Chapter 493: Shadow of the Crown

For Snape, who lived a rigid life and lacked interest, the best festival activity he could think of was a dance party—which was already somewhat torturous for Harry.

On the afternoon of the day before Halloween, just as his roommates were constantly trying on formal wear and adjusting their disguises, Luo En very casually pulled out an old bed sheet he was planning to wash, and then cut two holes in the eye position.

"No way, buddy." Harry felt somewhat amused. "You plan to attend the dance party like this?"

"I've already danced enough, brother, I'm tired." He sat on the edge of the bed holding the bed sheet. "Of course, I could also put on armor and wear a pumpkin head. Ivy suggested I do this, but I feel it's unnecessary—we weren't the hosts of the dance party in the first place."

"That's true, because Prince Kate will dress up as King Arthur, and one person wearing armor is enough." Harry said very understandingly. "But I don't think highly of them. Sigh, I haven't thought about how I should dress yet."

"I feel, you have to refer to Zhang Qiu's opinion." Luo En said with some schadenfreude. "Perhaps you are tired of it, but girls rarely get tired of dance parties. What if she insists on wearing some very bright Oriental formal wear—oh, I don't even dare to think about it."

Fortunately, Zhang Qiu also deeply understood that this dance party was not held for them. She gave Harry a suggestion that made him very tempted: "You can just wear pajamas and slippers, and I also plan to wear pajamas and slippers. In Oriental stories, this is a terrifying monster named 'Landlord'."

Thus, on this night when everyone was jubilantly entering the banquet hall, the skeletons and ghosts in the band area were ready to move, professors and students were laughing loudly, walking around with wine glasses, and even the house-elves were full of spring breeze, Harry and Zhang Qiu wore pajamas and slipped into the hall very low-key.

The sharp-eyed Harry soon found the main guests this time in the crowd. Three or four royal family members of appropriate age were talking to Delake—he dressed up as a vampire, which was also a relatively easy makeup. However, the arrogant noble temperament engraved in his bones actually attracted those princes and princesses very well at this moment.

Out of a thought of not wanting to see it and not wanting to be annoyed, Harry and Zhang Qiu drilled harder toward the corner. Several Hufflepuff students were surrounded in the dining area, loading food into their plates one after another.

After bypassing them, Harry finally found a remote table, and they sat down to rest for a while. Naturally, Harry talked about Luo En's disguise—he dressed up as a zombie with ghost fire. This was a very novel setting, and, to this day, he still didn't know how Luo En suddenly made a set of performance clothes in the last hour.

"Oh, speaking of it, it might be a bit awkward." Zhang Qiu explained with a giggle. "Jin Ni originally planned to wear a phoenix-themed formal dress. She spent a lot of effort to design and make it. But in the end, when solving the problem of how to have fire, there was a little mistake. The headpiece Fred gave her didn't shoot out red fire, but blue instead."

"So, Luo En's is—"

"That's right, she modified the headpiece that shot blue fire slightly and then used it for Luo En." Zhang Qiu said. "After all, Ivy still wanted to attend the dance party, so she also hoped Luo En could dress more interestingly."

"Of course, in the end, Jin Ni still solved the flame problem," Zhang Qiu held her chin and looked at the dance floor not far away, saying with some emotion. "The little sister who didn't know the world, ultimately grew into a girl as beautiful as a blazing flame."

They discussed for a while about which boy Jin Ni might be with, but this question was really not that easy to answer. Dean Thomas, who was originally thought to have the most hope, got stage fright. He didn't dare to step forward to issue an invitation, but instead slipped away to another place quietly.

"This won't do, I have to go and encourage him." Harry stood up with some feeling of hating iron for not becoming steel, and Zhang Qiu followed him with a mood of watching the fun.

However, before they could talk to Dean, another girl took the lead and pulled him into the dance floor. This made Harry feel somewhat irritable, and what made him even sadder was that the original remote table had already been occupied by several other students at this time.

They turned around again, wanting to find a place to sit. However, because of the dance party, most of the chairs in the auditorium had been removed. Finally, Harry's gaze fell on the "Gift Registration Office" by the gate. There seemed to be a few empty chairs there.

"That's not right." Zhang Qiu said suddenly. "Do Hogwarts students have to pay a gift fee for dancing in their own school?"

Harry also realized the strangeness of it, and then, he recognized that the registrar who had been sitting there writing was actually Hermione, who had changed her hairstyle and hair color.

After hesitating slightly, purely out of the temptation of having a place to sit, they chose to sit by the table covered with a white cloth.

"Oh, you two." Hermione turned her head and looked at them. "It seems you don't want to attend this dance party either."

"Yes, and we are obviously not as smart as you." Harry said sincerely. "You can still review your lessons openly. Let me see what this is... so what exactly is this?"

"Some Muggle mathematics." Hermione closed her book very naturally, and then got up and sat beside them. "There is a Prince coming to this dance party, right?"

Seeing that Hermione indeed had the intention to chat, Harry let go of the guilt of disturbing others, and instead began to introduce to her the confrontations between the Muggle royal family and the Ministry of Magic.

"In fact, I don't know if you have thought about it." Hermione said very earnestly. "Wizards and Muggles, how exactly should power be distributed?"

Zhang Qiu was very calm and said confidently: "Oh, it seems you feel the Celestial Empire's experience is not suitable here."

Hermione looked at Harry, and then sighed helplessly. "To be precise, it's that Potter is not suitable for that kind of approach."

"You are talking about the Philosopher King again." Harry felt that this topic, like the dance party, had already started to make him feel somewhat tired.

"That's all in the past." Hermione said earnestly. "Speaking of which, it's very coincidental that I think the answer has already jumped in front of our eyes."

"First, in order to solve the problems of low efficiency in the bureaucratic system, serious redundancy, and no one willing to take responsibility, we still must have a strong leader. From the perspective of coordinating the two worlds, it is very reasonable to designate this leader as a wizard who understands Muggle affairs. But if no one in the Wizarding World can shoulder this heavy responsibility," Hermione recounted her thinking, "I think we can try royal restoration and build an Arthur-Merlin system based on history."

"That is to say, royal restoration and holding supreme power in the Mugging world, while the leader of the Wizarding World can serve as the King's private advisor, achieving the coordination of power and affairs between the two worlds through a higher royal power. If we go further, I hope the Queen can be a wizard, which can form better lubrication between the collision of power."

Zhang Qiu couldn't help but laugh: "Morgan is the heroine, right? My evil supporting actress rise story."

"No, no." Harry patted her hand. "Seriously, I think the concept proposed by Hermione is very feasible, and this has a very good advantage, which is to acknowledge and respect the rights of Muggles. If we always choose wizards to be Prime Minister, people will increasingly ignore the rights of Muggles, which is not a good thing."

"That is to say, after the British King takes back power, he re-assigns it to the Prime Minister who is a Muggle, and the Merlin who is a wizard—or we change a word, advisor wizard, chief mage, etc." Zhang Qiu's expression was also a bit more solemn. "This sounds like a good line of thought, but what about feasibility?"

"What? Wasn't feasibility just—"

"No, I mean, executability." Zhang Qiu adjusted her sitting posture. "How should we achieve this kind of system? After three hundred years of constitutional monarchy, can the people and the middle and upper echelons still accept royal power?"

This was a topic that really stumped Hermione. She said hesitantly: "I'm not very sure, but I feel that perhaps the first step should be to break the Statute of Secrecy on a large scale, so that the people can realize the importance of wizards, and then reduce the opposition to our plan."

"But breaking the Statute of Secrecy is definitely not a good idea." Harry said solemnly. "At least, it cannot be broken with great fanfare just for this little thing."

"Why is it not a good idea?"

"Because if it were a good idea, Yanayev would definitely have done it long ago." Zhang Qiu gave a piece of evidence that sounded almost unassailable.

"So, we must consider more extraordinary means. While retaining the existing framework of the Statute of Secrecy, we should disguise it as a routine coup as much as possible, and even define the initiator of the coup as... that Prince. Just like Edward VIII, but this time he has the support of the Wizarding World, and he won't lose." Zhang Qiu continued. "As for his own attitude, that doesn't matter. If he is unwilling, we will find someone who is. There are plenty of royal family members."

"We must first find a document that is enough to support us, or even forge one. In short, it is to allow the King to dissolve Parliament. This is the first step, and also the most important step." Zhang Qiu stretched out a finger. "Your ancient books, that period of time in the 16th-17th century, where are documents that might record special constitutional acts usually stored?"

"Probably, the St. John's Old Library at Cambridge?" Hermione said somewhat uncertainly.

"But, the royal family suggested that we choose the site for the Carya Academy there too." Harry felt a bit cold sweat. "This is probably a coincidence, it must be, right?" ===== CHAPTER 494 =====