At first it seems incongruous. And then...

...it doesn't. A normal dicking works fine most of the time. But when you absolutely, positively have to fuck up the day of every uppity, snippy, dark arts-using girl in the room, go for the Dumbledore way. Accept no substitutes. :awesome

 

I wonder how Harry will get past the age line, or if the age line will be used at all. The last update explained wards some, that willpower is a pretty major thing in breaking them, and while Harry defiantly has a strong will... The age line is cast by fucking Dumbledore. The guy is ten different kinds of magical badass.

 

Loved how casually Harry made it seem when he expanded his room and slapped on all the enchantments and furniture. He's really come a long way since that quill back in 1st year, and he's only halfway through his education.

Boss duel was boss. If they're gonna continue this at Hogwarts they'd better raid Pomfrey's storage, unless they want the Potter's to find out they routinely almost murder each other.

Looks like Harry not only got Sirius animagus form, he got his massive balls too. Got right in Karkaroff's face and gave him an ultimatum, didn't even flinch. Awesome.

Fuck yeah it's ward-breaking time! Better watch yourself age-line, Harry's gonna violate the fuck out of you with his big throbbing wand. Awesome foreshadowing with Grindelwald's mark too, hopefully Harry will break them and find out their secret before he graduates, that'd be a nice parting gift for Durmstrang.

Hopefully Harry will master the Aqua Eructo at some point, would be awesome to see him use it in one of the tasks, maybe to slap the fuck out of dragon. Try breathing fire while choking on a pond. Assuming the canon tasks remain..

 

First of all, I'd like to thank The Santi and his Beta team for the chapter. I thoroughly enjoyed it and hope to read more as soon as possible. Now I'll just share my thoughts.

The duals were entertaining and what I expected a true wizarding dual to be like. I didn't enjoy the duals from canon where wizards just fire curses and jinxes at each other, but I understand it is because most of them aren't skilled enough to use transfiguration and charms in a dual. After all, a Stunning spell will get the job done too and takes less skill.
II had no problem with the only DA dual, it is understandable. The DA Professor would want to see how his students would fare in his subject.
As someone said, the meeting with the other competitors was nicely done, because it showed that not all of Durmstrangs' students were super-wizards and went to show that Harry is better than them (more rounded off, less weaknesses).

I think that Romulus said that Harry was talented for more than one reason. For one, his improvement in the DA, his negotiation skills with the Highmaster, his determination to compete in the Tri-wizard Tournament, his ability to detect him are among those.
People have been wondering why Romulus told Karkaroff to agree to the age limit, and I have a few ideas. Maybe he wanted to narrow the competition like mentioned above.
But maybe he wanted to stop his daughter from competing in it. He loves his daughter and maybe he wanted to protect her. Harry improvement and determination could have made Romulus think that maybe Harry can become the champion after all and that he shouldn't be worried. Maybe Romulus is even worried about Harry - after all, his daughter loves him and he could want to protect him because of that.
So why send Calypso? Romulus won't be there, I believe Calypso is to be his eyes and ears at Hogwarts. This would also allow Calypso more exposure to the people from the Potter's social circle to make a good impression. On top of that, I doubt Calypso would be happy to be separated from the Harry for the year, or to know that Harry could be in danger while she is countries away.

Edit:
About the age line, there are many ways that could work. Someone could put his name in (Viktor), he could levitate his paper in, maybe summon the goblet out of the age line and put it in and move the goblet back.
Maybe if he has a smart owl, like Hedwig, I always believed he could have told her to put it in. I don't think the age line would work on animals. Maybe he can even use an Earth Elemental to do it if he can't control animals he transfigures, or, if he advances enough, conjures. He has used the Cruciatus Curse on animals, maybe he'll use the Imperius this time.
I don't think he could break the ward that Dumbledore drew up, but if he does it will probably mean he can make wards. I'd like to see him replace it with a ward that pranks everyone. Like turn anyone over the age of 1 into a 1 year old.

 

"Three dragons fly west" is Karkaroff's hint to his students about the nature of the first task in the Tournament. The three dragons are flown to Scotland from a dragon preserve in Europe.

 

Duel.

Dual.

Get it right.

 

Great chapter, like always.

Now about Romulus intentions on "age line".

From above conversation it's rather clear that Harry will do anything to become a champion/win for Durmstrang. Romulus knows that Harry will find the method to enter and was not against age line, because Harry becoming champion despite the rule preventing him, will make distance between his brother/parents/grandfather, and make him closer to Calypso and Rosier family.
It's my own idea about Romulus intentions regardless age limit.

 

I think y'all are still being too charitable towards Romulus and Calypso. I still haven't ruled out the possibility of them being in this to completely fuck Harry over.

 

It's because we don't want to think about it. At least in Calypso's case. Romulus' words to Karkaroff could suggest that.

@yak
I didn't catch that at all, I thought it was about Harry's little study group going to Hogwarts without Kira. (I know, wishful thinking)

 

A very interesting update.

I find myself curious about a few things. First is Romulus and his attitude towards Karkaroff. Correct me if I'm wrong, but regardless of Rosier's talents and the clout he may have carried from his time as a Death Eater, Karkaroff has far less to lose than Rosier does in their relationship. While Karkaroff may be under threat from former Death Eaters, Rosier has been seemingly enjoying a second lease on life because he's thought to be dead by almost everyone.

I always assumed that he and Karkaroff had an amicable relationship since it always seemed to me that Karkaroff was sheltering Rosier at Durmstrang. What would happen if a known and unrepentant Death Eater like Rosier was found to still be alive by those who fought him in the last war? I'm unsure, but it couldn't be good for the man. In short, it seems like Rosier has more to lose in their relationship than Karkaroff.

Next, I'm wondering what Rosier's reasoning for pushing the age line restriction was. It would be a bit convoluted and tired if he was simply trying to test Harry again. I'm wondering if during his travels he may have gotten wind of a plot at Hogwarts and simply wants to keep Calypso and by extension Harry out of the crossfire. Insisting that Calypso attend would seem to work in the face of that, but there are a number of reasons that Romulus might want Calypso to return to England and get out into the open there. Perhaps he's tired of the Rosiers living in exile and wants Calypso to start making headway back into British wizarding society.

As far as Dumbledore and the age line are concerned, I think you folks who expect Krum to drop his name in or some other simple way of getting around the obstacle to come into play are incredibly naive. In canon the Weasley twins have to try an age potion which fails, which would imply that they tried simpler methods before they got to that point. Canon Dumbledore clearly kept other methods of defeating his age line in mind when he crafted the protections, so I'm sure that The Santi's Dumbledore will do the same.

I'm curious if Dumbledore will have a talk with Harry when he arrives at Hogwarts. I don't think that Dumbledore is foolish enough to buy Harry's "I want to spend time with Nathan" story, and will expect him to try to beat the wards around the cup. I'm just wondering if Dumbledore will try to head off his attempts or if he will just up the ante on the cup's defenses. I doubt that Dumbledore would condone Harry trying to get around the restrictions, especially considering his close relationship with Harry.

On the other hand, perhaps Dumbledore will take the opposite mindset and allow Harry to test his limits? Needless to say I'm looking forward to future updates and hope that you can squeeze some writing time in between classes and studying, The Santi.

 

Thanks for the correction.

Can anyone clarify what the "Three dragons fly west" said by Kosarav meant? I assumed it was the password at the double doors that they arrived at, since in canon Karkaroff had to follow Hagrid to find out what the first Task was. This meant that he didn't know what the task was, so Kosarav couldn't have possibly hinted at the Task, could he?

 

Valid point. But didn't Dumbledore ask Harry if he'd asked an older student to put his name in for him? I don't see why he'd ask if he'd safeguarded against it.

 

Yeah, he did, and I agree - he wouldn't have asked if it wasn't a feasible option.

At the same time, it would be useless for Santi to include the age line in the story if it wasn't going to add anything to the plot. If Harry just has Krum place his name in the goblet, then there's no point for the age line to be in the story in the first place. It could just as easily be written out.

 

If Dumbledore's mind jumped to that immediately then he'd already thought about the possibility of someone doing just that. Rather, I think that Dumbledore asked the question because an older student may have known and been capable of magic that would work on the cup.

 

Awesome chapter. I hope the comment on Aqua Eructo is a foreshadow of what he's going to use to fight dragons. If ever that happens, it's going to be so cool.

 

I don't think he's going to do that, it's supposed to be one of bigger dark arts spells.

But he could be using Fiendfyre on the lake to dry it and get his hostage easily in the second task.

 

I may need to reread, I was sure it was just an advanced weather spell. At least, I thought that's what Harry said in the recent warding scene.

 

The reason for Romulus going for the age line could be mostly unrelated to Harry. Rather, it could be to do with Nathan. Romulus could be aiding Voldemort in his plot to enter Nathan into the Tournament and have him win. Excluding people - including Harry - from the group eligible for entry makes Nathan more likely to win.

 

I reread mentions of this spell and nowhere I can see anything saying that. Harry thinking about it describes it as "one of the more ambitious charms Professor Kosarev said he should try to learn for the tournament" and Calypso says it works somewhat similar to Fiendfyre, but nothing about it being a dark magic.

 

I'm not so sure about this, since the only people the age line would exclude are likely to be unworthy anyways. There may be a dozen people (and that's being pretty generous) at Hogwarts under 17 who could legitimately compete for the champion position. Regardless, the canon plot made age a moot point by assigning Nathan a different school with no competition, and if Romulus was in on it then he'd probably know this.

However, I like to think of Romulus as the canon-Lucius type who realized how good he had it with no bootlicking and cowering to be done. I've yet to see a story where former Death Eaters actively try to forestall Voldemort from returning, but given what I've read so far I think that while his relationship with Calypso is rocky at times, Romulus genuinely does care for her and would prefer to see her grow up in a Voldemort-free world rather than one where she is conscripted into service.