"What Professor Hao Ying makes is proper, authentic Chinese food." Cassandra shook her head. "The Chinese food here has all been modified to suit local tastes; it’s already lost its original flavor."

"Really?" Pabi asked suspiciously.

"Of course." Cassandra sighed. "What would I lie to you for?"

"Oh." Pabi nodded. "All right then—let’s hurry over now, I’m already starving."

The four of them left the hotel and walked toward the restaurant.

The place was called "Little Gloster," and was apparently very famous locally. When Harry and the others arrived, they found they actually had to queue for a table.

"Let’s wait a bit." Pabi said. "Since we’re already here, a little wait won’t kill us—there’s a rule that any place people are lining up for can’t be bad."

"People do say that." Cassandra nodded. "If you’re not too hungry yet, it’s fine to wait a while."

"Then let’s wait." Vivi nodded as well. "We’ll sit over there for a bit—standing here like this is just stupid."

They waited for more than twenty minutes before they finally got a table.

And as luck would have it, the people walking out just then were the Malfoy family and Sirius.

"Yo, Harry?" Sirius saw his godson showing up to dinner with three women at once, and a glint of admiration flashed in his eyes.

This brat...

Really is the new generation outshining the old...

I, the godfather, teach him how to get along with girls, and he actually manages to juggle three at the same time without them clawing each other’s eyes out...

You have to admit, the guy does have some sort of talent.

But Sirius had forgotten that, for Harry, all three girls had paid no small price in one way or another.

One botched her Magic Animagus training, lost her body, and wandered the Forbidden Forest as a unicorn for over a hundred years; one was sealed in Merlin’s Secret Chamber, racing the Death God in her dreams for a century; the last left her physical body in Slytherin’s Secret Chamber while her soul was embedded for a hundred years in a portrait in the Map Secret Room.

Damn it, Harry!

"You’re done eating?" Harry glanced at the Malfoy family, then at Sirius, and asked.

"Yeah, we’re done." Sirius said. "We heard just yesterday that the food here was excellent, so we decided to come together for a bite... and Lucius had some things he wanted to discuss with me in detail."

Harry knew it was probably about what happened after Sirius went to prison and Regulus died, when that branch of the Black family was basically cut off and the Pure-blood Clans swarmed in to carve up the Black family’s property.

Lucius was likely planning to return some of what he’d taken back to Sirius now.

Judging from this, Sirius didn’t seem to hold a grudge against Lucius over it; after all, Lucius’s wife Narcissa was a Black as well—no point letting the fat water flow into someone else’s fields.

The other families, though, were probably not going to get off so easily.

"You lot go on in first; we won’t keep you from your meal." Sirius waved them toward the door. "Oh, right, I heard from Lucius that Fudge is going to make a move soon. You’d better be careful."

"Yeah?" Harry raised his eyebrows. "We’ll talk it over in detail when we get back."

After saying goodbye to Lucius and his family, the group went into the restaurant and found a private room.

The food came out fairly slowly, and none of them planned to talk about anything serious before the dishes arrived.

When all the dishes they’d ordered were finally on the table, Vivi casually cast a Muggle-Repelling Charm at the door.

"What Sirius just mentioned—I think I remember something about that." Vivi rubbed her temples. "But things at the Ministry of Magic have been so swamped lately that I honestly forgot all about it..."

"What is it?" Harry asked.

"It’s about Fudge’s next moves." Vivi sighed. "I really don’t understand why Fudge is doing this. As far as I know, he’s trying to find some way to get control of Hogwarts and kick Dumbledore out of the headmaster’s office."

At Vivi’s words, the three of them stared at each other.

"What, is he insane?" Harry couldn’t hold it in.

Even people who had issues with Dumbledore had to hold their nose and admit that he really was the best headmaster Hogwarts had seen in the past hundred years.

He wasn’t just the leader who had guided Hogwarts through its darkest days against Voldemort, he was also a beacon in people’s hearts.

Put simply, as long as Dumbledore was there, everyone had hope of resisting Voldemort.

And now you want to shove Dumbledore off the headmaster’s chair?

What, how many drinks has he had? He’s that drunk?

"If anyone could figure out what’s going on in his head, he wouldn’t be Fudge." Vivi couldn’t help laughing, then looked up. "But in all seriousness, this is something we do need to watch. Fudge has a bunch of restless opportunists under him... and he’s also banking on the fact that Dumbledore is a gentleman. A gentleman can be bullied by proper means—if he only suppresses Dumbledore in the open, there might really not be much we can do about it."

"But why would anyone believe Fudge’s nonsense?" Pabi asked blankly.

"You don’t get it." Vivi chuckled. "Not everyone is clear-headed. Some people don’t want to accept that Voldemort is back. They’d rather be ostriches with their heads in the sand than face reality. It’s ridiculous, but that’s how it is."

"Then what’s the point of being alive?" Pabi sprawled over the table, poking at the oysters on her plate with a fork. "Merlin, I really don’t understand these people. Do you?"

"We don’t either." Cassandra speared a meatball and popped it into her mouth. "But it’s a big world; there have to be some weirdos around, right?"

That was true enough. As the saying goes, when the forest is big enough, you get all kinds of birds—that’s just how it is.

"And of course," Harry said, "it’s not entirely their fault. The current Minister of Magic is Fudge, and his voice carries a lot of weight—some wizards will always be inclined to trust what the Ministry of Magic says."

"First law of politics," Cassandra swallowed the meatball. "The only reliable news is whatever the authorities officially deny... ha."

Yes, she’d actually picked that up from a TV show.

One of humanity’s intangible cultural heritage masterpieces—Yes, Minister.

"So what’s he planning to do?" Harry asked Vivi again. "Aside from using his mouthpieces to spread rumors about Dumbledore and deny that Voldemort is back, what else can he do?"

"He’ll probably plant his own people inside Hogwarts." Vivi said slowly. "The Professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts position is still vacant, and I don’t think Alastor Moody is going to keep teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts after what happened. So... unless I’m very mistaken, Fudge will definitely insert one of his loyalists into Hogwarts as Professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts."

"Huh?" Pabi suddenly said. "Wasn’t Cassandra going to apply for the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor job at Hogwarts?"

"If nothing unexpected happens, Cassandra’s application is not going to go through." Vivi said with a faint smile. "That position is under a Dark Magic Curse, and it was Voldemort who placed it... At his peak, Voldemort’s cursing skills were probably no worse than Lanlock’s. I mean... even if Kathy wanted to apply for that position, I wouldn’t allow it."