Recaps

Draco Malfoy planted an Echo Moth in Snape’s office and mistook Snape’s staged behavior for evidence of wrongdoing. Moody praised Draco and recorded his reports, preparing to use them to mislead the other students.

• Draco used the family creation Echo Moth to listen in on Snape’s office and heard broken remarks about betrayal and trust.
• Draco reported the conversation to Moody, who urged him to watch Snape closely in Potions class for visual evidence.
• Snape deliberately spoiled a batch of Shrinking Solution and ordered the class to keep the incident secret, convincing Draco that he was destroying evidence.
• Draco told Moody that Snape had ruined the potion in a suspicious fit, and Moody praised him for proving his value.
• After Draco left, Moody copied the reports into a parchment record and planned to feed the material to the student detectives.

Moody was about to expose the supposed mole when Sirius’s Howler announced that the delayed joint monthly exams would begin the following Monday, forcing the Charon Detective Agency to abandon its investigation for revision. Douglas revealed that he had prepared the exams and told Sirius to let the spell continue a little longer, leaving Moody’s revelation on hold.

• Moody gathered Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ernie, and Hannah in his office and prepared to identify the real mole using Malfoy’s report.
• Sirius’s Howler announced that the December Joint Monthly Examination would cover all term material, suspended club activities, and ordered everyone to revise.
• Hermione dropped the investigation and began packing her schoolbag to prepare for the exams, while Harry and the others worried about their revision.
• News of the exams spread through Hogwarts, alarming Viktor Krum and Fleur Delacour and prompting Fred and George to sell study aids to international students.
• Sirius laughed at Moody’s ruined plans while Douglas marked the exam papers and said Moody would have to wait longer for the truth.

As Hogwarts students turned their attention to monthly exams, Snape prepared a punishing Potions test while the Detective Club’s investigations faded into the background. Draco Malfoy began Moody’s discreet observation mission by approaching Snape with a fabricated question.

• Snape decided to stop pretending to be overwhelmed and picked an advanced toxicity textbook to help prepare his exam.
• Harry returned to his dormitory feeling overwhelmed by the investigation, the upcoming exams, and a mountain of textbooks.
• Students packed the library and reviewed for exams as Professor Flitwick declared that everything taught, untaught, or illustrated in the textbook could be tested.
• Hermione offered Ron her knowledge framework diagram instead of letting him copy her notes, while Harry and Ron struggled to study.
• Professor Douglas named three supposed free-point exam topics, which Hogwarts students marked as dangerous, while Krum and Fleur studied them eagerly.
• Draco Malfoy entered Snape’s office on Moody’s assignment and posed an intentionally foolish question about brewing Sopophorous Beans.

As Hogwarts, Durmstrang, and Beauxbatons began their joint monthly exams, Harry remained focused on Moody’s secret mission rather than his studies. He eagerly tackled Professor Holmes’s Defense Against Dark Magic exam, which ended with a forty-mark strategic analysis question.

• Snape ordered Malfoy to copy a passage a hundred times, humiliating him for neglecting his studies.
• Hermione noticed Harry secretly studying a map and suspected Moody was driving a wedge between him and Ron.
• The night before the exams, Harry decided to finish his papers quickly so he could resume watching for the mole.
• Students from Hogwarts, Durmstrang, and Beauxbatons sat the exams together, beginning with Snape’s difficult Potions paper and McGonagall’s detail-heavy Transfiguration exam.
• Harry confidently answered the theory and combat-simulation questions on Professor Holmes’s Defense Against Dark Magic paper before reaching a final question worth forty marks.

Harry treated the exam question about a leaked investigation as validation of his open-conspiracy strategy, while Hermione used the same question to reconsider Moody’s actions. She concluded that Moody was not investigating but deliberately fomenting chaos, and the chapter ended with her seeing his approving grin as a monster’s smile.

• Harry recognized the exam question as his earlier plan and began writing in defense of strategy A.
• Hermione connected Harry’s secret tasks, Moody’s anger at enforced silence, and his approval of public exposure, concluding that Moody’s actions contradicted an investigator’s instinct for control.
• The exam ended, and Ron invited Harry and Hermione to celebrate with Pumpkin Pasties.
• Hermione remained frozen and stared at Moody as he collected the papers, seeing a monster beneath his heroic appearance.

After the Monthly Exams, Harry told Hermione and Ron that Moody had assigned him to investigate Snape and Karkaroff in exchange for teaching him advanced Auror magic. Hermione argued that Moody’s story was a false lead and accused Moody of being the real thief, leaving Harry furious and storming out.

• Harry revealed that Moody had privately assigned him to investigate Snape and Karkaroff and had claimed both were former Death Eaters.
• Hermione and Ron questioned why Snape or Karkaroff would steal ingredients, and Hermione concluded that Moody might have invented the story to distract them.
• Hermione told Harry she suspected Moody was the real thief.
• Harry angrily rejected Hermione’s accusation, and Ron struggled to choose between their arguments.
• Harry slammed the door as he left, while Hermione stood despondently and Ron remained silent.

Hermione brought her suspicions about Moody to Professor Douglas Holmes, but he praised her analysis and refused to intervene, insisting the Detective Club had to handle its own case. Undeterred, Hermione asked Ron to use Arthur Weasley's Ministry connections to investigate Moody’s background, and Ron agreed to write to his father.

• Hermione spent the night analyzing Moody’s behavior and concluded that she needed an adult’s help investigating him.
• Hermione presented her suspicions to Professor Douglas Holmes and urged him to investigate Moody because she feared Harry and Hogwarts were in danger.
• Douglas praised Hermione’s reasoning but said he would remain an observer and assessor, leaving the Detective Club to solve its own case.
• After leaving Douglas’s office, Hermione decided to investigate Moody’s background herself and approached Ron for help.
• Hermione asked Ron to contact Arthur Weasley through the Ministry of Magic, and Ron agreed while warning that Moody was a Ministry legend.

Hermione struggled to prove that Moody was an impostor, but Arthur Weasley's letter and Moody's impeccable record left her isolated and doubtful. After reconsidering the possibility that Moody was genuine, she found old newspaper reports revealing how Karkaroff and Snape had avoided punishment, and formed a chilling new theory.

• Ron gave Hermione Arthur Weasley's letter describing Moody's heroic Auror career and urging them to value his guidance.
• Hermione remembered that Moody repeatedly caught her following him, while Harry, her friends, and Professor Douglas offered no help.
• After reading that Moody was paranoid about Dark Wizards, Hermione wondered whether he was the real Moody and began investigating Snape and Karkaroff.
• Hermione found a Daily Prophet report that Karkaroff had been acquitted after identifying Death Eaters, including Augustus Rookwood.
• Hermione found a report that Dumbledore had vouched for Snape in court, claiming Snape had spied for their side, and she formed a new theory.

Hermione warned Snape that Moody was targeting him and Karkaroff through vigilante justice. Snape realized Douglas and Dumbledore had suspected Moody and used him as bait, and Hermione left believing her warning had reached him.

• Hermione inferred that Moody was pursuing people he believed guilty and went to Snape's office to warn him.
• Hermione explained her theory to Snape and showed him an old newspaper, without mentioning that she suspected Moody was an impostor.
• Snape connected Hermione's warning to the Ouroboros ring Douglas had given him and concluded that Douglas and Dumbledore had known Moody was dangerous.
• Furious that he and Harry had been used as bait, Snape shoved Hermione out and slammed the office door.
• Hermione left the dungeon, realizing that Snape had understood her warning and turned his anger toward the real enemy.

Douglas explained to Snape that the Moody impersonation was meant to teach Hogwarts students caution and lure Voldemort into revealing his plans. Snape joined the scheme after using the Ouroboros ring to suppress the pain in his left arm, demanding that Douglas protect Harry.

• Snape confronted Dumbledore and demanded to know what Alastor Moody was, then accused Douglas of placing him and Harry in danger.
• Douglas admitted he was using Snape and Harry to teach students about misjudging people and explained that the plan was also meant to draw Voldemort out.
• Dumbledore teased Douglas about his grudge against Moody, who had once tried to recruit him as an Auror.
• Douglas revealed that the controlled crisis was intended to make Voldemort believe his Hogwarts agent had everything under control and expose his next move.
• Snape put on the Ouroboros ring, which stopped the pain in his left arm, and agreed to join the plan on the condition that Douglas protect Harry.
• Snape left without shaking Douglas's hand, and Dumbledore observed that the strongest alliances did not need one.

After the monthly exams, Harry reported his vigilance to Moody, who praised him and assigned him to discreetly watch Snape and Malfoy. Harry left convinced he had become an undercover Auror Apprentice, with Snape and Malfoy as his targets.

• After the monthly exams ended, Harry turned down Ron’s invitation to celebrate and hurried to Moody’s office to report that he had watched Snape and found nothing suspicious.
• Moody praised Harry for staying vigilant, then warned that the lull after exams could be dangerous.
• Moody told Harry that Snape was secretly connected to his trusted student, Draco Malfoy, and Harry agreed with the suspicion.
• Moody gave Harry parchment and a quill and ordered him to discreetly record every abnormal interaction between Snape and Malfoy.
• Harry accepted the assignment and left Moody’s office believing he had become an undercover Auror Apprentice.

Snape confronted Douglas Holmes about whether he had written the Half-Blood Prince story, but Douglas denied it and turned the questioning back on him. Snape’s furious reaction revealed how deeply the story had struck him, while Douglas remained behind, pleased with his prank.

• Snape left the dungeons, suspecting Douglas Holmes had written the Half-Blood Prince story after the meeting in Dumbledore's office.
• Snape hid in a suit of armor’s shadow and stopped Douglas with an Impediment Jinx as he walked past.
• Snape asked Douglas whether he had written the story, and Douglas denied it while claiming he did not read gossip tabloids.
• Douglas suggested Snape feared the article referred to a person Dumbledore had mentioned, prompting Snape to angrily order him to stop speculating.
• Snape fled toward the dungeons, and Douglas watched him go with a pleased smile.

Professor Douglas taught the students how camouflage could make something seem like it naturally belonged, then warned that behavior that never seems out of place could signal a hidden director. Harry took the lesson as confirmation that Snape's familiar nastiness concealed his real motives, while Hermione began to suspect that Moody's heroic image might itself be a carefully constructed script.

• Douglas unveiled tanks of camouflaged magical creatures and organized a classroom game to find them.
• Harry and Ron found a Puffskein disguised as a curled leaf, while Hermione's group used faint air currents to win the game.
• Douglas explained that the most effective disguise made observers accept something as natural, and warned that a presence that never seemed out of place was dangerous.
• Harry concluded that Snape's established behavior was camouflage for lurking at Hogwarts and trusted Moody's theory more strongly.
• Hermione connected Douglas's warning about a perfect script to Moody's seemingly flawless heroic persona and looked at Douglas with alarm.

During a Defense Against Dark Magic lesson, Professor Douglas used a story from his school days to warn Harry and the others about confirmation bias. Harry was left uneasy as he recognized similarities to Moody’s request to investigate Snape and Malfoy.

• Douglas led the students through a chaotic exercise using Summoning Charms to flip over Fire Crabs, then advised them to think about why their spells had gone out of control.
• Douglas casually asked Harry about the Detective Club, and Harry vaguely said they were still observing.
• Douglas told the students that a Potions professor had once falsely accused a Transfiguration professor of stealing a Mandrake, leading Douglas to gather evidence against an innocent teacher.
• Douglas revealed that the Mandrake had been safe in the Potions professor’s greenhouse and that the accusation had been a prank, prompting the students to laugh.
• Douglas explained confirmation bias and warned that people could fit evidence to a conclusion instead of letting evidence guide them; Harry felt uneasy about Moody’s instructions.

Douglas explained that his mandrake story was a fictional example of confirmation bias, while McGonagall and Snape challenged him over its resemblance to their history. Moody took the public dispute as further evidence of Hogwarts’s factions and resolved to uncover Douglas’s secrets before the Triwizard Tournament’s second task.

• Hermione recognized that Moody was exploiting Harry’s confirmation bias, but Harry dismissed Douglas’s warning and took it as a test of his resolve.
• McGonagall challenged Douglas at lunch, saying she had never argued with Snape over Herbology materials.
• Snape demanded to know where Douglas had found inspiration for his story about their supposed disagreement.
• Douglas said the story was fictional and used to teach confirmation bias, comparing it to explaining dragons without bringing a Hungarian Horntail into class.
• Moody observed the professors’ reactions and decided to investigate Douglas’s hidden abilities before the second task.

Professor Sprout interrupted Snape and McGonagall’s dispute by revealing Douglas’s reckless prank as a student, dissolving the confrontation in laughter. A Ministry owl then delivered an invitation for Douglas to join the Triwizard Tournament Committee as Special Rules and Safety Adviser for the second task.

• Harry watched Snape argue with Douglas and grew more convinced that Snape was up to something, while Hermione worried Harry was being led astray.
• Professor Sprout stepped between Snape, McGonagall, and Douglas, then recalled how Douglas had tricked Bill Weasley and Charlie Weasley into approaching a mature Mandrake.
• Professor Sprout told the professors that Charlie had been paralyzed for a day after touching a Mandrake leaf, prompting Flitwick and the others to laugh.
• Douglas admitted that his prank had been wrong, and the laughter brought the argument to an end.
• A Ministry owl delivered Dumbledore a letter inviting Professor Douglas Holmes to serve as Special Rules and Safety Adviser for the Triwizard Tournament’s second task.

Douglas Holmes proposed turning the Black Lake’s second-task venue into an underwater maze and secured control over its design through a secrecy agreement and an outside contract. The meeting ended with Sirius coordinating construction and Percy preparing the official report.

• Douglas proposed adding magical mechanisms and creatures to the underwater task while keeping its objective of retrieving something precious unchanged.
• Douglas introduced a Gringotts-drafted confidentiality agreement, which he, Dumbledore, Karkaroff, Madame Maxime, and Percy signed.
• Douglas named the Marauders Power Company as contractor and Silvermane Academy as its underwater labor partner, prompting Karkaroff to object.
• Sirius defended Silvermane Academy’s involvement as part of a Ministry pilot program for werewolf reemployment and social integration.
• Moody realized the agreement excluded him from the task’s details, while Douglas aimed to bring Sirius and Lupin’s company into mainstream view.
• The committee assigned Douglas control of the second task, Sirius responsibility for construction coordination, and Percy responsibility for the official report.

After Douglas took charge of the second task, Percy told Karkaroff to move the Durmstrang ship, and Karkaroff used powerful alchemy to lift it from the Black Lake. Seeing the preparations, the champions feared what Douglas was planning and agreed to meet; the chapter ends with them preparing to work together.

• Students learned that Douglas would personally design a harder second task, and Cedric, Krum, and Pheobe realized he might be their real opponent.
• Fred and George received notice that they would join the task’s research and development, while Rita Skeeter began pursuing a story about Ministry backing for the Werewolf Company.
• Percy, posing as Mr. Crouch, told Karkaroff that the Durmstrang ship had to leave the Black Lake for construction work.
• Karkaroff refused Hogwarts’s help and used an alchemical array to raise the ship from the lake and set it beside the Quidditch Pitch.
• Fleur, Krum, and Cedric feared the scale of Douglas’s plans, and Cedric proposed that the champions meet instead of working alone.

Cedric, Fleur, and Krum formed an alliance to prepare for the second task, while Moody focused on the third task and his trap for Harry. At Hogwarts, Hermione redirected the Charon Detective Agency from investigating the Black Lake project, and the twins gave the club a new assignment to investigate the champions.

• Cedric, Fleur, and Krum agreed to share underwater magic and help one another if any champion faced danger they could not handle alone.
• Moody watched the champions' meeting and worried that Douglas's involvement in the second task might affect the third task, where he planned to trap Harry.
• Percy reported that Karkaroff had been notified, and Dumbledore laughed off Karkaroff's response.
• Hermione proposed that the Charon Detective Agency investigate the secret project at the Black Lake, but Fred and George refused, citing a magical nondisclosure agreement with the Marauders Power Company.
• Fred and George commissioned the club to investigate Viktor Krum, Fleur Delacour, and Cedric Diggory, and Harry agreed to the new assignment.

Hermione redirected the Detective Club away from Moody’s dangerous scheme but remained troubled by her suspicions about him. While studying underwater magic with Krum, she kept her concerns to herself, and Krum offered to help if she ever faced trouble.

• Moody dismissed the Detective Club’s new mission and urged Harry to investigate Snape and Karkaroff’s meetings, claiming they were connected to a man from the past.
• Hermione saw that the club members were eager to investigate the champions, while Ginny noticed Hermione’s strain and asked whether she was hiding something.
• Pheobe, Krum, and Cedric shared their preparations for the underwater task, including bubble magic, an enchanted rune, and regional Gillyweed knowledge.
• Hermione studied ancient underwater magic in the library and worried that Moody was manipulating Harry and directing suspicion toward Snape.
• Krum discussed underwater magic with Hermione, noticed her worry, and told her she could come to him if she ran into trouble.

Sirius Black and the merpeople chieftainess Muriel negotiated after the Marauders Power Company’s work damaged the Black Lake and Ancestors' Reef. They reached a deal that brought the merpeople into the Triwizard Tournament’s Second Task and made them temporary partners in the construction project.

• Remus Lupin directed werewolf workers while Sirius Black argued with Professor Flitwick over increasing the project’s magical output.
• Muriel arrived with merpeople warriors and accused the company of damaging Ancestors' Reef and breaking its agreement with the merpeople.
• Dumbledore apologized and promised to halt work around the reef, but Muriel rejected Sirius’s offer of goblin-made tridents as compensation.
• Sirius offered the merpeople roles as underwater peace officers and arbiters for the Second Task, and Muriel set conditions for the agreement.
• Sirius accepted the conditions, including repairing the reef, giving the merpeople control of their course, and sharing song-transmitting technology with technical support.
• The merpeople and werewolf engineers began working together on the construction site.

Douglas Holmes framed the Daily Prophet’s coverage of the werewolf workers as marketing, while Sirius and Douglas used the publicity to strengthen their position with the Ministry. Douglas then began a Defense Against Dark Magic lesson on maintaining focus in a dangerous environment, ending as he introduced the next subject.

• Fred and George told Douglas Holmes that parents were protesting the werewolf workers and that the workers felt discouraged, but Douglas said the newspaper coverage was planned marketing.
• Lupin saw himself and his companions portrayed as builders in the Daily Prophet and stood straighter.
• Sirius received Scrimgeour’s angry letter demanding an explanation for publicizing the company, along with a request for a Ministry atrium security-upgrade quotation.
• Sirius and Douglas agreed that the Marauders Power Company had become an independent commercial entity and that the Ministry would have to work with it.
• Douglas tested the class on the Summoning Charm, then created an illusion of the Black Lake and taught the students to use breathing to cast the Calming Charm.
• After Douglas dispelled the illusion, he announced the second subject.

Douglas taught the students how to defeat Abyss Soul-Sucking Algae by striking its magical heart during a brief lapse in its defenses, then compared several ways to breathe underwater. After class, Cedric, Pheobe, and Krum feared that Douglas’s lessons were only basic preparation for a much harder competition.

• Douglas summoned Abyss Soul-Sucking Algae and explained how its magical heart powered its attacks and disrupted spells.
• Douglas demonstrated that a precisely timed Piercing Charm could strike the plant’s core during the gap between heartbeats and disable it.
• Douglas compared the Bubble-Head Charm, Gillyweed, and Transfiguration as methods for breathing underwater, warning the students about each method’s risks.
• After class, Cedric, Pheobe, and Krum met in an abandoned classroom and concluded that Douglas’s lessons were only an entry-level preparation for his competition.

Dumbledore summoned Douglas Holmes to discuss how to motivate Hogwarts students after their monthly exams, and the two devised an individual ranking system based on wisdom points. They began designing rewards for the points, leaving the top-tier prizes undecided.

• Dumbledore studied Muggle educational theories and summoned Douglas Holmes with his Mother-and-Child Summoning Bell to discuss students’ lack of motivation.
• Douglas proposed turning Dumbledore’s individual points system into a competition of wisdom and prestige, and Dumbledore agreed.
• Dumbledore and Douglas created rules for earning wisdom points through class performance, assignments, submissions to the Hogwarts Academic Weekly, and academic assistance.
• Douglas proposed making wisdom points a Hogwarts currency redeemable for rewards, including potion ingredients, detention exemptions, library privileges, supervised Restricted Section borrowing, and private tutoring.
• Douglas began outlining top-tier rewards for students who earned at least 2,000 points, but had not yet revealed what they would be.

Douglas and Dumbledore planned a permanent Hogwarts points system tied to the Triwizard Tournament, with student rewards, champion support votes, and clue blind boxes for the second task. They settled on a strategy to win the other schools’ and Ministry’s support, then toasted the reforms.

• Douglas proposed a monthly wisdom-points reward of a private dinner with Dumbledore and a year-end reward of Wizard’s Chess.
• Douglas argued that his Ministry appointment and Barty Crouch’s ambitions would help overcome Ministry resistance.
• Douglas proposed weekly anonymous champion votes, with votes for Fleur Delacour and Viktor Krum counting three prestige points each and votes for Cedric Diggory counting one.
• Douglas suggested combining wisdom and prestige points into team totals that champions could spend on clue blind boxes for the second task.
• Douglas explained how the rules would appeal to Karkaroff and Madame Maxime, and Dumbledore agreed to begin the reform.