"Wait, are they adding a wizard storyline to the movie?" Ron asked curiously.
"I have to say, it's a very creative idea…" Fred commented. "But won't it be a bit abrupt? At least give us some hints earlier!"
Percy frowned. "The plot is becoming a mess! And they made the wizards the villains?"
"What's wrong with villains? Villains are cool, alright?" George immediately retorted, raising his voice a bit.
The wizards charged into battle with passionate music playing, fighting fiercely without retreat, while the Muggle soldiers appeared panicked and disorganized.
Mrs. Weasley, who had originally put down her knitting and reached for her wand to turn off the mirror, hesitated after hearing the kids' conversation and slowly lowered her wand again.
— Right, it's just a Muggle-made TV show. No need to overreact...
She suppressed the unease in her heart, gave a self-deprecating smile, and focused more intently on the images in the mirror.
The wizards and Muggles started to battle… Hmm, it is clearly a fantasy plot. How many years has it been since wizards fought in a Muggle war? But the scene of the soldiers being burned was certainly magical…
Mrs. Weasley thought to herself.
"Something's off."
Harry suddenly heard Michael's whisper. He turned to see his Ravenclaw classmate looking at the mirror with a serious expression.
"These spells are too real, and the gestures used to cast them… It doesn't seem like something a Muggle could imagine…" Michael whispered.
Harry looked more closely and realized that Michael was right.
They had played a game called "Might and Magic" at Wade's house, and they were well aware of how vastly different Muggles' imagined magic was from reality.
But the Weasleys didn't have that kind of sharpness, or experience. In their minds, magic was exactly like what was presented on screen.
"This… doesn't this violate the Statute of Secrecy?" Harry said uneasily.
After hearing about it from the people around him, Harry had become very aware of how strongly the wizarding world upheld the 'Statute of Secrecy'.
He lowered his voice and quietly added, "Maybe a wizard leaked this information to the Muggle director… he's definitely going to be in trouble."
Michael gave him a strange look. Harry scratched his head, confused. "Did I guess wrong?"
"What I mean is… this isn't acting! This part… it's very likely something that actually happened! It might have even just happened!" Michael said in a very low voice.
"What?!" Harry exclaimed, surprised.
At that moment, the mirror switched to a scene in the laboratory, and although Harry's reaction was a bit too dramatic, no one thought it was strange.
"Oh…" Percy said with disgust, "This scene is disgusting. How could a Muggle director come up with such a plot?"
"It's not the director!" Ron corrected him. "The person who writes the script is called a screenwriter, right Harry?"
Harry clenched his fists tightly and gave a vague response with sweat trickling down his back.
— What if this isn't just a TV plot… what if it's really happening…
Mrs. Weasley felt a strong sense of unease again. She stood up and said:
"Alright, children… this part is a bit inappropriate for young ones. You'd better go to bed now, and tonight I'm going to write a letter to SMC—they can't be showing this stuff to kids!" (StreamMirror Media Company)
"Wait, Mom! We're not kids anymore!" The twins and Ron hurriedly stopped her.
"Ginny is!" Mrs. Weasley said angrily.
"I'm not! I'm twelve! And this is all fake, what's there to be afraid of?" Ginny screamed.
She didn't even care that Harry was still there, and strongly defended her right to watch the Streaming mirror.
"Yeah, Mom." Even Percy, who had just been complaining about the plot, said, "We've seen worse things at school! Compared to giant cockroaches, these scenes are nothing… and besides, it's Christmas."
With her favorite son's persuasion, Mrs. Weasley hesitated and compromised again. She sat down to warn, "Half an hour at most! Watch it and then go to bed!"
"Yay!"
The kids cheered and turned their attention back to the mirror. But after watching for a short while, the screen suddenly changed. An emaciated old man appeared, surrounded by many dark-robed wizards, giving a speech—
"When the person bleeding is not you, can you pretend you don't hear? When the one being killed is not your family, can you pretend you still have peace?"
Mrs. Weasley shuddered. Before her mind could even catch up, her wand swiftly turned off the flow mirror.
"Mom—"
"We agreed on half an hour!"
"At least let us finish this episode!"
"It's still too early to sleep! I want to watch the streaming mirror! I want to watch wizards battle aliens!"
"Shut up!" Mrs. Weasley roared and her face turned crimson as she shouted, "Back to your bedrooms! Go to sleep! Now!"
Her volcanic-like fury silenced everyone in the room. The room was so quiet that even a needle dropping on the floor could be heard.
Fred and George exchanged glances, both too afraid to speak.
A few seconds later, Michael nudged Harry, and the two of them stood up first.
"Well, goodnight, everyone," Michael said.
Harry opened his mouth, finally managing to say, "…Goodnight."
"Sorry, kids," Mrs. Weasley said with her lips trembling with regret, "I shouldn't have been so harsh, but…"
"I understand, ma'am, we'll head back to our bedrooms now," Michael said.
"But…" George hesitated, about to say something, but then he looked up and saw Harry's eyes. A sudden idea flashed in his mind.
He grabbed Fred, who still wanted to resist, and pulled him up from the floor, saying, "Alright then, early to bed and early to rise, you can go ride broomsticks earlier tomorrow."
Ron had already started walking upstairs under Harry's subtle hint, deliberately keeping a disgruntled expression.
Ginny, having lost her teammates, angrily glared at her brothers, who showed no signs of resistance. Noticing their expressions, her eyes shifted, and an idea formed.
"I got it, Mom." Ginny hugged her mother and said sweetly and cutely, "You should get some rest too."
"Oh, Ginny, dear." Mrs. Weasley touched her little daughter's cheek with her cold palm, and said softly with emotion, "I'm so glad you're so understanding."
"We're going upstairs like good kids too!" Fred, standing on the stairs, turned to his twin brothers and said, "Isn't anyone going to notice this?"
George replied, "You can try again."
"Good idea."
Fred actually squeezed past and went down to the first floor. He deliberately made a circle in front of Mrs. Weasley, and when she couldn't help raising an eyebrow, he quickly ran upstairs and made a face over his shoulder.
"Fred, dear, you're so understanding!" George mimicked her voice in a high pitch, earning a white-eye from his sister.
Percy, who had been waiting for his younger siblings to resist, was stunned. When he realized that his mother's sharp gaze had turned toward him, he struggled inwardly for a moment, but in the end, he couldn't break free from the role of "the most well-behaved child in the family."
With a sigh, Percy also said goodbye to his mother. He lingered for a moment to glance at the streaming mirror, before sluggishly going upstairs.
After making sure that all the troublesome children had returned to their rooms and that no one was sneaking back down, Mrs. Weasley reopened the Streaming mirror. She muted the sound and sat quietly in the living room, watching alone.
The pale blue light from the Streaming mirror reflected on Mrs. Weasley's face, making her look drained of color. Her fingers tightly gripped her apron and trembled uncontrollably.
It's… that person, right? Grindelwald…
After this terrifying Dark Lord escaped from prison, his photo had once graced the front page of The Daily Prophet, with the reporters using extremely objective and subtly flattering language to educate readers on his "great achievements."
When Peter Pettigrew and his companions escaped from prison, it sparked widespread discussion within the entire British wizarding community.
The Ministry of Magic quickly initiated a manhunt, and reporters in the newspapers occasionally expressed doubts, hinting that the Ministry had failed to capture them and suggesting there was some sort of internal manipulation.
However, after Grindelwald's escape, The Daily Prophet only mentioned it once, and then it seemed as if nothing had happened. No one called for a manhunt, and no one publicly condemned the Ministry.
—Of course… Grindelwald isn't a British wizard, and he had barely ever operated in Britain…
Even if he does something now… it has nothing to do with the British wizards… especially since the other side of the battle is made up of Muggle forces…
Mrs. Weasley tried to comfort herself, but she couldn't truly calm down.
As she watched, she suddenly jumped up, checked the doors and windows, then reinforced the protective and concealment spells around the Burrow before anxiously sitting back down.
At that point, the streaming mirror had returned to its normal programming, but the comedic or tense plots no longer had the same effect on Mrs. Weasley as they had before.
She sat on the sofa, twisting her fingers, and strongly wished for her husband to come home soon.
…
"Good night."
"Good night."
The Weasley siblings exchanged good nights, sharing looks that only they could understand.
Cough, cough. Ron pretended to cough twice and said to Percy, "I'm going to squeeze in with Harry and Michael tonight, so I won't disturb your rest."
Percy was more than happy. He said good night, didn't think about anything, his mind was completely occupied with the unfinished plot they had just watched, as he returned to his room.
Bang!
When the door closed, Fred and George immediately stuck their heads out, looked upstairs and downstairs, then quickly dashed into Harry and the others' room.
Harry quickly hid the socks that had been carelessly thrown about under the mattress and began rummaging through his trunk.
"I actually have a streaming mirror too, it's a bit small though. It was a gift from Sirius... Ah, I found it!"
Harry pulled out the streaming mirror, but before he could open it, he heard the sound of the door creaking open.
The group turned in fear and saw not Mrs. Weasley's angry face, but the door pushed open just a crack, and then their little sister slipped inside.
"Go back to your bedroom, Ginny!" Fred said rudely, "You promised Mom you'd go to bed early."
"Hmph! I don't think so!" Ginny crossed her arms and threatened, "If you don't let me join, I'll shout for Mom!"
"What?! How could you..."
"Keep your voice down, or Mom really will come!" George urged. "Hurry up, Harry. I don't want to miss any more of the show!"
"Alright." Harry opened the streaming mirror, and the Weasley twins quickly pulled the curtains shut and turned off the lights in the room, pretending that everyone was already asleep.
Hearing Harry's voice, Ginny blushed. She squeezed next to Ron, and Fred leaned in on the other side of her. The group tugged at the blanket and draped it over everyone just enough to cover them all.
Grindelwald's speech had reached its conclusion. He didn't say much, and then the scene shifted to show the tragic fate of the test subjects from different angles: a natural pit filled with numerous corpses, and the Muggle officer's tearful account.
Ginny squeezed tightly next to Fred, and she heard Ron voice the question that was on everyone's mind:
"Why do I feel like… this isn't just a TV show?" Ron said uncertainly. "The main character… and the others haven't appeared yet."
"Actually… Michael said earlier… this might be real…" Harry said, even under the blanket, feeling a chill run through him.
Ginny shivered.
"Don't joke around, mate," Ron said with a tense voice. "If this was real, it would've been discovered by now! The Aurors at the Ministry aren't idiots!"
"But Aurors can't know everything," Fred said with a serious face. "There are so many Muggles, and there are only so many Aurors. They can't watch the whole world."
George added, "Also, the place in the footage doesn't look like it's in Britain… that Muggle's accent sounds American."
As they spoke, the screen suddenly flashed, and then returned to the storyline of the male protagonist chasing aliens.
A moment later, the scene changed again. A sweaty male wizard stood in the center and said to someone nearby, "Is it ready... What, it's already started!"
He quickly turned his head and wiped his sweat while saying, "On behalf of SMC, I solemnly announce that the footage shown earlier has nothing to do with us! There... there was..."
He glanced quickly at someone off-screen and stammered, "There... there were some people who illegally hijacked our signal, which is why that footage appeared... This is the first signal hijacking incident in the wizarding world... this... we'll strengthen our protections as soon as possible to prevent this from happening again..."
He spoke while looking aside, unsure if he was being threatened or if his superior was constantly signaling him on what to say.
"Well... our company takes no responsibility for any of the statements or footage in the video. This has nothing to do with us... The missed footage will be replayed, so please continue watching, everyone..."
After a long pause, Fred exclaimed in awe, "Merlin... it's all real!"
"That's terrifying..." Ron whispered. "Those Muggles... and Grindelwald... Now I understand why people are so afraid of him..."
Beside them, Michael's face looked unusually grim, but in the dark, no one noticed.
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⭐Harry Potter: Becoming a Study God (HP:BSG)- +235 Chapters
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