Drink Black Tea Calmly at Hogwarts

After playing five games of Gwent, Zhang Xu failed to win any of them, so Zhang Xu had to help Scrimgeour pay the bills five times in the cafe.

When Scrimgeour announced that today all the Aurors' debts in the store would be settled on him, and the Aurors cheered for this, Zhang Xu was thinking about whether Hood and the others would accept it if they used dried fish to offset the debt. One yuan of small dried fish to offset the one pound cost should be good.

It must be said that Scrimgeour looks as fierce as a lion, but he still has a good command of how to manage his subordinates one by one.

Now that the fuss is over, let’s get down to business.

First, Scrimgeour confirmed to Zhang Xu a question that has been asked the most during this period: "Is the mysterious man really back?"

Everyone who asked this question expected to get a negative answer from Zhang Xu, but Zhang Xu's answers were all "yes".

But today Zhang Xu did not answer Scrimgeour directly. Instead, he imitated the tone of the Minister of Magic Fudge and said: "The mysterious man was defeated more than ten years ago! He will never come back! In the past two years, we have We have intensified our attack on dark wizards. Now there is only a small group of Death Eaters who feel that their doom is coming under our attack, and they are making a death struggle!"

"The Ministry of Magic is confident and capable and will catch them all before Christmas."

"From now on, peace for an entire generation will be guaranteed."

"Now I ask everyone to go back and sleep peacefully in your beds!"

Although Zhang Xu said the same words as Fudge, he had a funny expression on his face. Even though Scrimgeour had never seen this emoticon, he knew that what the other person said was ironic.

Scrimgeour was silent for a long time after receiving Zhang Xu's reply. It wasn't until Ginger, who was sitting on Zhang Xu's lap, had eaten his fill of dried fish and left and put on fish cakes that Scrimgeour came back from his contemplation.

Zhang Xu thought that Scrimgeour invited him out today not only to confirm whether Voldemort was really back, but he couldn't figure out for a moment whether the other party had anything to talk to him about. Scrimgeour was not the kind of person who seemed to get along with Zhang Xu. People who collude.

"Mr. Zhang, do you know about the Hykmadia family, the Phantomhive family, and the Lawrence family?" Scrimgeour asked openly.

Zhang Xu curled his lips and looked at Scrimgeour speechlessly.

Zhang Xu replied: "The Hekmadia family mainly deals in magic items.

Including the sale of some dangerous magic items. "

"The Phantomhive family is mainly engaged in the sales of mineral magic raw materials."

"The Lawrence family focuses on the business of magical raw materials of magical animals and plants."

"I feel sorry for what happened to these three families."

Many people knew about these three families in the past. They monopolized the market of Eastern magic raw materials in Western Europe five years ago.

To put it simply, they purchase magic raw materials and some magic items that are special to the Far East from places such as India, Japan, and Southeast Asia, and then multiply the purchase price by more than ten times or even nearly a hundred times before selling them in Europe.

Most of the magical animals and plants that Zhang Xu has never eaten or seen that are named "Chinese" in the West are named after them.

Snape thought that Kabbah, which was produced in Japan, was produced in Mongolia and was their fault.

However, since Zhang Xu led the way, magical raw materials and items from the East were sold in Europe at cabbage prices through Hogwarts and Beauxbatons, it has become difficult for these three families to do business.

Since the "Blood-stained Valentine's Day Night" last week, the names of these three families have appeared in the Daily Prophet every day, because the three families were almost wiped out by Death Eaters on Valentine's Day night. The reason why the family was not completely wiped out was because there were still people in their family studying at Hogwarts, so they escaped the disaster.

But this is all information on the surface, and few people know about the secret activities, but the two people here now know it.

"Do you have any other opinions about what happened to these three families, Mr. Zhang?" Scrimgeour asked, staring into Zhang Xu's eyes.

"What else can I say?" Zhang Xu said while scratching the fish cake lying on his lap, "You shouldn't think that I instigated the Death Eaters to attack their family headquarters, Mr. Scrimgeour. "

Scrimgeour continued to stare at Zhang Xu and said, "When we interrogated Fenrir Greyback, we learned the truth about the werewolf army's attack on Hogsmeade."

No wonder Scrimgeour suspected that Zhang Xu was behind the scenes. They were the ones behind the werewolf siege of Hogsmeade, and their goal was Zhang Xu's life.

However, Zhang Xu's identity was a bit special, and it was difficult to invite him to the Ministry of Magic for tea without conclusive evidence. Therefore, Scrimgeour could only invite Zhang Xu out in private to make some insinuations.

Although Scrimgeour's guess was very reliable, Zhang Xu would not admit such a thing.

Zhang Xu said while scratching the belly of the fish cake: "I already know about this. At that time, they wanted to use the hands of werewolves to get rid of me."

"But later, under the mediation of Professor Dumbledore, the three of them showed enough sincerity, and I myself was not harmed too much, so I stopped pursuing them for the sake of Professor Dumbledore. ”

The amount of compensation proposed by the three companies to Zhang Xu was so generous that it was said that even Lucius Malfoy, who was the middleman, was shocked. Some people even planned to compensate Zhang Xu for their daughter who was studying at Hogwarts.

As a result, Zhang Xu gave up such compensation and transferred all the compensation to Hogwarts.

So Zhang Xu and Dumbledore played a double act and turned the compensation into entire shares of several magic raw material processing workshops.

Everyone knows that it is better to have a hen that lays golden eggs than to have a golden egg. From then on, after Hogwarts took control of all the shares of these processing workshops, it was no longer just an agent of raw materials, but also started its own business. The business of processing raw materials was established, and an industry-university-research base for potions and herbal medicine was initially established.

This is why Zhang Xu has so many privileges in Hogwarts and other professors - especially Professor McGonagall, who is always fair and strict - have no objections. Don't forget the well digger when drinking water.

Zhang Xu turned the fish cake over and continued to scratch its head and back while saying: "Actually, it's not surprising that the mysterious person would find them. This is also the conclusion I came to after a week of research. At the same time, It can explain why the other five families are also targeted by the mysterious person."

Scrimgeour's eyes suddenly widened as he stared at Zhang Xu.

Zhang Xu learned from the Order of the Phoenix's civil war within the Aurors that the Ministry of Magic's criteria for selecting targets for this Death Eater crime have not yet been finalized. From top to bottom, the Ministry of Magic could not figure out why the Death Eaters would choose them.

Zhang Xu took out eight brand new, thick notebooks and placed them in front of Scrimgeour.

Scrimgeour casually picked up the notebook with "Lawrence" written on the cover at the top, opened it, and looked at it carefully.

Opening the notebook, there are clippings from reports about the Lawrence family in the Daily Prophet and other newspapers and magazines over the past few years. These clippings are pasted in the notebook in chronological order.

Scrimgeour didn't find anything strange in it when he first read it, but when he turned to the last few pages, he felt as if he suddenly discovered a new world. He read the clippings of the last few pages over and over again several times.

Then he picked up other basic notebooks one after another, and turned directly to the last few pages to carefully read the newspaper clippings there.

Scrimgeour has been an Auror for so many years and has even become the director of the Auror Office, so his IQ is naturally not bad. ..

When solving a case and reaching the end of the road, sometimes after some details that are not noticed at ordinary times are noticed, it is easy to find the bright spots.

The last part of these newspaper clippings all have one thing in common. They all mention, explicitly or implicitly, that these families have been financially supporting the construction of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in recent times.

The fact that the workshops of the Hekmadia family, the Phantomhive family, and the Lawrence family have all become school-run workshops at Hogwarts cannot be hidden from other people, but the public doesn't know what's going on under the table. Just a transaction.

As for the other five families who were attacked by Death Eaters on the "Bloody Night of Valentine's Day", the Whitehorn family who founded the Nimbus Racing Broomstick Company, the Alton family who founded the Sideswipe Broomstick Company, and the Comet family who jointly founded the The Cage family and the Horton family of the trading companies, the Flett family, one of the shareholders of Flett and Buck Company, and other families all sell broomsticks. They recently plan to use Hogwarts as a breakthrough to regain the British broomsticks. market, so it is also throwing a lot of money at Hogwarts.

So now if Scrimgeour is suspicious of these families, he will only suspect the Weasley family. After all, Scrimgeour still knows about some dark side things, and the two children of the Weasley family almost died in their hands. .

What Scrimgeour didn't know was that most of the money was secretly transferred to the pockets of the Weasley family as compensation for not holding them responsible for trying to assassinate the twins.

As for the collusion between the Death Eaters and the Weasley family, I believe both the Ministry of Magic and the Death Eaters would feel that such a thing would never happen.

Scrimgeour has seen these reports before, but he has not thought about it. After all, the British wizarding world has not experienced an economic war in so many years. The two opposing parties directly eliminated the opponent's vitality, but there is no precedent of eliminating the opponent's pocketbook. .

And now, after Zhang Xu's prompting, Scrimgeour quickly discovered what these eight families had in common - they had all recently begun to give a lot of gold coins to Hogwarts.

Scrimgeour puts himself in Voldemort's position to consider this issue. Giving money to Hogwarts is equivalent to giving money to Dumbledore. If the person who gave money to Dumbledore is not dealt with, how can he still keep it for Easter? .

After getting Zhang Xu's permission, Scrimgeour put away these eight notebooks.

As for whether Scrimgeour will find out that Zhang Xu colluded with a Western reporter to deliberately publish suggestive and inducing news, Zhang Xu is still very confident about Rita Skeeter's methods.

As a benchmark figure among media people, she only needs to give a hint, and a bunch of new reporters who are worried about not being able to find news will naturally follow the direction she hinted to dig out news.

"I owe you a favor." Scrimgeour said to Zhang Xu after putting away his notebook, "I must rush back to the ministry now."

Just when Scrimgeour stood up, Zhang Xu suddenly whispered to him: "Do you want to be a minister, Mr. Scrimgeour."

An excellent Auror must be a very powerful wizard, but a person who can be the leader of Aurors needs not only strength, but also a delicate heart.

After listening to Zhang Xu's words, Scrimgeour did not reply, but stood condescendingly staring at Zhang Xu like a lion.

Zhang Xu just smiled and said: "As the Death Eaters take more and more actions, the mysterious man will definitely appear in front of the public again in the near future. At this time, Mr. Fudge will no longer be able to sit in this position. By then, everyone will There is definitely hope for a strong person to take up the ministerial role.”

Scrimgeour said nothing. After staring at Zhang Xu for a while, he turned and left. Zhang Xu sat on his seat and continued to feed fish cakes with dried fish.

Scrimgeour did not refute Zhang Xu on the spot, but Zhang Xu felt that he must have wanted to move up.

With the Minister of Magic as a delicious big cake in front of him, I believe Scrimgeour will be more purposeful in his next work.

Voldemort's power is now even more powerful than in the "plot", and it is still necessary to win over more powerful factions.