Chapter 392: Scapegoat

When coming out of the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher's office, Harry really wanted to say something to someone, but in the end, he didn't say anything.

Jinshang Jinshang Xiangyi's appearance clearly didn't tell the truth; Harry easily guessed that he still possessed the ability to transform, and that Kamen Rider called Agito was enough to easily defeat the enemies they were facing. However, he clearly also knew the entire plan, which was why he said things like "my body is already riddled with holes" in front of Ron.

He knew this thought wasn't suitable to tell Ron, but it wasn't convenient to tell Zhang Qiu either; that would only make everyone awkward—just like the old Chinese saying, see through but don't say it.

When returning to the common room, there was no one here. Ron glanced at the direction of the dormitory, then stammered: "Um, Harry, shall we sit outside for a while?"

"Sure." Harry felt that his good friend also seemed to be harboring some worries.

"I was just thinking," Ron said embarrassedly, "how should we deal with that Crimson Rider?"

Harry didn't speak; he hadn't thought about this problem in detail, because in his view, these storms were nothing, after all, there was Agito to back them up.

"I have no way to crack his acceleration-like skill at all; I think the only way is to use acceleration to counter acceleration." Ron looked at the dormitory door with a guilty conscience and continued to lower his voice, "I think we have to let Neville deal with him."

"But Neville—oh." Harry understood a bit, "You want me to give the belt to Neville?"

"Or just try it." Ron said unnaturally, "If Neville really has talent, perhaps he can use Clock Up in the transformed state, then..."

"And I can't use it anyway, is that what you mean?" Harry didn't feel depressed or disappointed, just a bit emotional.

"Sorry." Ron lowered his head.

"No, no, you don't need to feel sorry at all; I understand completely, even I was considering this matter myself." Harry grabbed his shoulder and tried his best to use the most sincere tone he could muster, "This is our optimal solution for the current situation; I'm just a little worried, I'm wondering if you thought of this yourself, or if someone said something to you. If it's the latter, we have to consider whether there is another conspiracy behind this, that's all."

"No, I thought of it myself." Ron answered subconsciously.

"Then, I think that's it; the matter is very clear. You need to try to see if you can become stronger; if it's too late, we'll try letting Neville transform." Harry concluded.

Ron agreed with a complex tone.

The next morning, when Harry was dragging Ron to write homework in the library, he suddenly felt his left thumb get a bit hot. Looking down, the finger-phoenix was wagging its little tail, guiding Harry to go in a certain direction.

"Who rubbed it?" Harry said subconsciously, then suddenly remembered something and immediately turned to Ron and said, "Is your ring heating up?"

"Ah? No, right?" Ron immediately put his hand into his pocket, "It's really not."

"Then it's troublesome; it means the one in danger is Draco." Harry stood up, "We have to go save him."

"Why?" Although Ron muttered reluctantly, he still followed Harry's footsteps.

"I made an agreement with him last time that once we encounter a hostile Kamen Rider and can't beat him on our own, we should rub the ring to notify the other party." Harry explained while walking quickly, "It's very difficult to rub the ring after transforming, so the one who concluded the magic is me and Pansy."

"Alright, this is not hard to understand, and facing enemies outside the school together is also a matter of course." Ron sighed, "But as soon as I think it's Malfoy, I have no motivation."

"He's just a useless little young master; you are the only reliable Kamen Rider." Harry said.

"But there's still Neville?"

"You can't pin your hopes on Neville; whether he can transform is an unknown, and whether he can use Clock Up after transforming is even more uncertain. After all, Clock Up is a spell, and you can't cast spells after transforming." Harry said this deliberately, hoping to let Ron fight with stronger determination, "Professor Jinshang Xiangyi is injured; the only ones we can rely on are you, Ron."

"Phew." Ron patted his fist, "Alright."

They walked quickly to the outdoors and saw a peaceful lawn. Harry looked down at the ring again, having a vague guess in his heart.

"In Hogsmeade." Harry said and started running, "It's very likely that Crimson Rider again."

"Then we should still call Neville." Ron's footsteps slowed down all at once; he looked back unnaturally.

"It's too late, Ron!" Harry shouted at him, "Don't count on others; you are the strongest Rider!"

Ron looked at him, then patted his fist again, "Let's go!"

The road from the school to Hogsmeade village is not short, and there are two or three ways to walk, but at this moment, Harry judged based on the direction of the ring that it was very likely still fighting in the same place as yesterday, so they ran directly toward there.

Sure enough, when they followed the path to the small woods from yesterday, they immediately saw two figures fighting. The foreign Rider with red pipelines on his body, whom they saw yesterday, was constantly launching attacks. And opposite him, a blue-gold Rider was holding his head with both hands, barely parrying.

Ron completed the transformation while running; he waved his long sword and immediately rescued Draco from the fierce attack like a storm. Just after he pulled a little distance from the enemy, Draco fell to the ground all at once and deactivated his transformation.

"Ah, you finally..." he said weakly, "He's too strong..."

Pansy rushed out from the small woods on the side, grabbed Draco's body, and dragged it backward. Seeing this, Harry also stepped forward to help her, and the two of them moved Draco to a safer place together.

"Thank you, Harry." Pansy said in a tone of relief, "We were attacked by him when we came out of the Three Broomsticks; Draco was no match for him at all."

Harry looked back at the battlefield. Ron kept launching attacks with skilled swordsmanship, but this time the Crimson Rider didn't pull out his light sword, nor did he activate acceleration, just bare-handed, using a fighting style that was almost crazy, directly trading injury for injury with Ron.

"This isn't right." Harry said, "He wasn't like this yesterday."

"Yesterday?" Pansy was about to ask, when suddenly she widened her eyes.

"DragonWonder!"

A huge explosion sound came; Ron actually punched the Crimson Rider flying. He struggled on the ground a few times, and then, amidst a crackling sound of sparks, deactivated his transformation.

Harry immediately raised his wand, wanting to conjure some ropes to control him, but he froze for a moment, because the person appearing in front of him was a familiar stranger: Karkaroff.

It was also this moment of hesitation that Karkaroff also noticed Harry. His lips were twitching, his face full of horror and craving. He tried hard to squeeze out a word, but in the next second—

A living person, under the gaze of four pairs of eyes, quickly turned gray and finally turned into a handful of fine sand.

Ron, after deactivating his transformation, also revealed a look of astonishment at this moment. He looked at his right hand, which was still maintaining a fist-clenching posture; at this moment, this hand seemed not to belong to him.

"I just, I felt I could mobilize some magic power, but I didn't expect—" Ron's tone was completely distorted.

"Calm down, Ron, calm down, this might not be your fault, yes, you calm down first." Harry was also a bit panicked, but after saying "calm down" three times in a row, with the help of Occlumency, he did calm down. At this moment, some doubts began to emerge one after another.

"Karkaroff, why is it Karkaroff." Harry walked forward and put his arm around Ron's shoulder, "And did you notice, the Rider encountered today is different from yesterday's; he fought very crazily."

"This, what does this mean?" Ron had already given up thinking and followed Harry's train of thought completely.

"I suspect he is cannon fodder, thrown out by that knight from earlier just to deflect suspicion from himself. He might have been placed under a Killing Curse long ago, or subjected to some kind of human experimentation," Harry said. "Yes, it's possible he's just a modified 'Smasher,' because look, his fighting style today was a bit too frantic."

"Yes, I feel like he doesn't want his life anymore." Ron chimed in.

"We'll go back and ask Zhang Qiu; this matter is very strange." Several conjectures flashed through Harry's mind, but he couldn't distinguish which one was closer to the truth, because Karkaroff was clearly just a discarded pawn, and could be a discarded pawn of any force.

"I killed him." Ron still hadn't turned the corner, "No matter what, it was me who killed him."

"No, we need to ask Zhang Qiu first." Harry repeated, "You just beat him to the point of deactivating his transformation. Zhang Qiu told us that deactivating the transformation is a kind of protection for the Rider system; even the strongest attack at most just makes him deactivate the transformation, it won't kill him directly."

"Either Zhang Qiu lied to us, which is almost impossible." In order to stabilize Ron's mindset, Harry made a conclusion arbitrarily, "Or, he was already dead before transforming."

"Or there is another possibility, that the act of transforming killed him." Pansy interjected, "Draco told me that if people without transformation qualifications force a transformation, there will be life danger."

"Force? How to force it?" Harry frowned, "As far as I know, people without transformation qualifications can't even buckle the belt."

"I don't know either, but that person did say this point." Draco said weakly, "And, Karkaroff probably didn't transform using a belt; look, he didn't leave a belt either, right?"

Harry cast his gaze back to that pile of gray sand. Indeed, there was nothing else inside, and... he recalled with some uncertainty, his belt seemed to look different from Ron's and Draco's belts? ===== CHAPTER 393 =====