Just as Hermione sat down again, Ron, who had been reading the Defense Guide, put down the magazine and looked up and asked, "Hermione, what are you doing looking for Anderson?"
"Give him this month's manuscript to review." Hermione lowered her voice.
"What manuscript?" Harry asked curiously.
"The story manuscript at the end of the Defense Manual." After Hermione finished speaking, the expression on her face became a little unnatural.
"You actually wrote that story?"
Ron was so surprised that he almost turned to the end of the "Defense Guide" in his hand and pointed at the story to ask Hermione.
"Don't talk nonsense." Hermione glared at Harry and Ron, trying to make them shut up.
"I remember that the article wasn't signed by you."
Harry had certainly read that article. He would read the Defense Guide carefully every month. The magazine run by Sirius was indeed of high quality, and the knowledge on Defense against the Dark Arts in it always benefited him a lot.
"By the way, can you help me take a look at these readers' letters first." Hermione took out a pile of letters from her robe pocket and handed them to Harry and Ron.
"Why don't you read it yourself?" Harry asked puzzledly, picking up a letter.
"If the content of the letter is terrible, I won't read it, so as not to be upset." Hermione gestured for them to read the content of the letter first, "If the reader's letter is okay, show it to me."
Ron and Harry looked at each other, smiled, opened the envelopes in their hands, pulled out the letter from it, and began to read the contents.
"I think it's a smart thing for you to do. A lot of readers are not very kind."
After a moment, Ron put the letter back, shrugged and said to Hermione, "This guy is not very friendly. I really don't know why he sent you a letter. Is he deliberately trying to disgust you?"
"Maybe. This person here asks if you have any idea of how to get a house-elf." Harry put the envelope down and picked up another letter to open it.
A few minutes later, Harry and Ron had read all the readers' letters Hermione had received. As Albert had expected, the contents of the letters were varied, but none of them were satisfactory.
Hermione couldn't help feeling a little disappointed. She thought that the novel would help her gain a group of supporters. However, as Albert said, reality is often cruel, and the guys who were willing to take the time to reply to her were probably too idle.
"I think you were right not to use your real name. At least they can't send the letter directly to you." After reading the reader's letter, Ron suddenly felt that Hermione's approach was quite wise.
Just then, an owl flew over and dropped a red envelope in front of Hermione.
"Oh, damn!"
Hermione's eyes fell on the red envelope on the table and her expression became ugly. This was the third howler letter she had received this month.
"what to do?"
Ron looked at the Howler letter that had begun to smoke, and looked at Hermione anxiously: "Do you want to open it? If you don't, the situation may get worse."
"I will make that woman pay the price!" Hermione's eyes were so cold that neither Harry nor Ron dared to look directly at her.
"Or, ask Albert and see if he has any good ideas."
Harry also hated these Howlers. Once they exploded in the hall, even those who didn't read Witch Weekly would know about the so-called love triangle between Harry, Krum and Hermione.
Thanks to the previous two Howlers, probably all the students in Hogwarts now know about this.
Harry thought that any wizard who sent a Howler to Hermione was a bunch of malicious bastards.
Those guys did it on purpose, otherwise why would they send a yelling letter to the school? Isn't this just rubbing salt into the wound
Although this story was false, it still made Harry very angry, and he has been explaining it to others recently.
Without waiting for Hermione to answer, Harry went to find Albert with the letter with smoke starting to come out of the corners.
Fortunately, Albert was eating in the hall, otherwise the roaring letter would not have lasted until that time.
Sometimes, Harry felt that Hermione's persistence was meaningless, and he felt that Albert should have a way to protect Hermione from the harassment of these envelopes.
"Who sends you a Howler?"
Lee Jordan looked at the smoking envelope with interest.
"This was sent to Hermione by someone else," Harry explained helplessly.
"Hermione has been receiving this stuff a lot lately?" Fred asked curiously, "What did you do with it?"
Harry looked at Albert who was eating and asked, "Is there any way? Hermione has been receiving malicious letters recently."
"Oh, you can use a shielding spell on yourself." Albert glanced at Hermione and Ron who were walking towards him, slowly took out a handkerchief to wipe the corners of his mouth and said, "If the shielding spell is strong enough, you can easily block the owl letter."
"Then... is there any way you can deal with this letter?" Harry breathed a sigh of relief. He felt that it was not a good idea for Hermione to receive howler letters every other day, which made them mentally exhausted.
"I can try it. I haven't played with this thing yet." Albert took out his wand from his pocket and pointed it at the Howling Letter in Harry's hand that was about to explode. The letter floated directly in the air.
Using a Transfiguration Charm would be a good option, but he was afraid that the Howling Letter would explode immediately if he used it.
After all, the purpose of a howler letter is to not let people reject it, so this should have been considered.
"What are you going to do?"
Fred and George were both curious about how Albert planned to block the Howlers.
"It may not be easy to stop it by force, but you can try physical isolation."
As he spoke, a water ball instantly covered the entire Howling Letter, but the letter was still burning in the water.
"Is this really okay?" Lee Jordan felt that this was unreliable.
"It should be fine. The essence of a howling letter is to amplify sound. As long as we block out the sound, we should be able to block out the howling letter."
Albert tapped the water ball with his magic wand, and a layer of foam appeared on the surface of the water ball, which was then swallowed up by another larger water ball.
Finally, a sandwich water ball was formed in front of everyone's eyes.
If a vacuum environment could be created, there would probably be no problem, but Albert couldn't do it, so he could only put the letter in water to see if he could isolate the sound.
After the envelope in the water ball was burned out, the water ball suddenly exploded, and the sound inside came out from the water, but it was no longer as loud as the roaring letter. Instead, it became unclear and no one could hear what it was roaring.
"It's incredible. I didn't expect it could be done this way." George felt that he had learned something new. Albert always brought them unexpected surprises.
"The principle of the howling letter should be to amplify the sound. All we need to do is isolate the sound. Well, maybe you can try to develop a similar sound bomb using the principle of the howling letter." Albert thought the method of howling letters was very interesting. They could create a "gadget" to attract other people's attention, which would definitely scare others.
"Thank you, Albert. Can you spare some time to teach me the shielding spell?" Hermione thanked Albert and asked him for the shielding spell.
"Oh, of course no problem." Albert waved his wand, causing the water ball in the air to disappear. "If you don't have any letters you want to receive, I can use it on you now to prevent you from receiving similar letters."
"Oh, of course not."
"That's good." Albert helped Hermione cast a shielding spell and reminded her, "The effect of the shielding spell will last for about three days. As for the spell, I will teach you another day when I have time."
"That guy is really amazing." Ron sighed in a low voice.
After they returned to their original seats, Hermione suddenly shouted fiercely, "I will make that woman pay the price!"
"It'll die down," Harry said to Hermione. "If we just ignore it... people will get tired of it -"
"She was banned from the grounds, how could she have overheard a private conversation!" Hermione said angrily.
"Perhaps Rita Skeeter used the Invisibility Cloak?" Harry had an Invisibility Cloak himself and knew how useful it was. He wouldn't be surprised if the woman had used the Invisibility Cloak to sneak into Hogwarts.
"It's not the invisibility cloak. I asked Professor Moody and he didn't see Rita Skeeter at the judges' table or anywhere by the lake during the second task," Hermione said through gritted teeth.
"Maybe she secretly bugged you," Harry said tentatively.
"It's definitely not a bug." Hermione explained impatiently, "I said it a long time ago, the magical magnetic field of Hogwarts is too strong, and Muggle electrical appliances can't be used at all. I'm sure that woman is eavesdropping on other people's conversations with magic."
"Maybe Anderson knows something?" Ron reminded. "He, Fred, and George have been developing all kinds of weird magic gadgets. Maybe they can really make what you call a bug."
"I think you can take some time to ask Albert, since you are going to learn the Shielding Spell from him anyway?" Harry suggested.
"You know, he knows almost everything."
"Perhaps you can ask Anderson to do some divination for you. You have a good relationship with each other, and I don't think that guy will ask you for money." Ron thought that instead of letting Hermione guess blindly, it would be better to ask Albert directly.
Although they were reluctant to admit it, they had begun to think of Albert as omniscient, just like Dumbledore, and Albert was also very reliable.
"I suspect Albert has some agreement with Rita Skeeter. He probably won't help me deal with that woman." Hermione didn't want to embarrass Albert.
"Promise?"
"What agreement?"
"I don't know. Maybe it's to prevent Rita Skeeter from reporting news about him. Haven't you noticed that there's almost no news about Albert in the Daily Prophet?" Hermione reminded.
"So there was a behind-the-scenes deal between them. No wonder Rita Skeeter never reported Anderson's news?" In Harry's opinion, Albert should be more famous than him, but there was no gossip about him at all. This was very strange. Now they finally knew the reason.
"I'm more curious about how he made that woman shut up." Ron whispered, "It's not an easy task."
"I don't know." Hermione shook her head.
"That guy is really capable!" said Harry sourly.
He was annoyed by Rita Skeeter's articles, but what annoyed him most was the group of readers who, like idiots, believed them.
"This matter will be over soon. I don't think you need to fight to the death with Rita Skeeter. That woman is not easy to deal with." Ron said cautiously. He didn't want Hermione to provoke that woman from the beginning.
"I'll handle this myself!" Hermione glanced at Ron and said coldly, "I'm sure that what that girl did was absolutely illegal. If I can catch her, she won't be able to escape."
After Hermione finished her portion of food, she got up and left.
"Women who hold grudges are terrible!" Ron looked at Hermione's departing back and whispered to Harry, "I warned her a long time ago not to provoke Rita Skeeter, but Hermione didn't listen, and the result is what it is now."
Harry and Ron were both relieved that Hermione had not asked them to help her settle accounts with Rita Skeeter.
As Ron said, that woman offended a large group of people and made them gnashing their teeth. However, the fact that she is still safe and sound speaks volumes. It is not easy to find any evidence against her.
In their opinion, without Albert's help, Hermione's chances of success were almost zero.
"Or, let's just ask Anderson."
Harry and Ron didn't find Albert, they had already finished eating and left the hall.
When they returned to the common room, they found Hermione learning the shielding spell with Albert.
The two looked at each other and did not disturb them, but looked at Fred and George who were doing something unknown.
"What are you doing?"
Harry saw a red envelope and his expression froze instantly.
After George opened the envelope, a loud noise filled the common room, shaking the dust off the ceiling. "Don't do it here, do you want to scare everyone to death?"
After the roar stopped, everyone in the common room looked over.
"What the hell are you doing?"
"Ahem." Fred said awkwardly, "It was just an accident."
The Weasley brothers ran away amid people's glares.
Albert looked at the twin brothers who had slipped away, reached out to comfort the furious Tom, then looked at Hermione and asked, "Are you going to send a Howler to Rita Skeeter?"
"No, I intend to teach that woman a lesson," Hermione said in a low voice. "I suspect she is an illegal Animagus."
Before Albert could speak, Hermione continued, "Like you said, it's not easy to eavesdrop. The retractable ears invented by Fred and George have limited effect, and Hogwarts is protected by magic. Even if Rita Skeeter knows some magic, it would be difficult for her to eavesdrop outside the school."
"Last year, Sirius's incident gave me an idea. Why couldn't Rita Skeeter be an illegal Animagus? If her Animagus is inconspicuous, it would be very suitable for eavesdropping on others, whether it was Hagrid's time or mine this time."
"That makes sense." Albert praised, "You have a sharp mind, it shouldn't be difficult to catch that guy."
"You're threatening her with this?" Hermione asked curiously.
"Not really. I told that woman that if she continued to report my news, I would write letters to those wizards who hate her and persuade them to pool their money to hunt her down on the black market." Albert said calmly.
"You know, one thousand Galleons is enough to make those criminals excited." Albert said lightly.
"Are you going to find someone to kill her?" Hermione asked in disbelief.
"Of course not. I can have her sent to St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries." Albert said calmly, "If she doesn't compromise, she will compromise after a few more times."
Hermione was speechless.
"When dealing with bad guys, you don't need to show mercy at all." Albert stroked Tom's hair and said, "You need to be strong enough to make her listen to you. Being too weak will only make people think that you are easy to bully, so she dared to report Harry Potter's gossip wantonly. There is no doubt that the effect is very good. That guy never touched any reports related to me again."
"It's really effective." Hermione didn't think Albert's approach was excessive. However, she would use her own method to shut the woman up.