Chapter 46 Summer Vacation Life

The past year has been a troublesome year for Lucius.

At the Ministry of Magic, his archenemy Arthur Wesley came to his house for investigation again and again. Although he found nothing, he caused himself a lot of trouble. He finally came up with a good idea to expel Dumbledore from Hogwarts in one fell swoop, and let the little girl of the archenemy Wesley family bear the blame for the Slytherin heir killing Muggle wizards.

What he never expected was that the seemingly harmless Dumbledore's influence on the school directors had grown to the point of covering the sky with one hand, and the plan to blame Wesley was finally ruined by his second son. He couldn't say anything - he didn't dare let anyone know that the diary was leaked from his hands, even if that person was his son.

The whole plan ended up being a self-inflicted blow. Not only did he lose a house-elf because of it - you have to know that each house-elf is controlled and allocated by the House-Elf Resettlement Office of the Ministry of Magic, and each house-elf is worth a lot of money. Of course, Lucius didn't know that Dobby actually fell into the hands of his son.

(Note: The House-Elf Resettlement Office is not made up by the author. It comes from the author's profile of "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them". It is affiliated with the Alien Branch of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. Newt once worked in this office.)

What's more frustrating than the house-elf is that he also lost his position as a director of Hogwarts - this is simply the biggest blow to the reputation of the Malfoy family!

Lucius has always been able to have the social status in the British wizarding world today because he is proud of his three major identities - Chairman of the Hogwarts Board of Directors, Chairman of the St. Mungo's Hospital Board of Directors, and a close friend of the Minister of Magic. He spent most of his life and a lot of family wealth to fight for these three identities. The blow caused by losing one of them is not small, and it is not an exaggeration to say that it is a serious injury.

Lucius found that when he attended the gatherings of the pure-blood aristocratic circle, people were no longer as awed by the Malfoy family as before. The most hateful thing is that old guy Avery dared to publicly mock the Malfoy family, and also received responses from several other families that should not be underestimated, such as the Nott family, the Carrow family, and the Lestrange family. Every time Lucius thought of this, he was indignant.

What worries him more is that if he cannot stabilize the situation, his vassal families, the Goyle family and the Crabbe family, will have some thoughts that they should not have, not to mention that his allies, such as the Parkinson family and the Burke family, may also waver in their positions. Whenever he thinks of these things, he will be in a very bad mood.

The only thing that makes Lucius feel relieved is that his second son's performance did not disappoint him.

Although Shailling messed up his conspiracy, he knew that it was just an unintentional mistake. After all, Shailling had no idea about his plan in advance. And Shailling also made himself look very proud in Hogwarts. He heard from Snape, who had a good personal relationship with him, that Shailling severely taught the rascal Gallup Lestrange, who dared to challenge the majesty of the Malfoy family, a lesson in Slytherin College, and maintained the dignity of the Malfoy family.

Not to mention, Sherin also received a special medal of honor from the Merlin Order, an honor that has never been received in the history of the Malfoy family. The Malfoy family has been too focused on cultivating politics and business for the past few generations, and it has been a long time since a child with outstanding magical talent appeared. Moreover, this honor was won from several senior students, which made Lucius particularly satisfied.

There is another thing that makes Lucius look at Sherin differently. His son makes him more and more confused. It’s okay that his magical talent is terrible, but even his performance in the field of business investment is beyond his expectations.

In March, the Ellerby and Badmore Broom Company, in which Sherin holds half of the shares, launched an unprecedented product - the Firebolt. This flying broom has become the first choice of major international Quidditch teams in just a few months. Judging from this trend, it is expected that the market share will surpass the Nimbus Broom Company within a year. Compared with the profits that Sherin is about to make, the losses of the Malfoy family this year seem to be nothing.

Moreover, probably influenced by his younger brother, his eldest son Draco also began to change.

Since Shaylin won the honor of the Order of Merlin, Lucius often heard Narcissa's praise and saw Draco's envious eyes at the dinner table at home. Draco is no longer as carefree as before, but has become more mature and motivated. During the summer vacation, he can often be seen reading and studying in the library, or practicing spells on the alchemical puppet in an empty room.

Draco's change made Narcissa very happy, and even the cold Lucius was very relieved - he now hopes that his two sons can do their best to maintain the glory of the Malfoy family.

The plot returns to Shaylin. Shaylin has arranged a lot of plans for himself this summer vacation:

First, learn the Patronus Charm. The theoretical knowledge and release methods of the Patronus Charm can be found in the "Book of Spells" written by Miranda Goshawk. This book has been out of print for a long time. If ordinary little wizards want to check it, they can only find a way to get a professor to approve them to borrow it from the forbidden book area. But Schelling has a book in his own private collection. He can't remember which family's library he got it from. The important thing is that he has already read the book by heart, and the contents of the 22 spells in the book have been deeply engraved in his mind. All he needs to do is spend time practicing.

Second, study the blood research materials of the Greengrass family, hoping to discover the hidden abilities in his own blood. If he can help the Greengrass family break the blood curse of this family, it would be even better. He believes that he can definitely exchange it for the full support of their entire family. Although he knows that this is definitely not an easy task, he has to try it.

Third, Xie Ling plans to write a book about his experience at Hogwarts last year, and the title of the book is "Me and the Basilisk at Hogwarts". In his previous life, he was experienced in writing adventure books. In order to cater to the reading tastes of the wizarding world, he can directly refer to Lockhart's series of books for the routine of writing books. Xie Ling is confident that this book will be very popular, bringing him a lot of income, and also earning fame and reputation for himself.

At the same time, a new house-elf was purchased in Malfoy Manor. His name is Lele. He is a very optimistic elf who likes to hum little songs. His father Lucius occasionally abuses it, and it doesn't think it's strange.

Xie Ling's behavior of treating the house-elf well is still disliked by Lucius, but this time he didn't really scold him except for a cold snort with a bad face. Obviously, Xie Ling's status in the family is no longer what it used to be. Even the strict Lucius will never scold Xie Ling for such a trivial matter.

Schelling remembered that the original book mentioned that there were seven secret passages in Hogwarts that could lead to the outside, four of which were controlled by Filch, and the remaining one was under the Whomping Willow, one was behind the statue of the One-eyed Witch on the fourth floor, and one was behind the big mirror on the fifth floor.

The first two will be frequently used by Sirius and the Weasley twins in this upcoming semester, and the last one - the secret passage behind the big mirror on the fifth floor collapsed under the heavy snow this winter, so the Weasley twins who knew this secret passage no longer used it - just right for Schelling to occupy.

If Schelling remembered correctly, the secret passage behind the mirror on the fifth floor had a very spacious space. In the original book, Sirius even suggested that Harry set up the headquarters of Dumbledore's Army here.

Taking advantage of the two-month summer vacation, since Dobby was idle anyway and could not appear at home to be discovered by his parents, Schelling sent Dobby to Hogwarts to secretly repair and clean the secret passage behind the big mirror on the fifth floor. This secret passage will come in handy in the next semester.

Time flies, and a month has passed in the blink of an eye.

Schelling has finished writing "Me and the Basilisk at Hogwarts". He went to Rumiheart Books in Diagon Alley in person. This company is the publisher that once published Lockhart's series of works. It is already familiar with publishing works of this type.

The editor-in-chief is a kind middle-aged man. Although Schelling is young, he has heard of Schelling's deeds in Hogwarts.

After a brief discussion, he gave Schelling a very favorable contract. He can take 20% commission for each book sold, which is more than Lockhart got. The premise is that if Schelling has the inspiration to write a book in the future, he must cooperate with Rumiheart Books first.

After this matter was completed, Schelling also began to learn the Patronus Charm and study the blood research materials of the Greengrass family. In this way, Schelling began his boring study life day after day.

At the same time, Ron and the Weasley family won the annual gold galleon award of the Daily Prophet. The whole family set off to Egypt for a trip in the second week of summer vacation, and visited their eldest son Bill by the way. They would not be able to return until the end of summer vacation.

Hermione also went to France with her parents.

Harry was once again tragically locked up by the Dursleys and was not even allowed to go out.

While Shaylin was immersed in study and research, an unprecedented event happened in Britain on a certain day in August - Sirius Black escaped from Azkaban!

Almost all wizards know the name of this wizard prison in Britain.

It is the only wizard prison in Great Britain, located on an isolated island in the middle of the North Sea. It was originally a fortress built by a dark wizard named "Ekrizdis". He specialized in killing the Muggles abducted here to conduct various black magic experiments on living people. After his death, the various concealment spells he had cast on the island failed, and the island was discovered by the Ministry of Magic and transformed into an official wizard prison.

In this famous prison, all guards are indigenous dark creatures called "Dementors".

They are considered the ugliest things in the world. They can suck away the happy emotions of other creatures, so they will make people who approach them feel gloomy and desperate. In extreme cases, they will also suck the souls of creatures and turn them into a state of walking corpses.

It can be said that no one would want to stay in this prison for even a quarter of an hour.

Compared to Azkaban, even the notorious Erkstag prison in Germany, which was closed in 1932, cannot be compared with it.

"Sirius Black." Schelling sat by the window, flipping through the Daily Prophet, nodded thoughtfully, and his mind flashed through the plot scheduled in this year's original book, as well as his various plans.

As time passed, Schelling used the principle of the Happy Spell to trigger the emotion of happiness. It took only a week to master the Patronus Spell and successfully release a complete entity Patronus.

In the next week, he also carefully read all the information he got from Daphne, which gave him a deeper understanding of the theory of blood power. He had some ideas about how to tap the power hidden deep in the blood, but he still needed some samples to do experiments, so that he could verify whether his theory was feasible.

There were still two weeks before the start of school. With nothing to do, he suddenly remembered that he still had three books on black magic that he had not opened.

Generally speaking, if you want to read the black magic books, you must have at least the strength of a senior student. With his current strength, he is not much worse than Percy and Penelope, so he should be able to read these black magic books safely.

Schelling quickly skimmed through the three black magic books. He found that the content was very difficult to understand, and many parts were recorded in ancient runic script. Even with the help of the hourglass, he could not finish reading them in a short time. Fortunately, Schelling himself had extraordinary attainments in ancient magic words, otherwise it would take a long time to decipher them. Schelling had to first select the most helpful content parts according to the catalog and study them first.

For the convenience of readers who have not read "The Book of Spells", the 22 spells are floating, making water, unlocking, fluorescence, flame, bird transformation, appearance, expansion and contraction, excavation, replication, repair, descaling, bat spirit, armor, summoning, cutting, obstacle, hardening, disarming, crushing, stun, and patronus. Except for the Patronus Spell, which Xie Ling had not yet mastered, he had mastered the others at least at a low level; he had even mastered advanced uses of fluorescence, levitation, and flame.