Madam Pomfrey looked at the two utterly confused first-years and realised she needed to explain things more clearly.
"Strictly speaking," she said seriously, "your rat is currently experiencing a combination of magical turbulence and severe weakness."
Ron's face immediately turned pale.
Madam Pomfrey continued calmly, "This condition is extremely rare in the magical world. Many professional healers go their entire careers without encountering a single case."
Logan listened carefully.
"A creature suffering from magical turbulence becomes abnormally vulnerable to magical attacks," Madam Pomfrey explained. "To put it simply, a spell that normally would cause little or no harm can become significantly more dangerous under these conditions."
Logan instantly understood.
So the Red Dung Fruit's weakening effect worked similarly to a "debuff" from games in his previous life.
That was terrifying.
The fruit was even more valuable than he initially thought.
Meanwhile, beside him, Ron remained completely lost.
He didn't understand half the explanation.
But he did understand one thing.
Scabbers sounded dangerously close to death.
"Waaaaah!"
Ron nearly burst into tears on the spot.
"My poor Scabbers!" he cried dramatically while clutching the twitching rat. "How could this happen to you?"
His voice became increasingly emotional.
"I haven't even taken you travelling yet! I still promised to buy you Royal Chocolate Nuts someday!"
Ron looked towards the ceiling in grief.
"Why are the heavens so cruel?! Why take Scabbers away from me?!"
Logan suddenly felt a little guilty.
He genuinely hadn't expected Ron to share such deep emotional attachment with a disguised middle-aged bald man.
Anyone overhearing this conversation without context would probably assume they were discussing tragic lovers.
Madam Pomfrey, meanwhile, already looked close to developing a migraine.
The last thing she wanted inside her hospital wing was a screaming emotional first-year.
"Please calm down," she interrupted quickly.
Although the symptoms are rare, I'm not completely hopeless."
Ron immediately stopped crying.
Then Madam Pomfrey added honestly, "Though to be fair, there are probably very few people in the magical world capable of properly curing something like this."
The moment Ron heard that sentence, his face crumpled again and fresh tears immediately began forming.
Fortunately, Logan reacted instantly.
He slapped a hand over Ron's mouth before the boy could unleash another emotional breakdown.
Madam Pomfrey visibly relaxed.
Thank Merlin for Logan Anderson.
Without him, she genuinely suspected she'd eventually encounter a patient family member dramatic enough to threaten suicide inside the infirmary.
"Although I don't know how to cure these symptoms directly," she continued, "I've noticed the condition already beginning to weaken naturally."
That immediately caught Logan's attention.
"I suspect the rat consumed some unusual substance," Madam Pomfrey explained thoughtfully. "But for whatever reason, the effects appear temporary."
She glanced towards the twitching Scabbers.
"At this rate, your pet should recover naturally within another five or six minutes."
Truthfully, Madam Pomfrey herself was extremely curious about the unknown substance involved.
The symptoms were absurdly strange.
Weakness.
Softened bones.
Nausea.
Mental confusion.
And most importantly—
Magical turbulence.
The fact that such a bizarre "poison" also possessed a fixed duration made it even more unusual.
Honestly, part of her deeply wanted to study the substance personally.
Preferably without dying in the process.
Meanwhile, Ron only heard one important sentence.
Scabbers would survive.
Instantly, his entire mood transformed.
He grabbed Logan's arms excitedly and nearly started jumping.
"Logan! Did you hear that?!"
"Our precious Scabbers is going to recover!"
Ron looked moments away from crying tears of joy instead.
"This must be a miracle from heaven! Clearly the universe couldn't bear watching Scabbers suffer, so it sent divine mercy to save him!"
Logan stared at him blankly.
Then he slowly corrected him.
"First of all," Logan said flatly, "I should make something very clear."
"I don't even like rats."
Ron froze.
"I prefer dogs and cats."
"What?!" Ron looked horrified. "Dogs I can understand, but cats?!"
He immediately launched into a deeply passionate anti-cat speech.
"Cats are terrifying! They stare at you like you're some inferior lifeform, they never listen to instructions, and they destroy furniture for fun!"
Ron sounded like a traumatised old man ranting about society.
Clearly, he hoped Logan would abandon the path of cat appreciation and instead join the glorious Church of Scabbers.
Logan mentally resisted the urge to show Ron his middle finger.
Of course he didn't like greasy middle-aged rat men disguised as pets.
Still, now that Scabbers would survive, Ron was happy.
Logan successfully gathered information about the Red Dung Fruit.
And Madam Pomfrey hadn't discovered the truth.
Overall, everyone left satisfied.
Naturally, the moment Scabbers escaped danger, Ron immediately forgot all about taking revenge on Snape and Malfoy.
As the saying went—
A gentleman could delay revenge for ten years if necessary.
....
Meanwhile, the annual Quidditch season was approaching rapidly.
But before the tournament even began, another bizarre trend had already started sweeping through Hogwarts.
The Gold Card craze.
Late at night inside one of the girls' dormitories, a black-haired first-year witch quietly lay beneath warm blankets while staring dreamily at something hidden in her hands.
Slowly, she pulled out a shining golden card from beneath her pillow.
Her cheeks immediately turned pink.
The card itself glittered beautifully under the moonlight.
As everyone knew, moving photographs were perfectly normal in the wizarding world.
Naturally, the image on this card moved too.
The illustration showed a handsome young wizard seated peacefully beside the Black Lake while reading a book quietly beneath the sunlight. White doves fluttered around him while water splashed gently behind the scene.
The atmosphere looked unbelievably beautiful.
"Logan is so handsome…"
The young witch clutched the card tightly against her chest.
The peaceful image of Logan sitting quietly beside the water while birds circled around him struck directly at the softest part of her heart.
"Waaah…"
Buying this card had absolutely been worth it.
Even if it cost a ridiculous amount of money.
If she had another chance, she'd gladly purchase every different design available.
Thinking about that, the little witch blushed even harder.
Then, after glancing around carefully to make sure nobody was watching, she quietly slipped the golden card into the front of her pyjamas and hugged it gently against herself before drifting peacefully to sleep.
.....
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