Drinking black tea calmly at Hogwarts

After playing five games of Gwent, Zhang Xu didn't win any of them, so Zhang Xu had to help Scrimgeour pay the bill five times in the coffee shop.

When Scrimgeour announced that the Aurors in the shop today were all due to him, and the Aurors were cheering for it, Zhang Xu was thinking about whether Hood and the others would accept it if they paid the bill with dried fish. A dollar worth of dried fish should be worth a pound.

It has to be said that Scrimgeour looks fierce like a lion, but he still has a good grasp of the management of his subordinates.

After the trouble is over, the next step is to talk about business.

First, Scrimgeour confirmed to Zhang Xu a question that has been asked the most during this period of time: "Is the mysterious man really back?"

Everyone who asked this question expected to get a negative answer from Zhang Xu, but Zhang Xu's answers were all "yes".

But today Zhang Xu did not answer Scrimgeour directly, but imitated the voice of Minister of Magic Fudge and said: "The mysterious man was defeated more than ten years ago and he will never come back. In the past two years, we have increased A blow to the dark wizard. Now it's just a handful of Death Eaters who feel their end is coming under our blow, and they are dying."

"The Ministry of Magic is confident and capable, and will catch them all before Christmas."

"From now on, peace is guaranteed for a whole generation."

"Now I ask everyone to go back and sleep peacefully in your bed"

Although Zhang Xu said the same words as Fudge, but with his funny expression, Scrimgeour knew that what the other party said was ironic even if he hadn't seen this emoji.

After receiving Zhang Xu's reply, Scrimgeour was silent for a long time. It was not until the ginger sitting on Zhang Xu's lap was full of dried fish and left and replaced it with fish cakes that Scrimgeour recovered from his contemplation.

Zhang Xu thought that Scrimgeour asked him out today not just to confirm whether Voldemort had really returned, but he couldn't figure out what the other party could talk to him about for a while. Scrimgeour was not the kind who seemed to meet Zhang Xu. Colluder.

"Mr. Zhang, do you know the Hekmedia family, the Phantomhine family and the Lawrence family?" Scrimgeour asked openly.

Zhang Xu curled his lips and looked at Scrimgeour speechlessly.

Zhang Xu replied: "The Hekmedia family is mainly engaged in the sale of magic items, including some dangerous magic items."

"The Phantomhine family is mainly engaged in the sales of mineral magic raw materials."

"The Lawrence family focuses on the business of magical raw materials of magical animals and plants."

"I regret what happened to the three families."

There were quite a few people who knew these three families before, and they monopolized the Western European market for Eastern magic raw materials five years ago.

To put it simply, they purchase special magic raw materials and some magic items from the Far East from places such as India, Japan, and Southeast Asia, and then sell them in Europe after multiplying the purchase price by more than ten times, or even nearly a hundred times.

Most of the magical animals and plants that Zhang Xu has never eaten or seen that are named "Huaxia" in the West are named after them.

Snape regarded the Kabbah produced in Japan as Mongolian, and it was their pot.

However, since under Zhang Xu's needlework, magical raw materials and items from the East were sold at the price of Chinese cabbage in Europe through Hogwarts and Beauxbatons, the business of these three families has been difficult.

And since last week's "Blooded Valentine's Night", the names of these three families have also appeared in the Daily Prophet every day, because the three of them were almost wiped out by Death Eaters on Valentine's Day night.The reason why the family was not completely wiped out was because there were still people in their family who were studying at Hogwarts, so they escaped the catastrophe.

However, this is all information on the surface, and little is known about the secret activities, but the two people present here are aware of it.

"Do you have any other views on what happened to these three families, Mr. Zhang?" Scrimgeour asked, staring into Zhang Xu's eyes.

"What else can I think?" Zhang Xu said while scratching the fish cake lying on his leg, "You don't think I ordered the Death Eaters to attack their family residence, Mr. Scrimgeour."

Scrimgeour continued to stare at Zhang Xu and said, "We learned the truth about the werewolf army's attack on Hogsmeade during the interrogation of Fenrir Greyback."

No wonder Scrimgeour suspected that Zhang Xu was playing tricks behind the scenes. They were behind the werewolves besieging Hogsmeade back then, and their goal was Zhang Xu's life.

However, Zhang Xu's identity is a bit special, and it is not easy to invite him to the Ministry of Magic for tea without conclusive evidence, so Scrimgeour can only ask Zhang Xu out in private to make a side-view.

Although Scrimgeour's guess was reliable, Zhang Xu would not admit such a thing.

Zhang Xu said while scratching Fish Cake's belly, "I already knew about this, and they wanted to get rid of me with the help of werewolves."

"But later, under the mediation of Professor Dumbledore, the three of them showed enough sincerity, and I didn't suffer too much harm, so I don't pursue them anymore for the sake of Professor Dumbledore. gone."

The amount of compensation proposed by the three families to Zhang Xu was so generous that it is said that even Lucius Malfoy, who was the middleman, was shocked.Some people even planned to compensate Zhang Xu for their daughter who was studying at Hogwarts.

As a result, Zhang Xu gave up such compensation and transferred all the compensation to Hogwarts.

So Zhang Xu and Dumbledore sang a double reed, and turned the compensation into all the shares of several magic raw material processing workshops.

want a golden egg

Everyone knows the reason for wanting a hen that can lay golden eggs. Since then, after Hogwarts has mastered all the shares of these processing workshops, it is no longer just an agent of raw materials, but also started a business of processing raw materials. An industry-university-research base for potion science and herbal medicine has been preliminarily established.

This is why Zhang Xu can have so many privileges in Hogwarts, and other professors, especially Professor McGonagall, who is always fair and strict, have no objection. Drinking water does not forget the well digger.

Zhang Xu turned the fish cake over and continued to scratch its head and back while saying, "Actually, it's not surprising that mysterious people will find them. This is also the conclusion I came to after this week's research. It can explain why the other five families are also being targeted by mysterious people."

Scrimgeour's eyes staring at Zhang Xu suddenly widened.

Zhang Xu learned from the Civil War in the Order of the Phoenix in the Auror that the Ministry of Magic has yet to determine the criteria for selecting targets for the Death Eaters. The Ministry of Magic has no idea why the Death Eaters chose them.

Zhang Xu took out eight brand new, thick notebooks and placed them in front of Scrimgeour.

Scrimgeour casually picked up the notebook with "Lawrence" written on the top cover, opened it and looked at it carefully.

Opening the notebook, there are clippings of reports on the Lawrence family in newspapers and magazines such as the Daily Prophet over the past few years. These clippings are pasted in the notebook in chronological order.

Scrimgeour didn’t find anything strange in it when he first read it, but when he turned to the last few pages, it seemed as if he had suddenly discovered a new world, and he read the clippings of the last few pages over and over again several times.

Then he picked up other basic notebooks one after another, and directly turned to the last few pages to carefully read the newspaper clippings there.

Scrimgeour has been an Auror for so many years, and even became the director of the Auror Office, so his IQ is naturally not bad.

When the case is at the end of the day, sometimes after some details that are not noticed at ordinary times are noticed, it is easy to find the bright spots.

The last parts of these clippings all have one thing in common, they all mention explicitly or implicitly that these families have been financially supporting the construction of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry recently.

The fact that the workshops of the Hekmedia family, the Phantomhine family, and the Lawrence family have all become Hogwarts school-run workshops cannot be hidden from others, but the public does not know what is going on under the table. It's just a deal.

As for the other five families who were attacked by Death Eaters on "Blooded Valentine's Night", the Whitehorn family who founded the Nimbus Racing Broom Company, the Ollerton Family who established the Sweeping Broom Company, and the Comet The Cage family of the trading company, the Horton family, and the Flett family, one of the shareholders of the Fleet and Buck Company, all sell broomsticks. They plan to use Hogwarts as a breakthrough to recapture the British broomsticks. The market, so it is also throwing money at Hogwarts.

So if Scrimgeour suspects something happened to these families, he will only suspect the Weasley family. After all, Scrimgeour still knows some dark things. The two children of the Weasley family almost died at their hands. .

Unbeknownst to Scrimgeour, much of the money was surreptitiously transferred to the Weasleys as compensation for not being held accountable for their attempted assassination of the twins.

As for the collusion between the Death Eaters and the Weasley family, I believe that both the Ministry of Magic and the Death Eaters will feel that such a thing will definitely not happen.

Scrimgeour had read these reports before, but he didn't think about it. After all, the British magic community has not experienced economic wars for so many years. The two opposing sides are directly destroying each other's vitality, and there is no precedent for destroying the opponent's pocketbook. .

And now, after Zhang Xu's tweaking, Scrimgeour quickly discovered the commonality of these eight families, and they all started giving Hogwarts a lot of gold coins recently.

Scrimgeour put himself in the position of Voldemort to consider this issue. Giving money to Hogwarts is equivalent to giving money to Dumbledore. If the person who gave money to Dumbledore is not disposed of, is it still saved for Easter? .

After getting Zhang Xu's permission, Scrimgeour put away the eight notebooks.

As for whether Scrimgeour will find out that Zhang Xu colluded with a certain Western reporter to deliberately publish suggestive and inductive news, Zhang Xu is still very relieved of Rita Skeeter's methods.

As a benchmark figure among media people, she only needs to hint easily, and a bunch of new reporters who are distressed because they can't find news will naturally follow the direction she hinted to find news.

"I owe you a favor." Scrimgeour put away the notebook and said to Zhang Xu, "I must hurry back to the ministry now."

Just when Scrimgeour stood up, Zhang Xu suddenly said to him in a low voice: "Do you want to be a minister, Mr. Scrimgeour."

An excellent Auror must be a powerful wizard, but to be the leader of the Aurors, one needs not only strength, but also a delicate heart.

After hearing Zhang Xu's words, Scrimgeour didn't reply, but just stood condescendingly and stared at Zhang Xu like a lion.

Zhang Xu just smiled and said: "With more and more Death Eaters' actions, the mysterious man will definitely appear in front of the public again in the near future. At this time, Mr. Fudge must no longer sit in this position. When the time comes, everyone Definitely hope someone strong will be in the ministerial position."

Scrimgeour didn't speak, and after staring at Zhang Xu for a while, he turned around and left, while Zhang Xu sat on his seat and continued to feed the fish cakes with dried fish.

Scrimgeour didn't refute Zhang Xu on the spot, and Zhang Xu felt that he must have moved up.

With the delicious big cake of the Minister of Magic ahead, I believe Scrimgeour will be more purposeful in his next work.

Now Voldemort's power is stronger than in the "plot", so it is still necessary to recruit more powerful factions.