A certain Hogwarts rune professor

Chapter 703 Negotiation Progress
Is it a house elf?

With a twitch in Harry's mind, he remembered what Hermione said at Gringotts. The house-elves in the future world and Hogwarts agreed to join the Pan-Magical Union. Next, the Ministry of Magic will gradually clean up the house-elves in the hands of the ancient families. , especially those who are being abused...

The mental state of these house-elves from Future World Company is surprisingly good, which may be related to the smiling faces on their faces, or it may be because the clothes they wear are close to the aesthetics of normal people, not just wearing a pillowcase, but being able to distinguish It was better than Hogwarts to have jackets, trousers, and weird cloth strips for decoration. For a moment, Harry suddenly understood Hermione's long-standing insistence.

He raised his head and looked at the lively little guys on the second floor, trying to identify a familiar individual, which was not easy. He scanned back and forth twice but did not find Dobby's figure. In doubt, he I felt a hand grabbing my pants.

Harry looked down.

"More than?"

"Harry Potter, sir! Hello!" A house-elf looked up at him with big round eyes, dressed somewhat similarly to Professor Flitwick in the school, who Harry knew Dobby, his eyes glistened with tears of long-lost reunion.

Harry had a bad premonition in his heart, Dobby took two steps back and flew into his arms, holding him tightly with two slender arms, his slender nose stabbed his stomach so badly, Harry spent a lot of effort Only then did he break away, "You're good too, Dobby." He said out of breath.

Dobby stepped back, eyeing Harry with a wide smile.

"Harry Potter, sir!"

Harry looked at Dobby, he was in good spirits, and his clothes showed unique preferences in many details, such as the magenta sweater inside his coat, which seemed to be a gift from Ron for Christmas that year; A tie with a green circle with two black dots embroidered on it, which Harry guessed was Dobby's handiwork, though he didn't know what the meaning was; Thick socks of different colors made no sound when walking.

"Mr. Harry Potter, please follow me."

The house-elf grabbed Harry's hand and pulled him through the crowd and up the winding staircase.

"Wait, wait, Dobby, I didn't come here alone, and some of my friends, Ron, Neville, Hermione—" Harry said, looking back, and found that Ron was surrounded by his two twins. My brother was watching, Neville and Mr. Ollivander were together, and seemed to be asking Mr. Ollivander to check his wand; Hermione was completely gone, and she was still here just now——

"Dobby knows that Dobby called Miss Granger away, and Dobby has something to give to Mr. Harry Potter!"

"You called Hermione away?" Harry said in surprise.

"Yes, Dobby is following Mr. Lupine's advice, and Dobby is willing to help." said the house-elf walking in front, and they came to the second floor, "Dobby has prepared Mr. Harry Potter's coming-of-age gift— "

"Oh, um, thank you, Dobby." Harry was taken aback for a moment, suddenly realizing that he was only a few days away from his 17th birthday, and this month passed quickly.But then he realized that Bill and Fleur's original wedding date was also in these days, but it was not clear whether it would happen on time.And - what was Lupine looking for Hermione for?
Thoughts swirled in Harry's mind, but all doubts were changed when he saw a house-elf in a pink lace pillowcase, "Dobby, is that Winky?" He recognized Winky's big brown eyes and something like The nose of a crushed tomato, to be precise, he was more impressed with the latter feature.

But what really made him tell her apart from the house-elves was that she was one of the few who still wore pillowcases as clothes.

"It's Winky," said Dobby.They walked along the escalator, downstairs was the Great Hall of Sword Castle, and Harry could see the backs of heads of people downstairs from a height.

"But she's still wearing a pillowcase. Why? Isn't she free?"

Dobby's pace slowed down, "Winky can't forget Mr. Crouch, Winky has been counting the days, saving money while counting the days, three years, two years, now only half a year left."

So Barty Crouch has half a year left to get out of prison?thought Harry.

They passed a dozen doors along the way, flanked by ten-foot-tall magical golems that had come in handy during the Death Eaters' onslaught, as well as the Ministry of Magic halls and more important corridors.They stopped in front of a door that, if anything, had two handles, one of which was placed surprisingly low.

Harry's doubts were answered when he saw Dobby turning the handle effortlessly.

Inside the door is a huge and spacious circular space. Harry took a rough look and found several areas inside. In addition to the two rows of small benches on the work area, there is also a place for house elves to rest. All the furniture is pocket-sized. Harry thought he had grown taller.

He turned his head subconsciously, and Hermione's figure flashed across the fifth floor in his sight.

……

"Professor, are you here too?" When Hermione closed the door from the house, she was surprised to see Felix was there, and Dobby only told her that Lupine was looking for her, and didn't mention anyone else.Therefore, although Sword Castle is theoretically the property of Professor Haipu, she has no confidence in meeting the professor here.

Sometimes Hermione obviously has a feeling that if the professor resigns from the school one day, he may hide in a place where no one can find him (such as the moon) to study magic, and it will take three or five years before he suddenly remembers that he is still alive. There is a group of friends, so I went out to visit relatives and friends.But the professor is actually not good at dealing with people at all. Many of his reactions are thought out in advance, and he directly uses them when encountering different situations.This secret can only be discovered by the closest people.In addition, the professor is not an enthusiastic person in the first place, and there are very few things that can move him, so it gives people the impression that he is calm and unhurried.

Of course Felix didn't know what Hermione was thinking at the moment, he nodded to her and signaled Hermione to come over.There were other people in the spacious office, Hermione looked over in turn, Lupine, Snape, and——

"Professor Slughorn?"

Hermione's voice rose slightly, and she looked in surprise at the short, fat old wizard who was huddled into a ball on the sofa. Slughorn, Professor of Potions at Hogwarts.

"Come here, Miss Granger, we were just talking about potion simplification." Slughorn said kindly.Hermione chose a seat to sit down, and he continued: "Felix mentioned that you have a similar experience. You combined students from four colleges last school year, didn't you? In order to meet the OWLs exam..."

"That is different from what we discussed to do." Snape said coldly. He did not forget that the source of those simplified formulas was the textbooks he had used. Very proud, but later gave up these practices, because it was not beneficial to the improvement of Potions.

"You're quite right, Severus," said Slughorn absent-mindedly, "but I think there's a lot of ingenuity and leadership in this... of course, the things we're going to talk about." It is more difficult, my suggestion is to start with the easy part, it is written in the textbook!"

Hermione listened for a while, and realized that they were talking about how to make potions available to ordinary people.Snape had warned in class not to try to get Muggles to take potions, because you can't be sure which potions require the magical participation of the wizard himself, and no potionist has counted them yet.

Snape and Slughorn were chatting nonchalantly. Many potion theories that were not written in the textbook were casually spoken by the two. A little bit, so she can take a notebook and write it down.Just then, she heard a chuckle.

Hermione stared blankly at Felix.

Felix lowered his head, revealing the curved arc of his mouth from the profile.He coughed twice, took out a silver pocket watch from his pocket, and said with a normal expression: "If you don't plan to develop in the field of potions, there is no need to listen. I have summarized a comparison table of spells and potions to show The results are almost the same... I came to you today because of another matter, and I need to ask for your opinion. Oh, I recommended you, and I think you are suitable..."

Before Hermione could speak, Snape suddenly looked at Felix, and said in a strange way: "The subtlety of potions lies in the subtle differences. Some people have given up this subject early, so naturally they can't appreciate it." The subtlety of it, and the beauty that is enough to make one's heart sway."

Hermione blinked. Are you saying that Professor Happe doesn't understand potions?She looked again at Professor Slughorn.

Slughorn, though not as direct as Snape, was euphemistically saying the same thing.Hermione's tried and tested ability to generalize came into play again, and it concluded that both of them meant the same thing - don't listen to the layman.

Felix rolled his eyes, and flipped off the watch cover. Varen got out from inside, ducked his head to avoid the hand of the big devil, and ran to Hermione, dancing and gesticulating.Hermione's heart skipped a beat, the golden card?She looked at Felix, who turned his head abruptly.

At this moment, the door opened from the outside, and Ms. Burns and Mr. Weasley walked in.Both of them looked tired.

"You look tired, the negotiations are not going well?" Lupine asked mildly.

Mr. Weasley took off his glasses and lowered his head to wipe the lenses with the corner of his clothes. He was a little bald, and one could not help but worry that he might have similar haircut to Slughorn in a few years.Mr. Weasley muttered, "That's enough. The Muggle Prime Minister has brought in a group of legal experts to challenge us. In short, we've made limited progress all morning."

"We are not superior in numbers," Lupine said. "This makes us unable to develop in many areas, such as law. Of course, it does not have to be exactly the same. I always think that the meaning of law is to clarify our Expectations of this society." He paused, and then said: "We have a plan to deal with this situation, right?"

"Of course." Ms. Burns forced a smile and cast admiring glances at Felix, "Because of the existence of the Pan-Magical Alliance, they have no excuse to order wizards, but they want to restrict the freedom of wizards through cumbersome laws. We timely proposed the concept of joint law enforcement and external windows, which caught them off guard, and the negotiations will continue tomorrow."

According to Felix and her ideas, the wizards will not completely let go of the restrictions for a long time, and they are also separate in management. They will only jointly enforce the law when the two sides overlap, and it was not designed from the beginning. Well, instead adopt the strategy of one case, one judgment, accumulating small amounts to form provisions.

Joint law enforcement deals with emergencies, and the two sides also need a stable communication window.There are currently two types on paper, one is a store that sells special items for wizards, and the second is to establish a fixed location where the two parties can communicate and interact freely within a certain range, including but not limited to cooperation in technology and magic , contact, so that ordinary people have the opportunity to contact magic and so on.

They chatted for a while, and Ms. Burns talked about the business, "The law is the focus of the next negotiation, which determines the right to speak of both parties. I don't think it will be easy to negotiate. It happened that the trade issue was mentioned this morning. If there is no progress, I am going to discuss this aspect first.”

"Let them see the possible benefits of magic, which is conducive to achieving better results." Felix nodded in agreement, and then asked: "Has Babajid Akinbad contacted you?"

Ms. Burns sighed. "No, he just sends a representative every day to ask for a record of the day's negotiations. To be fair, he is a very capable person, but he is now facing a completely unfamiliar field, and he has to be responsible for dozens of Ministry of Magic , can’t and dare not make a decision lightly.”

She shook her head, putting her in that tricky position would have been helpless without the help of others.

"You've hit the point," Lupine pointed out sharply. "He couldn't figure it out himself, and he was afraid of making a mistake. So the opportunity was delayed."

"Find an opportune time to invite him to meet," said Felix.

"The right timing?" Ms. Burns thought for a while, seeming to think of something, "Let me arrange it. There are two more things, the first thing—" She looked at Snape and Slughorn , "——It has something to do with potions, potions first, and then medical treatment. Magic still has an advantage in this regard."

"I need people," Snape said quietly. "A lot of people."

"Yes." Ms. Bones nodded and said, "There are a group of potion masters temporarily living in Diagon Alley, and I will extend an invitation to them in the name of the Ministry of Magic. Professor Slughorn, I know you are getting old , have the right to enjoy a peaceful life, but at this moment, we need your strength. Even if it's just a suggestion."

"Oh, of course, that's no problem." Slughorn said: "I have been retired for decades, and finally found that the school is the best for me. I think I will stay at Hogwarts. I am in the mood to study, and my professor has nothing to do."

He said thoughtfully:
"Speaking of it, Dumbledore reminded me... Well, in his last days... He said that school is the safest place and the most suitable place for the elderly. If even the school loses its peace, other places will only be worse. Unbearable."

All the people in the room fell silent, as if they suddenly remembered something on their minds.If there was one thing they all had in common, it was that Dumbledore had approached them a few times over the past few months... albeit for different reasons.

"The second thing is..." After a moment of silence, Ms. Bones adjusted her monocle and continued.

……

"Television interview?" Ron looked at Hermione in surprise, as if she was talking about something out of the blue.

"What's going on?" Harry asked.

"It can be understood as a way to enhance trust between the two parties. You should know that the Ministry of Magic is going to select some non-magical people to visit the wizarding society. The reason is the same." Hermione explained, "It's not just me, Weasley Sir and Professor Slughorn are on the list."

"My dad's going to be on TV?" Ron said a little excitedly, "He hasn't told the family yet, oh yeah, he's been too busy lately."

"So I have to get ready, I don't have a few days left," said Hermione hurriedly, "I have to go to the library and look up information—"

"There probably isn't what you're looking for in the library," Harry reminded her.

"Why not? The history of wizards, the culture of wizards... there must be." Hermione rolled up her sleeves, looking like she was doing a lot.

(End of this chapter)