The Wilderness Years

Chapter 3: Raising The Stakes

Badeea was talking Artemis through her final design for the Triwizard Maze when the two of them were interrupted by the unwanted presence of Thomasina Thistlethwaite.

"What do you want?" Artemis asked Thomasina, who did not flinch at her impolite tone.

"Mr Bagman would like to speak to you about something in his office," she replied. "Artemis, that is."

Artemis shrugged at Badeea and looked straight past Thomasina as she got out of her seat and left the room in search of Ludo, who had his own private office. She made her way straight there and found him sitting at his desk, a cabinet full of trophies on the wall behind him.

"Ah, Hexley! There you are," he boomed, and held out both his fists to her. "Guess which one the Galleon is in."

Artemis looked from his hands to his face before answering: "Left."

"Bingo! Every time. By Jove, you may well have me bankrupt by the end of the year."

"Is that the only reason you wanted me to come in?" Artemis asked him, taking the Galleon from his hand.

"What? Oh, no. No, I actually have a job for you," said Ludo. He rifled through a pile of paperwork on his desk and held up a file with the word 'confidential' stamped on it in large red letters. "Here. You're used to dealing with import and export procedures. And, from what I remember from your interview, you're a dab hand with creatures, too."

"I guess. Sort of."

"Excellent. Now, in here is a list of all the creatures we need for the tournament. I'd like you to sort out importing and transporting them."

He handed the file to Artemis, who opened it and scanned down the list, feeling a small sting of anger as she read each of the creatures listed, more than half of them the ones that Thomasina had suggested after talking to her. Still, she pushed her annoyance aside. Tonks had been right the previous weekend; if she wanted to best Thomasina, she would just have to work harder and do better.

"I reckon I can do the Sphinx, easy. I still have a couple of friends back at Gringotts' headquarters in Egypt," she said, making a mental note to write to Bill Weasley later that day. "The rest we don't even need to transport. There are plenty of Boggarts at Hogwarts, because they keep them for Defence Against the Dark Arts lessons, and there are already Red Caps and Acromantula in the forest, it's just a case of capturing them. I can talk to Hagrid, the gameskeeper. He'd be able to help, I bet."

"Top job, Hexley. Say, you wouldn't be able to speak Mermish at all, would you?"

"I only know one word. Sorry."

"Shame. I need someone to negotiate with the merpeople for the second challenge. I'll ask old Barty, they say he was into the old lingual activities in his day, so to speak." Bagman winked, and Artemis tried her hardest not to pull a face.

"What about the dragons? Or is that sorted already?"

"We've scrapped the idea of the dragons. Can't get any."

"I have a friend who's a dragonologist. He might be able to get us some, they've got loads on the reserve where he works."

"It's not that there aren't enough," Bagman told her, shaking his head. "There are plenty of dragons in the world, it's just that the laws surrounding anything to do with them are so strict. Even with contacts in the field, we can't bypass that amount of red tape." He sighed deeply. "It is a shame, though. Imagine, dragons. Now, that would be a real challenge, wouldn't it?"

"Maybe it still could be."

"Sadly, Barty says there's no way, and he would know, what with all the work he did for the Council of Magical Law. Ah, well. C'est la vie, as the French would say. Now, heads or tails?"