The grinning Lupin and Sirius instantly stopped laughing.
"First of all, Professor Lupin—you pulled some random stray dog off the street at midnight and said you wanted to practice dancing with it. And Sirius... ug.. forget it, as a proper lady, I won't even say yours... for my own sanity." Hermione suddenly remembered something mid-sentence and stopped.
"Thank Merlin's greasy balls..." Sirius let out a relieved breath.
Harry sighed helplessly. If Sirius knew he'd gotten drunk last night and spent half the night crying while clinging to him and cleaning his snot with Hermione's bushy hair that one time, he'd probably be too embarrassed to live.
After breakfast, everyone started packing up their things... well, actually it was mostly Hermione's mountain of books and everyone else's pile of snacks—Kasenhis included.
After all, as someone raised in the modern world with sports and entertainment, staring at a bunch of flying balls darting around in irregular circles in the sky was just a bit too abstract for him.
Compared to that, hugging a giant bag of snacks and munching non-stop felt way better—and at least it had the right atmosphere.
"Ahem, not just eating, mind you. It's also in case the Death Eaters riot." Lupin had already been informed by Dumbledore about this difficult responsibility, and was also told to keep an eye on Kasenhis and Sirius so they didn't cause trouble.
"Don't worry about that," Kasenhis nodded.
"When I bought the tickets, they even included a Portkey straight to the World Cup grounds... and an Apparition map. Which one should we pick?" Sirius asked, pulling out a deep-blue glass orb.
For Kasenhis, neither option was appealing—one involved a hook yanking on his belly button, the other squashing him flat and rolling him through a pipe.
"No helping it. The wizards who invented Apparition and Portkeys were undoubtedly great, but those who came after—including us—clearly aren't. All this time and there's still been no breakthrough in these two forms of spatial magic," Lupin consoled.
"Mhm, let's just give it a try." Kasenhis sighed and reached out to touch the glass orb Portkey.
The others quickly followed suit. For a poor little glass orb, this was a bit much—it was just a ball, not a depressed mushroom.
In the next instant, a strange, abstract force swept over them, leaving everyone instinctively uneasy and fearful. When they opened their eyes again, they were standing in a sparse little grove.
"Let's go. I'll never understand the way other wizards think—why buy a Muggle tent when you could live in a magical tent with three bedrooms and a living room?" Sirius said as he took the lead.
"It's the novelty, I guess. A camping tent gives a feeling you can't get from a mattress... even if it is terribly uncomfortable," Kasenhis muttered, before suddenly realizing something. Normally every camping area should have a stall selling tents. "Wait... where did they even buy the Muggle tents?"
"From some Muggle merchants," Sirius said, but then the realization hit him too. "They're Muggles? Oh no, that's not good, not good at all..."
The two exchanged a glance, and Kasenhis quickly strode over to look around the Muggle stall.
Logically, in a place crawling with wizards, the Ministry should've stationed Aurors and Obliviators—the former to keep wizards from causing trouble after eating and drinking too much, the latter to watch the Muggles constantly and wipe memories as needed.
Sometimes, they even carried the responsibility of protecting Muggles—though, strictly speaking, that should've been the Aurors' job. But compared to the sheer number of wizards swarming around, it wasn't like the Aurors had the energy to cover everything.
Wizards sounded fancy, sure, but their personal qualities were often… questionable.
Unlike those in Western fantasy novels, where becoming a wizard required great wisdom and willpower, here it was mostly about bloodline.
The name sounded impressive, but humans' flaws were all the same—cowardice, temper, drinking, crying, laughing. And once you put a bunch of them together with alcohol, they'd suddenly think they were geniuses and start cooking up all sorts of crazy ideas.
Really, there was no difference at all between them and the Muggle-world losers who wasted away at the pub every day.
Kasenhis glanced around, then quickly used his monocle to spot two keywords. He walked over and tapped a finger.
"Oh, Professor, how'd you find me?" Bryant canceled his Disillusionment Charm, looking a bit resigned.
"Mhm, out on field duty? Aren't you with the Department of Magical Games and Sports?" Kasenhis asked curiously.
"Too many people here. The Obliviators and magical-disaster guys—all the ones with any combat ability—got sent to keep order. Jobs that aren't very dangerous? That falls to the Department of Magical Games and Sports, apparently," Bryant sighed.
"I see. Well, find a way to get that Muggle family out of here," Kasenhis said.
"But… Professor, why?" Bryant asked, utterly confused.
"The intel says some ex–Death Eaters came too. It's not safe for Muggles here," Kasenhis casually lied.
"Then who's going to sell the tents?"
Kasenhis smiled.
Bryant also smiled—though his smile could only be described as truly awful. "Professor, you know me. I can't even do subtraction past two digits, because I don't have enough fingers."
"One tent for one Galleon, or give them away for free. It's not your tents, what are you worrying about?"
"Then, Professor, their money and tents…" Bryant asked instinctively.
"Obviously the Ministry will cover it. Who else, you? Now hurry up—clear that stall with a Muggle-Repelling Charm. Just remember to file the slip afterward so the Ministry can compensate them."
Bryant nodded helplessly. "Then, Professor, the money I make from selling tents…"
"Keep it yourself."
"No problem, Professor." Bryant's expression instantly flipped, and he happily went off to do it.
"Got it done?" Sirius and Lupin asked.
"Yeah. Originally, I figured when the chaos breaks out, as long as we just stick close to the little wizards, the three of us would be enough. But if you add two regular people with no magic, that's stretching us thin. Worst case, they might even mistake us for the enemy, and then who knows how much trouble that'd cause." Kasenhis nodded.
"Hm? What chaos?" Harry and the others, who were off to the side fiddling with how to auto-set up a magical tent, overheard and asked curiously.
"What? You misheard." Kasenhis shook his head.
Right now, he had no intention of warning the young wizards in advance—at least not yet. After all, it wasn't easy to come by a happy occasion like this; better to let them enjoy themselves fully first, then deal with the looming crisis later.
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