Hogwarts: This professor is too Muggle.

Chapter 212 Fairy Tales Are All Lies

It was evening in Azkaban.

The sky was shrouded in leaden clouds that never dissipated, a cold mist formed by the gathering of Dementors. Even in June, the temperature in Azkaban remained unchanged.

The handcuffs and leg irons weighed down his joints, making them ache. Sirius Black was driven out of his cell by the guards and, along with the other prisoners of Fort Heart, dragged his shivering body toward the abandoned activity room.

The cold, damp air filled my lungs, leaving my chest feeling cold. My hollow heart continued to beat, the viscous fluid pumped out of it seemingly devoid of warmth.

Three days ago, the Dementors had absorbed emotions, and each prisoner's eyes were dull and empty, their minds and souls blank, unable to generate any thoughts, like mindless puppets, taking the sounds they received as their own ideas.

They did whatever the guards told them to do.

Occasionally, a slow-moving prisoner would fall behind. The Aurors would wave their wands, and a loud cracking sound would suddenly rang out, leaving a red, swollen welt on the prisoner's body.

The prisoner's body instinctively trembled and flinched, but his eyes remained dull and lifeless as he quietly quickened his pace.

Some prisoners, having lost their minds, babbled incoherently, emitting eerie and chilling laughter that sounded like the wailing of a banshee. However, since this did not affect their route, the Aurors did not punish them, seemingly taking it for granted.

The chains were as heavy as bricks, and Black's eyes were equally lifeless. Since entering Azkaban, he had endured the torment of the Dementors for years. Only when it became unbearable would he occasionally transform into a black dog to buy himself some breathing room. This kept his sanity from collapsing and prevented him from showing any signs of madness.

"What are they doing this time?" complained an Auror on duty. "The sun is almost setting, and they're still driving these prisoners out. The tide is about to come in and the fog is about to rise. Aren't they afraid they'll freeze to death?"

Several Aurors nodded in agreement, causing some commotion within the group; they really disliked the sudden assignment of a task.

“It’s all because of that professor’s paper,” said the junior officer of the fortress prison. “In his paper, he said that Azkaban was a ranch for breeding Dementors, and that the prisoners were food for the Dementors. He said that the prisoners were not imprisoned to atone for their sins, but to feed them.”

"Is there a problem?" Auror, who had just started his rotation, scratched his head and realized that what he said made sense.

“We don’t think there’s a problem, but the high-ranking officials sitting in the office think there is a problem.” The junior manager was equally indignant. “Because too many prisoners’ families have written letters complaining that prisoners have no human rights, the senior officials want to improve prisoners’ treatment, especially that senior deputy minister, who said that they should make them atone for their sins with dignity and human rights.”

"The pink toad is planning to drive away the Dementors?" The Aurors were all surprised.

The junior supervisor shook his head: "Umbridge proposed enriching the prison's entertainment and leisure activities so that prisoners could have places to relax, generate more positive emotions, and suffer less when being drained by Dementors."

"..."

The Aurors fell silent, unsure whether this was a gesture of goodwill.

"The minister's office approved a sum of money, bought some expired newspapers, and moved the mirror from our office to the activity room." The junior manager looked somewhat helpless. "Every night before lights out, we send these people to the activity room to relax for an hour, hoping they can have a sweet dream."

"whispering sound……"

The Aurors despised the department's stinginess.

The male wizard on duty waved his hand: "How much are old newspapers worth? You might as well buy some euphoria pills."

“The ministry’s budget is limited. If we allocate more funds to Azkaban, other departments will have less. Of course, we can’t be generous.”

A group of people grumbled and complained as they led the prisoner to the activity room, a spacious round hall. There were no candles, only a few torches on the walls and a faint fire in the fireplace, which gradually warmed Blake's body and brought a bit more life back to his eyes.

A strange silver mirror sat in front of the fireplace, its surface filled with drifting mist. A wizard was fiddling with it, holding an instruction manual and occasionally tapping on the fireplace behind it, seemingly engrossed in something.

Blake's gaze shifted back, and in front of him were several rows of wooden shelves piled high with expired newspapers.

Some prisoners convicted of minor offenses were flipping through the old newspapers, seemingly finding them quite interesting, muttering words like "The Chamber of Secrets in Slytherin," "The Eyes of the Basilisk," and "The Drama Club's Heroes."

In a daze, Blake seemed to hear someone mention "Harry Potter," which made him a little more alert, but he didn't think too much about it. After all, he was a boy who had survived a great ordeal, and it was normal for his name to be mentioned occasionally.

"Buzz...buzz..."

The strange silver mirror made some noise, and the wizard who was adjusting it showed surprise. Even the Auror next to him perked up a bit.

"It's finally fixed! We can see the mirror now on the island!"

"I heard this stuff was purchased from the White Ink Tavern, and it has the Ministry of Magic and Azkaban's logo on it. It's ridiculously expensive!"

"Why buy such expensive stuff for the prison?"

"You don't understand, do you? The more expensive the items are, the more money the person handling them makes."

"hey-hey……"

The chattering noise gave Blake a headache. He pressed his temples and looked up curiously, wanting to see what the silver mirror was.

The silver mist floating in the mirror stopped, outlining colors and contours, and began to play images and sounds, so lifelike that the scene seemed to be right in front of them, attracting the curiosity of the prisoners and Aurors, who began to whisper among themselves.

"Isn't this just a Muggle television?"

Blake, however, found it uninteresting; he had grown tired of these common Muggle creations when he was young.

Back then, he hated his parents and family. He would do whatever his family forbade him to do. Rebellion was his pursuit of individuality and freedom. The Black family admired pure blood, but he insisted on associating with Muggles. He drove a Ford, rode a Triumph motorcycle, and even modified a flying motorcycle.

As memories surfaced in his mind, Blake felt nostalgic, but rather a surge of guilt and self-reproach, because the faces of James and Lily also appeared in his mind.

"The Hogwarts Drama Club was reorganized, and this was the students' first performance at the Easter dinner. On the first day of summer vacation, we received a letter from the students' parents, requesting a re-screening of this performance."

The female host's impassioned announcement drew the attention of all the prisoners; Hogwarts was a very distant concept to them.

Even Blake, who was heartbroken, felt a slight ripple in his heart. He silently looked up at the performance. The young and vibrant children were jumping around on the stage. Their lines and acting skills were not particularly outstanding, but Blake didn't care about that.

With a certain eager anticipation, his attention was focused on the four long tables of the academy below the stage.

"Which house will Harry go to? It'll definitely be Gryffindor, Hufflepuff is also good, and if he inherited Lily's brains, maybe Ravenclaw... Slytherin is out of the question."

The image of the dining table only occupied a corner of the mirror, narrow and blurry, but Blake refused to look away, staring intently. Finally, during a scene change, he caught a glimpse of the figure he had been longing for.

"It really is Gryffindor!" Black exclaimed with ecstasy.

Wearing glasses, he wasn't as handsome as James was back then, but he inherited Lily's green eyes, making him handsome enough.

He's too thin; he probably hasn't been doing well these past few years.

“If I were still out there, I would have raised him to be even taller and stronger than James was back then…” Black’s eyes held both laughter and sadness as he raised his hand to touch his forehead, where Harry had a lightning bolt-shaped scar.

The boy chatting and laughing with Harry was a red-haired boy, definitely a Weasley, and judging by his age, he was probably their sixth son. If James and Lily were still alive, they might have had just as many.

Blake's reminiscing expression suddenly froze, and a fiery, scarlet anger and hatred surged in his eyes—

A mouse popped out of the red-haired boy's pocket.

A bald, missing-toed mouse!

……

The restaurant quieted down, the floor-to-ceiling windows were open, and Melvin sat at the terrace table, watching the park light up with beautiful lights that illuminated the white walls and red tiles of the park, while a pleasant evening breeze blew gently.

I just walked over from the office building and saw the retro American-style train, the mine carts of Wild West adventure, the tropical pirate ship, and the sci-fi spaceship... The closest one to here is the fairy tale-themed area, which is called the magic kingdom, but it was not actually designed and built by a real wizard.

"The jobs of vice president and creative director are exhausting and not fun at all," Claire complained, looking down as she busied herself cutting a rare steak. Her movements were swift and efficient, with bright red blood oozing from the cuts.

If you didn't know better, you'd think she was cutting flesh off some unscrupulous boss—the kind of boss who "sends his assistant to an unfamiliar place, then disappears for a long time without a word, only occasionally sending a few letters, leaving the helpless assistant confused and confused as he ends up abroad, working in a foreign country in an industry he's never done before."

“It’s better than being a special effects assistant at the theater. I don’t have to be bossed around or called across the street to buy coffee. My monthly salary is equivalent to several years of what I used to earn.” Melvin’s voice was slightly amused.

"Ah……"

A cold laugh was followed by the sound of knives and forks cutting meat.

This is an indoor restaurant in the park, not open to ordinary customers and employees, but it has the best view and lighting. At this moment, there are only two people at the terrace table.

Claire was dressed in a business-style blazer, the fabric so smooth that every fold looked meticulously designed, as if it had been folded from banknotes. A white silk scarf sat beside her, and the candlelight cast a warm glow on her blonde hair.

Melvin wasn't dressed formally, just in a brown trench coat and no accessories. Apart from being slightly handsome, he looked like a tourist on the street, which explains why he was stopped downstairs.

"After leaving the Gershwin Theatre, I couldn't contact you for a long time. I thought you had been captured by a mysterious organization." Claire took a sip of red wine. "With the stage effects you designed, I wouldn't be surprised if you were arrested and interrogated by the national intelligence agency or locked up by a university for research."

Melvin smiled helplessly and said, "I really did go to teach in England."

The assistant was responsible for coordinating with many departments of the theater; nothing was kept from her, from prop preparation and actor positioning to scene choreography.

Although she hadn't experienced it firsthand, Claire could vaguely sense which special effects were achieved using props and which appeared out of thin air.

Those strange lights and flames, floating ships and carriages... could previously be excused by technological creations, but after Claire entered Disney and met the top stage effects artists, she realized how incredible Melvin's stage designs were.

A faint melody drifted in the evening breeze as Claire recounted her experiences over the past two years.

After spending some time in Hollywood, I followed Melvin's instructions to work at Disney, and then I encountered the scrutiny of the Magical Congress of the United States. There was a guy named Grevis who claimed to be an old acquaintance of Melvin and provided a lot of help.

After taking a stroll around Woolworth Building, I was seconded to Paris and ended up in my current position without really knowing what was going on.

In contrast, Melvin's account is much more vague. He taught in a school in a remote part of England, where transportation was inconvenient, information was scarce, and communication was limited to letters.

"So you've been fired now?" Claire swallowed the bloody beef and looked at him expectantly. "Boss, have you found a new job? Would you like to work for me?"

"What are you thinking about? It's summer vacation now, and the students are on holiday."

Melvin chuckled, feeling that the image of that powerful career woman had crumbled, and the assistant was still the same assistant she always was.

“Oh, I see…” Claire sighed in disappointment. “My boss has come all this way to see an assistant no one remembers. Is there anything he can do for you?”

"I plan to build a real magic amusement park and would like to ask you to be its director."

"Those weren't special effects after all! I knew it!" Claire suddenly looked up, her eyes shining with surprise. "Boss, are you finally going to take me into the magical world!?"

Melvin paused, then a smile crept across his face.

"Calm down, Claire, it's just a concept for now."

The vice president in front of me, dressed in a custom-made suit, was still the same lively assistant from before. She had heard her unreliable boss spouting outlandish ideas and, without asking for details, was willing to throw away fame and fortune to help Melvin create some kind of madcap magic amusement park.

The rest of the conversation was much simpler.

Melvin told her about the wizarding world hidden in the shadows, introducing the various national ministries of magic, magic schools around the world, and the root causes of the current situation: the International Confederation of Wizards and the Law of Secrecy.

Inevitably, you'll have to answer all sorts of silly and adorable questions, such as whether Snow White's stepmother was a witch, whether Cinderella's godmother was a witch, whether Sleeping Beauty could really sleep for over ten years, and whether mermaids lived in the sea...

Claire was only sad for a few seconds when she learned that a wizard's magic was a gift that could not be learned later in life, but she was sad all the way after learning that fairy tales were all made up.

I walked out of the restaurant with my head down, still not recovered even when I reached the banks of the Seine.

Mermaids do exist, but they are not beautiful.

Melvin walked alongside her along the riverbank. “They are found in waters all over the world, and they are divided into different species according to water temperature. Those mermaids who live in warm waters are beautiful, while those who live in cold waters are generally ugly, with dark green hair, iron-gray skin and yellow eyes, looking like half-human and half-beast.”

"Andersen was a Danish writer, where the winter temperature can drop to minus ten degrees Celsius, so it certainly can't be considered a warm water area."

Claire's illusions shattered, and she let out a long, mournful sigh, "So fairy tales are all lies!"

(End of this chapter)