Chapter 21: Hogsmeade (Edited)

Luna's words helped to change Ivan's mentality, and after breakfast, he began to see the positive side of things.

Harry handed the parchment back to him and agreed to let Ivan publish the article in the paper, and although it was easy to say, Ivan noticed that the parchment was full of tears, it must have been a hard night for him.

At least the young Gryffindors never lacked the courage to face hardship.

Harry recovered quickly and thanked Ivan for informing him of the details of his parents' death, Ivan in turn, gave him Bathilda Bagshot's letter, which Harry received with great solemnity.

After Herbology class, Ivan followed the first years to Flight class.

Since his exposure to flying brooms at the Weasley's over the summer, Ivan discovered that he had a strong fear of heights, and after explaining this to Madame Hooch, he was given permission not to fly and just watch.

This frustrated the Slytherins as they wanted to teach Ivan a lesson in accordance with the rivalry between the two houses.

But now there was no chance, so they had to find another Gryffindor, so they looked at Colin, but Ivan's classmate Vicky Frobisher wouldn't let them.

They fought on their brooms to a comical end, besides Ivan, all the new Gryffindor and Slytherin students were severely reprimanded by Madam Hooch and deducted five points from their respective houses.

After seeing Vicky Frobisher's talent for flying, Ivan thought about recommending her to join the Quidditch team as a goalkeeper.

However, he didn't have the energy to try, as the first release of the "Hogwarts Magic" newspaper was approaching.

Now, Hermione had replaced Snape as the most terrifying person to the Gryffindors in "Hogwarts Magic," a fact that Ivan felt even more keenly.

In the following days, under Hermione's supervision, he spent almost all his time in the library, the two of them checked over and over again all the manuscripts, so he had to finish his homework after ten o'clock at night.

Similarly, Harry and Ron complained that Hermione had not lent them their homework, but at Hermione's furious look, they kept quiet.

Compared to Ivan, they were lucky enough to be working on an article about Hogwarts Quidditch.

Everyone was busy preparing manuscripts, but Hermione was still unsatisfied with the academic section.

Hermione, while looking at the two manuscripts, said, "Ivan, we have only received two submissions so far, one is from Percy, "The Present and the History of the Crucible," and the other is "How to Find a Crumpled Horned Snorkack" by Luna Lovegood, from Ravenclaw."

Ivan stopped writing, he pondered for a moment and said, "If there is no other choice, Luna's article first, her father runs a magazine that publishes such articles, I heard the sales are good, so there are people who like to see such things."

Hermione with a voice full of doubt said, "Oh, is it?!"

Thinking about the mostly finished "Hogwarts Magic" newspaper, which was no better than "The Quizzical", Ivan sighed and said, "Maybe, yes."

It was not exactly what he had initially thought, as the quality of the manuscripts was too low.

The first three articles introduced the interesting Hogwarts News of the week, but he was limited by the source of the articles, most of which came from Gryffindor students.

Ivan, Harry and Ron taking a car to school made the front page. Only a handful of things were Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff related, and as for Slytherin, there was almost no news other than Malfoy provoking people on several occasions.

Then there was an article about the safety of young wizards that took up five pages, it was full of legal terms, and Ivan wasn't sure if anyone would read it.

He believed that Hermione's articles would be skipped by most young wizards.

As for Fred and George's articles, it covered the Grand Staircase and frequently used secret passages, which might help some of the new students and attract some readers.

They must have left a lot out because through these secret passages it would be impossible to escape Filch, who was familiar with the secret passages.

Ginny helped Hagrid with his article on magical creatures, Harry and Ron wrote about Quidditch, in Ivan's opinion, he found nothing good to highlight.

And Luna's article for the academic section was "How to find a Snorkack with crumpled horns."

Ivan thought, "So it looks like the story I wrote about Harry's mother Lily will be the highlight of the issue and can be featured on the front page."

Then he turned the paper over, and what he saw next were over ten pages of pictures of Lockhart. Lockhart in class, Lockhart grading homework, Lockhart at dinner, Lockhart waving his wand, Lockhart helping other teachers, Lockhart at....

Lockhart's smile was everywhere, and it made Ivan a little dizzy.

After the pictures was Hermione's story about Lockhart back when he was at school, and under Hermione's description, Lockhart looked bigger than Dumbledore.

Second were the novels that Lockhart never made public. As Lockhart announced to the class that he would be publishing a story in the paper, the girls in the class came to him with a desire to preview the content.

Although it was not ideal, Ivan had to admit that the success of the first issue of the paper "Hogwarts Magic" was totally on par with Lockhart's charisma.

Ivan put down the paper and turned to Hermione and said, "That's it, it looks like everyone has done their best. Hermione, I'm going to Hogsmeade on Saturday to talk to the businesses there, maybe they'll be willing to buy our papers from us."

Hermione looked at Ivan and said in a serious tone, "Hogsmeade is the only pure wizarding village left in England, but school rules only allow third years and up to go there on certain days and you need your parent's or guardians permission."

Ivan shrank back in his seat unconsciously under Hermione's gaze and said, "Calm down, Hermione, I learned from Fred and George that there is a secret passage to Hogsmeade."

Hermione shook her head and said, "A secret passage? You know if you get caught, you'll be expelled."

Ivan looked at Hermione and said, "As long as you don't tell anyone, no one will know. We need publicity and sponsorship, or we won't have enough money to print the next issue of the paper, you know, all that ink and paper aren't cheap."

Hermione tried to rebut, "But..."

Ivan quickly interrupted her and said, "Don't worry, Hermione, I remember Saturday is the first day of Gryffindor Quidditch training, I'll be back before it's over to cheer Harry on."