Hogwarts Raven's Claw

Chapter 262 Practice

"Can I touch your medal?"

Inside the room where every wish is granted, a female member of the Student Mutual Aid Association was looking at Mike with longing, her right hand half stretched out as if she really wanted to touch the Second Class Order of Merlin on Mike's chest.

Faced with such a passionate and beautiful lady, Mike naturally had no reason to refuse. He generously took off the medal on his chest and threw it to the girl to indicate that you can do whatever you want.

The girl obviously didn't expect Mike to do this. She caught the medal in a panic and looked at Mike in surprise with her mouth wide open.

At the same time, the members of the mutual aid society who were summoned by Mike after the dinner also gathered around, looking curiously at the Order of Merlin, which is known as the highest honor of wizards.

There were too many people at the dinner just now, and they were too embarrassed to get close to Mike.

Mike was sitting on the sofa, looking at the twelve mutual aid members he summoned, with a mysterious smile on his face.

Those people obviously knew the importance of the medal. After passing the medal around, the girl who gave it to Mike at the beginning respectfully handed it back to him.

"Do you know why I called you here?" Mike took the medal, threw it on the coffee table and said.

These boys and girls looked at each other, and finally the boy named Benjamin stood up, walked to the front of the crowd and answered enthusiastically:
"At your command, Mr. Townley!"

At this moment, the others finally reacted, bowed to Mike like Benjamin, and shouted in unison:
"But by command!"

Mike nodded with satisfaction. The twelve people in front of him were the final winners of the treasure hunt in the Room of Requirement. All of them were extremely intelligent people who not only had outstanding talents in magic, but also had special talents in other aspects.

For example, Benjamin has an outstanding talent in potions.

The outstanding talents they demonstrated also made Mike make a decision to increase his training for them!

The training mentioned here is not as simple as increasing the supply of resources. What Mike needs is all-round talents with moral, intellectual, physical and aesthetic qualities. What these people lack most now is not knowledge, but practical experience.

"I have a mission for you to complete." Mike said, "I have always been in the dark side that you can't see. Those dark magic creatures have been persecuting our Muggle compatriots. This makes me very sad. So, I need you to hunt them down."

"Isn't this...not good?"

A short boy with freckles all over his face said uneasily in the crowd.

But Mike didn't even bother to answer him, and continued:

"This mission will last for the entire summer vacation. During this time, the one among you who hunts the most dark magic creatures will receive a bonus of 100 gold galleons and million pounds, and will also have the opportunity to gain more knowledge. In other words, this is a competition!"

As soon as these words were spoken, Benjamin and others were immediately shocked. Ten thousand gold galleons and one million pounds, such a large sum of money made everyone's heart beat faster.

Among these twelve people, there are also some with wealthy families. One million pounds is actually nothing to them, but ten thousand gold galleons is different!

Due to Gringotts' exchange decree, the large amount of money they had in the Muggle world could not be converted into gold Galleons at all, and these ten thousand gold Galleons were enough to make their blood boil.

What's more, in addition to this, the first place winner will have the opportunity to gain more knowledge!

This is so crucial!

The Snape notes and some of Black's secrets that Mike had given them earlier had already benefited them greatly. Several of the people present had even gotten several more A's in this year's wizard level exams because of them. If they could go further and gain more and better knowledge...

"Mr. Townley, do you have any other requests regarding the hunting target?"

A black guy with a crew cut asked with difficulty, gasping for breath. Just from the sweat constantly flowing down his body, one could tell how excited he was at the moment.

"There are no requirements except that you cannot kill opponents who are also participating in the competition. Werewolves, vampires, acromantic giant spiders, giants, trolls, and even Dementors. As long as you are able to kill them and bring their corpses to see me, I will give you points according to their strengths!"

After getting Mike's answer, the black guy silently shouted "yes" and then retreated behind the crowd.

Obviously, not all of these twelve people had almost lost their minds like him. The blonde girl who wanted to touch Mike's medal at the beginning asked hesitantly:
"But we can't cast magic outside of school..."

Before she finished her words, the black guy and several other teenagers burst into laughter. One of the teenagers wiped away his tears of laughter with difficulty and mocked the girl:
"Kelly, have you become stupid from studying so much? Everyone knows that this ban is specifically used to restrict us Muggle-born wizards. Don't tell me that you haven't found a way to avoid the Trace after so many years in Hogwarts!"

The boy's words won the approval of several others. They had long been dissatisfied with Trace and the ban on magic for minors. Why could those half-blood and pure-blood little wizards use spells unscrupulously during the holidays, while they could only pretend to be ordinary people who couldn't do magic?

Don't the higher-ups at the Ministry of Magic and the professors at Hogwarts know that this will cause them to lose a great deal of practice time, and thus fall far behind the half-bloods and pure-bloods in terms of spell level and learning progress?
Mike looked at the angry crowd in front of him with a smile and nodded silently in his heart.

It was obvious that the group of people in front of him had accumulated a lot of resentment towards the entire wizarding society, so it was easy for him to control these young boys and girls.

Seeing the girl who asked the question speechless and could only shrink in the corner with grievance, Mike clapped his hands and attracted everyone's attention again.

"Okay, stop arguing. I believe Kelly didn't mean it." Mike said, "Then I will announce the official start of this hunting competition. Finally, I want to say that everyone here is smart, and I believe you all have some experience in how to circumvent the regulations of the Ministry of Magic. But I still want to remind you not to do anything stupid. If you commit a serious crime and are caught by the Ministry of Magic, then..."

Mike didn't say the rest of the words, but everyone present already understood what he wanted to say.

Several people who were originally so excited that they wanted to run and fight the werewolves and vampires immediately also calmed down.

Seeing that they had all listened to what he said, Mike nodded with satisfaction and adjourned the meeting.

After everyone had left, Penelope and Franklin came out from the shadows.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Penelope asked worriedly, "One of them might die."

Mike glanced at Penelope and said nonchalantly:
"You know, for people like us, getting ahead in wizarding society requires some crooked ways. It's for the greater good."

Upon hearing this, Penelope's eyes became more worried. She felt that what Mike was doing now was more like cultivating a band, which was undoubtedly a dangerous path.

Franklin on the side also saw Mike's intention, but his reaction was different from Penelope's.

He felt that everything Mike did made sense.

This is a song title, and as a leader, what Mike did is obviously worthy of his swearing to follow.

……

In the next few days, these boys and girls worked hard to prepare for the competition. The reward Mike offered was so tempting that even those with better family conditions and less virtuous hearts were interested in this competition.

There were many smart people among them. Benjamin cleverly seized the loophole in Mike's words and began to frantically win over other members, trying to gather everyone's strength to let one of them win the game, and then divide the prize money and knowledge equally.

Mike turned a blind eye to this. He had actually expected this situation to happen and hoped to discover more of their talents from it.

If Benjamin's plan succeeds, the difficulty of this competition will drop sharply, even to almost zero.

Because they no longer have any competitors, that means the twelve of them only need to symbolically kill a monster and then hand it over to the designated first place.

It’s a pity that among these twelve people, someone would obviously prefer to take all the rewards for himself.

For example, the strongest one among the twelve, the boy with blonde hair like Mike, Victor.

The rejection of Victor, the strongest man, obviously made the other stronger members have other ideas. These people felt that they were powerful and hoped to be the ultimate winner, so there was no need to join Benjamin's team at all.

As a result, Benjamin's alliance became a weak alliance.

Only those who are weak and think they have no chance of winning this competition will join Benjamin's alliance to keep each other warm.

And Benjamin's teammates also have their own ulterior motives. Everyone wants to take the team's spoils for themselves at the last minute and enjoy the fruits of victory alone.

"It's getting more interesting."

Mike sighed, pushed open the door of the auditorium and came into the auditorium where the year-end dinner was being held.

Compared to the previous two years, the students were obviously not very interested in this year's dinner. This was largely because the dinner held a few days ago to celebrate Mike and Snape receiving the Order of Merlin, Second Class, consumed too much of their energy.

But there was no Ravenclaw among these listless people, and the reason was simple, because this year's house cup belonged to them again.

This is all thanks to the Order of Merlin, Second Class, which Mike was awarded.

After learning his lesson, Dumbledore obviously didn't dare to use any tricks like zero-hour extra points or Jedi counterattack anymore, so in order to commend Mike, the youngest ever recipient of the Order of Merlin, Second Class, Dumbledore announced at the dinner a few days ago that he would add 300 points to Ravenclaw!
This exaggerated bonus point directly filled up the house score hourglass, which originally seemed a bit empty compared to Slytherin and Gryffindor. It also changed the main tone of today's dinner to the blue color that symbolizes Ravenclaw.

The students of Gryffindor and Slytherin were naturally unhappy about this, but no matter how unhappy they were, they were still very impressed with Mike in their hearts. After all, that was the Order of Merlin, Second Class, and Mike had achieved such an achievement at such a young age, which really left everyone speechless.

The dinner was successfully completed, and Ravenclaw successfully completed their second consecutive championship.

The arrival of summer vacation has greatly alleviated the dissatisfaction of Gryffindor and Slytherin students, and Black has also ushered in his ultimate moment.

Blake was obviously dressed up today, wearing a dark brown striped suit and a dark shirt with complex patterns on the lining, which clearly showed his sexy nature.

He recognized Harry from the crowd almost at first sight. There was no way around it, Harry and his good friend James looked so much alike.

"Hello, Harry." Black was so nervous that he stuttered, "I'm Sirius Black. Maybe you don't know it yet, but actually... um... actually I'm your godfather. Your father James... well, James is my best friend."

Harry raised his head and looked at the tall Black in front of him.

He really wants to say that you don't need to introduce yourself at all. The newspapers were full of your photos and deeds, and he is already very familiar with you.

"I know you. You gave me the Firebolt, two of them." Harry was so nervous that he stuttered. "Thanks to you, we won the championship this year."

Blake smiled, but then he seemed to feel that this was a bit rude, so he quickly stopped smiling and said seriously:
"You don't have to thank me, this is what I should do."

"Ah."

Harry's "hmm" obviously killed the conversation. Black remained silent, his mind frantically working to find a new topic, and the atmosphere between the two of them couldn't help but become awkward.

After a long while, until Black's forehead was covered with sweat, Harry asked hesitantly:

"Um, what can I do for you? My uncle is waiting for me outside. If I don't go, he might be angry."

"Nothing! I just want to ask you, you know I have a house in Grimmauld Place, right? I also heard that you are not living well at your uncle's house." Black saw this and quickly told his true purpose, but because he was too nervous, he spoke too fast and seemed a little incoherent, "So... so I want to ask you, are you willing to move out from there and live with me?"

These words seemed to have drained all of Black's strength. He panted heavily and waited nervously for Harry's answer, not even thinking of wiping the sweat off his face.

"Are you serious? You want me to leave my uncle's house?"

Black was obviously disappointed by Harry's suddenly raised tone. He raised his eyebrows and pretended to be nonchalant and said:

"Oh, it's okay, it's okay if you don't want to..."

However, before he could finish his words, Harry interrupted him excitedly and said, "That's great!"

"What did you say?"

"I say this is wonderful!"

"That means you agreed!"

"Of course!"

A delighted smile appeared on Black's face. He turned around in a circle with Harry in his arms, picked up Harry's huge suitcase and walked out of the station. As for Uncle Vernon who was still waiting for Harry, the two people who were in ecstasy probably forgot about him.

At the same time, the twelve mutual aid association members who accepted the task also walked out of the station. They quickly divided into several groups and disappeared into the crowd.

"It looks like they can't wait any longer and don't even plan to go home." Mike said to himself, "You go and keep an eye on them and don't let them cause any big trouble."

'understood. '

An emotionless voice rose from Mike's heart, and then a faint black mist emerged from his neck and slowly dissipated into the air.

(End of this chapter)