Chapter 311 The Mermaid Queen's Apology
After lunch with Professor Flitwick, it was afternoon. Mike returned to the dormitory to rest for a while, but as soon as he returned to the dormitory, he found an owl eagerly knocking on his window.
After letting the owl in, Mike opened a can of sardines for it, and then took the letter off the owl's leg and checked it.
'Mike, the matter you asked me to do last time has finally made some progress. An old friend of mine told me that the Flint family has been declining since they had a 14-year-old head of the family. They have been shrinking their business recently. In addition to potions and some special alchemical materials, the Flint family now has no other source of income. So your worry is completely unnecessary. With the current situation of the Flint family, other families are too busy to swallow up the Flint family's industry, so how could they form an alliance with them? And according to my old friend's speculation, the Flint family will be completely swallowed up by other families in the next three years. By then, even if Chris is strong, he will be powerless to save the situation.
The above is the first thing. In addition, when I was investigating this matter, I found another thing that made me very anxious.
Nowadays, many families want to kill you.
I don't know why they do this, but there is no doubt that you will be in danger if you are targeted by so many big families at the same time. Especially now that you have to participate in the Triwizard Tournament, they may tamper with the projects of the Triwizard Tournament. Please be careful!
If it really comes to a critical moment, the door of the Fly family will always be open to you.
Your friend: Abbott-Fly. '
After closing the letter, Mike smiled and nodded.
The decline of the Flint family made him feel greatly relieved. What he was most worried about was that the Flint family would do the same as what Chris did in Hogwarts and integrate the power of the entire Slytherin department.
This would make his subsequent actions very passive.
But according to the information provided in Abbott's letter, his worries seemed unnecessary. Although Chris had amazing talent in magic, he was obviously not a good head of the family. Now the entire Flint family is almost ruined by him.
In this case, Mike can rest assured. After all, Mike has absolute confidence in his own strength. Chris is improving, and so is Mike.
On the other hand, Mike had already expected that the pure-blood nobles would attack him. After all, every pure-blood family that has been rich and prosperous to this day is very large in size, and their network of relationships is intricate. Even many people who are not in their family are willing to work for them for something.
So the unbreakable oath signed by Fudge and the new patriarchs is actually not very effective, because even these new patriarchs cannot completely control the power of the entire family, and it is unrealistic to sign a contract with everyone in the family, so Mike's revenge will happen. But
Mike doesn't care about their revenge.
Not to mention that his strength has surpassed most adult wizards, you have to know that this is Hogwarts, where the world's strongest white wizard sits. It's just a foolish dream for those people to want to kill him here.
But sometimes people are so stubborn. Mike is now almost certain that the reason why he was attacked in the Black Lake was probably because of the group of people.
This is quite amazing. You have to know that this is under Dumbledore's nose, which is equivalent to slapping Dumbledore, the legendary white wizard, in the face. If the matter is exposed, all of them will be killed by Dumbledore or thrown into Azkaban.
To be honest, Mike really admires their courage.
This is a group of real heroes who can abandon everything for a chance of revenge.
These people can already be called dead soldiers.
Despite this, since these people's target is him, Mike will definitely not show mercy to them.
So, Mike's face showed a smile. While writing a reply to Abbott, he made up his mind to tell Dumbledore all about this matter and let his old headmaster help him get rid of those annoying ants.
...
In the evening, Mike walked briskly to the monster statue.
"Honeycomb cake."
"Correct password!"
The inside of the monster statue made a noise, and then it moved to the side obediently to reveal the winding staircase inside.
Climbing up the stairs, Mike finally arrived at Dumbledore's office.
At this moment, Dumbledore was entertaining a mermaid suspended in a huge water ball with his favorite sizzling bees and a pile of cockroaches.
This was obviously the mermaid king.
Judging from the bulge on the chest of this mermaid, this should be a female mermaid, but Mike couldn't find anything beautiful about it. Compared with the mermaids that Mike had met in the Black Lake, it looked particularly huge and fierce in appearance.
After seeing it, Mike even began to doubt whether the succession of the mermaids' kingship was determined by duels, otherwise how to explain why the mermaid queen in front of him looked so fierce.
But despite her ferocious appearance, this mermaid queen still obviously loves beauty, which can be seen from the dazzling array of luxurious jewelry and a large number of shell ornaments on her body.
Especially the sapphire necklace it wore around its neck. The sapphire on it was so huge and gorgeous that Mike couldn't help but lose his mind.
"Mike! You came just in time. We are enjoying dessert!" Dumbledore invited enthusiastically, "Sit down and eat something together. You know, you are growing up now, and you are always hungry very quickly. So instead of braving the cold wind to bother the house elves in the kitchen in the middle of the night, you might as well eat more here!"
Mike couldn't refuse the kindness, so he said thank you and stuffed a cockroach pile into his mouth.
He actually liked this coffee and chocolate flavored cockroach pile, but the appearance of this candy was really weird. In order to maintain his image, Mike never bought it, and only ate some when he was here with Dumbledore.
When Dumbledore saw that Mike accepted his invitation, his smile on his face became even brighter.
He enthusiastically poured a cup of hot water for Mike again, and then pushed a plate with a honeycomb-shaped cake in front of Mike.
"Just drink hot water. Drinking tea at this time won't let you sleep at night." Dumbledore smiled kindly. "Also, I want to highly recommend this honeycomb cake to you! It's a good thing. I've fallen madly in love with its taste recently!"
The corners of Mike's mouth twitched, and he suddenly remembered a rumor.
It was said that Dumbledore always used the food he thought was the most delicious recently as the password for his office, until he encountered something more delicious.
Now it seems that this rumor is very likely to be true.
He cut a small piece of cake and put it in his mouth to chew. A strong aroma of honey swept over Mike's taste buds, but the greasy sweetness that followed made Mike frown.
"I think this may not be suitable for me. It's too sweet."
"Well, I can see that you prefer cockroach piles to it." Dumbledore said with a smile, "You can take some away when you leave later. You know, I never lack candy here."
"Thank you so much, Professor!"
Mike replied in a surprised manner, but his eyes couldn't help but glance at the mermaid next to him.
"Oh! Look at my memory!" Dumbledore patted his head and said, "Let me introduce you, this is the queen of the Black Lake Mermaid, Ms. Mercus."
Mike politely saluted the huge mermaid, and the mermaid queen in the big water ball did not seem angry because she was ignored before, and also performed a strange etiquette towards Mike.
"We asked you to come here because you were attacked by mermaids in the Black Lake today." Dumbledore clasped his hands together and said seriously, "After a detailed investigation, Ms. Mercus and I confirmed that what you said was true. Some mermaids were indeed bewitched by some wizards and attacked you. But unfortunately, all the mermaids involved in this incident have died at the hands of the lake monster, so we have not yet found the real culprit behind the scenes. But don't worry, I promise you, Mike! No matter who is behind the scenes, I will make him pay the price!"
The mermaid queen on the side lowered her crowned head and saluted Mike again with apology.
Mike pretended to be flattered and quickly returned the greeting, then said to Dumbledore:
"I think I can provide some clues about the mastermind behind this." A
look of surprise flashed across Dumbledore's face, and then he extended his hand for Mike to continue.
"As you know, I accidentally killed a lot of terrorists wearing white masks in the Quidditch World Cup. I believe you also know their identities. And now I have obtained reliable intelligence that someone wants to avenge these dark wizards, so I suspect that this incident is also their work."
"Where did you get the news?!"
"My good friend Abbott, he is the heir of the Fley family. He just sent me a letter today to explain this matter." Mike said, "I'm sorry that I can't show you my letter, but you can confirm this matter with Abbott in person." "I see
, I will confirm this matter."
After that, Dumbledore looked at the mermaid queen in the water ball with complicated eyes, and said:
"Then the next thing is another matter. Hogwarts has a contract with the mermaids. The mermaids cannot attack any Hogwarts students who fall into the water. This time the mermaids violated the contract. According to the regulations, they will be driven out of the Black Lake." As soon as
these words came out, the mermaid queen in the water ball suddenly became excited. It twisted its body and lay on the surface of the water ball, pleading in a muffled and weird English:
"Please, Mr. Dumbledore, don't chase us away! More than a hundred of our people died in this attack, and there are even more wounded. If you chase us away, we won't be able to hold on, and we will all die!"
The mermaid queen was looking at Dumbledore when she spoke, but her body and mouth were facing Mike, which made her posture look particularly strange, but it allowed Mike to clearly see the pitiful look on her face and her round peaks.
Mike was naturally not interested in the mermaid queen who was like a female demon. He quickly moved his eyes away and looked at Dumbledore.
However, Dumbledore was not moved at all by the mermaid queen's plea, and still had that expressionless and cold look.
But suddenly, Dumbledore asked:
"Mike, what do you think?"
"Ah?"
Mike was stunned at first, and then he understood.
Dumbledore, the old man, didn't want to drive the mermaids out of Hogwarts at all. The reason why he was acting like this now was just to show himself.
This was a really good plan. On the one hand, he was the person involved and the victim.
If he didn't speak up, Dumbledore couldn't let the mermaids stay in Hogwarts.
On the other hand, this matter could also be regarded as a test for Mike. If Mike still wanted the mermaids to leave after the mermaid queen said those words, then in Dumbledore's heart, Mike's impression points would undoubtedly be directly reset to zero.
"What an old fox!"
After cursing in his heart, Mike's face immediately changed to an anxious expression and said:
"I don't agree to drive the mermaids out of Hogwarts either. They are also intelligent lives. It's too cruel to drive them out of their homes and let them die! Besides, I didn't get hurt. Otherwise, let's just forget it?"
After saying that, Mike silently gave himself a thumbs up in his heart.
His acting skills were simply explosive. Not only were his expressions and tones all in place, but he even changed the words he used to address the mermaids from the usual "it" to "him".
Dumbledore on the other side was silent for a moment before saying in a hoarse voice:
"But the mermaids did make a mistake, and it's too unfair to you."
Mike was about to answer that it was okay, but the mermaid queen on the other side said first:
"I am willing to compensate Mr. Townley!"
As she said that, she took off the sapphire necklace on her neck with a painful look on her face and handed over the water ball.
"This is a treasure that has been passed down for thousands of years. I call it the Heart of the Ocean!" The mermaid queen looked at the necklace reluctantly and said, "It can keep people young forever, and they will not grow old until the moment they die."
Hearing this, Mike moved his eyes away from the necklace and turned to the face of the mermaid queen. Sure enough, he found that the half-human, half-fish face had more wrinkles.
After looking at the sapphire necklace and then at Dumbledore's expressionless face, Mike decided to continue his acting. He pretended to look at the necklace in fascination, then hurriedly looked away and said loudly in a firm tone:
"No! I can't have it! This is your family heirloom! Besides, Aunt Mercus needs this necklace more. She has wrinkles when she takes it off!"
Mercus smiled happily at first. She really didn't want to give away the Heart of the Ocean. This thing is priceless to any woman, but when she heard the second half of the sentence, her smile froze. What Mike said was really asking for a beating.
Dumbledore, who was standing aside, finally smiled when he heard the words. He laughed loudly, took the Heart of the Ocean from the mermaid queen's hand and stuffed it into Mike's hand and said:
"Just take it, you deserve it!"
"Can I really take it? Do the mermaids still need to move away?"
Mike held the necklace tightly, pretending to be half happy and half worried.
Seeing this, Dumbledore laughed even happier.
"Don't worry! The mermaids will not be driven out of the Black Lake!"
Mike pretended to be relieved when he heard the words, and looked at Dumbledore and laughed together.
Although the mermaid queen had lost her heart of the ocean, she could not hide her joy at having saved her tribe.
For a moment, the principal's office was filled with laughter, and even the old principals in the portraits on the wall opened their eyes curiously.