"Those who have mastered Legilimency are able, under certain conditions, to delve into the minds of their victims and to interpret their findings correctly." For Iris Potter, these words defined her whole life. Born with a natural talent for Legilim...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
⌗ ⌗ ⌗
It looked like the end of Ron and Hermione's friendship. Each was so angry with the other that Iris couldn't see how they'd ever makeup.
Ron was enraged that Hermione had never taken Crookshanks's attempts to eat Scabbers seriously, hadn't bothered to keep a close enough watch on him, and was still trying to pretend that Crookshanks was innocent by suggesting that Ron look for Scabbers under all the boys' beds. Hermione, meanwhile, maintained fiercely that Ron had no proof that Crookshanks had eaten Scabbers, that the ginger hairs might have been there since Christmas, and that Ron had been prejudiced against her cat ever since Crookshanks had landed on Ron's head in the Magical Menagerie.
Iris agreed with Hermione that it was probably just a coincidence that the cat hairs were there. She didn't believe that Crookshanks had eaten Scabbers.
Harry, on the other hand, was sure that Crookshanks had eaten Scabbers, and when he tried to point out to Hermione that the evidence all pointed that way, she lost her temper with Harry too.
"Okay, side with Ron, I knew you would!" she said shrilly. "First the Firebolt, now Scabbers, everything's my fault, isn't it! Just leave me alone, Harry, I've got a lot of work to do!"
Ron had taken the loss of his rat very hard indeed.
"Come on, Ron, you were always saying how boring Scabbers was," said Fred bracingly. "And he's been off-colour for ages, he was wasting away. It was probably better for him to snuff it quickly -- one swallow -- he probably didn't feel a thing."
"Fred!" said Ginny indignantly.
"All he did was eat and sleep, Ron, you said it yourself," said George.
"He bit Goyle for us once!" Ron said miserably. "Remember, Harry?"
Iris sighed in exasperation.
"Yeah, that's true," said Harry.
"His finest hour," said Fred, unable to keep a straight face. "Let the scar on Goyle's finger stand as a lasting tribute to his memory. Oh, come on, Ron, get yourself down to Hogsmeade and buy a new rat, what's the point of moaning?"
The only thing that would seem to make the two set their differences aside for just a moment was Hagrid.
He had just gotten back from London with Buckbeak for his trial. The four of them (mostly Ron and Hermione) had agreed to not fight for Hagrid's sake. They weren't sure how the trial had gone and didn't want to upset Hagrid by fighting in front of him.
So that afternoon they met up and silently walked down to Hagrid's hut together with Hermione and Ron trying to put as much space between themselves as possible.
They found Hagrid wearing a gigantic, hairy brown suit and perhaps the world's ugliest yellow and orange tie, standing knee-deep in the shallows of the Black Lake, skimming rocks as big as flagstones across the water's shiny gloss. As he turned, the quartet caught a brief sight of his eyes, red with tears, before he looked away.
