Hogwarts: Harry's Path to Witches

Chapter 255: Vow to fight gambling and drug abuse!

In short, Fudge now regards the Quidditch World Cup as his most important hen.

He has been at the scene every day since before the start of the group stage and vowed not to miss every game.

Doing this can not only prevent accidents, but also show your seriousness and hard work in front of all the ordinary wizards who come to watch the game. It can also take the opportunity to make friends with senior officials from the Ministry of Magic of various countries who come to the camp.

Now that he saw such a unique tent erected opposite the old Malfoy's camp, Fudge naturally wanted to pay attention to it.

He is definitely only concerned about the safety of the World Cup, and he definitely does not want to make friends with wealthy families who can afford such luxury tents!

So he and Sirius started chatting naturally.

Although Sirius was not very fond of Fudge, when he was in prison, Fudge was not bad to him, and he was even willing to give him a newspaper to do crossword puzzles when he occasionally came to inspect.

So Sirius also had a brief chat with Fudge.

After seeing Harley, Fudge's eyes lit up.

One of the important reasons why he and Sirius chatted for so long was to wait for Sirius's goddaughter, Harley.

"Haha, Harry, long time no see!" Fudge greeted and waved the green dome hat on his hand.

He walked over quickly, with a wide smile, as if he was Harry's kind elder.

There were also many officials from the Ministry of Magic standing outside the tent. Harry vaguely remembered seeing them at the Order of Merlin's investiture ceremony. These were all members of Fudge's team promoted from the Department of Magical Accidents and Disasters.

It seemed that Fudge had been leading a tour of the camp and enjoying the compliments of his trusted officials.

After a brief chat, Fudge also invited Harry and Hermione to join their team and take a tour of the camp.

However, Harry politely rejected Fudge, saying that she did not want to disturb the work of the Minister of Magic.

…………

During the two days waiting for the start of the group stage, Harry and Hermione followed Sirius and met many wizards.

Many of them are officials from the Ministry of Magic. It can be seen that the First Wizarding War wiped out many adult wizards.

That's why students of Sirius's generation were able to take up their posts quickly. Amelia Burns, a senior student who was just a few levels above him, even became the director of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.

However, Sirius was a little regretful that Arthur, who had a good relationship with him at first and was even a close comrade during the First Wizarding War, did not come.

I heard that the Weasley family only got high-quality tickets for the finals from Ludo. This was because Arthur did a small favor for Ludo.

"If I had known, I would have bought a few more sets of tickets for my dear old friend." Sirius shook his head, looking very regretful.

Harry and Hermione looked at each other but said nothing.

Both of them understood what the other meant: judging from the character and upbringing of Percy, George and Fred, the Weasley family would not accept such a ticket.

But Harley did receive letters from Fred and George.

The two sent their latest research results and wished Harley a happy time.

On the last day of the competition, Ludo Bagman also came to visit.

Sirius was very enthusiastic about him, after all, he got the votes for the three of them from him.

Ludo, a professional Quidditch player and the director of the Department of Magical Sports, was very interested in Harley and invited her to become a professional player for the Wimbourne Hornets.

But Sirius rejected him flatly on behalf of Harley.

Just kidding, since Ludo retired, the Wimborne Hornets' record has plummeted, hitting rock bottom within two years.

So far, Wimborne Hornets have been at the bottom of the league for eleven years!

Isn't it just a scam to go now? Technical poverty alleviation cannot be done in this way!

Moreover, Ludo basically wants to invite talented wizards when he sees them, but he hasn't invited any of them. This seems to be a trick.

Sirius, who felt sorry for his goddaughter, didn't give Ludo any chance and simply refused.

Ludo didn't care that his invitation failed again.

After all, although the Wimborne Hornets have a glorious history and have won 18 British League Championships, he has led the team to establish a three-peat dynasty.

But this team is really a weak team now. The mud can't hold up the wall, and even the decayed Charlie Cannon Team has a hard time winning.

Ludo turned to look at Sirius: "Sirius, do you want to consider placing a bet on the game?"

"The opening ceremony of the group stage tonight will end with England playing Transylvania."

"How about it? Are you excited? Do you want to make a small investment and make some extra money?"

As he spoke, Ludo shook his pocket, and a crisp sound of gold Gallons colliding came from inside.

"No." Sirius shook his head decisively, "Harry is still here, and I don't want to set a bad example for her."

"It's okay, I'm just gambling." Lu Duo glanced at the two little witches across the table and said softly.

He suddenly lowered his voice, checked that there were no other outsiders in the tent, and then whispered to Sirius:

"Sirius, let me tell you the truth, the Transylvania team is just an amateur team!"

"If you think about their history, they were once ruled by the Hungarian Ministry of Magic and later became a refuge for Hungarian magical families when the Turkish Ministry of Magic invaded."

"Later, because of the Trianon Magic Treaty, it became part of the Romanian Ministry of Magic."

"To this day, in the Muggle world, Transylvania is still part of Romania."

"Because of this matter, the Ministry of Magic of Transylvania is still at odds with the Ministry of Magic of Romania! How can we have time to build a team?"

"According to reliable information from the British Ministry of Magic, they directly let the Quidditch teams from the sixteen counties in the northwest compete in a match, and sent the winning team directly over."

"Their goalkeeper is said to be just the owner of the bar, and the Seeker is the cleaning man of the Ministry of Magic!"

"The Ministry of Magic has received accurate information. The goalkeeper's skills come from stopping drunks who want to escape, while the seekers are selected because they can usually find the garbage in the corner the fastest!"

"And what about the England team? We have won 17 consecutive matches in recent training matches and qualified first in the group stage!"

"It's just a team that's at the bottom of the European division. Isn't it enough to have the skills?"

"When this team was drawn, Minister Fudge laughed so hard that his mouth split open and declared that we might get a clean sheet in the first game!"

"The head coach of the England team has told the players to relax a little and let these good guys play leisurely. Don't shave the opponent's head. It's too ugly."

"This is why we specially arranged for the British team to play first after the opening ceremony today."

"A massacre will boost our morale!"

"This..." To be honest, Sirius was really moved.

But Harley stopped him: "Godfather, I think we can think about it before making a decision."

Sirius immediately agreed: "Just listen to Harley, old man, I want to think about it first."

Ludo felt a little regretful, nodded and said, "Okay, Sirius."

"If you figure it out, you can go directly to me in the Ministry of Magic tent."

"You know, I'm on commentary tonight, so it's definitely going to be there."

"By the way, don't tell others what Minister Fudge said." Ludo warned,

"There are still many wizards coming to Transylvania, so don't be so arrogant. We must maintain diplomatic relations with the British wizarding community."

…………

After Ludo left, Sirius looked at Harley with a doting look on his face: "Harry, do you want to squeeze her?"

"Of course, I personally suggest that you don't participate in this kind of activity. After all, it's...not good."

"Harry, I think Sirius is right." Hermione hesitated and then persuaded,

"My dad often says that we must not engage in this kind of activity. He said it himself that he is sworn in with gambling and drugs!"

"I don't gamble, and this is just to make money." Harley raised her eyebrows slightly, "How can it be considered gambling when writing questions based on the answers?"

"Refer to the answers...write the questions?" Hermione was a little confused.

Harley didn't answer, but took out a crystal ball and a magic mirror.

Looking at the searching eyes of Hermione and Sirius, Harry gently stroked the crystal ball, and magic was poured into it.

Although the witch path does not have its own divination ability, and there is no bonus in learning regular divination, it only has certain advantages in magic mirror divination.

However, when the strength is strong enough and the status is high enough, as a partial legal system with strong spirituality, the witches' conventional divination has a high accuracy rate.

What's more, it is impossible for this Quidditch World Cup prepared by ordinary wizards to apply anti-divination techniques that are enough to compete with the divination of demigods.

As Harley's magic power was injected and she began to communicate with the spirit world, pictures also appeared on the crystal ball.

"Hiss!" Harley suddenly gasped.

Good guy, after hearing Ludo brag so harshly, I thought the England team was sure to win!

Fortunately, I didn’t believe what that guy said!

Such an unexpected score... Harley felt like she was going to make a fortune!

Making potions always requires money, so who would think they have too much money?

Looking at Harry's smile, Hermione couldn't help but ask: "Harry, are you doing divination?"

"Are you sure that divination can be successful? So far, I have only seen Professor Trelawney's real divination."

"Of course." Harley nodded and patched up her explanation.

"After all, Professor Dumbledore took me to see Nico Flamel. In addition to being an alchemist, Nico is also a famous diviner."

"So he taught me some techniques that can effectively improve the success rate."

"It seems that this is indeed the case," Sirius recalled carefully,

"Ancestor Phineas once paid a lot of money to ask Nico Flamel to do divination for him, and Mr. Flamel also successfully divined a great disaster for him."

"So it seems that this is the reason why the ancestor of Phineas highly respected Mr. Flamel."

With Sirius's endorsement, the credibility of Harry's words instantly increased significantly.

Hermione's face was full of envy: "Harry, can you teach me that divination method?"

Although Hermione didn't like Divination class and had already applied to withdraw from the course this semester.

But that's just because Professor Trelawney is an old liar most of the time and can't teach anything real.

In fact, what Muggle-born British child didn't grow up hearing fairy tales about witches?

Everyone has dreamed of learning divination from fairy tales and gaining the ability to predict the future.

Harley pretended to hesitate and paused for a while before replying: "What Nico gave me was his unique skill. I definitely can't teach it to you."

"But I can sum up some experiences myself and teach you my own knowledge."

With that said, Harley picked up the magic mirror again.

She was going to put down half of her money, so she naturally had to use her most skilled magic mirror to double check the accuracy.

When the exact same score ratio appeared on the magic mirror, the corners of Harley's mouth raised a little higher.

It’s stable this time!

…………

In the afternoon, Gringotts opened a gambling venue.

Sirius strode into the crowd and helped clear a path for Harry behind him.

But after reaching the front, the open space on the left instantly became wider.

The goblin there was playing with the identification tag in his hand out of boredom.

After all, the target of its bet is Transylvania, a team that almost no one is optimistic about.

Although most of the wizards in Transylvania support the Transylvanian team because of their inner emotions, they also really don't look forward to the game tonight.

Therefore, only a few enthusiastic fans came to place bets, and they only placed bets for one gold galleon.

On the other side, a large number of wizards, waving pockets full of gold Galleons and Silver Sickles, surrounded the goblin responsible for placing bets on the England team.

But the goblin didn't look happy, and was even about to cry.

The goblins are also very helpless. They are all optimistic that the England team can win and do not want to participate in this bet that must be paid.

But according to the contract signed with the Ministry of Magic, as the owner, they cannot lose a game, and the odds given cannot be less than one thousandth.

Although the goblins directly lowered the odds to the lowest, almost all wizards believed that this was a business that was sure to make a profit, and even a little profit was still a profit.

There are several goblins in the back who are settling accounts:

"Kehuan, how much currency have we received?"

"Druk, when all currencies are converted, it has exceeded 2.7 million gold galleons. Just those few pure-blood families, each of them invested at least 100,000 gold galleons."

The goblins all sighed. It looked like they were going to lose at least several thousand gold galleons.

Although the amount was only an insignificant amount of money to Gringotts, the greedy goblins were equally distressed.

"Why don't we simply use the leprechaun's currency to settle retail accounts?" a young leprechaun whispered.

But the response was a slap from an old goblin and a scolding: "Idiot! Are you a brainless pig!"

"We have signed a contract with the Ministry of Magic. If you dare to do such a thing, everyone will be dead!"

"If nothing else, those damn vampires at the headquarters will never let us go!"

Just as the goblins were looking sad, good news suddenly came from outside:

"Good news, good news! A big villain is here to take over!"

……

……

(Thanks to the "Nine-tailed Yanhu" boss for the reward!)

(ps. Transylvania is not a country, just a region, part of Romania.

However, this team appears in the chapter "Weasley's Wizard Wheezes" in the fourth volume of the original book, so it can only be understood that it has a high degree of autonomy. The Ministry of Magic is also separated, so it has its own Quidditch team. )