Hogwarts Raven's Claw

Chapter 204 Patent Records and Photos

Noticing where Mike's gaze was, Abbott explained:
"This is the Fountain of Magical Brotherhood, symbolizing the friendship between wizards and intelligent magical creatures such as centaurs."

Mike noticed that Abbott's tone was a little sarcastic when he said this, and he understood what he meant.

On the surface this fountain is the Brothers Fountain, but in fact it should be called the 'Hypocrisy Fountain'.

In the real world, centaurs and goblins do not worship human wizards at all, but only have endless hatred. Similarly, most wizards do not have the slightest respect for these magical creatures who also have wisdom, but continue to discriminate and abuse them, treating them as beasts.

Mike was deeply touched by this point. The centaurs living in the Forbidden Forest were full of hatred towards humans. In fact, the centaurs in the Forbidden Forest had much better living conditions than those outside. The wizards would beat and scold these magical creatures if they were not satisfied, and kill them on the spot if they dared to resist.

Due to the unlimited right of wizards to defend magical creatures, the Magical Creatures Protection Act is basically in name only, and wizards can slaughter these magical creatures at will as long as they find a little excuse.

The magical creatures in the Forbidden Forest generally do not have such concerns, after all, they are protected by Dumbledore.

In fact, they have been breeding in the forbidden forest for several generations. It was not until Mike arrived that they finally remembered the horror of being dominated by humans.

Mike and Abbott walked towards the security check desk deep in the main hall. Anyone coming to the Ministry of Magic needs to go through the security check at that security check desk, otherwise they cannot enter the office area inside the Ministry of Magic.

When passing by the Magic Brothers Fountain, Mike discovered that the bottom of the fountain was filled with a layer of Copper Knuts and Silver Sickles, most of which were copper coins, with only a small amount of silver coins mixed in. But strangely, Mike did not find any Gold Galleons in it.

The coins sparkled in the bright light of the main hall, and on the edge of the pool was a sign that read in English:

'All proceeds from the Magical Brotherhood Fountain go to St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries.'

Abbott threw a gold Galleon in, and Mike curled his lips when he saw this, and walked directly to the security check counter without following Abbott's example and throwing a gold Galleon in.

He had seen enough similar donation activities in his previous life. Most of the money collected from such activities would go into the pockets of the relevant personnel, and only a very small part would actually be put to good use. Judging from his life experience in the wizarding society over the past two years, the moral level of wizards is not much higher than that of Muggles, so this donation is most likely just for show.

As if to punish Mike for not donating, a flash of lightning suddenly flashed across the glass ceiling of the main hall. Everyone saw a flash of light in front of their eyes and then heard a rumbling thunder.

Mike looked up and saw that the glass ceiling was already covered with dark clouds. Big drops of rain hit the glass ceiling, making a popping sound. From time to time, a flash of lightning would slide through the dark clouds, making a deafening thunder.

Mike was suddenly a little confused. This was underground, and it was the eighth floor underground. Why could he still see the sky outside?

"It's just a trick. All the windows in the Ministry of Magic can see different weather conditions. It's the Magical Maintenance Department that decides what weather you see."

Abbott explained for Mike.

After hearing this, Mike no longer cared about it. Abbott was right. It was just a little trick. All the scenes they saw now were artificially created fakes.

Compared to the magic on the ceiling of the Hogwarts Great Hall that can reflect the real scene outside the castle in real time, this method is really not worth mentioning.

After finally completing the security check, Mike and Abbott finally passed the security check counter. In front of them was a row of golden doors, behind which were passages leading to at least twenty elevators.

Patent registration is under the jurisdiction of the Department of International Magical Cooperation, so under the guidance of Abbott, Mike took an elevator leading to the eighth floor, which is under the jurisdiction of the International Magical Trade Standards Association, a subsidiary of the Department of International Magical Cooperation.

After finally arriving at the destination by elevator, Mike was a little dumbfounded.

It turned out that the so-called International Magic Trade Standards Association actually only had one large counter with three middle-aged witches as receptionists. The customers who came here to handle business were also very well-mannered and consciously lined up in three long queues.

Looking at the three lines of astonishing length, Mike was secretly amazed.

Mike and Abbott naturally didn't have to queue. After Abbott revealed his identity to one of the middle-aged witches, he walked around the counter and went to an office in the back.

Seeing this, the people in the queue immediately became dissatisfied and started speaking in various ways that the microphones could not understand.

Mike and Abbott didn't understand either. Although they knew that what they said was definitely not good, they pretended not to hear and walked into the office.

In the office, a middle-aged bald wizard with a big belly was sitting behind a desk, drinking coffee and reading a newspaper. In the corner of the room was a small desk, where a beautiful brown-haired lady in a women's suit was sitting, busy processing documents piled up like a mountain in front of her.

"Oh! Abbott, you're finally here. I thought you were going to stand me up again today." The middle-aged wizard put down the newspaper in his hand, stood up and greeted enthusiastically, "And this must be the hero of Hogwarts, the dueling king Mr. McTomley. He is really young and promising. Not only is he very powerful at such a young age, he also invented the wonderful drink, the Dolphin Magic Drink!"

"President, thank you for your praise. I am just lucky."

Mike frowned slightly, and was modest. But he was very confused in his heart, how did the president of the International Trade Standards Association know about the Hogwarts dueling competition? Did he also participate in that competition?

However, in the current situation, Mike would naturally not ask such a question directly, so the three of them exchanged greetings for a while before finally getting to the point.

"Mr. President, I wonder what's going on with the things we agreed to earlier?"

"Are you still unsure of my work? I have already prepared it for you." The middle-aged wizard took out a dozen documents from the drawer and handed them to Mike. "Here they are. Now we just need Mr. Townley to sign the magic signature and it can be filed."

Mike looked at the document carefully and found that it was just a simple patent application, and it also contained all the documents from the initial patent application submission form to the final patent collection form. These documents that originally took several months to go through the process are now all in front of Mike. Now, as long as he signs his magic signature, the patent for Dolphin Magic Drink will be his.

Mike signed his name on each document with his magic wand, and then handed the documents back to the middle-aged wizard. After confirming that they were correct, the middle-aged wizard handed Mike a patent certificate.

"Congratulations, Mr. Townley, the Dolphin Magic Drink is yours." The middle-aged wizard shook hands with Abbott and Mike one after another. Mike, who had extremely strong mental power, heard him shaking hands with Abbott and said in an inaudible voice: "Mr. Foley, you see about my son joining the Auror Corps..."

Abbott did not respond to this. He just made an OK gesture secretly and walked out of the office with Mike, warmly seen off by the middle-aged fat bald wizard.

Their conversation made Mike more resolute in his inner views on the ideological and moral construction of wizards. It turned out that he was right not to put money in the fountain before.

"Okay, we're finally done. Let's go home." After walking out of the office, Abbott snapped his fingers and said, "For lunch today, we have prepared a lot of ingredients you've never heard of. You will definitely not be disappointed!"

His words piqued Mike's interest. You know, Mike is also a gourmet and has eaten all kinds of strange things, so he was skeptical about what Abbott said.

But then he remembered that this was in the wizarding world, where there were magical creatures, so what Abbott was talking about should be magical creatures.

"You are not talking about God..."

Mike was halfway through his words when Abbot covered his mouth.

Abbott looked around in panic, and only breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that no one was paying attention to them.

"Shh, just know it in your heart, don't say it out loud." Abbott whispered, "It's not good to say this in public. Many magical creatures are now protected species, so you know."

Abbott muttered a lot into Mike's ear, and finally, when he saw Mike nod, he slowly let go of his hand.

As expected, Mike stopped talking about this matter, but he became curious about tonight's dinner.

Although he had been in the wizarding world for two years, he had not felt the wonder of the wizarding world at all in terms of diet. The food he had eaten in Hogwarts had always been some very ordinary Muggle food, and he didn't know whether the dishes made with magical creatures were particularly delicious.

Mike and Abbott sped away from the crowded International Magical Trade Standards Association, but this time Abbott did not take Mike back to the main hall in the elevator. Instead, he took the elevator directly to the Auror's office on the second floor.

The second floor of the British Ministry of Magic is the office of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement of the Ministry of Magic, and the Auror Office is an important force department under the Department of Magical Law Enforcement of the Ministry of Magic.

Since the first floor is the office of the Minister of Magic, and the Department of Magical Law Enforcement is generally not open to the public, as soon as Mike arrived here, he immediately found that there were fewer people coming and going.

But Abbott felt like he was at home, and almost everyone they met along the way greeted him.

But Mike was not surprised by this. After all, although Abbott himself was only an Auror team leader, his father was the second in command of the Auror force. It would be strange if others did not curry favor with him.

Next, Abbott used his privilege as the son of the deputy director of the Auror Office and returned directly to his own manor using the fireplace that his father, Uncle Mario, used during his commute to and from work, thus saving the time of queuing in the main hall to use the fireplace.

Mike couldn't understand this. Since there was a special fireplace, why did they have to teleport to the main hall before?
But he didn't ask Abbott, after all, it was just an insignificant matter.

However, the fact is that his mind is now full of the feast of magical creatures, and he doesn't pay attention to this at all.

Because it was a special fireplace, Mike and Abbott were directly teleported to Uncle Mario's study.

But when the two men dusted themselves off and came to the reception room, they found that Professor Flitwick and Uncle Mario had already returned from the Raven Cottage.

"Mike, you guys are finally back." Uncle Mario said enthusiastically, "Filius and I were just talking about you, come and see us!"

Although Mike felt a little confused when he heard this, he still came over, took the newspaper handed to him by Uncle Mario and started reading.

After seeing this, Mike instantly understood why the previous president of the association knew him.

The magical photo of Mike and Dumbledore holding the Hogwarts Special Contribution Award appeared on the paper. The photo was extremely large, occupying almost half of the page.

Below this photo, there was a much smaller photo posted, which was the scene of himself defeating Cedric in the duel tournament finals. It was unknown when they took the photo.

The rest of the empty space on the newspaper was occupied by densely packed English letters. Mike took a closer look and realized that they were all reports about himself.

Not only did it mention that Mike was extremely talented and capable, it also directly called Mike the best student in the grade. If Hermione saw this, she would surely be so angry that she would not be able to sleep for days and nights.

The report used such flowery words and exaggerated language that Mike's weather-beaten face turned slightly red.

When I looked at the byline of this report, I saw a familiar name, Rita Skeeter.

The moment Mike saw the name, he felt relieved. It turned out that people who were good at writing negative articles were also good at writing hype articles. Once this exaggerated report came out, I believed that with the credibility of the Daily Prophet as the number one newspaper in the wizarding world, there would surely be many ignorant and blind people who thought Mike was as perfect as described in it.

Smiling and shaking his head, Mike turned a page of the newspaper. Judging from the layout of the report, there should be an interview by Rita Skeeter with other students in the school.

However, this time it was okay, but Mike's smile suddenly froze.

On this side of the newspaper, there was a photo of the Weasley brothers and Ron. If that was all, Mike wouldn't be so shocked. The most important thing was the little creature in Ron's arms in the photo.

It turned out to be Ron's pet mouse, Scabbers.

(End of this chapter)