Chapter 289

“Professor, are you going to capture Sirius Black?” Fred asked.

Felix looked at him expectantly, “Guess?”

Fred said without thinking, “Me and George, oh, and Lee Jordan, we thought you were definitely going to do something, you know, after that day …” he squeezed his eyes.

“People were talking about it and being scared.” George picked up, saying with an admiring look on his face, ” Black swaggered around the open space in front of the castle and disguised himself as a muggle boy, the nerve!”

Felix isn’t sure what the young wizard thought about the attack; he spent last weekend with so much to do that he didn’t go to the great hall for dinner and didn’t know about the latest gossip and rumours.

It seemed that Dumbledore had absolutely no intention of dispelling the rumours, and this kind of public opinion would reassure Peter Pettigrew, who is hiding in the shadows, but there are pros and cons, as the Ministry of Magic has used this as an excuse to trying to claw their way in more than once.

In times of peace, the Ministry of Magic represents orthodoxy, and its name is more useful than its strength. But once the war comes, the Ministry of Magic is disqualified without the strength – the personal strength will trump everything, and will shine like a glorious sun over the entire wizarding world.

The castle great hall.

Harry stabbed a piece of potato hard, and dipped it in the sauce, then suddenly lost his appetite.

“They look at me like I’m some kind of rare magical creature!”

“No, like a lucky one.” Ron said with a grin as he sliced the sausage from his plate and took a large gulp of the broth, ” They look at you like you just escaped from the three big maws of a three-headed dog.”

Harry grinned as he suddenly thought of the shrunken three-headed dog being jerked around by Ron.

Hermione glanced at the two, “Speaking of magical creatures, we could just as well meet Hagrid in Care of Magical Creatures class and ask about the progress of the Buckbeak case.”

“Hasn’t the fine already been paid?” Ron asked, commenting objectively, “That’s as good as it gets, Hermione.”

Harry agreed with this, just spending a little money to solve the trouble of Buckbeak, he believed Hagrid would not care about that money.

“It’s hard to say, although the money was collected, but the Ministry of Magic has been dragging its feet without giving an official conclusion, Hagrid has been distracted lately.”

Harry recalled, “I think Hagrid is in pretty good shape, he didn’t bring that Flobberworm again.” With his and Ron’s ban still in place, he could only see Hagrid in class these days, and in the last class, they learned about the fire crab.

This magical creature, originated from Fiji, is called a “crab” but looks like a large turtle with a jewelled shell.

Hagrid said at the time, “If it isn’t for their unique habitat, Niffler would love this creature. Oh, Niffler is a little treasure hunter, I’ll introduce him to you someday. …”

“That’s because of Professor Hap, I have been keeping an eye on it,” Hermione waved her fork, “I can’t believe he included a Manticore in the lesson plan.”

“Uh, what’s Manti…ore?” Harry asked, bewildered.

“Manticore,” Ron said in a breath as he pronounced the correct name, referring to it afterward, “Charlie told me when I was a kid that it was one of the few magical creatures that could rival dragons, with a highly poisonous scorpion tail, exceptionally sharp teeth, and their skin naturally repels most spells! ”

Harry believed Ron’s words, because Ron rarely speaks fluently about the characteristics of a magical creature, he just wondered, “Is there such a creature in the Forbidden Forest?”

The last time he expressed a similar query was when he knew there was an Acromantula Colony in the Forbidden Forest.

“The Forbidden Forest is huge, Harry.” Hermione explained, and then huffed, “Hagrid later argued that he made a mistake, that he was actually just simply researching, I’d like to see what he could have researched …”

Harry and Ron glanced at each other, sullenly eating food, this state of Hermione can not be persuaded, she has a belly of truth for you, if you want it.

Harry took the time to look at the faculty table, Snape sat far away from Professor Hap, with his body turned to one side, even when picking his food, he only picked the plate on the left-hand side, he is not quite sure, is this avoidance?

What in the world is happening, he remembered the image he had seen in Professor Hap’s eyes – Professor Lupin and Snape confronting each other, but when he poked around, Professor Hap said perfunctorily that he was overthinking things and everything was fine.

That’s not normal, he thought to himself as he stared at Snape’s face. He felt like he had one more task, to observe Professor Lupin’s state in this afternoon’s Defense Against the Dark Arts class …

He was so lost in thought that it took him a long time to see that Snape is staring at him with a very frightening look in his eyes, and Harry hurriedly lowered his head.

” Hmph~”

Snape grunted, his mood pleasant for a minute, but soon bad mood re-occupied all the mind. He suspected that he had been under a stunning spell, otherwise how could he agree to go to the Three Broomsticks with that boy?

More to the point, he couldn’t remember if he had said something he shouldn’t have said.

His memory is somewhat hazy, and he remembers that Rosmerta recommended a mead, “You absolutely must try it, it has all kinds of flower petals added to it, rose, violet, hibiscus, iris, afghan … It tastes great, and it’s not intoxicating.” She said enthusiastically.

‘Liar.’

In the early evening, Felix sat quietly in his office, studying the Marauders’ Map.

A flame suddenly flared up in the fireplace and the orange flames condensed into a blurred face, “Let me through, Felix!”

He looked up from his desk, “You can’t misuse the floo network and risk getting caught by the Ministry of Magic is high.”

” Are you talking about yourself? You came to read last night, all drunk …” the voice chattered from the other side.

Felix waved his wand and the next second, Sirius burst out of the fireplace.

“Ahem!”

Sirius’ robes are covered in dust and his face is dirty, “Scourgify!” He pointed his wand at himself and became clean again.

Seeing the Marauders’ Map in Felix’s hand, he stared in surprise and questioned, “You got it?”

“Well, lucky.”

“Did you find him?” Sirius asked lightly, holding his breath as his body tensed unnaturally.

“Not yet, I checked and found nothing.” Felix continued to look down and studied, tapping his fingertips on the parchment, “I guess Peter Pettigrew is hiding deep in the Forbidden Forest, or simply re-searching for a family of wizards.”

Sirius slumped on the couch and said dejectedly, “So what are you going to do? How about I go to the Ministry of Magic and turn myself in, with Dumbledore as a witness, they’ll at least listen, right?”

Felix glanced up at him and didn’t say anything.

“Fine.” Sirius stood up and surveyed the furnishings in the office, grunting in a small voice, “Old antique.”

He stood in front of a half-high portrait, which is only half-finished, and “tsked” twice, “You have this hobby of hanging yourself as well?”

“That’s for St. Mungo’s,” Felix said without looking up.

” For what, you’re still a healer? Studying how to tie people up?”

“There are newspaper clippings on the workbench, besides, any more nonsense, and I’ll kick you out.”

Sirius scowled and picked up the paper and read it, for a long moment he became slightly silent, “Frank and Alice? I didn’t know they went through all this … this bloody war!” He cursed in a low voice, “Voldemort simply sucks, it’s a good thing he’s dead.”

Putting down the paper, he saw a small Golden Snitch on the workbench and his eyes lit up, “Can I pick it up and look at it?”

“Just don’t bite it with your mouth, it’s been fully washed.”

Sirius cut in, “I’m just a dog in Animagus form, I don’t have the habit of sharpening my teeth.” He said sheepishly, reaching for the worn Golden Snitch on the table, half of its wings were broken, and the other half of the intact wings fluttered at short intervals, looking breathless.

After a while, Sirius came over and cautiously asked, “About that Golden Snitch … do you have plans to fix it?”

“Maybe,” Felix replied carelessly, “I found it in a huge junk pile and wanted to take it apart and study it.”

“How can there be a Golden Snitch in a dump? Forget it … How much is it?”

“What?”

“I was asking how much this thing costs, and of course, I want it fixed, preferably with some wacky magic to make it more interesting. I can come up with ideas, and it will count as something we did together.”

“You’re going to give it away?” Felix stared at Sirius, showing a smile, and said, “To Harry?”

“Six more months … I don’t know how things will have changed by then, maybe I’ll be still hiding,” Sirius dodged the gaze directed at him, “I’m not a proper godfather, but there’s always something to do, like that Firebolt, I thought, even if I couldn’t be there for him, but at least-”

“The firebolt is from you?” Felix asked in surprise.

“It was me, by owl mail, and Crookshanks was a big help,” Sirius explained.

After thinking about it, Felix agreed: “No problem. Well, come over here, I need your experience-” he pointed to the marauders’ map, “I’m going to add an alarm spell-like Caterwauling Charm to it, and if a specific person enters the map’s range, it will alert.”n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

He actually had a few more plans, but the alarm spell is the most convenient means with the highest probability of success, and after capturing Peter Pettigrew, he had plenty of time to test his ideas.

“That’s a good idea!” Sirius certainly felt intrigued, “We can’t keep an eye on the map all the time, what if he slips in the middle of the night? Although we could leave it to Kreacher,” he said maliciously, “he’s completely out of his mind and gets too many crazy ideas from my mother’s portrait …”

“A bad cleaning job?”

Sirius grunted twice, “It’s weird, isn’t it? I always had a feeling that Kreacher is the one who owns the house, equally rotten, crumbling, and stubborn …”

“Far from it, back to the alarm spell, there is a difficulty at present …”

Sirius looked at him and Felix continued, “You have added a fair number of spells, and these magics have intertwined and fused with each other over a long period of time, and it is difficult for me to interfere again in fear of destroying the original structure and reducing it to ashes.”

“I can provide the method of making the marauders’ map.” Sirius said immediately.

“It’s not that simple, I’m more interested in knowing the order in which you applied the spell.” Felix said.

Sirius pondered seriously for a moment, and then he said slowly: “I can only recall part of it, the dementors have influenced me a lot. You’d better ask Remus, he’s more meticulous.”

———-

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