Lunchtime was when the area outside Durmstrang Castle was most crowded.
Unlike Britain, where rain seemed to fall all day long, the world outside Durmstrang always appeared to be blessed with perfect weather. Golden sunlight poured down from a cloudless azure sky, not only bathing the already slightly yellowing grass in a layer of warm, pleasant color, but also giving the students, who were constantly being bitten by the cold air, a touch of much-needed warmth. In weather like this, going out for a walk after lunch was indeed a very enjoyable thing.
So even someone as strikingly beautiful as Fleur did not stand out that much once she blended into the dense crowd of students scattered outside the castle. On top of that, she had deliberately put on a felt hat to hide part of her face, making it even less likely that anyone would notice her quietly approaching the tents beside the Hogwarts Express…
'Krum should be keeping an eye on Barty Crouch right now. The moment he notices anything unusual, he'll send the signal.'
Inside the Hogwarts Express, Avada was lying in his original room, resting while firmly locking his magical senses onto Fleur as she approached the tents. Durmstrang had not actually forbidden him from returning to his old room, but only the temporary quarters in the underground level had the ability to block the badge's surveillance. So if he did not want his eating, drinking, sleeping, and every other private detail watched by others, he still had to return to the designated room to rest in the end.
And the reason he was stationed here was to coordinate with Fleur's next move.
In the plan they had set this time, Fleur was naturally and unquestionably the main force. She would be taking the greatest risk, approaching the investigators' lodgings and trying to talk them into revealing information, with the goal of getting the information they needed in the shortest possible time. Avada's role, on the other hand, was to stay hidden inside the train and secretly support her action with mental magic. If she ran into someone particularly strong-willed, or had to deal with several people at once, then his mental magic would need to interfere just a little.
After all, the idea of casting mental magic wandlessly from such a long distance was already far beyond the common sense of most people, and since he also did not need to chant an incantation when he cast, he could act right under the badge's nose without attracting attention. Most likely, no one would notice anything strange.
The one responsible for handling that small chance of something going wrong was Krum.
He needed to use his status as a local student to keep watch inside the castle on Barty Crouch, who was most likely in charge of the monitoring system, as well as the other investigators currently working on the second floor. If they noticed anything abnormal, he would make the agreed signal from a window, giving Avada and Fleur time to withdraw.
To be honest, when they were planning, it was not as though they had not considered directly asking deeper questions—what exactly their goal was, what plans they had next, and so on. But considering that such questions were too sensitive and too likely to provoke strong resistance from the targets, that more aggressive idea had ultimately been abandoned. After all, if they could find the evidence they wanted, the end result would be more or less the same. Besides, asking about something as seemingly trivial as the betting pool was not itself a particularly sensitive matter…
"Ahem."
Looking at the tents drawing closer, Fleur took a nervous deep breath. Then she cleared her throat, took off her felt hat, and smoothed out her hair. All the complicated emotions on her face were swiftly put away, leaving behind only a trace of curiosity and nervousness…
"Excuse me… is anyone there?"
She stopped half a meter away from the tent and softly called out.
"…Who is it?"
A moment later, a hand emerged from behind the tent flap and pushed it aside, revealing the face of a middle-aged wizard. There was a hint of wariness on his face—along with, apparently, a few bread crumbs. He had probably been eating just a moment ago.
'Mental strength: average. A bit stronger than an ordinary adult wizard, but only by a limited amount. Trained, but not professional-level. His current guard is also fairly low… should not be a problem. No need for me to act.'
Avada, lying on the bed with his eyes shut and blanket over him, shifted his hands slightly and quickly reached his conclusion in silence. At the same time, he withdrew most of his mental strength once more and began carefully observing both Fleur and the wizard's condition.
He still wanted to avoid stepping in unless absolutely necessary.
Not because he wanted to slack off. Rather, wandlessly casting mental magic—already one of the hardest forms of magic there was—while also keeping it silent had already pushed him to his limit. To make sure the spell had enough strength, he had to add some supporting hand gestures. And that was the sort of thing that could easily give him away.
'Good. Fleur's started releasing her Veela charm. The intensity is increasing gradually, not making it feel too unnatural right from the beginning, exactly as planned… and the effect is within expectations too. The wizard's alertness has already faded. He's moving toward being fully enchanted…'
'Let's hope a second person doesn't suddenly come out of that tent. The Veela magic's influence is AoE, but a second person showing up could interrupt the progress of the seduction. If that happens, I'll have to step in… damn it!'
Suddenly, just as Fleur and the wizard were talking about something and his mental defenses were on the verge of completely collapsing, the tent flap was lifted again and another wizard stepped out with a puzzled expression. The first wizard instantly snapped partway awake, and his previously loosened mental strength began rapidly gathering itself again…
'Fine then.'
Avada quietly rolled over so that he was facing the window, opening his eyes just a slit so he could immediately spot any signal Krum might send. Then he pulled the arm that had been outside the blanket back under it and began making the spellcasting gestures slowly and with the smallest movements possible…
'Ken's moving.'
Seeing the two wizards' eyes grow vacant once again, Fleur steadied herself. Then, without hesitation, she pushed her Veela charm to its maximum and skipped past all the gradual, guiding conversation they had originally planned, going straight to the heart of the matter:
"…I've never had much confidence in my own level, and I don't know whether I'll really be able to beat the other two champions in the coming tasks. Ah, right, sir—since you're gathering clues about Mr. Bagman's murder, then you must also know who he bet on to win, don't you? I heard he was an obsessive gambler…"
"Of course we know, miss!"
The two wizards grinned stupidly, swaying like drunken men trying to flirt.
"Of course we know who Bagman bet on—his betting ticket says it plain as day! He bet on Viktor Krum, the champion with the highest odds, and he bet a full three hundred Galleons too. Looks like he was full of confidence…"
"So that's how it is. Thank you both very much for the information. I feel much more at ease now…"
The moment she heard Krum's name, Fleur's heart tightened, but she still kept her expression perfectly calm. Maintaining her Veela charm, she wrapped up the conversation swiftly and naturally, then quickly headed back toward the castle.
And the instant Fleur withdrew her charm, Avada also used a little more mental magic to blur the two wizards' memories of the exchange. After lying there a while longer, he did not return to the castle until class was nearly about to start. For now, he still did not know what information Fleur had gotten, but he was not in a hurry over the span of a few hours.
And so, night fell.
As the students dragged their tired bodies back from the library to their common rooms, preparing for curfew, the three champions once again gathered in Avada's room.
(End of Chapter)