In the Harry Potter Without Harry Potter
Chapter 97: Keen Granger

On the night of Christmas Day, it snowed at Hogwarts.

Dolohov did not stay with them for long, his sudden return to the castle in advance for what seems like no purpose at all, gathering the mudblood students and rewarding each of them with a cupcake, and then at 9 o'clock, let the students return to their dormitories, then locked the door to the underground.

Hermione's heartbeat hadn't calmed down even after she returned to her dorm room.

She was very clear about how bold her actions were today, once she did not succeed in finding Jon where she guessed, then Jon would ultimately escape without her, but it was certain that she would be finished.

Dolohov will definitely hire someone to alter her memories and turn her into a robot like Taylor who only knows how to obey and has no other feelings.

But she still decided to do it, because Hermione knew clearly in her heart, relying only on these children in the castle, they have no way to resist the oppression and dominance of the Pureblood, they need to use the power of the outside world.

And Jon is a person from the outside world!

The night gradually darkened, and she quietly stretched out on her bed, without a hint of drowsiness, nor did she have the slightest intention to fall asleep like this.

Thus, she waited until midnight, and suddenly there were three light knocks on the door outside her room.

The sound is too faint, if not Hermione's attention has always been tensed, then she may not have even noticed.

After the knock on the door, she sat up from the bed at the first opportunity, wearing a thin, tattered robe and got out of bed to open the door.

The moment the door was opened, Jon walked in with great swiftness, then turned around and closed the door to the dorm room again.

The dorm room is located underground, there is no window, there is no moonlight to shine in, and only a candle was lit, the light dimly illuminated this side of the narrow space.

Jon looked at Hermione without speaking first and pulled out the Marauder's Map that had been opened and placed it in front of him in the most conspicuous position so that he could always observe the movements around the dormitory to prevent Dolohov from making any surprise inspections during the night.

Only after finishing this kind of safeguarding did he look at the girl who was sitting in front of the wooden bed, wearing a tattered grey night robe, with a thin body, holding her arms and shivering lightly as her body was freezing.

"I suggest you first, to put on thicker clothes because I have a lot of things to ask you next."

Hermione although her face was a little white from the cold, her eyes were unusually bright when she looked at Jon.

Only after watching her obediently wrap her thin body in the quilt did Jon take a deep breath and say with a serious face, in a voice that only the two of them could hear.

"First of all, I want to thank you a lot for the help you gave me tonight, Miss Granger, if it wasn't for you, I would have probably been exposed by now. But I still have a task to carry out, so I also want to make sure some doubts of mine, and I need to know exactly what is going on, so please answer me truthfully."

He stared into Hermione's eyes and asked without blinking.

"At what point did you find out that I had a problem?"

"The first night you first came to the castle." Hermione whispered with a blink.

Jon couldn't help but frown.

"The first night?"

"Well, when you got a reward from Dolohov for your excellent summer work, you pushed it to me on your own accord when I looked over at the piece of sandwich he had rewarded you with." Hermione explained softly, "The Randy I knew was very timid and never took the initiative to act like that, the most he did was not touch the sandwich and let me take it away by myself."

Jon's expression became strange, he had actually been careful of how he behaved, trying his best to imitate Randy's habits, but who would have thought that a 12-year-old girl might still notice such a thing?

"Just because of that?"

"And your performance in the first spell casting class, Randy he actually does not have any talent in gesture casting, when learning various gesture movements last semester, he privately asked for my help to teach him in order not to be reprimanded, but you learned the first cleaning spell in just one class period. And I have carefully observed your hand gesture habits, which are quite different from his, although the movement is standard, it seems very rusty, like a beginner, which is very unusual."

Hermione talked seriously about the various problems she found in Jon's behaviour.

The two previous points were just her noticing that something was wrong, and what really made her sure that the current Randy was not the same Randy that he once was, was actually on the day they were going to clean the common lavatory together for the second time.

"I made a point of reminding you not to eat too much for lunch before you went, saying that you got coked up the first time you went to the lavatory to clean it in the first year and that you forced yourself to get used to it later and slowly got used to it. This is actually a false statement, Randy most hated to go and clean the public lavatory, he spent the whole half of the semester previously crying while working in the lavatory and would try to get it done as soon as he could, only at the end of the semester things got a little better."

Jon listened to the girl's narrative and also recalled that day, the expression on his face became odder and odder.

So what sounded like a casual question was actually a test?

Hermione stared at Jon's face, but her expression was not a bit self-satisfied, and she continued with caution.

"After I said that false statement, your reaction was very flat as if you completely agreed with my words. It was also at this point I was really sure you weren't the Randy that I knew before."

It sounds like Hermione was able to discover Jon's identity purely because of his own carelessness and lack of preparation.

But no one can completely act as another person, and Dumbledore did not search Randy's mind to get his memories, after all, the noble professors in the castle generally will not pay any attention to a character of cowardly mudblood, and his classmates around him are only 12-year-old children, getting acquainted with each other for less than a year, no one would expect such a young child will have such a keen sense of observation.

And Hermione just went against common sense, Jon even after knowing that she was actually the most attentive of the trio from reading the original book, did not think she could be attentive to this extent.

It can only be attributed to the fact that the harsh and difficult environment has catalysed her growth and made her more cautious and careful, paying close attention to her surroundings at every moment.

For example, she is now, when answering his question, she has been paying attention to Jon's expression and emotions as if she is afraid that her tone of voice will provoke his displeasure when she brings a little bit of bragging and flair.

Jon rubbed the corner of his brow, and for the time being, he decided to shelve the lament in his heart, he looked at Hermione and continued his question.

"It's quite understandable and okay that you could judge that I am not the real Randy by all this, but why are you helping me? Aren't you worried that I'm actually someone working to help those pureblood wizards?"

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