Chapter 98: Defending Buckbeak
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
of the Magical Animal Cases”, “Handbook of Hippogriff Psychology”, “The Poultry of Hippogriffs,” and “A study on the 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
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 skeptical was very skeptical 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 inspiration .