Chapter 50: Heartbroken Hermione

This morning when Bell woke up, he noticed that the young wizards were all a bit restless. However, Bell had always been oblivious to things that didn't concern him much, so he continued to do his own thing. It wasn't until he entered the Great Hall in the evening to prepare for dinner that he realized he had missed something.

"What!? You mean today is the eve of the Halloween banquet!?" Bell exclaimed in surprise.

"Yeah, didn't you know tomorrow is Halloween?" Bell's roommate, Terry Boot, looked at him curiously. How could someone not know such an important moment? Were they even British?

"Oh, give me a break," Bell thought to himself.

Being of Chinese descent in his previous life, there was no way he could keep track of all these Western miscellaneous holidays. What? You're saying he's lived over ten years in this life and still hasn't remembered? Jokes aside, in his previous life, he lived over thirty years and never remembered when Qingming Festival or Double Ninth Festival was. So, this so-called "terminal illness" had no cure. Give it up and goodbye.

Bell scanned the Gryffindor long table, but didn't spot Hermione.

He approached a few younger-looking witches and asked about Hermione's whereabouts. They informed him that Hermione had been in the second-floor girls' lavatory earlier, but whether she was still there was unclear.

Having gotten the answer he wanted, Bell promptly left the Great Hall.

---

Second floor, girls' lavatory

Hermione sat alone in the innermost cubicle. She had been here all afternoon. She had cried for a long time, her eyes were swollen, and now she was thirsty, hungry, and cold.

Everyone hated her. Not only did they talk behind her back, but now she had been alone here for so long, not even her roommates really cared about her.

She felt like such a failure. Perhaps she was destined to live her life alone.

Thinking about this, she didn't want to go out. But then she thought about everyone else enjoying a lavish dinner in the Great Hall, and she felt even thirstier, hungrier, and colder, and then she felt like crying again.

From childhood, Hermione had always played the role of the child from other families. Although she and her parents were proud of this, it also meant that she never had any friends. But every morning when she woke up, she looked at herself in the mirror and told herself not to care about that.

Without a doubt, she was right. Studying hard, obeying the rules, helping the teachers, any of those were the right things to do. And what's right should not be condemned! So although she had always been lonely, Hermione never thought about changing herself. She believed that one day she would meet like-minded people, and she would become good friends with them, and they would work hard together to become even better!

When she received her acceptance letter from Hogwarts this summer, Hermione was very excited.

There had indeed been a few strange things happening around her when she was younger, but at the time she and her parents hadn't paid much attention. She never thought that things like magic were actually real! And that she would be a witch!

She was very much looking forward to the magical world, partly out of curiosity about the mysterious magic, and partly because she felt like the day she had been waiting for was finally here! Wizards must all be very outstanding people, and she would have a lot in common with them, and she would definitely make a lot of friends.

On the train to Hogwarts, Hermione met a young wizard named "Bell Minashel." He came from a wizarding family and was also a new student at Hogwarts this year. When she first saw him, Hermione almost thought he was a sixth or seventh-year student.

Bell's magical abilities surprised Hermione when she first met him. Although she had predicted it to some extent, seeing a young wizard from the magical world of the same age casting spells for the first time still startled her.

At that moment, Hermione felt genuine joy and longing from the bottom of her heart. But the next moment, her heart was filled with anxiety. Bell's excellence exceeded her imagination. Just thinking that her classmates were all at this level, Hermione, who had always been admired by her peers, began to worry that she might be considered too stupid by her classmates. In that case, wouldn't she still be unable to make friends?

Later, persuaded by Bell and Neville's testimony, Hermione learned that not all young wizards were as skilled as Bell. But she didn't believe Bell's claim that she was very talented. Having only been exposed to magic for two months, how could she possibly be better than young wizards who had been exposed to magic since childhood? Wouldn't their intelligence be inferior to that of chimpanzees? So Hermione thought that Bell must be comforting himself.

However, reality was always so absurd, Bell's words turned out to be true! She actually turned out to be even more outstanding than young wizards from magical backgrounds!

The young wizards were no different from Muggle children. They were mischievous all day long, hated going to class, hated doing homework, violated school rules, and didn't like studying.

But Hermione didn't feel happy because she was better than others. On the contrary, she felt the opposite, because she still couldn't make any friends!

What's more outrageous was that she clearly was just helping her classmates out of kindness, helping them follow the rules, helping them understand the essence of spells, and helping Gryffindor earn more house points. She worked so hard to help them, but instead of receiving a word of thanks, she ended up being hated by everyone!

People sarcastically called her "Miss Know-It-All."

She hated this nickname, she hated people making fun of her behind her back, she hated Harry Potter, who had such a big reputation but only played with Ron all day long; she hated Ron, who was so stupid that she heard him talk badly about her behind her back when she was right there; she hated her roommates, who were obviously jealous of her, but still acted so superior all the time.

Among all these people, the one she hated the most was... the herself who couldn't make friends.

She knew she shouldn't hold her head up high when she spoke, she knew everyone didn't like discussing the knowledge from class, she knew she was a girl but completely clueless about how to do makeup. She knew that as long as she let others copy her homework, she could make friends. She knew all this, but why couldn't she do it?

She had read a lot of books, much more than her classmates of the same age. So she also knew a lot of things others didn't. She had always believed that only by mastering more knowledge could she become outstanding, and only by encountering difficulties could she find solutions.

But why, no matter how hard she tried to recall the books she had read, the knowledge she had learned, she couldn't find even a little useful content that could help her solve her current dilemma? Was she always wrong? Was studying hard actually wrong? Was obeying the rules actually wrong? Was liking to read not allowed?

Hermione couldn't understand. She really hoped someone could come and tell her the answer!