Scrimgeour’s Wit

Watching the lion dance performed by the special guest, Cedric Diggory, Adam applauded while keeping part of his attention on the Ministry of Magic group.

"Hiss, I was wondering why they hadn’t come in after so long. They got stuck at the first hurdle."

Adam felt rather embarrassed. The Ministry of Magic was even more pathetic than he had imagined, and not by just a little.

If they couldn’t break through the protective magic on the gate, that meant they couldn’t even pierce a Míngbō Dragon’s hide…

After crossbreeding with Australian Opaleyes, the resulting Míngbō Dragons possessed far greater magical resistance than Australian Opaleyes. They could take a Killing Curse to the face and survive; it took several more curses to kill one completely. Not to mention how difficult it was to hit a Míngbō Dragon in the water with a Killing Curse…

At this rate, forget waiting for Xiao Hei to make an appearance. This group probably wouldn’t even get past the Black Lake stage. Maybe the Míngbō Dragon shouldn’t appear at all. Let the merpeople put on a token show for them instead.

But… if they couldn’t even hunt a Míngbō Dragon, wouldn’t Xiao Hei’s entrance effects alone wipe them all out?

Thinking of how the lines he had prepared for so long might not even get used, the smile on Adam’s face gradually faded.

Go in, or not?

Scrimgeour stood where he was, deep in thought.

Unlike that brain-dead rookie, he knew perfectly well that attack hadn’t broken the protective magic on the gate at all.

That meant the gate now standing open before them was a trap so obvious it did not even bother to cover itself with grass—a bare hook with no bait, blatantly insulting his intelligence!

"Minister, I don’t think this feels right. There may be a trap waiting ahead. Perhaps… we should retreat?"

Gadwin hesitantly offered his suggestion to Scrimgeour.

Scrimgeour was tempted, but he had brought nearly all of the Ministry’s fighting strength with him this time. They had only just reached Hogwarts’s gates, and now that the other side had opened them, he was too afraid to enter…

That directly conflicted with his usual efforts to clean up the Ministry’s atmosphere and change the public’s impression of it as weak and incompetent!

After a brief internal struggle, Scrimgeour still did not believe Gandalf would dare attack the Ministry of Magic. Perhaps this was simply Gandalf’s method of scaring them away?

Confident in the experience and knowledge he had accumulated over so many years, once Scrimgeour found a line of thought, everything suddenly clicked into place.

Gandalf must have expended enormous effort to set up such powerful protective magic at the gate. Its range could not possibly be that large. His goal was to make Scrimgeour misjudge their strength.

By opening the gate now, Gandalf wanted him to overthink things. In reality, the protective magic on the gate must already be on the verge of collapse, right?

With that thought, Scrimgeour felt as though he had seen straight through his opponent’s scheme. All his previous doubts now seemed utterly ridiculous.

Straightening his back, Scrimgeour showed a somewhat stiff smile.

"I’ve seen through Gandalf’s trick. Let’s go."

With that, Scrimgeour took the lead and passed through the open iron gates.

A trick? What trick?

Gadwin was somewhat bewildered, but out of trust built through years of following his superior through life-and-death situations, he nodded and called for his subordinates to follow Scrimgeour.

Their footsteps rustled over fallen leaves. Darkness surrounded them, while several Aurors used Lumos to light the way for the entire group and remained alert to their surroundings.

Though Scrimgeour knew in his heart that Gandalf would have no other tricks after his bluff had been exposed, he was still quite pleased with his subordinates’ vigilance.

Sure enough, just as he had expected, they encountered no danger all the way to the Black Lake.

"Minister, how do we get across now?"

Hogwarts had anti-Apparition magic. To reach Hogwarts Castle from the Black Lake, there were three routes.

The first was to take a boat across the Black Lake to the boathouse on the opposite shore. This was also the route first-years took when they first arrived at Hogwarts Castle.

The other was to ride the flying carriages pulled by Thestrals. Normally, students in their second year and above took this route to Hogwarts Castle.

As for the last route… naturally, it was the most primitive method: using their own two legs to walk all the way around the Black Lake to Hogwarts Castle. Under normal circumstances, no one would do that.

It was not the first day of term, and the Thestrals were all serving as bosses in the fourth area of the Forbidden Forest. Naturally, they would not be here. As for walking… looking at the vast Black Lake, by the time the Ministry group arrived, the people at Hogwarts would probably already be asleep.

But the Ministry personnel had naturally come prepared. As they continued forward, several Aurors discovered a few small boats by the dock.

"At least this is still the same as before."

There was only one wizarding school in all of Britain, so everyone from the Ministry had graduated from Hogwarts. They understood some of Hogwarts’s customs and knew that Hogwarts usually kept a few boats at the dock here for daily travel.

Fortunately, that custom had not been abolished just because the school had changed headmasters. They would not need the boats they had brought themselves.

After untying the ropes from the posts, they boarded one by one, four to a boat. Once the fourth person had settled in, each boat immediately began moving automatically toward the opposite shore of the Black Lake.

"This reminds me of my first time at Hogwarts."

One Auror could not help sighing. The leaders were all in the boats ahead, so he lowered his voice without worrying about being overheard.

"Yeah. I saw movement in the water back then and got so scared I nearly fell out of the boat. The Giant Squid pulled me back up… it feels like yesterday."

Another Auror could not help speaking softly as well.

The pressure at the Ministry had been immense lately. Aurors in particular were on the front lines against the Death Eaters, walking the edge between life and death and having to keep their nerves taut. On top of that, they had to face the public’s condemnation over their lack of action.

"Yeah, I even swam with the Giant Squid in the Black Lake back then. I wonder if it’s awake now."

The little wizards who had once needed to lean out when touching the lake water, constantly careful not to fall in, could now simply lean against the side of the boat and reach the water with a hand.

Yet as that Auror casually stirred the water, his hand seemed to touch something…

"Hm? Is that the Giant Squid?"

The Auror turned to look, only to see part of a glittering tail fin cut across the surface before sinking back beneath the water.

"Merpeople? Don’t they always live at the bottom of the Black Lake? Why have they come up to the surface?"

Most Hogwarts students had heard that merpeople lived in the Black Lake, but very few had actually seen them. Even Slytherin students only had the house legend that merpeople could be seen outside their windows.

Driven by curiosity, the Auror could not help leaning his upper body out to look into the lake. At that moment, ripples spread across the water he was staring at…