Hogwarts Raven's Claw

Chapter 494: Dumbledore the Disobedient
"Hello to you too, dear master."

The respectful voice of Queen Ant Lilith sounded in Mike's mind.

As an ant queen who has lived deep underground for many years, Lilith doesn't have so many schemes. This is the true expression of her inner feelings.

When Lilith first signed the contract with Mike, she thought that a new round of miserable life was about to begin. After all, in her impression, humans were greedy and cruel creatures.

But what happened next surprised her.

Although the Los Santos Group employees sent by Mike were essentially no different from the original Avery family, they were all trying their best to make those ants work.

However, the Los Santos Group is much more generous than the Avery family. They never withhold food rations from the ants, nor do they abuse or kill the ants at will!
Of course, the employees of Los Santos Group did not give those ants too much preferential treatment, but this was enough.

People who have never been treated kindly are always easily satisfied. This is the case with the queen ant now.

"Lilith, I need your help."

"As you wish, my lord. All my soldiers have been dispatched to the target area."

There was joy in Lilith's tone. She was glad to be able to help Mike. As for the fact that her people were used as cannon fodder by Mike, she didn't care much.

This is not to say that she doesn't love her children. On the contrary, she loves her children to the core. It's just that these children came too easily, and fighting for Mike, her master who treated her well, was a legitimate reason, so she acted so indifferent.

This idea is incomprehensible to humans, but it is reasonable among ants.

After saying goodbye to the Queen Ant Lilith, Mike finally arrived at the battlefield carefully selected by Benjamin and others, a U-shaped enclosed valley.

While Mike was visiting Avery's Secret Realm, Franklin, who stayed in Hogwarts, had completed his task and moved the Vanishing Cabinet in the Room of Requirement to the innermost part of the valley.

When Mike arrived, fortifications were being built on the cliffs on both sides of the valley. They were buildings similar to bunkers, with a circle of low walls made of rocks around them. When the battle began, the wizards under Mike would attack the Death Eaters below under the protection of these fortifications.

The ants would pour in through the gap at the front of the canyon and mingle with the Death Eaters.

As for whether the spells cast by the wizards above the canyon would accidentally hurt the friendly ants, this was not within Mike's consideration. In his opinion, these ants were used as cannon fodder to attract fire.

To be honest, although these fortifications hastily built with magic were very strong by Muggle standards, they were still not good enough in front of wizards.

But in the current ambush and sneak attack battle, these fortifications are extremely useful. Under their cover, the wizards on the cliff can launch attacks without restraint, and the Death Eaters' attacks from bottom to top pose little threat to them.

Just when Mike was working hard, problems arose with the troops sent by the Muggle Prime Minister.

The first is the 70-man ground force. Mike's original intention was to deploy 50 of these people on the cliffs on both sides of the ambush site, using the sniper's precise shooting ability and the artilleryman and machine gunner's barrage coverage ability as fire support for the wizard combat force.

But Mike's arrangement encountered unexpected difficulties when it was actually implemented.

Although Franklin had tried his best to explain to the ground troops that the world they were about to arrive at was a fantasy world of monsters and wizards, when the ground troops were actually teleported into the Avery Secret Realm and encountered those giant ants, they still overreacted.

The soldiers screamed, raised their guns and attacked the ants that were carrying mushrooms. Many young soldiers even treated the worker ants as Zerg in a certain battle game, and rushed forward while shouting something that Mike couldn't understand!

It has to be said that the people sent by the Muggle Prime Minister were real combat elites. They showed excellent combat skills in the battle with the ants and killed dozens of ants in an instant.

But they are all friendly forces!

Mike was speechless about these soldiers!
Fortunately, these soldiers had undergone rigorous training and frequent brainwashing. When Franklin, as the temporary commander, angrily issued an order to stop firing, they stopped.

But they were still wary of everything around them. The strange scenes that appeared before them completely shattered their three views. Many of them even thought that they were sent to fight on an alien planet.

Obviously, it is basically impossible to combine soldiers in this state with wizards for combined combat. In desperation, Mike can only divide them into independent teams to guard a section of the cliff alone.

However, these ground troops are easy to deal with, but the air forces on the other side are troublesome.

You know, the task Mike wanted to assign to them was to bomb Malfoy Manor and provide air support to friendly forces that counterattacked into Malfoy Manor.

But judging from the situation shown by the ground forces, the air force, which is more pampered in comparison, will obviously have a worse psychological ability to accept, and they are likely to launch indiscriminate attacks at that time.

This was unacceptable to Mike. You know, each of the combat wizards of the Los Santos Group was carefully trained with huge resources. It was okay to let them die on the battlefield, but Mike didn't want to let them die in the indiscriminate attack of friendly forces.

In desperation, on the day before Christmas, Mike had to ask Professor Flitwick for help.

In the villa in Godric's Hollow, Professor Flitwick stared at Mike with a strange expression after listening to the story he made up and his description of his current predicament.

This made Mike feel a little uncomfortable, and he thought that his lie had been discovered by Professor Flitwick.

Just when Mike couldn't help but want to confess to Professor Flitwick, he sighed and said angrily:

"Mike, have you never learned about the process of recruiting new students at Hogwarts?"

"Well, that's true." Mike said confusedly, "But...how does this have anything to do with the problem I'm facing now?"

Professor Flitwick was furious when he heard this. He reached out and tapped Mike on the forehead and said:

"Because if you knew anything about these strange things you wouldn't ask me such a stupid question!"

Mike rubbed his head and looked at Professor Flitwick innocently. He still didn't understand what the connection was.

This made Professor Flitwick furious, and he raised his hand to hit Mike again, but when Mike turned his head to dodge, Professor Flitwick seemed to suddenly remember something, and his angry face turned into a distressed one, and then he raised his hand and gently fell on Mike's head and rubbed it gently. "Sorry, Mike."

Although he didn't understand why Professor Flitwick wanted to apologize, Mike nodded.

After that, Professor Flitwick's attitude changed drastically. He sighed and said slowly:
"Mike, the process of Hogwarts recruiting students is as follows. Every spring, a magic book in the Hogwarts principal's office will automatically detect children from all over the country who meet the Hogwarts admission standards, and then make a list. The principal will then prepare and mail out admission letters.

Since prospective freshmen from Muggle families cannot afford to purchase teaching materials, Hogwarts will send professors to the homes of those Muggle students to explain to those students and their parents. This is necessary, after all, parents always love their children, and the professors at Hogwarts cannot just take the children away from them, which would be too cruel.

Professor Flitwick suddenly paused when he said this, and this pause made Mike understand why Professor Flitwick had apologized before.

You have to know that Michael is an orphan, so when Dumbledore came to him in person, he didn't explain this process to his parents at all!

“Although Hogwarts’ approach is very humane, and for those students, attending Hogwarts is almost the best choice. However, in the actual work process, professors often encounter the same problems as you—some Muggles always like to immerse themselves in their own world and are unwilling to accept reality.

When facing these people, simple persuasion is no longer effective, so when the prospective freshmen have agreed to enroll but their parents disagree, the professors who were sent there will take some measures..."

"you mean……"

"Yes, you are a smart kid, so you should be able to guess it." Flitwick nodded with a smile, "It is a small spell improved from the advanced Legilimency spell, called the 'Muggle Transformation Spell'. Through this small spell, the caster can make Muggles accept the fact that the wizarding world exists in a very short period of time, so that they can negotiate with each other better."

As he spoke, Professor Flitwick took out his wand and personally demonstrated to Mike how to cast the Muggle Transformation Charm.

I have to say, this is indeed a very simple little spell. Mike only spent a whole night to master it completely and used it on those Muggle soldiers.

According to the feedback, the effect of this little spell is indeed very good. Now the attitude of the Muggle soldiers has reversed 180 degrees compared to when they first arrived. They are full of curiosity and are happily exploring this new world.

But their behavior actually doesn't make much sense, because for confidentiality and safety reasons, Mike has already decided to erase the memories of all of them after the battle.

But they obviously didn't know about this, so a strange scene appeared. Those Muggle soldiers didn't dare to ask the wizards all day long, asking them all kinds of questions, which made the wizards very annoyed!
In other words, the wizards under Mike are all of Muggle descent. If they were pure-blood wizards, these Muggle soldiers would have died countless times.

Just when there was chaos in the secret realm of Avery, Christmas finally arrived.

……

Inside Hogwarts Castle, Snape, covered in a black robe, walked through the corridor with a gloomy face and quickly entered Dumbledore's office.

The sound of the office door closing woke up Dumbledore, who was sleeping on the desk, as well as the portraits of past headmasters on the wall.

When the latter saw that the person coming was Snape, they just grumbled a few times in dissatisfaction, and then fell asleep again.

Dumbledore, on the other hand, looked at Snape curiously, and then said in surprise:

"Severus, it's really rare that you come to spend Christmas with me!"

Snape, who was sitting across the desk, curled his lips.

In previous years, he basically did not attend the Christmas dinner at Hogwarts. Compared to staying in Hogwarts and celebrating with a bunch of silly students, Snape preferred to go to the cemetery to present a bouquet of flowers to Lily, and then drink a bottle of Starlight Wine alone in front of Lily's tombstone, so that he could use his drunkenness to reminisce the good times he had with Lily.

But this year is different. A sudden piece of news disrupted his plan to visit the grave.

"Dumbledore, no time for jokes! The Death Eaters are preparing to attack Hogwarts tonight!"

As soon as these words were spoken, most of the magical portraits on the wall woke up immediately and stared at Snape below with disbelief.

The smile on Dumbledore's face disappeared, and he frowned and said:

"Can you confirm the authenticity of this news?"

"This is what Narcissa told me herself. Her son Draco found a Vanishing Cabinet in the Room of Requirement, and the other sub-cabinet that matches the Vanishing Cabinet is now in that person's hands. The Death Eaters will use the Vanishing Cabinet to launch a surprise attack on Hogwarts tonight! And the reason why Narcissa told me all this is because Draco was forced to participate. She wanted me to protect her son!"

Dumbledore's face turned extremely dark. He glanced out the window at the afterglow of the evening sun and murmured:
"Since you didn't bring the Vanishing Cabinet with you, does that mean that the Vanishing Cabinet in Hogwarts is now missing?"

"You guessed right," Snape said. "I had been to the Room of Requirement before coming here, and the Vanishing Cabinet was no longer there."

"It seems that today is the day for me to dedicate my old bones to Hogwarts."

Dumbledore said calmly as he removed the bandages on his arms.

But Dumbledore's words frightened Snape, and he said hurriedly:

"Dumbledore! You can't die here! You are..."

"There is no but. I am the headmaster of Hogwarts. It is my responsibility to protect the students. From the first day I sat on this chair, I was ready to sacrifice for this school." Dumbledore looked at the portraits of many former headmasters hanging on the wall and said, "What do you think?"

The portraits all nodded in satisfaction at Dumbledore, but this made Snape very angry. He glared at the portraits and was about to continue persuading Dumbledore to escape, but Dumbledore took the lead and said:
"Snape, do what you should do. Draco is not bad at heart. Protect him. You have promised Narcissa, haven't you?"

After saying this, Dumbledore gave Snape a kind smile, while the latter stood there in a daze with a gloomy face.

After a while, Snape snorted coldly and left with a flick of his sleeves!

(End of this chapter)