Hogwarts Raven's Claw

Chapter 302 A loving father and a filial son
In the dormitory, in front of Mike stood four house-elves: the two brothers Shuke and Beta and Winky and Dobby.

Shanshan was staring at Shuke and Beta with envy at this moment.

There's no way. Compared with Shanshan and Dobby, Shuke and Beta look much better.

They were all wearing neat, scaled-down butler uniforms, standing there with their backs straight, looking very energetic.

Although house-elves are slaves of wizards, and wizards are sensitive about giving them clothing, in many cases the appearance of house-elves used to entertain guests can also indirectly highlight the financial strength and moral level of the host family.

In Shanshan's opinion, Mike must be a new owner with abundant financial resources and also very kind.

Dobby didn't think so much. He was already so excited at the moment. He just signed a magic contract with Mike with the help of Hermione. Now he is a glorious employee of Los Santos Group!

Weekly salary 2 gold galleons! Only need to work 8 hours a day, weekends off!
Dobby felt like he could wake up laughing even in his dreams.

But the brothers Shuke, Beta and Shanshan did not think so. They despised Dobby, a scum of a house-elf who worked for wages. This could be seen from their positions.

All three of them stood as far away from Dobby as possible.

"Well, Beta, I'll leave Dobby to you. You can take him to the Los Santos Corporation headquarters later. He will be responsible for the cleaning work there."

Shuke bowed and said yes, then he Apparated away with Dobby, looking constipated.

At this moment, Mike finally turned his attention back to Shanshan.

"Oh! Winky, I'm so glad you can join my family." Mike exclaimed, "I'm glad you're different from Dobby, really. Salary is another aspect, but the main thing is vacation. Maybe you don't know, but I have too much work to deal with here. If you also require an 8-hour workday and two days off a week like Dobby, it will be too difficult for me to handle it!"

"Sparkling is a good elf! Sparkling will work hard and will never let the master down!"

Shanshan shouted excitedly, and seeing this, Mike also showed an ambiguous smile on his face.

"It seems that you can't wait to get into the work, but before that we have one thing to clarify." Mike paused and continued, "I remember that you should have been the house elf of the Crouch family? Then do you know where little Barty Crouch went?"

Upon hearing this, Shanshan's body suddenly stiffened, and he trembled all over, with a look of fear on his face.

"The... the young master... he's missing! Shanshan doesn't even know where he went!"

As soon as he finished speaking, Winky began to bang his head against the wall, which was the usual way for house-elves to punish themselves.

Mike nodded slightly. He still believed what Winky said. Traditional house-elves would never deceive their masters.

"Tell me in detail Winky, how did Barty Crouch Jr. disappear?"

"No! Twinkle can't tell!" Twinkle continued to bang his head against the wall, "Twinkle is a bad elf! Twinkle actually revealed the secret of his former master!"

Seeing this, Mike did not choose to continue persuading, but took out a bottle of translucent potion and handed it to Shuke, and instructed him:
"I want to know everything about the Crouch family. Bring Winky back and try to persuade her. If that doesn't work, use this thing. By the way, do you know how to use this thing?"

Shuke ran his slender fingers across the word "truth serum" written on the bottle, nodded firmly, and then forcibly dragged Shanshan, who was crying in pain, out of Mike's dormitory.

Nodding, Mike also took out the Masonic gold coins and headed to the magic training ground in the secret realm.

He was going to practice silent and wandless spellcasting here.

It is well known that children with wizarding talent will experience at least one outburst of magic before the age of eleven. The reason for the outburst of magic is that the magic in the little wizard's body is still in an active but difficult to control stage, so they are often affected by emotions, which in turn causes all kinds of abnormal supernatural phenomena to occur around them.

Strictly speaking, this can also be considered a silent and wandless spell.

But after the age of eleven, as the body and personality gradually mature, this natural ability to cast spells silently and without a wand will disappear from the little wizard.

If you want to regain these two abilities, you need great talent and hard work.

The techniques of silent and wandless spells are not really a secret, but there are only a few wizards who can truly master them.

Because if you want to master both of these spellcasting techniques, you have to fully understand how spells are formed, but that means you have to learn each spell one by one, because each spell works completely differently.

At the same time, you also need to have a strong control over the magic power, because your actions of waving the magic wand and chanting the spell are actually guiding the magic power to run along a set trajectory to become a complete spell. It is a kind of fool-proof casting, and now you have lost the guidance of these two, and the magic power needs to be completely controlled by you. During this period, if your control over the magic power is insufficient, there will be slight errors in the trajectory of the magic power. In addition, without the super-strong increase in the power of the spell by the magic wand, the power of the spell released will be greatly reduced.

However, in order to perfectly replicate the spell, the control required is extremely exaggerated, and Mike is still far from it at the moment.

Therefore, Mike's research on silent spells and wandless spells is actually a thankless task.

Because the silent spells and wandless spells he cast now were much weaker than those he cast with his wand.

But there was no way. Mike's current strength had reached a stable and slow rising period. He could not find any way to make his strength increase again, so he could only practice the Silent and Wandless Spell to enhance his ability to deal with special situations in the future.

At the same time, by frequently using silent and wandless spells, he can train his ability to control magic. The power of magic after it has reached its peak can only be described as terrifying!
According to Mike's speculation, if he could really reach that height that only existed in theory, then he would not need to understand its mechanism and principle when casting the spell. The magic power in his body would automatically generate supernatural phenomena according to his thoughts, which is equivalent to having the ability to make his wishes come true to some extent!
For example, there is a big river in front of you without a bridge, and you can't cross it.

You suddenly want to fly over.

Then the next moment you will find that you are floating.

Or maybe you were thinking, if only there was a bridge.

Then the next moment the soil and rocks on the surrounding shore will automatically deform and reorganize into a bridge.

Or maybe you want to make the river disappear.

Then the next moment the river disappeared inexplicably!

Of course, this is just an ideal state in theory, and Mike estimates that he will never be able to reach this level in his lifetime.

But he still needs to continue practicing his control over magic. After all, if this ability is improved, it will also increase the power of his spells.

Now that the decisive battle is imminent, he must make good use of all his spare time and improve his strength as much as possible.

When Mike finished a day's training and returned to the dormitory, he saw the house-elves Shuke and Shanshan were already waiting for him there.

Twinkle looked the same as before, but the look in her eyes when she looked at Mike showed a little more fear besides respect. "Master! Twinkle has told me everything she knows."

After that, Shuke respectfully handed the truth serum and a roll of parchment back to Mike.

Looking at the completely unopened package of truth serum, Mike was a little surprised.

He really didn't expect that Shuke could make Winky talk without using truth serum. Is it that Shuke's interrogation skills are too advanced or is Winky's loyalty to the Crouch family not as high as it seems?
Although he thought so in his heart, Mike, who was exhausted after a day of training, did not ask, but directly unfolded the parchment.

As Mike expected, what was recorded above was the story of the loving father and filial son of Crouch.

After Barty Crouch Jr. was imprisoned, Mrs. Crouch was heartbroken and forced Barty Sr. to take her to Azkaban on the pretext of visiting her son.

However, they used the strategy of replacing the prince with a cat. Old Mrs. Crouch took the Polyjuice Potion on her own initiative and turned into Barty Jr., then committed suicide and died in Azkaban.

Barty Jr. transformed himself into old Mrs. Crouch and escaped from Azkaban.

Although old Batty knew about this matter in advance and agreed to it, he inevitably hated his son after his wife's death.

In addition, Barty Jr. was too deeply brainwashed by Voldemort, and he still had evil intentions after being rescued. So Barty Sr. used the Imperius Curse to control him and locked him up.

This caused Batistuta's already poor mental condition to further deteriorate, and he was almost on the verge of collapse.

Winky, the house-elf who had been taking care of little Barty, couldn't bear to watch it anymore, so she suggested that little Barty go to watch his favorite Quidditch World Cup, and promised that this would improve his mental condition.

It turned out that old Barty still loved his son. Although he repeatedly cast the Imperius Curse on young Barty several times before letting him watch the game, he finally let Winky accompany him to watch the game.

Unfortunately, due to being under the Imperius Curse for a long time, Barty Jr. has developed resistance to it.

He took advantage of the riots at the Quidditch World Cup to escape!
That is all that is written on the parchment.

Mike already knew what happened next.

Little Barty couldn't contain his joy at regaining his freedom, so he picked up a magic wand as soon as he escaped and released the corpse to reappear to announce his return.

Then he hid in the dark and chose to continue serving Voldemort.

'This is truly a loving father and a filial son!'

After reading the parchment, Mike sighed deeply and said to the trembling Shanshan:
"You can go to the Los Santos Corporation headquarters in the future and help the staff there, serving tea and water. I believe the people there will welcome you very much."

Shanshan bowed to Mike gratefully and then disappeared into the dormitory with Shuke.

……

As time got closer to Christmas, news of the Christmas ball gradually spread. It was not until this time that everyone understood what the dresses they were asked to prepare on the admission notice this year were used for.

Everyone showed unprecedented enthusiasm for this dance.

You should know that this dance is different from the usual Christmas dinners. You need to dance with a partner at this dance!
This is a good opportunity for many couples to enhance their relationship, and it is a great opportunity for singles who are longing for love to find a way out of being single!

Everyone started moving. Everywhere in Hogwarts, people could be seen inviting others to be their dance partners, as if they were afraid that if they were slow, the partner would be snatched away.

Mike and other warriors are the key invitation targets of others.

Harry, Fleur and Krum were all single, so they were attacked immediately.

Among them, Fleur and Krum received the most invitations. After all, the men were tall and handsome, and the women were beautiful with good figures.

On the other hand, although everyone knew that Mike had been with Penelope for a long time, the number of girls who invited him out did not decrease at all. After all, as the saying goes, if you use the hoe well, there is no corner that cannot be dug.

But they still underestimated the relationship between Mike and Penelope.

No matter how hard they tried, Mike's response to them was still a polite rejection, which made them very disappointed.

As for Harry, a warrior who was neither good nor bad, he received far fewer invitations than the above three.

Harry was very happy about this at first.

After all, although Mike and his friends are quite popular, those fanatical female fans have seriously affected their lives. Krum even hid in Durmstrang's ship to avoid those female fans. This shows that sometimes being too popular is not a good thing.

When faced with the rare girls who invited him, Harry also chose to decline politely.

He already has someone he wants to invite.

That's Qiu Zhang.

Harry still remembers that afternoon when he had just finished Quidditch training and was so sweaty that he couldn't wait to go back and take a shower.

But at this time Qiu Zhang appeared.

She came over and greeted him with a smile.

Harry didn't remember anything that happened afterwards. He only remembered that Qiu Zhang smelled good and had a beautiful smile. Whenever he saw her, his heartbeat would suddenly speed up!
Mike had known Qiu Zhang for a long time. As a Gryffindor seeker, it was necessary for him to know the seekers of other teams.

But he really didn't expect that Qiu Zhang would be so beautiful after taking off her Quidditch equipment!

During that time, even Harry would dream about Qiu Zhang's smiling face.

"Perhaps Ron is not the only one who has reached puberty."

Harry muttered, his thoughts going back to the afternoon when he met her. He felt that he had fallen in love with Qiu Zhang.

(End of this chapter)