"But if we don't care this time, they'll go too far in the future. Fireworks today, maybe some other weird thing tomorrow." Percy muttered, "and neither will the Slytherin people. Just let it go, they will find something stronger than the Peruvian stealth bomb to use against them...I remember this in the muggle world called "arms race""

Lockhart laughed even more happily.

"Wouldn't that be better?" he said.

"Better?" Percy was puzzled.

"There is competition to develop, and how can we make this an industry if we don't let them spend more energy on it?"

"industry?"

"Or in other words, interest groups." Lockhart inspired him. "Don't you realize that the deans of the major colleges are silent about this change?"

Hearing his reminder, Percy couldn't help being stunned.

yeah why?

Not only did Slytherin get honors, but Dean Snape also made a lot of money by making potions.

Although Professor Sprout is no less concerned about the students of the irrigation school than others, the greenhouse where she grows herbs has been frequented by students recently, and those students are obviously not just to help her clean up goblins and fertilize and weed.

Professor Flitwick was delighted that the number of students who came to ask about magic spells suddenly increased, in his words, "Half of your time studying dueling is spent in magic spells class. Last year, W.Ls magic spells achieved There are not so few people."

As for Professor McGonagall, after the senior classmates began to use magic spell armors, causing the stun spell and the smashing spell to no longer be able to take effect easily, there were students who tried to use Transfiguration on the stage of the senior year.

Thinking of this, Percy raised his head and seemed to understand what Lockhart meant.

PS Everything else is easy to say, everyone can understand it, but it does not make sense to say that Umbridge is "loyal to Fudge".

Umbridge has tried several times in the past to develop a romance with her boss in order to grab power—but she usually doesn't care who the boss is. Moreover, when Fudge was in power, she would do things for Fudge, and when Fudge stepped down, she would still be the party's powerful party, which shows that her loyal object is power, not someone.

In the set, Umbridge doesn't reveal her true face as an extremist until she drinks, and in order to pretend she's pure blood, she uses her power to fire her father, who swept the Ministry of Magic, because it would make her humiliated.

Although it is possible that Slytherin's pendant had a certain effect on her later, but... before the pendant affected her, she was already like that, and it can only be said that the smell is similar.

Chapter 118: The Benefits of Delivering to Your Door

After Percy figured it out, the duel rules were upgraded again under the discussion of the club's referee team.

"Each person is only allowed to carry a total of no more than 3 magical items or magical creatures before the match, and must report to the referee and duty teacher before the duel to determine if it is appropriate."

Despite Percy's self-confessed perfection, Yudan was approached.

Professor McGonagall felt very strange, because she thought Lockhart would directly ban these magical items and creatures, and only keep magic armor.

Because of the duel, the little lions and the little snakes have recently begun to frequently bring in some contraband from outside the school by means of Hogsmeade and owls.

While things like fangs, boomerangs, sneeze powder, and the like are all paediatrics, things like fireworks, stealth bombs, and the like are starting to make Professor McGonagall frown a little. It's just that she was not good at accusing Lockhart of anything, so she didn't say anything.

But when a claw hook that can dissociate a stone and a diamond jewelry that can release a fireball were also buckled by Filch, Professor McGonagall finally couldn't sit still.

"Gildrow, I don't think you can do that," she said to Lockhart.

"Just keep the armor."

"It's a coincidence that you came here. Severus just came here and said that armor should not be used in the dueling arena, because no one walks wearing those things every day in reality." Lockhart said with a smile.

"But why?" Professor McGonagall wondered.

For the money - of course Lockhart can't say that.

"It would be difficult for us to promote Defence Against the Dark Arts without the participation of relevant stakeholders. You know, if there is no duel, those students will not come at all.

research these

Professor McGonagall raised his voice. "You're making it a business?"

"Indeed." Lockhart simply admitted, "Only by allowing some magical items to be used on the dueling stand can we get the sponsorship of the corresponding merchants."

"Not everything can be traded, Gilderoy," Professor McGonagall snapped. "You're playing with fire."

"But, Dark Wizard..."

But dark wizards are sure to do anything, so teaching students how to deal with all kinds of magic items and creatures is also necessary' - you mean that? "Professor McGonagall was the first to say what Lockhart wanted to say.

Lockhart also acted as a bachelor: "...It is true, you are right."

He hopes to use this healthy development method to make the Hogwarts Dueling Club a stage for performances. This stage not only shows the students' black magic confrontation qualities, but also shows some props that can resist black magic or can be used for self-defense.

This is not only conducive to the development of Defense Against the Dark Arts, but more importantly, it allows the entire wizarding community to participate in this activity, and those magic props merchants will definitely not mind using this stage for publicity.

The Snake House and the Lion House want to show their strength and gain honor, the Eagle House wants to research more practical magic counter-spells, and the swollen wants to eat more melons... and the Duelist Club can give them all these things.

Those who sell props, those who sell magical creatures, those who run the media, those who accumulate administrative experience for future political careers... When these interest groups are formed, even if someone from the Ministry of Magic wants to attack the Duelist Club, it will only be that one who is unlucky in the end. People who interfere with everyone's interests.

"Not only those non-offensive magic items and magic creatures below 3X, I will also allow young wizards to use broomsticks in duels, allowing the use of non-damaging

Sex potions...if all goes well, I would also like to add a "foreign aid" mechanism in the future, stipulating that students can invite humanoids - such as centaurs, goblins,

House-elves and ghosts are one by one as dueling assistants, but of course werewolves, vampires, female ghosts and giants can’t…”

"You're crazy!" Professor McGonagall shouted in disbelief. "For the sake of this business, you are actually bringing in people of unknown origin..."

"It's for the unity of intelligent life in the wizarding world," Lockhart corrected. "It's not about money."

But Lockhart himself knows very well that when a person says "it's not about money", the problem is often money, or not enough money.

Professor McGonagall finally left angrily. She was going to Professor Dumbledore to report the situation and express her attitude.

But she didn't know that this was also what Dumbledore meant.

Dumbledore was not politically conservative, and "Never refuse to change because of our ordinary" is his consistent creed. Although he may not be sure how much Lockhart's handwriting can really make a difference, he doesn't mind trying it out, and he's not afraid to take responsibility anyway.

So, after Lockhart revealed his reasons for doing so, Dumbledore not only did not object, but even encouraged him to take a step further.

Although Professor McGonagall is very responsible, her trip is destined to not get the results she expected, and maybe Dumbledore will persuade her in turn.

No matter how powerful Dumbledore is in the political world, at Hogwarts he is absolutely right in his words and follows the law.

After sending the old lioness Professor McGonagall away, Lockhart thought he would not be disturbed by the people of the Lion House, but a little lioness knocked on Lockhart's door again.

Hearing the knock on the door, Lockhart had to put down the pen and paper in his hand for the third time.

He couldn't finish writing the plan today.

"Hermione? What a rarity, why do you want to come to me? What to drink? Tea? Pumpkin juice? Coke? Or iced lemonade?"

After seeing the visitor, Lockhart was a little surprised, as it was the first time he had seen Hermione alone since the Chamber of Secrets incident.

"Tea is fine... no need to add milk, thank you!"

Because he had come to Lockhart's office many times before to participate in club activities, and Lockhart has always been very easy-going, so Hermione was not as restrained as the first time, but rather relaxed.

She looked around Lockhart's office and found that there were a few more luxurious accessories in it than last week, and she had a more intuitive understanding of Lockhart's economic strength.

That's good, so rich people shouldn't mind... right?

"That's it, professor... I wonder if you have someone specially hired to take care of your life when you are working?" She asked directly what she wanted to ask.

Lockhart raised his eyebrows: "No, but this is Hogwarts, and the house-elves are happy to help me with some housework."

"That's what I said..." Hermione hurriedly followed Lockhart's words. "That means, when you lived off-campus, no one came to help you with laundry and housework?"

Lockhart reflected on the flat he rented in London and shook his head.

Okay, I live in London and I don't dare to ask muggles to come into my house to clean, in case they touch something they shouldn't touch and I happen to be not around.oo what, are you going to be in the summer vacation Work-study? ' Lockhart asked deliberately.

Hermione shook her head quickly.

"Not me! It's a house-elf, his name is Dobby, originally Malfoy

Home, but Malfoy gave him a sock... Anyway, it's been looking for a new job recently. "

Lockhart knew what she meant by asking this: Newell was saying, you want to introduce him to work with me, don't you? It's really hard to imagine that it is not an ancient noble family that generally doesn't have house-elves. Although there are more than one Malfoy family, they just give up the ownership of house-elves... He won't have any problems, right? "

"He doesn't have any problems."

Hermione felt a little guilty when she said this, because she remembered the scene when Dobby was talking to Harry about Malfoy, desperately trying to get into the fireplace.

"He just has a... uh... bad.../" bug, even though Ron says it's terrible..."

"what?"

"He wants wages! So finding a job is not going well these days."

Lockhart smiled. "I see, it's not a big deal. Let him talk to me about how much he wants. Honestly, what a bachelor like me hates most is housework."

Chapter 119 The Status of the House-Elves

To be able to hire a house elf for a little money, to be honest, it's not a question of earning money, but how much money you can earn.

The house elf's spellcasting ability is very strong, not to mention the sky-defying wandless spellcasting and the apparition that ignores Voldemort's prohibition, that is, things like manipulating Bludgers, closing magical passages, and disarming Lucius Malfoy. It's not something an ordinary wizard can do.

To put it bluntly, the magical abilities of house elves are probably not inferior to some adult wizards, such as weak chicken Lucius Malfoy.

And judging from the Goblet of Fire plot, the Ministry of Magic suspects that the house-elf Sparkle used Harry's wand and used it to cast the Dark Mark. House-elves can actually use wands, but wizards don't let them use them. .

Only because it is a race "created by wizards", it must have the master's permission to cast spells.

From this point of view, the neglect and contempt of house-elves by wizards is not without reason, even if they can perform some magic that even wizards can't, because they are only a "tool" from the beginning.

Just like the AI ​​and robots created by human beings, even if AlphaGo defeats humans and achieves things that humans cannot do in Go, no one will really regard AlphaGo as an equal.” people"

It's a pity that Lockhart is a "man without wizarding dignity", so he doesn't discriminate against house-elf magic at all, and even covets it for a long time, even if Hermione doesn't come to him, he wants to do one The house-elves come out.

But the magic that made the first-generation house-elves wasn't so easy.

Lockhart checked the book of spells and found that the premise of creating house-elves must be

You need to own a big house that is old enough and turn it into a magic house.

Then you have to wait for hundreds of years, let this magic house slowly generate self-consciousness, and then use a spell to solidify the consciousness of this magic house in the flesh that is also created by the spell, and bind it, This is how you create a house elf.

So, "Even if you're a nouveau riche and you have a lot of money, you can't get a house elf if you can't get it. It's the threshold of the family in wizarding society.

If you can't create a house-elf yourself, you can only wait for the house-elves of other families to breed naturally, and then buy its offspring yourself.

But it's also difficult, because buying an elves is buying someone's ancestral property. Even if you want to do it from the shabby households, the house-elves and ancestral houses are the objects that will be considered for sale at the end.

Therefore, Hermione came to ask Lockhart to hire Dobby this time, which was actually in Lockhart's favor.

House elves like Dobby and Kreacher were born in an ancient noble family, so they have been the result of many generations of reproduction, so the binding spells when creating the first generation are already very weak.

■■■

EAS

Although they still have to obey some house-elves rules, slavery has

It is not as strong as the first and second and third generations, and already has a lot of independent thoughts and consciousness

, so it is possible to make some actions that distort the master's orders.

To gain their true allegiance, you have to give them more freedom, concern, equality, and autonomy. It was as if Kreacher had been loyal to so many masters, but when he took revenge at the Battle of Hogwarts, he still called for revenge for Regulus, not Lady Black, Sirius, Bella, Narcissa.

Lockhart had this mental preparation.

Hermione was delighted to hear Lockhart say "no problem".

"That's great, I thought... you're really different from those wizards," she said cheerfully.

Lockhart at this time is completely cheap and still behaving well: "It's nothing, my father is also a Muggle, and my primary school was on the Muggle side. I don't have that kind of prejudice."

"I know."

For this girl who has read Lockhart's autobiography, let alone Lockhart's background, she may even remember which company produced the pacifier he used as a child.

Seeing her like this, Lockhart was relieved a lot. It seems that after Hermione regained her memory, she did not worry about gain or loss, nor flinched, but business as usual.

"Looks like you've recovered... that's good. If you have any trouble in the future, you can always come and ask me."

"Afterwards? Including your appointment to the Ministry of Magic?"

When it comes to buying people's hearts, Lockhart has always been honest: "Of course, I mean at any time, you can be your pen pal... Also don't tell other people my address, my address is blocked. Curse, other people's owls can't find mine

"Absolutely not."

Looking at Hermione like that, she seemed to hear the headmaster announce that every day would be Christmas in the future.

After getting Lockhart's approval, the Iron Triangle brought Dobby to Lockhart the next day.

After resigning from the Malfoys, the elf went looking for a job, but the wizarding family — who heard it was asking for wages — shut him down. They would rather spend money on pets than spend such "wasted money", especially one that would embarrass themselves.