The Admiral of Hogwarts

Considering Hagrid's particular habits, Hugo and Hermione went to Hagrid the next day to persuade him not to habitually give everyone a surprise during class.

After all, Umbridge was in the school and would find excuses to get rid of teachers she thought were too close to Dumbledore. But Hagrid believed that anyone with a normal brain wouldn't want to study Blast-Ended Skrewts and give up Chimaeras.

Of course, this was just an analogy. It wasn't that he didn't want to raise them, but that he couldn't easily get Chimaera eggs. It must be said that as a half-giant, Hagrid had the stubbornness unique to giants.

"I think we can try to follow Hagrid and see what he's prepared. If it's too dangerous, we'll use other means to stop him from teaching about this animal," Hugo said to his sister after returning from Hagrid's.

Obviously, Hagrid didn't think there was anything wrong with the monsters he was raising, so naturally, he wouldn't hide their whereabouts. The next day, during their lunch break, Hugo and the others saw Hagrid carrying a whole sheep into the Forbidden Forest.

Following him not far, Hugo and Hermione saw him stop at a clearing in the forest, put the sheep on the ground, and then emit a strange, shrill cry that echoed through the dark forest, like the cry of a giant bird.

A few minutes later, several Thestrals emerged from the dark forest, looking at Hagrid for a few seconds with their pupil-less white eyes, then lowered their heads and began to tear at the dead sheep with their sharp teeth.

"This should be, um, not that dangerous," Hermione said, watching the Thestrals tearing at the sheep in the distance. "They've been pulling the school carriages for so many years and haven't been known to hurt anyone. At least they're safer than semi-wild Hippogriffs."

"And this thing should be for the fifth-year students. Whether it's us or Firefly, we'll be in class, so if anything dangerous happens, we can deal with it in time."

"Yes," Hugo said, watching Hagrid humming a little tune while feeding the Thestrals. "Originally, I planned to release the animals if they were too dangerous, but now it seems that the animals Hagrid chose aren't bad, at least they don't have any magical attack abilities."

Although he didn't quite trust Hagrid, Hugo believed in the abilities of the Ship Girls. At least this small group of a dozen Thestrals, even if they all attacked together, the Ship Girls would have a way to beat them all to the ground.

As Hugo and the others had predicted, although the animals Hagrid chose this time weren't terrible, Umbridge still gave them a slanderous assessment in class. It seemed that Hagrid's final evaluation would definitely not be high.

During this class inspection, Umbridge tried her best to portray Hagrid as a dim-witted giant, just because of his giant blood.

Although Hugo's intervention had prevented Hagrid's giant blood from being exposed last semester, Dumbledore's assignment to Hagrid this time, as well as his size, had led Fudge and his cronies to roughly guess this.

Naturally, with the Ministry of Magic's despicable nature, they wouldn't fail to use this weapon, so in this situation, Hagrid's bloodline problem also became a weapon for Fudge to use against Dumbledore.

"Do you think Umbridge might have been a Death Eater back then?" Hermione asked, pondering Umbridge's actions in class on the way back to the castle. "I haven't seen many Ministry of Magic officials publicly talk about bloodlines."

The Ministry of Magic was indeed dominated by pure-blood wizards, and it was indeed more discriminatory against non-pure-blood wizards, but the Ministry of Magic's staff, especially the Ministry of Magic's officials, would never say such things in public.

So, a guy like Umbridge who publicly advocated bloodline theory seemed very strange, feeling like those very extreme bloodline theorists.

"It's hard to say, but I don't think she should be a Death Eater, because the recruitment of Death Eaters requires either absolute loyalty or great ability. Letting this kind of person who only causes trouble internally, and is a purely selfish person, even Voldemort wouldn't want her."

After hearing his sister's question, Hugo seriously thought for a few seconds, and then made a deduction. "This kind of person is obviously more useful to Voldemort in the Ministry of Magic."

"You're right, the biggest characteristic of this kind of person is to exploit all kinds of loopholes in the rules for their own benefit. So, normal organizations all hope that these people are on their enemies' side, not on their own side."

Hearing Hugo say this, Hermione was stunned for a moment, and then nodded in agreement with his idea.

December brought more snow and a blizzard of homework for the fifth-year students. As Christmas approached, Hugo and Hermione's prefect duties became increasingly heavy.

They were responsible for supervising the decoration of the castle. In addition, they, the prefects, had to take turns patrolling the corridors with Argus Filch, because Filch suspected that fighting might increase during the holidays, so it needed to be dealt with.

It must be said that a Squib like Filch also had his pitiful side. At least for him, who was born into the magical world, knowing this world but being unable to join it was really too bad.

However, Filch's current problem was that his heart had become somewhat twisted after feeling this difference for a long time, so in the original text, he would cooperate with Umbridge everywhere this year to cause trouble.

Honestly, a Squib like him actually didn't like a discriminatory guy like Umbridge, but he also didn't like those students who relied on magic to cause trouble for him all day long, so he would cooperate with Umbridge's arrest plan.

But for Hugo, he was at least still salvageable, unlike Umbridge, who, apart from being reborn, really had no way to save her soul.

"Mr. Filch, I have a letter here from your niece," Hugo said, waving his wand to clean up the various graffiti marks on the corridor while taking out a letter from his pocket and handing it to Filch.

"A letter?" Filch was stunned for a moment after seeing the letter. Then he took the letter with trembling hands, because he remembered who this little niece was.

For wizards, although they wouldn't talk about Squibs, Squibs were inevitable. Especially for those small families with basically no major inheritance, the probability of producing Squibs was even greater.

So Filch's relatives included more than just him as Squibs. It was just that other Squibs often chose to live as ordinary people who didn't know magic, rather than choosing Filch's path.

Therefore, after Filch glanced at the name on the envelope and briefly recalled it, he remembered the little niece who was now in her thirties and worked as a doctor in Glasgow.

Of course, this Ms. Filch was now working at the lunar base with her husband, who was also a doctor. The reason for writing this letter was that after seeing the situation inside the lunar base, she hoped that her uncle could truly find his dream here.

"Thank you, thank you for bringing this letter," For Filch, who had worked alone at Hogwarts for decades with only a cat as company, receiving a letter from a relative was an exceptionally happy thing.

So, he naturally expressed his heartfelt gratitude to Hugo, the messenger, after receiving the letter, and then left somewhat失态 with that letter, leaving only Hugo there to patrol.