Chapter 47: I Can Feel That You Are Very Tense Right Now

The last Charms class before Halloween.

Following Sherlock and Harry, Hermione earned yet another point for Gryffindor.

The Ravenclaw students attending the class alongside Gryffindor offered polite applause.

This had practically become a custom.

Relations between the eagle and lion houses were decent, and they didn't mind engaging in this sort of mutual flattery.

Yet, this time, they were surprised to find that while Hermione had won a point for Gryffindor, she did not receive the same treatment as Sherlock and Harry.

Everyone met her achievement with cold indifference.

Clearly, no one was willing to buy into Hermione's ostentatious way of showcasing her brilliance.

Since even her own housemates felt this way, the Ravenclaw students were happy to save themselves the trouble and let their applause die out.

The atmosphere turned awkward for a moment.

Professor Flitwick, however, remained oblivious to any underlying tension and continued to correct the students.

Unfortunately, until the end-of-class bell rang, Ron still failed to produce any results.

If it were merely that, it wouldn't have been so bad.

Ron simply resigned himself to the fact that he lacked talent in Charms.

It wasn't the end of the world.

Yet Hermione kept nagging away right beside him:

"Why won't you listen to me?

If you were willing to do it just like I said, you could definitely make the feather fly!

That way, Gryffindor could get another point, and we could close the gap with the other houses..."

"Will you just shut up!"

Ron, already at the end of his tether, could no longer contain himself and roared out loud.

"Nattering on day in and day out, constantly rattling on about house points and school rules! Did I come to Hogwarts just to listen to you drone on about this?"

Hermione seemed startled by Ron's sudden change in demeanor.

Instead of snapping back as she usually did, she simply stood there, clutching her book to her chest, and stared blankly at Ron.

Perhaps having bottled up too much frustration, Ron unleashed his entire arsenal of verbal abuse, rivaling Hermione at her absolute worst:

"No wonder everyone can't stand you!

Honestly, you're nothing short of a nightmare!

I never begged for your help! Never! And I don't care about winning points!

Granger, it's been this long already—haven't you even noticed?

You don't even have a single friend!"

With a sharp slap, the book slipped from Hermione's grip and hit the floor.

The next instant, tears welled up in her eyes, and she turned and fled without looking back, bumping into Harry along the way.

Ron froze.

He hadn't expected Hermione's reaction to be so extreme.

Right at that moment, a sudden wave of regret washed over him.

Harry, having been shoved aside by Hermione, certainly wouldn't hold it against her. He watched her retreating figure vanish into the crowd, then turned his gaze back to Ron.

"You went a bit too far, didn't you?"

"So what? I was only speaking the truth."

Ron stubbornly kept up his defense.

Yet, even without Sherlock's analysis, Harry could see that the expression on Ron's face was far from natural.

Clearly, his inner feelings were not nearly as untroubled as his words suggested.

Unexpectedly, Sherlock stooped to pick up the book Hermione had dropped, expressionlessly shoved it into his own satchel, and remarked flatly:

"Ron was right."

Harry stared at him in astonishment: "Sherlock, how can you..."

Sherlock said indifferently: "Facts are facts."

"Well..."

Harry sighed.

Come to think of it, given Sherlock's personality, uttering such words was both unexpected and entirely in character.

He was simply that sort of person.

Turning back to Ron, the boy seemed somewhat comforted after receiving Sherlock's backing.

Then...

"However, I think you'd better go apologize to her later."

Harry: Σ(｀д'[∗]ノ)ノ

Ron: Σ(°△°|||)︴

What is this? Are you playing ping-pong with your stance now?

"Why should I?!"

Ron couldn't hold back anymore. "You just said I was speaking the truth."

"I can tell you're very nervous right now."

Sherlock's gaze locked piercingly onto Ron. Under that sharp scrutiny, Ron guiltily averted his eyes.

Harry: |(*'口`)

Harry had a strong intuition that Sherlock would manage to persuade Ron in the very next second.

"If your conscience were truly clear, of course you wouldn't need to look for her, but it isn't."

"Not everyone can treat other people like thin air the way you do."

Ron muttered under his breath.

He was increasingly beginning to feel that Sherlock didn't resemble an eleven-year-old boy at all.

Forget his peers; even his prefect brother Percy probably wasn't as mature as Sherlock.

Though Sherlock hadn't said much, Ron was, predictably, persuaded.

However, ever since she ran out, Hermione never returned.

She failed to reappear in Charms class and was entirely missing for the rest of the afternoon.

Ron half-considered asking others about her, but his pride got the better of him—after all, quite a few people had witnessed him yelling Hermione away.

It wasn't until they headed to the Halloween feast that he accidentally overheard the twin sisters Parvati Patil telling her friend that Hermione was crying her eyes out in the girls' bathroom and refusing everyone's comfort.

Hearing this made Ron feel even more awkward.

With a heavy weight on his mind, even the colorful Halloween decorations in the Great Hall lost their appeal.

Even so, Ron didn't think the situation was overly serious at the time.

After all, the Halloween banquet was much more lavish than usual.

The delicious aromas were simply irresistible, instantly turning him into a voracious eater.

He figured he would fill his stomach first and then bring some food over to Hermione afterward.

Judging others by his own standards, Ron believed that no matter how angry Hermione was, a good meal would set everything right.

With that thought, he dove right into the feast.

And as he ate, Hermione slipped completely out of his mind.

Until, midway through the meal, Professor Quirrell—already something of a laughingstock among the students—burst frantically into the Great Hall.

His face was a mask of sheer terror, and that heavily criticized, oversized turban sat crookedly on his head.

An entrance like this naturally riveted everyone's attention upon him.

He stumbled all the way to Professor Dumbledore's side, likely too panicked to care that the entire school was watching him, and stammered out:

"T-Troll! A troll in the dungeons! I thought you ought to know."

With those words, he collapsed forward onto the floor.

He had actually fainted dead away.

This left the professors, who had initially intended to scold him for lacking any sense of occasion, completely without a target.

As for Quirrell's stunt, it acted like a boulder thrown into a calm lake, plunging the entire Great Hall into utter chaos.

"Silence!"

Even Dumbledore, under such circumstances, had to blast several purple sparks from his wand to regain control of the room.

Composed and steady, he bore no resemblance to the eccentric figure seen at the start-term banquet.

"Prefects, lead the students of your respective houses back to the dormitories at once!"

His commanding presence steadied the students, and Percy naturally slipped right into his element.

"I'm a prefect!

Older students, make way, let the first-years pass first!

Attention, I am a prefect!"