332 Chapter 331 Good News (2 in 1)
Early the next morning, after breakfast settled in the wagon, Jon followed Rosier to the great hall in the castle with Diane, the Durmstrang champion.
There were a number of people standing here, but apart from Draco and Emil, all were adult wizards.
Even while the Triwizard Tournament is in progress, the students in Hogwarts Castle are expected to continue their normal classes, and at this time of day, they should all be in class.
The three judges of the Confederation, and the Deputy Headmaster who would serve as Beauxbaton's representative judge, except for Voldemort and Dumbledore, who are not present here, all gathered around an old man.
That old man was holding a wand in his hand and waving it around, leaving brilliant silvery filaments of light in the air as he pronounced.
"Just about ten inches, Hawthorn wood, Unicorn hair core. I remember when I handed him over to you, Mr Malfoy, it was on a less than bright sunny afternoon when you and your father came to my shop."
Draco had little interest in listening to him reminisce about the past here as he looked at the old man's hand that held his wand.
"If there are no issues, can I have it back now? Mr Ollivander."
Ollivander heard the indignation in his tone, but only smiled slightly and returned the wand back to Draco's hand.
"I can appreciate that someone proud enough to have a strong sense of possession of their wand as well, it has been well cared of by you."
Draco held his head high and took the wand, which had been fully inspected, and put it back into his sleeve.
By this time several of the judges as well as Ollivander's eyes settled on Jon and Diane who had just arrived in the great hall.
"You're all that's missing, why couldn't you have come sooner." The deputy headmaster of Beauxbaton said in a sharp voice.
Rosier gave him an expressionless glance like it was insulting to her to show even the slightest emotion of disgust at such a person.
"If I remember correctly, the time Mr Graves gave last night was supposed to be ten o'clock, and it is just about ten o'clock sharp."
"Sorry, Mr Ollivander arrived early, and I let these two champions start first. You came at the right time and didn't delay anyone, Professor Rosier, which of these two will start first?"
Matthew could only step forward to smooth things over, the Confederation's judges had to not only ensure fairness for this tournament but also regulate the relationship between the two sides in the process.
After he laid his eyes on Jon and Diane, the two looked right at each other, with Jon nudging Diane in Ollivander's direction.
The Durmstrang girl then pulled out her own wand and took a step forward, handing that wand over to Ollivander's hand.
"Willow wood with a Dragon's heartstring core, nine inches, such craftsmanship would be a piece of Gregorovitch's work from the eighties?"
Ollivander's eyes went to Diane, who nodded to indicate that he was not wrong.
"Despite the conflicting philosophies, one has to admit that Gregorovitch is also an excellent wandmaker." He praised, then waved the willow wand, "Avis."
The next moment a flock of small birds fluttered their wings and flew out of the wand head, they circled the great hall and then flew through the open window into the pale sunlight.
"No problem at all."
Putting Diane's wand back in her hand, Ollivander finally turned his gaze to Jon.
With what looked like anticipation in his eyes, his gaze shifted down to look at the old wand that Jon had pulled from his sleeve while reaching out to take it.
"Mr Green, I have heard so much about you and have always wondered what kind of wand should be a piece that would match your soul."
He uttered this with a smile, his left hand gently stroking over the well-worn body of the wand.
"Well, it's seen a long life, 14 inches, that's a length you don't often see, even in my career I can count on a palm the number of wands that I have made of that size, chestnut wood shaft, phoenix tail feather core."
Suddenly, he froze.
His voice, as smooth as a stream, came to a screeching halt, and Ollivander looked at the wand in his hand in awe, as if he had discovered something remarkable.
The few people around him, who had been waiting for him to make a final judgement on Jon's wand, noticed the change in expression on his face.
Emil was displeased.
He felt like Jon was showing off his uniqueness in every way no matter what he did, even a normal wand test could make people focus all their attention on him.
"So what's the matter? What's wrong with this wand? Has a cheating enchantment been cast on it by Dumbledore?"
He looked towards Ollivander, wanting to hear a positive answer from him.
However, Ollivander didn't look at him as if he hadn't heard him, and the old man, who came from a pureblood family and had been making wands all his life, narrowed his cloudy eyes and looked at Jon with a complicated look on his face.
"This is my work?"
Jon didn't deny it.
"Its previous owner said it was a wand he bought from Diagon Alley in Britain."
"I remember, 1920, one summer evening, whether it was a Monday or a Tuesday, that's a bit of a blur. He came into my shop and I tried to recommend something for him, but he refused and instead wandered casually between the shelves on his own, and eventually, he picked this one."
Ollivander's voice was soft, it was less like reminiscence and more like a sense of regret and helplessness.
"I told him that this wand was too long and that I had designed it at first for some special guests. He didn't care about my suggestion, he just casually dropped a few gold galleons on the table and said that he liked the wand, that at this length it could be plunged into the eye sockets of his enemies and stabbed into their pulpy brains if he had a good chance at a good fight."
A wry look crossed Jon's face, he didn't know Grindelwald had said such a thing when he had bought the wand from Ollivander.
No wonder he had always felt that the tip of this wand had worn a little more than any of the other parts.
So it really had been used as a murder weapon and stabbed directly into a person's brain?
The deputy headmaster of Beauxbaton, after listening to Ollivander's narration, sneered and said gloomily.
"I'm afraid the person who bought off this wand in question was probably a troll."
Just as his words fell, an inexplicable coldness pierced him, and with a sudden jolt in his heart, he raised his head and met Rosier's cold, ice-like eyes.
He shivered and subconsciously took a step back.
And by this time, Ollivander had handed back the chestnut wand to Jon, not mentioning Grindelwald's name, only glancing at Matthew from the corner of his eye without drawing attention to himself.
"Take good care of it, it's already part of one of the legends in itself, hopefully, you can take it into another new saga."
Jon took the wand without saying anything, just nodding.
The Wand Weighing ceremony was just a formality and no wizard would normally try to tamper with his or her main wand. After it was over Jon and the others did not linger in the great hall, and Aurors, who were guarding the door, didn't look like they wanted them to stay here any longer and watched them leave the castle all the way.
Once he was back in the wagon, Jon walked straight back to his room, not forgetting what he had promised Dumbledore yesterday, and took out his boot (suitcase), from which he fumbled for a cloak that seemed as cold and silky as water.
Just as he was about to leave with the cloak of invisibility, he suddenly seemed to think of something else and after a moment's hesitation, he went back to the boot and retrieved an old blank piece of parchment from the bottom.
After retrieving these two items, Jon did not linger any longer and walked out of the dormitory and headed straight for Dumbledore's Headmaster's office along the corridor.
When he entered, Dumbledore was writing a letter and Fawkes was standing by his hand, boringly combing his bright red feathers, when he heard the movement of Jon entering, he lifted his head and then tilted it a little, as a greeting to his acquaintance.
Seeing Jon enter, Dumbledore put down the quill in his hand while looking over at what he had brought.
"Thank you for bringing it over, Jon."
"You should thank Professor Potter, I wouldn't have been able to bring it to you if she hadn't lent it to me."
Jon placed the cloak of invisibility on Dumbledore's desk, then with a solemn expression he handed the parchment to Dumbledore as well.
"I thought that this item might be of help to you as well, Professor."
Dumbledore had obviously noticed the parchment underneath the cloak of invisibility when Jon had first entered, and he gently adjusted his glasses up on his face and gazed at the blank page with a somewhat surprised look.
"Ingenious design."
Jon was not much surprised that he could spot the difference in this parchment and spoke up to remind him.
"Its activation spell is 'I solemnly swear I am up to no good'."
Dumbledore smiled as he raised the wand in his hand.
"Such a choice of incantation reminds me of a few naughty students I once taught."
He recited the incantation while tapping his wand right in the centre of the parchment.
Instantly, an ink dot emerged at the blank spot where the wand touched, then black lines spread in all directions, and soon a line of text emerged on it.
[Hats off to you! The greatest Headmaster in the history of Hogwarts!] --Prongs, Padfoot, Moony, Wormtail.
The words on the parchment soon began to take on a new form, the inked lines rearranging themselves.
[I hope that when you open it, it is not seized up from the hands of some good student. Oh, yes, we are good students too!] --Prongs.
Dumbledore watched in silence as the line of text slowly faded away, and finally countless lines spread around like a spider's web, illustrating Marauder's Map.
He did not speak, nor did his eyes focus on the map, his expression frozen in place as if hit by a full body-bind curse.
After a long while, just as Jon wanted to speak to wake Dumbledore up, the old man slowly reached out his hand and touched the few codenames at the top of the map.
He murmured as if he could penetrate the distance between space and time, and the young male wizard, who wore glasses, was bold, enthusiastic and had grown from a naughty child to a fearless warrior, stood smiling at his side.
"I've never been a great headmaster, but you've always been a good student."
Jon didn't say another word as he silently watched the headmaster, who had never looked so dispirited and sad, not wanting to disturb his thoughts at this moment.
He didn't have to wait long before Dumbledore had recomposed himself, taking off his glasses and carefully polishing the crescent-shaped lenses before looking over at Jon with a small smile.
"It may be rumoured by the students a lot of the time that I'm a bit of a crazy old man, but even old men in their right mind tend to get emotionally disturbed at a time; reminiscing past and getting spaced out."
There was a little embarrassment in his tone, and there was even some urging in his voice.
Jon shrugged as he chuckled.
"I'll tell Neville and the others when we meet them again that Professor Dumbledore is not only demented at times, he's also an old man who likes to cry."
"Ha, that would be a bit of an embarrassment to me."
Dumbledore muttered, putting his glasses back on and then looking up at the Marauder's Map that had been activated.
All the locations throughout Hogwarts were marked on the map and the names of everyone who was in this school were presented on it, as they were moving their names moved along with them.
Jon also glanced at the map.
Well, Voldemort's name didn't appear in the entire school.
"Stunning Homunculus charm," Dumbledore said with admiration, "It's the result of their shared wisdom but the parchment itself contains a magic like no other."
He looked up at Jon.
"May I know how you obtained it?"
Jon didn't hide it, other than describing his deliberate search for this Marauder's Map as an inadvertent discovery and that he had worked his way out to open it.
After hearing Jon's narration, Dumbledore nodded with unmistakable seriousness.
"It is very crucial, Jon, and I thank you for being willing to take it out and lend it to me."
Even now, Jon hadn't asked Dumbledore what he intended to do by asking him to borrow the cloak of invisibility, but with the feeling that the Marauder's Map could help him a great deal with what he would be doing next, he had brought it out without hesitation.
It had been made by the Four Marauders, so Jon didn't intend to keep it to himself by hiding it from them forever as it held some sentimental value for them.
Dumbledore then put both the Marauder's Map and the cloak of invisibility away after Jon had told him the incantation to dispel the magic on the map, and he looked at Jon.
"If you want to know, I can tell you what I need both of them for."
Jon, however, waved his hand.
"You might as well tell me that good news when you finally get it, there's only so much energy I have left in my mind, and it's time to put all my energy into the tournament next."
Dumbledore laughed heartily.
"Then may we have more good news by the end, the good news that is worthy of comforting the living, and putting the dead to sleep!"
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