Hermione, join me as Minister of Magic!

Although it was mid-August, the hottest time of the year, Lucius Malfoy felt a chill in his heart.

"What are you talking about, Severus?" Lucius poured himself a glass pretending to be relaxed, "I just came here today to take Draco to buy things for school. Although the things are not expensive, they are It's very complicated, and I'm a little worried about letting house elves do it.

Seeing that Snape was still staring at him, Lucius had no choice but to make a gesture of surrender.

"Well, there are no outsiders here anyway, so I'll just say it... that Arthur? Weasley has been pushing me so hard lately, so I just went to Knockturn Alley to sell some goods."

"I thought friends meant that we could be more honest with each other." Snape said flatly, "Draco didn't cover you just now, I don't think he knew about it, so I left you saving face... need i be more direct

■

Lucius Malfoy's face became more and more ugly: ""What charades do we need to play between us?Just say it. "

"Okay, then I'll just say it."

Seeing that Lucius didn't get in, Snape simply opened the skylight and said something blunt: u What did you stuff into that little girl's old book at the Weasleys just now? "

Lucius giggled in his heart: "Severus...does it have to be for this? Why can't we be more considerate of each other?"

Snape's expression remained unchanged: "No matter what you stuffed, if the little girl has an accident at school because of it, then I will most likely be the one to take responsibility in the end. If this is how you think about your friends, It can only be said that I made the wrong friend

"Probably not, you are not the professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts class now." Lucius slipped his mouth accidentally.

Snape stared into his eyes, and his face became even colder—it was a pain in his heart that he couldn't be a Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, but Lucius dared to expose it.

Only then did Lucius Malfoy realize that he had said the wrong thing.

He hurried to remedy: "Don't worry, there should be no magic on that thing. I just want to make something wrong with Weasley, so that he won't bite me like a wild dog all day long."

Snape had some bad premonition: "Why do you say that?"

"Can't he keep an eye on me? He..."

"I didn't mean that!" Snape growled in a low voice, "Why do you say that the magic power of that thing is gone?"

Lucius was at a loss for words for a moment, he didn't know why Snape had such a big reaction.

Snape didn't say much, he lifted his arm directly.

"This marker has been unresponsive for years, I guessed yours was too, but I seem to be wrong"

"Severus, I..."

Snape looked directly into Lucius' eyes: "When I saw you stuffing something just now, there was a sting here... Do you understand what I mean?"

Lucius Malfoy knew that he had revealed his secrets, so he had no choice but to put on a look of indifference.

"It's been so long, even that person himself has disappeared. Is it normal for me to want to get rid of the trouble?"

Lucius picked up the wine glass, wanting to take a sip of the wine he just poured to calm himself down,

But his hand was held down by Snape

He looked at Snape in puzzlement, but saw a face that looked a bit hideous.

"Do you know what you're doing?" Snape was rarely really angry, "That's what the Dark Lord gave you! How could you..."

Probably because he found himself agitated and attracted the attention of the people around him, Snape lowered his voice again: Io, how can you throw his things out casually?

"I never knew you were so loyal to him," Lucius shot back.

Snape was almost exasperated: "You know what I mean! As long as it belongs to him, if something happens, it's definitely not a trivial matter!"

"No matter how big things happen, it's the Wesley family's business now." Lucius shrugged, "It's good to be elegant. I always wear gloves on my hands... Ha, don't look at Wesley. Guy likes Muggles, but I don't think he's even known what fingerprints are. He's been trying to figure out how planes fly, but I bought one..."

Snape stood up, put his hands on the table, and stared at Lucius condescendingly: "Change the topic!"I'm not going to watch the mess get bigger!Tell me, what the hell is that? "

Lucius wanted to keep talking, but after seeing Snape's unreasonable face, he knew that Snape was playing for real.

"It's really not a dangerous item, it's just a tattered diary. The man gave it to me and said it could be used to open the Hogwarts chamber of secrets, but I doubt it can be recovered after so long. What's the use...don't look at me like that, that's all I know."

Snape stared at him for a moment, then walked away, as if he intended to leave without saying goodbye.

Lucius asked again worriedly: "Hey, you are not really going to report on me, are you? Are you?"

"I'm going back to take care of my Purin, it's probably overcooked," Snape said sullenly.

After the trip to Diagon Alley, Lockhart finally got a rare leisure time.

Of course, this leisure is only relative, even though he can sleep every day until he wakes up naturally.

In order to avoid the damned morning fog in London from damaging his health, he chose to go out to exercise after nine o'clock in the morning. After returning, he practiced spells and prepared lessons in the basement of his home very regularly.

He is a big believer in the fact that people who want to be successful must first have self-control.

When it was tea time, Lockhart sometimes went to the bank where his brother-in-law was, and had snacks with him as a "customer"; The "future colleagues" went to chat with each other.

Because he's a celebrity of his size,

His social circle was wide: sometimes he would go to Arthur Weasley of the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Division to talk about the possibility of introducing the Magic Metro to the wizarding world; For the sake of it, go to Gilbert Whymper of the Experimental Spells Committee to transcribe new spells (transcription is allowed as long as it is proven safe).

Of course, as his best entry point towards the Ministry of Magic, Arnold Pisgood, who is in charge of the "Reversal of Incidents Team", is his key target of attack.He had met this official from the Ministry of Magic because of helping out at Loch Ness.

Pisgood told him that right now their department is very understaffed, and what's worse, because there are too many things to do and the salary is not much, many people want to quit or

Jumping to other departments, even he himself wanted to transfer to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. "That won't work, you'll have to recruit a lot of new people," Lockhart said.Dyke. "

"This is something Muggle-born wizards should be left to do, so they know what's 'dissonant' to Muggles. "

"You're right, but pure-blood wizards don't like Muggle-borns in important departments of the Ministry of Magic."

Lockhart laughed: "Are you kidding, this is an important department? Why didn't I know?"

Pisgood dropped the custard biscuit in his hand: "Will you die if you say a few words?"

"You're not my boss yet," said Lockhart.

They are already familiar with each other, so it is completely okay to make a little innocuous joke, and Pisgood even regarded Lockhart as a "non-staff member". I said a few words from my heart.

"To be honest, I don't understand why you must go to Hogwarts to teach." He wondered, "If you take the job now, at least Fudge will not have any prejudice against you, but if you come out of Hogwarts again, He will regard you as Dumbledore's side.oo I think you are a smart person, you should know how vigilant Fudge is to Dumbledore, and your reputation is so big..."

Ur's right, I'm too famous. Lockhart admitted bluntly, "So since Fudge will be alerted no matter what, I might as well give him a reason, so that Dumbledore will believe me." "

"But he doesn't like the Ministry of Magic."

"But he also has things he wants to do." Lockhart said vaguely.

Chapter 14September [-]

In this seemingly idle time, September [-]st finally arrived.

Lockhart bought a copy of the "Financial Times" and "The Times" early, leaning on a stone pillar next to platform 9 3/4 of King's Cross Station.

He pretended to be waiting for the bus, but he was actually waiting for the Muggle-born freshmen to arrive.Lockhart has never been far behind in this kind of thing that can brush his face.

He didn't know why Hogwarts didn't set up an instructor here to guide the new students into the platform.He speculated that this might be Dumbledore's way of showing wizarding families goodwill towards new students, as the Weasleys had directed Harry.

Sure enough, not long after, Lockhart saw a few Muggle freshmen walking over with dazed expressions on their faces.

Even though they had been to Diagon Alley, and they had learned some of the contents of the book early on according to Lockhart's instructions7, something like platform 9 3/4 was beyond their imagination.

"It's just a matter of rushing towards that wall. It's a magical passage. The key is to believe." Lockhart pointed to the entrance of the platform and said to Colin.

Colin Creevey plucked up his courage, embraced his magic suitcase with both hands, and then - gritted his teeth, rushed towards the wall.

"You don't have to rush so fast, kid..."

Just as Lockhart finished speaking, there was a scream from the other side of the wall.

"You hurt me!" Lockhart vaguely heard a female voice.

"I'm sorry, it's the first time I've walked through here, and my actions are too rude." Colin's apology also came from the other side of the wall.

Lockhart shrugged, ticked off the Creevey family on the list, and then

Then he leaned against the pillar and continued to read the newspaper.

Soon, 12 Muggles passed by here one after another, and passed the wall one after another under the guidance of Lockhart.

Lockhart checked that the time was almost up, so he put away the newspaper and slipped past when others were not paying attention.

Boarding the "Express" steam train at Hogwarts, Lockhart went straight to the prefect's compartment on the train.

Although he could apparate directly to the outside of Hogwarts, Lockhart decided to seize every minute and every second to strengthen his influence, so he chose to take the train with the students, anyway Hogwarts did not Decide where the teacher should sit.

So he waited outside the prefect's box under the pretext of "understanding the progress of the students in the past few years". In the carriage, I chatted with the student president.

Lockhart admitted that he was unable to solve Voldemort's curse: "Because of the curse, I only plan to work in this position for one year, and I will do the machete before the final exam."

/田

However, I deeply feel that the Defense Against the Dark Arts class has been disordered and chaotic in the past few years, so that new teachers don't know where to start.So I plan to build an iron-clad framework, so that no matter who the new teacher is, they can just follow the script, and the teaching quality will not be reduced.

My goal is to directly improve students' ability to resist black magic. In addition to basic training, I also want to make every fifth grader pass. W丄?S, seventh graders who want to pass NEWTs , we also have to let him pass steadily. "

The male and female student chairmen listened carefully to Lockhart's plan and nodded repeatedly.

"Very pragmatic goals, Professor," said the head male student, "regardless of the teaching method

The most direct way is to pass the exam.

He is already in the seventh grade and will soon be handed over to the next student chairperson. What he is most worried about right now is his homework.

"This is my basic plan, do you want to take a look?" Lockhart handed over his lesson plan.

The two student chairmen are very satisfied with Lockhart's respect for them. Children in their age group have not yet grown up or have just grown up (wizards are 17 years old), and they are the ones who shout my fate all the time. In the second zone, the sensitivity of self-esteem is extraordinarily high.

They carefully read Lockhart's schedule, and after asking a few more questions like adults, they nodded in satisfaction.

"It seems that there is no problem, although the safety may be... but considering that you are the teacher of the class, I don't think anything will happen." The male student chairman handed back the lesson preparation plan.

But his arm was held by the female student president

"I don't know if I can keep this," she pleaded with Lockhart.

"Of course." Lockhart said, "I still have the original manuscript, which was specially copied after revision."

The female student chairperson immediately snatched the lesson preparation plan from the male companion.

"It would be even better if I could sign my name on the top, it will be more convincing" she frantically "hinted".

Lockhart smiled, then took out his peacock quill, and signed his name on it with flying colors.

The grade leaders came back, and the student chairman specially announced the decision just now—Professor Lockhart intends to reform the Defense Against the Dark Arts class and build a new framework. Please cooperate with all your strength this year.

"Because our Defense Against the Dark Arts professors are likely to be

It will be changed every year. This matter can be said to be related to the vital interests of each of our Hogwarts students, and it is also related to the future of Hogwarts.I hope that everyone will restrain the thorns in their colleges within their ability and not fight against Professor Lockhart.We've looked at his plans, and it's still pretty...hey, get it out there! "

"No, didn't you watch it too? Just tell them."

The female student chairperson resolutely refused, and it seemed that she had made up her mind to use power for personal gain.

When Lockhart came out of the prefect's box, he found that the place where he was originally sitting had been taken.

He had no intention of fighting for a seat with a bunch of little kids, so he had to go to the back to see if there were any vacant carriages.

But he soon realized that he had made a wrong decision—wherever he went, the little witches pestered him one after another, asking for his autograph, and kindly inviting him to sit in his partition.

Considering that no matter which private room he sat in under such circumstances, it would cause dissatisfaction among the rest of the people, Lockhart had to find a seat instead of patrolling, and he was relieved when he walked all the way to the dining car at the end of the train.

Anyway, there was only one woman here who asked him for an autograph, and that was a salesperson pushing a small truck.

He bought a bunch of cupcakes and berries, and as he ate, he read the Muggle newspaper he'd bought at the station, which he had erected to hide his face from trouble.

The "Financial Times" made it clear that since the end of the Anglo-Amazon War, the value of the pound has been shorted by international financial speculators.

Although the Great Empire won the war of face in the end, allowing the nationalists in the country to get over their addiction to "we are still powerful people", but the British foreign exchange and gold were almost exhausted because of this, and they were powerless Maintain the original high pound

Currency value.

And they even want to bind the exchange rate of the pound to the mark—they don't think about whether their economy can keep up.

As Sir Humphrey said, "We always get a little punished for pretending to be European."

Soros saw this opportunity and used his energy to short the pound.

Although the value of the pound has not shown signs of loosening until now due to the resolute resistance of the British Ministry of Finance, anyone with a discerning eye can see that the British will not last long, and when the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance expressed their determination to maintain the value of the currency: from the very beginning The toughness has become "leaving room"

Even in this time and space, the final date of the outbreak of the European exchange rate crisis is not September 1992, 9, Lockhart is confident that it will not be a month away.

In just a few days, the pound fell by 24%. He only needs to increase the leverage several times with Soros to make a lot of money. Is there any more profitable option trading than this?

Thinking that he would become one of the richest wizards in half a month, Lockhart couldn't help but feel elated.

After all, you can only play politics if you have money. This is an eternal truth.

"Ron! Harry! Are you here?"