Chapter 869
Strategies and Concerns
Chapter 869 Strategies and Concerns
"Slovenly! Useless! Lazybones who idles away his time!"
Vernon Dursley completely ignored the fact that Harry had been mowing the lawn under the scorching sun the day before, and that Dudley couldn't even wash his own socks, and roared angrily:
"I've never seen such a lazybones before, he doesn't even do basic housework..."
The man's roar seemed to make the walls vibrate and tremble, but Harry ignored it, slammed the door shut, rushed to the bedside, and rummaged through the Friends Book, his chest heaving with rapid breathing.
He tried to contact Ron urgently, but received no response;
When I contacted Hermione again, she hurriedly replied: "I know what you want to say, I'm asking that too."
Harry then tried to contact Wade, but the page remained silent as always.
Just as he turned two pages to send messages to Fred and George asking questions, the communication pea he had tossed in his pocket suddenly began to vibrate.
Harry hurriedly put on the communication pea, and as soon as the call connected, he heard Ron yawning:
"Merlin's beard, it's still summer vacation, why are you all up so early? Hermione was also in a hurry to find me earlier, did you two plan this?"
"That program on TV!" Harry exclaimed urgently in a low voice, ignoring the pleasantries. "I saw Fred and George! Have they gone mad? Using magic on TV!"
"Oh, I knew you'd all talk about this..."
Ron muttered, "Luckily I had the foresight to borrow Mom's communication pea..."
“Percy sent an owl over this morning to lecture him! Saying Fred and George were causing him trouble—as if I could control them! He knows the twins won't listen to him, so he came to me to show off…”
Ron grumbled under his breath, and Harry couldn't help but call out, "Ron! What's going on? Aren't we not allowed to use magic during the holidays?"
"Okay, okay, stop being so loud..." Ron rubbed his ears, almost jumping off the bed from Harry's noise.
But he still didn't want to get up, so he just turned over and said:
"Let's start with what you're most concerned about: Fred and George didn't use the Levitation Charm."
"Well, I should say that the spell was real, but the wand was fake, and the spell wasn't cast. They actually used a Muggle magic tool."
"But it can't be said that magic wasn't used at all... During the recording of the show, my dad actually secretly used a levitation charm... to ensure that their magic performance wouldn't go wrong..."
Ron's words were somewhat incoherent, but Harry understood them. However, after understanding them, he became even more confused.
"Why do you do this?" Harry asked, puzzled. "Are Fred and George going to become stars?"
"Them? They'd be better suited to be comedians!"
Ron muttered a complaint, then said, "My dad said it's a Ministry of Magic strategy."
"Strategy?" Harry asked.
Ron rolled over again and said, "It's said that because there are more and more cameras on Muggles, in order to prevent some confused wizard from being filmed casting spells, it's better to create convincing fake videos in advance, and then expose them as hoaxes or hallucinations."
"That way, even if real magic is filmed later, Muggles will be foolish enough to think it's just a TV show. They call it... taking the high ground in public opinion."
"Fred and George thought it was hilarious and volunteered. You know, nobody loves a good show more than those two!" "What's more, this is a public breach of the Statute of Secrecy with the Ministry of Magic's permission; those two are practically ecstatic..."
"Ronald Weasley! Are you trying to stay in bed forever? Get up right now!"
Mrs. Weasley's roar could be faintly heard through the communication pea, accompanied by a loud "thud".
It took Harry two seconds to realize that Ron had fallen off the bed.
Two seconds later, Ron finally got up, frantically putting on his clothes while hurriedly saying to Harry:
"I'm going downstairs now. Mom's banging on the ceiling with a broom! Remember, don't tell anyone what happened!"
The call ended abruptly, and Harry was stunned for a moment before realizing that Hermione had also replied to his message.
[...It must be said that the Ministry of Magic's method is quite ingenious. Actively creating controlled magical performances and categorizing all wondrous phenomena as man-made magic is indeed a gentler and more effective approach than simply isolating them.]
[This shows that the new Minister of Magic's governing style is very different from Fudge's, and I'm glad to see that he's not the kind of person who just covers his ears and pretends to be something he's not...]
But I also have some concerns. In the long run, this is a lie that's easily exposed. If the wizards let their guard down because of this, the truth will inevitably come to light sooner or later…
Is the Ministry of Magic's real intention to gradually abolish the secrecy laws? I don't know, but I feel very uneasy...
Unlike Ron, who was too lazy to write, Hermione, as always, wrote at length. Her handwriting was very small and filled three whole pages of parchment. Her handwriting was so fast that it almost flew up, showing that she was full of worries.
Harry sat on the bed, and with the sunlight streaming through the small window, it took him quite a while to finish reading.
As he put down the parchment, the same worries slowly rose in his heart, spreading out in ripples.
At the same time, another voice resounded in his mind:
Would Dumbledore not know about this?
Impossible! Fred and George were both involved; Mr. Weasley couldn't possibly have kept it from Professor Dumbledore.
So, if he knew this, why would he condone this trick built on deception?
Harry opened the Book of Friends and looked at the long, thin name "Albus Dumbledore" at the top of the page. He dipped his quill in ink, but hesitated before he could write.
Dumbledore didn't tell him about this beforehand... Of course, Harry wasn't arrogant enough to think the headmaster had to report everything to him. But why didn't Sirius and Remus mention it either?
Do they think this is unimportant? Or do they believe Harry doesn't need to know?
Harry looked through the window at Sirius's house, which was closed, and then paced back and forth in the room.
Since Sirius Black was injured and hospitalized, Remus seems to have been very busy. No one has moved into that house recently, and Harry has moved into the Dursleys' house ahead of time. They only have time to contact each other in the evenings.
These past few days, apart from the day he went to the Lilliput adventure with his friends, Harry felt like he had returned to a few years ago—he was trapped in this house, unable to use magic, and unable to leave this place easily...
"Buzzing..."
Suddenly, the communication pea vibrated again.
(End of this chapter)