Chapter 97 - 98
A few days later, Harry was discharged from the school hospital and his life seemed to return to its daily routine.
But losing the Quidditch match and what happened in the Common room still had an effect.
Gryffindor Tower's students looked less energetic, and everyone was really depressed.
Because of what happened with Ron, Hermione was crying all the time. It was a big blow to her. Harry often looked at his Nimbus 2000's wreckage dumbfounded. Although everyone tried many things to make him happy, it did not work. Wood looked completely unemotional, as if he had lost his life's purpose. Fred and George were no longer keen on pranks; they were working less and less on new tricks and goods.
However, nobody has changed as much as Ron.
Ron's behaviour became increasingly bizarre. Aside Harry, he hardly spoke to anyone. His temper became really bad and he was unfriendly to everyone.
He was like an active volcano that had been repressed for a long time and that was ready to erupt at any time.
In Monday's Potions class, because Malfoy imitated the Dementors to mock Harry, Ron immediately threw a large, gooey crocodile heart at him, right on his face. Snape therefore deducted fifty points from Gryffindor.
Evan did not know if it was just a wrong impression, but he always felt like Ron was someone else.
His eyes were often empty and sluggish, but every time he saw him, he was full of vigilance and hostility, as if he would rush to clash with him at any time.
Evan was not against the idea of a fight if it could solve all problems.
In short, the unexpected failure made the atmosphere in the entire Gryffindor Tower become heavy.
The only thing worth being happy about that happened recently was Professor Lupin's return to class
In Wednesday's Defence Against the Dark Arts class, Evan saw Professor Lupin.
It was noticeable that he had been sick. His old robe was worn loose on his body. There were dark shadows underneath his eyes. The Werewolf's transformation must be a very heavy burden for his body.
Everyone was concerned about Lupin's physical condition and complained about Snape's actions during his illness. According to Evan's knowledge, Snape's teaching of the Defence Against the Dark Arts classes for all grades when he substituted professor Lupin was the same, revolving around how to identify and kill Werewolves.
Of course, almost none of them took it seriously.
For the young Wizards, in this day and age, Werewolves were like mythical creatures. They thought that they would never come into contact with them in real life.
Apart from Hermione, Evan was not sure who else would have discovered Lupin's true identity.
Expectedly, Snape was disappointed, as his efforts did not have any effect besides doubling their annoyance.
Professor Lupin has returned, making the Defence Against the Dark Arts class enjoyable again.
In that class, Evan saw Hinkypunk, a new dark creature brought by Lupin. It was a one-legged creature with the appearance of wispy blue, grey-white smoke. It was very frail and looked pretty harmless.
But in reality, it often lured travellers into bogs.
It had a proclivity for luring travellers off of their paths at night, into treacherous bogs or wetlands under the guise of a helpful, lamp-bearing being. When the travellers followed it, they fell into the bogs and died. Hinkypunk made a living from the dead carrions.
Seeing it through the tank, you would never guess that this creature could be so terrible.
The pleasant atmosphere brought about by Professor Lupin's return only lasted for two hours. When Evan went downstairs to the Common Room for lunch, he saw Hagrid standing in the hall surrounded by Harry, Ron and Hermione.
Hagrid had just returned from the Owlery. He stood there, with his eyes red and swollen, and his tears falling down on the front placket of his leather vest.
"Hagrid, What's wrong? "Evan walked over and was surprised to see Harry, Ron, and Hermione looking at an official letter.
Evan glanced over and read:
"Dear Mr. Hagrid, further to our inquiry into the attack by a hippogriff on a student in your class, we have accepted the assurances of Professor Dumbledore that you bear no responsibility for the regrettable incident.
However, we must register our concern about the hippogriff in question. We have decided to uphold the official complaint of Mr. Lucius Malfoy, and this matter will therefore be taken to the Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures.
The hearing will take place on January 25th, and we ask you to present yourself and your hippogriff at the Committee's offices in London on that date. In the meanwhile, the hippogriff should be kept tethered and isolated. Yours in fellowship…" There followed a list of the school Governors.
"They want to kill Buckbeak!" Hagrid couldn't help sobbing. His face was full of tears that went on to fall on his tangled beard.
"But Buckbeak isn't a bad hippogriff!" Harry said with a bit of doubt. Hagrid, I bet he'll get off."
"No, you don't know those gargoyles at the Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures." Hagrid wiped his tears with his sleeves. "They've got it in for interesting creatures!"
Hagrid's words made them look at each other not knowing how to answer.
Hippogriffs, which Hagrid called "interesting animals", were in the eyes of others absolute "terrifying monsters."
Even if Buckbeak didn't hurt anyone, no one would like it.
In fact, by Hagrid's usual standards, it was really cute.
However, Evan knew that it had nothing to do with whether or not Buckbeak was cute. Behind all of this was Lucius Malfoy's mischief.
After failing to remove the Headmaster Dumbledore last year, he was dismissed from the Board of Governors. The reputation of the Malfoy family was worse than ever. In the headmaster's office there was a discussion about the opening of the Chamber of Secrets, and how a student was able to get Tom Riddle's diary. Now, rumour has it in the upper classes of the magic world that Lucius Malfoy is giving students Voldemort's childhood items.
That was not a good reputation. Lucius Malfoy urgently needed something to divert everyone's attention and restore his family's prestige.
Hagrid provided him with such an opportunity and he is now strangling him with Buckbeak tightly. That attack had become a rivalry between him and Dumbledore. As long as he is able to keep Hagrid from teaching or to kill the hippogriff, he can regain his lost pride.
Needless to say, the politicians in the Ministry of Magic and the Governors must have made some trade-offs between the two. They were not willing to offend Dumbledore, nor did they want to abandon the large amount of gold sent by Malfoy.
They could support Dumbledore to allow Hagrid to stay at school to teach. The corresponding exchange condition was to agree that Lucius Malfoy could get Buckbeak killed.
Apart from Hagrid, no one would care about the life or death of a Hippogriff.
The hearing was just a formality. The committee was almost under the control of Malfoy. No matter what Hagrid said, it would not be useful.
In other words, the outcome of this incident was already predetermined.
Regardless of Hagrid's wishes and whether or not Buckbeak was really mischievous, it was no longer important.
Buckbeak was bound to die. Although cruel, it was a fact!
Perhaps, this is what politics is all about!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Looking at Hagrid's pitiful look, Evan sighed.
He didn't know much about politics, but he knew exactly what he had to do. He could not keep watching while Buckbeak was going to be beheaded. Hagrid would certainly collapse.
"Listen, Hagrid!" said Evan. "You can't give up. You need to prepare your speech for the defence. Harry, Ron, and Hermione can prove that Buckbeak is innocent. I can help you advertise it in the newspaper."
"Evan is right; I definitely have read a case of a Griffin's attack on a Hippogriff." Hermione mused. "In that case, the hippogriff had nothing to do with it. We can find something useful if we go back on the matter and make a good research."
"Yes, we will help, too." Harry and Ron hurriedly followed.
Although everyone said so, the work eventually fell on just Evan and Hermione.
After holding on for some time, Harry and Ron seemed to have completely forgotten about that matter.
However, they were not to blame. First of all, Harry has been very busy recently.
In late November, Ravenclaw defeated the Hufflepuff team which breathed life into Wood's carcass. After all, Gryffindor still had the chance to compete even though they could not afford more losses.
He then asked the players to train day and night. Evan saw Harry several times training in the cold and biting snow of December.
Fortunately, since the last incident, no Dementors were seen on the campus. The lessons they had been given last time and the anger of Dumbledore seemed to have completely confined them to their posts at the school entrance.
In addition to busy Quidditch training, Harry needed to learn the Patronus Charm from Professor Lupin.
He must be able to release the complete Patronus as soon as possible to ensure that no more accidents would occur in the next match.
As for Ron, his status has become more and more abnormal recently.
He hardly communicated with most people and was not close to neither Evan nor Hermione. When Harry was training, he wandered around the castle alone.
In order to protect Scabbers from Crookshanks, he put it in his shirt's pocket wherever he went.
On several occasions, they were beyond the scope of the Tracing Potion so Evan couldn't figure out where they went.
But he didn't have the mind to think about Ron and Peter Pettigrew. He and Hermione spent almost all their time in the library and could not care about anything else.
Let Peter Pettigrew be for a few days. In twenty days, it will be Christmas. At that time, the castle will have the fewest number of people in it, so Evan will be able to draw out Sirius black and solve this whole dilemma.
Now what's more urgent is to think of ways to save Buckbeak. He and Hermione found a lot of information and files in the library referring to the famous case cited above. He prepared the defence arguments for Buckbeak. The titles of these dossiers were: "Summary of the Magical Animal Cases", "Handbook of Hippogriff Psychology", "The Poultry of Hippogriffs," and "A study on Griffin's Barbarism". Each of them was very thick…
"Evan, you should look at this!" Hermione put a dusty volume in front of Evan and whispered, "This is a case of a Manticore in 1926. It killed a human being, but was eventually acquitted."
"That was because everyone was scared and no one dared to approach it." Evan frowned and looked at the small number of words on the file.
"Yeah, you're right," said Hermione disappointedly and threw the thick volume aside.
Evan picked up the file and continued to read it. The following was a brief introduction to the magical creature: the Manticore.
The Manticore is an incredibly dangerous animal with a human head, a lion's body, and a scorpion's tail. It is very rare and it is reputed to croon softly to its victims as it devours them.
According to reliable documents, the Manticore skin repels almost all known spells. Anyone stung by its tail will die immediately.
This horrible creature was created by wizards and goblins. They were used to guard properties or important forbidden places and were once all the rage. However, since the "Ban on Experimental Breeding" decree was enacted, the numbers of Manticores had been gradually reduced.
In recent decades, it has even disappeared.
Evan put the dossier aside. From the text above, the danger level of the Hippogriff is nothing compared to that of the Manticore.
If Buckbeak had half the power of the Manticore, they wouldn't have to sit there and worry about it.
In the following two weeks, in addition to assisting Hermione in perfecting the defence speech, Evan also wrote several articles defending Buckbeak.
He intended to put pressure on Lucius Malfoy and the Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures through public opinion, but things were not as smooth as originally envisaged.
The Daily Prophet refused to publish these articles written by Evan. They considered that the matter didn't have much importance. The whole incident was at best a minor event at Hogwarts that couldn't arouse people's interest to read it.
Although Evan eventually published these articles in the Hogwarts Magic News, their effect was limited.
Mr. Barnabas Cuffe, the editor-in-chief of The Daily Prophet, was right. Most readers did not care about the life and death of a Hippogriff, and the young Wizards already knew about the matter.
In contrast, they were more interested in Black's connection to the Dementors.
Evan was not completely without supporters. Colin, Ginny, and Luna all expressed their support for his point of view. Luna even persuaded her father to publish those articles written by Evan in "The Quibbler" instead of the original headline about the Crumple-Horned Snorkacks.
However, that didn't make much difference. The current prints of "The Quibbler" were not selling even as much as the Hogwarts Magic News.
As time passed, it was getting closer to Christmas, but Evan and Hermione were not making much progress.
Although they wrote a full ten parchments of defences, Evan was very sceptical about the effect that it could have apart from being drowsiness-inducing and lethargic.
Not to mention whether those officials who deal with the Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures would adopt that defence. It was doubtful that Hagrid could write down all these things. With his ability, it might be difficult for him to read the arguments in conjunction. The whole thing was strenuous.
"It's useless, Hermione!" looking at Hermione sitting across from him, Evan sighed heavily.
Hermione was still struggling with the boring files. She was often the last to leave the Common room at night. She was the first to go to the library the following morning. She was burdened with heavy school work, Ron's intangible pressure, and the preparation for Buckbeak's defence argument. Those things were superimposed on one another, which had caused her to have dark shadows under her eyes like Lupin.
"What did you say?!" Hermione raised her head from the data.
"Our thinking seems to be wrong. Whatever the reason, Buckbeak really hurt Draco Malfoy, didn't he?" Evan said slowly. "We can't defend Buckbeak's innocence, as long as Lucius Malfoy focuses on this fact, Hagrid's hope of winning is rather minimal."
"Then what shall we do? nothing? Like Harry and Ron?!" Hermione looked annoyed. "We just watch Buckbeak being beheaded and wait for Hagrid to collapse!"
"No, I mean, we should change our thinking." Evan's eyes fell upon a Newt Scamander's book entitled "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them", and the author's experience gave him Great
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone