Hogwarts Raven's Claw

Chapter 225 I Don’t Like Cute

In Florin's Ice Cream Shop in Diagon Alley, Mike and Harry, as well as the Weasley brothers, Franklin, Penelope and a large group of people were sitting together sipping cold drinks.

Penelope's outfit today is similar to the first time she went out on a date with Mike, still wearing hot pants and a short-sleeved shirt.

The only difference from that time was that Penelope wore a longer short-sleeved shirt this time, and she didn't tuck the hem into her pants.

So, when she stands up, the long hem of her top will completely cover her hot pants, giving people the illusion that she is not wearing any pants.

Mike gave her full marks for her outfit today.

But Franklin was a little different today. Perhaps it was because he had recently become obsessed with hip-hop music, his overall clothing style began to resemble those of American hip-hop singers, and was quite exaggerated.

He felt very good about himself, and imitated Mike, wearing sunglasses and leaning back in his chair, looking at the passers-by, with the aura of a gangster boss.

Of course, this is just what he thinks.

In fact, Mike thought that the way he was dressed, combined with his stocky build and skin color, made him look like a chimpanzee in clothes.

Taking his eyes away from Franklin, Mike looked at the watch on his hand and sighed deeply.

They were out for a big purchase this time, and at Harry's suggestion, Mike invited everyone, and except for Cedric and Abbott, almost everyone agreed to come.

This included Hermione.

However, their agreed time was 9 o'clock in the morning, and Hermione was already more than half an hour late.

It has been almost half a month since I first tried to use the Patronus Charm, and the summer vacation will be over soon.

Mike, after all, did not release the complete Patronus.

You might think that Mike's Patronus spell is pretty good, after all, releasing a complete Patronus spell is a manifestation of the Patronus spell's greatness. But in fact, compared to other spells, Mike's learning progress of the Patronus spell is as slow as a snail.

This was the biggest setback Mike had encountered since learning spells.

The thing he released when he used the Patronus Charm for the first time could not be called a Patronus Charm at all. The concentration and brightness of the white mist was at best a lightweight version of fluorescent flickering.

It was really like a firefly glow, which was disappointing.

After more than half a month of study, this firefly has evolved into a flashlight, although it is still of little use.

Mike estimated that not only Dementors, but even Boggarts would remain calm in the face of this Patronus Charm.

This made Mike very upset, but fortunately he had a very good ability to comfort himself. Through constant psychological suggestion, he finally convinced himself to accept this fact.

In fact, Mike was already very satisfied, at least he was not killed by the backlash. Moreover, this kind of learning difficulty was worthy of the name of the Patronus Charm.

If the Patronus Charm was really that easy to learn, it wouldn't have become such a famous defensive spell.

In the original book, the reason why Harry and other young wizards were able to learn the Patronus Charm and even cast a complete Patronus was that Mike guessed that first of all, they had help from Dumbledore, that is, they had famous teachers teaching them.

The second reason is that they are all relatively young.

What is most needed to release the Patronus Charm is positive emotion such as happiness. Compared with adults, children's happiness is obviously purer, which may make it easier for them to release the Patronus Charm.

Stroking Penelope's outstretched hand under the table, Mike shook his head slightly.

It was a pity that he could not release the complete Patronus Charm in a short period of time. He was very curious about what his Patronus would be.

However, in practical terms, the Patronus Charm may not be his best solution against Dementors. Don't forget, he has the Sword of Victory and Oath, and this holy sword has the effect of killing evil spirits.

So, is it useful against monsters like Dementors?
Just as Mike was thinking about this question, a voice suddenly brought him back to consciousness.

"Sorry, I'm late."

Everyone looked up and saw Hermione, wearing a small dress, standing in front of them, panting.

"Oh, great!" Ron complained. "We've been waiting here for nearly an hour for nothing!"

"Don't say that, Ron!"

Harry quickly stopped Ron from talking any further, and Ron, perhaps realizing that it was not polite of him to do so, lowered his head and stopped talking.

But Hermione obviously didn't take Ron's words to heart, she was looking at Mike and Penelope with a sharp gaze. The angle she was standing at happened to be able to see the little movements of the two under the table.

Facing Hermione's gaze, Penelope didn't feel shy at all. Instead, she held Mike's hand tightly with her backhand as if to declare her sovereignty.

Mike was not as calm as Penelope. Under Hermione's scumbag gaze, Mike coughed twice and withdrew his hand awkwardly.

"Okay, now that everyone is here, let's get going."

Ron cheered and rushed out of the ice cream shop. Mike had just paid him a handsome salary not long ago. This was the first time in his life that he had so much money, and he couldn't wait to go out and spend it.

Compared to him, the others were much calmer, not to mention Franklin, who was poor. The Weasley brothers had already had their fill, so they acted very calmly.

Harry was indeed a little angel, even though he was looking forward to today's shopping. However, living in Uncle Vernon's house gave him a strong ability to read people's expressions, which enabled him to find out at a glance that Hermione was in a bad mood.

"Don't worry, Hermione. Ron is just a little tired of waiting." Harry patted Hermione's shoulder. "Let's go, everyone has already set out."

Harry's nose twitched as he spoke, and as soon as he got close to Hermione, he smelled a very pleasant scent. He followed the scent and saw Hermione nodding at him with a slightly red face.

Hermione nodded in agreement and slowly caught up with the main group, while Harry froze in place.

He felt...Hermione was a little different today than usual, as if...more beautiful.

In fact, Harry's feeling was not wrong. The reason why Hermione was late today was because she spent too much time on her dressing up.

Hermione didn't know why she dressed up, she didn't even know why she accepted Mike's invitation.

If she hadn't come today, she wouldn't have seen what happened just now.

When she thought of the little action between Mike and Penelope under the table, her face turned red with embarrassment. She raised her head unconsciously to glance at Mike who was walking in front, and then quickly lowered her head.

Mike, who was walking in front, didn't notice Hermione's abnormality at all. Although Hermione was dressed very cutely today, unfortunately he was not a pedophile.

And compared to cute women, Mike prefers sexy women.

Isn’t there a saying that goes something like this?
Cuteness and purity are worthless in the face of sexiness.

He likes sexy girls with good figures, just like Penelope who is beside him now.

Thinking of this, Mike smiled evilly, and squeezed Penelope's waist a little harder, earning a beautiful eye roll from the other party.

You see, a sexy woman looks so beautiful even when she rolls her eyes.

The group came to Flourish and Blotts in a mighty procession. Mike now looks very strong due to proper exercise. His T-shirt is bulging with muscles. Standing with Penelope, they are a beautiful sight. They attracted countless people's attention along the way.

The owner of Flourish and Blotts saw Mike and Penelope from a distance and ran out of the store to greet them. He was no stranger to Mike, a newly rich man, and he must have good things to say when he came.

"Good day, Mr. Townley." The boss said enthusiastically, "Is there anything I can help you with?"

"Oh, you're welcome, boss. We're here to buy some books for the new semester."

"Come over here, please. We have packaged versions of each grade of Hogwarts."

The boss took everyone to a shelf in the store, where magic books were neatly arranged in piles, divided into sections marked for different grades.

These are compulsory courses for each grade, so everyone didn't hesitate too much and just picked up a copy and ran.

But something went wrong when it came to elective courses.

When Ron asked his boss if he had any books on Care of Magical Creatures, his boss's face instantly darkened.

"You want to buy that monster book?" the boss said with a dark face, "Of course I can, I can even give you the cost price, but the prerequisite is that you have to get it yourself."

Ron was overjoyed when he heard this. Magic books were very expensive, and if he could get the book at cost price, he would undoubtedly be able to save a lot of money.

However, when Ron saw the 'Monster Book of Monsters', he was dumbfounded.

There were many monster books stacked together in a huge iron cage. These monster books had furry covers and four eyes lined up on the front. As the books opened and closed automatically, sharp teeth could be seen inside. Ron guaranteed that being bitten by them would be very painful.

In fact, these books do bite people. They are now biting each other, and many books have been damaged.

Mike looked at Ron with a smirk on his face, knowing that he could calm the monsters down by stroking the spines of the monster books.

But why should he tell him?

Wouldn't it be better to let Ron suffer a little more?

Perhaps it was because he noticed Mike's smirk, or perhaps it was because many things that happened in the past two years left Harry with the impression that Mike was omnipotent.

All I heard was Harry pleading, "Mike, can you think of a solution?"

"I'm sorry, but there's nothing I can do."

"But...but don't you need to buy one?"

Mike didn't say anything this time, but Franklin beside him was obviously also led astray by Mike, and replied with a gloating look: "We have received the news a long time ago that the old professor of magical creatures with only one leg has retired, and this year's professor is Hagrid. So we didn't sign up for this course."

After saying that, he looked at Mike, and they both smiled slyly at the same time.

The Weasley brothers also came over and looked at their little brother Ron's dejected look. Their reaction did not disappoint Mike.

George stuffed a large dung fork into Ron's hand, and then George and Fred said to Ron with a smirk on their faces: "Come on, Ron, hurry up! Go up and kill those terrible monster books!"

"Yeah, Ron! Come on! I can't wait to see you get bitten... No, I mean to see you fighting bravely!"

Encouraged by his two unscrupulous brothers, Ron finally rushed forward with a dung fork in hand.

Half an hour later, Ron, with his clothes torn to shreds, walked out of the bookstore with two tightly bound monster books in his hand, grimacing, and handed one of them to Hermione.

Behind him were the Weasley brothers and Mike, who were already laughing their heads off.

After this little episode, the atmosphere among everyone finally became lively, and even Hermione, who was unhappy at first, began to smile.

The only unhappy one was Ron. There was no place on his body that didn't hurt.

After they had almost recovered their breath, Mike announced the next plan and decided to act separately.

He was in a group with Penelope, and the others were in another group.

His action was obvious to everyone, and the Weasley brothers immediately showed obscene smiles on their faces.

But they didn't say much and just pulled Harry and the others away. After all, they were not devils and didn't have to be a light bulb.

As soon as they left, Mike completely let go. His hand, which had been sneaky before, was now openly placed on Penelope's waist, and he leaned forward. This intimate action in public made Penelope freeze.

Mike felt Penelope's slight tremor and couldn't help but smile.

After all, he is still just a young man and is too thin-skinned.

Fortunately, Mike didn't intend to make things too difficult for Penelope and didn't take any further action, so the two of them started their date.

It turns out that women like similar things, clothes, jewelry, cosmetics...

Mike and Penelope spent the entire afternoon visiting almost all the shops in Diagon Alley. Mike, who was not short of money, was naturally not stingy. As long as Penelope's eyes stayed on an item for more than three seconds, Mike would buy it without hesitation.

Due to the recent popularity of Dolphin Magic Drink, the name of Mike, the big boss behind the scenes, also spread among these bosses, so there were no bloody pretentious or face-slapping plots during the shopping period.

Generally, whenever Mike came to these stores, the bosses and clerks would rush up to greet him with red eyes, wishing to worship Mike as their ancestor.

And Mike achieved his goal by doing this. When Mike and Penelope finished shopping and returned to the Leaky Cauldron to reunite with everyone, Penelope no longer resisted Mike's dishonest hands.

Sometimes she would even take the initiative...

Hey, woman.

Mike and Penelope had a fruitful trip, and the others were not far behind either.

With the sponsorship of his two brothers, Ron finally owned his first flying broomstick in his life, the Nimbus 2000.

Hermione, on the other hand, was holding an ugly cat with all its facial features collapsed together.

Mike noticed that from the time they met at the Leaky Cauldron to the time they said goodbye to each other and left the bar, Penelope's eyes kept falling on the cat from time to time.

So he leaned close to Penelope's ear and said, "I'll buy you one later. What kind of cat do you want? A blue cat? A British shorthair? A ragdoll? Oh! Or we can get a big black dog."

"Big black dog?"

Penelope looked at Mike in surprise. She didn't understand why Mike suddenly said big black dog when they were talking fine before.

Mike didn't react much to Penelope's question. At this moment, he was staring at a corner, where a dirty big black dog was stealthily sticking its head out, watching Harry who was slowly walking away.

"nothing."

Mike showed a wicked smile on his face and answered Penelope's question perfunctorily. Then he watched the big black dog lick its lips with its scarlet tongue.

"Ah, Black Dog. I really miss him."

(End of this chapter)