Hogwarts Raven's Claw

Chapter 414 Funeral
After returning to Hogwarts from Dumbledore, Mike sat alone in the dormitory for a long time.

His mood was very complicated at the moment.

Generally speaking, the purpose of his trip to the villa in the forest has been achieved. First, he can use Dumbledore's power to solve the problem of Slytherin's pendant without bloodshed, and Dumbledore should set out to find the Resurrection Stone soon.

At that time, Dumbledore, who longs for his relatives, will certainly not be able to resist the temptation of the Resurrection Stone and will fall into Voldemort's trap. His time is running out.

Even Dumbledore's attitude towards Harry was exactly as Mike expected. It could be said that everything developed as Mike had planned. But despite this, Mike just couldn't be happy.

Is it really worth sacrificing the lives of two old friends, Dumbledore and Harry, for those cold interests?
Mike was in deep doubt.

Fortunately, Mike's dilemma did not last too long. After some thought, he quickly came to a conclusion.

Of course it’s worth it!

Otherwise, what are the points of all my previous efforts?

At the same time, he also had a clearer understanding of himself in his heart.

In some ways, he is the same kind of person as Dumbledore.

In order to destroy Voldemort and restore peace to the wizarding world, Dumbledore was willing to sacrifice Harry, the son of an old friend. And Michael was willing to sacrifice the lives of his two old friends, Dumbledore and Harry, for the greater good.

Of course, this doesn't mean that Michael is so ruthless that he is determined to exchange Harry and Dumbledore's lives for victory.

Just as in the original book, Dumbledore tried his best to find the best of both worlds, and in the end he successfully eliminated Voldemort while also saving Harry's life.

Michael will also try his best to avoid the sacrifice of his friends around him, just as he persuaded Dumbledore to let Lupin retire so that he and Tonks could have a good ending. Michael sincerely hopes that every one of his friends can have a happy ending.

But who knows what will happen in the future? All I can do is try my best.

Thinking of this, Mike, who had regained his fighting spirit, took a deep breath, sat down at his desk and began his post-war statistics work.

After communicating with Dumbledore, he had a detailed understanding of the battle situation of this trip to the Ministry of Magic.

The Los Santos Wizard Corps did not suffer heavy casualties in this battle, with only 6 casualties, including one slightly injured, four seriously injured, and one killed.

The original casualties should have been smaller. After all, there were only two seriously injured people in the normal battle, and the remaining one was slightly injured. The two seriously injured and one killed were all caused by the negligence of the defense team.

For this reason, the leader of the defense team voluntarily resigned from his position as team leader and expressed his willingness to accept any punishment.

However, Mike did not punish him too severely. After all, these Los Santos wizards were trained by Mike at a great cost. Mike would never fire them at will until they helped Mike earn profits that exceeded their costs.

But the appropriate punishment must be given, otherwise it would be difficult to convince the public, so Mike deducted his one-year bonus and all the proceeds from this operation as punishment.

The defense captain naturally agreed with this punishment.

After all, his life was saved, so a fine was nothing.

The rest of the members were also very satisfied, because Mike promised the team leader a monthly bonus of up to 500 gold Galleons, and the bonus for this operation was as high as 1000 gold Galleons, which means that Mike fined him a huge sum of 1500 gold Galleons in one go!

Mike did not keep the money in his own wallet, but gave it all to the family of the deceased team member as pension.

In general, the losses of the Los Santos Wizarding Corps this time were much less than Mike expected. After all, there will always be casualties in war. Mike had even prepared himself mentally for the loss of more than half of the entire wizarding corps, so he was very satisfied with the results he could achieve now.

On the other hand, the situation of the Death Eaters is far from ideal.

Although Voldemort successfully took the prophecy, his Death Eaters suffered heavy losses.

First of all, the entire werewolf army was wiped out, and even the commander Fenrir did not survive.

Then the casualties among human wizards were also very serious. With the preliminary attack by the wizards of Los Santos and the subsequent encirclement and hunting by the Aurors, Mike estimated that most of the Death Eaters were already in the Ministry of Magic.

Even if the remaining small number did not die, only a very small number would dare to continue to join Voldemort.

In other words, now Voldemort, except for the main core members such as Bellatrix, his Death Eater army has almost been killed or injured.

Mike slowly wrote down this conclusion on his notebook, and the corners of his mouth slowly rose.

The action organized by himself undoubtedly dealt a heavy blow to Voldemort and greatly hindered Voldemort's progress in notifying the wizarding world.

But the Order of the Phoenix suffered equally severe losses.

First, Kingsley, the Ministry of Magic official who colluded with them, was missing. He was not present during the entire operation from beginning to end and was suspected to have been captured by the Death Eaters.

Later, Black, Lupin and Moody were all seriously injured and had no ability to fight in the short term.

However, Mike estimated that even if they recovered from their injuries, it would be unlikely for them to return to the Order of the Phoenix.

After all, Lupin had been arranged to retire, and Black had begun to distrust the Order of the Phoenix because of Moody's incident. It would not be impossible for him to come to Los Santos if he tried harder.

As for Moody, he was probably the one who suffered the most in this operation, because during the evacuation, Mike and Black ignored Moody's existence, which led to him being successfully trapped by the Aurors while he was unconscious!

According to Dumbledore, he went to the Ministry of Magic to try to rescue Moody, but the Ministry of Magic ruthlessly rejected his request.

They also said that Moody had regained consciousness after the treatment they provided, but he was unwilling to follow Dumbledore back to the Order of the Phoenix.

Mike strongly suspected that Moody had been bribed. After all, he was originally a senior Auror and knew all the senior officials in the Auror Office (although their relations were not very good). At this critical moment, there was a high probability that he would rejoin the Ministry of Magic instead of returning to the Order of the Phoenix, an organization that might have someone stab him in the back.

Mike was naturally happy to see this happen. After all, he himself didn't like the old guy Moody.

As for what you said about Phoenix Society not declining after losing so many capable people?

Mike said you are totally kidding.

Who is Dumbledore?

He is the most powerful white wizard in the world today, and he has so many noble titles that you can't even count them! For such a person, it is too easy for him to replenish the manpower of his organization!

……

When the early morning sun shone on Hogwarts Castle, Mike finally sorted out the relevant information.

Although Mike's mental strength was very strong, he still felt a little tired after experiencing a big battle and not sleeping for two days.

In order to cope with the upcoming exams, Mike drank some Dolphin Magic Drink to refresh himself.

Perhaps because there will always be sunny days after storms, the weather around Hogwarts has been very good during the exam week, which is very rare, especially in the UK.

The beautiful sunshine and fresh air greatly alleviated the students' anxiety about the exams, so when Mike came to the restaurant, he found that the atmosphere here had improved significantly compared to the previous two days.

Although the students still maintained the diligent attitude of studying while eating, at least their expressions were not as ugly as in the first two days.

Mike easily found Harry, Hermione and others, and told them about Lupin's situation and Dumbledore's subsequent arrangements for him.

The three people responded differently.

Ron and Harry both looked unhappy and expressed regret about this matter.

From their euphemistic words, Mike could roughly understand what they meant.

Ron felt sympathy for Lupin's serious injury this time, while Harry's focus was on the fact that Lupin might lose a large part of his spellcasting ability in the future.

As for Hermione, her reaction was the most normal in Mike's opinion, because she was so happy that she danced with joy after hearing that Professor Lupin could finally retire and get married, and she even forgot to take care of the review notes that had been with her all this time.

Mike also felt very emotional about this.

In his previous life, Mike had heard a conclusion that girls are always three to five years ahead of boys in terms of psychological age growth and development.

Before, Mike thought this was nonsense. After all, his daughter in his previous life was hard to describe. But now, judging from Hermione's performance, what the scientists said is true!
Harry and Ron saw things too one-sidedly, only seeing what Lupin lost but not what he gained.

Fortunately, Hermione was relatively mature. After Hermione broke down all the twists and turns in the matter into pieces for the two of them, Harry and Ron showed expressions of sudden enlightenment on their faces.

In the end, the four of them decided to go visit Professor Lupin together after the vacation began.

After making this decision, everyone's life finally returned to normal.

This is painful for many people because it means they will face endless exams.

Ron even said shamelessly: "This is more difficult than when I fought and won against eighty Death Eaters alone in the Ministry of Magic!"

Mike was speechless about this, but the most speechless thing was yet to come.

Because after Ron made such a shameless statement, many members of the Da Army echoed him, saying that the exam was much more difficult than fighting the Death Eaters.

Thanks to their efforts, Mike and others' performance at the Ministry of Magic that night immediately increased a thousand times, and the number of Death Eaters killed reached an astonishing 100,000!

Mike was completely stunned because this number was too exaggerated. If Voldemort really had an army of 100,000, he would have conquered Europe long ago and would not have continued to fight with Dumbledore in England.

But the spectators just bought into this, and they even formed a contempt chain, with the generals who took part in the action that night at the top, and at the bottom were the Slytherins who already had some dark backgrounds.

In this regard, the Slytherins dared not speak out but were angry.

The anger was because to some extent what those classmates said was absolutely correct. Some of their parents and elders were indeed killed by the Los Santos Wizarding Corps and Aurors in the Ministry of Magic.

The reason why they dared not speak out was because their two main backers, Chris (yes, you read that right, Chris did not take the OWL exam) and Umbridge were not in Hogwarts these days!

But the hard days always pass, and all the exams are finally over before the last week of the semester.

On this day, the whole Hogwarts was in an uproar. Students ran around telling each other the news and venting their lively nature that had been suppressed during the week.

Some graduates expressed their disgust with learning by tearing up all their books as soon as their exams were over.

Such behavior is extremely irrational because according to normal procedures, these old books should be donated to the school to be used as second-hand books for other poor students.

Among the remaining graduates, there were even at least three student couples who announced their relationship immediately after the exams and said they would get married during the summer vacation.

Naturally, everyone gave them their heartfelt blessings, except Mike who looked confused.

After asking Benjamin and others, Mike found out that it was a tradition at Hogwarts to announce a relationship and a wedding date immediately after graduation.

It is said that the beginning of this tradition was a member of the Black family hundreds of years ago. He announced his wedding date to a girl from another pure-blood family at the graduation dinner and invited all classmates to attend.

Of course, such traditions mostly belong only to members of wealthy pure-blood families, including the three couples who announced their wedding dates this year.

As for ordinary students, due to face and economic reasons, they rarely follow this tradition, because if they do so, they will most likely be laughed at by their pure-blood classmates.

All the students had happy smiles on their faces, even those who did not perform very well in the exam.

After all, they still have a whole week of vacation ahead of them. During this time, they don’t have to worry about test scores or the discipline of their parents and teachers. They can play freely in the huge castle of Hogwarts.

However, the professors did not seem so happy. Even Professor Flitwick, who was usually the most optimistic, had a serious look on his face.

The students didn't feel there was anything wrong with this, or rather, they were already having so much fun that they didn't care at all about the professors' state.

But this situation will not last long.

In fact, on the morning after the exam, a report in the Daily Prophet put a cruel reality in front of everyone and took away everyone's good mood.

(End of this chapter)