Hogwarts Raven's Claw

Chapter 450 Dinner Party
"Mike, you are a very famous person. I often hear news about you when I am retired at home. I have to say that you are really an amazing young man!"

As soon as Mike and Emma sat down, Professor Sgrahorn spoke to Mike enthusiastically.

However, Mike only responded politely. He knew very well that this kind of person only cared about interests and was not worth making close friends with.

Seeing this, Professor Sgrahorn was not angry. He turned around and started communicating with Emma.

He first praised Emma from head to toe, and then tentatively inquired about Emma's family, showing great enthusiasm.

But after learning that Emma's family's business had been extremely bad recently due to Voldemort's return and was almost on the verge of bankruptcy, his attitude took a sharp turn for the worse and became lukewarm.

At this time, other people also arrived one after another, so Professor Slughorn's attention naturally shifted to others and he began to obtain information from them.

This behavior made Emma very dissatisfied. She pouted her lips, approached Mike and whispered:

"What a snob this guy is! No wonder my parents don't like him!"

"No need to worry about it." Mike smiled and shook his head, "This kind of person is just a clown."

Emma nodded vigorously when she heard this, and then began to introduce to Mike the identities of the people who came later.

"Look, that black-haired boy is called Belby Marcos. There's nothing much to say about him, but his uncle invented the wolfsbane potion and was awarded the Order of Merlin for it!
And that effeminate-looking man, his name is Shabini, and his mother is the famous Black Widow! She was married seven times, but each husband died in a very strange way, leaving her only a huge inheritance! We all say that it was Shabini's mother who designed to kill those poor people, she is a complete bitch! We don't want to play with him. And..."

Mike felt speechless. He found that Emma was like an omniscient intelligence specialist who could tell everyone's family situation.

But soon, Emma couldn't continue.

Because when everyone found out that Mike was here, everyone except the black guy from Slytherin gathered around Mike and started talking and laughing with him.

This made Professor Slughorn a little bit unbelievable, because from the information he knew, Mike was just a Muggle-born wizard.

Although Mike has won the Triwizard Cup and the Order of Merlin, Second Class, so what?
Michael won the Triwizard Cup together with Harry. Slughorn strongly suspected that he won it by taking advantage of Harry. As for the Order of Merlin, it was won by protecting a carload of classmates from Dementors.

Slughorn found this ridiculous, and even began to think that the Ministry of Magic's standards for awarding the Order of Merlin had reached a point where there was no bottom line.

You have to know that the Dementors were still slaves of the Ministry of Magic at the time. Even if they had ten thousand guts, they would not dare to openly attack the students on the Hogwarts Express.

In summary, in Slaterhorn's eyes, Mike was just a lucky guy with some strength and talent, so he didn't pay too much attention to Mike.

But now Professor Slughorn suddenly felt that he had judged Mike too hastily.

Looking at the respectful manner in which those he had invited treated Mike, Slughorn found it hard to imagine that this was the treatment a mediocre person would receive.

Slughorn nodded secretly, and inwardly raised Mike's status slightly.

At this moment, the carriage door was opened again.

Ginny came in timidly.

Seeing that the person coming was not Harry, Slughorn's face flashed with disappointment, and then he greeted him with a smile and arranged Ginny in a seat in the corner.

Her arrival also attracted the attention of others. Her conspicuous hair immediately betrayed her identity - Weasley.

Immediately, many people in the carriage frowned. No matter from which angle they looked at it, the Weasley family was not qualified to stay here with them. They really couldn't understand why Professor Slughorn let this little girl in.

Ginny felt very uneasy at the malicious looks from the crowd. She looked aggrieved and kept shrinking towards the corner, as if she wanted to hide herself in the wall.

Seeing this, Mike quickly stood up and sat next to Ginny.

"Hey, Ginny, we meet again."

Ginny was initially startled by the person who suddenly sat next to her, but after hearing the familiar voice, the smile on her face bloomed again.

"Mike! It's great that you're here too!"

Ginny said happily, and then whispered in Mike's ear:

"Everyone here is so weird. They're all looking at me. Is there something wrong with me?"

"No, you're fine, they're the ones with the problem."

Mike replied firmly.

Mike's answer gave Ginny courage, and she nodded heavily after hearing it.

When everyone saw that Mike actually left them and sat next to Ginny, their faces looked a little confused.

They couldn't understand why someone like Mike would be involved with the Weasley's youngest daughter.

And Mike didn't deliberately lower his voice when he talked to Ginny, so many people heard Mike say that they had problems.

Now many people had expressions of shame and embarrassment on their faces.

But this also explains why Mike accompanied Ginny, that is, he couldn't bear to see a little girl alone in such an embarrassing situation.

After figuring it out, everyone looked at Mike with even more admiration, especially Emma, ​​whose red eyes were almost popping out.

Mike is such a strong man, but he also has a heart of gold!

This is exactly the same as the protagonist in a knight novel!
On the other side, perhaps due to the tension, Ginny continued to talk to Mike:

"…It's really strange to say, I was practicing the Bat Charm in the carriage when Professor Sgrahorn suddenly rushed in. He said that I was using the Bat Charm very well and invited me to have lunch with him. By the way, do you know the Bat Charm? It's an ancestral spell in our family, and it can…" Listening to Ginny's chattering, the smile on Mike's face never disappeared.

When he read the original novel in his previous life, he quite hated Ginny. After all, the actress who played her was not really pretty.

But now Mike has changed his mind. Ginny is such a cute girl that people can't help but want to take care of her.

Time passed little by little, and the guest that Sgrahorn cared about most today finally arrived.

"Harry! You are finally here! Oh! I guess this is Mr. Longbottom?"

Sgraughorn greeted Harry and Neville warmly, but Harry and Neville looked very embarrassed, and they were led by Sgraughorn like robots.

After Harry arrived, the originally harmonious and lively atmosphere in the carriage became deserted. Everyone stopped talking and looked at Harry with indifference.

Sgraughorn was obviously unaware of the situation in the carriage. He pulled Harry aside and introduced the people in the carriage and their family backgrounds to him one by one.

After the introductions, Sgrahorn took Harry's hand again and introduced him with a smile:
"I don't think I need to introduce him any further, right? He is a heavyweight celebrity. We have known him during the summer vacation. He is the famous 'savior'! Harry Potter!"

Professor Slughorn took the lead in applauding after he finished speaking. He thought that since he had invited such a famous figure, everyone should follow his lead and applaud to welcome him.

However, the reality was that no matter how Slughorn encouraged, no one at the scene welcomed Mike except Ginny and Neville.

Everyone just sat there quietly, looking at Professor Slughorn and Harry with mockery on their faces.

There were even some people who let out strange, mocking laughs that made Harry blush.

At this time, the scene inside carriage C became somewhat similar to the previous scene inside the prefect's carriage.

The people at the scene were roughly divided into three groups. Most of them gathered around Mike and looked at Harry with hostility, while Ginny, Neville and others gathered around Harry. As for the Slytherins, they hid in the corner and watched coldly.

At this time Slughorn also noticed the abnormality. His eyes rolled around and he immediately understood.

His previous assessment of the situation at Hogwarts had been wrong.

Harry Potter's reputation in Hogwarts is obviously not as high as that kid named Mike! And there is a high probability that the two of them are still in a hostile relationship!
Professor Slughorn had been in seclusion for so long that he didn't understand what the problem was, but it didn't matter. His strategy seemed to be to make friends with both sides. He didn't care whether Mike and Harry had any conflicts or not!
Thinking of this, Slughorn coughed and continued:

"Well, that's very pleasant. Everyone please take a seat, our lunch is about to begin."

Slughorn arranged for Harry to sit next to him, then took out lunch boxes from his basket and distributed the napkins inside to everyone.

"I'm sorry, ladies and gentlemen. The food on the delivery truck always tastes too strong of licorice wands. I, a poor old man, really can't digest it." Slughorn said as he directed his wand to open the lunch box, "So I brought my own food for this dinner. Of course, if any of you are willing to share your lunch, you can bring it out. We can treat this as a rather interesting picnic and share the food we brought together."

The food that Professor Slughorn brought this time was very exquisite, but perhaps he arranged the amount of food according to his own appetite, which was not enough for Mike and other teenagers who were still in the growth stage.

After these words were spoken, everyone looked at each other with a look of surprise.

To be honest, people who bring lunch on the train are either from families so poor that they can't even afford lunch on the train, or from families so rich that they think the lunch on the train is not tasty.

There were very few people here who belonged to these two categories, so everyone was a little dissatisfied when they heard this.

They didn't quite understand why Slughorn invited them over but didn't prepare enough food. Did he want them to starve?

But Ginny's eyes lit up when she heard that but then quickly dimmed. Out of past habit and love for her children, even though the family was no longer short of money, Mrs. Weasley still brought some sandwiches for Ginny and Ron.

But are those shabby sandwiches really worth showing off?

Ginny was in deep confusion.

After hesitating for a moment, Ginny gritted her teeth, took out the large sandwich wrapped in oil paper from her schoolbag and placed it on the table.

"This is what my mother made. If...if you don't mind, please use it."

Ginny's voice was so soft that no one could hear it. It was obvious that the girl was very nervous and seemed to be afraid that everyone would dislike the food she brought.

However, the situation she was afraid of did not happen. Everyone had clearly seen how Mike treated Ginny, so at this time, no one, including the Slytherins, mocked Ginny for taking out the shabby sandwich. Of course, they would not touch the sandwich either. After all, it didn't look very delicious.

Ginny looked a little disappointed, she could see that these people didn't like her sandwich very much.

She instinctively wanted to take the sandwich back, but Neville, who was quick-eyed and quick-handed, snatched the sandwich away and stuffed it into his mouth, mumbling something like "It's delicious, thank you."

Seeing this, many people present, including Slughorn, showed contempt. In their opinion, the only heir of the Longbottom family might not be very smart.

There was only Ginny, who was looking at Neville with surprise.

Mike saw all of this. He chuckled, then snapped his fingers in front of everyone's surprised eyes, called Shuke and Beta, and asked them to prepare some food.

Slughorn's eyes almost popped out, he never thought that a Muggle-born wizard like Mike would actually own a house-elf, a rare animal that almost only existed in ancient families!

"Mike, these two house-elves...are they yours?"

"Yes."

"Really? That's really enviable. I've always wanted to have a house-elf, but it's too precious." Slughorn said with envy, "Can you tell me where you came from?"

"Of course. Shuke and Beta were given to me by the predecessors of Raven Scratch." Mike said with a smile, "These two house-elves have special meanings to me, so they cannot be transferred to you. But I have two other house-elves, and I can give you one if you want. But they both have a history of betraying their masters, so I don't keep them with me at the moment, but put them in the company to do some rough work."

(End of this chapter)