Hogwarts Raven's Claw

Chapter 452: Branch Dinner
Looking at Ginny's pitiful big eyes, Mike shook his head helplessly.

He originally wanted to continue watching for a while to observe Harry's progress during this summer vacation, but now it seems that if he doesn't take action, he might become enemies with Ginny and the others.

Taking a deep breath, Mike took out his wand and flicked it gently.

Immediately afterwards, a huge circle of magic power accompanied by a fierce air wave swept out with Mike as the center.

No matter whether it was the protective spells cast by Emma and the others or the safety spells cast by Harry and Neville, they were all vulnerable in front of this huge wave of magic power and were swept away the moment they came into contact with it.

The subsequent air waves hit everyone hard, knocking both sides away.

The sound of heavy objects falling to the ground mixed with the screams of pain from men and women could be heard. Mike did not hold back in this attack. Emma and her group actually dared to bully Harry so blatantly. He had to punish them.

Emma and the others who were thrown out originally wanted to stand up and continue fighting, but then Mike's voice, which was enhanced by magic, came over.

"Stop it, Harry is my friend."

As soon as these words were spoken, the scene came to a standstill. Emma and the others were obviously at a loss, while Harry and Neville were lying on the ground gasping for breath. Ginny was groping Harry with a nervous look on her face and ignored Neville.

'Poor Neville.'

After silently mourning for Neville for less than a second, Mike looked at Professor Slughorn and said:

"Professor, I think it's getting late. Maybe we should end this dinner together."

"what?"

Slughorn woke up from his daze after hearing this and couldn't help but scream.

He was completely shocked by Mike's performance just now. If he hadn't seen it with his own eyes, he would never have believed that there would be a student who could break all the protective spells and safety spells at the same time.

Although these two high-level protective spells are just inferior stuff cast by little wizards, they are high-level protective spells after all!

What's more, Mike didn't use any powerful spells at all. He just exploded the magic power in his body to do all this. Even he himself couldn't do this!
However, what surprised Slughorn the most was not Mike's strength, but his prestige among the students.

Just from the fact that these students turned a blind eye to his words and even ridiculed him, he could tell that these students were all arrogant and conceited.

But even these naughty kids were as well-behaved as puppies in front of Mike, and they became quiet after being yelled at.

Slughorn's old brain was working rapidly. He had secretly promoted Mike to the top tier of his attention list, on the same level as Dumbledore and Harry Potter.

"Oh! Is it so late already?" Professor Slughorn came back to his senses and looked at the dim light outside the car window. He said pretentiously, "Everyone should go back and change clothes. We will arrive at Hogwarts soon."

Mike nodded after hearing this. Slughorn was a smart man. He understood the meaning of his words and did not continue to pursue the matter. Instead, he decisively let it go, which made him very satisfied.

He smiled and bowed slightly to Slughorn, then looked expressionlessly at Emma and the others who were stumbling around and said:

"What are you still standing there for? Move!"

As soon as these words were spoken, Emma and the others, who had been slumped on the ground and completely ignoring Slughorn's orders, began to move quickly, and seeing this, Slughorn's smile became even more awkward.

However, Mike obviously didn't care about him at this time. Mike quickly came to Harry's side, helped him up and asked:
"Are you alright, Harry?"

"I...I'm fine, it's just...Neville..."

Harry avoided looking at Mike, but pointed his finger at Neville standing beside him.

Neville looked extremely miserable at this moment. The range of the Peace Charm that they had summoned before was very small and could not completely cover the two of them. This caused a lot of overflowing spells to hit him and Harry, causing some damage to them.

"It's over... my robe... my grandma will definitely scold me to death!"

The wounded Neville looked at his tattered school uniform robe with red eyes, feeling so aggrieved that he was about to cry.

Seeing this, Mike shook his head, swung his wand and cast a restoration spell.

Under the effect of magic, Neville's robe was recovering at a speed visible to the naked eye, and Neville was shocked when he saw this. He hurriedly got up from the ground and stammered to Mike:

"Merlin's beard! Um... I mean... thank you, Mike!"

"You're welcome."

Mike responded, then looked at Harry.
"Harry, we will be at school soon, you should go change your clothes first. Also, I will deal with those people's ill will towards you, please believe me. But it will take me some time, so please try to keep a low profile for the time being."

Harry said thank you in an imperceptible voice, then limped out of the carriage with the help of Ginny. Neville followed them alone, waving to Mike with a forced smile as he walked.

Shaking his head, Mike said goodbye to Professor Slughorn and walked out of the carriage under the latter's somewhat stiff smile.

"Mike, are you okay? I heard there was a fight here."

Outside the carriage, Franklin had been waiting early. When he saw Mike appear, he immediately came up and asked nervously.

"I'm fine, but many people in Hogwarts are quite hostile to Harry. Please make some arrangements. First, let our people calm down and don't cause trouble for Harry."

"I'm afraid this is useless, right?" Franklin said with some embarrassment, "Even if they don't take action, others will..."

"Just take it one step at a time."

"understood."

Mike walked forward expressionlessly, while Franklin walked towards the other carriages.

……

Half an hour later, Mike got off the Nighthawk carriage and officially set foot on the land of Hogwarts.

Hagrid was taking care of the Nightkeeps who had completed their tasks in the square. The relationship between Mike and Hagrid had improved a lot, but Mike still didn't like this sloppy and weird half-giant.

So Mike pretended not to see the other person and sneaked into the castle hall.

Like previous years, four long tables were neatly arranged in the Hogwarts Hall, and countless lighted candles floated in the air, illuminating the huge hall while obscuring the starlight on the magical ceiling above, making it look as dark as an ordinary black ceiling.

At this moment, there were already quite a few people sitting sparsely in the hall. The people at the Ravenclaw table spotted Mike at the first moment, and surrounded him and brought him to the head seat at the Ravenclaw table.

This is a very symbolic act. The person sitting in this position in each college is almost always the uncrowned king of the college, or the most respected person.

In previous years, only the seventh-year prefect of Ravenclaw College could hold this position, but this year the seventh-year prefect sat below Mike. Not only was he not dissatisfied at all, he even happily told Mike about his interesting stories during the summer vacation and congratulated Mike on his high scores in the exams.

Mike responded fluently, but his eyes kept drifting towards the faculty seats. He really wanted to confirm the current condition of Dumbledore's injuries, which was closely related to his next plan.

Finally, about ten minutes before the Sorting ceremony began, Dumbledore and the professors arrived at their seats, and the Sorting Hat and its big chair also arrived at their places.

There was no need for Dumbledore to give any commands. The originally noisy hall suddenly became quiet. Everyone was familiar with the next procedure and all turned their eyes to the door of the auditorium.

With a light cough from Dumbledore, the door of the hall finally opened.

Professor McGonagall, wearing a slim lace robe, held her head high and walked quickly into the hall with the excited freshmen behind her, like a rooster leading his chicks to move, and finally stopped next to the Sorting Hat.

At this time, the eyes of all the senior students in the auditorium were focused on them. They were all silent, with serious expressions. This was the welcome ceremony for freshmen that they held every year, intended to satisfy their evil taste of wanting to see the nervous expressions of freshmen.

It turns out that they succeed every time, just like now, the freshmen are so nervous and scared that they almost start to tremble.

After staring at each other for a while, the Sorting Hat began to sing the strange song it had prepared for a year.

Like last year, this is a song that encourages everyone to unite and get through this difficult time together, and there’s nothing much to say about that.

Only after he finished singing did the Sorting Ceremony finally get down to business - Professor McGonagall began to call out the names.

Looking at the boys and girls sitting on the high chair with confused and nervous faces, everyone felt quite touched.

"Hey, Mike, do you think we were as stupid as them back then?"

Franklin asked without turning his head, but Mike was startled when he heard his voice.

"When did you get here? You scared me!"

"Oh, really? I was here a long time ago."

"Is the mission accomplished?"

"Of course, there's nothing I can't accomplish when I personally take action." Franklin muttered, but the next moment he suddenly poked Mike with his arm and said excitedly, "Look, the first Ravenclaw of the year has appeared! Mike, get ready, as the first in line, you have to go and greet her!"

Mike came back to his senses after hearing that. He turned his head to look in the direction of the Sorting Hat and saw a girl wearing a pair of thick glasses walking towards him timidly.

Seeing Mike looking at her, she stopped in her tracks, already hesitating to move forward, and a look of fear appeared on her face.

Seeing this, Mike quickly smiled kindly and walked forward to welcome the girl back.

At this time, the other Ravenclaws also stood up. They smiled and applauded, welcoming the new members.

Perhaps because she was shy, the girl lowered her head even lower. Mike, who was holding her hand, could clearly feel the stiffness of her body.

Mike arranged her at the seat in the middle of the long table reserved for freshmen. As soon as she sat down, the Ravenclaws around her gathered around her, and they tried to comfort the little girl one by one.

And Mike returned to the first seat to welcome the next freshman.

This scene was repeated at the long tables of other colleges, but the situation in Gryffindor was obviously more different.

Perhaps they had heard the legend about Harry on the train. Regardless of whether they were born in the wizarding world or not, the first thing the Gryffindor freshmen did after arriving at the Gryffindor table was to gather around Harry and greet him excitedly.

It's just that Harry was obviously not in a good mood at the moment, and his injuries had not healed yet, so he could only put on a forced smile to deal with these little brats.

This scene was seen by many people. Except for a few of Harry's close friends in Gryffindor, almost everyone was laughing. Especially in Slytherin, Draco almost died from laughing.

The sharp laughter made Harry's face even gloomier. If he could, he would like to rush up and punch Draco in the face!
"Harry,"

Hermione looked at Harry worriedly and reached out to pat him gently on the shoulder.

But the latter pushed her hand away and looked at the empty plate in front of him without saying a word.

The Gryffindor freshmen around him also dispersed after seeing Harry's inky black face.

Twenty minutes later, the sorting ceremony finally ended.

Mike sat back in his chair and breathed a sigh of relief.

Welcoming new students is not an easy job for him. Those naughty kids are really difficult to deal with.

At this time, Dumbledore stood up from the faculty seat. He looked around at the students sitting below with a smile on his face. His eyes were as gentle as a hardworking farmer looking at his thriving crops.

"Hmm." Dumbledore covered his mouth and coughed lightly. The hand that was raised was tied with a thick layer of silk cloth, making it impossible to see the true condition of the hand. But despite this, everyone could still see that the hand wrapped in the cloth was obviously much smaller than the other hand, and looked very weird.

After hearing the cough, everyone in the audience turned to look at Dumbledore. Seeing this, Dumbledore said:

"Welcome! New friends and old friends, welcome home! Do you know? At this moment in my heart, I have countless words to say to you. But considering that you are all hungry now, so... let's eat!"

(End of this chapter)