The Empress of Magic

Chapter 116 : A Declaration of War

For the following two weeks not a word of Celestia's father was uttered by those who had been present during that faithful meeting, and things slowly began returning to normal in the with their days spent learning, training, and preparing for whatever Zeus had in store for them.

As far as training went, most students had already been placed in their corresponding programs, divided according to the observations made on their skills and talents, which meant Celestia nowadays switched between teaching the Mystic Arts and helping Nicolas explain the complex structure that was their hand made security and spy system.

Each held more than a few hundred students and even more adults, something the half-Veela would have cursed her ancestors to hell for if it hadn't proved to be so thrilling to her long-since unquenched thirst for new knowledge.

Perhaps it was the ADHD having taken over the better part of her brain after she had to switch her medication, but ever since the start of the school year, there was not a single chance for her to indulge in her usual hobbies, which may or may not have caused her to combine said activities of experimenting and creating possible deadly trinkets with her task of training and re-educating those following her example.

It was probably a good thing Regulus had long since gotten used to the sight of her in what he considered her ' mad scientist hours ' because of the number of times he had found her covered in machine oil, dust, and grease stains while running on nothing but a coffee, her meds and a bowl of seaweed and rice that Aelius or Hunter had forced down her throat at one point or another, had increased exponentially.

In his mind, finding her looking like she had tumbled down a hill covered head to toe in various dirt stains but happy was better than her shutting herself in her office and refusing to see anyone.

At least like this, he knew she was coping as well as one could with the news of her father.

Hermione, after having joined both groups taught by the half-Veela personally had quickly learned to embrace her artistic and at times experimental side, much to the chagrin of a great many Gryffindors who were now stuck with her and Seamus using their common room to create what could only be described as an explosive mayhem.

Harry was sure if they tried hard enough the two of them combined could easily manage to accidentally design a bomb that could rival the destruction caused by several Pipe bombs. He had no idea where her sudden enthusiasm for weaponry, especially ones of mass destruction, came from, but she was glued to Celestia's side whenever the Ravenclaw was introducing them to certain machinery and seemed intrigued when shown the complexity of Ace's prosthetic leg and Lylla's robotic arms.

As for himself he was one of the three sole Hogwarts students that had shown great potential for Alchemy and cursed Rune reading, something he mostly had the voices in the back of his mind to thank for since they all but forced the answers out of his mouth, but so far studying under Perenelle Flamel proved to be the most fun he had had since... well... ever. If one didn't account for the scolding of a lifetime he had received from his cousin and her frightening childhood friend who liked to switch moods like others would clothes upon the revelation that he had been hearing those voices since that day at the graveyard, then everything was going pretty good in his life for a change.

For his own peace of mind, he and quite a few others pretended that all these preparations and added lessons were in fact not taking place because literal gods were on their way to kill them all and war was slowly but surely edging closer by the day.

As the first Quidditch match of the season, Gryffindor versus Slytherin, drew nearer, the gloomy mood that had befallen Hogwarts after the revelations of the upcoming battle shifted into one of excitement and eagerness. The fact that the Quidditch Cup had not been held for so long added considerably to the interest and excitement surrounding the forthcoming game; the Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs were taking a lively interest in the outcome, for they, of course, would be playing both teams over the coming year; and the Heads of House of the competing teams, though they attempted to disguise it under a decent pretense of sportsmanship, were determined to see their own side victorious.