Ron-Weasly book 1. V2

"Thank you so much, Lety! You're just... magical!" I blushed even more from embarrassment, but the smile did not leave my face. "We can have five more with mushrooms."

"Here, take Mr. Ron and treat the merry Fred and George, they are frequent guests here."

I love mushroom pies. I bit into the warm side of the pie, waiting for the Brat to have lunch.

"Mr. Ron can always come to us!" Leti bowed. "We love it when guests visit the kitchen."

"Can I bring a friend who likes to cook like you?"

"Yes, of course, Mr. Ron, bring the great Harry Potter. All the Hogwarts elves will be happy to see him."

And I, with a basket of cabbage and mushroom pies, separated by towels, in one hand and a bag of carrots in the other, hurried upstairs, feeling like a winner. "Fred and George will definitely appreciate the pies," I thought with a smile, while the Brat was sitting on his shoulder eating a salad.

Suddenly, as I passed the pantry next to the kitchen, I noticed a large gray cat with black stripes and bright green, glowing eyes step out of the shadows. She walked slowly around me, sniffed at the bag, from which came the faint smell of carrots, and made a soft, almost melodious "meow." Then she hissed at my rat, but she didn't rush. I noticed on Tuesday that the cats of Hogwarts were ignoring my little rat.

"Uh... hello, kitty," I cautiously stretched out my hand, and the cat, hesitating a little, rubbed against my robe.

A brownie in a pillowcase with a yellow leaf immediately jumped out from around the corner.

"Oh, Mr. Ron! Don't worry, it's Selena! She makes sure that there are no... unwanted guests here," He lowered his voice and looked around. "She's very smart, yes. If Selena is here, then everything is fine. Peeves sent a couple of rats into the pantry again yesterday. The cat proudly raised its tail and, after giving Ron another attentive look, slid back into the shadows."

* * *

Okay, stop dreaming, we have a lesson coming.

Professor Snape is already squinting with displeasure. Upset, Hermione proudly tossed her head and raised her hand. Snape graciously allowed her to answer three questions and went to interview the students further.

Snape graciously allowed her to answer three questions and went to interview the students further.

"Mr. Weasley, tell us how to properly slice the ingredients. Since you're not interested in this topic, do you know everything about preparing them for potions?"

"Oh, yes, sir, I've been making potions with my mom." I started talking about the preparation of ingredients and their proper cutting.

"Okay, two points for Gryffindor, but for the future, don't get your head in the clouds about my lessons anymore."

Then Snape divided the students into pairs and gave them the task of preparing a simple potion to cure boils. He circled the classroom, rustling his long black robe, and watched as we weighed dried nettle leaves and ground snake teeth in mortars. Snape criticized half of the class for being crooked-handed.

From time to time, he raised his head and looked around the classroom, suddenly he raised his hand with a wand and shouted.

"Longboat stop!" — Snape was shouting so loudly that Neville froze in fright and did not bring his hand with porcupine quills to the cauldron. Hermione gasped in horror, looking at the needles in Neville's hand. Draco, I, and several of the Slytherins turned very pale.

"Mr. Longbottom," Snape's voice cuts through the silence like glass, You almost turned my classroom into an infirmary just now. "Tell me -out loud, so that everyone can hear — what are the properties of so many crushed porcupine quills, at a high temperature of the potion? Especially when interacting with wolf poison?

Neville turns pale, still clutching the needles. Seamus, sitting next to me, suddenly turns pale with fear. The Gryffindors freeze: someone is frantically flipping through a textbook, someone Hermione is looking at Neville in horror. Neville and Seamus would have been doused from head to toe with the potion when the cauldron exploded. Dean Thomas instinctively pushes his cauldron away, and Parvati groans softly and clings to Lavender.

"So, the cash register is not distracted from the boilers." We all remembered that we have our own potion boiling.

Slytherins react with restraint. Draco Malfoy only raises an eyebrow slightly, quickly writes something down in a notebook and whispers to his neighbor:

"Adding needles before neutralization is a gross mistake. Remember that." Zabini nods, also makes a note — for them this is not a reason to panic, but another point in the piggy bank of knowledge about what not to do.

"Uh... does it... enhance?" Neville mumbles uncertainly.

"`It's amplifying'," Snape echoes, and there's a hint of icy mockery in his voice. "He walked over to Hermione's cauldron and said. "Leave Miss Granger to infuse, and help Longbottom." Then he turns to Neville. "How touching. Yes, Mr. Longbottom, it enhances the explosive power of the potion tenfold. Another ten seconds and your classmates would have been picking you up from the ceiling."

Hermione wasted no time in quickly applying a light stabilizing contour to Neville's cauldron with her wand — a barely noticeable silver film covers the container, calming the bubbling. Snape notices this, but only nods briefly, not in approval, but rather in recognition of the appropriateness of the action.

"Minus five points to Gryffindor for being inconsiderate," he says dryly. "And five more for making me waste my time trying to prevent a disaster."

Snape looks around the classroom.

"This applies to everyone. Potions is not a game of brave Gryffindors. Mistakes are not heroic here. They are deadly. Slytherins understand this. Hopefully Gryffindors will learn too someday."

Then, softening his tone a little, but without losing his severity, he adds:

"After the lesson, Mr. Longbottom, you will bring me a notebook with a description of three critical mistakes when working with wolf poison and ways to prevent them. On three sheets, legible, without abbreviations. And to make it clear that you really understood the material, and not copied it from Miss Granger."

Neville nods, still pale, but not so confused anymore.

"Yes, sir. I... I understand, sir."

I nudges him and whispers:

"Don't worry. I'll sketch out a plan for you, and you'll write it out beautifully. The main thing is that the boiler is intact, and the rest is fixable."

Hermione moves to Neville's cauldron, stirring his potion and explaining her actions.

Snape, already moving to another table, throws over his shoulder:

"And yes, Mr. Longbottom. I will not allow you to access the complex ingredients until you have completed your work. Today, limit yourself to stirring and temperature control. Miss Granger, help Mr. Longbottom adjust the recipe. You've already finished working with your potion, it just needs to brew.

Hermione nods and immediately begins to quietly dictate the necessary actions to Neville. Having gathered himself, he begins to gently stir the potion clockwise, carefully watching the color of the steam.

Slytherins continue to work quietly. Pansy Parkinson, without raising her head, speaks softly to her friend:

"Bydd yn rhaid i mi amlygu'r pwynt hwn mewn coch yn fy nodiadau. Bydd yn ddefnyddiol ar gyfer yr arholiad."

"Mr. Malfoy, ydych chi wedi gorffen eich gwaith eto?"

Draco nods gravely and says:

"Yes, sir, the potion needs to be infused."

"Help Mr. Goyle and Mr. Crab."

"And you, Mr. Knott, help Miss Parkinson and Miss Greengrass. And you, Potter, why didn't you stop Mr. Longbottom? Did you want to look better on his background? For that, I'll put a minus one point on your account."

An hour later, we left the dungeon and went up the stairs. Harry was really upset. Harry wanted to object to the professor, but kicked him under the table. And the friend remained silent.

"Cheer up," I encouraged him. "Fred and George are also having bad luck in Snape's classes. Do you know how many fines they got from him? Hey, can I come with you to Hagrid's? Maybe he has cereal seeds for the Brat. Otherwise, Percy fed his little rat with food from the table. Have you seen how fat the rat is?

— Yes, I saw it. But maybe it's because he's already old? He's already ten years old, right? Harry, he's a magical animal, he needs to move and be slimmer. And yet, since Hagrid is a forester, he knows everything about the plants in the forbidden forest and the animals that inhabit it. Charlie kept praising him.

* * *

At five minutes to three we left the castle and walked through the school grounds to Hagrid's hut. He lived in a small wooden house on the edge of the Forbidden Forest. Above the door was a pair of rubber boots and a magic lamp hung. When Harry knocked on the door, we heard someone frantically scratching at it from the other side and barking deafeningly. A moment later, Hagrid's booming voice reached us:

"Get back, Fang, get back!"

The door opened a crack, and a huge face overgrown with hair appeared behind it.

"Come on in," Hagrid invited. "Get back, Fang!"

Hagrid opened the door wider, barely holding the huge black dog by the collar. Hagrid did not know the name of this breed, although he explained that wild boars were hunted with such dogs.

The rain had just stopped, and drops were still falling from the roof of the hut, falling with a thud on the trampled ground. Harry and I crossed the threshold, shaking the water off our robes, and immediately plunged into the familiar comfort: the smell of hot tea, baked bread, and something smoky, as if Hagrid had recently blown up the coals.

In the corner, on a massive wooden beam, hung a combat crossbow. Charlie showed me the same one, only smaller. He looked imposing and a little alien among the mugs, baskets, and coils of rope.

"What's this?" Harry craned his neck, not daring to come any closer.

Hagrid had just bent down to a low chest and pulled out a cloth and a small jar that smelled of oil and iron. He turned around, followed Harry's gaze, and gave a slightly embarrassed grunt, as if he'd been caught doing something personal.

"A crossbow," he said simply, walking over to the wall and removing the weapon from its hook. The wood had darkened with age, and the metal had turned gray in places, but the whole thing looked sturdy, as if it had survived more than one storm. "It's an old thing, but it's true. In the Forbidden Forest without her... well, you know."

He put the crossbow on the table, and it lay down heavily, solidly, as if it knew its own worth. Hagrid opened the jar, dipped a corner of a cloth into it, and began to carefully wipe the metal parts — slowly, carefully, as if removing not rust, but some minor grudge accumulated over the days of dampness.

"See here?" He pointed to a barely noticeable reddish bloom near the trigger mechanism. "The dampness here is evil. You blink a little, and the iron starts to "cry." And I don't need crying iron. It should be dry and calm, like a cat at a warm stove.

Harry moved closer, careful not to touch the weapon, and bent down, examining the details.

"Do you... clean it every time it rains?" he asked softly.

"Not everyone," Hagrid shook his head, continuing to run the rag over the metal. "But if the night was wet, I'll take a look first thing in the morning. And I take the bowstring off — the shoulders don't like being held in suspense. The tree, it's alive, and it needs to rest."

I couldn't resist reaching out my hand, but I immediately pulled it back, afraid that the crossbow would hit me with magic, like Charlie's weapon.

"Is he... dangerous?"

"He's not making it dangerous," Hagrid replied calmly, looking up. "It's not magical, Ron. Haste and anger make it dangerous. And if it's smart and without too much fuss, then it's just an assistant. To protect yourself and those around you.

He finished wiping the metal, blew on the shiny strip as if checking for any dust, and carefully put the jar back into the chest. By the way, Harry told me that Hagrid tried to buy him a trunk for school, but Harry balked at the suitcase and that was it.

Then Hagrid took the crossbow in both hands, turned it over, checking the balance, and hung it on the hook again, this time so that no stray splashes would reach it if the door suddenly swung open in the wind.

"Well, enough about the hardware," He said more cheerfully, slapping his thighs and returning to the kettle. I have raisin muffins here, I baked them myself. Sit down, you're probably cold. Harry took another look at the crossbow — at its dark wood and polished metal — and suddenly felt that this object was not there to threaten. He was part of Hagrid's concern for his corner of the world: like dry wood by the fireplace, like a boarded-up crack from a draft, like a warm jacket on a nail. A thing that is cherished because too much may depend on it.

There was only one room in the house. Pork hams and gutted pheasants hung from the ceiling, a copper kettle was boiling over an open fire, and a massive bed covered with a patchwork quilt stood in the corner.

"You... uh... make yourself at home... Get settled in" Hagrid said, and Fang rushed over to me and started licking my ears. It was obvious that Fang, like his master, looked much more dangerous than he really was. He should have salivated less.

"This is Ron," Harry introduced me.

Meanwhile, Hagrid was making tea and putting cupcakes on a plate. The cupcakes made contact with the plate with such a sound that there was no doubt about their freshness — they had withered and turned to stone a long time ago. So, it would be necessary to somehow carefully abandon them. My teeth are precious to me. Although Madam Pomfrey will grow new ones and Hagrid will be offended. I'll soak them like breadcrumbs in soup. Exactly.

"Another Weasley, eh?" Hagrid asked, looking at my freckled face and red hair. "I've spent half my life hunting your brothers. Maen nhw wastad... wel... yn ceisio mynd i mewn i'r Goedwig Waharddedig, ac mae'n rhaid i mi eu dal nhw, ie! And you will climb into the forest as well as you grow up, I know you foxes."

And why am I not surprised? It was easy to break our teeth on the stone cupcakes, but Harry and I pretended that we really liked them and told Hagrid how our first days at school had been. Fang was sitting next to Harry, resting his head on his lap and drooling profusely over his school uniform. I took the cupcake in my hand and tried to soak it in a cup. Hmm, but nothing like that. But anyway, I would have eaten something more substantial. I have to go to the great hall for an afternoon snack at four o'clock. Today they promised nuts and milk from magic farms. And also dried fruits. Mmm.