Chapter 180: S.P.E.W

Early the next morning, while Luo En was still at the breakfast table, he started excitedly finalizing the list of people to learn the Makeup Charm with Harry.

"Hey, Jin Ni and Ivy are a must, and who else? How about Hannah? Of course, can't forget Pan Xi!" Luo En said while spreading excessive butter on his bread.

"Hannah is of course not bad, but, I think the learning of the Makeup Charm..." Harry hesitated, not sure if Luo En would be willing to include Hermione. "Theoretically, it's better to use volunteers."

"But I'm not sure if Zhang Qiu is willing to teach." Harry added. "You can ask her during evening self-study."

"Evening self-study?"

"Oh, that's the time spent doing homework in the library every night. Zhang Qiu calls it evening self-study." Harry recalled. "About seven to nine-thirty."

All day long, Luo En was a bit absent-minded. He kept discussing with Harry how to "help" those female students. In fact, in Harry's view, his little thoughts were clearly revealed.

It was nothing more than wanting all the girls to be beautiful to attract other men, reducing his competitors, while not wanting Hermione to show her charm too early, so it would be convenient for him to pick up the slack.

Harry found that Luo En still had more feelings for Hermione, which didn't make him feel strange; after all, this was the destined marriage in fate. If he had no feelings for Hermione at all, Zhang Qiu would be worried until her hair fell out.

In the evening, Luo En, for the first time, brought a few sheets of parchment and sat at a table in the library with Harry, looking forward to Zhang Qiu's arrival.

Five minutes before seven, Zhang Qiu arrived at the library with books in her arms on time. She was also surprised to see Luo En.

Luo En couldn't wait to pull out a chair for her to sit down, and then stated his purpose. "Hi, Zhang Qiu, I heard you know the Makeup Charm, the kind that makes girls beautiful?"

"You care about this?" Zhang Qiu looked surprised and flipped through the divination results in her notebook. "Who do you want to teach? Jin Ni or Hermione?"

"Pan Xi, mainly Pan Xi." Luo En said with a bit of embarrassment.

"*Pfft! *" Zhang Qiu's eyes widened. "Are you trying to make Ma Erfu's life a little better? So he won't come to trouble you?"

"Something like that." Luo En said vaguely. "Of course, it would be best if you could let Jin Ni and Ivy learn it too. If Hannah and Luna are willing, please bring them along, or add Penelope, Lavender, Greengrass..."

"Wait, wait," Zhang Qiu interrupted Luo En's list. "You don't think the Makeup Charm is easy to learn, do you?"

"Eh?" Luo En had never considered this problem.

"You have to know, magic cannot realize things you have absolutely no concept of," Zhang Qiu explained. "You can easily imagine things being floated, or summoning flames yourself, or one thing turning into another—let's take this as an example."

"Suppose I want you to draw the appearance of my parents on paper, can you draw it?" Zhang Qiu asked.

"How is that possible?" Luo En shook his head. "I've never seen them at all."

"This is the problem. If I tell the girls that the key point of casting the Makeup Charm is to imagine what they look like when they are beautiful, it's also hard for them to have this concept." Zhang Qiu said. "So, they must first know what they look like after makeup before they can truly learn this spell, otherwise I'm afraid it will cause irreversible damage to their faces."

"Then..." Luo En looked at her disappointedly.

"So, it's better to teach a man to fish than to give him a fish. If you really hope that the girls will learn to dress themselves up in the fourth year," Zhang Qiu said, "then I can only teach them makeup first. This takes a lot of time."

"Then can you please help her put on makeup, and then teach her a quick Makeup Charm?" Harry asked. "Not many people, just Hannah and Pan Xi is enough."

"This won't work, because—" Zhang Qiu spread her hands. "I don't know how to put on makeup either. I still have to let my masters' wives send a few books about makeup."

"Then your Makeup Charm," Luo En realized suddenly, "Oh, so your Makeup Charm was quick-taught to you by your masters' wives?"

"Otherwise?" Zhang Qiu rolled her eyes at him angrily.

"I think you can establish a club." Harry tapped the table with his knuckles. "Actually, Ivy knows a little bit about makeup. The etiquette teacher started teaching her those things when she was very young. She can help you."

Zhang Qiu's eyes began to become meaningful. "Then, still invite Pan Xi?"

"Still invite Pan Xi." Harry raised his head. "I will talk to Ma Erfu. This club can be composed entirely of girls, exploring how to become beautiful, attract boys, things like that. Any girl can join voluntarily."

"But you said it, right," Luo En looked at the two who had gradually reached a consensus, a bit confused. "There might be Death Eaters attacking Hogwarts this year. Aren't we still going to organize students to practice dueling?"

"If girls become beautiful, boys will naturally start dueling." Zhang Qiu smiled.

"This is only one aspect. More importantly, I need the right to speak," Harry frowned and said. "There are quite a few surrenderists among the students. I don't want them to point their wands at us when the time comes, so we need to create a general environment, cultivate the values of taking pride in heroic fighting, and call on everyone to guard Hogwarts like guarding their own bedroom."

"The current general environment is at least relatively peaceful, so we can only start with girls." Zhang Qiu echoed.

"Alright, it's not a bad idea." Luo En muttered.

After this matter was roughly decided, the homework time that made Luo En feel tormented began. However, he didn't feel tormented for long, because Hermione suddenly came over.

"Harry, I thought of an idea." She said. "I think we can set a goal that looks great but is unlikely to be achieved, and it also has to cause trouble for those nobles. Do you know what I thought of?"

"What?" Luo En gave her face and picked up the topic.

"Protecting house-elves." Hermione said seriously. "Elves are suffering inhumane treatment. We need to treat them reasonably, fight for wages and an eight-hour workday for them, and call for legislation to protect their labor rights."

"This is too absurd," Luo En subconsciously retorted. "Everyone knows that house-elves are actually enjoying it."

"That's not important. What's important is that as long as you have even a little bit of sympathy, or gratitude, when you see house-elves working busily," Hermione said, "you will want to do something to satisfy your moral sense."

"I think you can be with Zhang Qiu." Harry spoke up suddenly. "Girls are naturally more likely to sympathize with house-elves. You can say these things in Zhang Qiu's beauty club."

"Beauty?" Hermione showed a confused expression.

"That's right. If it's just gathering together to express sympathy for house-elves to gain moral satisfaction, then that's fine," Harry continued. "But if you really want to liberate them, you have to come up with a struggle program, and you have to let them agree to it themselves."

"What you said makes a lot of sense. I indeed just intended to gather some people who might be restless and find something for them to do, especially the children of those Death Eater families." Hermione nodded. "Indeed, noble girls are the group most likely to spread sympathy without anything to do."

"Then, our plan can be more perfect." Harry took out a piece of parchment and wrote. "First, we establish a club or association of some kind. In short, the original intention is to share and learn makeup techniques, speaking skills, and a series of things that can help girls attract boys."

Zhang Qiu nodded, and Hermione showed a complex expression.

"This first step is very important, because we need to attract the vast majority of girls from the beginning and give them an excuse not to leave." Harry wrote down the key point "the vast majority of girls" on the paper. "Then we can start spreading our ideas in the club, starting with the simple ones, like 'Guard the best Hogwarts', 'Girls help girls', and so on."

"When the girls get used to always having a mainstream voice expressing correct, or rather, opinions that everyone agrees with, we can start to appropriately express some ambiguous opinions that are easy to cause controversy but don't involve sensitive topics, such as the legal rights of house-elves, or the right of goblins to hold wands. At this time, we can screen out those who follow our opinions and make those with different opinions recognize us through various means." Harry continued.

"Then, provoke opposition and use external contradictions to enhance the cohesion of the club," Harry said confidently and coldly. "The Triwizard Tournament is a good opportunity. You can curse the French together, or criticize the Ministry of Magic, but don't involve the core contradictions between the Death Eaters and the Order of the Phoenix first."

"Finally, you become the opinion leaders of young girls and can easily master the positions of these people. At that time, you can stay neutral first. When these girls step into society and gradually master the right to speak, you can be ready at any time to give the Death Eater group a fatal blow." Harry finished his plan in one breath, without noticing that Luo En was looking at him with a look of fear.

"A great plan," Zhang Qiu commented. "Who taught you?"

"Nono Lies Yuri, my childhood tutor." Harry sighed. "Not glorious, but very useful."

"I believe you when you say it's useful." Luo En said tremblingly. "Decades ago, the Mysterious Person also... established the Death Eaters like this."

"It is said that Grindelwald also established the Acolytes like this." Hermione echoed, but her tone didn't carry fear or apprehension. "Donald told me that power itself has no right or wrong; what matters is how to use it."

"That's right, so please remember at any time that our cause is just." Harry nodded with lingering fear.

"Let's talk about something happy." Zhang Qiu wrote four letters on the paper. "What should the club be named? I want to use S. P. E. W? Splendid Pretty Elegant Witches, how about that?"

"What I thought of was the Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare?" Hermione looked at Zhang Qiu's pen tip in surprise, because she had originally wanted to use these four letters too.

"However, you can also call it the Socialist Party for English Workers," Zhang Qiu said quietly.

"Do you have to use 'vomit' as the name?" Luo En raised a naive and direct question. ===== CHAPTER 181 =====