Hogwarts Study Panel

Chapter 509-507: The Raider Group (4k)

The world behind the veil, or rather, the boundary between life and death, is always shrouded in a perpetual fog.

Sirius watched as the black cat used its tail to curl up the silver threads of memory—threads that had just been removed from his head.

Sirius had no idea what his god was going to do, so he could only stand there obediently, so nervous that he didn't even know where to put his hands.

As he watched, he saw the black cat's tail stand up and its whiskers tremble, as if it were suppressing some impulse.

Sirius thought that he probably had to resist the urge to devour his memories; otherwise, how could he possibly resist the cat's natural instinct to play with the ball of yarn?

As he thought about it, Sirius couldn't help but laugh.

The black cat looked at him immediately.

"This place is really... foggy everywhere..."

He froze instantly, pretending to be very busy looking left and right.

His words were also stiff; after all, talking about fog in the border area was as perfunctory and unoriginal as talking about fresh air in the countryside.

The black cat ignored him, struggling to suppress its feline instincts.
“Please come with me, Mr. Blake.”

Sirius stiffened as if electrocuted, then quickly approached the black cat and sank into his memories along with his god.

Falling, falling, and falling some more...

After experiencing a period of weightlessness that was neither too long nor too short, the person and the cat finally landed in a familiar place.

—The Great Hall of Hogwarts.

The black cat was standing in the center of the Great Hall, stepping on Sirius Black, but this place was not quite the same as the Hogwarts it was familiar with.

The four college desks were gone. In their place were more than a hundred small tables facing the same direction, each with a student sitting beside it, head down, writing hastily on a roll of parchment.

The environment was very quiet. The only sounds were the whirring of quills and the occasional rustling of someone adjusting their parchment.

This is clearly an exam.

Sunlight streamed through the tall windows, illuminating the bowed heads, which gleamed with shades of gray-brown, reddish-brown, and gold in the bright light.

The black cat looked around carefully.

Young Sirius and James must be somewhere here... This is his memory...

"Five minutes left!"

A voice suddenly appeared.

The black cat turned around and saw Professor Flitwick's head moving between the tables not far away.

Professor Flitwick walked past a boy with messy, dark hair... very messy dark hair...

Sirius, standing at the black cat's feet, paused for a moment, then began to move.

He moves so fast that if he had a physical form, he would surely knock over several tables.

However, it seemed as if he was gliding, like in a dream, crossing two passageways and gliding forward along a third passageway.

The dark-haired boy's head was getting closer and closer, and... he was now straightening up, putting down his quill, and pulling the roll of parchment towards himself so he could reread the answers he had written...

Sirius stopped in front of the table and looked down at James.

He then lowered his eyes, turned his head away, and trembled slightly.

The black cat looked at the person as if it were looking at a Harry who had changed a bit.

James has light brown eyes, a slightly longer nose than Harry's, and no scars on his forehead, but they both have the same thin face, the same mouth, and the same eyebrows.

James's hair was exactly the same as Harry's, sticking up at the back of his head, and his hands were practically Harry's hands.

James yawned and rubbed his hair, making it even messier than before.

Then he glanced at Professor Flitwick, then turned around in his seat and grinned at the boy in the fourth seat behind him.

Immediately, the young Sirius Black, sitting in the fourth seat, gave James a thumbs-up.

Young Sirius leaned back lazily in his chair, looking quite at ease, his body tilted back with only the chair's two legs touching the ground.

He was very handsome, with black hair hanging down in front of his eyes, which inadvertently gave him an air of elegance.

A girl sitting behind Sirius was watching him expectantly, but he didn't seem to notice.

In the same row as the girl, two seats away—the black cat recognized—was young Remus Lupin.

He looked quite pale and haggard.

The black cat thought that the full moon was probably approaching.

He was completely focused on the exam at that moment:

He reread his answer, scratched his chin with the tip of his quill pen, and frowned slightly.

Finally, there was a short boy with grayish-white hair and a pointed nose.

That was the insect's tail. He seemed a little anxious, biting his fingernails, staring down at his exam paper, and shuffling his toes on the ground.

He would occasionally glance hopefully at the exam papers of the students at the next table.

The black cat placed its paw near Sirius's ear and pulled it back. Sirius, whose eyes were already red, finally gave up his plan to pounce on the bug tail he remembered.

Sirius had struggled in prison for so long; he desperately wanted to kill this person.

Finally, under the watchful eyes of the gods, Sirius simply stared intently at Wormtail for a while longer before turning his gaze back to James, who was now scribbling haphazardly on a small piece of parchment.

He had already drawn a golden snitch and was now drawing the letters "LE".

What do they represent?

That couldn't be simpler.

Lily Evans.

"Please stop writing!"

Professor Flitwick said in a shrill voice,

"Including you, Stebbins! Stay in your seat while I put away the parchment! Fly here!"

More than a hundred rolls of parchment suddenly rose into the air, flew into Professor Flitwick's outstretched arms, and knocked him to the ground.

Some people laughed. Several students sitting at the front desk stood up, took Professor Flitwick's arms, and helped him up.

"Thank you... thank you,"

Professor Flitwick said breathlessly,
"Very good, everyone, you can leave now!"

Black Cat looked down at James, who hurriedly erased the two letters "LE" that he had been working on. He jumped up, stuffed his quill and test paper into his backpack, slung the backpack over his shoulder, and stood there waiting for young Sirius to come and meet him.

"Do you like question number ten, Moon Face?"

After they entered the foyer, the young Sirius asked.

"I love it so much!"

Lupin said lightly,

"List five signs that indicate a werewolf. That's a great question."

Do you think you can list all the signs?

James feigned concern.

“I think so,”

Lupin said in a serious tone that at this moment, people were crowded together at the front door, eager to get to the sunny area outside, and they also joined the crowd.

"First: He was sitting in my seat. Second: He was wearing my clothes. Third: His name is Remus Lupin."

This joke only has the worm's tail; there's no laughter in it.

"I wrote down the shape of the mouth and nose, the pupils of the eyes, and the hairy tail," the insect tail said anxiously.
"But I can't remember anything else—"

"How could you be so stupid, insect tail?"

James said impatiently,

"You have to travel around with a werewolf every month—"

"Keep your voice down."

Lupine pleaded.

The conversation among them was quite interesting, but the black cat didn't continue listening.

That's enough, that's more than enough.

He saw James, found him, and when he made an impression in the black cat's head, the borderlands had to obey the black cat's rules.

The real Sirius Black still stood in the corner, looking at his past memories of their laughter and conversation.

The scene was beautiful yet unreal; his face felt cold, and he figured it must be raining at the border.

Before leaving, the black cat suddenly paused; it had seen a wizard who had made it stop.

In my memory, it was in the shade of that beech tree by the Hogwarts lake.

In the dense shade of the bushes, a dark-haired wizard sat on the grass, engrossed in studying the OWL exam papers.

He looked to be in his teens, with a strong build, but his face was pale, like a plant that had always grown in darkness.

The black cat leaped over to his side, and then it could see clearly that this was the young Professor Snape.

Sirius's shoulders relaxed as he saw that his god had left him.

It stepped onto the lawn and stopped in front of the wizard it didn't want to see.

It was obvious to Sirius that the black cat would care a lot about this wizard, since it had never shown such interest in any other wizard here.

"That's Snape."

Sirius said.

The black cat nodded, indicating that they could leave.

"You're very interested in him?"

Stepping once again into the white fog at the border, Sirius asked tentatively.

The black cat answered the question with silence.

“We should go, Mr. Blake.”

The black cat's voice was devoid of emotion; it seemed to always be so calm and unperturbed.

Dreams are a very attractive place, and Sirius saw many interesting things along the way.

For example, some wisps of fog drift by, revealing bizarre and fantastical scenes.
It's worth mentioning that they seemed eager to approach Sirius, but the black cat brushed them away with its tail.
For example, after walking for a while, some houses appeared in the foggy area. These houses each had their own characteristics, but they all retained a surprising common feature - they all had a small door, and some houses even had a black cat-shaped sign next to the small door.

Even more extreme, some people erected a black cat statue.

Sirius Black watched and guessed the way.

He seemed to have underestimated the black cat that accompanied him.

At the border, in the world behind the veil of death, a place where souls wander eternally... there is an omnipresent faith, a group of wizards who worship gods.

For the first time, he questioned this kind of magic.

What kind of being is it that would allow such a young wizard to be enshrined on a divine altar?
What kind of magic does it possess that allows it to reveal the future and traverse life and death?

What kind of wizards is it searching for, those who can unleash miraculous powers...?

Sirius thought it was just a legend, one of Merlin's many legends, but now it seems that it is not only true, but also enduring.

Sirius's thoughts quickly drifted away. He wondered if James and Lily would still look the same when he saw them later.
Or perhaps a pitiful face?
After all, they died with their eyes wide open in disbelief.

He wondered again whether they resented him or felt disgusted even at the sight of him.
His brow was furrowed, and fear, like it had gripped his throat countless nights before, gripped his throat.

He thought this time would be no different from the past, and that the fear would soon pass, but this time, he miscalculated.

When Sirius was in a daze, the black cat's wagging tail suddenly stopped.

Far away, amidst a thick, dark fog, the black cat heard a dog's howl.

This was the first time it had encountered such a situation, but it seemed to have anticipated it.

“Mr. Black,”

It said that it startled the dazed Blake.

"Run ahead of you if you want to see them again."

"What……"

Before Sirius could react, a huge black dog burst out from the blur.

Sirius Black's legs went weak the moment he saw the black dog.

"What's this?!"

He was both shocked and furious.

“Your fears, sir.”

The black cat ignored Sirius.

This was also the first time it had encountered the wizard's nemesis.

It has invited many guests, but apart from a few young wizards who did not stay for long, only Mr. Newt Scamander has stayed at the Borderlands for a long time.

But Mr. Newt Scamander's honest nature led the black cat to believe that the borderlands weren't so dangerous—for wizards who ventured there.

But now it seems that a place where even Professor Dumbledore couldn't stay for long must be peaceful and tranquil.

"run."

"The black cat said."

Sirius's legs were weak, and he quickly ran forward as the black cat instructed.

Just then, more than one black dog appeared.

"Fear, resentment, self-blame..."

The black cat sighed. Sirius Black was such a troublesome wizard.

The three black dogs that jumped out of the mist were huge, standing up to be over a meter tall. Compared to them, the black cat looked tiny.

In the distance, Sirius ran with all his might, feeling the wind blowing behind him as he heard his god muttering in his sleep:

"Run, sir, run over fear, run over resentment, run over self-blame."

Let go of your yesterday, for it is already dead; let go of your resentment, for one cannot harbor a venomous snake in one's heart; and let go of your fear, bury your self-reproach…

If you can stand firm in the wind, you will know that the wind is the wind, whether it is the wind on a high tower, the wind on a rope, or the wind on flat ground.

People high in the air lose their footing because gusts of wind are whipping through their minds.

Sirius calmed down a bit, seeing that his god had already revealed his majesty.

It has not only a compassionate side, but also the wrath of the gods.

Not only did it grow seven or eight times larger, transforming into a majestic giant cat—looking even bigger than the black dog—but when it stared at the black dog with its vertical pupils, even the beast composed of the dark side of the soul would pause for a long time, seemingly in fear of the wrath of the gods.

"What kind of place is this? And what kind of beings are the gods...?"

Sirius murmured to himself as he ran across the field.

(End of this chapter)