"Thank you, Headmaster," Umbridge ...... Well, let's be a professor, Professor Umbridge said with a smirk, "welcome to us." ”

Her voice was high-pitched again, rapid and girlish, and Harry felt an inexplicable sense of disgust, all Harry knew was everything he hated her: from her stupid voice to her fluffy pink cardigan.

It's hard to imagine what it's like for a ten-year-old witch to wear pink clothes and communicate with you in delicate language, which ordinary people can't bear anyway.

It's not about whom...... Well, this is targeting Umbridge, anyway, the first impression on Hogwarts is not very good, Van Lin can see from the expressions of the people next to him, it is like eating ...... The same disgusting.

However, Umbridge is in this style, and she does not disparage herself so much, so to speak, completely ignoring this attitude, which is only a good politician...... It belongs to sitting, and it is a sense of déjà vu for basic operations.

Umbridge coughed again and continued. "Well, I must say it's nice to be back at Hogwarts!" she said with a smile baring her teeth, "and looking at so many happy little faces!"

Harry glanced around. None of the faces he saw were pleasant. Instead, they all look like they're back in time when they were five years old.

"She graduated from Hogwarts?" Harry asked.

"Perhaps, I can't guess where the Sorting Hat will get her anyway. Van Lin shook his head, not knowing much about Umbridge's past, the woman was supposed to be a half-blood, which didn't meet Slytherin's admissions criteria.

However, who can guarantee that the current pure-blood family is not mixed?

It should be said that this woman hides perfection.

"I'm so eager to get to know each of you, and I'm sure we're going to be good friends!" Umbridge let out a very short burst of laughter, which felt strange to match the content, as if she had forced it out of her throat.

The students exchanged glances with each other, and some were almost laughing.

"As long as I don't borrow her cardigan, I'm willing to be her friend forever," Parvati whispered to Lavender, and both of them began to giggle as they ate.

Professor Umbridge cleared her throat again, but when she spoke again, some of the hurried sounds disappeared from her voice. Now her words were conveyed in a dry voice.

"The Ministry of Magic has always considered it important to educate young wizards and witches. The precious gifts that accompanied your birth will come to naught if you are not carefully educated and known. The ancient and unique skills of the wizarding organization must be inherited by future generations so that they are not lost. The treasures of magical knowledge discovered by our ancestors must be guarded, replenished, and perfected, and it is the noble teachers who take on this responsibility. Professor Umbridge paused here and bowed slightly to his colleagues, but none of the faculty returned the favor.

Professor McGonagall's dark eyebrows had shrunk so that she looked like an eagle, and Harry could clearly see Professor McGonagall and Professor Snape exchange a meaningful look, as if only Dumbledore was bowing slightly, while Professor Umbridge cleared his throat again and continued to speak.

"Successive Headmasters of Hogwarts have brought something new to the table to handle the heavy administrative tasks of this historic school. That's a matter of course, because without progress it will stagnate and rot. However, the interest in progress for the sake of progress must stop, and our traditions of struggle and testing are often perfect. Then it's a balance between the old and the new, the eternal and the changing, the traditional and the innovative. ”

Harry noticed that his attention was distracting, as if his brain was loosening and drifting away. The silence that had appeared in the hall as Dumbledore spoke was now broken again, and the students put their heads together, whispering and laughing.

At the Ravenclaw table, Cho was chatting with her friends. A few seats away next to Autumn, Luna pulled out her magazine again.

Meanwhile, at the Hufflepuff table, Anne McClain was one of the few students still staring at Professor Umbridge, but his eyes were blank, and Harry was sure he was merely pretending to listen in order to keep the gleaming prefect badge on his chest.

Slytherin's was more direct, they didn't look at Umbridge at all, Harry saw Laura talking to the girl next to her, and Malfoy talking to Perkins.

No one was interested in Umbridge's words, like hearing a joke about the Ministry's educational decisions at Hogwarts?

Professor Umbridge seemed to be completely oblivious to the noisy audience below. Harry even thought that if a mass commotion could erupt right under her nose, maybe she could put away the tirade.

However, the teachers were listening attentively, and Hermione was understanding every word she said, even though Hermione didn't agree with some of her points on the look.

"Because some of the changes were good, they followed the trend, and for a long time, these were seen as errors of judgment. At the same time, some old habits will be preserved, and because of this, other habits, those that are outdated, old, should be abolished. So, let's move forward and enter a new era of openness, efficiency, and accountability, retaining what should be retained, improving what needs to be improved, and revising what we find in practice to be prohibited. She finally sat down.

Dumbledore began to applaud. The whole faculty clapped along with Dumbledore, but Harry saw a few of the teachers stop after only a symbolic slap or two.

A few students applauded, but most of them didn't notice the end of the speech and didn't even listen to a few words. By the time they were about to start applauding, Dumbledore had already stood up.

"Thank you very much, Professor Umbridge, for your enlightening speech," Dumbledore said, bending over. "Now listen to me, the Quidditch preliminaries will take place...... It's more that things will be announced after they are implemented......"

"Yes, the speech is certainly instructive," Hermione whispered.

"You're not going to tell us you like this speech, are you?" said Ron, giving Hermione a blank look. "It was the most boring speech I've ever heard, and I grew up with Percy. ”

"You didn't understand what Hermione meant, Ron. Van Lin said.

"I said it was enlightening, I didn't say I liked it," Hermione said, "and the talk explained a lot of things. ”

"Really?" said Ron in amazement, "it sounds as boring as a waffle to me." ”

"There's something important hidden behind the boring speech," Hermione said solemnly.

"What is it?" Ron was at a loss.

"With regard to 'progress for the sake of progress must be limited', there is also the phrase 'revise everything that is found in practice to be forbidden'. ”

"Well, what does that mean?" said Ron, impatiently.

"I'll tell you what that means," Hermione said through gritted teeth, "and that means the Ministry of Magic is interfering in Hogwarts matters." ”

This caused a stir among them, and it was clear that Dumbledore had adjourned the meeting as everyone prepared to leave the hall. Hermione jumped to her feet, looking furious.

"One of Fudge's means. "Breaking the independence of Hogwarts, there is no doubt that students who walk out of Hogwarts are in some ways more inclined to Hogwarts when faced with a choice." ”

Van Lin stood up as he spoke, but then Van Lin paused, and then sat back in peace.

"Ron, we should lead the new students!"

"Oh yes," Ron apparently forgot about it, "hey-hey-you're behind!

"Ron!"

"Well, they, they're tiny......"

"I know, but you can't call them dwarfs! they're first-year students!" Hermione called out along the table, "Please go this way!" A group of freshmen shyly walked between the long tables in Gryffindor and Hufflepuff House, no one wanting to stand in the lead.

They looked really small, and Harry couldn't remember if he seemed so naïve when he came to Howards. He grinned toothy at the freshman. A red-faced little boy standing next to Euan was visibly stunned, pushing with his elbow and whispering in his ear. Euan seemed equally frightened, and looked at Harry with a look of horror that made Harry's smiling face look like a stinky idiot.

"Goodbye," he said to Ron and Hermione gloomily, "let's go." ”

"Oh, I'll have a while. Van Lin shook his head.

"Oh, well......" Harry looked a little frustrated, and then he walked out of the hall alone, trying his best to ignore the further gossip as people stared at him and pointed at him as he passed.

Harry's eyes were straight ahead as he walked through the crowd to the door of the hall, and once out of the hall he ran up the marble staircase as fast as he could. There was a small pause or two in between, and then more people were pulled down.

He didn't want to be so stupid, and his mind was even more annoyed as he made his way through the more empty staircase hallway. Of course, everyone would be staring at him, and two months ago he had wiped out his rivals and emerged from the maze of the Three Wizards' Tournament with the claim that Voldemort had been resurrected. Last semester, before everyone went home, he didn't have time to explain—even he wanted to tell the whole school the full details of the horrors in that grave.

Harry had already reached the Gryffindor House common room at the end of the hallway, and was barricaded in front of the portrait of the fat aunt, only to realize that he didn't know the new password.

"Yes," he said gloomily. The fat aunt was smoothing the folds in her pink satin and looking at him with fierce eyes.

"You won't be allowed to enter without a password," she said arrogantly.

"Harry, I know the password!" someone said breathlessly behind him. Harry looked back and saw that it was Neville. "Guess what's the new password?" I can actually remember it once I hear it—he shook the pot of plants in his hand that had been displayed on the train, and said, "Mimbras, Mimbretonia!"

"That's right," said the fat aunt, her portrait moving open like a door, and a circular hole appeared in the wall behind it, which Harry and Neville could now climb through. Gryffindor's common room was as popular as ever, a cosy round tower room filled with broken soft armchairs and rickety old tables. A fire was blazing in the fireplace, where a few men were cooking before going to bed, and on the other side of the room, Fred and George were concentrating on assembling something.

Harry greeted them and walked straight to the boys' dormitory; he wasn't in the mood to talk. Neville followed him. Don Thomas and Simo Finigan had already arrived at the bedroom first and put up posters and various photographs on the wall next to the bed.

They were talking, but Harry stopped when he pushed the door in. Harry was now suspicious of what they were talking about, and he was also skeptical that he was paranoid.

"Hello," Harry said, walking over to his suitcase and opening it.

"Hello, Harry," Thomas was posting two West Ham United posters, "how was your holiday?"

"It's not bad," Harry muttered, and in fact he spent most of his vacation connecting with friends, and he didn't want to face it anymore, "How are you?"

"Yes, I'm fine," Thomas laughed, "anyway, in what he just told me, better than Simo." ”

"Why, what's going on, Seamus?" asked Neville, placing his potted plant on the bedside table.

Seamus didn't answer immediately, he was checking that the poster of his favorite Quidditch team was straight. Then he turned his back to Harry and said, "My mom won't let me go back to school. ”

"What?" Harry asked as he dragged his robes out.

"She won't let me go back to Hogwarts. Seamus walked away from the poster and dragged out his pajamas, but still didn't look at Harry.

"But—why?" said Harry, surprised. He knew that Seamus's mother was a witch herself, and it was impossible to misunderstand wizards, so why would she do what Dudley's family did?

"Well," he said in a tentative tone, "I guess it's because of you. ”

"What do you mean?" Harry asked immediately. His heart beat faster, and he vaguely felt that something was approaching him.

"Well," Seamus still didn't dare look Harry in the eye, "she...... Well, yes, it's not just you, it's Dumbledore......"

"She believes the Daily Prophet?" said Harry, "and she thinks I'm a little liar and Dumbledore an old fool?"

Seamus looked up at Harry now. "Yes, that's the way it is. ”

Harry was speechless. He threw his wand onto the table next to the bed, took off his robe in annoyance and tossed it into his suitcase, then put on his pajamas. He's tired of being stared at and talked about.

If any of them knew, if any of them could understand the feeling that everything was happening to the same person, Mrs. Finigan didn't know, that stupid woman, Harry thought a little savagely.

Harry wanted to lie down on the bed and wrap himself around with a curtain. But before he could do so, Seamus said, "Look what happened that night, when you knew when you were with Cedric Diggory and the corpse eaters?" Thomas was bending over his slippers in his suitcase when suddenly there was a strange stillness, and Harry knew he was listening.

"What do you ask me for?" Harry retorted. "Just read the Daily Prophet like your mother, why not? It will tell you everything you want to know. ”