Even though there were only three days of classes in the first week of school, Harry still felt that he had an extremely difficult week.
On his first day at Hogwarts, he encountered an accident. The wall between Platform 9 and Platform 10 was blocked, so he couldn't take the Hogwarts Express. He finally thought of driving to the castle, but he crashed his car into the Whomping Willow, and was beaten by the Whomping Willow for a long time, and even lost Mr. Weasley's car...
If Mr. Weasley had not later sent a letter to Ron, saying that they had done a great job and that the Weasleys had turned a blessing in disguise into a luxury car called a "Rolls-Royce" sent by Professor Dracula, Harry would probably have felt even more guilty.
On the second day after school started, Ron received a howling letter from Mrs. Weasley and was locked in a soundproof hood by Professor Dracula. He was shocked by Mrs. Weasley's loud roar.
Furthermore, even days later, Hedwig was still mad at Harry for the disastrous flying car ride, and feeding him several packets of jerky did little to calm the tension. In order to get back at Ron for driving, Hedwig even nearly took his pet rat, Scabbers, and ate it.
If it weren't for Scabbers' own cleverness, he noticed Hedwig's malicious eyes in time and got scared and crawled into Ron's pants. I'm afraid that the pet mouse that Ron inherited from Percy would have become the indescribable thing that fell in front of Snape that day...
Ron and Harry had a quarrel over their beloved Scabbers.
These were just minor matters. The most difficult thing was Professor Dracula's Defense Against the Dark Arts class, which was extremely painful for Harry and other young wizards. They never wanted to experience the feeling of having their magic and physical strength drained out again!
Not only was Harry's first week difficult, Ron's was even more difficult.
Ron's old, worn-out wand, inherited from his family, was broken after he drove his car into the Whomping Willow.
However, the impoverished Weasley family did not have enough Galleons to buy Ron a new wand. In other words, even if the family had money, Mrs. Weasley would certainly refuse to buy a new wand for Ron who had made a big mistake.
Ron had no choice but to stick the wand together with magic tape himself, thinking that he could use it for a semester.
But if just wrapping some tape around it would work, what would the wizarding world need wand makers for? Ron's wand obviously didn't return to normal, and it would crackle and emit sparks from time to time.
Especially in the Charms class on Friday morning, when Ron chanted a spell, the wand suddenly flew out of his hand and hit the short Professor Flitwick right between the eyebrows.
Professor Flitwick let out an "owl", and a large green lump immediately appeared between his eyebrows, beating rapidly.
For this, Professor Flitwick rarely deducted points from Gryffindor.
As for the nightmare-like Defense Against the Dark Arts class, needless to say, the wand in Ron's hand caused him a lot of trouble. He couldn't even use the simplest spell.
In view of this situation, Dracula took extra care of Ron, and from time to time cast a small spell on him as punishment, forcing Ron to use his broken wand to cast the spell...
Despite all the sad circumstances, Harry and Ron were glad to have made it to Friday night.
The two of them lay down on the bed exhausted and fell asleep immediately, ready to sleep all day long and completely recover from the grievances they had suffered in the past half week in their sleep!
…
Harry was woken up by a burly figure early in the morning. He had wanted to sleep for a few more hours, until noon.
"Wha... what's the matter?" Harry squinted his eyes and said in a daze.
"Quidditch practice!" the burly man said. "Get up!"
Harry rubbed his eyes, forced himself to half open them and looked at the sky outside the window, wondering if he had slept too long and forgotten the time.
Outside the window of the Gryffindor dormitory, a thin layer of mist covered the pink and pale gold sky, and bursts of crisp bird calls could be heard outside.
"Oliver," Harry glanced at the burly young man beside him with dissatisfaction, and found that he was the captain of his Quidditch team, Oliver Wood, "It's just dawn, did you read the time wrong?"
"I didn't read the time wrong!" Wood's eyes flashed with fanaticism.
"This is part of our team's new training program. Come on, grab your broom and follow me." Wood said anxiously, "Other teams haven't started training yet, we are going to crush them and defend our Quidditch championship trophy!"
"Oliver, why do you have so much energy..." Harry looked at Wood's fanatical eyes in disbelief, "Isn't even Professor Dracula's perverted Defense Against the Dark Arts class able to calm you down?"
"I have to admit that Professor Dracula's class is indeed painful." Wood's eyes were a little scared, but paradoxically, there was a feeling of comfort.
"But after the pain, when I was practicing Quidditch yesterday, I found that my endurance has obviously increased a lot! My God, this is a bigger improvement than my progress in the past year!" He said, "So I found that only extreme training can bring us greater improvement. From now on, our Quidditch training will be on par with Professor Dracula's Defense Against the Dark Arts class!"
Looking at Wood's serious expression, Harry discovered with horror that he was not joking at all!
"Oliver, I want to ask you a question..." Harry swallowed, "Are you really not a masochist?"
Wood: “…”
…
In the end, Harry did not tell Wood and decided to follow his decision and continue Quidditch training.
He yawned, his legs still not recovered from the practical training in the Defense Against the Dark Arts class. He climbed out of the bed trembling slightly and began to look for his team uniform.
When Harry arrived at the pitch, the rest of the Gryffindor team was already in the locker room.
He was very glad to see that Wood was the only one in the locker room who was fully awake. Fred and George did not seem to have recovered from the ordeal of the Defense Against the Dark Arts class, sitting there in a daze, with puffy eyes and disheveled hair.
The female players next to them, Chasers Katie Bell and Angelina Johnson, sat opposite, yawning repeatedly.
When Wood saw that everyone was present, he held up a large diagram of a Quidditch pitch with lines, arrows, and crosses of various colors drawn on it. He took out his wand and pointed at the board, and the arrows began to wriggle on the board like caterpillars.
In front of the sleepy Gryffindor players, Wood began to explain his new tactics. In fact, no one could listen.
More than an hour later, amid the snoring in the locker room, Wood, immersed in his own tactics, clapped his hands.
"That's the overall strategy!" he finally said. "Do you have any other questions?"
“Snoring…Snoring…”
"Is it possible that you didn't hear a single word of the tactics I explained to you with great effort?!" he said angrily.
"It's not like I didn't hear a word..." Fred rubbed his sleepy eyes and raised his head from Angelina's shoulder, "I did hear one sentence - 'This is the overall strategy', what do you think? Did I repeat it correctly?"
Looking at the indifferent expressions of his teammates, Wood felt a little unhappy.
"Look, guys," he said grimly, "through a little bit of luck and sheer skill we managed to win the Quidditch Cup last year. That's pretty good!"
“But this year our task is even more difficult. The strength of other teams will not stand still. We must work a hundred times harder to defend our championship in the end!”
"That's all. Now let's put our new theory into practice!" Wood shouted, grabbing his broom and leading the way out of the locker room.
His teammates followed behind, yawning and dragging their numb legs...
However, this week, Harry seemed destined to have trouble.
After they finished explaining the tactics and had just started training for a while, a group of Slytherin Quidditch players in green robes came to them.
In the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, there is a custom that has been passed down for hundreds of years, that is, when a lion and a snake meet, there will inevitably be a fight!
As expected, the two teams immediately started fighting after they met.
Wood thought he had the court booked, and Marcus Flint, captain of the Slytherin Quidditch team, produced a note signed by Snape -
"I, Professor S. Snape, allow the Slytherin team to practice on the Quidditch pitch today to train their new Seeker."
He read the note arrogantly.
The Gryffindor players then discovered that second-year Draco Malfoy had become Slytherin's new Seeker.
And he didn't become a seeker by relying on his own strength, he relied on his rich father, Lucius Malfoy -
Lucius donated seven of the latest Nimbus 2001 flying brooms to the Slytherin Quidditch team, and used his kryptonian power to send Draco to the Slytherin team.
Naturally, the Slytherin team began to laugh at the old Seven-Star No. 5 brooms in the hands of the Gryffindor players, and Hermione, who was watching the game nearby, sharply ridiculed Draco Malfoy for having paid to join the team.
Draco was very unhappy about this and cursed out the most unpleasant word -
"No one asked you, you stinking little mudblood," he said viciously.
The vicious word "Mudblood" used to describe young wizards of Muggle origin completely ignited the battlefield, and the Gryffindor wizards rushed to the opposite side with roars.
Flint had to stand in front of Draco to prevent Fred and George from jumping on him.
Ron, who had come with Hermione to watch Harry's training, angrily reached out and pulled his tattered wand out of his robes, shouting, "You're going to pay for it, Malfoy!"
He thrust his wand wildly from under Flint's arm, pointed it at Malfoy's face -
"Slug-vomiting Charm!"
In extreme anger, Ron thought of a curse that Fred and George had taught him, and used it beyond his normal ability, using the powerful Slug Curse...
…and hit himself with unerring accuracy.
A huge explosion resounded throughout the stadium, and a green light shot out from the back of the wand and hit Ron in the abdomen, causing him to stagger and fall to the ground.
"Ron! Ron! Are you okay?" Hermione squatted down and asked worriedly.
Ron opened his mouth to say that he was fine, but no words came out. Instead, he burped loudly, and several fat slugs came out of his mouth and landed on his thighs.
Seeing this scene, the members of the Slytherin team all laughed themselves to death.
Flint laughed so hard that he couldn't straighten his back, and supported himself on the ground with Nimbus 2001. Malfoy fell to the ground laughing, pounding the ground with his fists frantically.
The Gryffindor team members gathered around Ron with worried looks on their faces, but seeing him constantly spitting out shiny, sticky slugs, no one wanted to touch him.
"Fred, George, you are his brothers, please help him go to the school infirmary." Wood patted the shoulders of the Weiss twins heavily and said to them.
"Well... Captain, I think it's fine to let little Ron lie here." Fred looked at Ron with some disdain and took a small step back. "If we take him to the school infirmary on the fourth floor of the castle, he might vomit slugs all the way. Wouldn't that give Snape a chance to deduct points from our school?"
"Ron, hang in there, you can do it!" George and Fred kept moving forward and backward, also took a small step back, and gave Ron a thumbs up, "Well done, Ron, at least you let us know that you have learned the evil spell we taught you!"
Looking at Ron's two unreliable brothers, Harry gritted his teeth and walked to Ron first.
"We'd better take him to Hagrid's. It's closest," he said, looking at Hermione.
Seeing this, Hermione nodded bravely, and together with Harry, she suppressed her nausea and pulled Ron up by the arm.
Fred was right. Ron really vomited slugs all the way. Fortunately, the Quidditch field was located in the north, far away from Hogwarts Castle, not far from Hagrid's hut.
Harry and Hermione carried Ron and quickly reached Hagrid's hut, leaving a long, sticky trail on the ground...
Just as they stood at the door of Hagrid's shed and raised their hands to knock, a silver-haired figure suddenly opened the door and walked out.
Harry and Hermione were overjoyed to see the newcomer.
"Professor Dracula, Ron has been hit by the Slug Curse. Can you help him remove it?" Hermione asked hopefully.
Dracula looked at the three little wizards in front of him with some surprise, then glanced at Ron with interest.
"Of course, this counter-curse is actually very simple." He raised his hand casually, ready to remove the curse from Ron.
At this moment, Ron couldn't help but spit out another shiny slug, which happened to fall on Dracula's shoe.
The air became quietly quiet.
Dracula stopped raising his hand.
"I suddenly forgot the counter to the Slug Curse," he said coldly.
…
…