The Admiral of Hogwarts

"Damn it, why did Rita Skeeter have to be the one to come?" Looking at the woman's strange attire, affected tone, and that Quick-Quotes Quill, Hugo immediately recognized the creature who looked like some kind of shimmering, giant insect.

"We only sent a request to the Daily Prophet asking them to cover the story," Veneto's voice echoed through the network.

"We thought that, given our status as wild wizards, they'd send an intern to write a small article on page seven or eight at best. Who knew they'd send their star reporter?"

"Actually, it makes sense," Firefly said at that moment, "Don't forget, in the original story, Rita Skeeter was the kind of reporter who was always looking for a big scoop, and this involves Hogwarts students, a professor, and Gilderoy Lockhart, the hottest author right now, so it's understandable that she'd come."

"Your analysis is very reasonable." Hearing Firefly's words, Hugo also realized that the matter itself was actually a big news story, so Rita Skeeter's involvement at this time was perfectly logical.

However, it was obvious that after seeing Headmaster Dumbledore, Rita immediately abandoned her original target and latched onto the headmaster.

"Ah, Headmaster Dumbledore, so glad to see you here," the woman said, pulling a Quick-Quotes Quill and a notebook from her crocodile-skin bag. Looking at Dumbledore, she continued, "It seems you've also noticed the impropriety of this year's textbooks, Headmaster. Would you care to share your views on the matter?"

Fortunately, Dumbledore, as a man of over a hundred years, had weathered many storms. So, when faced with Rita Skeeter's questions, laden with all sorts of traps, he naturally handled them with ease. In just a few short minutes, he managed to fob off the gossipy reporter and leave the area.

"I swear, I'll get more out of him next time," Rita muttered, somewhat dissatisfied, watching the headmaster's departing figure as he claimed to be busy.

But she quickly turned to Firefly and said, "Nice to meet you, Miss Ropp. Would you care to share your thoughts on these textbooks?"

As the Daily Prophet's star reporter, Rita Skeeter naturally had access to channels and resources that ordinary reporters didn't. So, on the second day after the interview, Hugo and the others saw an article occupying most of page two of the Daily Prophet.

In this article, Rita Skeeter fully expressed her suspicions about Lockhart. She explicitly stated that a major reason these books appeared on the new purchasing list was that the professor and Lockhart were colluding to make money.

Obviously, Rita Skeeter hadn't yet found out that Lockhart would be a professor at Hogwarts this year. As a fraud, Lockhart had too many secrets unsuitable for public knowledge, so he must have been very concerned about his privacy.

Even though Rita was an unregistered Animagus and could transform into a beetle, she hadn't been able to discover this information.

"I think you might not be able to do the sharing economy thing at Hogwarts," Hood said, adjusting her glasses after seeing the report.

"Don't forget, Lockhart is a famous public figure, and reputation is more important to him than profit. So, I think Lockhart will take some measures to salvage his now-affected reputation."

Hood was right. The article quickly caused a wave of public opinion. Everyone expressed dissatisfaction with the new Hogwarts Defense Against the Dark Arts professor's money-grubbing and lack of professionalism. Under this pressure, Lockhart had to launch an emergency PR campaign.

Three days after the article was published, the Daily Prophet published a full-page explanation from Lockhart. In this article, he announced that he would become the new Hogwarts Defense Against the Dark Arts professor because he wanted to share the knowledge and experience he had gained with the students.

"—I have great respect and love for Hogwarts, because I graduated from here and embarked on my current path," Veneto said, holding up a copy of the Daily Prophet as she read the article to Hugo and the others in Hood's shop. "So, after receiving the invitation, I was a little too excited, which led to some oversights."

"The biggest oversight was that when I sent the required book list to the Hogwarts headmaster, I accidentally sent my own publishing list instead, and then I went directly to the European book tour and wasn't in the country, so I didn't discover the problem in time. This led to the current terrible situation."

"So, I will now send a new, correct book list to the students and attach my personally signed photos to each one to express my apologies. In addition, students who have previously purchased my complete works can take them to the place of purchase for a full refund. Finally, I once again offer my sincerest apologies to everyone who has been affected by me."

"This is just an excuse from a con man," Hood said, shaking her head after Veneto finished reading the news from the newspaper. "But now it seems that he is also a skilled con man, so he was able to find such a perfect excuse to get away with it in such a short time."

At Hood's place, everyone habitually referred to Lockhart as a con man. In Hermione's opinion, this was clearly because of the relationship between Miss Enterprise and Miss Hood, which allowed Hood to know everything Lockhart had done, and then pass the message to her sisters.

But no matter what, the matter finally came to a very good conclusion. Although Hugo's earliest plan to develop a sharing economy inside Hogwarts ended before it even began, the outcome was better than Hugo had imagined.

Also because of this incident, Firefly received many letters from friends or acquaintances expressing their gratitude. For example, Ron and Harry's letters stated that the Weasley family was full of gratitude for Firefly and everyone else's efforts, because of their efforts, Ginny, the Weasley's youngest daughter, would not have to go to school with a full set of second-hand goods this year.

In the following days, everyone resumed their usual holiday habits. But because of Hood and her sisters, the two sides often visited each other's homes or shops, practicing magic and various fighting techniques.

In addition to these daily activities, Hugo also spent all of his Fate Points during this time to summon three Destroyer ship girls through the relics of the warship. Two of them were from the UK, namely Venus and Baffleur. The last one was Split from Yugoslavia.

The two British ship girls were assigned to Renown to help her manage her businesses in the UK. Split left the UK directly to join the Soviet ship girls in the east, and then went to the Balkans with Stalingrad to carry out the mother base plan.

Just over a week before the end of the holiday, Hugo and the others received a letter from Harry and the others, and then agreed to go to Diagon Alley to purchase various items for the next semester on the last weekend of the holiday.