Chapter 648 Friendship Crisis

"It must be a cat. Your Patronus is a cat."

As the students returned to the castle in the night, Harry said to Neville with certainty, but Hermione disagreed.

"There is not enough data to show that-"

"Come on, Hermione, in practice, those of us who have mastered the Patronus always feel more sensitive to creatures in the form of the Patronus and stay rational longer. This is already very telling. You can't deny it."

Harry seemed very excited. He felt that he was emotionally closer to Sirius and his father.

He counted on his fingers, "Think about Sirius, Professor McGonagall, and my father-three full examples. We can also ask Professor Happ, right, Ron?" He excitedly sought support from Ron.

Ron gave a weird, forced smile in return. Harry calmed down immediately. He suddenly realized that among the four of them, only Ron had failed, and he was still yelling at Hermione and Neville about Animagus. This was too wrong.

"Are you okay, Ron?" Hermione also noticed Ron's abnormality, and she asked cautiously, "I heard that everyone has two chances, even if it doesn't work this time-"

"I'm fine." Ron said immediately, with a tone that meant to stop.

Everyone was silent for the rest of the journey.

They separated in the lounge. Dean and Seamus had already gone to bed. Harry changed into pajamas and adjusted the alarm clock for tomorrow morning. He looked at Ron's bed. The crimson curtains were rarely lowered, so he could only see a vague silhouette. Harry hesitated for a moment but still didn't speak.

As he lay on the bed, he thought optimistically: Ron had every reason to feel uncomfortable. Anyone who persisted for a month and was told that he failed would find it difficult to accept it for a while.

The next morning, Harry was awakened by the alarm clock. It was still dark. He yawned and moved to Neville's bed. "Wake up, Neville, wake up!" Neville opened his eyes in a daze and fumbled to put on his clothes with his eyes closed.

When Harry came out of the dormitory, he felt something was missing until he saw Neville following behind him with unsteady steps. Then he remembered that he had not heard Ron's snoring today.

"Let's go." Hermione, who was waiting in the common room, said happily, "I'm going to call you in five minutes." She pointed in a direction, where Crookshanks was curled up on an empty sofa chair and taking a nap.

They walked down the spiral staircase, passed through the entrance hall, and stood on the white stone steps outside the castle. The air at dawn was very cool, the morning light was dim, and the thin winter mist was wandering in the forbidden forest.

"Morning."

A weak voice said. Harry and the other two were startled, and when they looked closely, they found that it was Hannah Abbott.

"You got up so early?" Neville was fully awake and asked calmly.

"I didn't sleep all night - ha -." She yawned and tried to open her eyes wide, and her expression was a bit like Luna. "I think it's almost time to go out, but it's dark... No, I have to finish the spell quickly so I can go back to sleep. I still have classes in the daytime."

She shook her braids, bathed in the light golden sunlight, and shouted the spell loudly.

"Amado, Animado, Animado, Animagus - Amado, Animado, Animado, Animagus - Amado, Animado, Animado, Animagus."

She repeated it three times in a row.

Although Professor McGonagall told them that they only needed to recite the spell once in the morning and once in the evening, no one raised any objections, as if Hannah's approach was the right thing to do. Harry also raised his wand and pointed it at his heart, and chanted the spell loudly. It was too late yesterday and he didn't have time to experience it carefully. He never found that speaking loudly was such a wonderful thing. His voice spread far away like the undulating waves, as if it merged with the glow of the sky.

He stopped after reading it three times (Hermione read it five times, and Neville, who was always worried about making mistakes, repeated it more than ten times). When they walked back, they met Draco Malfoy coming out of the hall. Harry stared at his back and said something irrelevant.

"You say, Ron--"

Isn't his attitude a bit strange? Harry started to say it, but swallowed it again. However, it turned out that his judgment was very correct. Ron had a stern face in class all day on Friday, and didn't say a word after class.

He became even more abnormal at the weekend. He made sarcastic remarks to Ginny who was doing homework with them, from picking on her clothes to indirect saying that Ginny had been thinking about falling in love since she was ten years old--in a way, Harry was happy about this sentence.

"-and now they kiss in public, it's shameless--"

"Say it again." Ginny screamed, she drew out her wand, and seemed to be ready to cast her best Bat Spirit Curse. "Don't be impulsive, Ginny, and you - calm down, Ron!" Harry said harshly, dragging Ginny away before the situation got completely out of control, and pushing the portrait of the Fat Lady away.

"Let's go out for some fresh air," he said to Ginny.

"If you keep being so violent, I won't open the door for you!" The Fat Lady yelled at their backs.

Harry and Ginny walked around the castle, and when they returned to the courtyard, Ginny was still furious.

"He is just a child who has not grown up," Ginny said, "mixed with inferiority and arrogance, it's strange how he can do it."

"Don't say that about him, Ginny, he is your brother." Harry said.

"Oh, your tone is like my mother, this won't solve the problem." Ginny immediately turned the gun around, "You shouldn't indulge him, he is somewhat famous, but you must admit that all his current achievements are related to you. If you didn't meet our family that day but Neville and his grandmother, with his virtue -"

She suddenly froze, and Harry felt a chill on his back, and he slowly turned around.

It was Ron.

The blush on his face slowly spread to his neck, and then the color tended to turn purple.

"She was just talking casually, Ron--" Harry said hurriedly. He stepped forward and tried to stop Ron, because Ron seemed to have the urge to rush up and give Ginny a good bet, or Ron just wanted to rush over to have a face-to-face quarrel and spit saliva on his own sister's face. Harry didn't want to bet on this result.

He found that he stopped Ron effortlessly.

"Do you think so too?" Ron retreated repeatedly, asked hoarsely, panting heavily, his eyes were so scary that Harry could even see the mandrake leaves trembling violently in Ron's mouth.

"What? Oh, of course not--" Harry said.

But even he could feel the perfunctory meaning in his words, not to mention Ron, so Ron showed that weird, stiff smile again, "Hey, buddy, there's no need to take care of my emotions, I want to hear some truth."

"I'm telling the truth." Harry raised his voice unconsciously, he was a little angry.

"Really?" Ron looked at him, then at Ginny, "Let me tell you what the truth is, the truth is that my sister and my best friend are talking about me behind my back, happily exchanging ideas about how to look down on me--"

"I'm not! I've been speaking for you!" Harry couldn't help yelling at him, "If this is considered looking down on you, yes, you're right, I do look down on you."

Ron's eyes turned red, and the muscles on his face twitched unnaturally.

"Ron, what are you crazy about?" Ginny shouted.

"Shut up, I haven't said anything to you yet!" Ron shouted loudly, staring at her with his bull eyes unsatisfied, "I know-I am a straw bag, a follower and a burden in your eyes, a dispensable role!" He cursed a rude swear word.

"Bats flock!" Ginny raised her wand, her eyes flashing with tears.

Ron's face was immediately covered by a group of black, squirming creatures. He screamed in pain and waved his hands to drive them away. When the small bats dispersed, Ron's nose swelled to twice its size, and it seemed that each nostril could fit a golden snitch.

Ron covered his nose and spat viciously on the ground, spitting the mandrake leaves on the snow, "Are you satisfied now? I failed again, and you have new evidence to say." Ginny looked shocked. Ron pushed Harry away and strode towards the hospital ward.

Harry stared at the bloody leaves on the ground, the bright red and dark green intertwined, very dazzling in the white snow. "Ginny, how could you use the bat spirit curse--" he said angrily.

"He asked for it. Didn't you hear how he mocked me this morning?" Ginny said angrily: "I'm tired of him taking it out on me, so don't lecture me."

"He has good times too, and he still cares about you very much." Harry argued palely.

"That was when he was in his right mind."

Seeing that it was about to turn into a quarrel, Hermione appeared in time with obvious confusion and dissatisfaction. Seeing Harry and Ginny, she walked over in two steps and asked angrily: "What's going on? I saw Ron holding his nose. As soon as I asked a question, he was like taking gun powder - Oh, God, whose blood is this?"

"It's his. He's having a seizure." Ginny said unhappily.

"Don't make trouble." Harry said sullenly. Ginny snorted, threw her hair behind her, turned around and left proudly.

"What a lovely girl," Hermione said, "So what's going on?"

"He's having a seizure." Harry opened his mouth and finally said angrily. Hermione raised her eyebrows, "I just came back from the library. Do you expect me to infer what happened from these few words?" "Well, it's because..." Harry drily repeated what happened just now.

"I never thought he was a burden, nor did I think he was a follower, a fool or something like that." Harry defended himself.

Hermione sighed in understanding.

"Oh, I've been worried about this."

"Worried about - what?"

"Sensitive, fragile, suspicious... I don't know, Harry. But I've been worried that it will suddenly explode, but -" She shook her head and said sadly: "We even dealt with Voldemort."

The situation did not improve in the following week.

Ron treated Harry and Ginny as air most of the time, ignoring them, or completely turning against them, and every time he appeared, he was accompanied by cold words. Even Hermione, who tried to dissuade him, was implicated. On weekends, he was often nowhere to be found, which made him give up most of his daily social circles, but fortunately, they could still see Ron on one occasion - at the Quidditch training ground.

But that conversation ended unpleasantly, and Ron armed himself like a hedgehog, erecting sharp thorns for any hand that reached out to him. Harry pessimistically predicted that perhaps, as Hermione said, Ron could only return to normal after he did something without relying on them.

"Or unless Voldemort ran out of classroom seven." Harry said faintly.

One of the sixth-grade plot lines in this book is the adulthood of the trio, and the author has designed a short plot for each of them.