'Lucius Malfoy, you two-faced traitor!'
In the school board meeting room, Yaxley, who was lying crumpled on the ground, shouted angrily at Lucius.
Yaxley's strength was actually not bad. When he had suffered the double blow from his own reflected spell, he had still managed to cast a Shield Charm at the critical moment, which had offset most of the damage. This allowed him to retain enough strength to angrily scold Lucius.
Listening to Yaxley's furious accusations, Lucius's expression remained utterly unchanged. He turned to Dracula and said in a serious, deferential manner: 'Mr Dracula, these people who attempted to attack you have committed serious crimes. I suggest sending them all to Azkaban to reform.'
Standing next to Lucius, Draco opened his mouth wide, looking at his father in complete shock. He could not imagine that his father, who had always been a perfect picture of aristocratic demeanour, could do such a flamboyant—and utterly shameless—thing.
Yaxley struggled to get up from the ground, still wanting to curse Lucius a few more times.
However, Dracula simply waved his hand in the air, throwing Yaxley into the corner of the meeting room as if swatting a fly. He was piled up with the other miserable school board members who were wailing in pain. Dracula then conveniently turned on the silencing mode for the entire lot of them.
'It is much quieter now.' Dracula nodded in satisfaction. He looked at Lucius, who appeared calm on the surface but was actually trembling with barely concealed fear. 'Tell me your thoughts, Mr Malfoy.'
'Mr Dracula, you can just call me Lucius,' Lucius said with a sycophantic smile.
'I propose that those who have offended you—or, to put it another way, those who have disturbed the normal order of the school board meeting—be sent to Azkaban to repent. I have a lot of evidence of their various illegal activities, which can contribute to the purity and cleanliness of the Hogwarts school board!'
Lucius said these words calmly, without blushing or his heart skipping a beat. He was far too familiar with this kind of thing—selling out his teammates.
Back when Voldemort had fallen and the Ministry of Magic was liquidating the Death Eaters, he had betrayed many of his fellow Death Eaters. He had dumped all kinds of incriminating information about them and donated a large amount of Galleons to the Ministry. From then on, the Malfoy family had "abandoned the dark and turned to the light," and had remained a good friend of the Ministry of Magic.
It did not matter to him at all if he sold out Yaxley and the other school board members today. After all, he did not have much of a friendship with these people in the first place, and there was also a competitive relationship between the various pure-blood families. Now was a good opportunity to stir up trouble for a wave of his competitors.
Looking at Lucius, who had such a hypocritical, sanctimonious face, Dracula could not help but sigh. This was truly a talent.
'The idea is very good. I am optimistic about you, Lucius,' he said to Lucius. 'But I vaguely remember, what did you say when you first came here? You said that I like to use corporal punishment on students and that you wanted to expel me from Hogwarts?'
Lucius's expression remained unchanged. He turned around and slapped his son soundly on the back of the head.
Draco had just been poked in the face by the school board badge in Lucius's hand, and now he was slapped heavily by him. He looked at his father in disbelief, his eyes filled with tears of pure grievance.
'Father, why did you hit me?'
'Listen to me and do not talk!'
Lucius whispered to remind Draco, then looked at Dracula again in a serious, almost solemn, manner and said:
'Mr Dracula, I have investigated this matter clearly. It was Draco who was dissatisfied with your handling of his violation of the school rules, so he colluded with several of his Slytherin friends to write a letter of complaint and that questionnaire. The complaint letter and questionnaire were filled with a lot of slander against you!'
'After verification, I am now sure that your approach has no problems whatsoever, and I retract the ignorant words that I said earlier about wanting to expel you,' he said, his voice smooth as silk. 'Draco is just an innocent child. Please do not lower yourself to his level, and please understand the children who are in their rebellious period.'
'I am not a rebellious child!' Draco retorted loudly, unconvinced and humiliated.
But what greeted him was another slap from Lucius on the head, which directly stunned him into silence. After a long moment, Draco finally came to his senses. He slumped down onto the chair next to the round table and began to cry bitterly.
Dracula had a playful smile on his face. He said to Lucius: 'Then your efficiency is really quite high. In just over 10 minutes, you have already investigated the truth of this matter without leaving your house.'
'Of course.' Lucius did not point out the hidden meanings in Dracula's words but continued to say in a serious manner, 'You can rest assured that I will handle these things!'
Looking at Lucius's solemn and restrained expression, Dracula finally laughed out loud.
'Lucius, you are indeed a very interesting person.' He smiled and pulled a chair over, sitting down and leaning casually on the soft backrest. 'Then help me think about it. Where should this Hogwarts school board go from here?'
Hearing Dracula ask this question, Lucius was ecstatic in his heart, but his expression remained calm and composed.
'In my own opinion, the Hogwarts school board is still very necessary.' He paused, then slowly stated his opinion. 'Hogwarts, as a magic school with a complete and complex ecosystem, has many tasks that require specialised coordination departments.'
'As the school's main funder and collective decision-making body, the school board can provide financial support and reasonable development suggestions for these complex projects. Of course, I know you certainly do not lack this insignificant amount of money. But in a collective, every appropriation must be meaningful and comply with the proper procedures. Otherwise, internal employees can easily develop the behaviour of stealing accounts, leaking accounts, and using their public office for personal gain. The various signing, coordination, and accounting work involved in this will definitely delay your valuable time.'
Lucius's words accurately cut to the very heart of the matter—that is, Dracula hated those step-by-step, constantly repetitive, and utterly boring chores more than anything else. But this was precisely an indispensable part of any well-run organisation.
'So I think you can still leave the school board in place. Let us do our best to help you deal with some of these trivial matters and chores so as not to delay your valuable time,' Lucius continued, his voice smooth and persuasive.
'Of course, as the one who controls the magic system of the entire Hogwarts castle, you will definitely be our chairman of the school board, with the power to veto all matters!'
Hearing about the veto power, Dracula finally became interested.
'But as far as I know, there are a total of 12 school board badges,' he looked at Lucius—this undeniable talent—and asked, 'After excluding those people piled up in the corner, you only have 7 school board members left now. How are you going to distribute the remaining 5 badges?'
'Mr Dracula,' Lucius smiled, his eyes gleaming with ambition, 'the appointment of these school board members is, of course, left entirely to you, the chairman, to distribute as you see fit.'
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