Harry Potter and the Secret Treasures

Essence of rue was an essential oil extracted from plants of the Rutaceae family. It had a certain detoxifying effect, with mild medicinal properties, and could help Ron recover from the damage caused by the deadly poison. However, the main reason Ron survived this time was because of that piece of bezoar. Without it, he would have died on the spot.

As soon as Harry finished speaking, George said in a low voice, “Blimey, it was lucky you thought of a bezoar!”

“Lucky there was one in the room,” said Harry, who kept turning cold at the thought of what would have happened if he had not been able to lay hands on the little stone.

But the most important thing right now was not to talk about this, but to figure out how Ron was poisoned.

Harry was very curious, why was there poison in the mead that Slughorn gave to Ron?!

What happened today was a bit evil, first it was a love potion, then it was a deadly poison…

How to say it, it all seemed too coincidental, as if someone had deliberately set Ron up for disaster.

If Ron weren’t so unimportant that no one would go to such lengths against him, Harry would have thought today’s events had been carefully orchestrated.

“This whole thing is just too strange,” Hermione murmured.

“It is strange!” Harry immediately agreed. “What do you think happened?”

“Hmm…” Hermione didn’t answer immediately, but was thinking, this was another strange assassination attempt; was there any connection with the last time Katie had been attacked?

As she pondered, she glanced anxiously at Evan.

After the last incident, she and Evan had discussed it at length, and she had learned some information from him.

Compared to Hermione’s doubts and speculations, Evan was certain of what had happened. It was another poorly executed poisoning attempt.

All he could say was — Ron was just too unlucky. Why was it always him?

From Ron’s perspective, both times he had been poisoned were purely accidental. If he hadn’t mistakenly consumed the love potion or if it hadn’t been breakfast time, he wouldn’t have gone to Slughorn for help, and he wouldn’t have touched that poisoned bottle of mead.

That bottle of mead — perhaps Slughorn would have drunk it himself, or maybe he would have brought it out at the next Slug Club party.

Either way, Ron wouldn’t have been the one poisoned. The fortunate thing was that he ended up being okay.

As for whether Slughorn had intended to give the wine to Dumbledore, Evan found that unlikely.

The Headmaster preferred dessert to oak-matured mead, and he would hardly drink with Slughorn.

That said, whether Ron was lucky or unlucky, they couldn’t allow Malfoy to continue like this. His third-rate assassination methods would only cause unintended casualties. Even if Evan said nothing, Dumbledore would probably take some measures after this incident.

“So the poison was in the drink?”

“Yes,” said Harry. “Slughorn poured it out —”

“Would he have been able to slip something into Ron’s glass without you seeing?” Fred asked suddenly.

“Probably,” said Harry uncertainly, “but why would Slughorn want to poison Ron?”

“No idea,” said Fred, frowning. “You don’t think he could have mixed up the glasses by mistake? Meaning to get you?”

“Why would Slughorn want to poison Harry?” asked Ginny.

“I don’t know, I’m just guessing,” said Fred, “but there must be loads of people who’d like to poison Evan and Harry, mustn’t there? The newspapers are talking about them every day, especially Harry, ‘The Chosen One’ and all that. Those Death Eaters are eager to see you poisoned.” ŕÀ𝐍𝘰βΕ𝐒

“So you think Slughorn’s a Death Eater?”

“Anything’s possible,” said Fred darkly.

“He could be under the Imperius Curse,” said George.

“Don’t make blind guesses. Slughorn is innocent,” said Evan thoughtfully, bringing the topic back to the right place. “He is a very smart and powerful wizard. It is impossible for him to be under the Imperius Curse, let alone a Death Eater. If he wanted to poison Harry, he wouldn’t have done it so obviously. He’s had plenty of opportunities.”

“Do you think the poison could have been in the bottle, in which case it was probably meant for Slughorn himself?”

“Who’d want to kill Slughorn?”

This was just like poisoning Ron specifically, it was completely meaningless.

Of course, things were a little different; Slughorn was much more important than Ron after all.

“Dumbledore reckons Voldemort wanted Slughorn on his side,” said Harry, looking at Evan. “Slughorn was in hiding for a year before he came to Hogwarts. And … and maybe Voldemort wants him out of the way, maybe he thinks he could be valuable to Dumbledore.”

“Oh, that’s true,” Evan nodded. “Slughorn was the Head of Slytherin when Voldemort was a student. He knows a lot about Voldemort’s past — things Voldemort wouldn’t want people to know. If he had the chance, Voldemort would definitely want him dead.”

“Even if Voldemort wanted to kill Slughorn, sending him a poisoned bottle of mead sounds ridiculous.”

“Of course Voldemort would not do such a thing himself. Someone else gave Slughorn the poisoned mead. Just like the last time with Katie, this was a botched murder,” Hermione analyzed, becoming more and more certain of her guess. “Harry, I remember you just said that Slughorn wanted to give the mead to Dumbledore as a Christmas gift, but failed in the end. So the poisoning incident started around Christmas. Giving gifts at that time would not arouse suspicion. So much time has passed and there is no way to track it. But it is obvious that the poisoner didn’t know Slughorn very well. Anyone who knew Slughorn would have known there was a good chance he’d keep something that tasty for himself, so…”

“Uh, uh, uh!” croaked Ron unexpectedly from between them.

Hermione hastily stopped her analysis and everyone watched him anxiously, but after muttering incomprehensibly for a moment he merely started snoring.

The next second, the dormitory doors flew open, making them all jump: Hagrid came striding toward them, his hair rain-flecked, his bearskin coat flapping behind him, a crossbow in his hand, leaving a trail of muddy dolphin-sized footprints all over the floor.

“Bin in the forest all day!” he panted. “Aragog’s worse, I bin readin’ to him — didn’ get up ter dinner till jus’ now an’ then Professor Sprout told me abou’ Ron! How is he?”

“Not bad. Madam Pomfrey says he’ll be okay.”

“I don’ believe this,” said Hagrid hoarsely, shaking his great shaggy head as he stared down at Ron. “Jus’ don’ believe it … Look at him lyin’ there. … Who’d want ter hurt him, eh?”

“That’s just what we were discussing,” said Harry.

“We all felt that no one wanted to hurt Ron, and that he was poisoned simply out of bad luck,” Evan added.

Even though he had said it many times before, he couldn’t help but sigh again — Ron was unbelievably unlucky.

Looking back at his miserable experiences in recent years, could anyone explain why he had always been so unlucky?

And more importantly… was this bad luck ever going to end?

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