Chapter 691: New Generation
When Kingsley brought back the news, everyone was surprised.
"A fireplace ended a war?" Sirius leaned against the door frame, the cat toy in his hand drooping, while Crookshanks seized the opportunity to pounce and hug.
Madam Bones felt relieved, but still corrected with a stern face, "It's ten million fireplaces, and the actual number will only be more than that."
"Oh, come on," Sirius picked up Crookshanks, ignoring the fierce look it gave him, and joked, "Cats don't worry about whether there'll be food tomorrow, do they? That'd be living too hard." He kept shaking the ginger cat.
Crookshanks huffed and stretched out its paw to swipe at Sirius' face. Madam Bones couldn't help but smile.
"What's next?" Lisa asked from the couch.
Felix pondered for a moment and uttered a word, "Waiting."
"In this crisis, the Ministry has an information advantage over the Muggle government. To eliminate the threat of war, we've been more proactive in the early stages, but there's a fine line. We've already awakened a massive machine with nearly sixty million people."
"Now Kingsley is watching the government, Skeeter is at the Daily Prophet, and next is to listen to the voices of the people—oh, I'm not sure, is the Special Floo Network infrastructure ready?""The Floo Network administrators are working overtime," Madam Bones said, "But it will take time to build a network that spans across all counties in the country."
Felix nodded, indicating he understood.
This was an extension of a series of proposals he had made at Hogwarts last time: There might be hundreds of newspapers across the UK, not to mention local papers that are too numerous to count, but they undoubtedly represent a part of public opinion. Wizards are few in number, and using these newspapers to gather information is the best way.
But there were two difficulties in using the Floo Network to procure newspapers.
One is how to collect and summarize newspapers from all over the country. Felix's solution was the Floo Network. Theoretically, the Floo Network is used for travel, allowing wizards to travel by fire and internal routes, but the destination must be spoken by the wizard. Felix hoped to establish a dedicated Floo Network, like a spider web with only longitudinal threads, with the Ministry at the center and radiating ends set up in counties across the country.
The advantage of doing this is to save manpower; a dozen people can quickly fly across the country. Of course, for safety reasons, wizards responsible for this task must wear special passes. They were separated from the Floo Network Administration and formed a separate department under the Ministry of Magical Transportation.
It's worth mentioning that, because there will be more and more interactions with the non-magical world in the future, Madam Bones plans to establish a new magical department, based on the "Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office" under the Law Enforcement Office, and draw some staff from the Memory Modification Command, Muggle Liaison Office, and Muggle Liaison Office to form a new department.
Because of the unexpected exposure of the wizarding world, this plan has only completed a beginning, and most of the progress is still on her Ministerial desk.
The second difficulty is manpower. Getting newspapers is not enough; manpower needs to be mobilized to analyze each article. These people need to have a basic understanding of both the wizarding and Muggle societies and not be confused by a bunch of unfamiliar terms. However, the number of people from Muggle families in the Ministry is limited.
"Didn't you gather a bunch of students willing to help?" Felix said to Harry, "Let them come and try." He harbored a slight hope in his heart that Grindelwald must have been teaching students seriously last year, right?
To some extent, Grindelwald's Dark Arts Defense could be renamed "Muggle Community Concealment and Weapon Defense."
As it turned out, they did well.
Just the next day, the Ministry gained a dozen more young faces, and then more and more, rapidly exceeding a hundred.
The Ministry suddenly became crowded.
"At first, we only contacted those we were close to," Hermione said, her cheeks slightly flushed. "Harry had the contact information for all the frontline lookout members, and I could reach out to the Wizarding Club... and then the news spread."
"Fred and George also helped a lot," Ron said. "They quietly set up a radio station for some time, even before the wizarding world was exposed. But they didn't plan that far ahead, originally just intending to promote Weasley Wizard Wheezes products on the radio, with the code blatantly written at the bottom of the flyers."
"You've done a great job," Felix encouraged. "But there are too many people, even including lower-year students."
He was referring to the Creevey brothers. The older brother, Colin Creevey, was in the same year as Ginny, both fifth years, barely useful, but the younger brother, Dennis Creevey, was only a third year, likely taking half an hour to read through a newspaper.
"I've already had Colin persuade his brother to go back," Harry said hastily, while warning Ron and Hermione with his eyes, as Ron seemed to be on the verge of mentioning something amusing. He struggled to hold back his laughter.
Harry didn't dare tell the professors that the Creevey brothers were enthusiastic, and they weren't going solo. The two brothers jointly ran the 'Harry Potter Fan Club,' with Colin insisting they could recruit another fifty people.
It took quite some effort to dissuade Colin from this idea.
With nearly two hundred people, it was no longer appropriate to keep them at the Ministry.
After learning of their dilemma, Professor McGonagall invited them to Hogwarts. "It's summer vacation now, the school is deserted. Moreover, gathering so many wizards in one place poses risks."
As the new headmistress of Hogwarts and an elder member of the Order of the Phoenix, she hadn't had an easy time these days.
But it wasn't due to fieldwork.
On one hand, she and the other professors were busy upgrading the castle's defense systems; on the other hand, she found a magical album resembling a directory in the headmaster's office, containing not only Dumbledore's close friends and personal relationships but also high-ranking officials from foreign magical ministries. Some of them couldn't respond anymore due to the passage of time.
To her, the most important entries were the photographs of the eleven renowned heads of magical schools worldwide.
According to the usual protocol, she should have spent a few years visiting these schools individually after becoming headmistress, but now all formalities were waived, and all matters and information were conveyed through photographs.
In the Hogwarts Great Hall, Professor McGonagall and several remaining professors warmly welcomed the students.
"Thank you for stepping up at a critical time. You are not just students of Hogwarts but also part of the wizarding community, representing the future of our world..." she said excitedly, wiping the corners of her eyes with a handkerchief halfway through.
All students felt a weight in their hearts, something was taking root and sprouting.
"Perhaps I should make Muggle studies a compulsory subject for young wizards from non-magical backgrounds... This subject might become increasingly important. Alasdair Maddock even publicly stated his fondness for Muggle sports. What else could happen?" she pondered aloud.
"Who's Alasdair Maddock?" Ron whispered.
"A quite remarkable Seeker," Ginny, also a Seeker, replied. "The newspapers say he's likely to join the Montrose Magpies next year, a legendary Quidditch team."
"Professor McGonagall is a fan of the Montrose Magpies," Harry added.
The castle was unusually quiet that night, not as lively as usual. Simon gazed out of the window blankly; Harry knew he was a standard half-blood, his mother was a witch, and his father was a Muggle. He had once joked about it to them...
"Mom didn't tell Dad she was a witch until after they got married. It scared him quite a bit."
As Harry walked past, Simon whispered, "My parents had an argument. Because one of Dad's colleagues spoke ill of wizards when visiting our home." Harry hesitated for a moment, then patted his shoulder.
"It will get better."
"Will it?"
"Yes."
Early the next morning, everyone gathered in the Great Hall, where a Ministry team was assigned to allocate tasks to the students. Harry was surprised to see Percy among them.
"Shut up, no talking," Percy warned as he passed by Ron, who opened his mouth, and immediately added, "I won't give you any special treatment." With that, he slammed down a stack of Muggle newspapers.
Ron made a face at him, and after Percy left, he picked up a newspaper.
"Hey, we've been assigned to Dorset," he whispered to Harry. The Burrow was located in Dorset.
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