"Harry is actually a very good person; he's especially patient with me. During Defense Against the Dark Arts class before, he even warned others not to mock Professor Quirrell's accent..."
Listening to Neville's report, Adelaide rubbed her chin thoughtfully.
She had already heard through various channels that Harry had a good impression of Professor Quirrell.
Furthermore, Adelaide had discovered an interesting phenomenon: Harry seemed particularly prone to empathizing with the weak.
Whether it was Ron, who was poor and overlooked, or Neville, who was mocked by classmates for being slow and forgetful, or even Professor Quirrell, who was currently being ridiculed for his smell of garlic and his stutter—Harry showed them exceptional kindness and concern.
For a Wizard, being kind-hearted is certainly a good thing.
But if someone can easily win The Chosen One's sympathy and get close to him just by acting pitiful, wouldn't that provide the Death Eaters with an excellent way to assassinate him?
So for the past two days, Adelaide had been calculating how to "inadvertently" reveal this news to members of the Order of the Phoenix, who would then relay it to Dumbledore. If she pointed out Harry's character flaws directly to Dumbledore, it would undoubtedly make that wise man, the pinnacle of the Wizarding World, realize she was secretly monitoring The Chosen One's movements, and she didn't want to cause herself unnecessary trouble.
After careful consideration, Adelaide finally decided to choose Professor Snape as the recipient of this news—perhaps this King of Point-Docking would even dock more points from Gryffindor in a fit of rage.
Neville continued enthusiastically, "And there's Draco Malfoy from Slytherin. Even though Draco always puts on an arrogant front, he's actually quite a nice guy."
"Draco shares the snacks his family sends him with us. When he heard that Harry and I had never ridden a flying broomstick, he even set up a flying crash course specifically for us."
"Harry even argued with Ron for an entire night over this. He believes that not all Slytherins are bad people and that we shouldn't look at them through biased lenses. Ron wasn't convinced at first, but after Draco gave him a large bar of Horseshoe Chocolate, Ron has become Draco's best bud."
Hearing this, a gratified smile appeared on Adelaide's face. She nodded slightly, signaling her approval of Draco.
Draco must have noticed through careful observation that Harry and Ron rarely received packages from home, while Neville's grandmother mostly sent him letters of reprimand.
So, he skillfully used a 'candy offensive' to successfully break the barrier between Gryffindor and Slytherin—after all, for boys their age, Wizard Cards and various delicious candies were undoubtedly highly attractive 'hard currency.'
Adelaide had originally worried that Draco would be too proud to lower himself to befriend Harry and the impoverished Ron, but she hadn't expected him to integrate into the Savior's squad in just half a month. His future looked promising!
It was undoubtedly a good thing for both Draco and Harry to become friends.
Draco was tough on the outside but soft on the inside. Having grown up in a distorted pure-blood environment, his values had been greatly influenced, and he had perfectly inherited his father Lucius Malfoy's cowardice and indecisiveness.
Such a person formed a wonderful complement to Harry, who had upright values, a kind heart, and a generous but somewhat reckless way of doing things.
In the face of major events, Harry could decisively make choices for Draco and guide him onto the right path; conversely, when Harry made mistakes due to his impulsiveness, Draco could use the powerful influence of the House of Malfoy to smooth things over for him.
Neville continued to recount some trivial matters about Harry, such as Snape intentionally making things difficult for him in class... Finally, Neville said somewhat hesitantly, "There's one more thing, I don't know if it's important..."
Adelaide couldn't help but raise an eyebrow. Based on her experience from watching countless movies in her past life, when someone said something like that, it usually meant the following matter was absolutely crucial.
She encouraged him, "Go ahead and say it, Neville. It doesn't matter even if it's not important."
Neville said slowly, "Just last Friday, Harry took me and Ron to Hagrid's hut for a visit. While we were having tea, Harry was drawn to a small scrap of paper tucked under Hagrid's teapot, so he curiously pulled it out."
"That scrap was clipped from The Daily Prophet, and it was about a break-in at Gringotts. Harry's expression became quite serious as he read it carefully. Then he said excitedly that the day the news reported the robbers hit Gringotts happened to be his birthday; even more coincidentally, he was also at Gringotts that day."
Neville's pace quickened slightly. "After returning to the Castle, Harry couldn't stop thinking about it and kept rambling to us about what happened. He said Hagrid took out a small package, and that vault was then empty, and the news also reported that the underground vault the robbers targeted had been emptied that same day."
"But Hagrid said it had nothing to do with them. After all, every Wizard in Britain withdraws money there, and Gringotts serves hundreds of Wizards a day. Besides, late July is a busy time when new students receive their acceptance letters and go to Diagon Alley to buy school supplies. It's hard to say if the vault Hagrid took the package from was the one that was robbed. Harry hasn't mentioned it again for the last two days."
Adelaide's lips twitched as she struggled not to laugh in front of Neville.
"This only worked because Harry was a 'dumb lion' from Gryffindor; any Slytherin or Ravenclaw would likely have started having doubts."
It had been over a month since July 31st. Given Hagrid's personality and the conditions in his hunting hut, the fact that a small newspaper clipping hadn't been lost after being under a teapot for a month, and that the content wasn't obscured by chicken blood, Fang's drool, or some other animal droppings, was a huge flaw.
And then there was Hagrid's denial that the stolen vault in the paper had anything to do with the one they visited—if it didn't matter, why would you clip it and keep it for a month?
The Hagrid in Adelaide's knowledge was not a refined person who liked collecting newspaper clippings. Furthermore, if he had a sudden whim to save the news, he should have tucked it into a book rather than placing it under a teapot—putting it in such an obvious spot was clearly hoping that whoever came for tea would notice it, wasn't it?
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