Chapter 247 New Members to Join

"Buckbeak? Who is that?"

Mike asked in confusion with a frown.

Hermione looked at Mike in shock, as if she was shocked by Mike's answer, but then her expression became a little angry and said:

"You actually forgot about it? Didn't you ride it when you just started school?"

Mike then remembered that Buckbeak was the hippogriff, and hurriedly apologized to Hermione.

He really forgot about Buckbeak. During this period of time, his mind was full of Black and Freemasonry, and he didn't take Buckbeak, the "beast", to heart at all.

Fortunately, Mike's mouth is quite powerful, and he has rich experience in dealing with girls like Hermione. After comforting her for a while, Hermione finally stopped being angry and began to explain the matter of Buckbeak.

"I overheard Professor McGonagall chatting with Professor Lupin, saying that Malfoy's father had taken Buckbeak to court, and the Ministry of Magic decided to execute Buckbeak for hurting Malfoy!"

Hermione was very emotional, and her eyes were red again while she spoke.

Mike's heart was calm, and he even wanted to laugh.

To be honest, it was a good result that Buckbeak's injury incident ended in this way. After all, Buckbeak was a beast with a history of hurting people. In the Muggle society, if such a beast with low IQ had a history of hurting or eating people, then death would be their only fate.

This is the same in the wizarding society. After all, no one can guarantee that the beast will not fall in love with the taste of human blood and make similar or more serious mistakes again.

Mike believed that if Dumbledore had not intervened, even Hagrid would have been severely punished. After all, as a professor of Care of Magical Creatures, he had to bear a considerable part of the responsibility in this matter.

Hermione and Harry thought that Malfoy had provoked first, so Buckbeak should have hurt Malfoy, not to mention that Malfoy's injury was not serious.

But this idea is extremely subjective and extremely stupid.

As the saying goes, the head follows the butt. They only sided with Buckbeak because they had a bad relationship with Malfoy and a good relationship with Hagrid. From the perspective of an observer, Mike felt that the behavior of the Malfoy family was not too much. After all,

provocation is not against the law. It's like when you are sitting on the subway and an old lady suddenly jumps out and points at your nose and starts to curse. This is a provocation. Even if you report it, it's useless. At most, she will be verbally educated.

But if you can't help but hit her, then I'm sorry, you may have to pay money to settle privately or go to jail.

This is the case between people, not to mention between people and beasts.

Of course, Mike couldn't tell Hermione these words. On the contrary, he expressed his indignation towards the Malfoy family from the perspective of Hermione and others, and said that they must have used their privileges to make things develop like this.

As expected by Mike, a girl of this age is still so easy to deceive. When Mike said this, Hermione's eyes lit up.

She could no longer cry and immediately returned to her usual seat to read the thick books, claiming that she must work hard to help Buckbeak escape the fate of being executed.

Mike flipped through a few books on Hermione's desk and shook his head when he found that they were all law-related books.

Hermione wanted to rescue Buckbeak through legal means, and Mike was pessimistic about this.

However, he did a good job on the surface. Seeing that Hermione had completely forgotten the unpleasantness with Ron just now and was immersed in studying, Mike left the library silently and went to the Room of Requirement.

'I need a place to hold prisoners. '*3

After standing in front of the door of the Room of Requirement and silently reciting it three times, a huge dungeon appeared in the Room of Requirement.

This place perfectly meets all of Mike's fantasies about the dungeon. It is dark, damp, and dirty...

There is only one long corridor inside the dungeon, and on both sides of the corridor are cells of all sizes. The smallest of these cells can only be measured in centimeters, and the largest is more than ten meters high. It is unknown what these strange cells are used to imprison.

Mike even found some human-shaped skeletons in some cages. The surface of these skeletons is extremely dirty, and some have been broken.

"It seems that my predecessors have achieved a lot!"

Mike said, and stuffed the still stiff Peter Pettigrew into a cell of only ten cubic centimeters in size, and then put some dry bread in it and left this gloomy dungeon.

However, he did not go far. He stood at the door of the Requirement Room, closed his eyes and silently recited for a moment, and then pushed the door open again.

The layout of the Requirement Room has changed greatly, and it has returned to the training room that Mike is most familiar with.

Mike poured himself a cup of black tea with familiarity, and then sat on the sofa and drank it in small sips.

The Christmas holiday is coming, Penelope and Franklin will leave Hogwarts tomorrow and go home to reunite with their families, so Mike decided to hold the first summary meeting of the Freemasonry tonight.

Before finishing a cup of black tea, Penelope and Franklin arrived at the Room of Requirement one after another.

Mike poured them a cup of black tea and said, "Now that everyone is here, let's officially start the meeting."

As Mike announced the official start of the meeting, Penelope straightened up, took out a plate of documents and said,

"Let me report first. As of today, we have lent out 13,410 gold galleons, with the smallest loan amount being 10 gold galleons and the largest being 500 gold galleons.

Among them, the number of students in grade 4 and above who borrowed money far exceeds that of students in lower grades, but most of them used the money to purchase new books and materials needed for study.

Only a small number of students in lower grades used the loans in the right way. Most of them used the money to buy all kinds of candies and toys, and one person even took out a loan to buy a Nimbus 2000."

Penelope paused here, put down the documents in his hand, looked at Mike and said, "I think those who use the loans for food, drink and entertainment have no potential at all. I suggest that you stop investing in them."

Mike lowered his eyes and did not answer Penelope directly.

"How is the learning resource sharing plan going?"

"It's similar to the use of loans. Senior students really like this sharing community we have established and have a strong desire to exchange knowledge and communicate with each other. But junior students..."

Penelope closed her mouth at this point and just shook her head slightly. The meaning was clear.

"It seems that our financial aid agency will only have a counterproductive effect on students who are too young. So let's stop providing loans to students below the fourth grade and increase the maximum loan limit for senior students."

"Understood, I will implement it."

Under Franklin's dull eyes, Mike and Penelope completed the future planning of the financial aid program, but Mike did not stop talking at this time, and continued:

"Okay, the first thing is over. Let's start today's serious business. Regarding new members, do you have any good candidates to recommend?"

Mike cast his eyes on Franklin who was standing aside. Franklin, who noticed Mike's gaze, immediately woke up from his daze. After realizing that Mike was asking him, he quickly shook his head like a rattle.

Mike turned his gaze to Penelo again, only to see Penelo raise her slender arm and said slowly:

"I recommend Soraka to be our new member."

Hearing Penelo's words, Mike immediately stood up and raised his voice and said:

"Soraka? The doctor who likes to cut people open?"

"Yes, I think Soraka is a very good candidate. She has a very high talent in treatment and a good personality. All the loans we lent her before were used by her to improve herself... Most importantly, she has a friendship with us."

After listening to Penelo quietly, Mike slowly raised his head and asked, "What did she do with the loan?"

Penelo was silent, and after a long time she said, "I bought a lot of corpses for dissection."

'Is that really the case? '

Mike thought so, rubbed his brow hard, and after thinking for a long time, he agreed to Penelope's proposal. After all, Soraka was capable except for being a little perverted, so he said:

"Then let's start the vote. Those who agree to Soraka joining, raise your hands."

After that, he raised his hand first.

This is the system that Mike and Penelope and others have negotiated. Every member of the Freemasonry must be recommended by an old member and voted by all members of the Freemasonry. Only after more than half of the members agree can they join.

Penelope naturally supports Soraka, so Franklin's vote is irrelevant.

"Then Soraka will be temporarily designated as a member of the Freemasonry. Next, Penelope, you can contact her." Mike spread his hands and said, "I also have someone to recommend here, the Weasley brothers. Although these two people are not very strong, they have a strong talent in invention and creation, and I have a good relationship with them."

"But they are pure blood."

Franklin frowned and asked.

Mike was speechless about this black brother, but since they were all on the same side, he could only explain patiently:

"Franklin, our organization is not a Muggle wizard group. We support Muggle-born wizards only because they can bring us more benefits. In principle, we do not exclude people of any bloodline from joining. We now want to unite all the forces that can be united."

Franklin nodded thoughtfully, and then raised his hand before Mike announced the start of the vote.

Mike also raised his hand when he saw this.

Thus, Penelope's vote also lost its meaning.

At this point, the first summary meeting of the Freemasonry officially ended, and after the meeting, Mike and the other two returned to Ravenclaw together.

Three days later, Hogwarts Castle had been dressed up in new clothes. Professor Flitwick, who loved to decorate parties, decorated Hogwarts into an ice and snow kingdom with the students who planned to stay in Hogwarts for Christmas.

Not only was the hall filled with various ribbons and balloons, but even the monster statues that used to look ferocious were put on Christmas hats by the students, which made them look even cuter.

Mike stood in front of the entrance of the Gryffindor Common Room, looking at the portrait of Sir Cadore in front of him, and was quite speechless.

Since being attacked by Black, the fat lady who was originally the doorman of the Gryffindor Common Room was determined not to take on this dangerous job anymore. Not only her, but most of the portraits in Hogwarts were unwilling to do it.

Professor McGonagall had no choice but to choose Sir Cadore who volunteered.

Sir Cadore was a brave knight, but he had a little problem with his brain. He would ride his fat gray horse to challenge everyone who passed by him.

At this moment, he was provoking Mike, hoping that Mike would accept his challenge.

Mike didn't know the password of the common room, so he could only stay here and wait for other Gryffindor students to come in and out so that he could get the password.

"Mike!? Long time no see."

A familiar voice came, and Mike turned his head and saw a fat man looking at him with surprise.

"Neville? You're just in time. I've been standing here for almost half an hour. Please read the password and let me in."

The innocent Neville didn't even ask Mike's purpose. He said "oh" and took out a piece of paper with words written on it and began to read:

"Broken glass, dragon thorns, dragon balls, cold blood..."

Mike, who was standing by, was a little dumbfounded and couldn't help asking, "What are you doing?"

"Oh, Sir Cadore changes the password at least twice a day. I can't remember it at all, so I wrote down all the passwords he set before, hoping to guess the right one."

Mike: "..."

It turned out that Mike's luck was not bad. When Neville read the 41st password, Sir Cadore finally opened the entrance.

Neville, who guessed the password correctly, seemed very happy. He wanted to share his joy with Mike, but Mike didn't have time to pay attention to him at all. He went straight to the dormitory of the Weasley brothers.

The roommates of the Weasley brothers had all gone home, so after a while of polite conversation with the Weasley brothers, Mike closed the door and began to explain the Freemasonry.

Half an hour later, Mike, who had finally explained the general role of Freemasonry and the rights and obligations of every member, took a deep breath and said,

"As I said before, this is a very small but extremely united organization. Now I sincerely invite you to join."

The Weasley brothers looked at each other, and then said in unison:

"We have no problem with you swearing an unbreakable oath. It's up to you, boss."

"Then we'll hold your initiation ceremony after the holiday."