Chapter 916 Training

In the next few days, the news of Hagrid being investigated spread around the school.

To Harry's indignation, few people expressed discomfort about this; in fact, some, especially Malfoy, seemed extremely happy about it.

As for the Ministry of Magic staff member who died in St. Mungo's Hospital, Harry, Ron, Vernon and Hermione seemed to be the only ones who knew and cared about him.

There was only one topic of conversation in the corridors: the ten escaped Death Eaters, whose story had been spread throughout the school by people who read the newspapers. Rumor has it that some of them have settled in Hogsmeade, hiding out in the Shrieking Shack, and are preparing to attack Hogwarts, just like Sirius Black once did.

I have to admit that the Ministry of Magic once again smeared Sirius, escaped from prison, deceived the Wizengamot, made people blame him, and helped the Death Eaters escape from prison...

This made Harry furious.

Those students who came from magical families were as frightened by the names of these Death Eaters as they were by Voldemort. The crimes committed by those men during Voldemort's reign of terror are legendary.

Among the students at Hogwarts, there are some people who are related to the victim, and now they will be pointed at when they walk in the corridors: Susan. Bones, whose uncle, aunt and cousin all died at the hands of one of the Death Eaters, tragically told Harry during Professor Sputrow's biology class that now she knew how Harry felt. : "I don't know how you can stand it - it's just horrible!"

She frankly added so much dragon dung to her saplings that they began to squirm and squeak uncomfortably.

Indeed, these days Harry was the target of whispers and pointing in the corridors again, but he found that those sounds seemed slightly different from before.

He sounded curious rather than hostile, and once or twice he even overheard some conversations expressing his dissatisfaction with the Daily Prophet's lack of clarity on how and why the ten Death Eaters escaped from prison.

In their confusion and fear, these suspicions seemed to lend themselves to another explanation: the one that Harry and Dumbledore had been clinging to for the past year.

It's not just students whose attitudes have changed. Two or three teachers also started talking quietly and nervously in the corridor, but stopped talking when they saw the students approaching.

"They obviously can't talk freely in the teachers' room," said Harry, Ron, Vernon and Hermione one day when they saw Professors McGonagall, Flitwick and Sprout gathering outside the Charms classroom. Hermione whispered as they came together. "Umbridge is there."

"Maybe they know something new?" Ron said, turning to look at the three teachers.

"Even if there were, we wouldn't know about it, would we?" Harry said angrily.

"Relax, brother, even I don't know the situation. I didn't lie to you. Umbridge is much stronger than I thought." Fan Lin said helplessly.

Since the Azkaban breakout, Aurors had almost surrounded Hogwarts, which made it really difficult to get the news across.

"After Decree XX, what time is it now?" Harry was talking about the notice that appeared on the school bulletin board the day after the Azkaban escape: "Orders from the High Investigator at Hogwarts Teachers It is prohibited to provide students with any information that is not related to the teaching content. The above is Education Decree No. 26."

This latest law is something of a joke among students. Lee Jordan pointed out to Umbridge. Under the new law, she had to let Fred and George play with exploding fireworks in the back of the classroom.

"Explosive fireworks have nothing to do with Defense Against the Dark Arts, Professor! It has nothing to do with the content of your teaching!" When Harry saw Lee again, there was serious blood on the back of his hand.

Harry recommended to him Huang Jing and the alternative tool made by Fan Lin, a layer of simulated skin...

Harry thought that the escape from Azkaban might make Umbridge somewhat restrained, and that she might feel uneasy about the disaster happening under the nose of her beloved Fudge.

The only consequence, however, seems to be her more fanatical efforts to bring all aspects of life at Hogwarts under her control. She seemed to have decided that there would be a sacking soon, and the only question was who would go first, Professor Trauni or Hagrid.

Now every Divination class and Care of Magical Creatures class has been controlled by Umbridge and her notebook. She lurked by the fire in the mist-filled tower room, interrupting Professor Trauni's increasingly excited conversation with some extremely difficult questions about fortune-telling, insisting that she must know the answer before the students answered the question. The content required her to use crystal balls, tea leaves and ancient aragonite to demonstrate her talents.

Harry thought Professor Trauni was about to collapse under the pressure. Several times he saw her in the corridor—which was unusual, since she always stayed in her room in the tower—talking rudely to herself, holding her hands, looking aside in fright, and exuding It smells like sherry.

If Harry didn't have to worry about Hagrid, he would feel sorry for her - if one of them was to lose their job, Harry would have only one choice as to who should stay.

Unfortunately, Harry discovered that Hagrid was not doing much better than Tawny. Although he seemed to have taken Hermione's advice not to show them anything scarier than a snail, he seemed to have lost all his courage since Christmas.

During class, Hagrid seemed distracted and even a little nervous. He had no idea of ​​​​the class, answered the questions wrong, and always looked at Umbridge uneasily. He was also estranged from Harry and the others, and they were forbidden to see him after dark.

"If she catches you, we're all screwed," Hagrid said weakly, not wanting to do anything to jeopardize his job, which certainly included them running into his cabin at night.

For Harry, Umbridge was stripping him of everything he had in the good life at Hogwarts: going to Hagrid's hut, collecting Sirius' letters, his Firebolt and Quidditch. The only action he can take as revenge is to work with Fan Lin to work harder to train D.A members.

Harry was happy to see everyone, even Zacharias. Smith trained harder after hearing the news of the Death Eaters' escape, but his progress was not as significant as Neville's. The news that his parents' attacker had escaped produced a strange, even startling, change in him.

Not once did he mention the meeting at St. Mungo's to them, and they, like him, remained silent about it. Nor did he mention the escape of Bellatrix and her companions.

In fact, Neville rarely spoke at D.A meetings, but he worked harder to practice the defensive skills taught by Fanlin.

His plump face was distorted by concentration, and he was working harder than anyone in the room. He was improving so quickly that when Harry taught a ward spell - a spell that bounced small bits of magic back onto the user - only Hermione mastered it faster than Neville.

In fact, Fanlin felt that Harry should go all out to learn Occlumency just like Neville did at the D meeting. Therefore, not only private lessons, but also during D.A training, Fanlin also targeted Harry. training.

However, the meeting between Harry and Snape still went very badly and went nowhere. On the contrary, Harry felt that he was regressing every time he studied.

Before Harry learned Occlumency, his scar only hurt occasionally, usually at night or from flashbacks of Voldemort and past experiences. (To be continued)