The Admiral of Hogwarts

After enduring the final Potions class of the week on Friday, Hugo, Veneto, and his sister passed through the school gates early Saturday morning, a Hogsmeade weekend.

As they stepped outside, the pale, weak sun illuminated the grounds. The weather was the warmest it had been all year; the long, harsh winter had finally passed, and spring had arrived.

Due to the change in climate, Veneto and Hermione were finally able to shed their somewhat bulky winter clothes and don more figure-flattering everyday attire.

In reality, ship girls could venture out in summer clothing even during heavy winter snow. However, to avoid standing out too much, they usually wore clothes similar to those around them, concealing their figures completely.

So, with the weather warming up, Hermione and Veneto immediately changed into their ship gear, freeing themselves from their oversized "bread loaf" appearance.

Upon arriving on the streets of Hogsmeade, Hugo noticed that the shops seemed to have awakened from hibernation, all displaying an eagerness to do brisk business.

Whether it was Gladrags Wizardwear, Honeydukes Sweetshop, or Zonko's Joke Shop, large stacks of packing boxes were piled up in front of their entrances, filled with either newly purchased merchandise ready for display or various decorations to adorn the shops.

Even the Three Broomsticks, which usually didn't have to worry about foot traffic, had clearly been tidied up, with various decorative trinkets placed around it and on the small building above the bar.

The only thing that hadn't changed was the Hog's Head Inn. This bar had remained virtually unchanged since its opening decades ago, with only the ever-thickening layers of grime attesting to the passage of time.

After all, this was the first Hogsmeade weekend after Christmas, so for most of the shops selling spring goods, it was an opportunity to make a killing.

Indeed, even Hugo, who didn't usually buy much, felt the urge to shop and spent money on several interesting items.

"Let's not go antagonize them today," Veneto said, stuffing a new type of chocolate into her ship gear storage after leaving Honeydukes.

"Since there's nothing important happening today, and they're currently building the space transfer magic circle that can connect to the Sky-A synchronous orbit space station, our presence might affect them."

The space transfer magic circle that Veneto mentioned was one of the ancillary projects that began with the construction of the space station. According to the plan, such space transfer devices would be established in all the places where these ship girls were located to facilitate transportation.

"Although the sub-dimension seems sturdy enough now, and with you around, we won't get lost when Apparating, we still need to prepare some transportation channels for ordinary people."

Hermione added through the admiral network. After entering space, the ship girls discovered that Hugo was like a dazzling lighthouse in the admiral network, helping them to locate themselves in space.

However, for the humans they recruited, who lacked special positioning, they needed other means of travel.

Although, according to the current pace of the plan, the users of these magic circles might only be the ship girls for the majority of the time, it's always better to prepare something in advance than not at all.

"So, where shall we go next?" Hugo asked the two ladies, realizing that they couldn't go to the store to cause trouble. "It's too early to return to the castle now, but we can't just stand around in the street."

"I think it would be better to go to the Three Broomsticks. There are more people there, and we might hear some interesting news," Hermione suggested after thinking for a moment. "Besides, the drinks at the Three Broomsticks are really good."

Five minutes later, Hugo and his two companions appeared on the seats of the Three Broomsticks pub, each with a steaming mug of butterbeer and a small plate of snacks in front of them.

The Three Broomsticks pub was as crowded as ever, with students wandering around taking advantage of the Hogsmeade weekend, as well as many outside patrons and even wizarding parents trying to meet their children.

For ship girls, this kind of chaotic situation was a good opportunity to gather information, because most people wouldn't realize that someone could analyze the conversations of several people at once through lip-reading in this dimly lit room.

However, most of the information gathered was ordinary everyday chatter, and not of much value. But occasionally, there would be some very interesting tidbits.

"Penelope seems to be sitting alone at a table over there, crying," Hermione suddenly said as they were chatting and drinking butterbeer.

Because Penelope, as a prefect and Head Girl, had always taken care of the younger students, Hugo and the others finished their butterbeer and went over to see what was wrong.

Perhaps because she had been somewhat traumatized before, Penelope quickly revealed why she was crying alone after being greeted.

The reason was simple: she and Percy had broken up. Or, to be precise, she had originally planned to meet Percy today, but instead received a breakup letter from the pub owner announcing their separation.

Although the reason for the breakup in the letter was high-sounding, the gist was that the two of them were no longer in the same place. It was difficult to communicate regularly, so it was better to break up directly than to drag it on.

But in reality, this was just an excuse. The real reason for their breakup was because Penelope was just a Muggle-born witch, so not only could she not help Percy in his career, but she might even hold him back.

In fact, Penelope had already noticed something was wrong during the summer vacation this year. For example, he had only written a few letters during the entire summer, and most of each letter was about his work at the Ministry of Magic.

Fortunately, the Weasley family's upbringing was strict enough, so Percy didn't do anything like having an affair, but after working for a while, he realized that the original choice was not in his favor and directly wrote a letter to end the relationship.

"This is the biggest flaw of us Muggle-born witches," Veneto said, gently patting Penelope's shoulder in comfort. "Compared to those pure-blood wizards, we only have ourselves in the wizarding world."

Obviously, Penelope also knew these things. Although the Weasley family had always seemed a bit down on their luck, as pure-bloods, they could always obtain a place for themselves in the Ministry of Magic if they wanted to.

Those half-blood wizards were a bit worse off, but after entering the Ministry of Magic, they could always find ways to get some help from their elders and thus get opportunities for promotion.

Muggle-born wizards were mostly at the bottom of this pyramid, doing the most work and often taking the blame. But their promotion speed was far slower than the previous two groups.

Although there have been Muggle-born Ministers for Magic in history, that's like the Black President of the United States. It didn't change the overall racial discrimination tendency of society.

Perhaps everyone didn't realize this in school, but after entering society, this would immediately affect everyone and make everyone make their own choices.