A day at Hogwarts.

Chapter 605 A Bright Future, But the Road is a Bit Winding

A few days later, an urgent call from across the Atlantic arrived at a dental clinic in London.

The other party claimed to be a UFC talent scout and agent, and spoke excitedly, strongly inviting "that exceptionally talented, accurate, and powerful Miss Granger who can defeat male fighters of the same weight class" to develop her career in the United States, promising generous treatment and a bright future.

Mr. Granger held the microphone, speechless with astonishment. His bright, clever, and adorable daughter had only gone to stay at a classmate's house for a while. How could she be involved with the boxing club? Could it be that Charles had just given her another random name?

He confirmed that the other person was indeed talking about his daughter, but after scratching his head for a while, he still couldn't picture Hermione standing in the boxing ring. In the end, he could only vaguely refuse the other person by saying that "the clinic is very busy and I need my daughter's help to handle some tricky medical disputes."

“I’ve heard Charles talk about UFC,” Harry said as he peeled potatoes in the kitchen of 12 Grimmauld Place, potato skins falling in a flurry. “It’s an ultimate fighting competition that takes place in an octagonal cage. It’s very intense, and you can use any fighting technique.”

He tried to describe to Ron that primal confrontation.

Dumbledore discovered that even Hermione's seemingly safe path had gone astray. Helpless, he could only temporarily place the frustrated Harry at the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix, 12 Grimmauld Place, hoping that the warm atmosphere and busyness of the group would calm his restless heart.

The Order of the Phoenix thus became active again, with its members meeting almost daily in that somber living room adorned with portraits of the Black family, discussing intelligence and action plans in hushed tones.

Harry was often assigned to stay in the large kitchen downstairs, where he underwent a kind of "labor therapy" through the monotonous and repetitive physical labor of peeling potatoes, which kept him from thinking about anything else.

Dumbledore had no idea at the time how much trouble his actions would cause him later.

Ron's eyes lit up instantly when he heard that, and he exclaimed, "Wow! That sounds so cool!"

"I always feel that dueling clubs are boring. What do you think about organizing an octagon wizard duel? Wouldn't that be very popular?"

Harry just smiled and didn't take it to heart, while Ron was quickly distracted by other things.

"It looks like it was cut well."

Fred walked into the kitchen, greeted Harry with a grin, and picked up a potato that Ron had just peeled, its surface pitted and uneven, to examine it.

“Indeed,” George immediately nodded in agreement, his tone serious, “not a single bit of skin was left on it, it’s very clean.”

“However,” the two of them drew out their words in perfect unison, teasingly adding, “after peeling the potato, there’s only half the meat left. It’s too thin to even fry as potato chips.”

Harry's gloomy mood brightened when he saw them, and he asked, "Fred, George! I haven't seen you guys for days, where have you been?"

Fred said smugly, "We've been so busy this summer, we're even thinking about how to solve problems while we're sleeping."

As he spoke, he took two bottles of soda from a chilly wooden crate, which Dobby and the others had left behind when they left, and handed one to George.

George took the bottle, unscrewed the cap, and added with a grin, "That's right! Our secret research has finally made a major breakthrough, and we can finally report back to the generous Mr. Charles!"

They deliberately lowered their voices, seemingly afraid of being overheard by their mother, but their excitement was palpable.

Harry knew that Charles had been secretly funding the twins' unusual inventions, so he asked curiously, "What toy have you made this time?"

Fred immediately leaned closer and said mysteriously, "Shh...it's currently in the internal testing phase, and Ginny and Hermione are our handpicked first batch of testers!" George's eyes gleamed with an intense longing for Galleons, as if he could already see them jingling into his pocket, and he said, "We're about to make a fortune...oh dear!"

Before she could finish speaking, Mrs. Weasley, bursting with rage, suddenly appeared in the kitchen doorway and, with practiced precision, grabbed the twins by the ears, one in each hand, like an eagle snatching chicks.

"Uh……"

"new member?"

The two grimaced in pain, following their mother's iron-like fingers as they looked toward the door.

Ginny stood there expressionless, her face covered in grime, her hair disheveled, only her eyes showing white. She coldly uttered two words: "It's exploded again."

Molly tightened her grip instantly, almost twisting their ears off.

Fred tried to remain calm, his breath catching in his throat, but he still managed to argue, "It must be... some little bugs accidentally crawled into the game console and interfered with its operation!"

George quickly tilted his head and chimed in, "Yes! It's a bug, definitely a bug!"

"It can't be a magical problem, otherwise Hermione's..."

"It exploded?!" At that moment, Hermione, whose face was also covered in black soot and whose hair was even more disheveled from the explosion, rushed in, clutching a tattered wooden box tightly in her hand. Her tone was filled with disbelief and anger at being tricked. "Is this what you call a revolutionary new product, an extremely dangerous prank toy that could blow the user away at any moment?!"

Given the brothers' long history of outrageous experiments, her first thought was that she had once again become an unfortunate guinea pig in their crazy experiments.

Harry shook his head slightly and continued peeling potatoes, thinking to himself that they still had a long way to go before they could make money, and Charles's money wouldn't be so easy to get.

"It's bugs!" Fred shouted, his neck stiff. "There are so many bugs here!"

"Yes, it's a bug!" George insisted stubbornly. "That's bound to happen in old houses. It won't happen in a clean place!"

"Impossible!" Kreacher suddenly jumped out of the kitchen door screaming, his withered fingers trembling as he pointed at the twins. His voice was shrill and piercing, as if he had been greatly insulted. "Kreacher cleaned every corner and every speck of dust in this old house until it was spotless. There could never be any filthy bugs in the sacred Black House!"

"You bunch of brats spouting nonsense, you're slandering Kreacher's hard work!"

"Kreacher demands a duel! In the oldest way possible!"

He jumped up and down excitedly, his eyes fixed on the knife rack.

The already chaotic kitchen at 12 Grimmauld Place descended into even greater chaos, with arguments, explanations, Kreacher's screams, and Mrs. Weasley's roars all mingling together.

Meanwhile, in the quiet, tidy, and flower-filled garden of the Longbottom family home, the atmosphere was completely different, as if it were another world.

(End of this chapter)