Hermione was tired. Thankfully, it was still winter, and the children from the spring cohort had mostly left for their winter break. Being not only one of only five Arithmancy professors, but also the only guidance counselor for Muggle-born students was weighing on her.

  If it had been only five or six years ago, her job would have been way easier. Hogwarts had always had singular teachers for every subject, and it had always been enough. She'd heard about the sharp rise in the number of Muggle-born children attending Hogwarts every year; hell, she worked adjacent to the department that dealt with them in the Ministry before… that, but it was only when she decided to come back to Hogwarts, this time as a teacher, that she truly learned what it meant.

  Hogwarts was, not only the only school in Europe that enrolled students for free, but also, with the return of the founders and the addition of Professor Emrys and Professor Pendragon, it was one of, if not the best school in the world. All that, along with the rise in the number of wizards, meant that five teachers for a subject—especially a universally relevant one like Arithmancy—was barely enough.

  As she wrapped up today’s last class, she took a closer look at her students. Children of various ages studying AP Arithmetics I.

  If she was honest with herself, she was jealous of them. With the return of the founders and the two new professors, Hogwarts had gone through a total restructuring. Now, it was not just a primary institute that had declined in level for the last fifty or so years—she had seen the test papers from those years. Even the O.W.L.s at that time were harder than the N.E.W.T.s exams she herself had passed with flying colors.—Now, it was more akin to a university, not just a place to learn from a book, but a place to do research, to experiment and gain experience in a safe environment. And this time, it was actually safe, not just riding on a reputation and concealment of errors.

  Considering the level difference between Hogwarts then and now, the only reason she was qualified to teach this class at all was her own independent studies and help from her mentor.

  As she was collecting her books, the sound of steps on the stone floor alerted her to a new presence in the lecture hall.

  "Master!" she said, turning around, having already felt her presence. She was new to this, the ability to feel wizards and magic itself. It was vague at best, normally a small tingling in the back of her mind, but her master's presence was so... Heavy, that even that small tingling turned into an overwhelming sensation, as if you were at the bottom of the ocean.

  "I told you not to call me that. What are we, cultivators?" she said in a not-really-annoyed voice.

  Hermione laughed slightly. "But master, didn't you seal yourself in some cave for two thousand years? That sounds just like those cultivators that I had heard recently appeared in China."

  "Heh," she laughed in response to her disciple. "There is no such thing as a cultivator. Magic doesn’t work like that. Those guys just renamed themselves based on popular modern media."

  Looking at Hermione with an amused expression, she wanted to get to her point when she was interrupted by a knock.

  "Hello?" A small voice was heard. "Professor Granger? I had a problem I wanted to—oh, Professor Pendragon. H-Hello, sorry, are you busy? I can come back later."

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  "Oh, Sarah," Professor Pendragon exclaimed. "Don't worry, I was just asking Professor Granger to meet me in my office after she was done for the day. You can ask your question." After having said her piece, she left Hermione alone to deal with her student’s problem.

  About an hour later, in Professor Pendragon’s office:

  "So? Is this about the goblin incident?" Hermione asked the moment she entered the room.

  "Straight to the point, huh? Yes, it's about them."

  Pendragon, calm as ever, continued while taking a sip of her coffee. Hermione, despite being horrified by her mentor’s habit of consuming absurd amounts of caffeine at night, for once didn’t say anything and just listened.

  "I spoke to the Goblin King. He didn’t actually have too much info, as he had his hands full with the coup in Ireland, but he did confirm that there was something fishy going on in the London branch. Today, it was finally proven when, based on my sources, some witch exchanged 160,000 Galleons' worth of gold, but it was only reported as 50,000 gold and 110,000 other assortments of items, lands, and deeds."

  "Why would they do that? They didn’t actually mess with the price. I would have thought they would report a higher price and take the difference. You know, take advantage of the chaos in Ireland."

  Pendragon smiled. "Do you know why goblins love gold? In actuality, it’s not about money, or material wealth in general. It’s just that, since times old, that has been the easiest, most efficient way of getting their hands on it. Even I didn’t know it until some centuries ago when I went deep into goblin society." She said pausing to take another, long sip of her coffee.

  "Well? What is it?" asked Hermione, now on the edge of her seat.

  Smiling, Pendragon answered, "Artifacts. As I’m sure you’ve learned from Salazar’s lectures, the way different magical races—sapient or not—use or in general interact with magic is different. It has a complex connection with body and bloodline, but it can manifest very differently across different species. This is one of the reasons normal wards can’t hold house-elves: it’s because the way they achieve their magic is different from wizards." She took another incredibly long sip of her coffee, staring Hermione in the eyes when doing it.

  "Stop stalling and get to the point. You know damn well I already know those things." Hermione urged her mentor, before taking on a horrified look.

  "Ha, it’s always nice to get a rise out of you. This time especially. Don’t forget our bet. You have to ask out that... magical combat instructor by the end of the week." Pendragon said, taking another sip from her mug, which didn’t seem to hold any less coffee than it did at the beginning.

  "Did you forget his name again?" Hermione asked with a defeated look.

  "I don’t remember the names of unimportant people," Pendragon answered.

  "But you remember the names of all the students in the school!" she exclaimed at the older woman.

  "That’s because they are my students, and all my students are important." Pendragon said with a certain pride that only a teacher would understand.

  "But you only teach post-graduate level courses." Hermione countered.

  "So, the reason goblins need gold has to do with their magic. They can craft incredible armaments. Their strength, unlike wizards, is not in the instantaneous casting of charms but rather in the preparation of weapons and charm tokens. Somewhat similar to the talismans from Japan or China. They can use gold to basically upgrade the level of their crafted gear or level up their own ability to craft higher-grade things."

  "There’s no way that’s true," Hermione said in disbelief. "Then how could they have lost in the Goblin Wars when they could just pull all their gold together and make a superweapon?"

  "Now that’s the right question. Why can’t they make a superweapon? Well, upgrading things directly via gold is highly dependent on luck, while upgrade their own ability is several orders of magnitude more expensive, so even though theoretically possible, it likely wouldn’t have happened."

  "Wouldn’t have? Meaning it might now?"

  "Yes, due to recent events and the release of global nodes, a brief window of opportunity has opened where, with the right rituals, the goblins can upgrade one armament limitlessly based on the amount of gold they have. The coup in Ireland is also the result of some politics related to this fact."

  "And you think..."

  "Yes, dear disciple," Pendragon answered, showing a fanged smile, "we are gonna sabotage a once-in-ten-thousand-years ritual."