Chapter 28: A Deal

For the rest of the Charms class, Hermione didn't say another word to Silven, sitting there sulking on her own.

Silven didn't understand why she was angry, but it didn't matter — the class was almost over anyway.

After Charms came Transfiguration. To avoid anything like that happening again, Silven deliberately sat to Hermione's right rear, so that even if they were paired up for practice again, there was no worry they'd end up in the same group.

"Nicely done." Ron suddenly turned his head and gave Silven a thumbs-up.

"What?" Silven didn't understand.

"The thing that happened in Charms class." Ron said quietly, "That Hermione Granger, always acting so high and mighty. She even thinks Harry can't join the Gryffindor Quidditch team because Harry broke the school rules!"

Although he deliberately lowered his voice, the classroom was so big, and on top of that nobody was sitting too far away — there was no way Hermione couldn't hear at least some of it.

Her face grew even uglier.

"Thank you for the reminder, Mr. Weasley. I almost forgot that Mr. Potter had also broken the school rules." Professor McGonagall appeared beside them at some unknown point, her lips pressed tightly together.

Ron whipped around, nearly jumping out of his skin.

"Joining the team was something I specially permitted, but that does not cancel out the punishment for breaking the rules." Professor McGonagall continued, looking at Harry. "Disrupting class order, unauthorized flight, detention… come to my office next Wednesday at eight o'clock in the evening. You and Mr. Malfoy together."

"Understood, Professor McGonagall." Harry answered with a long face.

"She — when did she get here." Ron's face was pale, clearly still not recovered from the fright just now.

"I don't know either." Silven said. "Cats usually walk without making any sound, unless you can see them. Looks like Professor McGonagall is the same."

"I'll remember that." Harry said darkly, staring at Ron. "Why did you have to say that one extra sentence."

Ron was pretty embarrassed too, his face rapidly changing from pale to flushed red. "I — I don't know…"

"Forget it." Harry sighed. "Detention itself is no big deal, but with Malfoy… that's practically a nightmare."

Ron's face turned even redder, the same shade as his hair.

"Oh right, there's something I need to correct." At this point, Silven seemed to suddenly think of something and spoke up: "In Charms class I wasn't targeting Hermione. It's a good thing she's willing to teach Neville — why would I target her?"

Ron looked as if struck by lightning, staring at Silven as though he had been betrayed.

"But you two… clearly had a falling out. She won't even talk to you anymore."

"Just a difference in outlook, that's all." Silven shrugged. "Muggle-borns all go through something like this. Because they've only been exposed to magic for a very short time, there are some things she can't understand yet. Give it another couple of years and it'll be about the same."

"Alright, say no more." Harry cut off the conversation between the two.

He had originally wanted to advise Ron not to talk about Hermione like that, because he had also noticed that Hermione was the only one willing to patiently teach Neville over and over.

But now, he couldn't bring himself to say that sentence no matter what, because in this whole affair, he had inexplicably become the only one who got hurt.

Who could understand — everything was fine, and then suddenly there's an extra detention, and with Malfoy of all people.

Harry felt a bit of regret. If only he hadn't hesitated just now and had just clamped his hand over Ron's mouth.

The atmosphere in this Transfiguration class was strange.

Harry and Ron sat through the entire class in low spirits. Hermione's face also looked rather odd — head lowered, looking distracted.

The beetles serving as teaching props were poked to death by her — two of them — something that absolutely could not have happened before.

Silven watched from the side, and a thought suddenly struck him: would the trio fall apart over this?

But after observing for a while, he realized the likelihood of that wasn't great — at least not for Ron and Harry.

Although Ron had landed Harry a detention, Harry showed no sign of drifting away from him because of it. Whether in class or out of it, they remained as close as ever.

They even managed to convince themselves, on the grounds that Malfoy had gotten a detention too — so this round wasn't a loss.

It was rather surprising.

As for Hermione, she ran off as soon as class ended, and during the afternoon classes she stayed silent and said nothing, just like that until all the lessons were over.

Everyone walked together toward the Great Hall to attend the Halloween Eve feast.

By now the Great Hall had been freshly decorated with all manner of colorful Halloween ornaments. Dozens, even hundreds of enormous pumpkins had been hollowed out, carved into various shapes, and were floating in mid-air.

The moment Harry saw the sight, he instantly forgot all about the detention.

Silven went along with them, but suddenly stopped just before entering the Great Hall.

"Oh, you go on ahead. I think I dropped something."

"What thing? Where did you drop it?" Harry asked.

"Don't know, probably on the way here." Silven said casually.

"I'll help you look for it." Harry immediately started to head back.

"It's fine, it's nothing important." Silven reached out and stopped him. "You guys go on in. I'll just have a quick look — if I can't find it, it doesn't matter."

Hearing that it wasn't anything important, Harry finally said nothing more, and under Silven's urging went into the Great Hall with the others.

Silven, meanwhile, found the Weasley twins waiting nearby.

"So? The thing I wanted?" he asked in a low voice.

"When we handle things, you can rest easy." Fred said with a straight face. "We've already got the goods."

"And our payment?" George stepped forward.

"Right here." Silven pulled a handful of silver Sickles from his pocket. "You won't be shortchanged."

"Six silver Sickles in total, that's right." Fred counted them, then handed a bulging brown paper bag to Silven.

"Pleasure doing business. Next time you need something, remember to come back to us."

"We'll see." Silven said, a little pained. "Your errand fee is too expensive — the thing I wanted only cost three Sickles."

"You can't put it that way." George wagged his finger. "If it were Hogsmeade Weekend, we'd happily go buy things for you for free, no problem. But right now it's class time, students are forbidden from going out — we're the only ones with a way to get to Hogsmeade."

"We took quite a risk on this trip, so this price is actually very reasonable."

"Fine." Silven said. "Thanks for your trouble."

"You take good care of our business and it won't be trouble at all." George said with a grin. "Regular customers get a discount."

"If I need something."

"You will." Fred raised an eyebrow. "We can tell — you're not the rule-following type, little wizard."

"We'll definitely have plenty to talk about in the future."

Silven shrugged, unconvinced.

"To show our sincerity, we've decided to give you a small gift," Fred suddenly leaned over and pulled out a piece of parchment from his robe.

"What is this?"

"A map," George said.

Silven suddenly grew excited—parchment, a map, could it be...

"The secret passage map on the fourth floor of the school."

Well, obviously not the Marauder's Map.

Silven's heart, which had just leapt up, settled back down.

"We drew it ourselves," Fred continued. "If you run into a professor there again, it should help you avoid getting caught."

"But Filch knows about these passages too."

"Use it carefully."

(End of Chapter)