I, Hogwarts Second Time Around.

Chapter 154 The Prelude to the Storm, The Demon from Sphinx

————Hogwarts————

In the pouring rain, atop those mountains, a wizard dressed in a black leather coat, wearing a top hat, with a silver necklace wrapped around his left hand and a pendant resembling the Three Holy Relics interlocking, stared intently at Hogwarts Castle in the distance.

He raised his wand high with his right hand.

The black veil was fluttering out from the tip of the cane.

"Phew~" The man exhaled a breath of hot air.

Turning around, I looked at the other side of the mountain, where a railway track stretched as far as the eye could see between the rolling mountains.

That was the only transportation route between Hogwarts and London.

With a whoosh, spacetime distorted, and the man disappeared from the mountaintop.

The cold, heavy rain instantly swallowed up the open space that had sheltered him.

----London----

Dementors are everywhere!

From the sky to the ground.

From forests to lakes.

Sirius Black, wrapped tightly in the coat of the unknown Muggle he had stolen, hid in a corner, peeking out warily at the dark creatures.

There are too many.

Too much.

He frowned.

With Azkaban sending out so many Dementors, isn't he afraid that the Death Eaters will break out of prison en masse?

"Phew~"

He leaned against the wall. Rainwater slid down his shoulders.

His strength had been exhausted from fleeing and running all night.

He was both hungry and tired.

His wanted posters are plastered everywhere on the streets, even in the Muggle world!

This made it impossible for him to stop fleeing for even a moment.

"Damn it!" Suddenly, a Dementor seemed to notice him.

Sensing danger, Sirius immediately transformed into Animagus, slipped under the fence at the street corner, and disappeared into the heavy rain.

—Diagon Alley—

On the other side, heavy rain poured down.

Owen and Harry's group returned to the Leaky Cauldron.

"Merlin's beard, she's so pitiful," Ron remarked, then, as if he'd never heard of Hermione's suffering, he started chattering again: "Firebolt, Malfoy, Owen, you know what I mean, right!"

"Boring, what's so great about this thing?" Owen didn't think much of flying brooms, which was why he refused Professor Sprout's repeated invitations to join the Hufflepuff Quidditch team.

"Wizards are meant to fly! Besides, the Firebolt was originally designed for Quidditch. Do you want to become a professional Quidditch player?"

"Harry has that idea. He's the best Seeker, he'll definitely get into the club after graduation," Ron said, but Owen interrupted him before he could finish: "Graduate? Graduate what! You think you can graduate before you've killed Voldemort?"

"."

Owen's words were like a bucket of cold water poured on Harry and the others.

Due to Dumbledore's intervention, none of the three encountered Voldemort again in their second year.

The shadow cast by the so-called most dangerous dark lord in history seems to have faded from their freshman year. No longer feeling a strong sense of urgency, they've begun to dream about the future.

"By the way, Ron, where's your rat?" Owen seemed to suddenly remember something, and after asking the Leaky Cauldron bar owner for a lemonade, he reached out to Ron for it.

"What are you doing?" Ron stood up warily and stepped behind Harry.

He held his right pocket tightly with both hands.

"Sirocco has been having a poor appetite lately; I think he might need to treat himself to something nice."

"Are you kidding me?" Ron asked, his face filled with panic.

"Nonsense, give it to me now! Or I'll beat you up!" He clenched his fists, looking like he was about to unleash a punching bag.

"No~" Everyone knew Owen's reputation, and faced with his tyranny, Ron had no choice but to submit.

Immediately, he reluctantly took the listless dead rat out of his pocket.

"Hey, young man, you'll regret this sooner or later!" Owen smiled slyly and said to Ron in a condescending tone.

He suddenly became very curious about what kind of expression Ron would have when he saw Peter Pettigrew.

"Hey kid, here's your lemonade." Old Tom, the owner of the Leaky Cauldron, handed Owen a glass of light green, thick lemonade with obvious disdain.

This is a bar!

If it weren't for Galleon's sake...

Owen took the lemonade that Old Tom handed him. The water was murky and had a lot of lemon pulp floating on it.

It looks pretty good, of course—the premise for swallowing it is that you can ignore the whole cup of dried and yellowed fruit pulp.

"Give it to me!" he said, snatching the dead rat from Ron's hand.

Then he got up, walked past the group of young wizards, and headed towards Diagon Alley.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

The rain in London was getting heavier. The once bustling streets were now deserted.

The merchants even took back the signs and tables and chairs that had been placed outside their shops.

This made the whole street look suddenly much emptier.

Irving was holding the dead rat's head.

My mind gradually became active.

Well, the only reason he's allowed this scumbag from the ditch to survive this long is because he's not Gryffindor, and he doesn't share a dorm room with Harry.

You don't have to share a bed with some sleazy man every day.

Otherwise, he would have died ten thousand times over.

In reality, Irving rarely saw this dead rat at school.

After all, Ron couldn't possibly carry a mouse around in his arms for everything, especially when they were going on adventures.

So this mouse spent most of its time locked in the dormitory. Only on rare occasions would Ron take it out for some fresh air.

It was only at this moment, if Irving picked it up and walked by, that he would encounter this dead rat.

But—

Now that he's caught him, he needs to think carefully about what value he can extract from this guy.

It would be too lenient for him to just take a bite out of the big melon.

Waste can be reused.

Even an Animagus-wielding piece of trash is better than useless garbage, right?

Owen used his wand to conjure a transparent umbrella.

The glass of lemonade floated behind him.

Hmm—on closer inspection.

This fool stayed with the Weasleys for a full ten years. He was penniless, probably not even a copper knuckle, let alone a galleon.

The only thing Owen could think of was that Peter seemed to know where Voldemort's wand was.

But—what does he want Tom's wand for?

Oh, he has another use, Irving suddenly remembered.

To become his own informant, left to stay by Voldemort's side.

No, no, no—in just a moment, Irving rejected the idea.

With Voldemort's Legilimency, this guy couldn't possibly hide any secrets.

Going there would be suicide.

Hmm—but it seems like some people can.

His experimental subject seems to still be in Azkaban.

I have something on my mind.

Irving then grabbed the dead rat.

The dead rat looks a bit listless!

He knew Sirius had escaped from prison, so he was filled with anxiety and lived in fear every day—hmph, no wonder he was so listless.

Hmm—in that case, why not use this opportunity to clear your head!

With that thought in mind, Owen sneered, beckoned to the lemonade glass behind him, and then stuffed the rat straight into it.

"Squeak squeak squeak"

The sudden feeling of suffocation made Peter Pettigrew struggle frantically.

He tried to leap out of the water, but Irving blocked the rim of the cup against the wall.

Watching the mouse struggling in the transparent glass of water.

Irving suddenly felt a sense of joy reminiscent of his childhood.

It's like watering an anthill.

However, ants are far more loyal than this mouse; they will always obey their queen, rather than betray her half-heartedly.

"Heh heh—this is so much fun!" He laughed cruelly, his wand pressed firmly against the bottom of the cup, his powerful polymorph spell constantly controlling the cup's surface. No matter how hard the rat tried to revert to its original form, it couldn't.

"Squeak squeak squeak~" Inside, the little mouse's struggles grew more and more intense.

The fragile glass cup inflated like a balloon, only to return to its original shape under the suppression of his powerful magic.

The rain from above was even heavier.

The raindrops fell to the ground with a rapid, drum-like sound.

This alternating pulling and tugging lasted for several tens of seconds.

As his struggles under the covers gradually weakened, Owen slowly reduced the magic.

"Hmph~ Isn't this full of energy?" The demon from Sphinx smiled brightly, his gray eyes filled with savagery.

Her whole body exuded a strange, hellish beauty.

The murky water soaked the demon's hair.

A dirty stream flowed between his legs.

"Click"

Suddenly, a clap of thunder sounded.

It illuminated the greasy, dirty, and seemingly endless deep alleyway.

The raindrops glistened, while the walls reflected darkness.

The interplay of light and shadow, the drumbeat of raindrops on the ground, and the subtle, sinister laughter create a complex composition that transforms this alley into a foreground of hell's gates.

"Why So Serious?"

The demon stretched its head over the bottle opening and whispered something.

His nonchalant tone made it sound like he was joking with an old friend.

"hey-hey!"

Evil laughter echoed through the alley.

The rat finally exhausted its last bit of strength. Its dirty claws weakly hooked onto the wall in front of the cup, and then it stopped struggling and gradually turned belly up in the water.

"Three minutes and twenty-seven seconds. As expected, rats are quite good at holding their breath!" Irving said with a grin, then suddenly released his left hand that was pressing on the cup.

With a "bang!", it shattered on the ground.

The next second, the mouse rapidly grew larger, like an inflating balloon.

First the head, then the body, and finally even the limbs transformed from beast to human.

Irving watched the dramatic scene of a person suddenly appearing out of nowhere quite attentively.

Then a man with thinning hair, bald patches on his head, dirty body, and short limbs appeared.

He had a rat-like face and a pointed nose, and his right hand was missing a finger.

"Cough cough cough!" A violent cough echoed in the dimly lit street corner.

It lasted for a very long time.

Then Irving started to get a little impatient.

"If you don't stop, then you might as well die!"

He leaned against the wall, wand in hand, and spoke softly.

The sudden warning made Peter Pettigrew, a naturally cowardly man, instinctively hold his breath.

His cheeks flushed red from his rapid breathing.

(End of this chapter)