Hard to Say

Harry, of course, had no idea what Snape was thinking. If he had, he would have decided to wear a mask to his next Potions Class.

This way, he could cover his face and avoid being seen by Snape, thus avoiding some unnecessary trouble.

Sometimes Harry wonders if the idea of children paying for their parents' debts is a necessary part of life.

"Gryffindor..."

Snape's greasy voice rang out, pausing for quite a while. It was unclear whether this was due to some kind of perverse sense of humor, or whether he intended to use such a pause to slowly irritate the Gryffindor students' nerves.

"You two will lose ten points for whispering in class."

After saying that, Snape turned around with a flourish, walked to the podium, and picked up the stack of homework.

"If you hand in something like this on your OWLs exam, this is the grade you'll get," Snape said with a sneer, striding quickly through the class to return the homework. "This should give you a clear idea of what's going to happen on the exam."

He strode to the front of the classroom, turned around, rested his elbow on the podium, and faced the students.

"The overall quality of this homework was terrible—most of you would have failed if it were an exam. I hope you'll put more effort into your papers on the different types of antidotes this week, or I'll have to put those idiots who got 'D's' in solitary confinement."

As he said this, he stared intently at Ron.

As for Neville?

Ha, he gave up on treatment a long time ago.

In his eyes, Weasley belonged to the category of "somewhat above Troll".

During the rest of the class, Ron put all his effort into brewing the potion, and with Hermione's help, he managed to make the Strengthening Solution a not-so-clear turquoise color.

Snape, who had been watching from the side, finally snorted with dissatisfaction after seeing the color of Ron's potion, and turned to leave.

Ron finally breathed a sigh of relief.

When class ended, he walked beside Harry and whispered, "Thanks to Hermione, otherwise Professor Snape would have killed me today."

"Not really, buddy." Harry patted Ron on the back with a relaxed smile. "Professor Snape is still a professor at the university. If he wanted to kill you, he would have to wait until you graduated—besides, you angered him so much before, but he didn't kill you, did he?"

"When I said kill me..." Ron gestured with his hands for a long time, "I don't mean kill me physically, but rather, he might target me, especially, especially."

"Oh, then your worries are a bit unnecessary," Hermione said, rolling her eyes. "When has Professor Snape ever not targeted Gryffindor? He targets every Gryffindor equally, okay?"

"That's true." Ron nodded, agreeing with Hermione.

"Actually, things aren't so bad now, not as bad as last week, are they?" Hermione said, as they left the Dungeon Classroom, walked up the stairs, and through the Entrance hall to lunch. "The homework isn't too bad either, right?"

"That's true." Harry nodded in agreement.

Anyway, he doesn't do his homework; he leaves it all to Anne.

Thinking of Anne, he glanced back and saw Anne following closely behind him, carrying a book.

Noticing Harry turning to look at her, Anne raised her face and gave him a gentle smile.

"Let's go eat," Harry said to Anne. "Let's all go to the Gryffindor's long table."

Anyway, this wasn't the first time Slytherin had eaten at the Gryffindor long table, and the Gryffindor students were already used to it.

Besides, this Slytherin girl seems a bit naive and innocent; she's not the kind of person you shouldn't mess with.

They sat down together at the Gryffindor table.

"Needless to say, I'd be ecstatic if I got an 'O' (outstanding)—" Seamus said, waving his Prongs on the side.

"I got a 'P' (poor)," Ron said, ladling soup into his bowl. "Happy now?"

"Well, there's nothing shameful about it," Fred said, having just come to the table with George and Lee Jordan and sat to Harry's right. "A healthy and energetic 'P' is nothing to be ashamed of."

"But," Hermione said, "'P' doesn't mean..."

"'Bad,' yes," said Lee, Jordan, "but still better than 'D (dreadful),' right? 'Terrible,'"

"The highest grade, 'O,' stands for 'Excellent,'" Hermione began asking her seniors, "and then there's 'A' (Acceptable), right—"

"No, it's 'E'," George corrected her. "'E' stands for 'Exceeds Expectations.' Actually, I always felt that George and I should get 'E's in every subject because we exceeded expectations just by taking the exam."

At this point, they all burst into laughter, except for Hermione.

Although she disliked how the Twins treated their studies like a game, she refrained from lecturing them.

This is already a significant improvement. If it were according to her previous personality, she would have insisted on arguing with the Twins until she got to the bottom of things.

She took a bite of the sausage and then asked, "So, 'A' after 'E' means 'pass'—that's the minimum passing grade, right?"

"That's right," Fred replied with a chuckle, dipping the whole roll in the soup, stuffing it into his mouth, and swallowing it in one gulp.

"So, 'P' stands for 'bad'—" Ron raised his arms, feigning celebration, "—and then there's 'D,' terrible, right? Probably the worst one, isn't it?"

"There's a 'T' after that," George reminded him.

"'T'?" Hermione asked, clearly startled. "Is it lower than 'D'? What does 'T' stand for?"

"Troll," the Twins replied without hesitation.

Everyone burst into laughter upon hearing what the Twins said.

But no one took it seriously; after all, you can only believe half of what Twins say.

The previous ones are all correct, but the last one... is questionable.

"Has your class been checked?" Fred asked them.

"No," Hermione asked immediately, "What about you?"

"Just now, before dinner," George said, "It was Charms Class."

"How is it?" Harry and Hermione asked at the same time.

Fred shrugged.

"It's not so bad. Umbridge just huddled in the corner, taking notes on his whiteboard—you know Professor Flitwick's temper. He treated Umbridge like a guest and didn't seem to care about the matter at all."

At this point, Fred recalled the details of the class.

"Umbridge didn't say much," he said. "She just asked Alicia a few questions, asking what her classes were like, Alicia replied that they were very good, that's all—if I didn't know her, I would have really thought she was there to investigate, not to cause trouble."

George suddenly said, "I seriously doubt that Umbridge would give professors similar grades. What do you think?"

"Probably?" Ron said, chewing on a chicken leg. "Maybe, I don't know, but I think she'll do it—hey, think about it, what kind of grade will she give Professor Flitwick?"

"I don't think Flitwick's scores will be low," George said. "He always makes sure everyone passes the test."

"I think so too. I actually really like Professor Flitwick," Anne suddenly interjected. "Don't you guys think Professor Flitwick is actually a very nice person?"

"That's true, Anne, that's true," the Twins said together.

"So," Harry glanced to the left, then to the right, and asked in a low voice, "What do you think she would rate Professor Snape if she were to do so?"

"Well," Fred said, chewing on his bread, "I can't say for sure, but I think the grade shouldn't be too low. At least an 'A'. After all, you know Professor Snape's teaching style is a bit reckless, which might just suit Umbridge's taste."

"Maybe so, after all, Umbridge just reads from the book," Lee Jordan said with a laugh.

"And what about Professor McGonagall?" Hermione asked again.

"As for Professor McGonagall..." Fred said after thinking for a moment, "I don't think she would offend the Deputy Headmistress again after already offending Dumbledore, would she? She should at least give an objective evaluation of an E."

"Hard to say," Ron shrugged. "Umbridge is a difficult person to describe in terms of common sense. Anyway, I'm not very optimistic."

"Where is Professor Scamander?" Anne asked, raising her hand.

"Oh, Professor Scamander," Fred laughed, "It will definitely be an 'O.' Nobody wants to offend such a popular Magical Creatures expert. Anne ... unless she's tired of living, not to mention that this Magical Creatures expert's brother used to be the Head of the Auror Office at the Ministry of Magic."

"That's true," Anne nodded, then asked again, "What about Professor Binns?"

"O! Absolutely an O!" Fred and George exclaimed in unison. "Professor Binns ' teaching style is exactly the same as Umbridge's. If Umbridge wanted to investigate Professor Binns, he certainly wouldn't have given Professor Binns a low score."

At this point, George said mischievously, "Because giving Professor Binns a low grade is the same as giving herself a low grade—think about it, both of them are just opening the book and reading from it, there's no reason why Professor Binns would get a 'T', right?"

Everyone laughed when they heard George's words.

"Whose class are you having this afternoon?" Fred asked.

"Professor Trelawney's," Harry said, chewing on his bread.

"Oh, 'T,' no doubt about it." Fred shook his head and made his judgment on Trelawney.

"Oh, right, Anne," Harry turned to Anne and asked, "I almost forgot to ask you, didn't Professor Trelawney say she wanted you to stay after class last time? How's your Prophecy talent going?"

"I haven't gone yet," Anne said softly. "Professor Trelawney had something come up last week, and she asked me to come to the Divination Class office tonight."

"Alright," Harry shrugged. "If Professor Trelawney says anything crazy, just listen, but don't offer any opinions."

"Okay." Anne nodded seriously, seemingly having truly remembered Harry's instructions.

"Hey, Fred, George!"

A familiar voice rang out; it was Cedric Diggory, the sunny and cheerful young man from Hufflepuff.

"Hey, Cedric," the two greeted each other.

After greeting everyone around him, Cedric finally asked, "I heard you guys have been selling some quirky little gadgets lately? I mean... um, do you have anything that can make people happy?"

"What's wrong?" Fred asked mischievously. "Did you have a fight with Cho Chang?"

"Ah, um." Cedric scratched his head shyly. "Yeah, I misspoke, but I'm planning to buy her something to cheer her up. Do you have anything good here?"

"Then I wholeheartedly recommend Punching Telescope." Fred rummaged around in his pocket for a while before pulling out a pair of binoculars and handing them to Cedric.

"What's the use of this thing?" Cedric asked with great interest, looking around with his binoculars.

"No way!" Ron quickly stopped him. "This thing looks like an ordinary telescope, but if you twist it, it will shoot out a fist. If it hits you, it will leave a mark and a big cloud of black smoke."

Cedric reacted as if he'd been electrocuted, throwing the binoculars back.

"If you twist your body and get punched, wouldn't that make Cho Chang happy?" Fred shrugged.

"I'd rather not," Cedric said politely.

"Then let me recommend something proper," George said, handing Cedric a Hangman's Noose as well. "A Reusable Hangman, how about that? I'll skip the spelling part and make it perfect for your apology—this little figure with your name on it will slowly climb the steps, ascend the Hangman's Noose, and finally be hoisted up—look at that, what a sincere little thing!"

"This is it, how much?" Cedric asked firmly.

"One Galleon," George replied.

Cedric didn't hesitate to pull out a Galleon and take the little man.

"I want this too," Ron said, a little envious.

He also wanted to buy one, so that if he ever angered Hermione, he could make a little figurine out of it as an apology—it seemed like he was definitely sincere.

"One Galleon," Fred and George said, extending their hands together.

"Oh, please!!" Ron protested, "I'm your little brother! How can you do this?!"

Fred and George exchanged a glance and said in unison, "Two Galleon!"

Ron was furious; he wished he could sever his brotherhood with these two right there and then.

I treated you like older brothers, and you turned around and treated me like a France to be taken advantage of, huh?!

(End of this chapter)