escape route," Susan emphasized. "Do the ley lines cover all of the grounds?"

"Realistically, they'll probably just use the Quidditch Pitch," Blaise said. "It's already got stands, and it's far enough away from the school proper to not take damage if anything goes awry."

"Great. Does a ley line go underneath the Quidditch Pitch?"

"Jump and see," Luna suggested. "If not, you could make one."

Everyone turned a bit green at that suggestion, remembering the harrowing experience that carving a ley line into reality was.

"I'll check after this," Susan said hurriedly. She turned to look at Harry through turquoise lenses. "We really need to just focus on Harry for now."

"The biggest advantage we're going to get is going to come from finding out what the challenge is going to be," Blaise said, frowning. "The other champions are going to be trying to do the same. Is there anything we can do with Divination or Arithmancy to figure that out?"

Harry blinked. "Not sure. That's a good idea, though. I could at least manipulate things to try and figure out what kind of training gives me the best odds of surviving."

"You're going to survive, Harry," Hermione said, exasperated. "If nothing else, you just float above whatever the challenge is until it's over, and then you just come in last."

"You think?" Harry grinned. "Voldemort's the only one who could openly fly unaided like that. You think I should do that openly?"

"As a last resort, sure," Hermione said promptly. "But what we need is a way to have you utterly dominate this stupid tournament. And that's going to be very hard without knowing what prep to do."

"We can start with the basics," Luna suggested. "We could find out what kind of spells the other champions can cast—"

"That won't give him an advantage, though," Blaise pointed out. "What advantages does Harry have that most people don't?"

They sat and considered, brainstorming together and slowly making a list on a piece of parchment:

Harry is special because he can:

· Cast a Patronus

· Ride a broom really well

· Fly unaided

· Channel the earth (healing?)

· Talk to snakes

· Survive Voldemort trying to kill him

· Think really fast on his feet

· Convince Hermione to Polyjuice as him and do the task instead

· Break simple curses on objects

· Have horcruxes battle in his head and be okay

· Have access to Tom Riddle (how would he do this?)

After they had made a list, Hermione frowned down at it.

"I think Arithmancy is really going to be our best bet," she said, sighing. "That, or outright bribery to find out what the first task is going to be."

Harry sighed.

"Then I'll just do my best to eat well and get in shape, I guess," he said. "I'll ask Malfoy to help me with the Arithmancy. He's not bad at it either."

Hermione gnawed on her lip, uneasy.

"We'll find out what it's going to be one way or another," she told him. "We've got this, Harry. I promise, everything will be okay."

Harry seemed to relax slightly at her confidence, and Hermione held his gaze firm, hiding her own growing ball of anxiety and stress.