A few months later…
"Just one month! I promise they won't have a scratch when I return them to you," pleaded Professor Babbling, the Ancient Runes teacher at Hogwarts.
"Sorry, but I can't let you study them. They're not even mine! I just borrowed them this time with great difficulty!" Barnaby repeated once again, frustrated by the ongoing conversation about returning the blitzball rings to the moogles.
For starters, those rings weren't what she thought!
Even if he let her study the rings for fifty years, they wouldn't revolutionize the field of Ancient Runes. If such a thing were possible, he would have already made a preliminary study…
"Ah, Barnaby, I finally found you!" McGonagall appeared from around the corner and approached them. "Am I interrupting something?"
"No, not at all," Barnaby grabbed Minerva's arm and quickly walked away with his savior from this never-ending conversation. "What do you need from me?"
"Is it really necessary to use the Quidditch pitch for the third task?" Minerva asked, sounding somewhat irritated. "We haven't been able to play a single match all year!"
"At this point, it can't be helped," Barnaby shook his head, avoiding her gaze.
He couldn't tell her he did it on purpose, right?
"Alright," Minerva knew there was no point in complaining now, but she couldn't help it—she was a fan of the sport. "By the way, I came to tell you that Moody received the tournament's trophy from Fudge, and he'll be keeping it for now, so when you've finished preparing the third task, you can go fetch it from him."
"Understood?" Barnaby was a bit confused as to why the trophy was at Hogwarts instead of at the Ministry of Magic, but even more so that Moody was the one guarding it instead of Dumbledore.
Not that he was complaining, but something definitely felt off about this.
"I'll go check on everything," Barnaby said as he took his leave.
"You're heading in the wrong direction for the Quidditch pitch!" Minerva kindly reminded him, thinking he might be too distracted.
"I know, don't worry!" He waved his hand.
It's just that if he went the short way, he'd run into Professor Babbling again!
After making sure he wouldn't be ambushed by anyone else, Barnaby took a detour before entering the stadium, where someone had been helping him prepare the third task.
"Ramiris!"
A creature resembling a flat-chested fairy, small enough to rest on a flower, with golden eyes and blonde hair tied into pigtails, turned towards the voice.
"Barnaby!" Ramiris stopped fiddling with the foundations of the maze and quickly flew over to him. "Did you bring me more pancakes with whipped cream, syrup, and strawberries?" she asked, drooling with a blissful expression.
"Sanshi is finishing them up right now. How's the maze coming along?"
Barnaby had given her a detailed plan of the maze he wanted to create and later asked his father and Scamander to help place some creatures inside to make the final task more challenging.
But Ramiris kept adding things or making changes whenever she felt like it, so he had to supervise her and offer sweets to get her back on track with the maze.
The maze was supposed to be a shifting one, with creatures, a few traps, and some plants that he had secretly asked Aunt Pomona to prepare.
But Ramiris wanted to make some sort of ten-story dungeon!
Barnaby did a quick calculation and realized that if they really went with her plan, the champions would have to spend at least a week trying to get through the enormous maze.
So that idea was naturally vetoed.
A simple maze is more than enough!
"Hum, hum, it's a piece of cake!" Ramiris puffed out her chest—nonexistent as it was.
"You didn't add more mimics again, did you?" Barnaby asked suspiciously. "It'd be the third time!"
"What?! Pfff, no... not at all, how could I?" Ramiris replied, nervously tapping her index fingers together.
Not like she had forgotten about it.
"If I go in and find a mimic, you won't get any sweet pancakes."
"Ah! Wait, wait a moment!" Ramiris spread her arms wide, blocking Barnaby from trying to check inside. "You can't go in!"
"Why not?"
"Because... I've got my laundry hanging in there to dry, and I don't want you to see my underwear!"
"Ramiris, you don't wear underwear."
"Well, that's true, but..." Ramiris scratched the back of her neck, and it took her a moment to realize the issue. "How did you know?! Ecchi! Pervert!" she cried, hugging herself dramatically as if fearing Barnaby would do something next.
Barnaby stared at her impassively, knowing that reacting to Ramiris' antics would only give her more fuel to keep going.
As for how he knew that strange fact?
Ramiris herself had blurted it out during a meal at his house last week while chatting with Sanshi about why she didn't wear clothes, causing Tonks to choke on her food when she overheard.
Ramiris seemed to remember this detail a few moments later.
"Alright, I'll fix it right away..." Ramiris dropped her head in defeat when she realized Barnaby wasn't biting.
"If you're fast enough, I'll add chocolate chips to the pancakes."
Ramiris' eyes turned into chocolate at the mention, and she quickly set to work, removing all the mimics she had conjured with her magic.
Barnaby watched, amused and exasperated. Why were she and Bailu so similar when it came to food?
"Should I put some kind of mechanism in the final room where the tournament trophy will be?" Barnaby pondered aloud. "Maybe a surprise trap, as a lesson that the closer they are to success, the more careful they should be..."
As Barnaby thought about giving the champions another surprise, Ramiris returned and urged him to go eat, so he had to set the idea aside for now.
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I'm going to have a bit of irregular internet for a few days, so I'll skip ahead to chapters just in case.