Chapter 608 Welcome (asking for monthly votes)

After separating from Harry, Felix and Winnie stood at the intersection waiting for a taxi.

"Is the wand still working?"

"It's fine," Winnie nodded, "although there are various restrictions - when I went to register, the people from the Office of the Prohibition of the Abuse of Magic told me a lot, and asked me to fill in my home address, warned me not to commit any illegal acts, and that the traces on the wand would last for a while..."

"But overall," she took a breath lightly, tiptoed and said excitedly, "It feels great."

"Those people are not targeting you," Felix said comfortingly, "Well, although you have objectively increased their workload, complaints are inevitable..." He joked. "But to be fair, you are still new to the magic world, just like those young wizards who have just entered school, and you need the necessary attention and guidance. Once you are familiar with it, all these restrictions will disappear."

He waved his hand, and a taxi drove towards them from a distance with the turn signal on.

"Oh, by the way, I seem to have seen it last time. Is this the logo of a certain band?" Felix glanced at Winnie. There was a black and white piano-key-shaped badge on her chest.

"You mean this?" Winnie excitedly pinched the badge and showed it to him.

She said in a boastful tone: "This is a souvenir from the concert. François Crotoy, have you heard of this name? He is very famous among Muggles! He is known as the piano poet after Chopin. His music is delicate and beautiful, sad but not sad, and very imaginative. His most legendary experience is that the wound on his hand was originally incurable, but it miraculously healed overnight..."

Felix was stunned.

"...Although this matter has been talked about with great relish, François has never responded directly. Many people speculate that the injury on his hand may be related to mental stress. Once he figured it out, it will heal naturally. Moreover, after experiencing a low point, he had a burst of inspiration and created songs such as "Angel of Worry" and "Magic Goddess" one after another. He will have a concert soon at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. My friend and I have bought tickets."

"It sounds good." Felix said thoughtfully, "Maybe I can take some time to see it..."

The somewhat cold courtyard emerged in his mind. As the only audience, Felix enjoyed a unique piano performance, but he did not expect that the silly young man had such a great reputation... Felix hoped that when they meet again, the amazing purity of his piano sound will not have changed.

After sending Winnie to the taxi, Felix spent some time in Sword Castle.

As the Weasley twins graduated from school, they took back the dividends of the past few years and the ownership of the sound transmission mirror and the anti-curse series products, and immediately couldn't wait to start implementing their own business territory. From Penelope, Felix learned that the two had opened three branches. However, due to limited manpower, they did not completely separate from "Future World". The two companies still maintained a cooperative relationship in many projects.

"What do you mean by cooperation?"

"In addition to upgrading the functions of existing products, there is also - um - OEM. The two of them alone can't produce 2,000 sets of Dark Lord Scare Box Sets in a week." Penelope said half complaining and half proudly, "In the entire wizarding world, only we can do it!"

"Oh, oh," Felix exclaimed, "After listening to what you said, I found that I seem to have overlooked some details. Can you give me a hint, Miss Clearwater, should I give Dobby a raise?"

Penelope showed a strange expression.

"I can't find any excuse to stop him, sir. He's doing an excellent job - in fact, the number of house-elves in the company has exceeded that of their counterparts in the Hogwarts kitchen. Mr. Lupin once had a headache about how to accommodate them. You know, their work enthusiasm is terrifyingly high."

Felix imagined the scene of Remus scratching his head and smiled unkindly, "Then how did you solve it? Oh, OEM -"

"That's only part of it. We held several meetings to discuss how to accommodate them. Mr. Lupin thought of the assembly line concept that you mentioned to him, so all of our employees spent two days disassembling the production steps of existing products and handing over those simple spells and enchantments to the house-elves."

Felix was quite satisfied with this and turned around in his chair.

"How are they treated?"

"Strictly in accordance with the 'Guidelines for the Rights of House-Elves' designated by the Ministry of Magic."

"Uh - is this some kind of law? I don't think I've ever heard of it?"

Penelope sighed: "The Ministry of Magic formulated a series of regulations on the treatment of house-elves a long time ago, and they have existed for many years, but they have never been strictly enforced..."

It turned out to be a decoration.

Felix understood. Many wizarding families, such as the Malfoy family and the Black family before Sirius, would abuse the house-elves in their homes. Due to the absolute obedience of house-elves, the Ministry of Magic could not investigate anything, or - it is doubtful whether they have investigated.

"By the way, there is one more thing!" Penelope suddenly said: "The house-elves have always wanted to swear allegiance to you -"

"What did you say?" Felix stood up.

"It's the kind of loyalty that servants give to their masters." Penelope looked at him secretly. "Many elves were driven out by their masters, or driven out by the previous generation. In short, they had lived in poverty before. Dobby found them and told them about your generosity and kindness... Those house elves are looking forward to this day."

"Hmm."

Felix lowered his head and pondered.

After a while, he raised his head, "Sign a contract with them - but not in my name, in the name of the "Future World" company. Also, I need you to do one thing from now on -" Penelope listened seriously and took out a small notebook to record. "- Recruit some humanoid creatures as employees, werewolves, vampires, centaurs, mermen, veela, giants and fairies, you know what I mean, those who are intelligent and can communicate with people... We don't have to do it all at once, we can even recruit some half-bloods first to try."

"You are doing this for...?" Penelope asked holding her breath.

"Don't you think it's fun to bring them together?"

Felix smiled, but Penelope didn't get the sense of humor at all. He sighed and muttered to himself: Oh, poor Percy... They won't always talk about work when they get together, right?

"Well, I do have enough reasons - as the company continues to expand, we need to open up new product sales channels, and these half-bloods, especially those with wizards, can become guides."

His real purpose is far more than that, such as laying the foundation for the Pan-Magic Alliance in advance... From today's perspective, this is not very useful, and it's even a bit thankless, but if one day the magic world is forced to be public, Felix hopes that the entire magic world will have one and only one voice.

He did not elaborate. The above reasons were enough to convince Penelope, and she nodded.

"This matter will be very troublesome to operate. Many of them have hatred for each other. What's worse, most of them don't like wizards, so there is no need to rush. Treat it as a long-term task... I will discuss with Ms. Bones. It would be best if we can borrow a few people from the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures."

Felix said as he sorted out his thoughts. With the fall of Voldemort, it is time to find an opportunity for the Ministry of Magic to take over the responsibilities that belong to them.

What are the responsibilities of the Ministry of Magic?

Formulate laws and manage the entire wizarding world. The most important thing is to hide the magical world from the Muggle world. But if exposure is inevitable, they have the responsibility to study the relevant plans and risks and make adequate preparations.

With the end of the operation to capture the dark wizard, the next move of the Ministry of Magic is trial and awarding. What's next? If there is no Felix, it is natural to restore peace and everyone will live their own lives behind closed doors.

From this point of view, the entire wizard group is a lazy citizen with no sense of crisis.

There is no need to be surprised.

Trapped by the number limit and the great convenience of magic, wizards cannot establish a huge and meticulous political, economic, cultural and legal system like the real world - it requires a huge amount of manpower to maintain the operation of this system.

The pace of life in the wizarding world has always been very slow, so slow that many systems and customs will not change easily even if they are passed down for hundreds of years. In essence, the wizarding world is a success because of people - visionary and outstanding wizards stand up to promote social progress.

If you look at this issue from a higher level:

every ten or several decades, several outstanding wizards will be born. They are brilliant in their respective research fields and have a transcendent status. Therefore, they can easily push a certain aspect of the wizarding society forward by their own efforts. It is not only limited to the system, but also potions, spells, new theories...

The Chocolate Frog character card is a concentrated embodiment of this phenomenon.

"Let's go, let's go and see the army of house elves." Felix said briskly.

They came to the third floor, where nearly one-third of the place belongs to house elves. After opening a slightly smaller door, the scene of busy work inside came to the face. More than a hundred house-elves sat around a huge, short workbench that looked like a step or a rectangular arena.

They sat in small chairs with various semi-finished materials neatly placed in front of them.

The house-elves moved in unison, pointing their slender fingers at a piece of cut wrapping paper. The wrapping paper was folded up dazzlingly, and in a few seconds it became an exquisite gift box. Felix swore that he was not mistaken. He saw a cartoon version of a bald, noseless wizard...

"Mr. Happ!"

With an exaggerated scream, a house-elf jumped down from his position, and quickly turned his two short legs to appear in front of Felix.

"Hello, Dobby," Felix said.

"Hello to you, Mr. Happ," Dobby said excitedly, looking at Felix with his big, round eyes. Then all the elves stopped their work, timidly surrounded him, and looked at Felix cautiously with the same eyes as Dobby.

"Hello, all you - er - elves."

"Sir, this is Buck." Dobby pointed to the house-elf closest to him and said happily. "Hello, Buck." Felix nodded. "This is Qiqi, Baker, Holly, Betton, Qiqi," he introduced them one by one, and then slapped his forehead suddenly, "Oh, right!" Dobby pulled a house-elf from the crowd like a magic trick, "And Winky."

Winky was wearing a clean little dress and huddled behind the crowd.

"Winky?" Dobby looked at her happily.

"Mr. Hep -" Winky said stiffly.

"How are you staying here?" Felix asked.

"Very, very good..." she whispered.

"No, Winky is not good!" Dobby said loudly, "Winky is still thinking about her original owner, Mr. Crouch. I told her that we have a new - well, employer, but she is not happy, and she also refuses to accept any wages!"

"Buck doesn't want an employer either, Buck wants a master!" The house-elf who was introduced at the beginning said eagerly, staring straight at Felix.

"Kiki is the same. Kiki, don't be an elf that no one wants!" A house-elf with a slightly sharp voice shouted. Her words attracted a mess of agreement, and a group of little heads with bat ears nodded up and down.

"I came here for this matter." Felix said gently, "To be honest, when I learned that there were so many house-elves in the company, I was also shocked. I personally don't need house-elves to serve me, so I came up with a good idea - have you heard of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry?"

The house-elves nodded nervously.

"In the Hogwarts kitchen, there are elves of about the same number as you. They do not belong to a certain person, but nominally belong to the ancient castle. Of course, if a house-elf wants to leave, I think Dumbledore will never stop them-"

"They will not leave. Their lives are very happy!" A house-elf shouted, with a tone of envy and dissatisfaction.

"Chiqi?" Felix blinked and asked.

"Yes, Chiqi, Mr. Hep." Chiqi answered excitedly, as if he was very honored that Felix could remember his name.

"...Since you know, things become much simpler. I plan to adopt a similar model and sign a magic contract. I will not set a time. You can stay as long as you want. The specific terms are concentrated on the confidentiality agreement. If you want to leave, you cannot disclose the product information... There are also some rules about treatment. Dobby and Miss Clearwater will tell you."

"We don't need treatment or wages!" another house-elf shouted.

"Oh," Felix showed an embarrassment, "but the Ministry of Magic has made regulations, this is what you deserve, I don't want to be troubled by the Ministry of Magic... and," his expression became serious, "staying in the company is different from serving a wizard family. The tasks you are exposed to are more professional and more challenging--" The house-elves puffed up their chests. "--In order to facilitate management, it is necessary to formulate unified rules." The

house-elves nodded in confusion.

"As for Winky--" Felix thought for a while, squatted down and said to her.

"Since you have nowhere to go for the time being, why not stay here and save some money - listen, don't you want to buy a gift for Mr. Crouch? Winky, there are no Dementors in Azkaban anymore, which means that Mr. Crouch will be out soon, and three years will pass in a flash. If you want to go back to him, I won't stop you, but I think he will be very happy to see your gift."

Felix said, holding up his hand with his palm facing up, revealing a gold Galleon.

Winky kept blinking her huge brown eyes, and her nose, which was the shape and size of a big tomato, twitched. Obviously, she was in a very tangled state, and her little brain seemed to have difficulty sorting out these complex problems.

Just when Dobby urged her for the twelfth time, Winky stretched out her hands tremblingly, held up the golden Galleon, and tears burst out.

"Thank you, thank you, Mr. Hep."

She held up her little skirt and bowed deeply to Felix.

...

In the evening, after returning to school, Felix and Valen were a little hungry. They went down the crooked spiral staircase, sniffing and preparing to go to the kitchen to find something to eat.

I don't know who started it, but anyway, they started playing the game of stepping on each other's shadow. Valen swung his feet flexibly, running around Felix, shouting excitedly while running - it was calculating the score.

Felix suddenly felt that he was at a disadvantage, his shadow was much bigger.

"Chi!"

Valen suddenly shuddered, ran to his shoulder, and complained to him in a twittering voice. The man's eyes were so scary!

Felix turned his head and saw Professor McGonagall and Mr. Bagshot, whom he had met during the day, walking side by side. Professor McGonagall was talking quickly and didn't notice the existence of him and Valen. Instead, Mr. Bagshot focused his eyes on Valen, narrowed his eyes, and his face was gloomy.

"Since Dumbledore has agreed... I can't say anything, but Mr. Bagshot, please be prepared. Managing young wizards is a very hard job. I will tell you everything I know, including teaching materials, teaching tasks, school rules... Oh, Felix?"

Professor McGonagall looked up in surprise and looked at Felix and Valen on his shoulder.

"Minerva," Felix nodded slightly, but his eyes were always fixed on Mr. Bagshot, with obvious scrutiny, "This is--" "

The new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor of the school year." Professor McGonagall said.

"Ah, of course..."

Felix looked at Mr. Bagshot, and just when Professor McGonagall thought he would introduce himself--he was always so polite, Felix's eyes suddenly lit up, and he looked straight at the new professor of the school. Mr. Bagshot

showed agility that was completely different from his age. His exclusive wand appeared in his hand in an instant, and a fierce vortex of magic burst out, blocking Felix's sight, but Felix got the result he wanted with a quick glance.

It was a mistake...

He usually wouldn't use his magical vision to look at strangers, as it was too provocative, but someone seemed to have seized this loophole and disguised himself as a Squib. No, Felix remembered what Dumbledore said. He was no different from a Squib now.

But what kind of magic did he use to be still alive and kicking after meeting Dumbledore, and it seemed that he had even found a teaching position for himself?

Felix never thought that he had misunderstood.

Just as he provided shelter for the remnants of the pure-blood family, Dumbledore did the same thing.

"Felix... Mr. Bagshot... you..."

Professor McGonagall, who was caught in the middle, could hardly breathe. She stared and looked at the two serious faces with difficulty. She didn't understand why they were suddenly on edge, and was also surprised that a Squib could burst out such powerful magic.

She didn't know whether she should feel relieved that Dumbledore was not wrong, and the new professor would not be bullied by students.

"Mr. Bagshot?" Felix said in a voice close to a whisper, and the pressure shrouding the outside world gradually subsided. "Since we parted during the day, I have always been confused. Is Bathilda Bagshot, the author of "A History of Magic", your-"

"... great-aunt." Grindelwald said in the same gentle tone.

"She lives in seclusion in Godric's Hollow. It is really a good place with beautiful scenery. Godric Gryffindor, who founded Hogwarts, was born there. So was Bowman Wright, who invented the Golden Snitch... Recently, there are also the Dumbledore family and the Potter family."

Godric's Hollow has produced more celebrities than these.

The two of them thought of a name at the same time, Ignotus Peverell, the owner of the third holy relic of the Deathly Hallows, the Invisibility Cloak.

Felix and Grindelwald stared at each other for a moment and smiled at the same time. Their outstretched hands - one young and slender; the other old and wrinkled - were tightly clasped together, as if they were wrestling, swinging in the air.

"Welcome, Mr. Bagshot."