Chapter 93 — The Price of Sending Norbert Away

Chapter 93: Chapter 93 — The Price of Sending Norbert Away

Chapter 93 — The Price of Sending Norbert Away

Harry and the others were very worried about Vesey.

Harry tossed and turned all night.

Although Snape seemed very kind to Vesey on the surface, Harry hadn’t forgotten what Snape had said in the Forbidden Forest.

He was afraid that Vesey would be mistreated by Snape in Slytherin.

Because of his anxiety, Harry had dark circles under his eyes the next morning.

The moment he saw Vesey, he rushed over.

"Did Snape bully you?"

"How could he? Professor Snape is very nice. He asked me last night if I was scared. I said no, and he even asked Colma to bring me a glass of milk!"

Vesey answered obediently.

She had also earned hundreds of Energy Points from Snape the previous night, so it had been quite a fruitful evening.

Of course, Snape hadn’t punished her at all.

He hadn’t given her detention, hadn’t deducted any points, and hadn’t even lectured her.

Malfoy, on the other hand, had been treated like a different story entirely.

In addition to the detention Professor McGonagall had already given him, Snape gave Malfoy two more detentions.

In the end, fifty points were deducted from Slytherin.

That was extremely rare.

Snape almost never deducted points from Slytherin.

The last time Malfoy had mocked Harry for being an orphan and made an insinuation toward Vesey, Snape had only deducted ten points from him.

This time, Snape probably thought Malfoy had nearly gotten Vesey involved.

Perhaps seeing Vesey make herself look so pitiful had made Snape especially angry?

Even after losing fifty points, however, Malfoy’s life in Slytherin didn’t change much.

He was the young master of the Malfoy family, after all. No one was going to make irresponsible remarks in front of him.

Poor Harry and the others, though.

They had lost a total of one hundred and fifty points, which made the entire Gryffindor House furious.

They had originally been catching up to Slytherin in the House Cup standings.

Then, at the end of the day, after losing 150 points, they were once again almost at the bottom.

All the Gryffindors began ignoring Harry and the others.

Even members of the Quidditch team stopped calling Harry by his name.

They simply called him "that person."

Students from Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw also pointed at Harry and the others whenever they saw them.

After all, they had been hoping that Gryffindor would defeat Slytherin.

Now that hope had been shattered.

Harry had originally been the most popular student in the school, with Vesey probably second.

Now, however, he had become the target of everyone’s anger.

Only Vesey and the others continued to spend time with him.

"It doesn’t matter. They’ll forget about it soon enough. Fred and George once had fifty points deducted as well, and within a week everyone liked them again."

Ron comforted him.

Harry smiled bitterly.

"They didn’t lose 150 points!"

Ron had nothing to say.

The damage was already done. Regretting it now wouldn’t help.

Harry simply wanted to spend the rest of the term peacefully.

He began warning himself not to meddle in other people’s affairs.

He no longer even cared whether Snape was planning to steal the Philosopher’s Stone.

At this point, even if Snape wanted to steal Dumbledore himself, Harry didn’t want to get involved.

But it wasn’t long before reality slapped him in the face.

A week before the exams, Harry left the library early by himself to collect an assignment.

As he passed the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, he heard Quirrell crying inside.

Harry didn’t want to get involved.

But...

His curiosity eventually won.

He told himself that he was only going to listen.

He wasn’t going to interfere.

"No, no, no... We can’t do this anymore..."

It sounded as though someone was threatening Quirrell.

Harry moved closer.

"All right, all right..."

He heard Quirrell sobbing in surrender.

Then he saw Quirrell hurry out of the classroom.

Harry quickly hid in a nearby classroom.

Sure enough, the moment he hid, Quirrell came out, sobbing as he adjusted his turban.

Harry watched him walk away.

He was just about to leave the classroom when he saw the door on the other side of the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom open.

A figure walked out.

Harry told himself not to look.

He shouldn’t get involved.

But he was willing to bet twelve Galleons that the footsteps leaving the classroom belonged to Snape.

And those footsteps were unmistakable.

It was obvious that Snape had gotten what he wanted.

Harry collected his homework and returned to the library.

He told Hermione and Ron what he had just seen.

As he spoke, he secretly glanced at Vesey.

She was staring at a book titled An Overview of Magic with great fascination, without even looking up.

Harry didn’t want Vesey to hear about this.

After all, Vesey didn’t believe that Snape or Quirrell were bad people.

Harry and the others had long since given up hoping that Vesey would become better at judging people’s character.

At this point, they only hoped she would study well and stay safe.

After Harry finished speaking, Ron’s eyes lit up.

"So Snape is close to succeeding? He’ll be able to get the Philosopher’s Stone soon?"

Hermione said uneasily, "I’m not sure it was Snape, but whoever is trying to steal it obviously doesn’t know how to get past Fluffy!"

Harry shook his head.

He glanced around the library and sighed.

"I can guarantee that among all these books, there must be one that teaches you how to get past a three-headed dog!"

The three fell silent.

Because they knew that if they did nothing, they might simply end up watching Snape—or some other unknown person—take the Philosopher’s Stone away.

"Let’s go find Dumbledore!"

Hermione said calmly.

"We should have gone to Dumbledore a long time ago. This is beyond what we can handle!"

Harry shook his head.

"No. We can’t go to Dumbledore because we have no evidence.

"As you all know, Snape is also one of the guardians of the Philosopher’s Stone, and Dumbledore trusts him.

"Unless we can provide evidence that he is trying to steal the Stone, we’ll just be slandering Snape.

"Everyone in the school already knows that we hate him. Dumbledore will only think we’re accusing Snape because of our personal grudge."

Hermione hesitated.

"Maybe it’s someone else..."

"Then we have even less evidence!"

Hermione was convinced.

But Ron was still unwilling to give up.

"What if we scout around and—"

Harry immediately refused.

"No. We can’t cause any more trouble!"

He couldn’t forget Vesey’s pale, frightened face that night.

Nor could he forget the way his classmates had treated him ever since.

The Philosopher’s Stone might be precious, but it clearly had nothing to do with him.

All he needed to do was prepare properly for the upcoming exams.

That was what Harry told himself.

Then, the next day, he received a detention notice from Professor McGonagall.

«Your detention will begin at eleven o’clock tonight. Please report to Mr. Filch in the entrance hall.»

Obviously, this was the price they had to pay for sending Norbert away.