A Walking Money Bag

A Walking Money Bag—perhaps for fun, or some other reason—Fred and George repeated Albert's words to Ron verbatim.

Ron, who had never possessed a single Galleon in his pocket, was utterly stunned when he suddenly learned that Scabbers, who slept in his schoolbag, was worth tens of thousands of Galleons.

Ron reached up to clutch his chest and took several deep breaths before calming the wildly pounding heart in his chest.

"You're not lying to me, are you?!"

It was not that Ron did not believe them, but Fred and George always loved playing pranks on him. No matter how he listened, it sounded as though they were fooling him.

If Scabbers were really worth that much, Percy would have sold him long ago. How could he possibly have given him to Ron?

"Why would we lie to you? Albert said Muggles especially like studying creatures that have lived for a very long time. I remember your rat has lived longer than ordinary rats." Fred put on a stern face and said seriously, "It is not strange for someone to live ten years longer than others, but if someone lived twice as long as everyone else, people would be curious about how exactly they managed to live that long."

"Maybe... maybe he drank the Elixir of Life."

In truth, Ron had only understood that Scabbers was worth so much entirely because he had lived for a long time.

Well, thinking about it carefully, Scabbers really did seem to have lived a very long time.

"So, do you want to sell Scabbers?" Fred and George asked, draping their arms over Ron's shoulders. "This is a rare opportunity. One rat could be traded for tens of thousands of Galleons' worth of Muggle money, maybe even more. It'd be an absolute fortune."

"This..."