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Chapter 98: Defending Buckbeak

“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 defense arguments for Buckbeak. The titles of these dossiers were: “Summary of the Magical Animal Cases”, “Handbook of Hippogriff Psychology”, “The Poultry of Hippogriffs,” and “A study on 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 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 defense 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 defenses, Evan 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 defense. 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 defense 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.