Hogwarts Advanced Guide

Chapter 339 The Lonely Hera——The Dueling Club Canceled
"Ministry of Magic?" Hera picked up the glass and took a sip, "What does she want to do? It's not an easy task, you know."

"Of course I know. It's something that will kill your head. There's nothing more dangerous than this." Mundungus lowered his voice, even though it was in his own house, he was extra cautious. "But she made an offer I couldn't refuse."

"Oh?" Hera immediately became interested, "Tell me, how many Galleons is she willing to spend for this?"

"A total of 800 pieces!" Mundungus stretched out both hands, and gestured eight fingers in the air.

Hera put down his wine glass, his eyes widened, "800? That's really not a small amount."

"Who says it's not?" Mundungus nodded proudly, "It's me, otherwise someone else would never mention such a high price."

"But no one else will take this hot potato," Hera complained mercilessly. "No one will take such a big risk. That's the headquarters of the Ministry of Magic, and there are many Aurors there! I can guarantee that as long as the first floor shows up, you will immediately find a large group of Aurors with wands drawn around you."

"But there are not Aurors everywhere in the Ministry of Magic. They always have some abandoned offices and corridors." Mundungus said unwillingly.

Hera nodded, "Of course there are, but who has been there?" Speaking of this, Hera suddenly recalled that during the summer vacation, he happened to have been to the Ministry of Magic, and the place where he stayed the longest happened to be an abandoned interrogation room.

He squinted his eyes and looked Mundungus up and down, "Dongge, so you have already planned it."

"Hey." Mundungus smiled awkwardly, and immediately changed the topic, "Come on, Hera, you often use this dragon marrow. I bought it from Diagon Alley at a huge price. It cost me 5 Galleons. Don't waste it."

"Okay, Mundungus." Hera didn't touch the plate of dragon marrow, and put his hand on the table, "Come on, tell me, if I make portkeys for her, how much can I get?"

Mundungus rolled his eyes, "Hey, we are all brothers, how can we count so finely?"

"That's a full 800 Galleons." Hera dragged her tongue, the meaning couldn't be more obvious, "That's really not a small sum, but unfortunately you have no chance to earn it."

Mundungus didn't speak, he just sipped his wine.

Hera felt a little bored, and tried to fill her stomach first.

When Mundungus had finished his large glass of sherry, he asked drunkenly, "Hera, would you do me this favor?"

"Mundungus, you know, it's not about money." Hera said seriously.

Mundungus slammed the wine glass on the table and said with a bang, "I'm willing to give you 700 Galleons, and I only need 100 Galleons as an intermediary fee."

"Dunger, your sincerity has touched me." Hera stretched out his hand, grabbed the hand of Mundungus holding the wine glass across the dining table, and held each other tightly, "We are best brothers, how could I not help you with this little help?"

"Hehe." Mundungus sneered, but still held Hera's hand and shook it a few times, "Then, the deal is concluded."

"Naturally." Hera nodded. He quickly picked up the plate of dragon marrow and poured more than half of it into his own plate. "By the way, when will the customer want the goods?"

"She didn't say the specific time, she just said that the sooner the better." Mundungus' eyes cleared up. In fact, sherry could hardly make him drunk, but he had to drink some to make himself slightly drunk, otherwise he really couldn't stop giving Hera such a large sum of Galleons.

Hera's mouth was filled with dragon marrow, "Then don't worry, how about I wait until Christmas to deliver the goods? At that time, most officials in the Ministry of Magic should be on vacation, and only a small number of people are on duty, so that our chances of being discovered are also smaller."

"No problem." Mundungus nodded, but his eyes were fixed on the dragon marrow that almost occupied the entire dinner plate in front of Hera, "You leave me some, it's very expensive!"

"I'll keep it for you." Hera pointed to about one-eighth of the original dragon marrow on the dinner plate and said. "Besides, I need to make Portkeys. You don't even need to touch anything, just tell me the news, and you'll earn a full 100 Galleons. Why do you feel sorry for this bit of dragon marrow?"

"That's what it says." Mundungus still looked at the plate painfully. Before he even had time to taste it, there was only a little bit left.

It took a full 10 minutes for Hera to eat all the delicious dishes on the table. Of course, he left the dry and dry turkey for Mundungus.

"So, are you going back?" Mundungus said as Hera picked up the cloak hanging on the coat rack.

Hera fastened the buttons on the cloak and nodded, "Yes, I'm going back to the castle. As I said, Dumbledore is not at Hogwarts now, and he trusts me."

"Don't forget our deal." With a wave of Mundungus' wand, the plates on the table disappeared—this was probably one of the few uses of the Vanishing Charm—to clean up the garbage.

Hera pulled out her wand, prepared to Apparate, and said at the last second of his departure, "Won't forget."

Watching Hera's body disappear into the room, Mundungus suddenly laughed, and he lay down happily on the sofa in the living room.

"It's true that the market price is 300 Galleons. The Ministry of Magic is so dangerous. It's understandable to add 500 Galleons, but why do I say she's being fooled?" Mundungus shook his head and couldn't help laughing at the place where Hera disappeared, "Because she was willing to spend a full 1500 Galleons!"

Mundungus's triumphant laughter echoed through the room.

And this is something Hera doesn't know.

The rest of the week was a rough one for Hera, as Umbridge seemed to know about Dumbledore's departure from Hogwarts - in fact, she couldn't hide it from her at all.She became increasingly unscrupulous at school, and she was always dictating the way the professors taught.

But her own level is just like that, so what can she do to help the professors?

All she did was simply to disgust them and strengthen the Ministry of Magic's control over Hogwarts.

At dinner on Friday, Hera sat on the bench and ate it, but it was tasteless.In the past two weeks, at this time, he should have been discussing the Dueling Club with other professors, but right now, all of this has become impossible—it's all due to the damn No. 20 No. [-] education order.

Not only Hera, but other professors also had gloomy faces, including Snape.But Hera wouldn't naively think that he was sad because of the disbandment of the Dueling Club - he always had a gloomy face, but he was particularly bad today.

In the entire teaching staff, there was only one person who ate with gusto and even commented on the dishes at the dinner party. This person was Umbridge.

"It was a nice dinner, wasn't it?" Umbridge put down the knife and fork, and gracefully wiped her mouth with a napkin, which had rubbed a lot of her lipstick on it, which was particularly annoying.Her tone became more contrived, "I don't think we have any activities after dinner, so why don't the students go back to their dormitories?"

"It's children's freedom," said Professor Flitwick. "It's not curfew yet."

"Of course, but I think the Ministry of Magic must want children to get enough sleep," said Umbridge, smiling, and her tone was disgusting.

Hera pursed her lips. Before Dumbledore came back, Umbridge, who had the backing of the Ministry of Magic, seemed to be the real power figure at Hogwarts. At least Hera had nothing to do—even if he couldn't think of how bad his reputation could be. In fact, Hera almost didn't dare to appear in Diagon Alley, where the wizards would always give him pointers.

However, the situation in Hogwarts and Hogsmeade is relatively good, at least they are students and friends who have known each other for several years, and they know what kind of person Hera is.This is probably one of the reasons why Hera loves Hogwarts so much.

Umbridge left quickly, and before she did, she had the prefects send the students back to their dormitories.

Hera and Felius sat on the teaching staff, looking at the empty auditorium, looking a little lonely.

"Filius, do you think it's really wrong for us to do this?" Hera was a little frustrated. He really wanted to teach the children to use some self-defense spells, especially in this turbulent situation, and it wasn't all for angering Umbridge.

Professor Flitwick patted Hera's arm, he couldn't reach Hera's shoulder, "Hera, don't be so depressed, you've done a good job."

"Then why no one is willing to give me a chance every time I want to change." Hera sighed, and once again swept across the empty auditorium. There should have been a lot of young wizards gathered here, they were practicing and exchanging ideas on the floor.But now, it's just the two of them.

After waiting for about half an hour, Professor McGonagall and Professor Sprout also came down from upstairs.

"The children are making a lot of noise." Professor McGonagall said with a sad face. "They don't accept the fact that the Dueling Club is disbanded. They don't want it to happen."

"The students of Hufflepuff think so too." Professor Sprout said, she sat beside Professor McGonagall, and the three of them sandwiched Hera in the middle, as if he was the most central person.

In fact, the saddest person to close the Dueling Club was Hera. He finally used his own efforts to change the students' perception of him. Many people had doubts about his trust because of the report in the "Daily Prophet".

"But the fact is that, we can't continue to open the Dueling Club." Hera said, with a bitter expression, "Dumbledore probably doesn't have much time to take care of such trivial things anymore. There are too many things on him, and he has to let him do it."

"We know that this can't bother Dumbledore." Professor McGonagall pursed her lips. She had put up with Umbridge for a long time, although she sometimes snapped back angrily.

Professor Sprout also comforted, "Hera, we all know it's not your fault."

"Well, I know." Hera nodded. He didn't want the professors to worry anymore, and they also had their own pressures.

After being silent for a few minutes, Hera pulled out an extremely ugly smile. He smiled so forcedly that everyone knew it was a hypocritical smile.

"Don't worry about me, let me be alone, I feel a little confused."

"Hera, you have to pull yourself together—" Professor McGonagall said seriously, as if he couldn't see Hera being so negative.

"Okay, Minerva, let's give Hera some time, what happened during this time is extraordinary for him." Professor Sprout tugged Professor McGonagall's sleeve and interrupted her.

"Oh, of course, I suddenly remembered that I have to go back and check the progress of the first-year little wizard's class, so I went back first." Professor Flitwick jumped off the chair first, and he blinked at Professor McGonagall and Professor Sprout, "I think you should go back and check, after all, this is very important."

"Yes, I suddenly remembered too." Professor Sprout pulled Professor McGonagall to stand up, "You said you wanted to visit my botanical garden, right? I remember telling you that the mandrake is mature."

"Isn't the Mandrake not going to be until June next year?" Professor McGonagall was dragged away by Professor Sprout before he finished speaking.

Hera was the only one left in the auditorium at this moment. He sighed and sat blankly on the chair.

After about a few minutes, he moved his seat and took Dumbledore's seat in the middle of the teaching bench - the best seat in the auditorium.

Not long after, soft footsteps suddenly appeared in the silent auditorium, Hera's eyes lit up, and she held the wand.

A tall and thin black-robed figure flashed past the door of the auditorium. He seemed surprised to see Hera still in the auditorium.

"Hera, I don't think you can be the Headmaster of Hogwarts if you take that position," Snape said venomously as usual, but this actually made Hera feel kind. "As long as Dumbledore is around, no one can kick him out of his position."

"Good evening, Severus." Hera greeted him with a raised hand.

"It's past dinner time, there won't be any more food on the plate in front of you." Snape's dark eyes flashed a light.

Hera nodded, regardless of whether Snape could see it across the auditorium, "I know, I just want to sit here for a while."

Snape nodded and didn't say anything. He just stood at the door of the auditorium and looked at Hera. Then, as if he had made up his mind, his face twitched fiercely, and he quickly turned and left the auditorium.

But he came back soon, with a small bottle in his hand.

(End of this chapter)