When the end-of-class bell rang half an hour earlier than usual, Professor McGonagall's voice resonated through the school's broadcasting system.
"All students are requested to immediately return to their common rooms, put away your books and schoolbags, and assemble in the entrance hall after tidying up your attire!"
Important things must be said three times. In less than five minutes, Professor McGonagall's voice sounded across the broadcast three times over.
Before long, the students successively converged upon the castle's entrance hall, falling into neat, orderly rows under the direction of their respective Heads of House and prefects.
"Weasley, straighten your hat!" Professor McGonagall said sternly to Ron.
Once Ron had adjusted his hat, the senior cat-lady set her sights upon another little lion in the ranks. "Miss Patil, remove that absurd thing from your hair."
Parvati frowned unhappily and pulled a large butterfly hair ornament from the tips of her braids.
The students were hardly strangers to lining up in formation, seeing as all of them had undergone military training.
Though for students above second year, military training had long since become a distant memory.
Presently at Hogwarts, only incoming first-year students were required to undergo military training upon enrollment; all other year levels were exempt.
Kyle did not stand among the ranks of his Hufflepuff house, instead being kept directly by Dumbledore's side.
Fearing that his adoptive son might stir up trouble, Dumbledore felt he had to keep him under personal watch to truly rest easy.
"Take that thing off!" Dumbledore swept a glance toward his son's chest, where a badge bearing the symbol of the Deathly Hallows was prominently pinned.
Kyle refused without a second thought, "Not a chance."
Hearing this, a vein bulged visibly on Dumbledore's temple.
As the magical school where Grindelwald had studied in his youth, even though forty-nine years had passed since Grindelwald's downfall, a considerable number of students within Durmstrang still bore his influence to this day.
This influence didn't necessarily mean idolization of Grindelwald, as that was something the German Ministry of Magic would hardly look upon with favor.
It was far more likely that their families harbored a blood feud with Grindelwald—for instance, Viktor Krum's grandfather had been murdered by Grindelwald.
For Kyle to be pinning such a badge to his chest right now—Dumbledore couldn't think of any reason other than deliberately picking a fight.
"Are you taking it off or not?" Dumbledore pressed his hand against his anti-Kyle weapon of choice—the Nine Wolves belt.
"Not taking it off." Kyle countered by flashing a shattered piece of the Blood Pact silver jewelry.
Dumbledore's face turned dark in an instant.
This divorce certificate—no, this piece of Blood Pact silver jewelry—had been carried by Dumbledore ever since it shattered during his historic duel with Grindelwald in Bhutan back in 1932.
Its presence in Kyle's hands now harked back to the letter Kyle had dispatched to Grindelwald a short while ago.
At that time, Dumbledore had been staying at Horace Slughorn's residence, reasoning with him using both sentiment and logic to persuade him into handing over that old memory concerning Voldemort's Horcruxes.
Grindelwald dropped straight down from the sky, raining a flurry of punches and kicks upon Horace as a third party.
While beating him, he even shouted, "I am acting on behalf of the heavens!"
Apologies, crossed the wires there.
After beating Horace to a pulp, Grindelwald scooped Dumbledore up and hauled him away.
Naturally, Dumbledore's internal stance was one of refusal; he hadn't yet secured Horace's memory, after all.
And so the two of them started fighting.
This divorce certificate originally kept in Dumbledore's custody had slipped out during the scuffle, and Grindelwald had picked it up.
Grindelwald then turned it into a special Portkey, allowing Kyle to invoke the summon-type forbidden jutsu—Summoning: Grindelwald—at any time and place via the Blood Pact pendant.
That explained precisely why Dumbledore's face turned pitch black the moment he caught sight of that pendant.
Durmstrang's delegation would be arriving very soon.
If he failed to exercise restraint for even a moment and drew the Nine Wolves belt,
And Kyle likewise failed to exercise restraint and summoned the old Dark Lord,
The ensuing spectacle would be magnificent indeed.
Within the span of just a few minutes, the Hogwarts students had straightened out their formations. Had it not been for variations in the students' heights, their positioning alone would have made them look as though they had been copy-pasted.
They were remarkably neat.
The students filed out of the entrance hall in an uninterrupted stream, descending the stone steps without the slightest disruption to their formation.
Finally, they stood in formation right outside the front of the castle.
Evening had already fallen, night was creeping across the sky, and a pale white moon hung suspended above the Forbidden Forest.
The air carried a slight chill, yet the students stood ramrod straight, maintaining their military posture.
Surveying the robust vitality and spirited morale of the students before him, Dumbledore nodded with satisfaction. "Good! Very spirited!"
A tiny black speck suddenly materialized in the starlit sky, streaking rapidly across the deep blue firmament as it flew toward the castle.
As the distance closed, the black speck magnified swiftly within everyone's line of sight, expanding until it transformed into a colossal bulk larger than dozens of broomsticks clustered together.
Standing at the very front of the crowd, Dumbledore gazed upward at the dark shadow in the sky. "Our friends from Beauxbatons are about to arrive."
A mild commotion rippled through the ranks of the first-year new students.
Colin Creevey's younger brother, Dennis Creevey, dropped his jaw wide open in excitement, but before he could utter a sound, Professor McGonagall's stern gaze caused him to snap his mouth shut obediently.
As that bulky black silhouette swept past the treetops of the Forbidden Forest and was illuminated by the lights from the castle windows, the Hogwarts students finally made out what that dark shadow actually was—
It was a gigantic, powder-blue carriage, easily the size of a house.
Twelve winged, silver-maned horses drew it through the air in flight, each horse roughly comparable in size to an elephant.
Students who had taken Care of Magical Creatures instantly recognized what manner of magical creature they were.
The wizarding world possessed four distinct breeds of winged horses tamed by wizards for use as transportation: Abraxans, Aethonians, Granian, and Thestrals.
The carriages used by Hogwarts to transport students on the opening day of term relied on Thestrals for flight.
The horses harnessed to the Beauxbatons carriage, however, were Abraxans.
Twelve Abraxans drew the carriage as it gradually descended in altitude.
While the altitude dropped gradually, the speed did not.
The carriage plunged downward onto the lawn in front of the castle at an extraordinarily rapid velocity.
Kyle would wager that whoever was driving the carriage was certainly an ace pi—no, a seasoned Quidditch veteran, for even when landing at such high speed, the carriage wheels touched down without causing the cabin to violently jerk or sway.
As everyone well knew, during an aircraft's flight, the stages that tested piloting skills most rigorously were takeoff and landing.
Once cruising altitude and stable flight status were achieved, relying on the autopilot system meant one didn't need to fret excessively.
This display of a steady, solid landing clearly demonstrated exceptional flying proficiency.
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