Hogwarts Raven's Claw

Chapter 311 The Mermaid Queen's Apology

After having lunch with Professor Flitwick, it was already afternoon. Mike returned to his dormitory to rest for a while, but as soon as he returned to the dormitory, he found an owl knocking on his window anxiously.

After letting the owl in, Mike opened a can of sardines for it, then took the letter off the owl's leg and began to check it.

"Mike, the matter you asked me to do last time has finally made some progress. An old friend of mine told me that the Flint family has been declining since they had a 14-year-old head of the family. They have been shrinking their business recently. Apart from potions and some special alchemical materials, the Flint family now has no other source of income. So your worry is completely unnecessary. Given the current situation of the Flint family, other families are too busy to swallow up the Flint family's industry, so how could they form an alliance with them? And according to my old friend's speculation, the Flint family will be completely swallowed up by other families in the next three years. By then, no matter how strong Chris is, he will be powerless to save the situation.

The above is the first thing. When I was investigating this matter, I also discovered another thing that made me very anxious.

Nowadays, many families want to kill you.

I don't know why they did this, but there is no doubt that you will be in danger if you are targeted by so many big families at the same time. Especially since you are going to participate in the Triwizard Tournament, they may tamper with the items in the Triwizard Tournament, so please be careful!

If push comes to shove, the door of the Foley family will always be open to you.

Your friend: Abbot Foley.'

Closing the letter, Mike smiled and nodded.

The decline of the Flint family made him feel greatly relieved. What he was most worried about was that the Flint family would do the same thing as Chris did in Hogwarts and integrate the power of the entire Slytherin family.

This will make his subsequent actions very passive.

But according to the information provided in Abbott's letter, his worries seemed unnecessary. Although Chris had amazing talent in magic, he was obviously not a good head of the family. Now the entire Flint family was almost ruined by him.

In this way, Mike can rest assured. After all, Mike is absolutely confident in his own strength. Chris is improving, and Mike is also improving.

On the other hand, Mike had actually already anticipated that those pure-blood nobles would attack him. After all, every wealthy pure-blood family is very large in size, and their network of relationships is intricate. Even many people who are not from their family at all are willing to work for them for something.

Therefore, the unbreakable oath signed by Fudge and the new clan leaders does not actually have much effect, because even the new clan leaders cannot completely control the power of the entire clan, and it is unrealistic to sign a contract with everyone in the family, so revenge on Mike is bound to happen.

But Mike didn't care about their revenge.

Not to mention that his strength has surpassed that of most adult wizards. You have to know that this is Hogwarts, where the world's strongest white wizard is stationed. It is simply a pipe dream for that group of people to want to kill him here.

But people are sometimes so stubborn. Mike is now almost certain that the reason why he was attacked in the Black Lake was most likely caused by that group of people.

This is a bit too much. You have to know that this happened under Dumbledore's nose, which is equivalent to a slap in the face of Dumbledore, the legendary white wizard. If the matter is exposed, all of them will be killed by Dumbledore or thrown into Azkaban.

To be honest, Mike really admires their courage.

These are a group of true heroes who are willing to give up everything for a chance of revenge.

These people can already be called death warriors.

Even so, since these people's target is him, Mike will definitely not show mercy to them.

So, a smile appeared on Mike's face. While writing a reply to Abbott, he made up his mind to tell Dumbledore everything and let his old headmaster help him get rid of those annoying ants.

……

In the evening, Mike walked briskly to the monster statue.

“Honeycomb cake.”

"The password is correct!"

There was a noise coming from inside the monster statue, and then it moved obediently to the side, revealing a winding staircase inside.

Climbing up the stairs, Mike finally arrived at Dumbledore's office.

At this moment in the office, Dumbledore was entertaining a mermaid suspended in a huge water ball with his favorite fizzing bees and a pile of cockroaches.

This is obviously the mermaid king.

Judging from the bulge on the mermaid's chest, it should be a female mermaid, but Mike couldn't find anything beautiful on it. Compared with the mermaids Mike had met in the Black Lake, it seemed particularly huge and had a particularly ferocious appearance.

After seeing it, Mike even began to doubt whether the succession of the mermaids' throne was decided by a duel. Otherwise, how to explain why the mermaid queen in front of him looked so fierce.

But despite her ferocious appearance, the mermaid queen obviously still loves beauty, which can be seen from the dazzling array of luxurious jewelry and a large number of shell ornaments on her body.

Especially the sapphire necklace it wore around its neck. The sapphire on it was so huge and its color was so gorgeous that even Mike couldn't help but lose his mind.

"Mike! You've come just in time. We are enjoying dessert!" Dumbledore invited enthusiastically. "Please sit down and eat with us. You are growing up and you will get hungry very quickly. So instead of braving the cold wind in the middle of the night to trouble the house-elves in the kitchen, you might as well eat more here!"

Mike couldn't refuse the kindness, so he said thank you and stuffed the cockroach pile into his mouth.

He actually quite likes this coffee-chocolate flavored cockroach pile, but the appearance of this candy is really weird. In order to maintain his image, Mike never buys it. He only eats some when he is with Dumbledore.

When Dumbledore saw that Mike accepted his invitation, the smile on his face became even brighter.

He enthusiastically poured Mike another cup of hot water, and then pushed a plate with a honeycomb-shaped cake in front of Mike.

"Just drink hot water. Drinking tea at this time won't let you sleep at night." Dumbledore smiled kindly. "Also, I want to highly recommend this honeycomb cake to you! It's a good thing. I've fallen madly in love with its taste recently!"

The corners of Mike's mouth twitched, and he suddenly remembered a rumor.

It is said that Dumbledore always used the most delicious food he had recently tasted as the password for his office until he came across something even more delicious.

Now it seems that there is a high probability that this rumor is true.

He cut a small piece of cake and put it in his mouth to chew. A strong aroma of honey swept over Mike's taste buds, but the greasy sweetness that followed made Mike frown.

"I think it might not be for me, it's too sweet."

"Well, I see that you prefer cockroach piles to this." Dumbledore said with a smile, "You can take some with you when you leave. You know, I never lack candy here."

"Thank you so much, Professor!"

Mike answered in pretended surprise, but his eyes couldn't help but glance at the mermaid next to him.

"Oh! Look at my memory!" Dumbledore slapped his head and said, "Let me introduce you. This is the queen of the Mermaids of the Black Lake, Ms. Mercury." Mike politely saluted the giant mermaid, and the mermaid queen in the big water ball did not seem angry at all for being ignored before, and also performed a strange etiquette towards Mike.

"We asked you to come here because of the mermaid attack you encountered in the Black Lake today." Dumbledore clasped his hands together and said seriously, "After a detailed investigation, Ms. Mercury and I confirmed that what you said was true. There were indeed some mermaids who were bewitched by some wizards and attacked you. But unfortunately, all the mermaids involved in this incident have died at the hands of the lake monster, so we haven't found the real culprit yet. But don't worry, I promise you, Mike! Whoever is behind this, I will make him pay the price!"

The mermaid queen on the side lowered her crowned head and saluted Mike again with an apologetic look.

Mike pretended to be flattered and quickly returned the greeting, then said to Dumbledore:

"I think I can provide some clues about the mastermind behind this."

A flash of surprise flashed across Dumbledore's face, and then he extended his hand for Mike to continue.

"As you know, I accidentally killed many terrorists wearing white hoods at the Quidditch World Cup. I believe you also know their identities. And now I have obtained reliable intelligence that someone wants to avenge these dark wizards, so I suspect that this incident is also their work."

"Where did you get this information?!"

"My good friend Abbott, the heir of the Fry family, just sent me a letter today explaining this matter." Mike said, "I'm sorry that I can't show you my letter, but you can confirm this matter with Abbott in person."

"I see. I will go and confirm this matter."

After that, Dumbledore looked at the mermaid queen in the water ball with complicated eyes and said:

"Then the next thing is another matter. Hogwarts has a contract with the mermaids. The mermaids cannot attack any Hogwarts students who fall into the water. This time the mermaids violated the contract. According to the regulations, they will be driven out of the Black Lake."

As soon as these words came out, the mermaid queen in the water ball suddenly became excited. She twisted her body and lay on the surface of the water ball, begging in a muffled and strange English voice:

"Please, Mr. Dumbledore, don't chase us away! More than a hundred of our people died in this attack, and there are even more injured. If you chase us away, we won't be able to hold on, and we will all die!"

Although the mermaid queen was looking at Dumbledore when she spoke, her body and mouth were facing Mike, which made her posture look particularly strange, but allowed Mike to clearly see the pitiful look on her face and her round breasts.

Mike was naturally not interested in the hag-like mermaid queen. He quickly looked away and looked at Dumbledore.

However, Dumbledore was not moved at all by the mermaid queen's pleas, and still had that expressionless and cold face.

But suddenly, Dumbledore asked:
"What do you think, Mike?"

"what?"

Mike was stunned at first, then he understood.

The old guy Dumbledore didn't want to drive the mermaids out of Hogwarts at all. The reason he was acting like this now was just acting for himself.

This is a really good plan. On the one hand, I am both the person involved and the victim.

If he didn't speak up, Dumbledore wouldn't be able to allow the mermaids to stay in Hogwarts.

On the other hand, this incident can also be regarded as a test for Mike. If Mike still wants the mermaids to leave after the mermaid queen said those words, then in Dumbledore's mind, Mike's impression points will undoubtedly be reset to zero.

'What an old fox!'

After cursing in his heart, Mike immediately put on an anxious expression and said:

"I also don't agree with driving the mermaids out of Hogwarts. They are intelligent beings, too. It's too cruel to drive them out of their homes and let them die! Besides, I'm not actually injured. How about we just let it go?"

After saying that, Mike silently gave himself a thumbs up in his heart.

His acting skills were simply explosive. Not only were his expressions and tones all on point, but he even changed the word he used to address the mermaids from the usual "it" to "he".

Dumbledore on the other side pondered for a moment before speaking in a hoarse voice:

"But the mermaids did make a mistake, and it's really unfair to you."

Mike was about to answer that it was okay, but the mermaid queen on the other side spoke first:

"I am willing to compensate Mr. Townley!"

As he said this, he took off the sapphire necklace from his neck with a painful look on his face and handed over the water ball.

"This is a treasure that has been passed down for thousands of years. I call it the Heart of the Ocean!" The mermaid queen looked at the necklace reluctantly and said, "It can keep people young forever, and they will only grow old when they die."

Hearing this, Mike shifted his gaze from the necklace to the mermaid queen's face, and indeed, he discovered that there were some more wrinkles on that half-human, half-fish face.

After looking at the sapphire necklace and then at Dumbledore's expressionless face, Mike decided to continue his acting. He pretended to look at the necklace in fascination, then hurriedly looked away and said loudly in a firm tone:

"No! I can't have it! This is your family heirloom! Besides, Aunt Mercury needs this necklace more. Her wrinkles will appear when she takes it off!"

At first, Mercus had a happy smile on her face. She was really reluctant to give the Heart of the Ocean away. This thing was priceless to any woman. But when she heard the second half of the sentence, her smile froze. What Mike said was really asking for a beating.

Dumbledore, who was standing by, finally smiled when he heard this. He laughed loudly, took the Heart of the Ocean from the Mermaid Queen's hand, put it into Mike's hand, and said:

"Just take it, you deserve it!"

"Can I really take it? Do I need to move the mermaids away?"

Mike clutched the necklace tightly, pretending to be half happy and half worried.

Seeing this, Dumbledore smiled even more happily.

"Don't worry! The mermaids will not be driven out of the Black Lake!"

Mike pretended to be relieved when he heard that, and he and Dumbledore looked at each other and laughed together.

Although the mermaid queen had lost the Heart of the Ocean, she could not hide her joy as she had saved her clan.

For a moment, the principal's office was filled with laughter, and even the old principals in the portraits on the wall opened their eyes curiously.

(End of this chapter)