Hogwarts Raven's Claw

Chapter 364 Pig Head Bar
"Tick-tick-tick-tick..."

The infirmary ward was completely silent, except for the sound of the hands moving on the huge clock in the corner. The only sound in the ward was the breathing of Umbridge, who was wrapped like a fresh mummy on the bed.

Umbridge's breathing was very slow, and if you listened carefully you could even hear a slight snoring.

"tick~tick~"

The clock hands were still moving, and finally, with an obvious mechanical sound, the thick hand representing the hour suddenly moved and pointed to a big I.

A small door on the top of the clock suddenly opened, and a golden bird made purely of machinery flew out of it, chirping as it circled over the ward.

Umbridge on the hospital bed seemed to be awakened, and she took a deep breath as if she hadn't breathed for a long time.

Her body was trembling slightly and her head was shaking slightly, as if she wanted to turn her head to look around her.

However, due to her neck brace, she was unable to turn her head, so she could only try her best to turn her eyes.

Suddenly, a bunch of pure black roses appeared in her peripheral vision.

All the thorns on the branches of this bouquet of roses have been removed, and the tool used to peel them all off from their original positions is a dagger next to the roses.

Umbridge's body was shaking more and more violently, and there was even a faint sound of intermittent teeth clashing coming from her mouth.

The sunlight outside shone through the window onto her bed, making it look as beautiful as if someone had sprinkled a large amount of gold powder on it. But even so, Umbridge did not feel a trace of warmth at all.

At this moment, she even felt that her whole body was soaked in cold sweat, and because of the thick plaster on her body, she couldn't wipe the sweat off at all, which made her feel extremely uncomfortable.

After a while, Umbridge's breathing gradually calmed down and the amplitude of her body shaking also decreased a lot.

She clearly remembered that after Mag left yesterday, a burly man in a black robe and a strange white mask appeared in her ward!

The masked man said he wanted to give himself a gift, then he took out a dagger and put it on his neck.

The memory had become blurred at this point. Umbridge thought it was just a nightmare at first, but now she had really found the dagger!
All this is true!
Umbridge continued to take deep breaths in an attempt to calm herself down.

At this moment, her brain was working at high speed, and she felt as if she had vaguely discovered a huge secret!

Dumbledore and his employees have formed a huge interest group that constantly squeezes profits from all aspects and trains Hogwarts students to become their armed forces.

When their power has accumulated to a certain level, they will rush out of Hogwarts with unrivaled power and unify the entire wizarding world of Yingguo! Even the whole of Europe! The whole world!

That's right! That must be the case!
Dumbledore, the world-famous white wizard, is the most evil black wizard! An ambitious man with a heart full of conspiracy!

It must be because my arrival made them uneasy, so they sent people to attack me!

This is not just an ordinary attack!
The attack that night was clearly a deliberately planned death threat!

I didn't figure it out at first, so later Mag sent people to threaten me more directly!
Thinking of this, Umbridge felt her body begin to tremble instinctively again, and she could no longer suppress the fear in her heart.

She admitted that she was really scared.

Who is not afraid of death?
She even had the urge to go straight back to the Ministry of Magic. Even if she was blamed by Fudge for failing the mission, it was better than losing her life!

Unfortunately, it's too late to say all this now.

Umbridge felt the plaster that bound her whole body and a bitter smile flashed across her face.

I have already lost my freedom and am under complete house arrest. How can I escape back?
Now, I can only cooperate with those people's actions as much as possible, and hope that they will take my identity as Deputy Minister of Magic into consideration and let me go!

"Crench!"

The door of the ward was suddenly opened, and a student medical volunteer in a white coat walked in.

Umbridge was startled by the sound, her pupils shrank suddenly, and she almost couldn't hold back a cry.

The female volunteer who came in did not seem to notice Umbridge's change of expression. With a warm smile on her face, she carefully helped Umbridge to tidy up the messy quilt, and then asked gently:

"Professor Umbridge, you are finally awake! You haven't had lunch yet, what would you like to eat?"

As she spoke, she suddenly noticed the roses beside Umbridge's bed, and her smile became even brighter.
"Wow! Roses! Were they sent by your friend, Professor Umbridge? He was so thoughtful that he even removed the thorns from them!"

Umbridge's lips moved slightly on the bed. The warm smile on the girl's face seemed so evil to her. Facing the girl's question, Umbridge knew that she had to bow her head under the eaves and could only reluctantly answer:
"Ok!"

……

At the same time, on the busy main road of Hogwarts Village, Mike and a group of members of the Mutual Aid Society were walking in a mighty manner.

Today is the weekend, and it is also the day he and Harry have agreed to meet the new members of the cram school together.

"Mike, look at that!"

While walking, George suddenly grabbed Mike, and the latter looked in the direction he pointed, and saw a shop that was already crowded with people. On the wooden sign in front of the shop, there was a line of large words written in gold paint - Zuo Ke Joke Shop.

"We're going to open a joke shop much bigger than that one day!"

George gritted his teeth and said, while Fred next to him retorted:

"Not only will it be bigger! By then, our store will have more items than there, and the quality will be better!"

"Yes, you are absolutely right, Fred!"

Looking at the two people who were as excited as if they had been injected with chicken blood, Mike shook his head helplessly, did not answer, but just continued to walk forward silently.

He often heard similar words during this period. Mike guessed that George and Fred were not having an easy time with Umbridge during this period, and could only rely on such thoughts to keep themselves going.

After walking for a while, the Hogsmeade Post Office appeared in front of everyone. This post office is the message center of the entire Hogsmeade village. It stores countless letters from owls. The owls here are divided into different levels by various colors. The higher the level, the faster the owl is, and the higher the fee is.

It's a pity that the people who manage this post office don't seem to have any awareness of cleanliness, which results in bird droppings everywhere inside the post office, which is very disgusting.

They turned a corner in front of the Hogsmeade Post Office and entered a small alley. After walking for a while, a shabby two-story tavern appeared in front of them.

This tavern is located at the intersection of this path. Mike thinks the owner of this tavern must have been kicked in the head by a donkey, because unlike the main road of Hogsmeade village not far away, there is no one on this path. Presumably its business must be very bleak.

At the door of the small building there was a tattered wooden sign with a picture of a chopped-off pig's head on it. Blood had seeped through the white cloth wrapped around it, making it look a bit scary.

"The Hog's Head, let's go in."

Following Mike's lead, everyone followed him and poured into the bar.

As soon as he entered the bar, Mike smelled a strong smell of sheep, which made him instinctively cover his nose.

Then he turned his head and took another look, and found that this bar was like a garbage dump compared to the Leaky Cauldron in Diagon Alley!

The space inside is very small, and there are a lot of tables and chairs placed in a mess, which makes the originally small space even smaller.

There was also thick dirt on the windows inside, and the light from outside could hardly get in, making the light in the tavern very dim. Even though it was daytime, there were still some candle ends lit on the rough wooden tables for lighting.

The floor of the tavern was gray. Mike originally thought it must be compacted mud, but after stepping on it and feeling it himself, he was surprised to find that it was actually centuries of dirt accumulated on the stone floor!

Everything here disgusted Mike, considering that he was a very clean person.

It is said that Hagrid is a frequent visitor here. When Mike and others were in the first grade, it was here that Quirrell used a dragon egg to trick Hagrid into revealing the secret of the three-headed dog while they were drinking.

For this reason, Mike originally thought that even if the Hog's Head Inn was a little dirty and messy, there would at least be a limit. But now it seems that he really overestimated Hagrid's tolerance for the environment!
"What do you want?"

Just as Mike was frowning and looking around, a rough voice suddenly came.

Mike turned his head to look at the bar, and saw a fat uncle with a big beard, who looked somewhat like Dumbledore, staring at him angrily with his round eyes. It seemed that he was very dissatisfied with Mike and others for disliking the environment here.

Mike immediately remembered the other party's identity!
Aberforth, Dumbledore's younger brother, is also the owner of this pub.

But according to the information in the original book, his relationship with Dumbledore was very bad, and the two would quarrel and even fight whenever they met.

Mike is not clear about the deeper reasons behind this. The original book only says that it is because of their little sister, but the specific details are not written in detail.

It is said that detailed content can be found in other materials, but unfortunately Mike has only read the original book.

"Mike, you're finally here!" Harry shouted excitedly, but after seeing the group of senior students behind him, the surprised smile on Harry's face suddenly froze, "What are they doing..."

It was only then that Mike noticed Harry and the others hiding in the corner. He looked at Aberforth deeply, and then smiled and said to Harry:
"They are all my friends. They heard that I was going to give them extra lessons so they came along."

"Really? This is really great!"

"Now we finally don't have to worry about the awkward situation where no one will come... woooo!~"

Ron had only said half of his words when Hermione and Harry covered his mouth together, and he could only make whimpering sounds.

At this time, George and Fred had already sat down at the bar. It was obviously not their first time here. They raised their hands very skillfully and shouted to Aberforth:
"Boss, give each of us a bottle of butterbeer! It's my treat!"

George spoke with great pride. Now that the secret of their wealth had been revealed, they began to spend money lavishly.

Aberforth at the bar had his eyebrows and beard twitching violently when he heard this. He stood there staring at George angrily, as if he was angry that George had increased his workload.

It wasn't until George's scalp was numb from being looked at that Aberforth came over and took out two large boxes of butterbeer from the cabinet under the bar and piled them in front of George:

"All the stock is yours, 50 bottles, 6 gold galleons in total!"

"What? Do you think we are fools?" Fred shouted, "The butterbeer here is clearly 2 Sickles a bottle. 50 bottles is 5 gold galleons and 15 Sickles. Where did the extra 2 Sickles come from?"

"Huh!? You're not buying it?"

Aberforth's performance was even more exaggerated than Fred's, with a hint of anger in his voice.

Upon hearing this, George hurried out to smooth things over.

They are regular customers of this pub, and the reason why they often come to this pub to consume is because the owner of this pub doesn't care about the "underage drinking ban" at all. Here, as long as you have money, he will sell you alcohol even if you are just a student.

It is also for this reason that the Hog's Head Inn has become an important source of goods for Hogwarts' "alcohol smuggling network". Almost all the alcohol in Hogwarts comes from here.

So they didn't want to have a bad relationship with the boss, and at the same time they didn't care about Aberforth's forced sales.

Because they can transport the extra wine here back to Hogwarts and buy it slowly, so what does the high price matter? They can also raise the price after they go back!

In the end, after some deliberate flattery from George, Aberforth finally handed over two full cases of Butterbeer to Fred.

Fred then skillfully opened the boxes and distributed the wine inside to everyone present.

Mike was also given a bottle of butterbeer, but he showed no intention of drinking it.

The reason is simple: it’s too dirty!
His brows were already furrowed when Aberforth took out all the butterbeer.

The two large wooden boxes were covered with dust and dirt, and their original colors could no longer be seen.

The butterbeer taken out was similar. The place on the bottle that was supposed to be covered with the trademark pattern was now blurred, and a lot of grease and dust were attached to the surface of the glass bottle, which made the whole bottle look terrible. It also made people wonder if these butterbeers were expired!
Mike would never eat such dirty things unless he had no other choice!

(End of this chapter)