After breakfast, when the little lions hurried to the dueling arena, neither the professor nor the assistants had arrived yet, which let Ron, still shaken by what Ginny had said, breathe a sigh of relief.
Noticing that there was hardly anyone standing with Hermione, Ginny pulled Harry over to her. Lavender narrowed her eyes, pouted, and clung tightly to Ron's arm, dragging him off to the other side.
"Congratulations, Hermione. You won that Most Horrifying Residence award by an overwhelming margin. You're the undisputed champion." Ginny leaned close to Hermione with a beaming smile. "After Dad heard those rumors, he wouldn't let us come over, but he voted for you right away."
"Well, thank you so much!" Hermione turned around at the sound with her arms folded, looking listless.
"Speaking of which, everyone's saying your house scared at least thirty wizards to death on Halloween night..." Ginny was clearly pleased to see Hermione's hackles rise. "Of course, I know that's just a rumor..." Once Hermione relaxed, Ginny deliberately lowered her voice and asked, "But you have to tell me in secret—how many did you actually scare to death?"
"It's already gone up to more than thirty?!!!" Hermione shook her bushy hair. "I didn't scare a single person to death! I only scared two into fainting... Then somehow it got spread around that seven died, and now the number keeps getting bigger!" Her tone was full of grievance. "Even quite a few Gryffindors are afraid, as if I'm going to eat people... When it was clearly the Grindelwald family who ate people..."
"So the part about scaring people unconscious is true?" Harry said in surprise from the side. "What did you turn your house into?"
"...Next year I'm not even carving jack-o'-lanterns..." Hermione pressed her lips tightly together. "The professor's here."