That evening in the library, Ron kept staring at Kyle with a look of pure envy.
To be precise, he was staring at the Transfiguration homework from Hannah that lay in front of Kyle.
"Why is Kyle allowed to just copy homework?" Ron looked toward Hermione, who was currently checking his own work.
Hermione rolled her eyes. "If you could use a non-verbal spell to turn Scabbers into an exquisite snuffbox, rather than leaving him with a rat's tail hanging out, you could copy too."
Ron resentfully withdrew his gaze.
He was still counting on Hermione to find all the mistakes in his Transfiguration essay, so he didn't dare talk back to the little beaver.
"That's Transfiguration content we won't learn until next year, isn't it?" he said with a bitter expression.
"Hannah and I are already trying to learn that part of the curriculum," the little beaver said proudly.
Kyle paused his quill. "If you were willing to spend a little more time on Transfiguration, instead of on Wizard's Chess and whatever else, you'd find that it's actually not that difficult."
Having been exposed for goofing off every day, Ron rubbed the back of his head awkwardly.
Hannah also felt a bit embarrassed and gave Kyle a light kick under the table with her small leather boot. Kyle's lecture to Ron had inadvertently included her as well, considering she spent a vast amount of her free time on Chocolate Frog cards.
Kyle smiled at her, and the little girl immediately turned her head away, pretending she didn't know anything.
Compared to the other four, Harry, sitting nearby, seemed somewhat absent-minded.
That morning, in the courtyard outside the castle, the copy of Quidditch Through the Ages that Hermione had lent him was confiscated by the Old Bat, who was clearly looking for trouble.
It might have been because Harry wasn't cross-dressing, so the Old Bat's attitude toward him at the time wasn't particularly good.
He wanted to go ask for Quidditch Through the Ages back to relax his nerves so he wouldn't keep dwelling on tomorrow's match.
"I'm thinking of asking Snape if he can give the book back to me," Harry said suddenly.
Kyle winked at him. "As long as you dress as a girl, Snape will give the book back to you."
Hearing the mention of cross-dressing, Harry didn't react much. Ron, on the other hand, looked utterly exasperated.
Harry nodded, pulled out the makeup kit he had bought from Kyle, and began to change his image.
Moments later, Harriet returned from the staff room, holding the copy of Quidditch Through the Ages she had been longing for.
Ron immediately felt unwell. Why did it work so effectively when Harry became Harriet, but not for him?
Was he just not pretty enough in a dress?
After Harriet had easily captured a certain bat-spirit's heart with her beauty last time, Ron couldn't resist the temptation to earn points for Gryffindor before Potions class the following week. He had asked Kyle to help dress him up as well.
The situation back then had gone something like this:
Snape: "Harriet! If I asked you to find me a bezoar, where would you look?"
Harriet: "Bezoar... does it have a certain relationship with cows?"
Snape: "Correct. A bezoar is a stone taken from the stomach of a goat, and it will save you from most poisons. Ten points to Gryffindor."
Snape: "Then, can you tell me the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane?"
Harriet: "I don't know, sir."
This had genuinely touched upon a blind spot in his knowledge.
Beside him, "Ronnie" raised a hand high in the air. "Professor, they are the same plant, collectively known as aconite."
Only then did Snape notice "Ronnie," who was also dressed in drag.
After a moment of dead silence, Snape's roar echoed throughout the Potions classroom.
"Ron Weasley! What sort of ghost trick are you playing! Twenty points from Gryffindor!"
In that moment, Ronnie felt as if the entire world was targeting him.
Born as a man, he was truly sorry.
Early the next morning, the weather was bright and cold. The Great Hall was filled with the tempting scent of fried sausages, and everyone was chatting excitedly, looking forward to a wonderful Quidditch match.
Harry appeared in the Great Hall sporting two heavy dark circles under his eyes.
The scene he had witnessed last night when he went to find Snape for Quidditch Through the Ages was still troubling him.
When he pushed open the door to the staff room, he saw Filch bandaging Snape's injured leg—one of Snape's legs was bloody and mangled.
"Blasted thing," he had heard Snape say. "How are you supposed to keep your eyes on three heads at once?"
Harry connected this to the three-headed dog he had encountered on the fourth floor and the trapdoor beneath its feet. Did this mean Snape was trying to steal whatever the three-headed dog was guarding?
And was it possible that the troll a few nights ago had been let in by Snape as well?
The more Harry thought about it, the closer he felt he was to the truth of the matter.
However, in just a few hours, he would be facing the first Quidditch match of his life.
He had to push these distracting thoughts to the back of his mind for now.
A few hours later, all the teachers and students of Hogwarts had gathered at the Quidditch pitch.
Soon, the first match of the Hogwarts Quidditch season was officially announced.
Not long after the match began, Cedric squeezed his way through a crowd of first-year badgers to sit beside Kyle.
He had just come over from the Ravenclaw stands—wherever Cho Chang was, Cedric would be found. The man was a hopeless simp.
"Next Saturday it's us against Ravenclaw. The intensity of the confrontation will be quite a bit lower than this. Do you have confidence?"
Cedric jerked his chin toward the Quidditch pitch in front of them.
"If this is the only level required, you just need to have the other Beater on the team hit every Bludger toward me."
Kyle was brimming with confidence.
"Are you sure? Can you really handle it?"
Kyle rolled his eyes at Cedric. "A man can never say he can't."
Then, he turned his gaze back to the match before them.
"Harry isn't meshing well with his teammates right now. Even as a Seeker, he should actively participate in the team's offensive and defensive systems..."
Cedric also noticed the problem Kyle mentioned.
The current Harry was completely isolated from the Gryffindor team system.
He kept circling in the safety of the high altitude, doing absolutely nothing aside from searching for traces of the Golden Snitch.
"Oliver Wood will patch up that shortcoming soon enough," Cedric said, looking toward the Gryffindor goalposts. "He's an excellent Captain."
Er, as for their Hufflepuff Quidditch Captain...
Forget it, let's not dig him up just to flog the corpse.
Just as the two pillars of the Hufflepuff Quidditch team were secretly roasting their unreliable Captain, something unexpected happened on the pitch...
Harry's broomstick went out of control.
"To be able to keep from falling off in that situation shows that Harry's talent is quite remarkable."
"With a little training, he could rival you. I think you're the one who should be feeling the pressure."
There was some commotion in the staff stands, and then Harry's broom returned to normal.
Not long after, the match was declared over when Harry caught the Golden Snitch. Gryffindor had won the match.
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