The tension of exams did nothing to dampen the castle's increasingly excited atmosphere. If anything, as the exams gradually came to an end, the students finally had enough free time to openly indulge their anticipation for the third task, the final showdown.
For example...
Early on the morning of the match, Tver could hear the Weasley twins shouting in tandem before he had even stepped into the Great Hall.
"Five champions!"
"Three schools!"
"But only one winner!"
"Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes proudly presents champion badges!"
"And one-to-one full-size champion posters!"
"Come and get them now, first come, first served!"
Tver stepped into the Great Hall with a dark look on his face and glanced toward the lively corner.
The Weasley twins were in their sixth year, right between the busy fifth and seventh years, so their exams had ended a little earlier.
But instead of enjoying their break, as soon as the first batch of Canary Creams brought in some return capital, they immediately turned their attention to the tournament and came up with a whole new line of limited-edition products, or so they called them.
There were glittering badges with the five champions' faces on them, chibi champion figurines, and long interactive posters...
Even so, they had followed Tver's advice and switched the basic materials for all of these products to Muggle-made ones.
The figurines in particular seemed to be the best-selling item. The production costs were basically paid in pounds, but the final profits came in Galleons.
At an exchange rate of one Galleon to five pounds, the cost was practically nothing.
Normally, the Galleon-to-pound exchange rate was measured against basic living goods. The cheaper Muggle necessities became, the more pounds a Galleon could be exchanged for, preventing the value of the Galleon from dropping.
But the goblins at Gringotts had clearly never anticipated that once society entered industrialization, especially with the spread of factory automation, the low prices of industrial goods would be enough to smash the fragile financial ecosystem of every non-magical product in the wizarding world.
So as the first ones to try it, the Weasley twins had made a fortune this time. And that was with the small consumer market inside Hogwarts holding them back.
"So, business looks pretty good today, does it?"
Tver stood behind them with a sinister air. The surrounding students sensed it at once and forcibly suppressed their urge to keep buying.
But the Weasley twins were already over the moon from counting money and had not noticed the atmosphere turn strange at all.
"Of course it does!" George said smugly. "Everything from Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes is always the most popular!"
"Oh?" Tver drawled. Then he suddenly noticed that nearly everything displayed on the table featured the other four champions. There was nothing with his own likeness on it.
So these two brats did know where to draw the line after all.
"By the way, George, shouldn't we hurry up and make another batch of the professor's posters and badges?" Fred suddenly asked.
"Obviously! Anything connected to the professor sells out instantly. If we order more figurines, we might even make twice as much before the match starts tonight!"
George regretfully shook his jingling purse. No, at this point it was more like a money bag.
So it was not that they had not made any. It was that they had sold too well and were already gone.
Tver's face darkened at once.
"Selling products in the Great Hall is forbidden. I'm confiscating all of this."
He waved a hand, and all the merchandise on the table immediately flew into the air. No matter how wildly the twins flailed after them, they could not grab back even a single figurine.
"Since when did Hogwarts have a rule like that... Professor... ugh..."
George spun around angrily after the flying products, but the moment he saw Tver, he let out a pitiful little whine like a scolded puppy and did not dare say another word.
Fred was no better. He had practically been about to draw his wand, only to watch helplessly as Tver swept all their painstakingly made products into a new wallet that looked like a bottomless pit.
Tver waved away the students who had gathered to watch the show.
"I gave you the factory contacts in the Muggle world, and this is how you repay me?"
George and Fred nudged each other with their hands. In the end, George lost and reluctantly raised his head.
"We actually just wanted to try integrating magic into more complicated Muggle products. We didn't expect that as we kept testing, the number of samples would keep increasing..."
His voice gradually trailed off, probably because even he felt the excuse was too ridiculous.
In truth, they really had wanted to experiment with integration at first. It was just that their goal had definitely not been to complete Tver's assignment.
They had been after money from the very beginning.
That was why he was too embarrassed to continue. He tucked his neck in again and looked as meek as a primary school student who had done something wrong.
But judging from the little movements between them, their minds had never once been settled.
"I'm not forbidding you from doing business, and I'm not forbidding you from modifying Muggle products."
Tver pulled out a figurine and held it in his hand. It happened to be a chibi version of Harry.
"But look at this. There isn't a trace of magic on it. All you've done is transport Muggle factory goods into the wizarding world. Other than making a profit, it does absolutely nothing to help our cause."
"But aren't we doing this to make money?" George muttered in protest.
Tver shot him a vicious glare, and he instantly fell silent again.
Tver then stuffed the wallet into his arms.
"Remember this. Our cause is to make money, but it is not limited to making money."
"If you're just middlemen, then sooner or later you'll be driven out by other merchants in the wizarding world."
While George clutched the wallet in delighted surprise, Fred suddenly looked as if a light had gone on in his head.
"I get it!" He shook off George's excited slapping and completely failed to notice that Tver had just handed them the very thing they had always wanted, a wallet with an Undetectable Extension Charm.
"The more technical value our products have, the harder they are for other merchants to copy, and the more meaningful they become to the wizarding world!"
Tver nodded in satisfaction.
"But be careful. What matters is not simply chasing technical complexity. Meeting people's needs is even more important."
If they were just acting as simple resellers, Muggles would obviously have no extra demand for those products. Apart from amusing wizards, they would have no real meaning at all.
But once all kinds of magical elements were added, it was a different story.
Magic gave ordinary products entirely new properties. To Muggles, they would become completely novel items. Even something as simple as a moving dragon model would be enough to cause a sensation in the Muggle world.
And in that case, the Weasley twins' role as a potential link between the wizarding world and the Muggle world would become something truly extraordinary.