Chapter 700

“I can’t believe you are actually one of the mythical wizards, I was shocked when I saw your face on TV!” Jim said excitedly.

Felix shrugged.

“Because I needed to hide my identity, I actually left the orphanage just to go to the magic school.” He gave a brief account of his real experiences over the years.

“Then your work experience-” Jim looked in doubt, it couldn’t be fake too, could it?

“That’s genuine, I worked in London for two years after I graduated.”

“A strange hobby,” Jim was baffled by this practice, “if I had a talent for magic, I would certainly devote myself solely to study it.” After a moment the door opened from outside, and it was Rebecca, who almost screamed out in surprise when she saw Felix.

“Wow, it’s really you! Are you truly a magician who can do ‘real’ magic?” She pulled a carrot out of her grocery bag and held it up pretending it was a wand, and she said in a funny tone, “Dispelling the dark clouds all over the country with a single spell?”

“A wizard, to be precise.” Felix said, “And it was not just me that did it either.”

“Rebecca was asleep at the time, and she watched the re-broadcast.” Jim stepped forward to take the grocery bag and turned his head to explain, ” Well, she has been a bit drowsy lately and the doctor has advised her to exercise more.” Felix looked at Rebecca’s slightly bulging stomach with some surprise.

“Yeah, we got married.” Jim said, “At the time we couldn’t reach you, and we thought you were abroad. Of course, now we know the reasons why.”

On that note, Felix thought about the phone he hadn’t used much.

Rebecca sat down next to Jim after she had changed her clothes. “On the TV they said that some people would be invited to visit the wizards’ world, is that true?”

“Yeah, do you guys want to come and see what a real wizards community would look like?” Felix asked. Whether it was a matter of securing two quotas or arranging it privately, it would be a very easy thing for him to do.

Jim was somewhat tempted, but then he glanced at his wife and his expression changed to one of hesitant in a heartbeat.

“Well, forget it,” he said, shaking his head, “Rebecca is pregnant. I don’t want-” he turned slightly red, “well, I’m worried about having a mishap.”

Felix nodded with understanding.

Right now, at this time, it wasn’t necessarily a good thing for ordinary people to get involved with wizards; If they could be with Felix all the time, they would be fine, but the possibility of him being with them every day is extremely low, and they might come under some degree of risk just by being his friends, which is why he stopped over here. After asking Jim and Rebecca for their opinion, Felix cast a complex spell to hide their friendship as a secret.

After staying a while, he got up and left, leaving a card behind on his way out. “Wizards are particularly good at dealing with some situations, so if you run into a tricky situation, you can contact me. Just tear the card up.”

Jim accepted the card in all seriousness and walked Felix to the door.

“The old dean’s not doing that well anymore.” He said.

Felix was silent for a moment, “I’ll go and visit him.”

“Hey! The due date is early January.” Jim said loudly behind him and Felix looked back to see him wave the card, “At least we won’t have to worry about finding you this time.”

…

The next morning, in Hogwarts.

The students finished dealing with that day’s newspapers and gathered in twos and threes to chat.

“Was there any new organization born today that aspires to drown wizards like bloody rats?” Ron asked deliberately in a wicked tone of voice.

“No,” Harry said with a yawn, “but rather there were those who learned about the low employment rate of wizards and wanted to offer us jobs.”

Ron muttered, “They should mind their own business.”

Dean said half-heartedly, “I would love to give it a try later when the situation becomes stable.”

Neville raised his head at that and looked around with great expectation, “Is there any new progress in the negotiations? There’s nothing in the newspapers I’m in charge of.”

“Well, it won’t happen that quickly,” Hermione said brightly, “It’s only the second day. But we always prepare ahead of time and try to get ahead of the game – do any of you want to go to Sword Castle?” She looked over at the group.

“Do you mean that assembly of shopkeepers in Diagon Alley?” Harry asked perceptively, “You’re going to see it?”

Hermione shrugged. Luna and Ginny walked by behind Harry, and Ginny put her arms up, circled behind him like a ballerina, and disappeared with a twirl of her heel. Hermione burst out with a puff of laughter.

Harry looked at her in bewilderment.

“It’s nothing.” She answered at once.

At that moment, Hannah and Susan Bones came over to join the conversation, Ernie and Justin followed wobbly behind them, both looking pale as if they hadn’t eaten breakfast, while Daphne kept stroking her hair on the right side.

“It’s outrageous how some newspaper claims that wizards’ bodies have radiation on them, which would cause – what is that?” Hannah said indignantly.

“Would cause some bad contagious genetic disorder or disease.” Hermione said briefly. “Like Dragon pox?” Hannah asked. “Something like that.” Hermione said, she then reacted, “Did the newspaper really claim that?”

Hannah spelled out the mentions.

Hermione said in disbelief, “I can’t believe they could make up a lie like that.”

“Next time try to check whether the writer’s family name is Dursley,” Harry said dully, “It sounds like something my aunt would say, she always believed that wizards would pollute the environment …” he looked up thoughtfully, “The newspaper shouldn’t have allowed too many swear words to be published, otherwise you can learn some new words.”

“And there’s one that says wizards correspond to the end of the world.” Ernie interjected, turning his head to Justin, “They referred to one prophecy to make it look believable, I forgot the name of that prophecy though-” n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

“Mayan.” Justin muttered.

“Do the muggles have diviners among them?” Daphne asked curiously.

“I don’t know, the known information is that they were a group of ancient Native Americans with a very advanced level of civilization at one point and then that civilization declined abruptly.” Hermione said, “Later generations have found some plausible prophecies from their remains.”

“Well, according to that newspaper, it’s quite likely for this to be true.” Justin said with great fervour, “I read something similar when I was a kid, all written in a book with a particularly scary-looking cover – but then my mum confiscated it.”

“What did she say?” Hermione asked for a follow-up to that.

“She said it was a waste of time.” Justin scowled, “But she didn’t know about the divination course back then. After learning about the Divination course she took eggs from the kitchen on holidays to do the divination, by following what was written in the book ‘Unfogging the Future’.”

“You still have that book, I thought you had thrown it away.” Ernie said.

Hermione was clearly not interested in divination, and although she admitted that Trelawney did do actual divination once or twice, she also stubbornly believed that Trelawney’s mind was simply muddled during normal times, or she was just a drunken mess most of the time from drinking loads of sherry. Once again she asked if any of them wanted to go to the sword castle.

Finally, Harry, Ron, Hermione, Susan, and Neville decided to go and see what all this fuss is all about. “Where’s Ginny?” As the group walked towards the Transfiguration office, Harry turned his head to search for the redhead.

“I saw her leave with Luna.” Hermione said.

They made their way to the Transfiguration office on the first floor, which had originally belonged to Professor McGonagall, but when she moved into the Headmaster’s office, it was left empty, and there is a fireplace attached in that office, which is available for students to use for their daily commute.

The shops on either side of the Diagon Alley walkway were quiet and deserted, with temporary closure notices written in the windows.

“Look over there, Harry!” Ron said with a sharp eye, pointing his finger at a certain place.

Harry looked over, and his eyes suddenly widened; it was the location of Florean Fortescue’s Ice Cream Parlour, which had been closed when he had visited Diagon Alley before the start of his sixth year, but now it seemed to have reopened. He strides over to the door, which also has a closure notice on it, and he slightly composed himself, staring at the huge parasol that stood outside. Harry’s mind wandered back to the time when he had eaten ice cream here while doing his homework, he reached out and touched it, there wasn’t even a speck of dust on the parasol.

His heart perked up, this implied that someone had cleaned it up, but Harry wasn’t sure if some other person bought it, and the place they were heading to might have the answer. He walked excitedly towards the sword castle, but he was stopped when he made it to the entrance.

“Sorry, no visitors allowed today due to some important matter.”

“Clammy?” Harry looked in surprise at the witch who had stopped him.

“Oh, it’s Harry,” Clammy Vera said, greeting him with a smile, “These are your friends?” She looked behind Harry, some of whom she recognized and some of whom she didn’t.

Hermione also looked a little surprised when she saw Clammy.

“It’s a mess in there, I came out for some fresh air.” Clammy explained, “Penelope’s still inside.” “Is Eric back yet?” Hermione asked. “Not yet,” Clammy sighed, “He’s gone on a tour to visit the Latin American branches and probably won’t be back for another week.”

As one of the first members of the ‘Future World’ company, several other people besides Lupin had been entrusted with important responsibilities. Over the past few years, they had each assumed a part of the companies responsibilities according to their interests; Clammy liked to study the technical aspects, Penelope was more of a day-to-day manager, and for a while when Lupin was preoccupied with the work in the Order of the Phoenix, he simply relied on the two of them to keep the company running normally, and as for Erik – he had taken the responsibility of the branches abroad.

“By the way, Clammy,” Harry thought of the query that was born in front of the ice cream parlour, “have you seen Florean Fortescue?”

Clammy thought for a moment, “The Ice Cream Parlour owner?”

“That’s right!” Harry said excitedly.

“He is here.” Clammy gave a positive answer.

“I thought he was captured and killed by Voldemort?” Ron asked from the side.

“He is alive because he was lucky enough to escape from the fate of transforming into an Inferi.” An unfamiliar voice interjected into the conversation between them and Harry jerked his head up to see an elderly man with grey hair, and he exclaimed in surprise, “Mr. Fortescue?”

“Mr. Potter, I’m very pleased to see that you remember me.” Florean said with a touch of emotion.

“Of course, I will remember you!” Harry said, “But how did you escape?”

“I didn’t escape, I was rescued by Aurors,” said Florean, “The Dark Lord took a group of people who were experts in the history of magic, I was one of them, he also took some wand makers, I know of a fellow named Gregorovitch who was unlucky enough not to survive the torture. ”

Harry was vaguely aware of this. Voldemort had fabricated the rumour about the ‘Top Ten Wands’ by torturing these people, and Mr. Ollivander had originally been one of the targets, but he had managed to escape the Death Eaters and after that, he had spread the rumour by pretending that he had run away to a foreign country, but in reality, he had been hiding in the basement of the wand shop, and he even deceived Voldemort.

“Did you just mention Inferi?” Harry asked.

“Yes,” Florean’s expression turned grim, and he said with a bit of dread, “The Dark Lord tortured us according to our reputation, he wanted to know about some very secret things, I happened to know something about it, but luckily he changed his mind in the middle of the process and asked the better-known wand makers instead, I didn’t get tortured that much, but I was locked up for a long time … I wasn’t sure I could hide the truth from the Dark Lord. The ones that were tortured to death were used to create Inferi.”

Harry felt mixed emotions. There was a mixture of hatred for Voldemort’s cruelty and also a puzzlement at Florean’s vague words, a realization only dawned on him when he saw Hermione’s mouth turning O shape. Voldemort had probably heard the legend of the Deathly Hallows, but even if he had, he would only be interested in the Elder Wand, and if Voldemort had tortured them one by one, Mr. Fortescue would definitely not have been spared, but with the rumour of Professor Hap’s possession of the Elder Wand, Voldemort’s attention may have shifted, his main focus of attention might have turned to other wand makers.

“Anyway, I’m at least alive now and able to discuss what happened to me with you guys. The Auror who rescued me claimed that he had received some hidden clues, probably from a Ministry of Magic spy I guess, and I’ve been looking for ways to thank him.” Florean talked about his recent experiences, “I took a few months off after being rescued from the ditch, and I recently cleaned up the shop with the intention of reopening it …”

Florean left after saying that.

“Who did you guys think that informant was?” Harry asked when he had left.

“Could it be Snape?” Ron guessed.

“Or it could be Lucius Malfoy.” Hermione said.

“Or maybe Professor Hap had dug out the helpful information from Voldemort’s mind.” Ron said.

They walked into the sword castle and the main lobby was buzzing with life. A dozen tables were set up in the middle of the lobby, behind each of them sat a member of the Ministry of Magic staff, while across from them were the shopkeepers of Diagon Alley, discussing the situation with a piece of parchment in their hands.

One of the witches near Harry said, “I’m just selling some beauty potions that will deal with tiny blemishes on a witch’s face, like freckles or sarcoids or something, I don’t think it will come in handy, any random healer can do pretty much the same thing …”

“Don’t say that Ms. Prim Parnell, your beauty potions work much better than the average healer’s magic.” The staff member said patiently.

“Really?” The witch stared at him sceptically.

As they continued on their way, a young wizard looked quite impatient and yelled, “I run a wizard travel agency, listen – clearly- – it is a wizard travel agency, specialising in thrill-seeking trips for wizards, and no responsibilities will be taken for any dangers that occur during the trip!”

The Ministry of Magic staff member opposite him persistently pressed on, “And do you think it would be possible to develop such a travel package exclusively tailored for Muggles?”

The young male wizard looked at the staff member somewhat blankly, “I’m not 100% sure … although we did domesticate a group of Inferius, we still left a possibility of accidents during the adventure to make it more realistic.”

“No Inferius.” The staff member immediately said, “I mean, we need something more alternative and novel that will catch the eye.”

The male wizard thought hard for a while, and just as Harry and the group decided to leave, they heard him inquire behind them, “How about the Bermuda Triangle? But there was a wizard that went missing last year, and he hasn’t been found yet …”

Neville stopped with a sudden look of horror as he said quietly, “My granduncle wanted to travel there a while back, and I had to talk him out of it.”

The familiar voice of a group sounded from the front.

“… Apparently no one cares whether you have one page more or less on your list of items because it doesn’t matter.”

It was Fred or George who spoke. They took two steps forward. In the inner part of the main lobby close to the hallway, Fred and George were sitting in the same chair, and opposite the pair was a grim-faced Percy. Harry stopped hesitantly; they seemed to have come at the wrong time.

“Now that you mention the list,” Percy said through clenched teeth, “I can tell you right now that half of your merchandise is not up to the standard-”

“You can’t do this to us!” Fred shouted.

“This is an abuse of authority for personal gain.” George shouted back.

“Oh, is that so? You guys can go to the Ministry of Magic and report me.” Percy showed a winning smile, “Let’s see whose side they’ll stand behind. The nosebleed nougat that makes people bleed a litre, the spit-up candy that makes people throw up heavily, the coma floral candy that would suddenly make people pass out …”

Penelope peeked over from the next seat.

“Your brother did the right thing. Muggles are fragile, they reportedly have to recuperate for months when they break a bone.” She said sternly, “We need to rule out as many dangerous items as possible when considering trade lists.”

Ron grinned as he reached out and put both his hands on his twin’s shoulders, taking the opportunity to strike them while they were down.

“I’ll be fair, even wizards can’t handle some of their products. It has to be strictly reviewed.”

Fred and George turned from left and right to look at Ron with expressionless faces, making him wince a little.

Harry had expected this scene long ago when he found them, he glanced around to find something to kill some time in the crowd amidst the cacophony of voices that hadn’t stopped since he had entered the Sword Castle. When he looked up, he saw a group of house elves who were poking their heads out of the upstairs balustrade, looking down with excited expressions.

—————

Thanks for all your love and support.

Read 50 days or 100 chapters in advance on [email protected] If you have some extra pocket money, Support me at [email protected]: [email protected]