“I didn't expect Miss Know-It-All to dislike homework sometimes…”

A few minutes later, as Erina and Hermione mingled with the crowd going downstairs, Erina jokingly said while heading towards the Great Hall for dinner.

"If Hannah knew, she might be so surprised that she'd eat an extra chicken leg for dinner. I thought you'd never complain about homework."

"If it's just normal homework, then of course there's no need to avoid it – we are students, after all."

Hermione glared at the mischievous dumpling and sighed softly, continuing earnestly.

"But, you know – the homework Professor Umbridge assigns is different. Identifying and killing werewolves is okay for now, but the praise and adulation of the Ministry of Magic's 'misdeeds' later on, I don't even want to write a single punctuation mark."

"Oh, so you're pitying those imprisoned werewolves?"

"Not entirely, I don't want to be brainwashed by the Ministry of Magic..."

Hermione shook her head, pondered for a moment, and said with a heavy heart.

"As one of the informed, if I write those things, I'll have a terrible feeling of being an accomplice."

Even without Erina's detailed explanation, after serving as a special editor for *The Quibbler* for more than a year, Hermione knew how terrible the power contained in the words printed on paper was, and what Umbridge was doing was trying to instill those wrong words into the students' minds.

"Well, that is a problem... The Ministry of Magic is more troublesome than we thought."

Erina nodded in agreement, frowning slightly, looking somewhat serious.

Perhaps due to the popularity of publications such as *The Quibbler*, *A Bite of Hogwarts*, and *Exploring Magic*, the Ministry of Magic in this world obviously values the public opinion battlefield more than Erina knew.

Of course, another reason might be that while the shadow of the "Death Eaters" has reappeared, it has also been distributed around the world.

The British Ministry of Magic is now more relaxed.

If Umbridge were given more time, she might actually be able to instill some wrong ideas in Hogwarts.

Even though Erina's plan includes a "reverse detonation" phase, she doesn't want the students of the school to be contaminated by the toad.

"I'll write a letter to Mr. Lovegood tonight, the 'Investigator-Beetle' can start the writing work."

Erina shrugged and said in a relaxed tone.

Rita Skeeter's "abandoning darkness and embracing light" was a complete pleasant surprise.

After several months of transformation, under the influence of the Destiny Group's organizational culture, the former top reporter of *The Daily Prophet* has long been shaped into the form of the Foundation.

Of course, before that, Rita's task was more to play the role of exploration and recording, and there were relatively few opportunities to write.

However, compared to Rita's Animagus ability, Erina values her writing talent more.

As everyone knows, magical moving pictures in the magical world cannot be faked – this is Erina's confidence.

With those first-hand on-site iron evidence, and the support of the magical world's first capital, the stage where Rita Skeeter can perform is too big.

…………

While speaking, they arrived at the entrance hall in front of the Great Hall, which was crowded with students waiting to eat.

Whenever it's mealtime, it gets quite crowded here, but today's crowding is obviously not just because there are many people.

"There seems to be something ahead..."

Hermione frowned and stood on tiptoe to look at the front of the completely stopped line.

Something seemed to be posted on the notice board in front of the Great Hall door, so that most people were gathered there discussing it.

As for Erina, she directly gave up on tiptoeing – it's useless anyway, she'll know when she walks over later.

Just as they were slowly moving forward at the end of the line, a voice full of anticipation suddenly sounded behind them.

"Granger! You will definitely participate, right?!"

Erina and Hermione turned around and saw a Gryffindor freshman holding a camera and saying excitedly.

Colin Creevey, a freshman who just entered school this year and loves photography.

In the original timeline, he spent most of the school year petrified because he indirectly made eye contact with the basilisk.

However, in this Erina version where the basilisk has been killed, Colin Creevey will naturally not repeat his previous fate – after some assessment and training, he took over Luna's original job and became an intern reporter for *The Quibbler* magazine in Hogwarts.

"What?" Hermione frowned.

"The House Melee! Gryffindor versus Slytherin!"

Colin Creevey said excitedly, pointing to the notice board not far away as he spoke.

Unknowingly, Erina and Hermione had arrived in the middle of the entrance hall, and could see the notice posted at the entrance of the Great Hall by simply raising their heads slightly.

Compared to other publicity and notices, such as Umbridge's "High Inquisitor" appointment documents, this notice was surprisingly large, with large bold fonts printed on it, and magic seemed to have been applied to the text, with golden-red flames and silver-green flames surging above it.

[Inter-House Practical Sparring: Gryffindor vs Slytherin]

[Time: 7 PM this Sunday]

[Location: Quidditch Pitch]

[Format: Grade-based, group-based magical confrontation]

[Specific Rules:]

[1v1 Ring Match: Each house sends one person each from the first, second, and third grades, points are awarded based on defeating opponents, each knockdown counts as 1 point]

[2v2 Confrontation: Each house sends two people each from the fourth and fifth grades, after each victory, 2 points can be obtained]

[5v5 Team Match: No restrictions on the grade of participants, any student enrolled in Hogwarts can participate, winning the team match is worth 5 points]

[Each wizard can only participate in one competition.]

[Knockdown rules and venue rules refer to the "Hogwarts Standard Duelling Rules" implemented since last year]

[How to participate:]

[Selected by the prefects of both sides from the applicants, and submitted to their respective deans one day before the start]

[Detailed Explanation...]

Seeing this, Hermione turned to look at Erina.

"You did this? House Melee, Professor McGonagall actually agreed?! Are you serious?"

Her tone was filled with a strong sense of certainty.

Generally speaking, this kind of abnormal thing is most likely instigated by the dumpling.

"Well, the form is… but…"

Erina looked up at the fancy promotional poster, and couldn't help twitching the corners of her mouth.

"I remember, it was supposed to be a secret duel, why is it so public now? I really don't know this."

According to her initial idea, the "private" duel between Gryffindor and Slytherin should be a fairly secret matter.

Whether it was the stakes or the duel process, these should preferably be announced after the dust settles, rather than being so high-profile now.

In this way, it is equivalent to negating all behind-the-scenes operations, and also increasing the risk of this matter. Under the gaze of so many students and professors, the difficulty of on-site control, and the complexity of the confrontation are at least hundreds of times higher.

Which smarty-pants came up with the idea –

Her eyes wandered around the entrance hall, trying to lock onto that smarty-pants.

This is undoubtedly a difficult process, because of her height, it is difficult for her to have a panoramic view.

As this "declaration of war" was directly posted, almost all the young wizards were discussing this matter.

The students of Gryffindor and Slytherin are naturally the most excited group.

And the young wizards of the other two houses are also equally excited.

As the onlookers, Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw wished that the "House Melee" would start today, preferably one match every day.

The young wizards read the notice and discussed the content in a lively manner.

"Do you think Erina and Hermione will participate?" Hermione clearly heard someone discussing next to her.

"I think Hermione and I probably won't –"

Erina said with a gloomy expression, pointing to the end of the notice with her finger.

"Prefects and Heads of Houses are responsible for on-site refereeing and maintaining discipline. This special explanation… is written very clearly."

As for who the "smarty-pants" was, she had already seen it.

At the final signature place of the announcement, three large flourished signatures were extremely eye-catching:

Albus Dumbledore, Otto Apocalypse, and...

Erina Kaslana!

Those two damned old fellows actually secretly forged her signature!

————

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Yay!