A few hours earlier, Ron had experienced a thrilling trip to detention.
At 8:00 p.m., he knocked apprehensively at Professor Lockhart's door, stammering as he came for detention.
"Is there such a thing?" Lockhart looked sickly, "Oh, yes, that's right! You little villain ..."
He yanked Ron into the office and shoved him in a chair.
"Well, what's your punishment ... Let's see, how can I get you to sincerely repent and cry out in gratitude at the greatness of Gilderoy Lockhart?"
Ron stared at him dumbfounded, Lockhart's arrogance aggravated again?
"I thought of that!" Lockhart said with a jolt, clutching a bulging stack of envelopes from a cabinet in the corner.
" Professor, what is this?" Ron swallowed hard, don't, DON'T ...
"These are letters from avid fans, part of my collection - my favourites! You need to transcribe them all." Lockhart said with gusto.
Things were going in the worst possible direction.
The letters, Ron thought, added up to be thicker than the two large books Malfoy had transcribed.
He opened an envelope and pulled out the contents, which began, "Dear Gilderoy, I am your sweetest and most faithful reader Morelia, I sleep with your book in my arms every day because it has your most charming picture on it, oh Gilderoy, your curls simply tickle my heart and I can't wait to have a great adventure with you in my dreams ..."
" Ew~" Ron almost looked sick.
"Are you sick?" Lockhart asked him.
"No-"
" No. Then start copying, it's your punishment for sneaking up on the professor, no, it's a reward - the privilege of feeling my own greatness with my readers."
What Lockhart said today was unexpectedly blunt, and Ron had thought he was a peacock or at least would hide his butt when he opened his wings.
But he didn't have a choice, and Ron had to force himself not to think about anything, not to wonder what the sh*t, he was copying, really meant. But just two lines in, he recoiled once again.
So he began to focus on Lockhart, his mind spinning desperately to make himself think about something else.
Two feet away from him, Lockhart likewise unfolded a piece of parchment, picked up a quill drenched in ink, and wrote a line of dragon-flecked fancy writing on it, muttering under his breath, "O Merlin, I am so unlucky to have to apologize to the stupid Fudge ..."
Ron had a gut-wrenching night, because Lockhart seems to have changed for the worse, there is no door in the mouth, spilling a lot of secrets to him.
Either complaining that Dumbledore cheated him, or complaining that Professor Hap had stolen his thunder.
He also mentioned the day when he was in school, on Valentine's Day, he spent a large sum of money to buy a bunch of cards for himself, but it did not set off any splash, he had to spend two months of bitterness over this ...
The time finally reached midnight, Ron plucked up the courage to raise the request to leave, Lockhart looked at the clock on the wall, "the sky is already so dark? Go on, put the letters in the cabinet and continue tomorrow."
Ron carried the pile of letters and "puffed and panted" his way to the big cabinet, he tried to open it, but the door wouldn't budge. "Professor Lockhart, the cabinet is locked!"
Lockhart muttered two words, waved his wand, until the third time, the cabinet door popped open with a bang, almost hitting Ron's nose.
Ron opened the cabinet, there are a dozen small drawers inside, he did not know where to put, but did not dare to ask, only he opened the drawers one by one to find the appropriate space.
When flipping to a certain compartment, he saw a parchment clipped in a binder, and the top line of text made him pause his gaze.
"Record of a visit to an old wizard in Armenian ( note: werewolf adventures)."
He skipped to read it twice more -
"If you take away the fact that the main character is an ugly, ageing Armenian wizard, the story itself is quite good."
There is a short paragraph in the middle that seemed like a record of someone's words, "Yeah, it's sad that the people in that village are constantly facing threats from werewolves, initially because they killed a young wolf cub that was actively attacking livestock, it's just sad~"
Ron's heart thumped, he did not know why, but he quietly drew out the middle pages of this material - the top page he did not dare to take.
Lockhart's voice came from afar, "What are you dawdling about?"
"Ma, right away, Professor Lockhart." Ron stuffed the few pages of parchment he pulled out into his pocket, then scattered the readers' letters casually into three drawers and hastily closed the cabinet.
" Professor, I'll leave you to it." Ron quickly ran out of Lockhart's office.
On the way, his heart is still beating violently.
Back in the common room, which by now is empty, he hides in a corner and carefully reads the three parchments he pulled out from his pocket.
After reading for a while, he got somewhat confused, although the content of the story looked a little familiar to him, it is an ordinary interview.
Did Lockhart still work as a journalist on the side?
When Ron returned to his dorm room and saw Harry, who had already fallen asleep, he stuffed the parchment into a random book and fell back to sleep.
For the next week, the atmosphere at Hogwarts is peaceful and tranquil.
With no worries about attacks or exams, the young wizards had a fantastic weekend.
Hermione finally took off her muzzle, she now only had to wear a hat to cover up her cat ears and usually looked completely indistinguishable from her normal state.
"Lavender thought I had some kind of terminal illness before." Hermione took a big breath of fresh air, her face frozen red, but she had no idea of putting the scarf on.
"Who's Lavender?" Ron asked.
"She's my roommate."
Ron thought for a moment, and he asked uncertainly, "Is that girl with freckles?"
"Not her, Ron, I thought you'd remember a Gryffindor wizard from the same year as you," Hermione said acutely.
"I remember, just not the right face. And do you know Dean Thomas?" Ron asked rhetorically.
"Of course!"
"And did you ever speak to him?"
Hermione clamped her mouth shut.
In the evening of that day, Felix guided Hermione through the upgrade program for the beaded pouch.
Felix looked at the parchment in his hand with interest: "You're going to isolate part of the space inside? Are you going to use it for storage? Nice try, but the difficulty has increased correspondingly."
"Professor, do you think that at my level, I can complete it?" Hermione asked.
"Well ... if you want to finish it on your own, at least -" Felix thought about it, "you need to learn 21 practical runes in a targeted way, proficiency in carving some rune circuits, plus some basic theory of alchemy."
"I can make a list of books for you."
Felix in a swish wrote down a series of reference books, Hermione's mouth suddenly became a little bitter ...
----------
Thanks for all your support.
I am going to open P_atreon with 30+ Advanced chapters, if you have some extra pocket money Support me on P_atreon: www.p_atreon.com/Crazy_Cat.