The Return to Hogwarts

But to Malfoy's surprise, the owls, upon seeing the snake, did not fall into deeper fear. Instead, they became excited. A snow-white owl darted out from the flock, moving so fast that the snake didn't even have time to react. Its steel-hook-like talons swept across the snake's back, and Malfoy's snake instantly lay motionless on the ground like a Flopp caterpillar that had eaten too much lettuce.

"Draco, owls like to eat poisonous snakes—"

Malfoy's smile froze instantly on his pale face, and Crabbe's stunned words only fueled his anger.

"Don't run, you damned beast!"

Malfoy, already seething with anger, was enraged even more. He roared and unleashed a powerful spell.

Thunderous explosion!

The Explosion Spell's light suddenly slammed into the wall, and after a violent explosion, the spell grazed an owl's wing and bounced back, heading straight for Goyle's stomach.

"Get out of the way!"

In an instant, Malfoy realized he had gone too far with his impulsiveness; using this spell on the owl hut, which was surrounded by walls on all four sides, was practically suicidal.

Before Goyle could react, Malfoy charged at him like a ball, knocking Goyle back a few steps at the last second, and he himself dodged the flash of the Explosion Curse.

However, the Explosion Charm that touched the floor exploded again, and the strong air force threw Malfoy, who was suspended in mid-air, away. If it weren't for Goyle acting as a human cushion, that one blow would have been enough to keep him in the school hospital for several days!

In the next few seconds, the Explosion Spell crashed around the stone house, creating a series of crackling explosions. Finally, after smashing down a dusty wooden frame at the very back of the room, the rebounding spell light flew out the window and disappeared.

After all this commotion, the owls stopped arguing with Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle, and flew away from this troublesome place through the small windows in the stone wall!

Dust billowed from the owl hut, and the ground and surrounding stone walls were riddled with radiating craters from the blasting spells. Malfoy and his two companions desperately covered their ears and lay on the ground, wishing they could disappear into the haystacks.

"Oh, damn it!"

Five minutes later, Malfoy exhaled a thick cloud of smoke, stood up dizzily, and when he saw the shack he had made a mess of, his face turned completely black from its previous redness.

"What do we do, Draco—"

Goyle was also pulled up by Clara. As they brushed the dust off their robes, they said with long faces, "If Professor Blaine knew what we'd done, he'd make us clean the owl sheds for years to come."

Upon hearing this, Malfoy suddenly held his breath.

It must be said that Goyle had a rare moment of foresight. Based on Malfoy's understanding of Professor Blaine, he was capable of doing such a thing!

The devastation made Malfoy feel distressed. Just then, at the very back of the shed, the wooden frame with only one rotten wooden leg still supporting it could not bear its own weight. With a loud crash, the six- or seven-foot-high frame collapsed completely, raising a cloud of dust.

Chirp!

Before the dust had settled, a piercingly mournful howl suddenly pierced the hazy distance, drawing the attention of Malfoy and his companions, who were coughing repeatedly from the dust.

"What's going on? What's making that noise?!"

Crabbe looked startled and exclaimed in a loud voice.

"It's nothing serious, Crabbe. It's probably just a rat. There are dead rats everywhere here; those beasts caught them from outside—"

After listening carefully for a few moments, Malfoy breathed a sigh of relief and said...

Beneath the wooden frame, Peter Pettigrew's dusty body twitched uncontrollably, while one of his legs was pinned down by the collapsing frame, and judging from the angle of the bend, it should be broken.

"How incredibly unlucky do you have to be to run into something like this?" Peter Pettigrew wailed inwardly.

The night after the Halloween dinner, he faked his death to escape from Ron and has been hiding here ever since.

Isn't that a brilliant idea?

Even if Sirius sneaks back into the castle and discovers that he has left and the boy is hiding, he would never have imagined that he would be hiding in the owl's hut. As Lucius's son said, mice are owl food, and who would think that a mouse would dare to hide under the nose of its natural enemy?

But Peter Pettigrew never expected that Amostall would send those young Slytherin wizards to clean the Owl's Hut, and that Malfoy, who had suffered so much 'humiliation,' and his two little henchmen would cause such a ruckus!

The mouse's small, black eyes, brimming with glistening tears, held an immense sorrow within them.

His leg is broken, he has no wand, and no one will heal him. What should he do next?

"Hey Draco, look at this!"

Just as Peter was wallowing in self-pity, the dust settled, and the brilliant blue light from the lightning that cleaved the rain curtain illuminated the messy shack through the window. In this light, Goyle suddenly exclaimed, pointing at the broken-legged scuttler struggling desperately, and cried out incredulously.

Draco thought Goyle had discovered something amazing, but when he saw Scabbers, he immediately glared at Goyle with disgust and said...

"What's wrong? It's just a mouse. What, you like it!"

“I’ve seen it, Draco, right there, right there—”

Goyle racked his brains, trying to explain to Draco what was so special about this rat, but the moment he heard Goyle call out, Scabbers froze, chirping in terror, suppressing his fear, and struggled even harder to break free.

"That rat belongs to that Weasley!"

Under Draco's increasingly annoyed gaze, Goyle, sweating profusely with anxiety, finally pulled out all the stops and promptly called out,

"This is Weasley's rat, Draco. Remember him? He bit me once!"

Chapter 258 Intolerable

Heavy rain washed over the world, and lightning leaping across the clouds made the bizarre and grotesque clouds appear eerie and unsettling.

The owl hut was heavy with silence. Even the sound of the rain pouring down was strangely suppressed inside, barely making a sound.

Weasley's rat even bit Goyle.

Malfoy stared at the trembling Scabbers, his gray eyes filled with confusion and bewilderment. He couldn't remember when this had happened, but the skinny, bony rat with its fur tangled in grime did look somewhat familiar.

"It was during my first year, on the Hogwarts Express!" Goyle couldn't help but remind him again.

A sudden gust of damp wind ruffled the hair on Draco's forehead, clearing his mind.

“Oh, I remember now, it was around that time!” Malfoy exclaimed.

It was during his first year of high school, and everyone was excitedly discussing that Harry Potter was also on this special train. Out of curiosity, he took Goyle and Crabbe to visit Harry Potter's compartment, and then he discovered that the black-haired, green-eyed, malnourished little boy in the compartment was the same one his mother had met when she took him to Madam Malkin's Robes Shop to buy a uniform.

At the time, he even planned to become friends with Harry Potter!

Malfoy felt a chill run down his spine when he thought of his 'youthful ignorance,' and he was ashamed that he had such absurd thoughts. But then he laughed with delight.

"Ah, it's you!"

Within a few steps, Malfoy and his two companions, like three enormous creatures, surrounded the helpless Scabbers. Malfoy tapped Scabbers' head with his wand, a malicious smile on his face.

“What are you doing, you cowardly friend of Potter, you self-degrading little Weasley rat?!”

Seeing Scabbers trembling with fear, Malfoy felt the pent-up frustration he'd been carrying since Professor Blaine's practical lessons rapidly dissipating. He poked Scabbers repeatedly with the tip of his cane.

"You ran away from home, didn't you? But why?"

Malfoy crouched down, staring intently at Scabbers' broken leg, and asked himself a question.

"Is it because you, you little bastard Weasley, are so poor that you can't even afford to feed a mouse, forcing you to find your own way to survive?"

Crabbe and Goyle burst into laughter, thoroughly amused by Malfoy.

"Come on, guys!"

Malfoy failed to notice the deeply human fear in Scabbers' eyes. He abruptly stood up, shoving the two large men back a few steps, then turned around ten feet away, wand in hand, grinning wickedly.

"We need to find some fun for ourselves!"

Banban scratched at the ground desperately, hoping to escape, but the strength of a mouse was clearly insufficient to move the heavy wooden frame, and the pain of his broken leg was tormenting his nerves.

What should I do?

Peter was on the verge of tears, his heart filled with despair.

Before Blake could overcome all the obstacles and reach him, a few annoying little boys unexpectedly discovered him, and it seemed they weren't going to let him off easily.

Suddenly, Peter felt a relief in his injured hind leg. He was overjoyed, thinking he had finally escaped the wooden frame. Just as he was about to use his remaining three claws to escape into the shadows, he suddenly felt his body lighten, and then, uncontrollably, he floated into the air.

Seeing Scabbers frantically flailing its limbs, Malfoy's laughter grew even more gleeful.

"Let me think. Oh, I've got it—"

Malfoy's eyes darted around excitedly, and when he spotted a large mound of grayish-green bird droppings beneath a perch, his gray eyes suddenly gleamed.

"Look how hungry Weasley's made you, little guy!"

With that, Malfoy suddenly swung his wand, and the speckled pattern, like an insect about to solidify in amber, drew a graceful curve in mid-air before crashing headfirst into the fresh clump of bird droppings.

Chirp!

The three-legged creature, which had been rolling in the dung heap, slipped on the ground, but now he was nothing more than a rat and had no power to resist the magic.

"Hey, don't run away, little guy!"

Amidst the cheers of Crabbe and Goyle, Malfoy's bluish face gradually contorted into a grimace. He used his magic to pin Scabbers down in the bird droppings, making its body roll around as if he were giving it a bath.

"Since you can tolerate Potter and Weasley, this bird droppings obviously isn't a problem for you, right?"

Malfoy's expression was fierce. He curled his nose and his eyes were filled with malice. He was determined to torment Scabbers until he was half dead before he would stop!

The torment of hunger, the pain of severed limbs, the stench of bird droppings, the dizziness of the spinning world—

Everything was crashing against Peter's nerves like a tsunami. Even with his usually patient nature, his anger was spreading and swelling uncontrollably within him until one moment.

A dazzling light suddenly flashed in the dark owl shed. Malfoy broke the connection of his wand and instinctively covered his eyes. Crabbe and Goyle, who were watching the commotion behind him, reacted in the same way. Two seconds later, Malfoy, who had been caught off guard by the light, lowered his hand. When he saw where the light had appeared, his expression was one of utter astonishment.

The mouse turned into a strange man?

This was a very short man, not much shorter than Malfoy himself, with sparse, dull hair that was messy and had a large bald patch on his head. The man looked wrinkled, like a fat man who had lost a lot of weight in a short time, and his skin was very dirty. In fact, using the word 'very dirty' was an understatement—his entire exposed skin was covered with a layer of bird droppings.

"That's enough!"