Preparations

England's winter chilled to the bone, but Hermione had warmed the smooth silver pocket watch in her hands.

The two hands, equal in length, both pointed to "school." When the portraits came together, the two figures in the moving magical photographs stepped into the same frame.

Hermione carefully tucked the watch into her innermost pocket and sat in the Gryffindor common room. Firelight danced across her face, and her smile was just as warm.

Eli huddled by the fire in the Slytherin Common Room. He and the others rubbed their hands together and breathed on them now and then.

A snowball fight in winter was straight out of a fairy tale, but fairy tales never mentioned hands freezing into pig's trotters. Nor did anyone in them stuff snow down someone else's collar.

Eli had started that nasty trend, packing ice chips into snowballs and shoving snow down people's clothes.

As the instigator, he naturally got mobbed in return.

After the group finished tearing around in the snow and returned to the castle, the cold caught up with them. Before long, they all had runny noses.

"Sniff..." Eli wiped his nose and pulled a letter from his pocket with trembling hands.

He had gone to the Owlery and collected the letter Klein had sent.

Voldemort's resurrection was imminent. There was no time to lose in infiltrating the Pure-blood Families.

Only profit could win over the Pure-blood Families. Eli had nearly gained control of an enormous source of it, but because he hadn't thought things through, the Phoenix Potion Shop was still barely limping along.

Eli had no doubt about the Pure-blood Families' greed for profit. Not even Voldemort's power could change that.

Voldemort's strength was beyond question. Without Dumbledore, there was no wizard in today's Wizarding World who could stand against