The Shopkeeper of All Worlds in the British Wizarding World

Chapter 40 The Exam is Approaching
Ryan walked out of the woods and looked at his pocket watch in the moonlight. He was surprised to find that it was already past 12 o'clock. He hurried to the castle.

When passing by Hagrid's hut, I found that the lights in the hut were off. It seemed that Hagrid had recovered a little from the pain of losing his dragon and was now asleep.

Walking into the castle gate, Ryan was extremely nervous. He cast an immature Disillusionment spell on himself, then walked around several large staircases and slowly returned to the Gryffindor Tower from several detours.

But until he reached the Fat Lady's portrait, he didn't see any teachers on patrol.

Ryan was surprised at his luck. After returning to the dormitory, he simply washed up and went to bed in the dark and fell asleep.

The next day at breakfast, Ryan sat at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall with dark circles under his eyes. Just because someone in their 20s can stay up late doesn't mean someone in their 11s can do the same. Next time, try to come back earlier.

While having dinner today, the people around him seemed to be more noisy than usual, and Ryan heard them mention Harry Potter several times.

"What happened?" Ryan asked Percy next to him.

"You don't look well, no wonder you didn't know. Last night my brothers Ron and Harry both lost 100 points in one go. It's really disappointing." Percy replied, shaking his head helplessly.

Malfoy obviously didn't snitch this time, so how did Harry and the others lose points? Ryan thought in confusion.

Ryan couldn't guess it by himself, so he wanted to ask Harry and the others. But Harry and Ron kept hiding from others during class.

It was not until the afternoon class ended that Ryan found Harry and Ron in an empty classroom. Hermione was already there, constantly scolding Harry and Ron.

Ryan sat on the side and listened to Hermione's complaints, and finally figured out how Harry and the others were caught.

After parting in the hall, Harry and his friends went straight to Hagrid to receive the dragon in the wooden box. Then they went straight to the Astronomy Tower smoothly. According to the time, when they took the dragon into the castle, Ryan was still circling with Peeves.

No wonder Ryan didn't see Harry and the others when he arrived at the hallway. They had already gone upstairs.

However, after sending the dragon away, the two were so excited that they forgot to bring their invisibility cloaks. As a result, when they were walking around the castle, they were easily caught by Filch.

No wonder Ryan didn't meet any patrol officers when he came back last night, because at that time Filch had already taken Harry and the others to find Professor McGonagall, and there was no one patrolling the corridor.

After Hermione criticized Harry and the others, she turned to Ryan and said, "You're just lucky. Don't be so reckless next time. If Peeves had called in another professor on night watch yesterday, we wouldn't have deducted 100 points yesterday, but 150 points."

Ryan originally thought that the disturbance caused by Harry and the others' points deduction would soon pass, but he did not expect the situation to escalate.

Harry was one of the most popular people in the school, but now he has become the target of public criticism. Even the students of Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff did not look at him well, because everyone had always wanted to see Slytherin lose the house cup.

Wherever Harry went, people pointed at him and said insults to him without lowering their voices. On the other hand, whenever he walked past the Slytherins, they always clapped, whistled, and cheered. "Thank you, Potter, you've helped us a lot!" Ron was also very painful, because now no one except his brother was willing to talk to her.

Ryan thought this situation was school bullying, which was very bad, but he could not change the hostility towards Harry and his friends in the academy.

In Ryan's opinion, this was purely caused by the jealousy of Harry's classmates due to his previous fame, and the fact that Gryffindor students tended to be emotional, which made the atmosphere in the college very bad.

However, for Ryan, whose mental age is close to 30, when he sees a group of children bullying another child, he always wants to intervene, not to mention that this kind of school bullying is completely inconsistent with Ryan's moral values.

So he suggested to the students participating in the evening homework discussion that they should give Harry a chance to correct his problems. After all, as a Gryffindor student, deducting points was a relatively common thing. If everyone treated Harry like this today because of the large number of points deducted, then who would they treat tomorrow?

Besides, Gryffindor students shouldn't fight among themselves at this time and make a fool of themselves by students from other houses.

These words did have some effect. Although the classmates still didn't talk to Harry, at least they didn't insult him in front of him.

In addition, Ryan and Hermione also worked hard to answer questions in every class, trying to make up for some of the lost points.

But Harry still looked unhappy, he was now in Ryan's study group, sitting with Ron in a corner where no one could see him, reviewing silently until late at night every day, constantly trying to remember the complex potion formulas, the magic and spells, the dates of major magic inventions and goblin rebellions.

One day Ryan and Hermione were asking each other questions and answering them in the library. Ron was quietly memorizing a celestial chart beside them. After all, there was only a short week left before the exam.

At this time, Harry suddenly walked in from outside and told Ryan and them that he heard Quirrell might have succumbed to Snape. He heard Quirrell making a sound of surrender to the evil forces.

After listening to this, Ron said, "This means that the road to the Philosopher's Stone is now clear for Snape. After all, he is a professor and has applied for the position of Defense Against the Dark Arts many times. This means that he should have enough ways to deal with that three-headed Fluffy. What should we do now?"

"Tell the headmaster Dumbledore." Ryan rubbed his forehead and said, "After all, Dumbledore put the Philosopher's Stone in the school, and he is the greatest white wizard who has the power to fight against all the evil forces that are eyeing the Philosopher's Stone."

Hermione also added: "If you act alone again this time, Harry, you might be expelled."

But Harry still objected to telling Dumbledore about this. Because he thought that the cowardly Quirrell would not stand on their side to testify for them. ("If Quirrell was the murderer, it would be even more impossible for him to testify." Ryan whispered, but no one else paid attention to him.) And everyone knew that they had a grudge against Snape, and there was no way to make Snape confess without sufficient evidence.

Most importantly, Harry felt that in theory students shouldn't know about the Philosopher's Stone and Fluffy, and it would be difficult to explain it to Dumbledore.

Sure enough, this is the thinking of a child, unable to distinguish the importance of things. Dumbledore should have known what everyone did during the night tour. However, in order not to disrupt Dumbledore's warrior training plan, Ryan did not point this out and let Harry Potter do what he wanted.

(End of this chapter)