He was only joking and sarcastic by the way, but Barty Crouch took it seriously.

"Not all. For example, the Malfoys have always wanted to free up the free trade of dragon eggs, but Fudge has not agreed." He told Lockhart solemnly, "He is worried that the eggs of Australian egg whites are too fossil-like, so they will not be used. Be careful to be discarded into the wild by wizards, which will affect the pure blood of the Welsh green dragon. The French said a few years ago that they discovered a new breed of "Gaulkin Sun", but when we went to test it, we found that it was just a Peruvian venomous dragon. Hybrid with the Hungarian Horntail. "

After hearing this, Lockhart has a new understanding of how old-fashioned his new boss is - Crouch is different from Dumbledore, he never understands what a game is /r/ryao

"I see, so when can I go to Hogsmeade?"

"Wait another week, these few days you can get acquainted with your colleagues, your office is the fourth room straight after getting out of the elevator, the International Trade Standards Association, the director is Ms. Lufkin, she is Artemisia o Lu Fujin's granddaughter, don't forget to say hello."

"I won't forget."

"Also, I heard that you took in the house-elf that the Malfoys expelled? Although it's not a big deal, I still suggest you go to the house-elf placement office and make up the procedures, if there is no one there , I'll just leave one to make an appointment for the next time, anyway, there's usually not much work to do there, and everyone goes to the ghoul handling office to help."

"alright, thank you very much."

Crouch sent Lockhart out the door and pointed him to the location of the Division of Magical Creatures Control before returning to his office.

Seeing this scene, Bob Ogden patted his chest happily.

"Fortunately I didn't bet with you," he said to Arthur Weasley.

Over the next few days, Lockhart did exactly what Crouch said, helping his colleagues with their work and getting to know as many people as possible.

This act of his saved him: because just this week, there was a sudden escape in Azkaban.

The notorious criminal, Sirius Black, the traitor who betrayed the Potters, escaped from Azkaban!

Fortunately, not many people watch "The Quibbler", so it can be said that there are very few people who think of Lockhart.

There were just a few people who knew that Lockhart had really visited the prison. They were basically in the Ministry of Magic at this time, and Lockhart had been staunchly installed in the Ministry of Magic as a 996 diligent employee for a week, so This perfect alibi helped him clear his suspicions.

But since he is no longer suspected, some people have.

Umbridge!

Fudge can be said to be out of anger now, and he doesn't even use his first name to address Umbridge, but directly by his last name.

He never imagined that he had already warned her like this, and she dared to make small moves under her own eyes.

After Rita Skeeter came back from Hogwarts, she scolded Dumbledore in various tabloids almost every day. Fudge just pretended not to see it, because he felt that there was nothing wrong with it. Influence, without making him and Dumbledore deadlock.

However, it's just a matter of creating public opinion in the newspapers, and directly releasing Death Eaters to frame political enemies, this kind of thing still penetrates Fudge's bottom line.

This is not to say that he thinks it is immoral, but that if this kind of thing is exposed, then he will be ruined because of it, not only his political career, but also his whole life, so it is not worth it at all.

He sternly threw the Daily Prophet in Umbridge's face.

"I need an explanation," he said.

As a good deputy minister, Umbridge's whole mind is on the pursuit of power and profit, so of course he doesn't care so much about his job. When Sirius Black escaped, Umbridge was the last person in her department to know about it, and it was Fudge who told her.

She quickly defended herself: "I didn't do it. If it were me, I would let Dolokhov out. He is the most murderous."

"Really?" Fudge asked sarcastically, "I think Blake's identity is very suitable, you really care."

Fudge said this, of course, for no reason. If he wanted to cause trouble for both Dumbledore and Crouch at the same time, Sirius and Black would undoubtedly be the best candidate.

In fact, the Ministry of Magic's "Death Eater" status of Sirius is not without

Any doubt, because in the rest of the Death Eaters' confessions, Sirius never participated in any activities of the Dark Lord's gang, and even Snape didn't know when he joined Voldemort.

Although it's a little strange, considering that Blake was the one who "betrayed" at the last minute, and he was one of the group of people that Barty Crouch personally locked in, everyone didn't think much about it.

Crouch was so powerful at the time, and the voice of becoming Minister of Magic was even higher than that of Fudge. No one wanted to touch him at that time. If he hadn't been exposed because of his son's death eaters, I'm afraid Fudge No chance.

Therefore, he is the only "Death Eater" who lives in the Order of the Phoenix and also has a grudge against Crouch. Letting him out is more disgusting than Dolohov or Lestrange. party people.

Umbridge suddenly realized that she was speechless now.

It's like a student who often doesn't do homework and lied to the teacher that "forgot to bring it". When he did write his homework one day, but didn't bring it with him for various reasons, he would find that no one would trust him at all.

Before Umbridge could continue to argue, Fudge had already made a decision for her, "You've been too busy with work lately, I think you must be too tired. Why don't you take a break?"

Although Fudge was using a suggestive tone, there was nothing in his expression to discuss it with Umbridge.

Umbridge's face suddenly paled a lot.

"If that's your decision, Fudge...I will."

Chapter 150 Causes and Consequences

Although it is often said that "good things don't go out, bad things go a thousand miles", but Umbridge used his own example to tell the world that sometimes things can be reversed.

The fact that she was "on furlough" had already spread throughout the Ministry of Magic through various channels in less than two hours, which was no less efficient than when Muggle Prime Minister Major announced Prince Charles and Diana on December 9 last year. The news of the separation of the princess.

At that time, everyone was just watching the jokes of the Muggle royal family, and the feeling was far less real than the fact that Umbridge was on leave, but this news can make more than half of the people here happy.

Everyone believes that this is Fudge looking for a scapegoat for Sirius o Black's escape. After all, Azkaban, who was always considered to be completely safe, suddenly escaped: this will inevitably make people doubt the Ministry of Magic's ability to control the prison. .

More importantly, Black can escape, so what about the rest of the Death Eaters? He wasn't the most vicious of those people back then!

So everyone just laughed when Fudge ordered the unification and said that the accident happened entirely because Umbridge "dispatched Dementors on his own," so that Azkaban's defenses had a loophole. Laughing and showing a tacit expression to each other, they each went their separate ways.

This is quite new to Lockhart. Although Umbridge did dispatch the Dementors privately, it will be "two years later". In this time and space, she has to take care of herself It feels amazing to take responsibility for what is done in time.

So the butterfly effect is really interesting, obviously things are still going according to the "regular", but there are two or three small accidents in the middle, and the results will be completely different.

Lockhart doesn't ask i'M+ any more unknown bends now. In his opinion. Only coriander

He has the power of the Ministry of Magic himself, so no matter how Voldemort's actions change, he can't escape his control.

After get off work, while Lockhart was writing reports calmly and pretending to work overtime, Fudge came to the door with an embarrassed face.

Long Pei! How do you find time to be here? "

Lockhart hurriedly brought a chair for Fudge, and with a spell, he fetched wine bottles, teapots, and coffeepots from a tray in the corner of the office, and asked the minister what he wanted to drink.

Fudge didn't want to drink at first, but when he looked at the label of origin on the bottle of French Zumba that Lockhart brought over, he suddenly felt that drinking a little wine was not a bad thing, at least it could relieve a little trouble.

"I don't drink tea and coffee after three o'clock in the afternoon, and I won't be able to sleep, especially today, it's already very difficult to sleep," Fudge said.

Lockhart knowingly poured half a glass of wine for the Minister, then moved a bench himself and sat next to it.

"I've been here for a few days, are you still used to work?" Fudge managed to squeeze out an amiable look.

In terms of expression management, Lockhart believes that he is no worse than anyone else, and the flattered expression he puts on will be true to anyone who sees it.

"Of course, it couldn't have been smoother. Everyone was very kind to me, and there was nothing wrong with the handover. It can be seen that this place has become a vibrant and efficient place under your governance. "

Fudge has gradually become a little numb to this level of ordinary flattery, so he did not react, but just held the glass and started talking to himself.

Nianmuxin, you also saw the headlines in today's paper... I exchanged views with Dumbledore at noon on this matter, and he and I agreed that we should start to remedy this immediately. "

Lockhart nodded, indicating that he was listening carefully.

"Dumbledore told me that you are going to make up lessons for Harry Potter this summer?"

Lockhart pretended to recall for a moment, and Tsukuru only remembered the matter: "I almost forgot if you didn't say it, it is true, the Savior has delayed too much study time in order to prepare for the Quidditch match, As someone who has a house on this side of the Muggle world, I can only make up for him."

Fudge took a sip of wine, and the whole person seemed a lot more relaxed under the influence of alcohol.

"So, although our savior inherited his father's Quidditch talent, he did not inherit his excellence in schoolwork... I remember that of those four people, except for Remus Lupin, the other three seemed to be They didn't study much, but they always get high marks on exams... Except Pettigrew o Peter, the world is so unfair

Lockhart doesn't see it that way. Although James Potter and Sirius Black do their class and homework seriously in the "Robbers" group of four, they are just like the Weasley brothers, solving problems. All abilities are acquired through practice.

In order to help their friends spend the night of the full moon, they learned Animagus by themselves, and then completed a good achievement in Transfiguration; in order to travel at night, they studied the Marauder map, and then learned a lot of schools. Mantras that are not taught much.

He still remembers one of his college classmates, who usually didn't study much when he went to a bar and played ball. In the end, he didn't graduate, but only got a graduation certificate. But it is because he is interested in the Internet that he is a liberal arts major, but he has taught himself a lot of mathematics and programming, and established a network information service company.

Some people take learning as a stepping stone, while others are to apply what they have learned, and those who apply what they have learned tend to be very "biased", which is a doomed thing.

The reason why Harry Potter doesn't have that kind of talent "inherited" is because there's nothing worthwhile for him to do.

"That's it... Since you're going to make up lessons for him, can you please put aside other jobs for the time being to protect Potter's safety during this vacation?" Fudge finally made the request with a twist.

"Provide him alone?" Lockhart asked knowingly. "So, Black escaped because of him?"

"From what we have at the moment," Fudge said with a sullen face, "for some reason, we entered Azkaban... er... Anyway, Black got our newspaper and saw that Potter got it. The news of the junior duel champion that year."

"Which one is it?" Lockhart seemed to have a feeling.

Fudge looked even more embarrassed, not sure if it was real or fake.

He pulled out a copy of the Sunday Prophet, and handed it to Lockhart.

According to Umbridge, she used the information posted on it to question the Death Eaters whether someone had disclosed the secret room to Lockhart in order to find "what the Dark Lord left behind", but she found nothing.

Although Bella was a little disturbed that she hadn't heard from the Dark Lord, she had heard Voldemort boast before that "only I can open the Hogwarts Chamber of Secrets".

Now that the Chamber of Secrets has been opened, does that mean the Dark Lord has returned?

That's right, the Dark Lord has just been resurrected, and he should not have fully recovered his strength, so it is impossible for him to come to him so soon.

Bella was so excited at the thought of this, and naturally more tight-lipped, so when Umbridge questioned her, she didn't say a word.

On the other hand, Blake's eyes suddenly became sharp after scanning the photo in the newspaper, and he changed his attitude of ignoring the answer, and opened his mouth to ask Umbridge for the newspaper.

Umbridge thought there was a show and gave him the paper.

As a result, the guy stared at Harry and his friends in a circle celebrating for a long time, but after a long time, he returned the paper to her very calmly, saying that he didn't know anything, much to Umbridge's disappointment. .

Now that I think about it, Blake must have known about Harry at that time.

Although Umbridge had confessed what he had done, Fudge was afraid to tell Lockhart why.

He felt that if Dumbledore's family knew that it was someone on his side who did something wrong, and Black decided to escape from prison, Dumbledore would definitely kill him.

"Anyway, I'll leave him safe, you'll only be responsible for protecting him for two months, and when Potter returns to Hogwarts, we at the Ministry of Magic can free up manpower to hunt down Black... I'll talk to Crouch. For this matter, you can go to Hogsmeade later, okay? I will try to help you get more for the budget of the competition."

"It's your duty, Minister," Lockhart agreed.

Chapter one hundred and fifty-one home visit

The reason why Lockhart agreed to Fudge, of course, was not because Fudge proposed to "increase the budget", that little money has not been taken into account by Lockhart now.

He was thinking that since Fudge had shown his will to reconcile, he would still have to do as much as possible to bring the Ministry of Magic and Dumbledore together before Voldemort returned.

Instead of the original, Dumbledore was responsible for breaking up the relationship with Fudge, and the three Harry Potters were responsible for breaking up the relationship with Scrimgeour.

Fudge is a little shameless, but after finding out the Death Eaters and Voldemort at the Ministry of Magic, the reaction was still confrontation, and Scrimgeour didn't reveal the whereabouts of the three Harry Potter even to his death. He was a hero. These It all shows that the two of them are actually no different from Dumbledore and others in their big stand against Voldemort.

Isn't political struggle just about making fewer enemies and making more friends?

After getting Lockhart's affirmative answer, Fudge was satisfied, drank the wine that Lockhart had poured, and left his office, while Lockhart took the money that he had changed several times in his hand. The plan was stuffed back into the table—it wouldn't be useful for a while anyway.

After a thrilling school season, Harry Potter is back at 4 Privet Drive for his summer break this year.

Compared with the time on campus, where the excitement and fear coexisted in the aftertaste, Harry felt that his summer vacation was simply boring. Even the meticulous "love" in Snape's Potions class was so adorable compared to Uncle Vernon's smirk.

After confirming that Harry "has a group of prominent companions" over there, the uncle's family stopped swindling Harry's food supply and even bought Harry a new set of clothes.

Harry knew very well that it was only Vernon who wanted to have a "common language" with the rich builder for the sake of the rich builder, not his sudden kindness.

For obvious reasons, Harry wouldn't take the initiative to tell Uncle Vernon that his relationship with the Mason son was not that good.

Whenever he thought that such a day would be another two months away, Harry's mood became extremely bad, and he could only turn his grief and anger into strength and bury his head in writing the summer homework that the wizarding school left him. Or look out the small window in the attic, hoping to spot something unusual, like an owl or something.

Let me go back to school! I love learning!

Just as he was thinking about it, a tattered British Post pickup truck stopped outside the door of 4 Privet Drive.

Harry Potter has no interest at all in this small truck, because he knows that people in his own world will not deliver things in this way, no matter what this postal van is loaded with, it will always be I'm here to deliver something to the Dursleys.

And he doesn't expect anything good in the car either - since Margaret Thatcher privatized a large number of state-owned enterprises, the Royal Mail in the United Kingdom can be said to be getting worse and worse, "simplifying the organization" every year, carrying out a lot of layoffs. Said, and the quality of service is becoming more and more difficult to describe. For example, the truck was hijacked, the back door of the mail car was not closed, and more than a dozen pieces of goods were dropped during transportation.

Most importantly, it's not cheap.

So even the British themselves laugh at themselves that only terrorists send explosives through the post office.

Sure enough, after the postman got out of the car, he just took a small

Box, and then started yelling Dursley's name outside the door.

After hearing Dursley's agreement, the postman shoved something roughly into the Dursleys' mailbox and drove away without even closing the mailbox door.

Vernon Dursley scolded the door open, gave the **** to the passing postal truck, and then took the small box in the mailbox back to the house.

But then Harry heard Vernon Dursley let out a howl in the house, the howl very similar to the werewolf howl Harry heard in the Forbidden Forest, because they were happy when the hunt was successful. And the sound of celebration.

"Penny! We're really going to make a fortune this time! Make a fortune!" Vernon's voice came from downstairs, not sure that we could move to West London soon, where Maggie was obviously hosted there. More face, I remember the last time you said the house there was too expensive, "not expensive!"

Harry in the attic shrugged—whether he lived in what is now Surrey, or moved to central London, he felt that his treatment would be no different. At most, his uncle will visit the neighbors of the so-called "upper-class people" around him more frequently, so that he can relax a little.