Chapter 711

At the end of the dinner, Professor McGonagall stood up and said to the students, “The first-year students and Prefects please stay, while the rest of the students leave first, to avoid the risk of creating ruckus in the rush and running off to the wrong dormitories.”

The students slowly pushed back their benches and headed for the door. “Is it true that someone ran into the wrong room on the first day of school?” Harry asked curiously. “Oh, there were.” Hermione walked over briskly and said, “But this mistake is easy to spot, each dorm has the name of the new student written on the bed.”

In the professor’s seat, Emmeline Vance, who had been quiet and hadn’t said much all night, suddenly spoke up, “We haven’t sung the school song yet.” Several of the professors closer to her stiffened at once.

Professor Flitwick cleared his throat unnaturally, “Ahem, it’s not like we have to sing it every year.”

The other professors whispered in agreement, “Yeah, right.”

A look of obvious disappointment appeared on Emmeline’s face, as if some wish hidden in her heart had been dashed, and she said calmly, “I know, it’s usually reserved only for important occasions. I only heard it once when I was in school, and that was when I enrolled …”

“That time because of what?” Felix asked politely.

“Can’t quite remember.” Emmeline shook her head slightly.

Slughorn, who sat nearby, showed a reminiscent expression. “It seems to ring a bell … I remember back then Peeves created a mess in the records room and some of the folders were destroyed in a fire, including the music score of the school song. It happened all the way back … before that incident the school song hadn’t been sung for some years, I think at least seven years, because none of the students at that time knew it …”

“So the school song didn’t have a single tune since then?” Felix was a little surprised to learn about this.

“Actually, there is one, we found the backup from the library a little later.” Slughorn explained, “But when Dumbledore found out about it, he thought it was sufficient to just keep the words and that the tunes could be changed at will.”

Later in the night – Harry sat on the four-poster bed in his dormitory and took out the stuff from his trunk one by one. He lifted the top lid of the trunk and a thick stack of parchment spilled out, Ron picked up the one that fell in front of him and looked at it, and he couldn’t help but raise his eyebrows, “I didn’t know you developed a hobby of linking names, is there a pattern?”

“They’re real.” Harry said, “And I’m going to write to them one by one.”

Neville stood behind Ron, smacking his lips a little as he looked at the parchment.

“Is it still about Headmaster Dumbledore’s biography?”

“Yeah, to inquire about some details. Elphias Doge wanted the biography to be as good as it can be.” Harry said. For the next few minutes, Ron and Neville were excited to chime in the familiar names they knew in the list, using it as a sort of game to compete to see who recognized more names-and when one got more names in the list, they felt that they got one up on the other person.

Seamus, who was making his bed, peeked over and grinned, “Cormac McLaggen is going to go crazy with jealousy.”

Harry rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, at the cost of puzzling over phrasing, considering grammar and expressions every day.” In fact, he did much more than that, he also spent a lot of time trying to figure out what Dumbledore might have thought at different times, which was really not an easy task, Harry once experienced something similar – he spent some time in the mind of Voldemort to sense the other man’s emotions and guess what he was up to. Harry felt he was doing the same thing now.

“Let’s think about something more serious,” Ron asked, “what do you guys think Emmeline Vance will teach us tomorrow? I never knew she specialized in Transfiguration, I always thought she specialised in dueling, she gave us guard duty, remember?”

“She’s good at quite a few different subjects,” Harry said without thinking, “Charms, Potions, Transfiguration, and she even invented a few simple and useful little spells. Dumbledore thought very highly of her.”

“That’s amazing,” Ron said, as he carefully placed two wizard pieces on the bedside table before lying down on his bed, “and that Centaur – I noticed that Trelawney didn’t show up for the whole thing, she must have been pissed about it.”

Harry shrugged, and the image of Trelawney gritting her teeth in the mirror in her room came to his mind. He suddenly thought of Luna, who is in sixth grade this year, and she would probably take Firenze’s course.

At this point, Neville, who was still sitting in the same place, hesitantly spoke up.

“Harry, can you bring me along when you guys go to Transfiguration class tomorrow?”

Harry looked at Neville in surprise, but immediately a flash of long-ago memory clicked, “Oh, I remember you applied for the O.W.Ls exam in Transfiguration last year, so that means you–”

“Done!” Neville grinned.

Ron sat up on his bed with a start.

“What did you get on the test?”

“E.” Neville said quietly.

A chorus of exclamations echoed through the dorm.

“That’s great.” Harry gave a thumbs up as others in the dorm gathered around Neville to celebrate, “So you can once again strive towards Auror?”

“How did you pull that off, Transfiguration is probably one of the subjects you’re least good at, right?” Seamus asked him.

“I think it was Animagus that helped me,” Neville said softly, “During the practical test, the examiner said I would be able to make it to the front of the pack.”

“Is its effect really that dramatic? I want to try it now.” Seamus was envious, and at the same time he felt somewhat motivated to give it a try; both he and Dean had mastered the Patronus magic which would greatly help in learning Animagus.

“Neville also worked very hard himself and spent quite a bit of time.” Harry reminisced, he kind of couldn’t remember what Neville was doing during that time, but he vaguely recalled him spending a lot of time with Hannah, and he even managed to borrow Hermione’s notes.

“Honestly, it’s a little too late at this point, unless you’re planning on staying in school for a whole year.” Dean’s tone was tinged with regret as well, and then they had a long discussion on this subject until they went to bed.

“I remember a gorilla captain from a Slytherin team a few years ago stayed back in school, what was his name again?”

“Marcus.” Harry vividly remembered him since he had left quite an impression.

“That’s right, that’s him. He ended up graduating from school with just one N.E.W.Ts certificate, I think it was Ancient Runes!”

“Amazing, isn’t it?”

…

For the next week, Felix stayed at school and had a rare leisurely time. As he mentioned while talking to the other professors at the dinner banquet, after a month of back-to-back actions, both he and Akingbade needed to take a breather; he wasn’t the only one in the International Confederation of Wizards, and even if he wanted to solve all the problems in one go, he couldn’t do it.

Under Felix’s mediation, the various countries’ ministries of magic did not act rashly (they also wanted to wait for the results of the British negotiations to come out), but they still reached a consensus on two things, the first of which was naturally the formation of a pan-magical alliance in their region, following the example of the British Ministry of Magic. Felix spoke to Ms. Bones, and she immediately decided to send six experienced squads, and the local Future World Company branch would also cooperate with them as much as possible.

The second matter was equally significant, that is, the preparation for the general assembly of the International Confederation of Wizards.

Just like three hundred years ago when representatives of various countries’ wizards gathered to formulate the Statute of Secrecy, a new legal framework will be defined. In addition to the few remaining members of the International Confederation of Wizards who were working intensively on the preparations, senior officials from the various Ministries of Magic were also working on this.

A week later, after a short break, Felix left the school. The memory body in the Classroom Seven would be enough to teach in his place by pretending to be real. Moreover, for wizards – especially for him – distance is not a concern, and he could even be able to return to school for lunch every day at noon.

When he saw Akingbade again, he was staring with a sad face at the huge map of the world on the wall.

“Here, here, and these places …,” he said, tapping a dozen times on the African continent area, “are all occupied by Grindelwald, who has managed to recruit a new generation of young acolytes locally to replace the former old ones, and some of the small groups of wizards who tried to resist or break away from the control were knocked out of existence.”

“The change over there was way more radical, it was like a firestorm.” Akingbade said.

Felix wasn’t surprised, because that was something he had pulled off personally. He extracted the Grindelwald Code from the ruins of history, picking out what could be still suited to this era, even if it was somewhat radical, and under his care, Grindelwald’s name is now very famous, and various kinds of reports about him are being placed on the desks of various muggle and non-muggle organizations.

Meanwhile, as a representative of the wizardism (similar to nationalism) ideology, Grindelwald also gained a large number of fans, which made Akingbade fall into deep fear and doubt.

“Grindelwald is smarter and more dangerous than we thought! Rather than watching from the sidelines, he tried to escape the confines of the ‘unbreakable vow’ by choosing the most chaotic Africa in the name of saving wizards as a way to break the rules and regulations – I know what you’re going to say,” he told Felix, “even if he is truly sincere and believes arrogantly that he is the Chosen One who will save wizards from destruction – one thing you can’t deny is that his power is expanding rapidly.”

“I won’t deny it.” Felix said.

“Then-”

“Since we can’t take care of the situation there for now, why don’t we leave it to him, and don’t you also think some of his actions make sense? According to your analysis, Grindelwald’s real purpose is would be to combine more than two hundred loosely-organized wizard authorities into some twenty Ministry of Magic-like organizations … In the future, the wizards in that land will be more united and easier to manage.”

“But he will use the unified army of wizards to fight against us!”

“What about the vow that restrains him …” Felix couldn’t recall how many times he had moved that reason, because he had said it too many times recently, but today Akingbade was staring at him without changing the topic, so Felix had no choice but to change his reasoning, “Well. If necessary, I’ll step up to make sure both sides are united.”

“How is that possible?!” Akingbade shouted.

“The circumstances are rapidly changing, Mr. Supreme Mugwump. So anything can happen.” Felix said seriously, “At this stage, Grindelwald has little influence on us, on the contrary, his presence can deter some people with bad intentions – more than I can.”

“Ugh, how good it would be if he stood on our side,” said Akingbade with a sigh, his eyes showing an illusory glint, “he won’t just be the sinner who overturned the Statue of secrecy and heavily damaged the Magical World with his own effort, but, rather… …”

Yes, What is it?

Akingbade was unable to describe it, and he said those words not to justify Grindelwald, but to lament and regret.

After knowing that he had been duped, he could not wait to smash his fist all over that hateful and cunning old face. This kind of thought had been stuck in his mind for weeks, and when he learned that Grindelwald intended to make Africa his own territory, instead of withdrawing, it became even stronger. In his mind, this was an outright act of dividing and fragmenting the wizards, a bitter and ingenious plot of the ambitious person.

Unfortunately, Akingbade was unable to do anything but watch. He could not even go back to Africa to personally see what was happening back home, as he feared that instead of receiving a welcome, he would be beaten by a few nameless men who believed in Grindelwald’s philosophy and brought in front of Grindelwald to be ridiculed by him.

Felix, the only one who could protect his safety, strongly rejected the idea of going to Africa, and placed his attention on Europe and America, or to be more precise, he even left America aside for the time being, to which Akingbade had a lot to complain about, as he suspected that he was afraid of facing Grindelwald.

But Akingbade also recognized a fact.

From a utilitarian point of view alone, Felix’s way of proceeding has nothing to criticize, on the contrary, with the passage of time it has gradually shown its correctness. Instead of rushing into a conflict with Grindelwald and showing off his might (which Akingbade found hard to believe), and instead of wasting time facing the near unresolvable mess in the Americas in the short term, he raced to re-establish the prestige of the International Confederation of Wizards.

In a single month, the Confederation is no longer an empty shell.

The above is the opinion of Akingbade, as well as a part of the wizard community, and if it changed to Felix, his thoughts would be very different – it is because nobody can assume that Grindelwald and Felix are essentially the same person because they have two completely opposite nature.

With Felix’s deliberate efforts, Africa has almost become an independent kingdom.

He did exactly what Grindelwald always wanted to do, and even Vinda Rosier, the only one who knew the truth, sometimes wondered: whether it is Felix who is disguised as Grindelwald, or it is Grindelwald who is disguised as Felix Hap?

At least as far as she is concerned, Grindelwald’s ideology is eating away the minds and existence of African wizards in a gentle way, and growing as vigorously as a wildfire in the past month.

“If it wasn’t for his physical condition, he could very well shine in this era, but of course, if that really happened it would mean that he and I would be on completely opposite sides of the fence.”

Felix muttered with emotion. When he said this, he had just taken down a group of wizards who had ‘taken advantage of the opportunity to grow in the chaos’ by his personal might, and over fifty of them were now collapsed on the ground, staring at him with their heads tilted up in anger.

Felix waved his hand absent-mindedly as a new generation of acolytes took over the area with their heads held high in an orderly manner.

“So exactly whose ideology do you favour? Is it Grindelwald, or is it Dumbledore?” Rosier asked in a low voice. n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

“What ideology?” Felix asked rhetorically, “I’m here to solve some problems.”

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