Chapter 321: Gratitude from the Longbottom family (2 in 1)

Chapter 321: Gratitude from the Longbottom family (2 in 1)

"Actually you can change your thinking, the small range of emission is not a problem, as long as you can make this antenna (pointing at the Broom Hunter that George is holding with a serious look on his face) effective against any model of flying broom, and then just make it flyable, you can basically be able to make it reach the flying range of a broom and create a zone of no aerial traffic by flying brooms."

Hearing Jon say this immediately made George, who was primarily responsible for the development of this thing, brighten up.

It would be difficult to expand its spell range, but if it could be made to fly then there would be no difficulty, and the only difficulty now would be in improving it so that it would work on all models of flying brooms.

But George and Fred were not in the mood to think about that at the moment, what really concerned them at the moment was Jon's attitude, and the fact that he had just made the suggestion clearly showed that he was not resistant to their research.

"So y-you are agreeing to help us keep it a secret?"

Jon said with a headache as he rubbed his temples.

"It's not a matter of helping you keep it a secret, as long as you remain at Hogwarts and in your Burrow, sooner or later the adults would find this out. And none of the things you guys are coming up with now are small tricks, can you really be sure that every experiment you do won't go wrong? And what to do if something does go wrong?"

George and Fred looked at each other, and Fred cleared his throat and said.

"We've certainly thought about these things, at home, we were both just conducting experiments that we were sure that has no risk, and we'd only be home for a short while, like Ron, this was our second time here."

"As for the day sooner or later when the adults will find out..."

Fred scratched his head, clearly, he hadn't even thought seriously about it before, or subconsciously avoided this question.

"Let's wait until the day we get found out, the most Mum will do anyway is give us a lecture and send us to the backyard to do the weeding."

Jon, however, saw through his thoughts and knew that he was actually avoiding it.

"You can't keep it to yourself all the time, or you guys didn't plan on telling Professor Dumbledore about these fine alchemical items once they would become fully developed?"

"Of course, it has crossed my mind." To that, George answered with certainty, "We had planned to come up with these things in the first place to help take the pressure off the professors and my family, but at that point, we were both still doing some minor fiddling and Professor McGonagall had always thought we were working on some sort of joke props, and even if we told them, they wouldn't have believed us unless we could come up with the finished product. "

The Weasley twins had never been any sort of fools, they were smarter than anyone else. They knew full well that they had no credibility in the minds of their professors, and that to regain such credibility they needed to show it through their actions.

As for those in Durmstrang, it was the first time they had met the twins, so they never knew what they had done before, that Mr Alpha, the librarian, did have a brilliant eye to discern talent, and Grindelwald had quite the drive and determination to offer an olive branch even to a Hogwarts student.

Well, just as he had been able to force Jon to be appointed as Durmstrang Professor of Transfiguration.

Jon looked at the 'Anti-Disarming Wand' and then turned his attention back to George and Fred.

"Although I think you have produced enough to change the minds of Professor Dumbledore and the others now, it seems that you yourselves feel that you still need time to prepare. This is not all that much of a disadvantage to you, you have signed a contract with Durmstrang for that anyway, and there is no shortage of support and aid, so let's wait until you are both all ready first and then surprise everyone."

There was a look of excitement in the eyes of both Fred and George.

"Of course, we will prepare a big surprise, honestly Jon, we have so many other ideas waiting to be tried out, things like this fake wand and the half-finished broomstick hunter are just some preliminary experiments, when we get the real results out, we will certainly blow everyone out of their minds!"

They made grand promises and Jon did believe the two had it in them.

Sometimes you had to admit that the thing called talent was just innate, Arthur excelled at alchemical transformation otherwise he wouldn't have been able to so successfully transform a Ford car into a magic car, and George and Fred had inherited exactly that kind of talent from him.

Both had researched varieties of joke magical props in the original book, but the difference in times brought out different versions of themselves.

Now it is their time to show off their talents.

"Neville and I are friends, Mr Longbottom." Jon said softly, "And they both truly deserved to die no matter what."

"Their crimes are enough for them to die a thousand times over, but whether you did that to avenge us or not, it's indisputable that you are the one who avenged us." Frank raised his head, and it seemed like he could see that Jon was being a little uncomfortable, "We won't keep our favours at bay, and it won't change the friendship between Neville and you over this, but if you need any help over whatever may come your way, please do come and tell the Longbottoms."

His words were sincere and Jon could sense the seriousness in them, so he nodded solemnly.

"I will."

A smile appeared on Frank's face as if Jon's acceptance of the Longbottoms' gratitude was part of the purpose of his outing.

"Well, now that everything that needs to be said has been said, let's take a seat and have a quick meal, Frank, the kids are waiting impatiently and if we wait any longer we will all probably be able to proceed straight to our dinner arrangement."

Molly pulled Frank down to a chair and Neville hammered Jon on the shoulder, then followed suit and sat down at the table.

For the Europeans' dinner was the time for a truly big meal, so they had arranged for tonight's dinner to be served in the first seaside city where their trip would begin, and lunch was arranged at this Lyon wizard tavern with a fairly hearty French meal.

It was rare for so many people to get together and relax like this, whether it was for the Weasleys or the Longbottoms, or Hermione and Jon for that matter.

Hermione and Ginny were teaching Gabrielle how to style her hair; George and Fred were muttering and whispering to each other, keeping out of sight of the others and occasionally winking at Jon; Molly was asking her eldest son if he had any girls he might be fond of at the moment, and if he didn't know how to pursue a girl, as a mother, she could teach him.

Arthur, Charlie and Frank were discussing the fate of the Romanian Dragon Sanctuary, which someone had recently managed to acquire, and Neville was telling Jon and Ron about how bored he had been at home alone since the start of the summer holidays, and how he had asked his dad to let him stay with the Weasleys until the next academic year, no matter what, once the trip was over.

"I heard that all the tasks and time for the Triwizard Tournament have been finalised and that Professor Dumbledore just made a trip to Britain a while ago to finish all the preparations before the tournament started."

Neville had learned some of the inside stories at home and whispered to Jon.

"I've heard that the International Confederation of Wizards has also selected three judges, and not only are these men not from Europe, but they are all half-bloods, ensuring that they won't be pulled in by either side. But the list of judges hasn't been announced yet, it looks like they won't announce it until the day of the tournament."

Jon blinked, he was actually quite curious if this International Confederation of Wizards would include any wizards from his previous life's homeland.

"Any word on where the three judges are coming from?"

Neville shook his head.

"Not really, just heard rumours that the three judges were sent over by one wizard each from America, Asia and Africa."

Ron said with a grimace.

"Actually, if you ask me, it doesn't matter where the judges are from, but the tournament shouldn't be held at Hogwarts Castle, it's the Dark Lord's home base now, so if he really wanted to pull a trick on everyone else, wouldn't it be easy? I really don't know why Professor Dumbledore agreed to this in the first place."

In response, Jon, who had actually been to Hogwarts Castle and knew something of the inside story, shook his head and said.

"Don't look at the Dark Lord being Headmaster of that Hogwarts castle, that school isn't necessarily his territory."

----

Thanks for all your love and support.

Read advance chapters on P@treon. If you have some extra pocket money, Support me at P@treon: /Crazy_Cat.

Happy Reading!!!