Ron took the grindylow into the wizard's chess room and locked it with a simple spell, one of the last things left to get the room ready was to arrange a portrait to stand in the doorway of the room. Over lunch, Ron stood quietly in a corner without attention, could only hear the lively conversations of some people with the proximity of Christmas and the members of the Slug club and the possible peers about who outside Hogwarts would go to the Christmas party planned by the teacher.
But these conversations around were just a boring noise in Ron's ears, in his head, he tried to think of what else he could buy for the wizard chess club, Professor McGonagall had given him some money to buy the game boards and chess pieces and some books for beginners, she said that this was helping at the beginning of the club in the same way that she had helped Harry by buying the Nimbus 2000 for him, yet his head could not forget the last conversation and the look Hermione had given him and his sister's approach was a bad sign in his desire to forget.
"Ron!", said the red-haired girl sitting next to her.
"Yes," he said as he cut the flesh from his plate with spells.
"Are you all right?", she asked.
"I believe so, but why do you ask," he said with a careful voice.
"I met Hermione and she looked sad and told me that you refused her invitation to Professor Slughorn's Christmas party .."
"Yeah, that's right."
"Because?", said the girl insisting on the subject.
"I've already given her the answer, Ginevra, you can ask her."
"Why are you talking to me like that," the girl said in an angry voice.
"Because I'm behaving like a brother who has a twelve-year-old mind who does not care for his younger sister, and who lets her be possessed by a book, and who never kissed anyone else, etc., as you very clearly remembered in one of our last conversations, it will not be my business with who you leave or what you do, but I expect you to have the same kind of attitude towards me, "Ron said quietly, and left the table toward the stairs.
Ron was coming out of the great hall, just as a voice echoed:
"Stop Weasley!"
Ron turned in time to see that his sister was standing, staring deathly at him and with his wand pointed and thrown at the Bat-Bogey Hex, Ron managed to deflect himself by throwing himself to the ground. Behind Ginny, the new prefect of Grinfinory Seamus Finnigan showed up taking points from the house, and he, Ginny, and Dean headed toward Professor McGonagall's room.
Not wanting to make a same way to them, since the wizard chess room was next to the teacher's room, Ron was finishing his lunch before heading back to the room while attracts glances around the room. An hour later, he left the Grinfinory's table and headed to the dorms to take a shower, change his clothes, and continue the preparations for the room.
When he reached the front of the room, the first thing Ron saw was the door to the room open, worried, he entered the room with his hand holding his wand, only to find the two Slytherins, Tracey Davis and Daphne Greengrass. Davis was grimacing at the aquarium's grindylow, and Greengrass was spinning his grandfather's chess pieces with her wand. Impressed by the scene and worried about what was happening Ron asked right away.
"What are you two doing?"
"I thought this was already clear to you, Weasley, as soon as you entered the room?" Davis replied, continuing the grimaces.
"Waiting for you, to finish the work of muggle studies, asshole," Greengrass replied.
"I mean Davis is grinning at grindylow and you torturing my chess pieces, Ron much of your little self-control to respond.
"He must be bored here," Davis said, stroking the glass of the aquarium as the creature tried to bite her hand without success.
"They were insulting me," Greengrass said, spinning his pieces faster as the pieces screamed for help for Ron.
"All right, all right, let's get this over with," Ron said, holding up his hands, surrendering not to continue with a crazy conversation.
As for Ron, the task of muggle studies continued in the same impasse of the last class, as well as the discord between Ron and the girls on the best answer to be given.
"Weasley, do you have a brain?" Because I'm seriously suspicious that you do not. said Daphne.
"Greengrass, are you trying hard to insult me or are you just like everyone else?"
"She's like this to everyone, except she usually keeps quiet so she does not get too much attention from our housemates," Tracey said, trying to make a serious face.
"Stay out of it, Davis, well, Weasley, let's try a damn deal, neither I nor Davis and you seem to have been bred by Muggles, let's get out of here and the first person we find, let's look at our answers, and decide which one is best.
Tracey agreed just like Ron. At that moment Harry opened the door of the room to pick up the grindylow and take it to Snape and found three pairs of eyes staring at him, a curious, a tired and an irritated.
"The first person," Ron said.
"Yes," said Tracey, smiling.
- How? Why is it going to be Potter? How do we know if he does not want to favor Weasley? Said Daphne
"Daphne, if Potter favors Weasley, we win because we're part of the same group. It's not about which of us has the best answer, but we get a good grade in a subject in which we do not want to spend so much time studying, Tracey said peacefully, but rolling her eyes.
"Okay," I told the other girl reluctantly.
"Does anyone care to tell me what all this is?" Harry said.
Ron, with Tracey's eventual help, explained to Harry the task of Muggle studies, and the disagreement of the three regarding the answers, while Daphne muttered something and cranked the chess pieces of Ron with her wand. Harry spent a few minutes reading the three answers, when he finished he said,
"The three of you have some reason in the comparisons, so I think the three of you should come up with an answer saying that the three forms of witch communication have similar characteristics to the phone, and also because none of you are managing to convince others.
"I like it," Tracey said.
While Daphne and Ron nodded affirmatively, Harry left the room leaving them to finish their duty and went to meet Snape with the grindylow.
Somewhere in the dungeons, that same Saturday afternoon.
Draco Malfoy walked nervously through the corridors to the room where the meeting was scheduled, since the summer he had had the idea of using the Vanishing Cabinet to create a way into the castle, but he was having a hard time repairing it, starting with the kind of wood he was making, at this meeting he now hoped he could find the right kind to start repairing. Today's problem was negotiation with the Carrow sisters.
Two years ago, the twins Hestia Carrow and Flora Carrow. who are now in 5th grade on Slytherin, have begun to be the suppliers of the most diverse items, ingredients and products found to be inappropriate or illegal at Hogwarts, Draco only knew about them when their uncles came to visit his mother last summer and the twin sisters offered their services. Normally customers would order and receive orders from other people or other means that made it difficult for someone to reach them, or at least that's what they said.
Draco finally entered the door of the meeting place and knocked.
"Password?" A voice called from the other side of the door.
Draco unwound the piece of parchment and read.
"I'm an insignificant worm, so my presence does not make any difference," Draco said grudgingly.
"Right, you finally admit your true nature Malfoy," said the voice now chuckling.
Draco entered a dimly lit room, in front of him was a girl with pale white skin and black hair down to the middle of her back with light brown eyes, on his side, about five paces away, another girl identical to the first; the two of them pointed their wands at Draco.
"Your Malfoy wand, we will return after our conversation," they said in unison.
Draco handed the wand and was led to a chair in the center of the room while one of the twins leaned against the wall and continued pointing the wand at him and the other went to another chair behind a table that would be separating the two.
"Malfoy, we have a part of your request here, the other part must arrive by the Christmas holiday." So if you want to make use of this wood that has already arrived will have to pay a part of what we agreed, said the girl who was sitting in front of him.
"Where is my request?" said the boy.
"Here," replied the same girl, waving her wand.
Beside Draco a box appeared.
"Inside this box you will find several types of wood, according to the request we must receive another part until before Christmas," said the girl who was leaning against the wall.
"Now, according to the message we sent you, we want the veritaserum potion you have.
Draco pulled a small glass bottle with a colorless liquid and set it on the table.
"Now Malfoy, this concludes our exchange for now, not that you will remember.
Before he could make any move, he was immobilized and moments later his memory was erased and modified, and he was forced to take a potion. Hours later Draco woke up on the floor of the room with the box he had requested, but without remembering who he had talked to and only a note with instructions from the next contact.