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Chapter 886: The Hearing
🕑 Added 2023-09-30 11:16:40 +0000 UTCMr. Weasley was considered an oddity among the wizards at the Ministry of Magic because of his strong fascination with Muggles and Muggle-related items.
In the eyes of other wizards, this was a sign of undue diligence.
Mrs. Weasley often said that his obsession with the Muggle world made it difficult for him to be promoted under Fudge's administration. However, it had to be acknowledged that Mr. Weasley was a good man, and regulating the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office was a hard thankless job.
They had to deal with too many things, too cumbersome, but the number of personnel was far from enough.
In fact, Mr. Weasley had a lot of power to some extent, because he was responsible for all the magical items related to Muggles in the wizarding world, and today, this kind of bewitched Muggle items included almost everything.
In theory, Mr. Weasley had the power to search and deal with any wizard he believed was misusing Muggle objects.
Who didn’t have some contraband, especially a family of pure-blood wizards like the Malfoys, which was almost evident?
Therefore, most wizards in the Ministry respected Mr. Weasley, and even Fudge had a friendly attitude before.
Of course, the situation had taken a turn for the worse. Fudge believed that Dumbledore's friends were his enemies, but he couldn't find a suitable post for Mr. Weasley, so he had to let him stay in this position.
"Dad likes this job!" said Ginny with a sigh. "He’s obsessed with Muggle stuff."
"Yeah, Mum has advised him many times, but he never intended to give up. Percy thinks it’s bad..." Ron followed.
He obviously thought it was terrible, and his eyes flicked across the dingy office with dissatisfaction.
In front of them, two desks had been crammed inside it and there was barely room to move around them because of all the overflowing filing cabinets lining the walls, on top of which were tottering piles of files.
The little wall space available bore witness to Mr. Weasley’s obsessions; there were several posters of cars, including one of a dismantled engine, two illustrations of postboxes he seemed to have cut out of Muggle children’s books, and a diagram showing how to wire a plug.
Sitting on top of Mr. Weasley’s overflowing in-tray was an old toaster that was hiccuping in a disconsolate way and a pair of empty leather gloves that were twiddling their thumbs.
A photograph of the Weasley family stood beside the in-tray. Percy appeared to have walked out of it.
"Well, kids, it's a bit crowded with such a lot of people," said Mr. Weasley apologetically. "Let's just be patient for a while. The Department of Magical Law Enforcement is next to us, and they'll have the hearing there soon."
"Dad, where's Percy's office?" asked Fred, leaning against the wall.
"Oh, he’s on Level One, outside the Minister's office..." Mr. Weasley's expression was obviously a little unnatural.
Evan had heard that Percy now saw Mr. Weasley at the Ministry of Magic and barely greeted him, as though he didn’t know him.
In order to make his stand clear, he had completely distanced himself from the Weasleys, and he had done it thoroughly.
From this perspective, Percy was ambitious and possessed all the qualities of a good politician and official.
This was probably the result of elite education that Mrs. Weasley had always hoped for the children's development.
Only Percy carried out her will to the end. Although the others were excellent, they had a too independent character to work at the Ministry of Magic. But who would have thought that he would make such a decision on such a matter...?
"I’ll prepare some tea for you, and don’t run around until Evan and Harry’s affairs are finished. And, don’t bother Percy at work..." Mr. Weasley paused, obviously changing the subject. "I’m a little muffled here, because we haven’t got a window, we’ve asked, but they don’t seem to think we need one. Come on, sit down; don't stand there."
He took out his wand and turned out some old chairs around his desk. Evan and the others squeezed themselves into the chairs. They looked at one another and smiled bitterly. Especially Ron and Ginny, their faces could not hide their disappointment. That was very different from what they had expected.
"I have some interesting magazines here. If you have nothing to do, you can flip through them." Mr. Weasley was preparing tea for them. "I think the joke about broomsticks above... Oh dear, what’s this now?"
A memo had just zoomed in through the open door and fluttered to rest on top of the hiccuping toaster.
Mr. Weasley unfolded it and read aloud, "'Fourth spitting dustbin reported in Wimbledon, kindly investigate immediately.’ This is really hell, even worse than the previous regurgitating public toilet incident."
Evan was in Mr. Weasley's office at the time, and the situation was similar. This was probably the normal work of Mr. Weasley.
The so-called regurgitating public toilet was a series of magical pranks.
As soon as the Muggles were pulling the flush, the dirt not only didn't disappear, but instead came out and sprayed on their faces. The feeling of those poor Muggles could be imagined.
"It was done by anti-Muggle pranksters. These guys are really a headache," said Mr. Weasley.
“Will it be Aurors who catch them?" Harry asked.
"I hope to catch them all, but it’s obviously not the case. This kind of trivial matter does not require Aurors to be dispatched. The ordinary Magical Law Enforcement Patrol can deal with it. Ah, kids, this is Perkins."
A stooped, timid-looking old wizard with fluffy white hair had just entered the room, panting. He was the only employee in the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office besides Mr. Weasley.
“Oh Arthur!” he said desperately. “Thank goodness, I didn’t know what to do for the best, whether to wait here for you or not, I’ve just sent an owl to your home but you’ve obviously missed it ... an urgent message came ten minutes ago..."
"I already know about the dustbins spitting out rubbish," said Mr. Weasley. "I’ll investigate later.”
“No, no, it’s not about this, it’s the Potter boy’s hearing ... they want to integrate Mason’s questioning with Potter’s hearing and they’ve changed the time and venue ... it starts at eight o’clock now and it’s down in old Courtroom Ten..."
“Down in old ... but they told me ... Merlin’s beard ...” Mr. Weasley looked at his watch, let out a yelp, and leapt from his chair.
“Quick, Evan, Harry, we're late, we should have been there ten minutes ago!” he said anxiously, and ran out with them both. "Perkins, please take care of the others for me. We must hurry now.”
Sure enough, Fudge had tampered with the hearing, and if they didn't arrive in time, they could deal with it in their absence.
Fudge's calculations were obvious. When the time came, Harry would be expelled from Hogwarts and Evan would be blocked.
Even if Evan and Harry appealed, it could be delayed as much as possible.
Within the scope of the law, it could be delayed for months...
