Magical Studies at Hogwarts

Chapter 207 Hermione's Plan

Life at Hogwarts was getting tougher, both for the students and the professors.

In the absence of Dumbledore, it can be said that Umbridge has completely controlled the school. No one refuted her, and no one stopped her. This depressive atmosphere made many little wizards breathless up.

"You can't come here again," Hagrid said after sneaking up to Hagrid's hut once. "If she catches us, we're all screwed."

This is a fact, several people are Umbridge's focus, no matter who is caught, there is no good fruit to eat.

Under such circumstances, DA's party turned out to be a rare respite for Harry and the others.

The gold coins Hermione made made their gathering more hidden, and even though Umbridge knew that there was a secret society, he had never been able to find it.

But Xu Shi's death eater's escape gave everyone a great sense of urgency, and everyone worked harder in practice.Especially Neville, the news of Bella's escape made him undergo amazing changes. Like Stuart and the others, he almost didn't say a word, just buried himself in practicing various spells, and didn't even think about his own safety at all.

According to the practice plan formulated by Harry, every spell has to go through three steps: watching demonstrations, target practice, and real-person practice. Before the real-person practice, everyone paid great attention to the safety of themselves and their opponents to avoid injuries.But now Neville doesn't care at all, especially after learning the Iron Armor Curse.

"It won't work like this, Neville will get hurt sooner or later." After a party, Hermione said with a worried face, "Revenge must be on his mind right now."

"I would do the same," said Ron. "If I knew where the snake that hurt Dad was, I'd kill it no matter what."

"This is wrong!" Hermione still retained her rationality, "We can't solve those guys alone, impulsiveness can only kill people in vain..."

Harry quietly listened to the quarrel between Hermione and Ron, didn't speak, and didn't know how to speak.He felt that what both of them said was very reasonable, but now he didn't want to solve Neville's problems, and his own problems were serious.

The learning progress of Occlumency was very poor, and Snape could always easily break through his defenses and see the most embarrassing things in his deepest memory.

It was even worse than before. In the last teaching, Snape saw the scene of "he" attacking Mr. Weasley, which made him very angry.

"You're the stupidest student I've ever taught, and if you don't stop me from entering your brain full of dragon dung, someone will die because of it one day!"

Of course Harry knew the seriousness of the matter, but some things couldn't be solved with hard work.He wanted to learn Occlumency, but made little progress, or even worse.

Now his scar is almost always painful, often with bouts of emotion that have nothing to do with what he's doing right now.Every night he could dream that he was walking down the hallway to the Department of Mysteries, longing for what was inside.

"Snape's teaching aggravated it, no doubt," said Harry. "The scar hurts so much, I hate to keep dreaming about that hallway!"

"You have to work hard, Dumbledore definitely doesn't want you to keep dreaming about that corridor, or else Snape won't teach you Occlumency." Hermione urged sharply.

"Of course I know, but I can't help it. It's not a happy thing to let Snape into the head!"

"Maybe..." Ron started, "it's not Harry's fault he couldn't switch off his brain."

"What do you mean?" Harry asked.

"Snape probably didn't really want to help Harry, you know, he's a Death Eater, maybe he just wanted to blow Harry's head off a little more and make God..."

"Enough!" Hermione interrupted Ron roughly, "You have doubted Snape many times, but you have never been right! Besides, Dumbledore believed him, he was a member of the Order of the Phoenix, this That's enough explanation!"

Harry watched the two quarrel again, and he was a little numb to it.This kind of thing has become somewhat common this year, and they always quarrel for various reasons.Harry knew exactly why, but there was nothing he could do about it, which made his mood worse.

Luckily, it won't be long before we relax, because it's Hogsmeade opening time again.

In the morning, Harry and Ron came to the auditorium early. They had already planned to go to Zuko's Joke Shop first, then to Honeydukes, and then drink a glass of butterbeer at the Three Broomsticks.They desperately want to let the tense nerves relax.

"Can you get to the Three Broomsticks at noon, Harry?" The two were chatting when Hermione rushed over with a letter in her hand.

"No problem, that's our original plan." Harry nodded and agreed directly.

"Great!" Hermione was very happy, and ran away in a hurry, "See you, those three broomsticks!"

After the two had breakfast, they followed the large group to Hogsmeade.Along the way, everyone had smiles on their faces, which was rare, and Harry couldn't even remember the last time he saw so many smiling faces.

When they got to Hogsmeade, Harry and Ron were completely let go, and played recklessly at Honeydukes and Zonko's joke shop all morning.Fortunately, Harry remembered meeting Hermione at noon with the Three Broomsticks, but Ron forgot.

"Harry, this way!"

When they walked into the bar, Hermione saw it immediately and waved to the two of them inside.The two struggled through the crowd, and when they got closer, they realized that Hermione was not the only one, Luna and Rita Starkey were also there.

It had been a long time since the Triwizard Tournament, and Harry hadn't seen this obnoxious reporter, but she didn't look very well. Her hair, which had been carefully permed before, was straightened, and the bright colors were gone from her nails. The earrings were also replaced with cheap mass-market items.

Only then did Harry suddenly realize that he hadn't seen Rita's article in the "Daily Prophet" for a long time.

"I thought of a way!" Hermione looked very happy, "The current situation boils down to the fact that no one believes what you and Dumbledore say, they have already controlled the public opinion, and the "Daily Prophet" is full of what they want the public to say. know things."

"It's normal. The Daily Prophet sells sales, they want to make money, and now only the Ministry of Magic can meet this demand." Rita said with a blank expression, pushing her glasses, "People like to see the former savior And the reputation of the great White Wizard is rotten, not to mention that such an article is very easy to write, and it doesn't even need my help."

As he spoke, he looked at Harry and asked, "How do you feel about this? Is it the anger of being betrayed, or the resentment of being misunderstood?"

"Angry! Of course!" said Hermione. "He told the minister the truth and no one believed him!"

"So, you really think the man who can't even mention his name is back?" Rita asked. "Believe Dumbledore's nonsense?"

"That's right, because that's the truth, I saw it with my own eyes!" Harry roared, "I was there, he was resurrected, and he called back his servants, a dozen of them!"

"Do you want to know their names?"

"Of course, this is big news." Rita took out her quill and began to write quickly in her notebook, "A catchy headline: Potter's accusation, the subtitle could be: Harry Potter Points Out Among Us Put a big photo of you on the front page, with the words: Survivor of You-Know-Who attack - 15-year-old Harry Potter accuses wizarding eminence of being a Death Eater..."

"Tsk tsk tsk, very good topic!" Rita was intoxicated, but then she glanced at Hermione who was smiling happily beside her, "But you definitely don't want this article to be published, don't you?"

"No no no, I'm actually hoping it gets published!" Hermione smiled sweetly, charmingly.

Rita was stunned suddenly, her face full of disbelief.

"Really? Are you sure? You really want me to report on the unnamed man?"

"That's right!" said Hermione. "Like I said, the Ministry of Magic controls the flow of public opinion, and no one believes what we say is the biggest problem!"

"And, there's no doubt that there's a hole in what they're saying now. Look at that Azkaban article, eh... that guy can really get Death Eaters to go with him? Can he really get that A group of guys together?" Hermione said, slapping the table, "There are loopholes in this, and what we have to do is to let everyone see the parts of their words that cannot withstand scrutiny!"

"crack, clap, clap"

Rita clapped her hands, but her face was full of disapproval.

"Very good idea, but I gotta tell you, the Daily Prophet wouldn't have put that stuff in the paper."

"Like I said, the most important thing for them is to sell the paper, and the public doesn't like that kind of content right now."

"No, no, the Ministry of Magic thinks that the public doesn't like such content, but in fact no one knows what people like." Hermione said, shaking her head.

"You think people will enjoy the news that scares them?" Rita said contemptuously.

"Of course!" Hermione said decisively, "As I said, there are loopholes in their statement, which cannot withstand scrutiny. I think there must be someone who wants to see a new interpretation."

"But the Daily Prophet won't print it."

"I didn't want it to appear in the Daily Prophet."

"Where do you want it to appear?" Rita asked. "The tabloids? Believe me, no one cares about that stuff."

"We could be on The Quibbler," said Hermione. "It's selling really well, too, with lots of subscriptions. And..."

As she said that, Hermione glanced at Luna who had been sitting quietly beside her. Luna immediately nodded and said, "Well, my father is the editor-in-chief of "The Quibbler". It's very easy to post this article."

"The Quibbler? Ha!" Rita's face was full of sarcasm, as if "you're kidding me" written all over it.

After staring at the determined Hermione for a while, Rita suddenly asked, "Well, if I agree to write it, how much will you pay me?"

"I don't think my dad would pay someone to write an article." Luna held the cup, as if in a fugue, "Also, "The Quibbler" seems to have never paid anyone, they wrote it because they wanted to Write and get your name in the paper."

"What?" Rita looked at Hermione with a face full of disbelief and asked, "Let me write for nothing?"

"That's right." Hermione took a sip of butter beer and nodded calmly, "You know in your heart that if you don't, I will report you as an unregistered Animagus. Maybe, "Prophecy The Daily Home will pay a lot of money to ask you to write about your life in Azkaban..."

Hermione was very calm, she believed that Rita would obey, because she had no other choice.

This was indeed the case, even if Rita wanted to scratch Hermione's face with her nails, she could only agree.

"It seems that I can only agree." She said, picking up the notebook and shorthand quill.

"Very good, so Harry, are you ready to tell the people the truth?" Hermione asked, looking at Harry.

"of course."

"Go ahead, Rita," Hermione said calmly, winking at Rita.

Although this scene made Rita furious, she had no room to resist when she was being manipulated.After taking several deep breaths and suppressing the urge to lift the table, a sweet smile appeared on Rita's face again, and she started the interview step by step.

The interview went quickly, and even Rita had to admit that it was the easiest interview of her career.There was no need for her to ask any questions at all, Harry told everything by himself, all kinds of details, what happened, just need to be sorted out very simply, and the manuscript can be finished.But other than that, this was the worst interview in her career, and she couldn't wait to leave as soon as it was over. After taking it for a while, she was afraid that she would really not be able to help but scratch the face of the wicked little witch next to Hua.

"Is this... really okay?" Ron, who had been sitting by the side as a transparent person, asked aloud after Rita left.

"There should be some effect, but we can't put our hopes on it." Hermione was very calm, "Our purpose is just to let more people know the truth of the matter, whether they believe it or not, there will always be an impression."

"There are a lot of idiots in this world, and there are a lot of smart people, all we have to do is give people a choice..."

"Believe me, when people question the Ministry's claims even a little bit, we've achieved our goal."

"Well, hopefully it will work." Harry nodded, feeling good about telling the truth, and that was enough for him, and he didn't think about anything else.

"Of course it will work." Hermione said, turning her head to look at Luna next to her, "Do you know when this article will be published in the newspaper?"

"I don't know." Luna shook her head, "Maybe we have to wait for the next issue. Dad has already finalized the draft by this time."

"The next issue..." Hermione muttered, but then forgot it, "It's okay, as long as it's published!"

"Well, this can still be guaranteed." Luna replied.

(End of this chapter)