If there was one thing that Olivia knew how to do, it was scaring people. When she had finally left Hogwarts, most of the group of friends were sure that she had scarred some of the students for life. She was a very intense person that knew how to make it known when she was angry. And when a Gardna is angry the world trembles.
But it was probably the best outcome of the year. She had actually gotten through the thick skulls of a few ministry employees. The fact that it was now official that the trio was leaving Hogwarts after taking their OWLs had scared the ministry speechless. And according to Cedric, Neville, and the twins, that has never happened before. It was certainly a pleasant change from the usual way that those idiots never shut up.
It was almost too bad. Because if they kept trying, they would have had Olivia go back in time and prevent all of their births. They would really love to, but they all knew that it was an all bark and no bite threat since there was no telling how much of the timeline might change if Olivia were to actually do that. Unintended consequences are why time mages like Olivia need to be more careful than any other type of mystic soul. If she were to actually go back in time and prevent the births of all the corrupt idiots in magical England, something worse could actually happen. Even the purest of intentions could end in disaster by accident.
Sure, there have been times where some events are so meager that small things are able to slip through the cracks. Like slave owners that ended up dying from either the war or other causes during the American Civil War. If their slaves just so happened to be mysteriously freed before someone else could take them, then they will easily slip through the cracks in history.
But, if anything, they all wished that they could change anything and almost everything about magical Britain. There was just so much that mystic souls and even more open-minded British people hated about the country.
The dark hated muggleborns, squibs, blood traitors, and anything that was not "pure." The light hated dark witches and wizards, Slytherins, and anything else that they deemed "dark and evil." And then you had those that hated others just because of anything they could think of. Plus, there were also the "muggleborn" students like Granger that come into the magical world and try to make it into a copy of the mundane world just because they believe that it is better. Granger is always saying that the wizarding world was barbaric and that the mundane world was so much better than it.
It made them all constantly want to strangle her. Magical beings had working governments when the mundane world was still dealing with corrupt kings and queens. Magical beings had teleportation and cross-country communication before mundanes even had horse-drawn carriages. Magical beings could do things that were only considered fantasies by mundanes. Magical beings would always have the upper hand again mundanes.
After Olivia scared most of Hogwarts, Beauxbatons, and Drumstrang for the rest of their lives, they all left the Great Hall and then went back to their own business.
Especially for Harry, Viktor, Cedric, and Atem. They all had to participate in a tournament that has killed dozens of others over centuries of being a much more common event. They learned they the most common events would be fighting against magical creatures, searching for objects in hostile environments, and even having to rescue hostages from dark or dangerous places.
Cedric was realized just how far behind he was the other three. They were powerful mystic souls and he was just a wand-user. And since it was obvious that Fleur girl was part-veela, she was also bringing more to the tournament than him.
But the three mystic souls were definitely all very powerful. Harry could conjure animal spirits as easily as it was for him to breathe. Cedric once even saw him casually reading a book while hanging upside-down through the use of a monkey spirit. And then you had Viktor, who was literally a walking flamethrower. And there were also the flames that did not burn, like a white fire that he saw Viktor use to turn a bush into ice. Krinos was not very happy with the Bulgarian after he did that.
Then you also had Atem. He was definitely a very interesting guy. He seemed to have powers that focused mainly on a deck of cards that he kept with him. He was able to use them to summon monsters, cast spells, and even set traps. He was certainly a very good contender for the Triwizard Cup.
Krinos saw him during training one day and decided to come over. Since the tree was a lot bigger on the inside than the outside, there were even multiple training rooms for them all to use. Kept them from all being crammed into a single room and risking them from accidentally hitting each other with their magic.
So, Cedric had been in one of the training rooms, firing spells at dummies in frustration. Krinos had come in to check on him when he saw how there was more on his mind than Cedric had been letting them know.
"Incendio," Cedric cast, lighting one of the dummies on fire.
"You know," Krinos started, scaring Cedric a little. "I would appreciate you not using fire spells when we are up in a tree."
The chuckle made Cedric realize that he was joking. But he put out the fire with a wave of his wand anyway. He turned to face the nature mage.
"I will try and remember that next time I train in here," Cedric said, taking the bottle of water that Krinos offered him. "Thanks."
"Of course," Krinos smiled at him. "I see how hard you have been training. You need to take a deep breath and try to pace yourself."
Cedric took a long drink of water before he answered his friend. He was also his crush, but Krinos did not know that.
"As much as I know that Harry does not want to take part in this tournament, he is still tough competition," Cedric tells him. "As are Viktor and Atem. Fleur probably is too and we barely even know anything about her."
"Cedric, you were chosen for a reason," Krinos says. "And as much as I hate for any of my friends, and my brother, to be part of a deadly tournament, the goblet certainly thinks you have a chance. Never question a centuries-old magical artifact, they are usually right."
"Usually," Cedric raised an eyebrow.
"Well, the day I trust the Evil Queen's magic mirror is the day that I trade my nature magic for fire magic," Krinos responded.
Cedric chuckled. "You always know how to make me smile, Krinos."
"Well, one Gardna sibling has to be the funny one," Krinos smirked. "Anyway, I get how you feel like you need to try harder because you are the only normal wand-user in the tournament."
"I mean no offense, but how can you understand when you don't even need a wand to do magic," Cedric tried not to insult Krinos.
Krinos took a seat on the bench in the training room. Cedric sat down next to him.
"I have a lot of friends back home that are holder-type mystic souls," Krinos explains. "Similar to how you use a wand, they also need a focus for their powers."
"You mean like Atem and his cards," Cedric guessed.
"Exactly," Krinos smiled at his smart friend/crush. "They feel weaker than heart-type mystic souls because we do not need a focus. They don't have the same freedom as the heart-type mages do. But when you look at Atem, you can see how strong that they can be."
"And how does that help me," Cedric raised an eyebrow.
"It is not the tool, it is the mage that uses the tool," Krinos tells him. "Just look at Atem. He could stack his deck filled with monsters, but he balances his creatures with spells and traps because he knows brute force is not always the best strategy. You do not need power, you just need skill. And you have plenty of that."
Cedric could feel himself starting to blush as Krinos complimented him. He just hoped that Krinos will just think that his face was going red from all of his training.
"Thanks, Krinos," he grinned at him.
"Of course, I also brought you this," Krinos says.
He reached into his cloak behind his back and pulled out something Cedric had never seen before. It was a cuff bracelet, but it was made out of sapphire crystal and had a wolf and winter design on it. All in all, it was very beautiful.
"What is it," Cedric asked.
"This is the talisman of the winter wolf," Krinos explained. "Most magical creatures have a talisman tied to them so that anyone could be temporarily granted the abilities of the magical creature while they are using their talisman."
"And you're giving it to me," Cedric was shocked.
"I can only grant it for the tournament, Cedric," Krinos says. "These talismans are very rare and the only reason I can grant you this one is because Headmistress Jiwe guards a few of the talismans and she allowed me to grant you this one of this year. She said that it is a great idea for everyone to be on an even playing field."
He gave the bracelet to Cedric. He put it on and he felt a rush of energy shoot into his body like a bolt of lightning. Krinos smiled as he saw Cedric's eyes glow bright blue for a second.
"Woah," Cedric gasped.
"You will have to train more, but now you are able to bend ice and snow to your will," Krinos explained the powers of the talisman. "You will especially be able to create armor and weapons from ice. The only side effect is that you will crave a lot of red meat just like a wolf."
"Good thing that I am not a vegetarian," Cedric chuckled.
"I would stay away from anyone Crystal Rose student that was sorted into Dryad house," Krinos says. "Winter wolves and dryads are known rivals in the magical world."
"They are," Cedric raised his eyebrow again.
"It's kind of part of the natural rivalry between the magical creatures that represent winter and the magical creatures that represent spring," Krinos said. "The same could be said about the nymphs and the snow spirits."
"Wow, I didn't know there were such intense rivalries between magical creatures," Cedric would be the first to admit that he was not a magical creature expert.
"Oh, yeah," Krinos says. "There are a lot of feuding magical creature races in the magical world. Minotaurs and centaurs hate each other, mermaids and mermen hate each other, griffins and gargoyles hate each other, and the feud between the vampires and werewolves has been going on for thousands of years."
"I really should have taken Care of Magical Creatures instead of Arithmancy," Cedric sighed, making Krinos giggle a little.
"As much as I love Hagrid, I think he knows more about the non-sentient creatures than the sentient ones," Krinos said. "Ignoring the giant talking spiders in the forest, of course."
"I really hope we won't have to deal with those things during one of the tasks," Cedric shivered.
"I would rather fight the giant squid than those things again," Krinos also got goosebumps. "I've hated spiders since that spider demon tried to eat us."
"You... You mean..." Cedric did not want to finish the question.
"Yes, she literally wanted to eat us," Krinos answered the unasked question.
"That is wrong on so many levels," Cedric wanted to puke. "Wait! The spider demon is a woman?"
"Equality is a big thing to mystic souls and the rest of our world," Krinos shrugged. "Men and women should be equal in everything, be it good or bad."
"As the son of a very strong woman, that is definitely something I can get behind," Cedric said.
Krinos smiled. And then with a smirk, he flicked his wrist and made the wooden bench they were on force Cedric back onto his feet.
"If you are going to be using such strong ice magic, you better keep training," he smirked.
"I am officially never messing with you while I am sitting on any piece of furniture," Cedric chuckled. "Wood does whatever you want."
"Well, nature is mine to command," Krinos smirked.
He got up as well so that he could help Cedric train with his new temporary powers. Because even when they were temporary, they were still hard to control if you did not have the right training. Ask anyone that uses Enchanted Sapphire magic. Ice is not to be messed with. Use too much power when you get too emotional and you might accidentally cause a second ice age.
As the two of them had barely started their training, which did include Cedric accidentally burying Krinos in a pile of snow, they both heard a familiar voice.
"Hello? Anyone in this tree," a male voice called.
Krinos poked his head out of the pile of snow.
"Is that Charlie," he asked.
"What's he doing back in Britain," Cedric wondered.
"Let's go and find out," Krinos dug his way out of the snow pile.
The two of them exited the training room that they had been in. Since Charlie had obviously just arrived, they both headed toward the entrance hall of the tree. Harry, Melody, Fred, George, and all the others also joined them. Charlie's voice had obviously carried around the tree when he had called out.
And low and behold, the dragon mage really was inside of the tree. That was certainly odd for two reasons. One, because he no longer lived in Britain and only attended Crystal Rose during the summer. And two, his job was all the way in Romania. He was definitely a very long way away from home.
"Charlie, what are you doing here," Fred asked.
"Shouldn't you be taming dragons in Romania," George asked.
"The reason I am in Britain is also the reason why I immediately came to the tree when I learned you guys were here," Charlie tells them. "Not to mention everything going on with someone placing Harry's name in the goblet."
"Wow, word travels fast," T'challa said.
"And you will all be very glad that I did catch word," Charlie said.
"Charlie, what's going on," Harry asked him, approaching to calm their friend. "You haven't been this freaked out since the first time that you had encountered a demon."
"You fought a demon, big brother," Fred was excited.
"Talk about wicked," George was equally excited.
"Not the time, you two," Melody snapped her fingers in front of the two to get their focus back to the current situation.
"Krinos, Lily, you two should probably look into the Forbidden Forest and see what is being stashed there," Charlie tells the two nature mages.
The two looked at each other, very confused, but they shrugged and did what he wanted them to do anyway. He was freaking them out a little, but they had no reason to doubt their friend. They both raised their hands toward the closest wall to them.
"Nature's screen," Krinos cast.
Four different trumpet flowers bloomed at the corners of the wall. They each lit up and connected to each other with small beams of light. Then the rectangle that had been formed filled itself in and it looked like a nature-made television.
"Where are we supposed to be looking, Charlie," Lily asked him. "I need a location for my spell to work."
"It's a large clearing about a mile back into the forest," Charlie tells her. "If you sense giant spiders, Aragon's lair is about a half-mile east of the clearing."
Lily nodded, facing the nature television.
"Nature's enchantment," she cast. "Black-eyed susan spy."
In the location that Charlie told her about, black-eyed susan flowers bloomed around the area. They went unnoticed by the people that were there, but the creatures that were there sensed the magic being used. But given that the humans were keeping them from their eggs and had them in cages, they were not gonna inform the humans of anything.
Lily's flowers worked like cameras. They connected to Krinos's nature's screen spell and the images that the flowers were seeing were sent to the screen. There was a moment where the screen was like one of those televisions that had lost its signal. Just a black screen of black and white static. It took a few moments for there to be actual images of the clearing. Not to mention what was inside the clearing as well.
They all gasped at what they saw.
Amber and scarlet slight shined through the screen as the images of dragons breathed fire in the clearing. Wizards were running around and trying their best to control them. They were not having much luck.
"Dragons," Harry gasped.
"We're going to have to face dragons," Cedric had gone as white as a ghost.
"I don't have a card in my deck as big as those things," Atem was looking through his deck of cards.
"I may be fireproof, but I don't think dragon fire is the same as regular fire," even Viktor was shaking in his boots.
Their heads all shot toward Charlie.
"The dragon reserve you work at seriously brought dragons here for a stupid tournament," Harry yelled.
"Hey, I didn't exactly have a choice when it came to that decision," Charlie crossed his arms. "I was pissed when I found out. And they all had the sheer gall to separate them from their eggs. I can understand the dragons because of my powers and I can hear how much they are in pain over not having their eggs."
They all looked at the obviously angry dragons on the screen again.
"What the bloody hell are we going to do," Cedric swore.