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Chapter 103: Howler Letter

At this moment, Dracula was also standing under the tree, turning to look at Professor Sprout.

"Frankly, Professor Sprout, this Whomping Willow might need to calm down a bit," Dracula shrugged and said to her. "Actually, only that piece of bark that was knocked off was caused by Potter and Weasley\'s mischief. The branches on the ground were all its own doing..."

"Its own doing?" Professor Sprout asked, somewhat puzzled.

"Yes, after it was hit by that car, it might have been in a bad mood, swinging its branches wildly at the sky, the ground, and that car..." Dracula explained. "After all, its wood isn\'t very strong, and it ended up like this after hitting and smashing."

"Well, I have to admit that the Whomping Willow variety does tend to be temperamental," Professor Sprout said as she approached the Whomping Willow, "But getting hit hard for no reason would make anyone angry, not just the tree."

"True," Dracula chuckled, "But if I were the Whomping Willow, I wouldn\'t let myself get that furious without even finding the opponent\'s weak points."

"If it were me, I would smash the car\'s windows and use a couple of thicker branches to completely trap the car and block the doors. Then the people inside would be at my mercy."

Professor Sprout glanced at Dracula\'s intrigued smile and shuddered.

Thinking about it, it was fortunate that the Whomping Willow was a novice and didn\'t look for weak points. Otherwise, Harry and Ron would have had no way to survive.

"Cough, cough, Professor Dracula, do you know the Whomping Willow\'s weaknesses?" She quickly changed the subject, avoiding discussing more effective ways to hit people, "It seems to be quite calm now."

"Does the Whomping Willow have weaknesses?" Dracula raised an eyebrow. "I haven\'t noticed; it doesn\'t get agitated when it sees me, so I haven\'t had a reason to learn about its weaknesses."

"..." Professor Sprout facepalmed.

She silently approached the Whomping Willow, jumped high, and reached up to press on one of its knots.

Though her height was somewhat short, she jumped quite high and pressed right on a knot, seemingly having practiced high jumping specifically to control the Whomping Willow.

The effect was immediate; the Whomping Willow, which was still gently swaying, immediately went still when touched at the knot, as if it had turned into the most ordinary willow tree.

"It\'s quite an interesting tree," Dracula commented with a chuckle upon seeing Professor Sprout\'s actions. "But I have a question—"

"If you have to get close to the Whomping Willow to touch its weak points, what if the Whomping Willow is already in a furious state? In that case, wizards who can touch it wouldn\'t need to look for its weak points, while those who want to find its weak points couldn\'t get close."

"So... what\'s the point of knowing the weak points?"

Professor Sprout\'s face stiffened.

"It does seem to be the case?" She scratched her head. "Unless someone can accurately hit the knot with a spell or something like a small stone from outside the Whomping Willow\'s attack range, and even then, it might not press the knot."

"I need to remind the mischievous little wizards to stay away from the enraged Whomping Willow when I teach about it next time. They shouldn\'t think that knowing its weak points will help them handle it easily."

Muttering to herself, Professor Sprout quickly took out a series of plant treatment supplies and started bandaging the broken branches and the damaged bark to prevent the Whomping Willow\'s vulnerable spots from being bitten by insects.

Seeing Professor Sprout getting to work, Dracula casually shrugged and walked toward the castle.

He could guess that Harry and Ron had probably been punished by Snape or Professor McGonagall.

However, Dracula was not worried about their future.

Dumbledore was planning to train Harry well to become a major force against Voldemort! So the two of them were naturally not going to be expelled, and even due to the start of the school year, they wouldn\'t lose any house points.

Dracula estimated that given the carefree nature of the Gryffindors—Harry and Ron had come to school by car without losing house points—they might even be considered heroes!

Dracula\'s prediction was accurate.

The news of Harry and Ron driving to school spread quickly. Except for Percy and Hermione, the Gryffindors all thought it was an incredibly exciting and impressive event.

When the two "heroes" returned to the Gryffindor common room, the portrait of the Fat Lady swung open, and the common room erupted into thunderous applause.

The Gryffindor students, who were still awake, crowded in the round common room waiting for them. Many hands eagerly reached out from behind the Fat Lady\'s portrait to pull Harry and Ron inside, while Hermione had to climb in by herself.

"That\'s amazing!" Lee Jordan, the twins\' roommate, shouted. "Incredible! What a spectacular way! Driving a flying car into the Whomping Willow, you\'ll be talked about for years at Hogwarts!"

"Good job!" A fifth-year student who had never spoken to Harry before said.

Others patted Harry and Ron on the back as if they had just won a marathon.

Fred and George squeezed through the crowd to get to the two of them, asking in unison, "Why didn\'t you call us back? That\'s so unfair!"

Ron, blushing and glowing with happiness amidst the crowd, smiled brightly.

Percy, the most upright person in the entire school, stood behind some excited first-years, wearing a stern expression and trying to push through to scold them. However, there were too many little lions around the two, and he couldn\'t squeeze in.

After another two minutes, as Percy finally got close to Harry and Ron, Harry noticed him.

So, Harry nudged Ron with his elbow and nodded toward Percy. Ron immediately got the hint.

"Yawn—I\'m heading upstairs," Ron said with a sudden change in his glowing red face, pretending to yawn by covering his mouth with his hand. "I\'m a bit tired after flying all day..."

Harry also pretended to be exhausted and made his way to the door at the other end of the common room, which led to a spiral staircase up to their dormitory.

He was very convincing because he was indeed exhausted. The day\'s various mishaps had left him somewhat drained.

"Goodnight," Harry said, even though he was tired, turning back to call out to Hermione, who had a stern face just like Percy\'s.

Harry and Ron made quite an effort to reach the other end of the common room. By this time, someone was even patting their backs.

Outside the door was a quiet staircase. The two of them ran up the stairs in one breath and reached the door to their dormitory. The sign that used to read "First Years" had now been changed to "Second Years."

They walked into the familiar round room, seeing the five four-poster beds decorated with red velvet and the few tall, narrow windows. Their trunks had already been magically moved up by the house-elves and were placed at the head of their beds.

Ron let out a sigh of relief and smiled sheepishly at Harry. "I know we shouldn\'t be proud of this, but..."

Just then, the dormitory door flew open, and Seamus Finnigan, Dean Thomas, and Neville Longbottom, other second-year Gryffindor boys, burst in.

"I can\'t believe you really flew the car here!" Seamus said, giving a thumbs-up.

"Cool!" Dean added.

"Amazing!" Even Neville, usually so modest, said with admiration.

"Unbelievable," "amazing"... The three of them used almost every common adjective to express shock!

Harry couldn\'t help it any longer and laughed proudly with Ron.

...

Of course, they couldn\'t be proud for too long.

The next morning at breakfast, Harry and Ron felt a bit uneasy.

Harry shivered as he picked up his bowl and began to eat his porridge.

As a noisy fluttering of wings filled the air above them, hundreds of owls flew in through the windows above the hall, circling and dropping letters and packages into the crowd of people talking below.

At the professor\'s table, Dracula, who rarely had breakfast, felt somewhat irritated by the chaotic scene.

"I still don\'t understand why Hogwarts has owls deliver mail during meals," he turned to Professor Flitwick, who was sitting two seats away, and asked. "If owl feathers fall into our food, how can we eat?"

"After all, it\'s the only time of the day when all the little witches and wizards are here," Professor Flitwick said nonchalantly, using the floating charm to move a feather that was about to fall on his head away. "Especially on the first day of school, many careless little witches and wizards forget to collect their things."

Dracula moodily put down his blood pudding, losing his appetite, and began to observe the reactions of the surrounding professors and students.

Snape seemed quite displeased with not having expelled Harry or even deducted any points, and was intently staring at the Gryffindor table, thinking of ways to make things difficult for those two little wizards.

At that moment, with a "plop," a grayish-white substance fell from the sky into Snape\'s plate.

Snape stared for a moment, shifting his gaze from the Gryffindor table to his own plate.

"Ah, Severus, it seems you\'ve won a prize," the elderly Professor Kettleburn, never missing a chance to tease Snape, leaned over and said. "Let me explain. This is bird droppings. From the looks of it, this owl must have caught a mouse last night..."

"Don\'t say any more!" Snape gripped his wand tightly, seemingly struggling to resist the urge to commit owl genocide.

"Ah, Severus, young people are so easily distracted," Professor Kettleburn said with a smile, not letting up. "The professors at Hogwarts should have been used to paying attention to what\'s above their heads at breakfast by now. How could you forget?"

Unable to argue, Snape shot a furious glance at Harry and Ron, abandoned his meal, and stormed out of the hall.

Watching him leave, Professor Kettleburn clicked his tongue. "Young people are so impatient and careless."

The other professors around him gave him sidelong glances at this comment—

\'Professor Kettleburn, you, who have gone through more than sixty detentions, are probably the most careless one here...\'

The chaos caused by the owls delivering mail wasn\'t limited to just the professors\' table.

A large gray owl, as if drunk, couldn\'t fly straight and crashed into the milk jug in front of Hermione.

Immediately, milk and feathers splattered all over Harry, Ron, and Hermione.

"Errol!" Ron cried out in a panic upon seeing the struggling owl in the milk jug.

He pulled the wet owl out of the jug by its talons and placed it on the table.

Errol lay next to the jug, its legs stiffly extended in the air, still holding a wet red envelope in its beak.

"Oh no..." Ron groaned, covering his face in distress.

"Don\'t be too upset, Ron, it\'s still alive," Hermione said as she shook the milk off her robe and then gently poked the unconscious Errol with her fingertip.

Errol\'s bird talons twitched, seemingly indicating that it was still alive.

"No, I\'m used to seeing Errol like this," Ron said sadly. "What I\'m worried about is that—"

He pointed to the red envelope that Errol was holding in its beak.

Harry and Hermione looked at the seemingly ordinary envelope with confusion, but Ron and Neville leaned back with worried faces, as if it might explode.

"What\'s wrong with the letter?" Harry asked, puzzled.

"Well... my mom sent me a Howler," Ron said weakly.

"You better open it, Ron..." Neville said, trembling. "It\'s worse if you don\'t... My grandmother sent me one once, and I ignored it. The result..."

He took a breath. "It was terrifying."

Harry looked at their terrified expressions and then at the red envelope.

"What\'s a Howler?" he asked.

But Ron\'s attention was completely on the envelope, his forehead sweating, ignoring Harry\'s question.

At that moment, the four corners of the envelope began to smoke, and the envelope itself started to puff up.

"Open it quickly," Neville urged. "Only a few minutes left, or it will explode. It will be even louder..."

Ron stared at the envelope, took a deep breath, and suddenly shouted, "Fred, George! Help!"

The twins, hearing Ron\'s voice, looked over with curiosity, followed by a crowd of Gryffindor students.

"Wow! You really didn\'t disappoint us, Ron!" Fred patted Ron on the shoulder with a pleased expression.

"We knew it, you\'re definitely our brother, Ron," George said with a cheerful smile.

"There\'s no time! You two, think of a way!" Ron was nearly in tears, shouting at them. "When you picked up Harry from Privet Drive, didn\'t you say you learned that... Disengagement Charm to deal with Howlers? Now\'s the time to use it!"

"First of all, it\'s called the Disengagement Charm," George pointed a finger at Ron. "We don\'t know of any charm called the Avoidance Charm."

"Alright, fine, the Disengagement Charm! Please just use it quickly!" Ron\'s voice was tinged with desperation.

"Secondly," Fred held up two fingers, "the Disengagement Charm is used to shield the location of the wizard. It only prevents the owl from finding the recipient. Your Howler has already been delivered, so the Disengagement Charm is useless now."

"Lastly," George held up three fingers, joyfully said, "did you forget? We never actually learned the Disengagement Charm!"

Ron looked at Fred and George, whose responses were like a tag-team, his lips trembling.

"Why didn\'t you just say you couldn\'t use it? Why say so much beforehand!" he yelled.

Finally, the red envelope was about to burst, and Errol\'s beak couldn\'t hold it any longer. Seeing this, Harry quickly took the envelope from Errol\'s beak and handed it to Ron.

Looking at the envelope in his hand, Ron gritted his teeth and said, "Harry, you\'re truly a great friend."

The next moment, the envelope exploded with a "bang," turning Ron\'s hands and face red and then floating in mid-air.

The envelope\'s postmark was opened by the explosion, and the opening moved like a snarling mouth.

Neville quickly covered his ears with his fingers and dove under the Gryffindor table.

"Isn\'t the explosion over?" Harry asked, bewildered by Neville\'s actions.

But he soon understood why.

The next moment, a tremendous noise filled the entire hall, shaking dust from the ceiling.

"...Stole the car! If they expel you, I wouldn\'t be surprised at all! Just wait and see how I\'ll deal with you when that happens!

You probably never even thought about how your father and