"Mr. Knight, Miss Granger, would you please satisfy my curiosity? Tell me, when you, as it seems to you, of course, guessed the essence of the test, was there really no desire somehow, " Dumbledore waved his hand in the air meaningfully. "To avoid such a fate?"
"There have been thoughts, and more than once," Hermione nodded. "But who else will it be, if not me? I'm sure I can take care of myself in an emergency. Even if I suddenly wake up underwater, I'll just transgress. And as for other possible dangers - well, they won't really decide to bury us if the champion fails the test."
"Merlin, of course not," the Headmaster shook his head negatively, and bells rang indignantly in his beard. "Even if, purely hypothetically, that's what the second round would be, the only threat in the Lake, as you should know, is the grindylow. The mermaids, on the other hand, are friendly and curious, not at all hostile, although outwardly, it may not seem so. The giant squid is the guardian of the castle. All other creatures are not dangerous and are afraid of the wizard even more than he is afraid of them. And it should be understood that with this, I remind you, the hypothetical idea of the tour, there are many emergency evacuation measures.
I decided to continue the conversation:
"Yes, and it's worth understanding that to hinder a tournament with so many interested parties, spent money, efforts, and time of the three ministries and all the rest is not a good recommendation for either me or Hermione. And after all, it's for the sake of building up my reputation that I'm involved in all this."
"What about eternal glory and a thousand galleons?"
"Glory is not eternal, and money can be earned with less risk. Reputation, on the other hand... you should know that it is priceless."
"Right," the headmaster nodded. "Well, I suppose you have no more questions?"
"I have none, Headmaster."
Hermione simply nodded silently.
"Then I dare not detain you any longer, and the lesson is about to begin."
We turned around and headed for the exit. At the very doors, the headmaster called out to us.
"You know," he said, leaning back in his chair and folding his arms on the armrests. "The wizards who explore the watery depths teach a fascinating book, 'Peculiarities of the use of spells in the aquatic environment.' For it is worth remembering that spells work differently in water, and a seemingly harmless spell can cause grievous harm with its unexpected, for the untrained wizard, consequences. I recommend reading it. There are several copies in the library."
"Thank you."
We left the headmaster's office, and literally around the corner, I stopped Hermione by taking her elbow.
"Are you sure you don't want to somehow refuse to participate"
"Max. We already talked about it."
"I know, but I still worry about you."
"So am I worried about you, about participating in the tournament, about the whole thing," Hermione waved her hand indefinitely, and a strand of hair flicked out from behind her ear. The girl immediately put it back in place. "Let's just practice. Especially since we have a solution."
"Portkey," I nodded. As I understood from the headmaster, they probably plan to use them themselves in an emergency."
After this conversation with the headmaster, we returned to our usual routine, perfecting the process of creating portkeys from the junk under our feet, improving our transfiguration skills to automaticity, and in the evenings sitting on the couch in the common room, summing up the day. By the way, the ultimate goal of transfiguration training is to stop thinking about formulas and on reflexes alone, as if that's all I've been doing all my life, to create whatever magical powers are available. Considering that not only can I increase my magic density above the average for a trained adult wizard, but I can also produce more magic per second than human limits, my transfiguration output can be very, very good. And if I launch the Resonance calculated by Hermione in parallel with the second wand, the output stream of magic becomes even greater. And on top of all that, a small increase in magical abilities is also given by hemomancy, but it's not very significant in comparison to all of the above. This summer, I will need to practice a lot in hemomancy.