Chapter 939: Evil people still need to be punished by evil people
As soon as Hermione sat down again, Ron, who had been flipping through the "Defense Guide", put down the magazine, raised his head and asked, "Hermione, what are you doing to find Anderson?"
"Give him this month's manuscript to review." Hermione lowered her voice.
“What manuscript?” Harry asked curiously.
“The story behind the Defense Guide.” After Hermione finished speaking, the expression on her face became a little unnatural.
“That story was actually written by you?”
Ron was so surprised that he almost turned the "Defense Guide" in his hand to the end, pointed to the story and asked Hermione.
"Stop talking nonsense." Hermione glared at Harry and Ron, trying to shut them up.
“I remember that the signature of that article seemed to be someone other than you.”
Harry has of course read that article. He would read the "Defense Guide" carefully every month. The magazine created by Sirius was indeed very high-level, and the knowledge about defense against dark arts always benefited him a lot.
"By the way, please help me read these readers' letters first." Hermione took out a pile of letters from her robe pocket and handed them to Harry and Ron.
"Why don't you read it yourself?" Harry picked up a letter and asked doubtfully.
"If the content in the letter is terrible, I won't read it so as not to be upset." Hermione motioned for them to read the content in the letter first. "If the letter from the reader is okay, bring it to me."
Ron and Harry looked at each other, smiled, opened the envelope in their hands, took out the letter paper from inside, and began to read the contents.
“I think that’s a very smart thing for you to do. Many readers are not very kind.”
After a moment, Ron stuffed the letter back, shrugged and said to Hermione: "This guy is not very friendly. I really don't know why he sent you a letter. Is it because he wants to disgust you?"
"Perhaps, this person here asked you if there was any way to get a house elf." Harry put the envelope down, picked up another letter and opened it.
A few minutes later, Harry and Ron had read all the letters Hermione received from readers. As Albert had expected, the contents of the letters were all kinds of but not satisfactory.
Hermione was a little disappointed. She thought that the novel could gain her a group of supporters. However, as Albert said, reality is often cruel, and the guys who are willing to take the time to reply to her are probably too busy.
"I think you are right in not using your real name, at least they can't send the letter directly to you." After reading the letter from the reader, Ron suddenly felt that Hermione's approach was quite wise.
At this moment, an owl flew towards this side and threw a red envelope in front of Hermione.
“Oh, damn!”
Hermione's eyes fell on the red envelope on the table, and her expression became ugly. This was already the third yelling letter she had received this month.
"what to do?"
Ron looked at the roaring letter that had started to smoke, and looked at Hermione uneasily: "Do you want to open it? If you don't open it, the situation may get worse."
"I must make that woman pay the price!" Hermione's eyes were so cold that neither Harry nor Ron dared to look directly at her.
“How about asking Albert if he has any good ideas.”
Harry also hates these howling letters. Once these letters explode in the auditorium, even those who don't read "Wizard Weekly" will know about the so-called love triangle between Harry, Krum, and Hermione.
Thanks to the previous two howling letters, the entire Hogwarts students probably already know about this matter.
Harry felt that the wizards who sent Hermione howling letters were a bunch of malicious bastards.
Those guys did it on purpose, otherwise they wouldn’t have sent shouting letters to the school. Isn’t this deliberately adding salt to the wound?
Although this incident was false, it still made Harry very angry. He had been explaining it to others recently.
Without waiting for Hermione to answer, Harry went to find Albert with the letter that was starting to smoke from all corners.
Fortunately, Albert was eating in the hall, otherwise the roaring letter would not have lasted until then.
Sometimes, Harry felt that Hermione's insistence was meaningless. He felt that Albert should find a way to protect Hermione from the harassment of these envelopes.
“Who sent you the howler letter?”
Lee Jordan looked at the smoking envelope with interest.
“This was sent to Hermione by someone else.” Harry explained helplessly.
“Hermione has been receiving this stuff a lot lately?” Fred asked curiously, “What did you take it for?”
Harry looked at Albert who was eating and asked, "Is there any way? Hermione has been receiving malicious letters recently."
"Oh, you can use the shielding spell on yourself." Albert glanced at Hermione and Ron who were walking this way, slowly took out a handkerchief and wiped the corners of his mouth and said, "If the shielding spell is strong enough, it can be easily blocked. Letter from the Owl.”
"Then...is there anything you can do about this letter?" Harry breathed a sigh of relief. He felt that Hermione receiving yelling letters every three days was not a solution, which made them mentally weak.
"I can give it a try. I haven't done this yet." Albert took out his wand from his pocket and pointed at the roaring letter in Harry's hand that was about to explode. The letter floated directly into the air. middle.
Using the Transformation Spell would be a good choice, but he was afraid that if he used the Howling Letter, it would explode immediately.
After all, you don’t want people to reject a howl letter, so you should have considered this kind of thing.
“What are you going to do?”
Fred and George were both curious about how Albert planned to block the howlers.
“I’m afraid it’s not easy to force it to stop, but you can try physical isolation.”
As he spoke, a water ball instantly enveloped the entire roaring letter, but the letter was still burning in the water.
“Is this really okay?” Lee Jordan felt that this was very unreliable.
"It should be no problem. The essence of a roaring letter is to amplify the sound. As long as the sound is isolated, the roaring letter should be able to be blocked."
Albert used his wand to touch the water balloon, and a layer of foam appeared on the surface of the water balloon, which was then swallowed up by another larger water balloon.
Finally, a sandwich water balloon is formed in the eyes of everyone.
If a vacuum environment could be created, there would probably be no problem, but Albert couldn't do it, so he had to put the letter in water to see if he could isolate the sound.
After the envelope in the water balloon burned up, the water balloon suddenly exploded, and the sound inside also came out of the water, but it was no longer as loud as the roaring letter, but became blurry, and no one could hear it. What are you yelling about?
“It’s incredible, I didn’t expect to be able to do this.” George felt that he had become more knowledgeable again, and Albert could always bring them unexpected surprises.
"The principle of the roaring letter should be to amplify the sound. Just isolate the sound. Well, maybe you can try to use the principle of the roaring letter to develop a similar sound bomb." Albert thinks the method of the roaring letter is very interesting. You can create "gadgets" to attract other people's attention and are sure to shock them.
"Oh, of course it's no problem." Albert waved his magic wand, making the water ball disappear out of thin air. "If you don't have the letter you want to receive, I can use it on you now to prevent you from receiving it in the future. Similar letters.”
“Oh, of course not.”
"That's good." Albert helped Hermione cast a shielding spell and reminded: "The effect of the shielding spell can last for about three days. As for this spell, I will teach you another day when I have time."
“That guy is really awesome.” Ron sighed in a low voice.
After several people returned to their original seats, Hermione suddenly said loudly and viciously, "I must make that woman pay the price!"
“This thing will go away,” Harry told Hermione. “As long as we ignore it... people will get tired of it—”
"She was not allowed to enter the venue, how could she overhear a private conversation!" Hermione said angrily.
“Perhaps, Rita Skeeter uses an invisibility cloak?” Harry had an invisibility cloak himself and knew how useful it was. He wouldn't be surprised if the woman used the Invisibility Cloak to sneak into Hogwarts.
"It's not the invisibility cloak. I asked Professor Moody. During the second project, he didn't see Rita Skeeter at the referee's table or anywhere by the lake." Hermione said through gritted teeth.
"Perhaps, she secretly installed a listening device on you." Harry said tentatively.
"It's definitely not a bug." Hermione explained impatiently, "I've told you a long time ago that the magical magnetic field in Hogwarts is too strong and Muggle electrical appliances cannot be used at all. I'm sure that woman relied on magic. Eavesdropping on other people’s conversations.”
“Perhaps Anderson knows something?” Ron reminded. “He, Fred, and George have been developing all kinds of weird magic gadgets. Maybe they can actually make what you call a bug.”
"I think you can ask Albert some time. Are you going to learn the shielding spell from him anyway?" Harry suggested.
“You know, he knows almost everything.”
"Perhaps, you can ask Anderson to help you divine. You two have a good relationship. I don't think that guy will ask you for money." Ron felt that instead of letting Hermione guess, it would be better to ask Albert directly.
Although they don't want to admit it, they have begun to move Albert closer to omniscience. Like Dumbledore, Albert is also very reliable.
"I doubt that Albert has any agreement with Rita Skeeter. He shouldn't help me deal with that woman." Hermione didn't want to embarrass Albert.
“Promise?”
“What agreement?”
“I don’t know, probably because Rita Skeeter is not allowed to report news related to him randomly, haven’t you noticed that there is almost no news related to Albert in the Daily Prophet?” Hermione reminded.
"It turns out there was a behind-the-scenes deal between them. Is it any wonder that Rita Skeeter didn't report the news about Anderson?" In Harry's opinion, Albert should be more famous than him, but in the end there was no gossip at all, which was strange. , and now they finally know why.
"I'm more curious about how he silenced that woman." Ron whispered, "It was not an easy thing."
"I don't know." Hermione shook her head.
“That guy is really capable!” Harry said sourly.
He was annoyed by Rita Skeeter's article, but what annoyed him most was that the readers, like idiots, believed it.
"This matter will be over soon. I don't think there is any need for you to fight to the death with Rita Skeeter. That woman is very difficult to mess with." Ron said carefully. He didn't want Her from the beginning. Min went to mess with the woman.
"I'll handle this matter myself!" Hermione glanced at Ron and said coldly: "I'm sure that guy's behavior is absolutely illegal. As long as I catch the handle, she won't be able to escape. .”
After Hermione finished her share of food, she stood up and left.
"Women who hold grudges are terrible!" Ron looked at Hermione's leaving figure and whispered to Harry: "I have warned her not to provoke Rita Skeeter, but Hermione refused to listen. As a result, It became what it is now.”
Both Harry and Ron were relieved that Hermione didn't ask Harry and Ron to help her settle the score with Rita Skeeter.
As Ron said, that woman offended a large group of people and made them gnash their teeth. However, the fact that she is still safe and sound speaks volumes. It is not easy to catch her.
In their opinion, without Albert's help, Hermione's probability of success is almost zero.
“How about we ask Anderson directly.”
Harry and Ron did not find Albert. They had already finished eating and left the hall.
When they returned to the common room, they found Hermione learning shielding spells from Albert.
The two looked at each other and did not bother them. Instead, they looked at Fred and George who did not know what they were doing.
"What are you doing?"
Harry saw a red envelope, and his expression froze instantly.
After George opened the envelope, a loud noise filled the entire common room, shaking the dust from the ceiling: "Don't do it here, do you want to scare everyone to death?"
After the roaring stopped, everyone in the common room looked over.
“What the **** are you doing.”
“Ahem.” Fred said awkwardly, “It was just an accident.”
The Weasley brothers ran away as people glared at them.
Albert looked at the twin brothers who had slipped away, stretched out his hand to comfort the angry Tom, and then looked at Hermione and asked, "Are you going to send a howling letter to Rita Skeeter?"
"No, I intend to teach that woman a lesson." Hermione said in a low voice, "I suspect she is an illegal Animagus."
Before Albert could speak, Hermione continued, "As you said, it's not easy to eavesdrop. The retractable ears invented by Fred and George also have limited effects, and Hogwarts has magic. Protection, even if Rita Skeeter knew some magic, it would be difficult to eavesdrop outside the school."
"Last year, the Sirius thing inspired me as to why Rita Skeeter couldn't be an illegal animagus, if her animagus was so inconspicuous it would be perfect for eavesdropping on people. Talk, whether it’s Hagrid that time or me this time.”
"That makes sense." Albert praised, "Your thinking is sharp, it shouldn't be difficult to catch that guy."
"You threatened her with this?" Hermione asked curiously.
"No, I told that woman that if she continues to report my news, I will write to the wizards who hate her and convince them to spend money to hunt her down on the black market." Albert said calmly.
"You know, a thousand Galleons is enough to make those criminals excited." Albert said lightly.
“Are you going to find someone to kill her?” Hermione asked in disbelief.
"Of course not, I can have her sent to St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries." Albert said calmly, "If she doesn't compromise, she will compromise a few times."
Hermione was speechless.
"Don't be merciful when dealing with bad guys." Albert stroked Tom's hair and said, "You need to be tough enough to make her listen to you. Being too weak will only make people think you are easy to bully, so she dares Reporting gossip about Harry Potter without restraint. There is no doubt that the effect was very good, and that guy never touched any reports related to me again.”
"It's really effective." Hermione didn't think Albert's approach was excessive. However, she will use her own methods to silence the woman.
(End of this chapter)