The teacher’s staff room was filled to the brim with the teachers as Dumbledore entered with his entourage. Following him were Ludovic Bagman, Head of the Department of Magical Sports at the MoM and Dolores Umbridge, Chief undersecretary of the ministry and acting Head of the Department of International Relations. It was the middle of the summer break and this was one of the last meetings which would take place between the Ministry representatives and the School. There had been the need to schedule a few extra ones after the accusations against the previous Head of the Department of International Relations and his eventual arrest to bring his temporary replacement up to snuff.

Madam Umbridge’s reputation had preceded her and the school teachers didn’t take long to realize that all the rumors about her vile character and bigoted tendencies had more than just a kernel of truth in them. If not for anything else, the staff were highly respectful of their Charms master and her apparent dislike and disgust of him due to his half-breed status made them quite enraged. She had never been the brightest student either and the teachers didn’t have any particularly fond memories of her. Nevertheless, she was the acting Head of that department and would take over part of the Ministry duties for the Triwizard tournament.

On the topic of the Triwizard tournament, none of the teachers were too excited about its return, no matter the storied history it had or the prestige it won for the winning school. The tournament was the reason for the death of many students in the past and even with the new protections in place, it was rather easy for something to go very wrong. They had no say in the matter however and all they could do was to participate in the discussions and make it as safe for the students as possible. Minerva McGonagall in particular was livid, she was not one to let any of her lion cubs come to harm if she could help it and by extension the rest of the school as well. Pomona Sprout was the quintessential Hufflepuff and even the thought of one of her own, whether it be her badgers or the school as a whole being in any danger was anathema to her.

“Welcome to the ministry representatives. We, the staff of Hogwarts are glad to have you here and look forward to hosting you during the duration of the Triwizard tournament. I believe most of our discussions are over and we be having the last of our meetings for the same today.” Albus Dumbledore said to open the meetings.

Though if anyone bothered to have a look at the faces of the staff, they would definitely not think they were as glad to have the ministry reps here as might have been suggested by their headmaster.

Dolores took the stage now. “You are right about that, but we still have a few things we need to get hammered out. We are still not done completely in our talks with those mermen and some of the approvals for bringing in class XXXXX still has to go through. Cornelius will have to let the muggle minister know that we will be getting them into the country as well. And what is the final consensus for the participant qualifications?”

“I have spoken to the Mermen and they have agreed to do their part, madam Umbridge. And I am sure Cornelius will be able to handle his side of matters. After all, the tournament does not only reflect upon Hogwarts but Britain as a whole. In fact, it was the ministry that pushed for the tournament to be reinstated, led by the ex-head of the International Relations Department. And the final consensus of the teachers of Hogwarts remains unchanged Madam Umbridge, we have decided to only let those seventeen and above in age to take the field to prove their worth in the tournament.” Dumbledore answered calmly.

Dumbledore was not quite right when he laid the onus of spearheading the reinstatement solely on Barty Sr. though. He himself had been behind a lot of the pressure for it to be reinstated. Not only would it bring some much-needed good press to Hogwarts and Britain, which it sorely needed at the moment, but it would possibly give him the opportunity to lure Tom out into the open. He knew about Voldemort being on the move again, the darkening mark on Severus’ forearm had seen to that, but he had no idea what his plans were at the moment. And that was never a pleasant thing to contemplate when it came to Tom Riddle. He was never one to just hunker down and bide his time and it was making Dumbledore rather uneasy when he did so now. The tournament, just like the World Cup some time ago would be a rather grand affair and would have good chances of drawing Tom out from whatever hole he had hidden in.

“But the ministry feels that we aren’t doing right by the students by curtailing their opportunities like this. There are bound to be students in the lower years who wish to at least enter their names for the tournament if not be selected in it. There will be many in the more ‘upstanding families of our society’ who have the training and skill required to participate in the tournament. If we have a powerful magical object like the Goblet of Fire here as a unbiased judge, who are we to place our own restrictions on the participating students.”

Dumbledore sighed. He didn’t have to put up with all this when Barty was here at least. The man may be a stickler for the rules but at least he had his own mind. This woman was practically spouting out whatever the pure-bloods wanted her to say. He could practically smell Malfoy’s hand behind this. The pure-bloods must not have liked their heirs being unable to participate due to something as mundane as their age.

Minerva chose to speak up then. “You wish to put students who barely have the skill set to participate in the tournament where there is a risk of crippling injuries or even death? And who will take responsibility? Because I sure as hell don’t think it will be the Minister putting his neck out on the line like that in case of an incident.”

Flitwick also had his own piece to say. “There is no way the ministry will do so. They will likely try to foist it off on us and claim it is our responsibility. We will be stuck as scapegoats while they walk away from it scot-free. I can agree to relaxing the rules a bit more, but we still need to have some limits as to who can participate.”

Snape seemed indifferent either way. He just gave a slight nod at Flitwick’s suggestion. He was evidently not one to coddle his students.

Umbridge wasn’t too happy but even she realized this is as far as the professors would concede.

“So, assuming the Ministry agrees with this, what are the acceptable qualifications to the professors?”

Minerva once again spoke up. “I vote to allow any students who have passed their OWLs to participate, i.e., the sixth and seventh years.”

Snape gave a slightly sardonic smirk as he said, “I assume you don’t mean 16 and 17-year olds?”

Minerva got a slight blush as she was caught but soldiered through, “It is a matter of their capabilities not just their ages. Wasn’t the discussion we just had about that?”

Snape gave a slight smirk but didn’t push the issue any more. He as well as the rest of the staff knew exactly who was being favored here. Of course, it was Darius. His fame at Hogwarts at the moment was on par with the boy-who-lived Harry Potter. Thankfully, Snape and not to mention the rest of the staff were on quite good terms with Darius and didn’t push the issue. Even they wanted the best of Hogwarts to step forward. Umbridge looked slightly bemused at the sight of staff trying to stop themselves from laughing out loud but she overlooked it since she was at least partially successful. Malfoy Sr. won’t be too happy about this since he wanted his heir to have a attempt at the tournament but at least Slytherin had a slightly greater chance of being selected now, they had barely any viable competitors in the seventh year. Sadly for them, Darius had been overlooked and he had the most to win here.

Bagman was quick to bounce back after the difficult conversation was done with.

“Now that all the little matters are taken care of, shall we finish up the final discussions for the tournament. I am really looking forward to the final round. So many little bits and pieces they had to face before they could have the entire maze planned. And we can finally talk about the changes I asked for the second and third stages. Barty would always put his foot down and refuse and rant about budget and so on, but I really believe we could really take a big step forward if we made efforts in the 2nd and 3rd tasks to make it more viewer friendly. Both of those tasks have the audience merely waiting for the champions to complete their tasks. It wouldn’t be too difficult to get some of those vision spheres from that developer company in Australia, would it?”

“Well that is a matter for the Ministry, not us. But now that the issue about the participating qualifications has been settled, I see no reason that Fudge would not be able to accede to such a small request.

Now, that will be all for today. I hope I speak for everyone here when I say that I hope the tournament will be a roaring success and bring great prestige to both our school and Magical Britain.”

The representatives and staff filed away quickly, Minerva in particular looking pretty jubilant about the outcome of the meeting.

Dumbledore still sat for a while longer in his chair though. He gave a heavy sigh and spoke. “Oh Tom, what are you doing? And what is your plan now? I just hope Harry is able to play his part when the time comes to end your madness.” Saying so the old man finally got up and slowly made his way out of the lounge.