Hogwarts Raven's Claw

Chapter 238: A Trip to Hogsmeade

Snape is petty and stupid, as can be seen from the fact that he constantly uses small tricks to punish Harry.

Although Snape's stinginess and stupidity may seem cute to us readers who look down from a God's perspective, this cannot conceal Snape's stupid nature.

In fact, most people in the entire wizarding world are petty-minded.

Like Lucius, the head of the Malfoy family, he is a petty person.

No successful person in the Muggle world who has built his family business to the same level as him would do the stupid things he did to the Weasley family.

A real big shot only cares about profit when doing things.

In order to gain more benefits, personal honor and disgrace are really unimportant.

Mike firmly believes that the fundamental reason why wizards are so petty is that the wizarding society is too small and too backward.

This is how a lot of bumpkins like Snape and Lucius are born!

But no matter how much Mike despised these people in private, he could not deny that the stupid Snape did cause him trouble.

The result of his binge drinking with Cedric and Harry yesterday was point deduction and grounding. Mike didn't care about the point deduction. As long as his plan this year could succeed, he no longer needed the House Cup to enhance his reputation.

But house arrest is different.

Although the spatial restrictions of Hogwarts are ineffective against Shuke and Beta, since the two little guys have never been to Hogwarts, they cannot appear in Hogwarts directly, and Mike needs to take them in personally.

Therefore, Mike planned to take the opportunity of going to Hogsmeade Village to familiarize the two little guys with Hogwarts, and by the way, get the knowledge scrolls about "Unbreakable Vow", "Apparition" and "The End of All Curses" that they bought outside.

But now it's all gone to waste, all because of stingy Snape.

But of course Mike was not without a way out. The Marauder's Map was still with him. Last year, the Weasley brothers didn't feel comfortable asking Mike for it because of Percy, so they gave it to him by default.

And Mike naturally had no intention of returning it.

Are you kidding? The Marauder's Map can display people's names in real time. What if you accidentally find that there is a person named Peter Pettigrew around your brother?
Should Mike continue with his own plan?
In fact, Mike thinks that this plot should be a bug in the original work. Just imagine, two mischievous teenagers got a prank weapon like the Marauder's Map. Will they use it to spy on the movements of their classmates or even relatives?

The Marauder's Map had been in the hands of the two men for such a long time, it was basically impossible for Peter Pettigrew not to be exposed.

Then again, Mike, who had the Marauder's Map in his hand, naturally knew most of the secret passages in Hogwarts, and one of them naturally led to Hogsmeade village.

Out of sympathy, Mike took Harry with him when he set out for Hogsmeade. As for Cedric, he was tired of Hogsmeade, and after entering the sixth grade, his homework burden became heavier and heavier, so he naturally had no desire to go shopping.

For the same reason, Penelope did not choose to leave Hogwarts.

When Harry, panting, arrived in front of the secret passage, Mike was already tired of waiting.

Harry knew he was late, and he raised his empty hands a little embarrassedly and explained: "I went to get the Invisibility Cloak. You know what it is, it's..."

Mike naturally knew where the invisibility cloak in Harry's hand came from. He waved his hand to interrupt Harry's words, turned around, took out his wand and pointed it at the statue of the one-eyed witch.

"Separation of left and right."

As Harry watched in amazement, the statue's back opened, revealing a passage wide enough for a thinner man to fit through.

"Wow!"

Harry shouted excitedly, but then he looked around vigilantly, fearing that someone would suddenly appear.

Seeing that Harry had not forgotten that they were violating Professor McGonagall's ban and going to Hogsmeade village secretly, Mike nodded with satisfaction and went into the passage first.

At the beginning of the passage was a long slide. Mike felt himself sliding down the slide for a long distance before falling onto the cold and wet mud.

Mike stood up, half bent over and released the fluorescent flash.

Harry fell off the slide only when the soft light filled the surroundings.

"This is so cool! How did you know this secret passage?"

Harry was obviously very excited as he was using the secret passage for the first time, and asked Mike excitedly.

Mike naturally didn't tell Harry the truth, so he perfunctorily said, "Don't forget that I was doing the Dolphin Magic Drink smuggling business with George and Fred for a year last year. It's not surprising that I know this secret passage."

"Damn it, they didn't tell me about this secret passage!"

"Stop complaining and let's go!"

Under Mike's command, Harry finally stopped his meaningless complaints and followed Mike into the depths of the passage.

This secret passage is extremely long and winding, more like a rat hole.

Harry and Mike walked for ten minutes before they reached the bottom of a worn stone staircase.

Mike stopped here, cast an Disillusionment Charm on himself, and then asked Harry to put on the Invisibility Cloak before stepping onto the stairs.

The design of the stairs was unreasonable, and each step was extremely high, which made it very uncomfortable for Mike and Harry to step on.

Fortunately, the staircase was not long because the passage was uphill from halfway up. Mike's head hit a trap door after climbing for a while.

Rubbing his painful head, Mike pushed open the trap door and climbed out.

This is a cellar, with crates and other wooden boxes piled around.

Mike waited until Harry climbed out before carefully closing the trap door.

Two invisible people naturally couldn't see each other, which made Harry very uneasy. He called Mike in a low voice from time to time, fearing that Mike would abandon him here.

Helplessly, Mike could only respond to Harry in a low voice and let him go directly to the stairs.

At the end of the cellar stairs was a wooden door. When Mike and Harry carefully opened the door, they saw the true appearance of Bee Duke Candy Store.

The Duke of Bee was now packed with Hogwarts students, and the clerks at the counter were so busy that they didn't notice the invisible Harry and Mike at all.

Opportunity is fleeting, and seeing this, Mike quickly poked Harry and signaled him to get out quickly.

When the two of them carefully entered the store, they were almost stunned. They saw rows of huge shelves filled with the most delicious and juicy candies, large pieces of milky yellow almond candies, shiny pink coconut ice cream, honey-colored toffee, hundreds of neatly arranged chocolates, a large bucket of Bibi Multi-Flavor Beans and Zizi Bee Candies...

Mike even spotted Dumbledore's favorite cockroach pile in the corner!

But Mike is not a child and his resistance to candy is much stronger than Harry's.

Even though the other wall was filled with candies with special effects like Super Bubble Gum (which can blow out many bubbles that won't burst for days. It comes in a variety of flavors, and the bubbles blown out are different depending on the flavor. It is said that there are special bubble blowing competitions in some places, and the Weasley brothers would like to participate because the bubbles they blow are big and firm), it didn't stop him.

"Let's go, you'll have plenty of opportunities to come here later!"

Mike whispered in Harry's ear as he was stunned. Only then did Harry come back to his senses and follow him out of Bee Duke.

In an alley outside the Bee Duke, Shuke and Beta were waiting eagerly.

When Mike's voice suddenly sounded in the empty corner, Shuke's face immediately showed joy. As he bent down and bowed, a small suitcase appeared in his hand.

Mike took the suitcase and opened it. He saw three rolls of parchment lying safely inside. He closed the suitcase with satisfaction and carefully put it into the bag of requests.

You can't be careless, this is something Mike bought at a high price.

The three spells, Unbreakable Vow, Apparition and All Curses Ended, cost more than 30,000 gold galleons in total, which means on average one spell costs 10,000!
Harry on the side didn't care about the interaction between Mike and Shuke. In fact, he was staring at the people coming and going outside the alley, and his mind had already flown away.

Hogsmeade is the only remaining purely wizarding village in the UK and refuses to allow any Muggles to stay.

Therefore, the wizarding atmosphere in the village is particularly strong, and almost everything is very different from the Muggle world. Harry can't wait to start his adventure in this wizarding village.

Mike naturally would not refuse Harry's request. He brought Harry out this time just to let Harry relax.

He winked at Shuke, who quickly took out two masks and handed them to Mike and Harry.

Mike's was a monkey with a cigar in his mouth, while Harry's was a fat pig's head.

Although he felt that his mask was much uglier than Mike's, Harry couldn't care less at this moment. He hurriedly took off his invisibility cloak and quickly put on the pig head mask.

Harry, who was ready, saw that Mike was still slow and immediately became unhappy and started to urge him.

Half an hour later, two people wearing full-body masks emerged from the alley, followed by two house-elves.

To be honest, Mike and Harry are dressed more like bank robbers than students or tourists. If they were walking on the streets of London, they would definitely be caught and questioned by the patrol police.

But there is no problem walking in Hogsmeade. This is a wizard's village, and there are many wizards here who dress even more strangely.

For Mike and Harry, this is just child's play.

Today is Halloween, and there will be a Halloween dinner in the evening. In order to avoid being discovered that the two of them had sneaked out, they must be back before three o'clock in the afternoon.

So there is not much time left for Mike and Harry.

In this situation, Harry naturally would not waste time. As soon as he came out of the alley, he pulled Mike into Bee Duke and started to sweep.

Due to time constraints, he did not carefully read the description of the candies. He just grabbed a few of each and went to the counter to queue up to pay.

Mike saw with his own eyes that there were many Pepper Urchins (a kind of small black candy that tastes very spicy, so spicy that you can breathe fire. Really breathe fire!) and Exploding Gummy Candies (which really explode!) in Harry's candy basket, and he couldn't help but begin to mourn for Harry's stomach.

Mike thought his stomach wasn't as good as Harry's, so he bought a lot of fizzy bees and cockroach piles.

As the signature candy of the Duke of Bees, the price of Zizi Bee Candy is of course not cheap. Fortunately, Mike is now a wealthy man, and the Dolphin Beverage Factory now brings him thousands of gold galleons every week, so he naturally doesn't think it is expensive.

He even settled Harry's bill.

"Thank you, Mike. But you don't have to do this. My parents left me a lot of money..."

"Okay, let's stop talking about this. The money your parents left you is for you to get married and buy a house, so just keep it." Mike pouted and said, "If you spend all the money now, you won't be able to get married in the future! Or even if you get married, you can only live with your wife at her parents' home!"

Harry was just a child after all, and didn't really understand the meaning of Mike's words. He just thought that Mike was persuading him to save money.

He wanted to say something to thank Mike, but when his eyes fell on the large bottle of crawling cockroaches in Mike's basket, his words suddenly changed.

"Uh, I understand the logic, but why did you buy a pile of cockroaches?"

Mike's face froze. He couldn't tell Harry that a pile of cockroaches was actually quite delicious, could he?

So he perfunctorily said, "This is for Dumbledore. As you know, he likes to eat this kind of weird candy the most."

Harry nodded in understanding, and Mike breathed a sigh of relief.

Then the two continued shopping.

I have to say that the wizarding village of Hogsmeade is really interesting. Mike and Harry visited almost every shop, from Zonko's Joke Shop which specializes in prank props such as dung bombs to the famous Three Broomsticks Pub.

It is worth mentioning that they also met the three Weasley brothers in the joke shop. According to Harry, the Weasley brothers had almost run out of props for pranks, so they came out this time specifically to replenish their ammunition depot.

Harry originally wanted to go up and greet them, but was stopped by Mike.

Are you kidding? You are a famous person. If other people see you in Hogsmeade, won’t I be implicated?
Although this possibility is very small, we must guard against it.

The two were strolling happily along the street, but their good mood was completely ruined when Harry saw a notice on a wall.

'Ministry of Magic orders... that Dementors patrol Hogsmeade every day from sunset... This order will be lifted once Sirius is captured...'

The smile on Harry's face disappeared after he read the above content.

Seeing this, Mike patted Harry's shoulders twice to comfort him and said, "So Professor McGonagall didn't let you out because she loves you. After all, Black's target is very likely you."

"I know, it's all because of that murderer Black that I can't come to Hogsmeade with everyone openly!" Harry cursed Black irritably, but then, as if he was afraid that Mike would worry, or that Mike would not bring him next time because of Black, he said, "But the streets are full of Dementors now, Black should have no chance of getting close to here! So, Professor McGonagall is really making a fuss out of nothing!"

After saying that, Harry turned and walked towards the Bee Duke. It was getting late and it was time for them to rush back to Hogwarts.

Mike was looking at Harry's back with a strange expression on his face.

Tonight is Halloween, and it's also when Blake attacks for the first time!
If nothing unexpected happens, Harry will be slapped in the face tonight.

(End of this chapter)