Chapter 62.4- Doom Days

“Not in the slightest. Your performances have been outliers by all metrics. You should not have beaten Miss Kuzetsova. And definitely not so easily. You should not have beaten Mr. Serrano either. And against Mr. Volkov? You should have had no chance in hell”

“Well, I think you’re just late to the party. The whole world got used to seeing me do the impossible during the triwizard. Just accept that I am better than you thought and move on. I don’t think obsessing this strongly over it is doing you any good”

“You see, I took into account everything you displayed at the triwizard. My arithmatic models are flawless. You had no business beating them because the you that participated in the Triwizard tournament should have washed out of this tournament in the early stages. Not shamefully, but not anything to write home about either way.” He said.

“You set up the pairings, didn’t you?” I accused. He sounded way too sure. It was almost like he had taken the possibility of luck out of the system entirely.

“Most assuredly. Do I look like an idiot to you? Would I have left the spectacle of the tournament up to you duelists and pure chance? No. I had to engineer things to keep every part of the tournament as entertaining as possible. This tournament is going to go down in history as the greatest spectacle the wizarding world as a whole got the privilege of witnessing.” He said, sounding a bit too full of himself as he did so, but since he was n a talkative mood.

“For you to script the matches so precisely, then you would have to have unnaturally large amounts of information about every single person here. Weren’t we over a thousand?”

“It was no easy feat. So you can imagine how displeased I am to have an unseen wrench mucking about in the middle of my plans like a bull in a chine shop. “

“So you somehow managed to gather information on everyone likely to compete and then used that to figure out who would win when faced with who. But to what end? A more entertaining tournament? That’s all?”

“There is magic in joy, Mr. Potter. And this is the best place in the world to make people happy” He said, with the kind of tone that said he knew something that I didn’t. I didn’t particularly care though.

“Okay, then you’ll make them happy with my victory all the same.”

“Maybe I could, but not with you acting thus. If I want to sell you as champion then you’re going to have to work with me. No more turning your nose up at our sponsors, maybe engage with the crowd after your duel”

“Shouldn’t you be telling Okonkwo this as well?”

“She needs no guidance. Her people’s needs means she understands the importance of playing ball far better than any speech I could give her would. Now the question, Mr Potter, will you comply?” He stretched out his hand.

“Sure” I said, taking it, lying through my teeth.