"So you kept it from me too?"
Jerry and Hermione had barely stepped out of the room when Harry's accusation came clearly through the wall and down the corridor from Ron's room.
"No, Harry," Ron said quickly. "I wanted to write to you, but Dumbledore thought we shouldn't tell you yet..."
"He forced you to keep your mouth shut?" Harry cut in angrily. "Did you at least ask Dumbledore why?"
"I swear, Harry, I really wanted to ask Headmaster Dumbledore for you!" Ron said.
"But I'm sorry, Harry. We've only seen him twice since we moved here. He's had too much to do."
"So you kept it from me too, Ron?" Harry demanded.
"I spent the whole summer on edge, every single day."
"Every afternoon, I had to sneak behind the flower bed beneath the Dursleys' window and listen to the news on the living room television, just to find out whether anything serious had happened in Britain!"
Muggle news would not report what happened in the Wizarding World, but it would certainly report deaths caused by Voldemort's attacks—a mass murder, for instance, or a natural disaster that killed dozens.
"Did you think I couldn't be trusted either? I didn't even know Dumbledore had people watching me around the clock!"
Harry's voice rose, his anger growing impossible to contain.
The emotions he had bottled up surged like waves whipped up by a gale. At last, they broke free in an unstoppable flood.
For the past month, with no letters from anyone, Harry had thought they had all abandoned him. Now every hurt he had kept to himself burst out at once.
Hermione and Jerry came down the corridor. When Harry saw them, his heart dropped as though he had missed a step on the stairs.
So it wasn't just Ron.