For three weeks running, Professor Lupin, Professor Moody, and Professor Flitwick had all found time in their busy schedules to hold meetings of the Duelling Club, mainly to give sixth- and seventh-year students remedial lessons in using magic.
After all, although those two years had advanced to the advanced classes, apart from learning something worthwhile last year, their Defense Against the Dark Arts lessons in the two years before that had taught them next to nothing.
Beauxbatons aside, Durmstrang actually taught Dark Magic.
The main reason they were giving sixth and seventh years extra instruction was that they believed Hogwarts' champion would, under normal circumstances, come from one of those two years.
That was reasonable. After all, magical ability was one assessment criterion no champion could get around. Under normal circumstances, sixth- and seventh-year students were certainly more capable at magic than younger students, often by a considerable margin.
Harry and Ron, however, reserved judgment on that. Both felt that their magical abilities could easily match or even surpass those of sixth- and seventh-year students.
Of course, there was no need to say so. They could simply enter when the time came to select the champions.
Even if it was only for a year without homework and top marks in all their final exams, Harry and Ron had decided to give it their best shot.
Almost every student in the school was looking forward to the Triwizard Tournament. What they looked forward to, however, differed. The older students who had confidence in themselves hoped to become champions.
The younger students-most of them, at least-were more excited about the foreign students.
They were very curious about what students from other schools were like, even if those schools were Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, names they had long since heard more times than they