Chapter 91: Strange Thoughts

After breakfast, Ivan and the others left the castle in their heavy raincoats.

The cold rain made Ivan shiver, and he saw Hermione, Colin and Ginny shivering beside him.

Still, they did not lose their enthusiasm.

As a pseudo-fan with a severe fear of heights and little enthusiasm for Quidditch, Ivan didn't understand why the sport was so popular.

The weather outside the castle was full of winds and heavy rain, but to watch this match, the teachers and students of the school ran outside as usual. They ran across the lawn to the Quidditch pitch, sat on the wet bleachers and put their heads down to resist the strong winds.

It was so bad that half an hour earlier, Ivan had planned to spend the day in the comfort and warmth of the library.

He had already made up his mind that no matter what Colin said, he would never leave the castle in such weather conditions, it was impossible!

But Colin didn't even come to call him; he actually went straight to Hermione and Ginny. Ivan was pulled out by both of them, saying that he should go out to support the team, because this game was very important for Gryffindor.

Looking at their faces, Ivan felt that if he didn't agree to come out, and Gryffindor lost, then he would be held responsible by the two.

With no way out, he sighed and followed them out of the castle.

Unlike him, Colin, Hermione and Ginny were smiling.

Needless to say, Colin's smile was winning, as he had known Ivan well enough for almost two years to know his best friend's weaknesses.

Ginny smiled because she found Ivan's appearance amusing. After all, his usual image, that of one who is overly mature, calm and all-knowing, was nothing like the twelve year old he looked like now.

As for Hermione's smile, it was relatively more complex. Sure, she shared the same reasons as Colin and Ginny, but that wasn't the main factor that created her smile. As she left the castle, she felt like laughing. She didn't know where that laughter was coming from, but deep in her heart she felt happy. Could it be "that kind of laughter"?

And so, the four of them headed for the stands with different expressions.

Ron had already saved seats for them. He didn't even know if this was in his mind, but Ivan felt that Ron was looking at him strangely. It was hard to tell, but it actually reminded him of the way Snape looked at him.

Ivan shook his head-it must have been his mistaken imagination!

In fact, as Irvine had suspected, seeing Hermione and Ginny walking towards him with smiles on their faces, and Ivan following them, Ron didn't know why he had a strange feeling; made up mainly of envy and jealousy.

Both feelings were familiar to him, and he had felt them for years, towards his siblings, and towards his best friend, Harry.

But now he looked at Ivan with a strange feeling of hatred, as well as jealousy, that he had never felt before.

Ron suddenly remembered the dream he had been having repeatedly over the last few nights and the girl who appeared frequently in them. She looked a bit like Hermione.... He shook his head vigorously, it was just a coincidence that Hermione was in his dream, wasn't it?

Besides, why was he dreaming about doing that sort of thing with Hermione...?

Hermione was just his friend, but when he saw her and Ivan sitting together, Ron felt very uncomfortable.

His instinct told him that there was something going on between Hermione and Ivan that he was unaware of.

These things constituted the main source of this unknown hatred he felt.

Under the influence of this feeling, Ron's attention shifted from the Quidditch match to the people next to him, and he found that the more he looked at Ivan, the worse he felt.

He was obviously a year younger than him, so what made him better?

Ron forced himself not to think about it. After all, Ivan had managed to save him last year. The thoughts in his mind were definitely bad. He took a deep breath and suddenly thought of something else that had happened last year, the black diary, the words Tom Riddle had written to him in the diary.

Even though he was Voldemort incarnate as a student, even though he was evil, deep down Ron had to admit that he found some truth in his words. Against Malfoy's mistreatment, he had volunteered to protect her, spending a week vomiting disgusting slugs. In the face of Snape's unreasonable manners, he stood up for her and was punished by being forced to spend all night cleaning cauldrons. Compared to....

Clearly, he did all this for her. But now, the one standing next to her, was Ivan. It was really as Tom Riddle said.

No, no, no, no! Something had to be wrong, why else would she have those dangerous thoughts again?

Ron forced himself to look away from Ivan and Hermione, staring at the center of the stadium. The Gryffindor and Hufflepuff Quidditch teams began to appear.

Under the cheers of the crowd, Ivan saw the players of the Gryffindor Quidditch team coming out of the dressing room; the wind was blowing very hard and when they entered the stadium, they were all staggering. He couldn't even make out Harry's thin silhouette clearly.

It was the same with Hufflepuff, and Ivan could only vaguely make out seven people in canary yellow robes standing on the pitch. The guy who shook Wood's hand was supposed to be Cedric Diggory.

Although she hadn't seen him in person, the name stuck with her.

Besides remembering that he was in the Triwizard Tournament the following year, which ended with his death at Voldemort's hands, Diggory made many contributions to this year's 'Hogwarts Magic' newspaper.

From his articles, it could be seen that Diggory was an excellent wizard, and had researched very deeply into the Metamorphosis.

But Ivan didn't know how good he would be at Quidditch, especially in such bad weather. If he and Harry couldn't see the Snitch, there was a good chance they'd all be sitting in the cold rain all day, which would be horrible.

A few seconds later, on Mrs. Hooch's whistle, the game began!

A blur of red and yellow figures flew over and under the field. Ivan couldn't tell how the game was progressing, and he couldn't even hear the commentator with the wind blowing in his ears.

Even though he was wearing a raincoat, he was soaked with water. He felt like he was freezing. Through the heavy rain, he saw Harry moving at the top of the pitch, and his condition was much worse than his own.

Ivan saw Hermione sitting next to him, cold and shivering, but she seemed to be in a good mood, as if someone had cast a 'Happiness Spell' on her.

He found it strange that Hermione liked Quidditch so much, how come he didn't notice it before? He remembered that when Gryffindor played Hufflepuff last year, Hermione decided not to come and watch the game in order to speed up the brewing of the multi-juice potion.

If there was any difference between this year and last, it was that Cedric Diggory became Hufflepuff's captain.

He also remembered Angelina saying yesterday, that the guy was very handsome. Ivan suddenly became inexplicably nervous, and unconsciously looked up and searched for Diggory's presence, and then he saw that Ron was still looking at him, with an increasingly strange expression.

'What's going on today? what's wrong with these two?' Ivan thought.