Chapter 517: Wei's Twin Dogs

Chapter 517: Wei's Twin Dogs
After dinner, Angelina told Harry and others with a look of despair that there would be no Quidditch training for the time being - her application for the reorganization of the Gryffindor Quidditch team was not approved.

Harry was shocked and said that he had been very restrained and did not provoke Umbridge, but Angelina said helplessly that Umbridge was still "considering it".

Ron was indignant, questioning why the Slytherin team had been approved while they were being delayed, while Harry realized that Umbridge was deliberately threatening them with the fate of the team and was unwilling to give up this control easily.

Just then, a long and heroic laugh suddenly came from the door.

"Hahahaha!"

Harry looked back and saw a tall figure stepping into the common room, glancing around with an imposing manner.

The man who came was Cormac McLaggen, with an arrogant smile on his face, as if the entire lounge was his territory, and behind him, Kenneth Toller, Harold Dingo and Farry Jorkins followed closely like loyal followers, with flattering smiles on their faces.

McLaggen walked directly towards Angelina and stood opposite her, looking her over unscrupulously with a meaningful smile on his face.

"I heard that Quidditch training has been banned?" he said, with a hint of teasing in his tone.

Angelina looked up and frowned in disgust: "What's it to you?"

"Of course it's my business." McLaggen shrugged and smiled complacently. "After all, Umbridge and I have...some friendship."

Harry's brows furrowed immediately, and Ron clenched his fists angrily.

"What do you mean?" Hermione asked coldly.

McLaggen shrugged mysteriously and said slowly, "As you should know, my uncle works for the Ministry of Magic and has a very, very good relationship with Ms. Umbridge... To put it bluntly, she and I can be considered 'acquaintances'."

"If some people are willing to follow me and support me..." He lowered his voice deliberately, but his eyes swept over Angelina's shoulders more wantonly, and he even unabashedly admired the curves under her tight sweater, "I can say a few good words in front of Umbridge. Maybe the Quidditch team's reorganization application can be... 'accidentally' approved."

His eyes fell on Angelina again, with undisguised greed in his eyes.

Angelina's face was extremely ugly. She stood up suddenly and stared at McLaggen sharply: "Listen, McLaggen, I will not obey you just because of your little charity!"

McLaggen's face fell for a moment, but he quickly regained his confident smile, "It's your loss, then."

He looked around proudly and said in a loud voice: "My fellow Gryffindor students, you should be familiar with me. I am Cormac McLaggen, the sixth-grade prefect, and my uncle is a member of the Wizengamot—"

Whispers suddenly broke out in the lounge. Many people were puzzled by his sudden remarks, but some people also showed thoughtful expressions.

McLaggen listened to the discussions around him, and the smile on his face deepened. He raised his chin and continued, "Professor Umbridge's power is expanding rapidly, and the Ministry of Magic's interference -" his voice suddenly sank, with a bit of undisguised sarcasm, "will only get worse."

Everyone looked at each other, and many of them showed worried expressions.

"Because our 'savior' Harry Potter -" McLaggen deliberately emphasized the word "savior", his tone full of sarcasm, "Gryffindor is suffering from unfair oppression. We are being targeted, our rights are being deprived, and even the training of the Quidditch team has become a problem."

"So, what should we do?" He glanced at everyone, his voice full of incitement, "Continue to swallow our anger? Continue to sit and wait for death?"

He suddenly raised the corners of his mouth, his eyes flashing with a fiery light, as if he had seen the glory of the future.

"No, Gryffindor needs a true leader! Someone who can lead us through this and make us rise again."

"And that person is me."

McLaggen stood straight, his handsome face full of arrogance and confidence, his eyes shining brightly, as if he had already become a king.

Hermione curled her lips in disdain, with cold contempt in her eyes.

McLaggen's remarks and behavior were like those of an arrogant, incompetent and frivolous young man. He had nothing to offer except for his uncle from the Wizengamot. Compared to him -

Hermione's heart suddenly tightened, and her thoughts were pulled in a direction she didn't want to go.

Shaylin Malfoy.

As the name flashed through her mind, she felt an indescribable pain in her chest, as if something was strangling her heart and making her breathing stagnate.

She clutched the robe tightly at her chest, her fingertips almost sinking into the fabric.

Why? Why did she still think of him?

I have clearly made up my mind to cut off everything, so why is that shadow still lingering around?
She stared at McLaggen infatuatedly, and at this moment his figure was slowly overlapping with Schelling's figure -

Both of them were pure-blood nobles from distinguished families, both were so proud, so confident, and so noble, but——

Hermione understood that there would never be another Xie Ling in this world!

Because Sheelin has real strength - the boy who always plays it down and is nonchalant, the warrior who once killed the basilisk to rescue Ginny, the warrior who once fought against hundreds of Dementors alone and won the Triwizard Tournament, the potion master who once rescued himself from a group of dark wizards and won the Potions Championship... None of these achievements can be compared to McLaggen, a arrogant idiot with no record of any battle.

However, just when she thought that no one would really surrender to him, an unbelievable scene happened. Harry was also shocked, but no one was as shocked as Ron who was almost in a trance at the moment.

His two older brothers, Fred and George, stepped forward silently.

They were no longer as mischievous as before, and they didn't throw a bottle of slug gum at McLaggen or conjure up a squeaking rubber duck behind him - they just stood there, watching it all in silence, with unnatural smiles on their faces.

Harry, Ron and Hermione's hearts sank.

A terrible guess emerged in their minds.

With Mr. Wesley losing his job and the family having sold all their valuables, the Wesley family is in great financial trouble. The Wesley twins have always dreamed of opening a prank props store, and in order to make money, they even publicly humiliated themselves on the bulletin board last month to find opportunities to make money.

"So, have you thought it through?" McLaggen walked towards the Weasley twins with a smile and patted them on the shoulders. "I was right about you. You are truly smart people who know how to choose a true leader to follow. By the way, haven't you always wanted to open a store? Your products require funds and connections, and I happen to be able to provide these."

Fred's smile faltered, and George looked away, as if unwilling to look McLaggen in the face.

"We're just...thinking about it," George said vaguely.

"Haha, consider?" McLagen shrugged. "Don't be silly, Wesley. In the face of money and power, 'consider' is redundant."

He casually pulled out a small bag of gold Galleons from his pocket. It looked like there were about twenty of them. He tossed them in his hand and then gently handed them to George. "This is just a small gift. There will be more in the future - of course, the premise is that you are willing to be smart."

Harry saw George's fists tighten slightly, and Fred's face looked a little unnatural, but in the end, they did not refuse, but accepted McLaggen's "gift" in silence.

However, what happened next was a humiliating scene that no one expected.

"Hey, Wesley, help me move that chair over here." McLaggen lazily pointed to a chair not far away.

Fred and George's faces froze instantly. They looked at each other, their lips trembling slightly, as if they wanted to refute something, but in the end, Fred sighed, walked over, bent down, and obediently moved the chair next to McLaggen.

"Good boy." McLaggen patted Fred's shoulder, a teasing smile on his face. "Well, I told you, right? Money makes the world go round."

Kenneth and others beside him laughed, and Harold even reached out to pat George on the cheek on purpose, "You two brothers are really smart. You know that there is a future when you follow the right people."

George's fists were clenched so tightly that veins bulged, and the shame and anger on his face were evident, but in the end, he just stood there with his head down, accepting it all in silence.

Hermione stood up abruptly and slammed her quill down on the table.

"This is ridiculous!" she gritted her teeth, her eyes full of anger. "McLaggen is a complete opportunist. He is building his own power in Hogwarts, and Fred and George...they actually..."

"You gave in." Harry whispered, with a trace of pain in his eyes.

This wasn't like the Weasley twins they knew, the masters of mischief who dared to challenge authority and sneered at money, but now they were bowing to McLaggen's Galleons?

Ron's expression was also extremely ugly. He stared at the twins' backs, his fists clenched until they turned pale. Of course, he knew what his two brothers were thinking - the feeling of being suffocated by poverty was something he was more familiar with than anyone else.

In his mind emerged the image of his mother sitting in the kitchen, tidying up the apron that had been patched and patched until it turned white, while silently wiping away tears; he remembered Ginny carefully flipping through the second-hand textbook that had lost its cover and was covered with notes by previous owners; he remembered his father's helpless sigh every month when he received his salary; he remembered the wizard robe that had been patched countless times and the second-hand flying broom that was almost falling apart...

Their whole family is really afraid of being poor.

He hated this feeling, he hated it with gnashing teeth, but in the face of true poverty, are so-called dignity and so-called pride really that important?
Ron's throat moved, but he couldn't say anything.

At this time, the students next to them began to whisper.

"I heard that Marcos Belby and Eddie Camilche from Ravenclaw also followed him."

"What? No way?!" A fifth-grade girl widened her eyes in disbelief.

"Forget about Belby, his family doesn't have much status, and he himself is always short of money...but Camilleche - he is the prefect!"

"Who knows? Maybe the bargaining chips offered by McLaggen are too tempting."

Hermione raised her head sharply, the anger in her eyes no longer concealed. She clenched the quill tightly, her knuckles turning white from the force.

"Camilleche actually also...?" she repeated in a low voice, her voice full of disbelief.

Eddie Camilcher was a typical "Ravenclaw-type" student, smart, rigorous, meticulous in his studies, and one of nine outstanding elite students in OWL. More importantly, he was a prefect of Ravenclaw - he was actually willing to follow McLaggen from Gryffindor?
This was no longer as simple as McLaggen simply bribing a few lackeys.

He was building his own force, a force backed by money, power, and Umbridge's support.

This is not just a factional struggle among students, or even just a problem within Hogwarts - it is a microcosm of a larger power struggle, an invisible struggle between the Ministry of Magic and Dumbledore, which is quietly seeping into the school.

The most frightening thing is that many students have begun to succumb.