While waiting for the dinner to start, Byers had become friends with Neville, and by extension, he had become familiar with Harry and his group.

"Yes, it's very different," he was introducing the Sorting Ceremony of Ilvermorny to the Gryffindor students at the moment. "I was shocked when I first saw it. On both sides of the main entrance of the castle are statues of the two founders, Isolt Sayre and James Stewart. Through the main entrance is a circular hall, where we sorted the houses..."

He drew a circle on the table to represent the shape of the hall, and then pointed to four small dots.

"See?" Byers pointed to the dots and said, "Those are animal statues representing the four colleges. The freshmen stood in a circle against the wall, waiting for their names to be called. I was standing on the Gordian Knot at the time, and I was terrified. There were faces as nervous as mine all around me. When I looked up, I could see the old students and professors on the terrace on the second floor-"

"What is the Gordian Knot?" Seamus asked with great interest.

Byers showed him the golden knot on his robe: "This is it, the thing used to fasten the school robe. It's complicated, but it's a tradition in our school and everyone has to know how to do it."

"Where was I? Oh, standing on the Goldilocks Knot, and then just waiting to see which magic statue responds... I felt like a year had passed, and luckily the Thunderbird statue responded to me." He said thankfully.

Harry felt the same way, as the sorting took a long time in his first year, but it was because the Sorting Hat strongly recommended that he go to Slytherin, but he insisted on not agreeing, and was finally sorted into Gryffindor.

He couldn't help asking, "Have any freshmen ever encountered two statues responding to them at the same time?"

"There should be." Byers recalled, "But I haven't encountered it. It's very rare... The most famous one is Ms. Seraphina Picquery. At that time, four colleges wanted to recruit her. It turned out that she was worthy of it. She later became the president of the Magical Congress of the United States of America."

"She did a great job when she was in office, but compared with the formulation of the law to protect magical creatures, people still remember her more for resisting pressure and not banning Giggle liquor..."

Hermione said sharply, "For the sake of Dreverence Dane, what is that?"

Byers looked at her in surprise.

"Did I say something wrong?" Hermione asked in a low voice.

"No," Byers said, "You must have seen this name in a book? Dreverence Dane?"

Hermione nodded and said cautiously, "The book says that Dreverence Dane was one of the victims of the Salem witch trials in the 17th century. Her name was later used as a colloquialism to express surprise."

Byers suppressed his laughter and said, "You are right, but that is a word that my grandmother's generation liked to use. The book you read must be old..."

Hermione blushed.

The little Gryffindor wizards around laughed. It was rare to see Miss Know-It-

All make a fool of herself. After the laughter, Ron asked curiously, "So... what is Gulliver?"

...

"Would you like some? Gulliver, it is as old as the Magical Congress, and every sip is the taste of history." Cormac Wilkinson, the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor at Ilvermorny, asked. He was shaking a rough big bottle, and the wine inside made a stirring sound.

Felix shook his head slightly: "I can't stand strong alcohol."

"Young people don't know what's good..." Wilkinson muttered, turned his head, "How about you, Professor Moody, would you like some? Just one sip can make you laugh."

Moody patted the curved bottle on his waist and said in a rough voice: "I only drink my own."

Professor Wilkinson's eyes lit up, and he leaned over and asked: "What's the good stuff?"

"Poor quality alcohol, I'm used to it. I used to take a sip secretly when I was an Auror surveillance." Moody knocked the floor with his cane: "Professor Wilkinson, what do you think of my proposal?"

McGonagall, who was two seats away, turned her head away, unable to bear to look directly at it. She still didn't defend herself, and Professor Moody's "special teaching concept of Defense Against the Dark Arts" was exposed on the first day, without even an extra day of buffer time.

"Oh, uh, this..." Wilkinson's tone became vague, "I didn't expect the teaching style of Hogwarts to be so radical. I heard some rumors before, but now it seems that there should be some misunderstandings..."

He took a big sip of Gulliver, and suddenly his face flushed and he laughed wildly. Then he began to loudly talk about the glory of his ancestors, "Charity Wilkinson! One of the twelve Aurors of the United States! She is my great-great-great-grandmother, one of the only two who survived to old age..."

At the end of the dinner, he was carried out of the castle by four goblins and followed the Ilvermorny delegation to the temporary camp on the Quidditch field.

From time to time, the students of Hogwarts could still hear his drunken voice, floating in the black night sky-"Cheers to Charity Wilkinson!", "Cheers to Cedar Fontana!", "Cheers to the twelve Aurors!"

"He looks very angry, the headmaster of Ilvermorny." Felix said jokingly.

The headmaster of Ilvermorny is a very law-abiding person, but Professor Wilkinson's performance today is a bit embarrassing. Perhaps more embarrassing is that this professor was carried away by the cold-faced goblins without any sense, which is really contrary to the subject he teaches...

Professor McGonagall, who always had a serious expression, laughed.

But immediately she frowned and said sadly: "I am worried that Professor Moody will cause trouble..."

Her worries became a reality.

In the new week, Moody did not care about the feelings of the new Ilvermorny students. He used the malicious transfer spell in the seventh-year class. The students' noses were grafted onto plants, bottles, books and all kinds of strange things.

He roared in a rough voice: "Some of you were picked out and passed the test of fear... Yes, you think you are great... But in my opinion, it's all an illusion! Petty! We have to try the real thing, huh?"

His fake eye rolled around and stared at the students in the class, including those Ilvermorny transfer students.

Collins Foley covered his face, tears welling up in his eyes, and waved his wand desperately. After a while -

"Bang!"

The effect of the spell disappeared. Collins covered his intact nose, and the stone in his heart finally fell.

"Well done!" Moody limped over, "Look, this is the effect I want. You must learn how to transfer evil spells and learn how to break them. Slytherin plus ten points!"

In the afternoon, Felix was looking through the roster in the Ancient Magic Classroom.

"Why are there two missing?"

He looked at Byers, who hesitantly said, "They, they are not feeling well, lying in the camp..."

Felix understood, maybe they were scared by Moody's curse? But there was no need to skip his class.

"Okay, classmates," he glanced around, "let's start the class. In view of the various eye-catching activities this year, your minds are bound to be distracted... Let's work harder and try to finish this school year's courses before the first project begins."

The little wizards below did not react much, their learning progress has always been ahead of the times. This kind of "ahead" is relative to the assessment standards of the Ministry of Magic's Wizard Examination Administration, which is responsible for organizing students' OWLs and NEWTs level exams.

Since Professor Hepp took office, the little wizards' ancient magic scores have soared. Among the students who graduated at the end of June this year, except for one who only got a good (E), the rest got the highest level of excellence (O).

According to the professor, "The Ministry of Magic is too slow to react, but you can't always expect them to turn a blind eye. After all, a long list of 'excellent' is still very conspicuous..."

"Maybe one day they will remember this matter and come to Hogwarts to re-evaluate the difficulty of the course and the assessment standards."

...

The students of Ilvermorny looked around in surprise. The Hogwarts students seemed to have no objection to what Professor Hep said. This made them wonder if they had misheard. Did he really intend to learn a whole year's content in three months?

"Professor, do you know the time of the first event?" A student raised his hand and asked.

"It should be between late November and early December," Felix said, "First, we need to leave enough time for the warriors to prepare, and second, it is best not to delay the Christmas ball. The time period I just mentioned almost meets this requirement."

He tapped the table lightly and pulled the students into the thinking classroom.

...

A week passed unknowingly, and the students of Ilvermorny merged into the ocean like a drop of water. Even if there were occasional waves, they did not cause any trouble. At the professors' meeting on Friday, Professor McGonagall dropped two bombs.

"First, the Ministry of Magic has agreed on a list of dark magic that can be used 'reasonably' in the tournament." As she spoke, pieces of parchment floated toward the professors present.

Felix looked at the long list of spells written in black ink and fell into deep thought.

"Second, the Ilvermorny delegation asked us if we could allow the two schools' prospective warriors to learn from each other and practice, including getting familiar with and resisting the dark magic listed above."

She said expressionlessly, "Let's discuss it."