Recaps

Douglas helped turn the Werewolf Academy graduation into a public show of discipline and strength, while Fudge took political credit and Sirius exposed Fenrir Greyback’s death. Meanwhile, Moody trained Harry’s Detective Club to investigate Snape’s theft, as Douglas revealed that he had taken the missing ingredients and recruited Snape into a larger plan.

• At Christmas, Hogwarts students opened gifts from their professors and Douglas, only to find assignments and exams, while Douglas, Sirius, and Lupin reviewed security for the graduation ceremony.
• More than thirty Werewolf Academy graduates marched through Diagon Alley with Moonstone Badges, and Lupin urged them to use their self-control to protect others before they swore an oath and received their certificates.
• Fudge claimed credit for the graduates’ success and promised them support, while Douglas and Sirius recognized that the ceremony had bound him to their welfare.
• Sirius revealed Fenrir Greyback’s corpse and called for Ministry-backed support for werewolf victims, then Lupin sent the graduates’ paper cranes into the sky to form the words “Walk together.”
• Douglas and Sirius arranged for Harry’s Charon Detective Agency to investigate the belongings stolen from Snape, and Harry, Ron, and Hermione struggled to get information from Snape before Moody took charge of their training.
• Moody taught the Detective Club to gather indirect clues and follow a suspect, then helped Harry’s team test a Hufflepuff student and rule him out as a false lead.
• Moody challenged Malfoy to use his Slytherin connections to investigate Snape’s missing belongings, while Douglas met Snape in the Forbidden Forest, apologized for taking the Bicorn horn and African Tree Snake skin, and gave him an obsidian ring.
• Snape agreed to keep acting like a suspicious Head of House while Douglas handled the rest, and the next morning Hogwarts noticed Snape wearing the black ring.

Hermione uncovered signs that Moody was manipulating the investigation, while Douglas and Dumbledore used a controlled crisis to shape the students’ suspicions and prepare the Triwizard Tournament’s second task. Douglas brought the Marauders Power Company and the merpeople into the project, then began a new points system that would turn student support for the champions into a resource.

• Draco reported Snape’s suspiciously ruined Shrinking Solution to Moody, who recorded the reports for the student detectives, but Sirius’s announcement of comprehensive December exams halted their investigation.
• During the exams, Hermione connected Moody’s instructions and reactions to a possible deception, while Harry rejected her suspicion that Moody was the thief.
• Hermione investigated Moody’s reputation and found reports that Karkaroff had been acquitted after naming Death Eaters and that Dumbledore had vouched for Snape, then warned Snape about her theory.
• Snape confronted Dumbledore and Douglas, learned that Douglas was using him and Harry to teach students about misjudgment and draw Voldemort out, and agreed to join the plan if Douglas protected Harry.
• Moody assigned Harry to record Snape and Draco’s interactions, while Douglas’s lessons on disguises and confirmation bias made Hermione more suspicious of Moody even as Harry grew more convinced that Snape was guilty.
• Dumbledore appointed Douglas Special Rules and Safety Adviser for the second task, and Douglas arranged for Sirius’s Marauders Power Company and Silvermane Academy to help build it under a confidentiality agreement.
• When Muriel accused the company of damaging Ancestors’ Reef, Sirius agreed to repair it, give merpeople control over their course, and share song-transmitting technology, bringing merpeople and werewolf engineers together.
• Douglas taught the champions and students about underwater hazards, then worked with Dumbledore to create wisdom and prestige points, including champion votes that could help teams earn clues for the second task.

Hermione formed a Think Tank with the Champions and their friends to uncover the Black Lake’s defenses and prepare for the Second Task. As the teams began covert reconnaissance, Tonks arrived at the construction base seeking Remus Lupin.

• Hermione organized Cedric’s campaign and led Hogwarts students into the points competition, while the Champions began recruiting supporters and drawing clues from the Weasley twins’ blind boxes.
• Hermione’s group pooled contradictory clues and concluded that the Black Lake defenses and their own attempts to investigate them were part of the test, with the Marauders Power Company as their opponent.
• Hermione recruited Harry, Ron, Ginny, Cedric, Pheobe, Krum, and other students into the Contest Strategy Think Tank and assigned them to gather information about the defenses.
• Sirius tasked Fred and George with foiling the Think Tank without injuring anyone, while Douglas planned to use the defenses as a public demonstration of technological magic.
• After Fred and George misled Ron and Ginny with copied Muggle product brochures, Hermione ordered physical reconnaissance of the array and assigned teams to survey the shore, forest, and underwater base.
• Harry and Ernie prepared to probe the array from the Forbidden Forest, while Cedric and Cho practiced moving together under concealment and Pheobe and Krum gathered information about the Obsidian Reef from Slytherins.
• Ron and older Gryffindors set off a portable swamp to distract staff as Hermione coordinated the operation, then warned Harry to stay vigilant after noticing that Dumbledore and most school leaders were absent.
• Tonks arrived at the Black Lake construction base and asked for chief engineer Remus Lupin.

Douglas’s Black Lake defense test humiliated the champions, prompting Hermione to challenge Hogwarts with a fabricated ritual that grew into a chaotic public presentation. Douglas turned the spectacle into a symposium and a launch for Hogwarts’s defensive system, while Marauders Power expanded abroad and began developing new prank countermeasures.

• Tonks joined Lupin in the command tent as Safety Supervisor, and the pair inspected the harmless but humiliating traps before heading out for Butterbeer.
• Cedric and Cho were exposed by singing bubbles, Harry and Ernie fell victim to tickling grass, and Pheobe and Krum defeated the lake’s illusions before the Giant Squid pushed them ashore in bubbles.
• Karkaroff protested the champions’ humiliation, while Madame Maxime requested talks with Marauders Power and Snape began studying the defensive traps.
• Hermione launched “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” using Krum’s rune rubbing to invent a false Black Lake Ecological Resonance Ritual and spread the story through Hogwarts.
• Warrington and two students attacked the lake’s array and were transformed into chirping, feathered figures, while Douglas invited the supposed ritual researchers to present their findings publicly.
• Harry proposed turning the presentation into a magic show, and Hermione organized the champions and their allies to stage a chaotic demonstration that ended with them hailed as heroes.
• Douglas reframed the spectacle as an academic demonstration and presented the Black Lake Long-Range Defense Magic Array, outlining a new magical system that impressed Dumbledore and Madame Maxime.
• Sirius told Douglas that Marauders Power had secured a security consultancy contract with Italy and that Hogwarts and Uagadou would host the inaugural Horus Cup.
• Hogwarts announced Bill Weasley’s appointment to lead its Egyptian field base, and Sirius, Lupin, Tonks, Fred, and George began building prank countermeasures for the school’s defensive array.