Hermione, let's start a revolution from Hogwarts!

Nietzsche turned his attention to the Gryffindor table and saw Harry comforting his unfortunate friend. He suddenly realized that Dumbledore was using this opportunity to dismiss his students—to protect these immature little wizards.

Each school takes students from four grades, then shuffles them so that students from different schools in every two grades fill the vacancies.

If this is in preparation for future battles, then there is a question: what about the lower-year exchange students from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang?

This then requires considering the handling methods of the other two schools, namely, 'separating the students into senior grades'.

After announcing the good news, Headmaster Dumbledore hurriedly left the chaotic Great Hall, leaving the celebration time to the exuberant lower-year students and the upper-year students who were imparting their 'experience'.

"Miss Granger, I need your help with something!"

When the headmaster reached the door, he slapped his forehead, greeted the Gryffindor table kindly, and led Hermione away.

With the person in charge gone, Professor McGonagall was the first to start complaining.

"Absurd!" She slammed her hand on the table, making the cutlery and gold plate bounce. "Aside from Albus mentioning wanting to retire, he never mentioned another... Hagrid? Hagrid!"

"I'm here." The half-giant Hagrid squeezed into the far corner of the main seating area, his arms tucked in like a child.

"No need to say anything, you must be involved in this matter, right?" Vice Principal McGonagall asked with certainty.

As everyone knows, the honest Hagrid is famously fond of keeping secrets.

No problem at all. Liking to keep secrets doesn't mean you can keep them. After all, it's just a 'like', not a 'skill'.

"I...I...I..." Hagrid was glared at by the other four deans. To avoid having more colorless and tasteless stuff in his future meals, he finally relented, "Mrs. Maxim! I've already given her the contact information!"

"What about the others?" Professor McGonagall pressed.

"Let's add some truth serum," Professor Snape said with a forced smile. "This kind of thing is best left to the professionals."

“No, Professor Dumbledore asked me for this.” Rupert Hagrid was startled and pushed the table away, hurriedly fleeing the scene. He said with a distressed expression, “I…I was just a letter reader with Mrs. Maxime.”

It seems Hagrid was unaware of this either. This news temporarily silenced the other heads of the house, except for Snape.

At seven o'clock in the evening, when the students returned to the lounge with curiosity and excitement, Nietzsche walked up the moving staircase to the second floor, and Hermione suddenly pulled open the tapestry on the wall next to him.

"Sh---"

The girl looked around and, seeing that Professor Slughorn was continuing upwards, dragged Nietzsche into the secret passage leading to the fifth-floor library.

"Something's wrong!" she said impatiently.

But she didn't finish her sentence before pulling Nietzsche, who was full of questions, inside. They quickly made their way to the fifth floor through the secret passage, then went to the eighth floor, and walked straight to the white wall in front of the giant tapestry.

"I need... I need a meeting room, I need a meeting room..." Hermione walked to the Room of Requirement three times in a row and made her request.

However, the simple door did not appear on the white wall.

"What does Headmaster Dumbledore want with you?" Nietzsche asked, observing the movement on the wall.

“This whole three-school collaboration…it’s complicated. Someone will explain it to you later.” Hermione scratched her head in frustration, then paced back and forth again. “I need a meeting room where Holmes is currently sitting…”

This time, a wooden door slowly appeared on the white wall, indicating that someone had been inside before.

Sherlock Holmes? Nietzsche sensed trouble as soon as he heard the name. He instinctively began to back away. Although he himself was a 'Sherlock Holmes,' he was far less adept at causing trouble than the other two.

“You know we have a date for Christmas, right?” He grabbed Hermione’s wrist.

The doorknob stopped halfway through its turn, and the two of them stood pressed together in an extremely intimate manner, blocking the doorway.

“Then let’s cut back on the time.” Hermione shrugged and continued, “Darling, there’s nothing I can do about this. We can put the question of ‘whether I’ll be angry with you’ on hold for now, because you need to deal with a more serious problem right now.”

With a mocking glint in her eyes, she pried Nietzsche's fingers apart with her left hand and pushed the doorknob forward with her right.

In a room with three bright chandeliers hanging from the roof beams like small suns and a conference table in the center, Nietzsche saw the disaster he was about to face—Mycroft Holmes leaning on his cane.

Behind him was a portrait of a young girl, just like the one in the Pig's Head Bar, the blonde girl waving shyly at Nietzsche.

“Nietzsche?” Mycroft raised his cane and poked Nietzsche’s stomach with the tip.

"Correct."

“I’m retired.”

"Ah."

"You will take over my job."

"what???"

Chapter 384 Forcing a Duck onto a Shelf

This...this is so sudden.

Mycroft was only fifty-two years old when Nietzsche disappeared in his final case. He should have been serving England until his death, shouldn't he?

“You arrogant, heartless bastard!” Mycroft raised his cane, as if to strike. “You like playing with information, don’t you? Perfect, you’ll be in charge of CI6 and the Department of Homeland Strategy (SHD)!”

Hermione instinctively pulled Nietzsche closer, shielding him behind her.

However, Mycroft quickly noticed the girl's subtle movements. After analyzing the situation for a second, he had a plan in mind and put away the cane that had not yet struck Nietzsche.

“But…” Nietzsche ripped off his beard and glared at her.

“Hey! You don’t need to say anything more.” Mycroft seemed to have anticipated this scene, and pulled a crumpled document from his pocket, which clearly stated his resignation and transfer of power.

slap~

The paper was slapped across Nietzsche's face, and its stench was unbearable to him.

Mycroft was never a charming gentleman, or rather, that demeanor was only used to appease his superiors.

“I understand you. After all, intelligent people like us must strictly control our desires, otherwise the harm we cause will be greater than what the goldfish caused…” Mycroft added to Hermione, “excluding you.”

Hermione pursed her lips, clenched her teeth, and secretly twisted Nietzsche's arm behind her back.

Although this wasn't the first time she'd encountered the Holmes family's peculiar 'conceit,' she could never get used to it. Honestly, she couldn't let Nietzsche become like that.

Clearly, Hermione missed one thing: Nietzsche at least had a more normal partner.

“But what does this have to do with Dumbledore?” Nietzsche realized, crumpled the paper into a ball, and threw it back.

“Because you’re going to be with…” Mycroft turned his head and asked curiously, “Should I call you Granger or Holmes beforehand? Actually, I don’t really care about worldly conventions. If you want to keep your own…”

That's what makes him so terrifying—he can always talk about inappropriate topics with a straight face.

“Granger would be fine,” Hermione said, blushing and her eyes starting to dart around.

“Alright,” Mycroft continued, “The current social situation in Britain has aroused discontent in other countries, and according to Dumbledore, the two of you need to take a trip to France and Germany during the Christmas holidays.”

He pointed to the two people swaying like penguins in front of him and gave them a brief explanation of the situation.

Britain was the first country to truly break the Secrets Act, which made the Ministries of Magic in other countries very uneasy.

Imagine how other Muggles, watching the sun rise over Britain, would retaliate against wizards out of jealousy, and how other countries' Ministries of Magic would find fault with the British Ministry of Magic (no wonder Fudge couldn't sleep well).

"Us?" Hermione asked excitedly, confirming again.

“Yes, you two,” Mycroft said, emphasizing each word.

With no one else around but Nietzsche and Hermione, in another sense, wasn't this a kind of arranged rendezvous?

Hermione instantly forgot the grievances and fatigue she had suffered. She ran happily to the conference table, took out her quill pen, and started scribbling on the draft paper. Her melodious laughter drew the portrait girl's curious attention.

Nietzsche guessed that she was designating some kind of tourist route.

He gazed at Hermione's graceful curve as she lay on the table, and a smile unconsciously crept onto his lips. He thought to himself: This isn't such a bad thing, is it?

Mycroft suddenly stepped forward and leaned close to Nietzsche's ear.

"If I had to give my opinion—not bad," he whispered. "The Dark Lord is a good cover. Now, as long as you can completely resolve this problem, there won't be much of a problem between wizards and Muggles in Britain."

“Soon,” Nietzsche replied briefly.

"I didn't tell Sherlock about the Prime Minister."

A bucket of cold water was suddenly poured over him, instantly snapping Nietzsche out of his dreamy strawberry pudding reverie and drawing his gaze from his girlfriend to Mycroft's face.

Neither of the two Holmes spoke; one was feigning ignorance, while the other offered a hint.

Finally, the oldest of the Sherlock Holmes spoke up, breaking the tension. Mycroft said in a relaxed tone, "I have no doubts about your morals, and I admire you more than Sherlock does."

Uncle knows? How much does he know? Since when?

A series of questions leaped out of Nietzsche's mind like flying fish, skipped across the water, glided through the air in perfect curves, and finally fell back into the water.

“Take it, as my gift, and my final help to you.” Mycroft returned to his previous arrogant demeanor in the blink of an eye. “Of course, you can also see it as my mockery of Sherlock.”

So, that's the key point, right?!

The blonde girl in the portrait stands by the base of a wall covered with ivy. When she sees Mycroft turn around, she immediately steps aside, revealing a door leading to darkness behind her. It seems there is a secret passage hidden in the Room of Requirement.

Nietzsche watched as he stepped halfway in, half his body disappearing into the darkness.

"I thought you would be more...righteous." Although his anxiety had disappeared, he was still puzzled by his uncle's behavior.

“Don’t forget what I did, oh, I misspoke, it was ‘before’,” Mycroft said deliberately, nitpicking his words. “My justice is the entire nation and its people, and I’m willing to lose as long as it’s beneficial and in accordance with the law.”

After saying that, he nodded to the girl hiding behind the frame in the portrait and left the House of Requirement.

Dumbledore's sister peeked out from the frame, glanced at the painting a few times, and then left, seemingly leaving the space to the last two people there.

Nietzsche, forced into the situation, tiptoed behind Hermione and slowly wrapped his arms around her waist.

"Dumbledore has already told me the location of the French Ministry of Magic, right below Furstenberg Place... We can go home and ask my parents; they've been to France before, and if we're lucky, we might be able to explore the surrounding area a bit..."

The warmth of her palm seeped through her school uniform and the shirt underneath, causing Hermione to tilt her head back.

“We can ride fire-breathing dragons to visit Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, one for each of them,” Nietzsche said, taking her hand and adding a few personal suggestions to the itinerary.

“Okay…wait a minute, one for each of you? You’ve been raising several more without my knowledge.” Hermione’s eyes sharpened.

Oh no, he's just like Smaug.

“To be precise, he’s Smaug’s accomplice.” He touched his nose and quickly changed the subject. “So I’m now the highest-ranking officer in CI6 and SHD? That’s certainly made things easier for me.”

It was a complete forced assignment, and to make matters worse, he was put in Mycroft's butler's position...

Hermione, however, was quite satisfied; she was content with anything that made Nietzsche sigh.

Chapter 385 A Surprise Under the Mistletoe

Jingle bells~ Jingle bells~