Well, at least his baby sister believed in him. It was not exactly a panacea to the idea that the whole of wizarding Britain might be talking about how poor of an inventor he was at this very moment, but it was at least a bit of a salve for the moment. "The Prophet article didn't mention of my actual patents," he complained with a nod. "Though they're on record at the Ministry's Ludicrous Patents Office, so I imagine that's just laziness on Pengloss' part — or maybe disorganization from the patent office," he allowed. On his occasional visits to the office, they hadn't exactly seemed like the most organized division in the Ministry. Perhaps they'd gotten a request for a list of his patents and simply misplaced it and forgotten to reply before the article went to print? Or perhaps they'd misplaced the patents themselves? It wasn't as though Oz had any reason to go check if they were all being maintained well, and unless someone tried to claim credit for one of his inventions he would continue to have no reason to check on them.

"But even if I only had one patent on record, it would still be more than any of the other candidates have," he pointed out. "So it's a bit hypocritical of anyone to use that against me for the sake of the election."

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