Harry Potter and the Secret Treasures

Chapter 262: Ron and Rumours

“I didn’t catch any abnormalities. He looked as annoyed as before.” Ron raised his head and looked across. “He must be making some plot!”

Malfoy was walking out of the Great Hall among a group of Slytherin students, and before going out he looked back in disgust at the three of them, with malice in his eyes.

“I can feel that there must be something wrong with him.” Harry said with certainty, “He rarely approaches us now, it looks as if he is afraid.”

“Malfoy is afraid, this is really funny!”

“It’s not funny, Ron!” Hermione collected the note sent by Hagrid and said disapprovingly, “Harry is right. Malfoy is really scared. However, he is not afraid of the three of us, but he is afraid of Evan.”

“Why should he be afraid of Evan?” Ron asked.

“That’s because…” Hermione hesitated, not sure if she should tell the truth. She finally said vaguely, “You know, Malfoy wanted to find trouble a few days ago, and Evan taught him a good lesson.”

“Just being taught a lesson, got Malfoy so scared?!” Harry was stunned. “I never knew he was so timid.”

“There must be something wrong with it, Malfoy won’t be scared unless…” Ron looked around to make sure nobody was eavesdropping on their conversation before he lowered his voice, “I think I know why, have you both heard of that rumour?”

“What rumour?” Hermione asked curiously, because she was busy with her studies, she had been much occupied lately, rarely communicating with others, and had heard nothing about it.

“Evan is studying black magic!” Ron’s voice was getting lower and lower. “He must have used black magic on Malfoy to frighten him. He must have…”

“Ron, we’ve talked about this before, and there’s no evidence that Evan’s studying the Dark Arts. It sounds obviously ridiculous.” Harry quickly said, “You really believe such lies?”

“But Malfoy’s reaction… and the rumour…” Ron argued.

“That’s just a rumour. Evan’s magic has always been powerful. It may have caused misunderstandings from others. He must have used other methods to make Malfoy feel scared.” Harry said, “Remember last year’s snake incident? At that time, everyone thought that I was a descendant of Slytherin. Those Hufflepuffs even said that I was eviller than Voldemort. They have always been like this. When they have free time, they love to imagine and spread around baseless rubbish…”

When he heard Harry mention Voldemort, Ron clearly shivered.

“It’s not just rumours.” I’ve seen Evan’s notes with my own eyes, and there was a terrible pattern on them. It was of a crazy, twisted-looking man whose soul is splitting,” he said.

“Maybe you have read it wrong, even if it is not, a picture can’t explain anything.”

“That is his research note. In addition to the pattern, there were a lot of esoteric words that cannot be drawn casually.” Ron gasped and said, “Evan has been secretly studying something, and it must be black magic. I asked Colin, and he got up many times in the middle of the night to find that Evan was not asleep. He was reading a magic book in his bed.”

“None of this proves anything…” Harry said stubbornly.

“That’s why we need to investigate for more evidence.” Ron raised his voice slightly, trying to persuade Harry and make his friends understand the importance of the incident. “Malfoy’s reaction is a lead, and we can use him to find out the truth. Believe me; Evan’s recent behaviour is really suspicious. He may be curious and studying some magic that he can’t master. We must stop him. That’s for his own good.”

“You don’t want to cooperate with Malfoy to investigate Evan?” Harry said in amazement.

“I’m just giving an example. We must determine what Evan is doing. If he is really studying dark magic, we can tell…” Ron said eagerly.

“Over the past two years, Evan has proved that he has nothing to do with Dark wizards. I believe in him. Besides, I don’t want to have anything to do with Malfoy.” Harry said irritably, “Ron, you must also believe in Evan, don’t you?”

Seeing Harry staring at him, Ron’s eyes dodged a bit, and then he returned to normal, whispering, “Yes, I believe in him!”

“Well, in that case, don’t think about it again. You can go to see us for Quidditch training in a minute, and after that you can ride the Firebolt.” Harry seemed relieved and turned to Hermione, who had never spoken. “Hermione, you too, you and Evan both need to relax and breathe some fresh air, and you’ve been putting too much pressure on yourselves lately to keep up with your tasks.”

Hermione subconsciously nodded, still thinking about what Ron had just said.

“I’ll call Evan. He must be reading books in the library or sorting the newspaper articles.” Harry handed the Firebolt to Ron and continued. “After breakfast, you two can go to the Quidditch pitch and wait for us.”

When he finished, he hurriedly turned and left, looking a bit flustered.

The conversation with Ron just made Harry have an ominous presentiment.

He didn’t know how the unfounded rumours of “Evan is studying black magic” came out. He was very worried because Ron had discussed it with him before. Ron also suggested investigating Evan, and Harry did not agree.

He tried to persuade Ron to give up on the idea, and Harry wondered if he had listened to what he said.

Doubting his friends made him feel bad.

Like he did with Sirius, Harry believed in Evan unconditionally. He couldn’t imagine how bad things would’ve been without him over the past two years, facing the Basilisk, Tom Riddle’s diary, Peter Pettigrew, and so on.

Even if Evan did, as Ron said, study the dark magic, Harry believed he had sufficient motives and would not do anything bad with it.

Harry once talked about this with Ron, and since then, the latter had never mentioned it again.

But it was not long before the rumour began to appear in the castle.

That was not a good sign; Harry did not want anything bad to happen.

Since Sirius was proved innocent and became a professor of the Defence Against the Dark Arts at school, Harry was very satisfied with his current state of life.

Sirius said that Harry could move to live with him during the summer vacation.

Harry could hardly imagine leaving the Dursleys, without scruples to his godfather’s house, where they could invite Evan, Ron, and Hermione.

He had never been as happy as he was then. He didn’t want to have any accidents.