Hogwarts Raven's Claw

Chapter 525 My Mr. Tang Li!
"The respected Mr. McTownley actually has something to say to us?"

A house-elf repeated it once more, and he carefully lifted the lid of the pot covering him and crawled out, his eyes full of suspicion and longing, while the other house-elves in the kitchen had almost the same expression.

Hermione became excited when she saw this. She waved the Quibbler in her hand and shouted:
"That's right! He wrote down everything he was going to say right here!"

Hermione's sudden movement startled the house-elves, but Harry noticed that no matter how scared they looked, their eyes were always following the movement of The Quibbler in Hermione's hand.

Perhaps because she discovered that the house-elves were still afraid of her, Hermione immediately stopped her actions, carefully placed the Quibbler on the floor, slowly stepped back and said:

"Don't worry, I'll just leave it here, you can look at it yourself, I won't go over there."

Hermione's method was obviously effective. As she retreated, the house-elves became much bolder.

Gradually, many house-elves gathered around, looking at the copy of The Quibbler on the ground with curiosity.

Finally, an old elf wearing a Hufflepuff pillowcase came to the center of the crowd with a cane and opened the book "The Quibbler" under the gaze of a group of house-elves.

Harry originally thought that he would read the contents to everyone, but what he didn't expect was that the old elf looked embarrassed after flipping through it for a while.

This is really a shameful thing. As the most knowledgeable house-elf in the entire Hogwarts, he can't even understand the wizards' writing.

But this can't actually be blamed on him. After all, wizards value their knowledge and power more than anything else, as can be seen from the fact that they do not allow any other race to use wands.

House-elves were obviously also subject to the knowledge ban, so no one would teach them wizarding writing even at Hogwarts.

The old elf looked at the pairs of eyes full of longing around him, hesitated for a moment, then turned his head to look at Hermione in the distance, and said with some entanglement:
"Magic... um... little girl, can you read it for us?"

"Of course!"

Hermione swooped out like a cheetah and picked up the Quibbler.

This sudden movement scared the house-elves again, and many of them even hid back in their hiding places again.

But their curiosity and longing for Mike's information forced them to carefully gather around Hermione again.

This scene made Hermione a little jealous.

You have to know that I really care about these house-elves, but even so, they treat me as a devil and stay away from me.

She thought to herself that she definitely spent more time and effort on the house-elf than Mike, but the house-elf's attitude towards Mike was completely different from hers.

And now, these house-elves are even willing to approach him for Mike!
Shaking her head and putting her embarrassing thoughts out of her mind, Hermione quickly returned to normal. Under the expectant gaze of the house-elves, she read an article published by Mike in the 107th issue of "The Quibbler" titled "House-Elves - A Miserable Creature About to Perish Under Wizarding Oppression."

Harry had also read this article, which revealed the various cruel methods that wizards had used against house-elves over the centuries. It included not only cruel acts by pure-blood families like chopping off the heads of old house-elves and hanging them on the wall, but also the torture of house-elves by wizards, and the fact that in order to cultivate excellent house-elves, wizards bred them like dogs and even forced inbreeding.

The content is not only supported by precise and accurate data, but also uses a lot of lyrical writing. Mike even cried when he read it.

It was after reading this article that Hermione rekindled the idea of ​​helping the house-elves.

However, what Hermione told these house-elves now seemed to be slightly different from the original article! ?
Harry looked at Hermione with a strange look on his face as she was reading to the house-elves.

He heard it clearly from the side. Hermione mixed a lot of her own personal opinions into Mike's article, which made this nearly perfect article have many flaws and logical loopholes.

However, the house-elves obviously didn't hear anything wrong. In fact, they were already sobbing when Hermione was halfway through reading.

By the time Hermione finished reading the entire article, the kitchen of Hogwarts was already filled with crying sounds. Not only were the house-elves crying, but even Hermione herself was moved to tears.

To be honest, the way house-elves cry is not pretty at all. Their nostrils and eyes are too big, and when they cry, a lot of snot and tears flow, which causes them to wipe their snot and tears constantly.

After a while, they will paint themselves into a big clown face.

"I didn't expect... Mr. McTownley would actually... actually care about us so much! He is such a good man!"

The old elf in the lead said with sobs.

Perhaps because he was too excited, the fingers that were wiping his snot and tears were shaking violently while he was talking. Harry was horrified to find that in the process a lot of crystal clear liquid was thrown into the boiling soup pot next to him!

Harry felt like he was about to vomit, but in order not to ruin the atmosphere, he covered his mouth and suppressed the nausea in his chest.

But for dinner tonight, he won't eat anything!

At this time, the house elves nearby also reacted and echoed:

"Yes! Mr. McTownley is such a good man! He not only always praises us but also solves many big problems for us!"

"He will definitely be a good master. I really want to be his house-elf and serve him all my life! It would be even better if he could chop off my head and hang it on the wall when I'm old!"

"Yes! Yes! I really hope to follow Mr. McTownley forever! It's a pity that he seems to already have four house-elves. He probably doesn't need us anymore, right?"

"What a pity! What a pity!"

……

Listening to the conversation between the house elves, Hermione felt like her lungs were about to explode.

I spent so much time and effort reading the article to them, and even went so far as to sneak in a lot of personal opinions, but the result was that these house-elves wanted to follow Mike even more?

This was a little hard for Hermione to accept. What she wanted to see was that these house-elves would quit their jobs after hearing these words and start fighting for their own rights! "You guys! Don't you want freedom at all!?"

Hermione said through gritted teeth. Now she was really furious to the extreme.

"Oh my God, Mr. Townley! What did I hear?" The old elf in the lead screamed in horror. He even replaced Merlin with Mike's last name. "You devil! How dare you insult us like this!"

The reactions of the other house-elves were similar to that of the old elf. The screams of hundreds of house-elves combined into a horrifying sound wave, which made Harry cover his ears in pain.

After the screams gradually subsided, the old elf said breathlessly:
"Since you are Mr. Townley's friends, we won't throw you out! Now, please get out on your own! You are not welcome here from now on!"

"Yes! You are not welcome!"

"Get out!"

Listening to the roar of the house-elves, Hermione's eyes began to turn red. She stomped her foot on the ground, turned around and walked away quickly.

Seeing this, Harry hurriedly followed, but he didn't expect that Hermione, who was walking halfway, turned back as if she suddenly remembered something and almost bumped into Harry.

Hermione rudely bypassed Harry, glared at the house-elves and said:

"If, I mean if Mike is in danger, are you willing to help him?"

"Of course!" the old elf said, sticking out his thin chest, "We are willing to do anything for the great Mr. McTownley!"

"You're willing to even leave Hogwarts to help him?"

As soon as these words came out, the expression on the old elf's face froze instantly.

He lowered his head and slowly glanced at the Hufflepuff emblem painted on the pillow on his chest. After a long time, he raised his head and said firmly:
"willing!"

"Hahaha! That's good!"

A smile also appeared on Hermione's face. She turned around again, grabbed Harry's arm and didn't look back.

It was not known whether it was accidental or intentional, but Hermione did not take away the copy of "The Quibbler" that she brought with her. At this moment, it was still lying quietly at the feet of the old elf.

Seeing this, a hint of joy flashed across the old elf's face, and he quickly stuffed the copy of "The Quibbler" into his pillowcase. The originally loose pillowcase was instantly bulged, and the four corners of the book were clearly visible.

Then he looked around as if he had done something bad, and was relieved when he saw that no other wizards saw him.

Most of the house-elves around him had the same reaction, and some were even more nervous than the old elf.

You know, stealing is an extremely shameful thing for house-elves, even if it means taking things that no one wants for yourself. All the things of house-elves can only be given by their masters. If the master does not give them anything, they cannot take it even if they starve to death or freeze to death. You can imagine how much psychological pressure the old elves have to bear when doing this!
But there is no way, this book "The Quibbler" is too important to them!
Even if they can't understand the words inside, just looking at the cover is enough to make them happy for the whole day!

The old elf has even decided to sleep with this book as his pillow tonight.

Thinking of this, the old elf even showed an excited smile on his face.

But soon, his face changed drastically as if he suddenly thought of something, and he turned around and yelled at the house-elves who had very similar expressions to him:
"Dinner is about to start! What are you guys still doing here? Go get to work!"

The house-elves returned to their posts in panic. Amid the chaos, the Hogwarts kitchen became busy again.

……

Amidst a patch of broken ice in the Arctic Ocean, a pure black island stands silently.

Although the island is as large as Iceland, it has never appeared on Muggle maps since ancient times.

The reason for this is that wizards had already set up a large number of protective magic circles on this island long ago. These powerful magic circles not only make all ships passing by ignore its existence, but also make it impossible for any map in the world to show its exact location.

Such a tight group of protective spells makes this island the most solid fortress in the world, because Muggles and even most wizards cannot detect the existence of this island. Unless Muggles use nuclear weapons to carpet bomb the entire Arctic Ocean, they will never be able to discover this place.

Not only that, the large number of protective spells on the island not only protect the island from being discovered, but also completely isolate the cold outside the island. This means that even though the temperature outside has reached dozens of degrees below zero, the temperature on the island has remained stable at around 20 degrees.

This is almost the favorite temperature for most plants, so the vegetation on the island is very rich, and some trees are even hundreds of years old.

At the same time, this is also the place with the richest reserves of magic resources in the world. In addition to the rich resources that can be produced locally, various countries have also transported a large amount of supplies to be stored on this island to be used as capital for counterattacks at the last minute.

This is the headquarters of the International Magic Confederation - Marijoa!
At this moment, a unique meeting was being held in the largest and only castle in Mary Geoise.

Those attending the meeting were the Ministers of Magic of Britain, France, Finland and other countries, as well as the President of the Magical Congress of the United States.

The purpose of their trip was to resolve the issue of the Ministry of Magic's request for assistance. Originally, this problem could be solved by sending envoys, but the envoys from various countries had been arguing for nearly half a month. Due to the increasingly urgent situation at home, Scrimgeour had to take the initiative to convene this summit meeting.

But unlike the serious meeting scene expected, the atmosphere in the castle conference hall at this moment was extremely relaxed.

Apart from Scrimgeour, the Minister of Magic of the United States, who sat upright at the conference table, showing his military character, the other ministers were all very relaxed, especially Katherine Picquery, the Minister of the Magical Congress of the United States of America.

This middle-aged woman who still had some charm was sitting in a soft chair beside the fireplace with her legs crossed, looking relaxed. She was warming herself by the fire while slowly smoking a slender pipe.

As smoke continued to spew out of his mouth, Scrimgeour, who was sitting at the conference table, felt that he was about to be unable to suppress the anger in his heart.

(End of this chapter)