Hogwarts Raven's Claw

Chapter 331 Zhou Hong's Self-Recommendation

"Then we decided to adopt plan B!"

In the conference room, after a heated debate, Mike finally decided on the final plan of action.

Upon hearing this, Benjamin, Soraka and other members who chose plan A all looked distressed.

In their opinion, plan a is safer and more reliable than the more brutal plan b.

"Mike, although we prefer Plan A, since the result of the vote and discussion is Plan B, we will naturally obey the organization's arrangements. But obedience is obedience, and I still have to say what I should say." Benjamin said, "The most important key to Plan B is the speed of breaking through the door of Bella's vault. Now, although we can break through the door within five minutes with the help of Victor's solvent, it is not enough. You know, when we are really on the scene, every minute and every second is precious. So,"

Benjamin stood up, glanced at everyone in the conference room and continued,
"I don't think we need to rush. It might be a good idea to postpone the implementation of the entire plan and give Victor more time to improve the solvent."

As soon as this statement was made, it won the approval of others, even those who voted for plan B kept nodding.

Mike, who was sitting in the first position, glanced at the calendar on the conference table, which clearly recorded the current date:
1995 7 Month 28 Day.

"Time is running out. I can only give Victor a week at most. After a week, we must act no matter what."

Mike's words left Benjamin silent. Although Mike did not explain it clearly, he understood that the reason for the current situation of insufficient time was entirely because they, the site scouts, had wasted too much time on the preliminary work.

If he could obtain information about Bella's Gate materials earlier, Victor would have more time to develop the solvent.

Thinking of this, Benjamin's fists had unconsciously clenched together. At the same time, an emotion called self-blame slowly rose in his heart.

Mike didn't pay any attention to Benjamin at all. He glanced at everyone present and continued:

"We can't be idle during this week, so we can do some preparatory work."

"Preparatory work? Do you mean pretending to be someone else and opening an account at Gringotts?"

Zhou Hong, who was originally fiddling with his magic wand out of boredom, suddenly perked up upon hearing this. He stood up and looked at Mike with expectant eyes.

"Well, actually, it is possible to use the Imperius Curse to control others to open an account..."

Before Mike finished speaking, Zhou Hong interrupted:

"Let me go!"

"?"

Hearing this, Mike showed a puzzled look on his face.

Benjamin, who was still blaming himself, was even more exaggerated. He jumped up from his seat and shouted in a decisive tone:

"no!"

"Why not? I have the ability to read minds!" Zhou Hong's eyes flashed as he spoke, and then he showed a sly smile, "If you had brought me with you when you scouted the place, you wouldn't have to blame yourself like this now!"

Zhou Hong's words were like a knife stabbing Benjamin's heart. He was so angry that his face turned red and he said in a trembling voice:

"This is too dangerous, absolutely not!"

On this side, Zhou Hong and Benjamin were still arguing, while on the other side Mike was in deep thought.

He was different from Benjamin. From the beginning he did not treat Zhou Hong as a child, even though Zhou Hong's body shape and appearance looked no different from a child.

After getting rid of this discriminatory view, Mike found that what Zhou Hong said was surprisingly correct.

Being able to read minds and worry about things, Zhou Hong is simply a natural born spy!

Perhaps as he said, if he had gotten Zhou Hong out of the way earlier, things might have been successful a long time ago.

Thinking of this, a smile appeared on Mike's face.

"Okay, you two stop arguing." Mike knocked on the table to stop the quarrel and said, "Leave this matter to Zhou Hong."

"I obey! President!"

Zhou Hong said excitedly, and even raised his eyebrows at Benjamin, which once again made Benjamin very angry.

"So what are you going to do?"

"How? Is there any need to ask? Of course I will pretend to be someone else to open the account!" Zhou Hong rubbed his hands and said, "As for who I will pretend to be, it will be that old man Karkaroff!"

Zhou Hong's eyes were shining. Before Mike and the others could ask any questions, he asked and answered himself:
"Then why choose Karkaroff? The answer is, of course - because it's fun! When the Ministry of Magic finds out that the reason the Gringotts robbery happened was because Gringotts allowed a wanted criminal to open an account in their bank, they will surely fight with those goblins on the spot, right? Hahaha! I can't wait to see their expressions then!"

Zhou Hong's somewhat neurotic laughter echoed in the conference room. Everyone was a little confused when they saw it, and Mike was even more speechless.

He finally realized that the reason Zhou Hong rushed to take on this job was not because he wanted to contribute to the organization, but because he participated simply for fun!
With such a willful personality, are you really not a child?

Mike thought so and shook his head and said:

"Well, you can handle the specific matters yourself. If you need anything, go to Benjamin and Victor. They will do their best to satisfy you. By the way, can you make a portkey?"

"Who are you looking down on? Of course I can do such a simple thing!"

"Okay, it's my fault! My fault!" Mike really had no idea what to do in the face of Zhou Hong. He quickly raised his hands in surrender. "Okay, let's adjourn the meeting!"

After saying that, Mike walked out of the meeting room without looking back. Benjamin originally wanted to talk to Mike about stopping Zhou Hong, but Mike moved very fast. When he chased him out the door, Mike had disappeared.

"Ugh!"

Benjamin sighed helplessly and was about to leave when he heard a mean voice suddenly appear beside him.

"Then I'll leave it to you, Senior Benjamin."

After saying this, Zhou Hong walked away with a smile, leaving Benjamin gritting his teeth.

……

In the fireplace hall of the Masonic secret realm, Zhou Hong was sitting on the sofa with an unhappy look on his face, and next to him was Benjamin, who was holding a small package and talking incessantly.

"...There are several bottles of Polyjuice Potion in here. Drink them when the time is almost up. Don't be frugal. Also, I have improved these Polyjuice Potions. They taste much better. I even referred to the production method of Dolphin Magic Drink and made different flavors for it. For example, this bottle is strawberry flavored, this bottle is orange flavored, and this bottle..."

Faced with Benjamin's nagging words, Zhou Hong gradually began to feel desperate.

Now, three days have passed since the plan was finalized. During these three days, Benjamin has made sufficient preparations to ensure that Zhou Hong's action can proceed smoothly, and the most crucial one is the compound decoction.

This kind of potion that can transform people into other people is nothing to Benjamin, but the most difficult thing is that in order to turn Benjamin into Karkaroff, Karkaroff's body tissues, such as hair and nails, must be added to the polyjuice potion.

But Karkaroff is now missing! Fortunately, Karkaroff was in such a hurry to escape that he left behind too many things, including the cloak.

Through magic, Benjamin extracted Karkaroff's hair from the cloak, and then created the Polyjuice Potion that could turn a person into Karkaroff.

"I know. Give it to me."

Finally, Zhou Hong could no longer tolerate Benjamin's reckless behavior. He snatched the cloth bag from Benjamin's hand, took out a bottle of medicine from it and drank it all.

The next moment, Zhou Hong's body began to twist and deform, and eventually turned into the appearance of Karkaroff.

After completing the transformation, Zhou Hong looked at his body with satisfaction, then took the cloth bag prepared for him by Benjamin and walked into the fireplace that had been sprinkled with Floo powder.

"Be careful! Zhou Hong! If you're in danger, use the portkey to teleport back!"

Benjamin's worried voice was still echoing in his ears, and Zhou Hong now appeared in the crowded Leaky Cauldron.

Zhou Hong pretended to be very nervous. He held down the tall hat on his head with his hands, hugged the bag in his arms tightly, and without even brushing off the dust on his body, he quickly left the bar and headed for Gringotts.

The guards of Gringotts respectfully opened the door for him, then looked at Zhou Hong with a smile, waiting for him to give a tip.

Unfortunately, Karkaroff was probably an extremely stingy person. So Zhou Hong, who was now pretending to be Karkaroff, had no intention of paying a tip at all. He simply bypassed the two guards who were blocking his way and walked towards an empty counter.

"I want to rent a safe." Zhou Hong lowered his voice and said in slightly stiff English, "to store money!"

The fairy who was busy at the counter glanced at Zhou Hong, and then her eyes lit up.

Zhou Hong in front of him looked sneaky and didn't look like a good person at all.

And this kind of person is undoubtedly the easiest to get out of trouble!

"It's my pleasure to be of service to you, sir. What level of vault do you require?"

“The safer the better!”

"Okay. Then please register your personal information and your wand."

The fairy at the counter smiled in a formal manner, then took out a form and handed it to Zhou Hong.

Without any hesitation, Zhou Hong filled out the form according to the information he had previously collected about Karkarov and returned it.

The goblin looked at the name on the form, his pupils shrank suddenly, and then he raised his head suddenly, looked at Zhou Hong's appearance and then looked at the wall next to him.

Zhou Hong followed its gaze and saw a wanted poster from the Ministry of Magic posted on the wall. The person wanted on it was Karkaroff!

"I heard that Gringotts will not refuse any guest, even if he is a dark wizard. Is that correct?"

Zhou Hong's tone became extremely nervous. He hugged the cloth bag tightly in his arms, pressed down the brim of his hat again, and at the same time slightly tilted his body, posing a posture as if he was ready to run to the door at any time.

The goblin's smile grew even brighter as he saw this. He smiled and said:
"That's right, sir. Gringotts doesn't care about the identity of its guests."

'But it's different for me personally. If you don't give me a hundred today... No! If you don't give me a thousand gold Galleons, I will report to the Ministry of Magic!'

The fairy did not say the second half of the sentence, but Zhou Hong read it with his mind-reading ability.

Trying hard to suppress his smile, Zhou Hong pretended to be distressed and grabbed a handful of gold galleons from the cloth bag and stuffed them into the fairy's hand.

"That's enough!"

The goblin looked at the gold coins in front of him greedily, but his head shook involuntarily.

Seeing this, Zhou Hong grabbed the gold coins on the counter and turned away without any hesitation.

Sure enough, after taking a few steps, the goblin's shrill, nervous voice came over.

"Wait! Sir!"

Zhou Hong smiled, but when he turned around, his expression became nervous again.

"Sir, I think that was great!"

As the sound of gold coins colliding rang out, the fairy closed his eyes in satisfaction and handed a key to Zhou Hong.

"Sir, this is your vault key. I'll have someone take you there later," the fairy said. "I'm sorry that this isn't the most secure level 1 vault, but I think the level 2 vault will be enough to meet your needs."

Zhou Hong knew that what the goblin meant was that a guy like Zhou Hong was not worthy of owning a first-class vault.

Such words carried a hint of contempt, but Zhou Hong was in no mood to waste time with the goblin at the moment. After glaring at it fiercely, Zhou Hong followed the guide and got on the mine cart.

When the mine cart began to speed up, Zhou Hong screamed excitedly.

The mine cart that Mike and Benjamin hated so much seemed so interesting to Zhou Hong. It was a hundred times more exciting than the roller coaster in the amusement park!
But after screaming, Zhou Hong regretted it, because it was obvious that an old thief like Karkaroff would never get excited enough to scream over such a trivial matter.

Fortunately, through mind reading, Zhou Hong discovered that the guide sitting in front of him did not become suspicious, and even increased the speed for fun, trying to scare him to death!

This made Zhou Hong very happy. He shouted excitedly, enjoying the passion brought by this extreme speed. He arrived at the platform where his vault was located with sparks and lightning.

After getting off the car, Zhou Hong quickly put away the remaining excitement on his face and complained to the goblin guide who got off the mine car with a proud look on his face:

“Your service is terrible!”

The goblin guide naturally knew that Zhou Hong was referring to the mine cart. He apologized in a tone without any sincerity, and then helped Zhou Hong open the door of the vault.

Zhou Hong continued to complain while walking towards the vault.

The guide followed behind him, but when he was about to enter the vault, Zhou Hong suddenly turned around and said viciously:
"what are you doing?"

"Help you organize the vault, sir. This is our custom here."

"I don't need it! Wait outside!"

After saying that, Zhou Hong roughly pushed the goblin guide out.

"What an ignorant country bumpkin!"

Listening to the voice of the goblin he had pushed out of the vault, Zhou Hong smiled. He took out a mug from his arms and slowly pointed his magic wand at it...

(End of this chapter)