Chapter 2988 The Secret of No Trace (Twenty)

"Help!"

  Pomona came to the Whomping Willow tree and looked at a student who was "hanging" on the branch. He was unfortunately from Hufflepuff College.

   "What are you doing up there? Diego!" Pomona yelled.

"Help, Dean!" Seeing someone coming, Diego yelled immediately, but this action alarmed the Whomping Willow. Seeing that it was about to wave its branches and shake off the "detritus" on the tree, Bo Mona immediately hit the Whomping Willow's scar with a stun.

   "Come down! It won't hurt you!" said Diego Pomona.

  Diego immediately climbed down from the branch at his fastest speed, and Pomona also took advantage of this opportunity to collect the bark and leaves that the potions professor wanted.

  After Diego's legs landed on the ground, Pomona collected almost the same amount of bark and leaves, and the two quickly left the attacking range of the Whomping Willow.

   "What's going on?" Pomona asked Diego. "How did you get up the tree?"

   "Like you, collect leaves." Diego said.

   "It's dangerous, you know?" Pomona asked.

   "I know, that tree killed a student." Diego said.

  Pomona didn't know how the rumors could spread like this. All in all, Diego was fine except for his robe being cut.

   "I want you to keep it a secret, you can't tell anyone what you just saw." Pomona said.

   "No problem." Diego said, "I promise I won't tell anyone."

  Actually, even if Diego leaks the secret, it is not a big deal, because there are no "ghosts" in the Screaming Shack now, not to mention that not everyone can discover the secret passage under the Whomping Willow.

   As a warning, Pomona asked Diego to come to her for "lockdown" one day before the holidays, and she went to the greenhouse.

  After putting away the medicinal materials, she went to the abandoned greenhouse where the frozen stones had been stored. Even in spring, the plants in the greenhouse showed no sign of re-germination. Originally, the place had to be cleaned regularly because of overgrown weeds.

  The land of destruction in Azkaban is also so barren.

"What are you doing?"

  Pomona was taken aback.

  She turned her head and found that it was the old bat standing behind her.

   "I have brought you all the medicinal materials you want." Pomona said.

   "Let me ask you, what are you doing 'now'?" He said slowly.

   "Look." Pomona looked at his desolate greenhouse. "It's all because of that rock."

   "No recovery possible?" Severus asked.

  She shook her head, "I don't know, I'll know after trying."

  He doesn't care about whether the greenhouse can be restored. He arrived at Greenhouse No. 1, and it seems that he will stay here until 9 o'clock today before going to the castle to patrol.

  Actually, she should be on patrol today, but in exchange, she will "take notes" instead of him.

   It was not Dumbledore who defeated the Dark Lord this time, but Lily, so the Ministry of Magic dared to intervene in Hogwarts' internal problems.

   Indeed, as Graplan said, it was the whistleblower that convinced the Ministry of Magic that there were dangerous creatures in the school that endangered the safety of the students.

Take the story of "Joker" as an example. The scene where he shot was in the subway. There are many people's DNA in this kind of public place, and there are no cameras. The most important thing about scientific evidence is "accuracy". Because the scientific evidence is "accurate", it is "reliable".

When this kind of reliable evidence cannot be determined, it is necessary to use the testimony of less reliable witnesses. The pressure will distort people's memory, not to mention that it was dark in the subway at that time, and the lack of memory and vision of witnesses made other people The credibility of the testimony has been questioned. The usual method is to find a few more witnesses, and to find a breakthrough point to solve the case through cross-memory of an incident from multiple angles.

However, the "murder weapon" used by the clown is a police pistol. The police in Gotham can "tell a little lie" and say that no other witnesses have been found, and they can only rely on what a mentally unstable witness described as " The murderer was a clown" testimony, to arrest the prisoner.

  The workers participating in the parade put on clown masks, mocking and provoking the police, and real clowns were mixed among them.

  Confrontation is a reliable means of testing the credibility of testimony, but officials of the Ministry of Magic refused to disclose who told the secret. What Pomona has to do is to find out from the file how many times the Ministry of Magic has solved cases through whistleblowers and the number of times it has solved cases through its own investigations, just like Igor Karkaroff did.

Pomona didn't know whether Severus was planning to clear himself of the suspicion or if he really wanted to get rid of the "tentacles" of the Ministry of Magic. Anyway, she kept these files in the office in the greenhouse, and the office in the castle often had It's not good for students to come in and out, and it's not good for them to see these materials.

  Children's testimony is not accepted by many judges, because children often see people, things, and things that adults do not see, like their fantasies, and they try to persuade adults to adopt their fabricated stories.

However, there have been cases of abuse of judicial resources in human history. This is based on the "winner takes all" system, which means that if it is beneficial to the initiator of the lawsuit, even a useless lawsuit may endanger the entire society and bear unnecessary expenses. , will also sue.

   If the initiator of the lawsuit makes a false accusation or defamation, isn’t he punished?

  The plaintiff also considers the cost of the crime if he wins, that is, the punishment for being found guilty of defamation.

  If the court mediates between the two ends, it cannot prove that there are dangerous animals in the school, nor can it prove that the plaintiff is making a false accusation. Another easy-to-understand explanation is that if there is nothing to do, the judge can ignore the whistleblower's words and deal with other more urgent cases. But when they toss about this case, they have no time and energy to deal with other cases.

  The final outcome is usually reconciliation, which means persuading the school to reach an agreement with "someone" to avoid harming the interests of both parties.

  Ordinary people, of course, it is enough to graduate smoothly, but "someone" will not let it go so easily.

   "What kind of crime is this?" Pomona flipped through the file and couldn't help sighing.

   "How about singing a song?" Severus said without looking up.

  Pomona couldn't tell if he was joking or if he was serious.

  The girl who sang to him last time, she was so happy even though she was locked up, she sang the song of the weird witch while working, and then she was singled out by Snape and asked her to sing "seriously".

  Ordinary people would not dare to make a fuss when they saw his serious face, but she actually sang.

   In order to save her life, Pomona decided that it would be better not to sing, although her feet moved under the table as if dancing.

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  Fudge's nephew did a big thing recently, he made a Muggle subway disappear.

  Of course the subway was empty. He waited for the subway to stop running before running to the subway parking area and blanking it out.

   Even so he was suspended, he is currently working in the Misuse of Magic Items Office where Arthur used to be, and he was immediately investigated after the incident.

  The Misuse of Magic Items Office used to be a very "marginal" office, but now it has become a large department. Who made Arthur Weasley a war hero.

   "Any news?" Severus asked.

  Pomona looked up. He was engrossed in examining the golden llama horn powder that Liz Stewart had sent.

   "Not a single owl delivered us papers all winter," grumbled Pomona. "I thought that's what they were for!"

   "I thought you remembered how many blizzards there were." He said without looking up.

   "What about February? The snow always stops in February."

   "What's the news?" He asked impatiently.

  Pomona told him what Liz had written in the letter.

   "I don't care about Rufus Fudge, I'm asking about other people."

   Now Isabella Sidney is also working with Stewart, because to deal with poachers, you need someone who is very familiar with the law on this team.

  There is also "Amata", who works as a coordinator and shuttles between various departments of the Ministry of Magic.

  Everyone seems to be moving forward, except Pomona.

   "What were you thinking?" Severus asked.

  Pomona turned her gaze to him, and he was staring at her.

   What does she have to complain about? Here is a "new star" to accompany her.

  So she took a sip of her breakfast coffee and told him the contents of the letter.

  In fact, thinking about it now, she also identified who the informer was without evidence.

  No matter how "reasonable" the suspicion may be, evidence is needed.

  In mystery novels, even if the detective tells all the crime process, as if he saw it with his own eyes, the murderer can still be complacent.

  Because he knows that the detective has no evidence, and the evidence is either destroyed or taken away by him, what can the detective do with him?

  (end of this chapter)