She is not here looking for food to eat. Hermione thought indignantly - although her principles had long been polished to be extremely well-rounded and flexible by her successive adventures, she still often wondered how she was surrounded by people who considered breaking the school rules (and sometimes the law!) as simple as eating and drinking -
She avoids breaking the rules (and sometimes the law!) and tries to behave honourably unless she has a good excuse.
So she hesitated to say that she had once incidentally made a Niffler Sneakoscope, which was inspired by Grindelwald, who had given one to Neville. But the words stopped on the edge of her mouth, because, well, it kind of seemed like she had an ulterior motive ...
"I'm not hungry--" Hermione opened her mouth to explain, but the next moment her stomach grumbled. Her face instantly turned red like fire.
The fire in the fireplace was blazing. Hermione didn't know how she sat down, it seemed as if the professor had just extended an invitation, and when she came back to her senses, she found herself sitting upright on a small round stool (provided by the house elf), staring at the sizzling roasting fish in the fireplace, her face felt hot from the heat.
Hermione lowered her head and found Valen looking up at her, her little dark eyes twinkling brightly.
"I have been rather busy lately, wasn't often at school." Felix said, "I heard that the students kinda like being in Classroom Seven?"
"Oh, yes. Professor, what have you been up to these days?"
"Just wandering all over the world. Yesterday I dealt with another magical incident," Seeing Hermione's surprised look, Felix explained: "By chance, a farmer found a wizard's discarded Self-Stirring Cauldron, the magic on the cauldron was no longer effective, but there was still a residual Draught of Living Death in the cauldron, the farmer used the cauldron to prepare a dose of insect repellent. Thirty cows were found unconscious the next morning ... It was even reported in the news."
"Was that discarded cauldron a mistake, or did someone leave it there on purpose?" Hermione asked with a frown, "I know some wizards like to tease muggles, Ron's father dealt with many similar cases."
"It's hard to say," Felix said after thinking for a moment, "I guess it was just an accident. A number of wizards who have been living in muggle communities have returned to the wizarding world during this time, and Hogsmeade alone has expanded outward twice as a result of the relocation, so it was likely someone had left it behind when they moved."
"Mr. Hap, Miss Granger." At that moment, a house elf wearing a wide white scarf appeared, holding a silver tray with stacks of small cookies and three goblets filled with pumpkin juice. "Thank you, Cloudbur." Felix took a cookie, Hermione also said thank you, and then Felix was keenly aware of the difference in addressing.
"So, do you know each other, Cloudbur?" He asked. It was quite evident from the way he was calling her, as he called her by name instead of how they would call other students.
"Yes," the house elf Cloudbur said respectfully, "there was a period of time when Miss Granger used to drop by frequently, Cloudbur and the rest were puzzled at the time, and many elves were upset about it, but then we understood - Miss was fighting for elves rights. "
Hermione waved her hand repeatedly, gesturing to the house elf not to go on, so Cloudbur bowed deeply and left. In fact, Felix was quite curious to know what the house elves thought of the Pan-Magic Alliance, and he wondered what kind of perks and rights the Ministry of Magic had come up with for house elves; probably a few extra days of rest plus money to buy gifts for their masters.
The kitchen was a little quiet for a while. Then Hermione heard the sound of metal clinking, she looked over and saw Valen pulling out a pocket knife and fork from her little pocket and tying a palm-sized emerald green handkerchief around her neck, when she saw Hermione staring straight at her, she hesitantly pulled out another red handkerchief and handed it to Hermione.
"Kee?"
"No, well, I-I don't need one, and it's too small for--" Hermione trailed off, when Felix chimed in, "Give me one, too." Valen grunted in displeasure and slowly took out a bright yellow handkerchief and shoved it into his hand. Felix waved it in the air, and the handkerchief grew larger magically with an additional layer of runes embellishment.
He placed the handkerchief that was several times larger on his knees and turned his head to look at Hermione.
Then Hermione took out her wand and pointed it at the handkerchief, which immediately transformed into a wide dining cloth, then the fireplace in front of them brightened up, with a dozen sizzling roasted fish floating in front of them, shiny and rich in flavour, looking very appetizing.
Felix, Hermione, and Valen each took a grilled fish, the rest were given to the house elves, the house elves did not refuse, and they dutifully carried over three small tables, which were placed in front of the three. Then they went to the side to enjoy the food.
This kind of behaviour that goes against the nature of the house elves surprised Hermione, but it did happen, so there could only be one possible reason: this same thing should have repeated many times, and the house elves know that it is hopeless to reason with them, so they no longer bother to make a protest.
Hermione took a bite of the fish, she did not sense any fish bones, and could not help but praise the miraculous spell that extracted fish bones, in her heart.
This late-night meal was extremely weird.
The crowd was large, like a dinner gathering, but the house elves were basically silent, but judging from their contentedly swaying bodies, and tiny physical gestures, you can tell that they are in a very happy mood, which caused Hermione to have an illusion of participating in the festival of a mysterious tribe.
Moreover, she also gleaned a secret from the movement of the house elves swallowing food - thanks to her sitting on a stool less than a foot high, she could clearly see - it is difficult for wizards to distinguish the gender of house elves through their outward appearance. But today Hermione figured out that male house elves had slightly protruding throat knots, while female house elves had softer, less noticeable lines on their necks. Exactly the same as humans.
Hermione wondered if this secret was obstructed from being discovered due to the fact that house elves always talk with their heads down. Seeing how the plates started to become empty, and they had eaten and drunk their fill Hermione finally remembered why she came over.
"Um, Professor?" She wiped her mouth with her napkin and said, "Those kids you saved from the U.S. government ..." Felix turned to her, his plate was long empty. "There was a lot of discussion in the ... newspapers, but all in all those comments were both positive and negative,"
"Quite normal," Felix muttered, "when you put yourself in the public eye unless you are so bad enough to be disgusting, you will always receive both praise and criticism. But I don't suppose there are many people who question the need to save those kids, are there?"
"That's right. With the publication of the book "Enabling the Exposure of Magic," a number of anthropologists and historians have already recognized ancient wizards as one of the early humankind, and the director of the British National Museum claims to have found evidence from the murals of primitive people: it is believed that wizards were first to appear out of two communities: primitive warriors, who gained their magical powers by fighting magical creatures, and rituals, for example, using the blood and bones to perform rituals ..."
Felix was unconvinced by this conjecture; he had made similar guesses, but they were only guesses. The specific origin of wizards is so old that no one knows the exact truth. Moreover, there is no standard method of analysis. What exactly marks the emergence of wizards? Did the use of magical creatures to create 'magical artefacts' and other things marked it? Or did the first appearance of mysterious powers in ancient humans mark the emergence of wizards? Or perhaps - is it only truly founded when magical knowledge was summarized and passed on to other gifted individuals?
The significance of each of these three is quite remarkable. The first example represents an attempt by humans to harness magic; the second example means that magic is something that inborn in wizards from the very beginning; while the third example implies that magic could be imparted, and thus the mastery of magic went from an individual to a group.
Or perhaps none of the above is accurate; why can't magical creatures and wizards both emerge at the same time?
Felix did not attach too much importance to the answer to this question, and when it was discussed, he asked for this "unproven history" to be included simply in terms of public awareness to avoid many questions.
Hermione, after elaborating on the contents of the newspaper clippings, concluded.
"The controversial part is about the tactics you use, Professor - they want to solve the problem through the law, not frontal confrontation, and there is a lot of debate about whether wizards have the right to investigate and enforce the law."
Felix said in a low but firm voice, "They can discuss it, but I'm not going to compromise on this matter."
Hermione bit her lip. But this was not why she was here tonight, beside Grindelwald's approach was much more radical - he is promoting total revenge, believing that once a country or individual tries to steal a wizard's power, a wizard can retaliate by any means, like how the witch who lost her daughter had burned the lab with a Fiendfyre did.
"Are all those children fine?" She asked in a whisper.
"Fine, except for a few frightened ones." Felix glanced at her, not elaborating on the inner details of the situation. "Ilvermorny's healers will take care of them carefully, along with necessary examinations - magic is not the only way to modify memories, except for the fact that all means other than magic are more tedious and must be performed in a closed environment for a long time."
"Therefore, I simply checked whether or not they had a locator device on their bodies."
"Locator device?" Hermione said in surprise: "Won't those kinds of technological gadgets fail due to being close to magic? I read in Hogwarts: A History-"
"With the other side's intention to probe, expecting them to automatically fail would be too passive and incautious," Felix said, then paused as if hesitating to reveal more, but then he went on, "In fact, I suspect the local government knows some general locations of wizard gathering place. The relationship between the Magical Congress of the United States of America and the United States Muggle government is not good, as potential enemies, they will naturally try to collect useful information, and it's quite difficult to keep it completely secret."
"But--" Hermione's face looked shaken.
"You are worried that they might try to initiate a war since they've our locations?"
Hermione nodded.
"The chances of that are slim to none." Felix smiled and said, "All magical communities - especially schools - are shrouded in magic, at worst shielded by Muggle-Repelling Charm and Intruder Charm, with a huge range of coverage. Trying to breach it by purely technological means - I don't know if it's feasible, but it certainly would require a huge amount of time, and the wizards staying inside could be evacuated quickly; as for using heavy artillery weapons ... maybe there was a possibility of that at first, but it's near completely gone now. "
Hermione looked at Felix in confusion, and Felix waved his hand so that their voices could not spread out and could only be heard by the three of them.
"Granger ... Since you decided that you want to be a Minister of Magic as your career choice, and you did show potential in that area, we can talk a little deeper on this subject. I don't want this conversation to be made known to the public, not even a word of it can be revealed, even to Harry, Ron, and your parents ... are you okay with that?"
Hermione agreed with some nervousness.
"Very well, let's take the United States for example, due to their history, they have a much lower percentage of wizards, almost forty to fifty thousand. Let's discuss the most extreme scenario - these wizards suddenly suffer a devastating attack and lose a lot of people, but the possibility of half of them surviving is still quite high, and this is still the outcome when the Magical Congress of the United States of America would be foolish enough not to find any hints of attack."
Hermione imagined the scene, she had seen documentaries on human warfare and had a clear idea of the horror of intense artillery bombing coverage, her body shook sharply, and her face turned pale.
"But then what?"
Felix said in a calm tone, "This is the beginning of the war, not the end. Once this happens, there will definitely be a mass fleeing of wizards, but there will also be a significant number of wizards who will stay and decide to fight till their death, because of the loss of their family, friends, and everything ... A person who has nothing but vengeful thoughts will turn into a reasonless beast, and at the same time the most tenacious warrior. We know from past history that weapons will be upgraded the fastest during the war years. Still, I'm 100% sure that wizards will only grow faster than that, especially if they choose to let hatred fill their hearts, war will make people cold and apathetic, and at that time, Fiendfyre would simply become the most merciful method of killing and destruction ... "
"No, that's horrible, we should never let that happen." Hermione murmured.
Felix looked at her quietly and after a moment he said, "That's what we're doing. Well, forget about it. The above is just an academic discussion, a hypothesis, and basically will not happen. What do you think we've been trying to do all these months? You should go back, it's about time for lights out."
Hermione silently walked towards the kitchen entrance, Valen yawning and curled up in Felix's arms. They came into the entrance hall, and Hermione suddenly said, "Hold on, Professor, I have something very important to tell you, and that's why I was looking for you - I went to your office, but you weren't there."
She just received a huge mental blow, and almost forgot the real purpose of her trip.
"What was it?"
"When we were sorting through the newspaper clippings this morning, me, Harry and Ron discussed a possibility ..." Hermione said quickly what had happened during the day, and Felix shook his head slightly, "The Magical Congress of the United States will guard against this, they've already had some clashes over this with the Muggle government. As for the young wizards who are not yet enrolled, there is indeed a chance for it, but Ilvermorny-"
"Professor, you want to say that the Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry has collected their names, don't you?" Hermione said quickly.
Felix's expression grew serious, Hermione obviously wanted to say that there are loopholes that can be exploited ... a sudden scene flashed, it is the words that Professor McGonagall had said to him: "There are three students refused to enrol in the school."
In fact, refusal to enrol is no big deal, he previously did not attach too much importance to it.
The procedures are all pretty much set. When this happens, Hogwarts will send a few professors to communicate with the parents, and if the communication is unsuccessful, it will be reported to the Ministry of Magic, who will dispatch another person to deal with the situation (using the Obliviate if necessary), accompanied by years of supervision. This process generally lasts until adulthood (the later it becomes, the less it matters), which is 17 years old, meaning that those who give up on magic basically won't be able to accidentally create damages due to emotional outbursts after that, and their magic will gradually become dormant due to long periods of unexercised magic.
This is quite different from the Obscurial. Obscurials are children who have been physically or mentally abused, and grow to hate and repress their magical abilities, refusing to cast spells. They are basically unrelated to those who give up magic because the Obscurial hardly lives past the age of ten.
Felix also only mentioned it to Professor McGonagall after learning what happened to Dumbledore's sister and knowing that some rare Obscurial might live past the age of ten.
"... The light in Hagrid's hut was left on, making us think he was in the house the whole time, but in fact, he went out, and Harry's Marauder's map had a limited search range, so once Hagrid went deeper into the Forbidden Forest, there was no way to find him." Hermione continued, as her lips began to tremble, "But the point is, was he really in the Forbidden Forest at that time? And what happened? We don't know all these ..."
There is no need to say more.
Felix fully understood her thoughts, and precisely because of this, his expression turned frosty like never before.
If the young wizards had stayed in the country, they would not have been in danger, and even if they happened to be in danger, it would be quickly noticed, but what if one day their family decided to emigrate? Or any other reason? The endless sea is beyond the reach of the wizard's magic.
At this moment, as they speak, would there be a ship or two, or a submarine, carrying the little wizards wandering around? No one would know what had happened to them before they set foot on land. Naturally, this also includes the possibility of never docking.
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