Hogwarts Raven's Claw

Chapter 291 Magic Wand
"Well, it looks like this beautiful lady has found her true love," said Ollivander. "Mr. Krum, it's your turn."

Hearing this, Krum in the corner finally moved. He walked with his feet turned outward, listlessly came to Ollivander and stuffed his wand into his hand. Then he stood there with a frown, his hands in the pockets of his robe.

Ollivander examined the wand, not smelling it as he had done before.

"Hornbeam oak, the core is the tendon cord of a dragon's heart... If I'm not mistaken, this should be Gregorovitch's work, right?"

Krum nodded.

"Well, I knew that no one but that nasty fellow would use such a stupid combination," Ollivander muttered. "Ten and a quarter inches long, what a weird size!"

Ollivander seemed to be very displeased with this wand. After confirming the basic data, he didn't even look at it carefully and just stuffed it back to Krum.

"Okay, next one!"

Krum walked away with an indifferent look on his face, while Mike broke free from Fleur and came to Ollivander.

"Oh! I remember you! Mr. McTownley! Thirteen inches, blackthorn wood and dragon nerves! Am I remembering correctly?" Ollivander shouted excitedly, without waiting for Mac's answer, and then continued, "Merlin! Finally, there is a work made by my hands! Come and let me see it, kid!"

After saying that, he took the wand from Mike.

"Oh, relax, Mr. Ollivander."

Mike reminded him, but Ollivander seemed to be completely immersed in his own world and had no reaction to Mike's words.

After a while, Ollivander, with a fanatical expression, said excitedly:

"This is amazing!"

Mike: “?”

"Do you remember what I said when you came to buy a wand? This wand of yours is a wand specially for warriors. It has an unparalleled talent in attacking spells. At the same time, blackthorn wood has a wonderful characteristic. After it and its owner have experienced a really difficult battle, it will become stronger!" Ollivander narrated with his hands dancing and excitement, "I bet you and it must have experienced countless dangerous battles, so that now its body is covered with scars! I swear, you must not have taken good care of it normally."

As Ollivander spoke, he raised his wand in front of Mike's eyes, showing him the densely packed tiny scars on the wand.

"So, you're saying I need a new wand?"

As soon as Mike said this, a humming sound came from the blackthorn wand, and then a ball of flame spurted out from the tip of the wand, directly setting Ollivander's hair on fire.

"Merlin! How could you think so? It's your most important friend! Look, it's angry!" Ollivander slapped the flames above his head in panic, "Well, let me tell you! If it were a wand made of other materials, its performance would have declined long ago. But blackthorn is different. I also said that this is a wand for a warrior, and the scar is the warrior's medal! So, instead of declining, its performance has improved. Moreover, it has evolved wonderful properties!"

"Look! Flocks of birds!"

Ollivander waved his wand and chanted a spell, but nothing happened.

"How amazing! Isn't it?" he said. "It has the properties of an ash wand, refusing to obey orders from anyone other than its owner! Come on, try using my Flock of Birds!"

Mike took the wand, thought about it for a moment, and did not do as Ollivander said. Instead, he waved the wand casually.

The next moment, a ball of bright red flame shot out from the tip of the staff.

The ball of fire condensed in mid-air but did not disperse. It quickly transformed and soon turned into a small phoenix that began to hover over the attic!

"Wow! Look at the powerful spell control! I dare say that only the wand I made can achieve this level!"

Ollivander clapped wildly, boasting about his abilities to everyone in the referee's booth.

However, Dumbledore and the others ignored him. At this moment, they all looked at the still flying phoenix in surprise!

"This is... silent spellcasting!?"

"I think so, Ms. Maxime." Dumbledore replied, staring at Mike with shining eyes.

"I remember he was just fourteen years old?" Mr. Crouch said to himself, "What a terrifying talent!"

Karkaroff's teeth were crunching as he bit them. Like everyone else, he knew very well how talented a wizard was who had mastered the technique of silent casting at the age of fourteen.

Even Voldemort back then was probably at this level.

"It looks like the top three cup is on the line this time!"

Karkaroff thought so.

On the other side, the fat photographer kept pressing the shutter to record this shocking scene.

The fire phoenix gradually dissipated, and everyone on the field finally recovered from their shock.

"To sum up, there is absolutely no problem with your wand!" Ollivander panted, "Please welcome the next warrior!"

Harry finally came to his senses after hearing this and stumbled towards Ollivander's.

When Harry and Mike passed by each other, Mike gently patted Harry on the shoulder and encouraged him:

"take it easy."

Harry looked startled and nodded yes quickly.

"Oh, Dumbledore, your two warriors don't seem to have a good relationship." Karkaroff said gloatingly, "Look, they started verbally attacking each other before the game even started."

Dumbledore smiled and shook his head without saying anything. Karkaroff was deaf, but he was not. He heard clearly what Mike said just now.

"Great! Another one of my creations!" Ollivander said happily, "It's made of holly wood, eleven inches long, and the core is a phoenix feather! Am I remembering correctly, Mr. Potter?"

"Yes…yes sir!"

Harry was a little uneasy, because when Ollivander sold him the wand, he had told him that the phoenix feather in this wand was plucked from the same phoenix as the feather in Voldemort's wand.

He was a little worried that Ollivander would tell this matter because it would cause many people to have unnecessary misunderstandings.

Fortunately, Ollivander didn't seem to mean to reveal his client's privacy (he certainly remembered, Harry was sure!), and although he examined this wand longer than all the others, he didn't say anything.

Finally, he used his wand to conjure up a bunch of wine and returned it to Harry.

"Thank you all!" Dumbledore said, standing up from the referee's table. "You can go back to class now. Oh (he looked at the clock on the wall). Maybe it would be better to go straight to dinner. They will be over soon anyway."

Harry breathed a sigh of relief when he heard that. His class was Snape's Potions class, which was his most hated class.

"Photo! Photo! Dumbledore!"

A muffled female voice was heard, and everyone looked to see Rita Skeeter gesturing frantically at Dumbledore.

"Oh, Ms. Skeeter, sorry, I didn't realize you were here."

"It's okay, Dumbledore. I just wanted to remind you that the warriors still need to be interviewed and photographed." Rita Skeeter pretended to be nonchalant and said, "By the way, I wonder if you have read my article about the International Confederation of Wizards Conference in the summer."

"Excellent!" Dumbledore's eyes sparkled, and he looked like he really liked the article. "I especially loved the part where you described me as a petrified old lunatic!"

"Puchi!" Furong couldn't help laughing, and Ms. Maxime on the side immediately gave her a death stare.

"Sorry! I was wrong!"

Fleur quickly admitted her mistake, but Maxim refused to give in and walked towards Fleur, but was stopped by Dumbledore halfway.

"It's okay, Maxime."

Maxim stopped talking, and Dumbledore continued:
"Okay, in that case, let's start taking pictures."

The subsequent photo shoot took a long time because Ms. Maxime was so big that she would block others no matter where she stood.

This made Maxim feel very embarrassed.

Fortunately, Furong didn't laugh at this time, otherwise Mike guaranteed that she would be in trouble when she returned.

Finally, the problem of the group photo was solved, and Rita Skeeter started taking photos with everyone.

Among them, Mike and Harry were her main focus. Mike estimated that photos of him and Harry alone accounted for 80 percent of the photos taken today.

After doing all this, Rita Skeeter was still not satisfied and began her personal visit.

She didn't have the guts to come to Mike's side, so she could only surround Harry and ask questions.

Mike was not aware of the specific content of the interview because he left the venue early with everyone else.

But he could still make a rough guess.

They were nothing more than ordinary questions like impressions of parents and life at Hogwarts, etc., and then after being processed by Rita Skeeter, a negative article that completely misinterpreted the interviewee's meaning would appear.

This is what Rita Skeeter does best.

Mike had no intention of reminding Rita Skeeter not to do this, and he didn't even remind Harry to be careful of Rita Skeeter.

Because he noticed that Harry was very sensitive now, it would be better for him not to contact him now. Any rash contact would likely have the opposite effect.

What's more, he is not a nanny. He is so busy every day that he doesn't have time to constantly coax the children.

……

It can be seen that the students of Beauxbatons are really afraid of Madam Maxime.

After being given the death stare by her, Fleur kept her head down uneasily, and she didn't even have dinner with Mike. Instead, she followed Ms. Maxime back with her head lowered.

Mike was also happy to have some free time, and after dinner he returned to the secret realm of Freemasonry and started a meeting with his fellow Masons.

"Any progress on catching the mouse, Benjamin?"

"I'm sorry, Mr. Townley." Benjamin stood up suddenly, his back straight but his head down, "Zhou Hong's ability is still too weak. He can only read some rough thoughts of others, and can't do something as magical as Legilimency. At the same time, the scope of his ability is also very small, so we haven't found any capable person yet."

Mike stroked the blackthorn wand in silence, and the atmosphere in the conference room seemed to freeze.

No one dared to speak. Although Mike didn't say anything at the moment, everyone knew that he must be very angry.

Benjamin, who was the first to be hit, was so sweaty that he stayed behind.

"Okay, sit down." Mike said, "There's no need for this between us. You can just call me Mike from now on. All members of the Freemasons are equal. We are not pursuing vulgar rights, but greater interests. So, relax a little, I promise everything will be fine."

"Got it, Tom… Mike."

Benjamin finally sat down, took the handkerchief handed to him by Soraka and began to wipe his sweat.

The atmosphere in the conference room eased somewhat, but no one spoke.

Finally, George sighed deeply, breaking the silence.

"Mike, I find it hard to believe your statement that everything will be fine."

Everyone looked at him in surprise. It was hard for anyone to believe that George would publicly question Mike's opinion.

Benjamin, who had just wiped his sweat off his face, was so nervous that he started sucking his fingers.

"Well, George is right," said Fred, "unless you can get Professor McGonagall to change her mind."

"What the hell is wrong with you guys?"

George and Fred looked at each other and sighed together again.

"Michael! Do you remember Maxime? She's the headmaster of Beauxbatons, the woman who's as tall as Hagrid."

"I know, what next?"

"And then?" George rolled his eyes and said with despair, "And then Professor McGonagall thought Maxim's way of managing students was very clever. She is now learning from Maxim so that she can treat us in the same way in the future!"

Franklin smacked his lips in surprise, then forced a smile and said:
"Ha ha ha, George, Fred, this joke is not funny at all."

"What a joke?" The Weasley brothers said in unison, "Don't you know? Gryffindor has already started a trial. Now we are the same as the students at Beauxbatons. Whenever a professor passes by, no matter what we are doing, we must stand up and salute!"

The smile on Franklin's face suddenly disappeared without a trace, and his dark face began to turn blue.

"This is simply a nightmare!" Fred held his head and wailed, "You have no idea how we have survived these past few days!"

"I don't think Professor McGonagall can popularize this method throughout the school." Mike comforted Franklin, "Unless Dumbledore speaks, the deans of other colleges will not accept it."

"At least Professor Flitwick wouldn't!" Mike added.

Franklin's eyes lit up immediately, but George on the side said sinisterly:
"How do you know Dumbledore won't speak?"

"Come on! Don't we know what kind of character Dumbledore has?" Franklin said cheerfully, "If he wanted to implement strict management, he wouldn't have abolished those cruel punishment mechanisms in the first place! So, the only unlucky ones will be you Gryffindors!"

Upon hearing this, everyone in the conference room looked at each other, and then deafening laughter broke out in the room.

George and Fred slumped in their chairs, feeling hopeless.

When everyone had laughed enough, George said:
"I still think Professor McGonagall will succeed. By the way, where's Victor?"

"Oh, he's in his practice room, tinkering with his prosthetic limb."

"Prosthetic limbs!?"

Everyone stared at Benjamin who was speaking with wide eyes.

"That's right." Benjamin spread his hands and explained, "He seems to be obsessed with something incredible recently."

(End of this chapter)