A certain broken Hogwarts

The forbidden forest at night was dark and deep, with strangely shaped trees like ghostly shadows hidden in the darkness, stretching out their claws wantonly. Besides the rustling of leaves in the wind and the dull sound of footsteps on the dry branches and fallen leaves, a long and mournful howl occasionally drifted from afar, adding a touch of unease to one's heart.

Harry clung tightly to Ferrenze's back, ducking to avoid the thin branches. The centaur moved nimbly and lightly through the forest, his silver hair shimmering like the gentle moonlight.

After his tense and excited state subsided, Harry felt a lingering fear. He had recklessly used the Crucifixion Charm on Peter Pettigrew, even if it was more for intimidation than anything else; he had indeed used it.

Although he had used it last semester, the circumstances were special then, and he had no choice but to do so. This time, however, he genuinely and actively used the spell.

Why didn't he consider that this was dark magic, an unforgivable curse? If the professors found out, wouldn't he be locked up in Azkaban for life? The thought of those Dementors made his stomach churn.

Most importantly, Harry felt he had gone bad and let Mr. Dumbledore down. A heavy sense of guilt overwhelmed him.

He lay listlessly on Ferenz's back, instantly becoming listless and losing all his energy.

Ferenczek quickly noticed his unusual behavior and said softly, "Are you alright, Harry Potter?"

"I'm fine," Harry said guiltily.

"We'll be out of here soon." Ferenze's voice sounded hollow and ethereal in the woods.

Harry gave a listless "hmm".

"Harry Potter, I'm sorry to have delayed your pursuit of the fugitive," Ferenzhe apologized again.

"It's okay, maybe I wouldn't have caught him even if you hadn't come." Harry shook his head.

“No, this time might be different. I know whose servant he is,” Ferrenze said somberly, turning to look at Harry, his silver hair swaying with his movement. “I see darkness approaching, Harry Potter.”

Harry froze, and when he realized what Ferrenze meant, he felt as if his heart had been gripped by an iron claw. His voice was hoarse and strained: "You mean... Voldemort is coming back?"

Although he had outwitted Voldemort with Owen last semester, he was well aware of how terrifying Voldemort was and what his return meant.

Ferrenze avoided answering Harry's question, simply saying calmly, "In the coming night, you are the brightest star, Harry Potter."

"But there will always be a dark star intertwined with you, like a black hole, deep, ominous, mysterious, yet containing a certain hope." Ferrenze spoke in a chanting tone, words Harry couldn't understand, "You are destined to be entangled, to influence each other, like twin stars altering each other's destinies, and will inevitably change this world..."

"I don't know if this is good or bad; even we can't predict our future," he sighed.

Harry blinked, staring at the back of the centaur's head. An ominous star, like a black hole? Was it referring to Voldemort? According to the prophecy Dumbledore had given him, he was indeed destined to be entangled with Voldemort, a thought that made him uneasy.

But what does it mean to contain hope? Just as he was about to ask, he heard Hagrid's loud voice coming from afar, startling the birds returning to their nests and causing them to flutter wildly among the branches.

"Harry! Harry! Where are you?"

Harry looked in surprise toward the direction the sound came from; Ferrenze was already driving him there.

As they drew closer, Harry shouted back, and could vaguely see Hagrid's enormous figure rushing toward him, panting heavily.

Ferrenze bent down, letting Harry slide off his back, and gave him a deep look before saying, "Good luck, Harry Potter."

After saying that, he left Harry behind and slowly ran back into the depths of the forest.

"Harry! I've finally found you..." Hagrid cried out in a hoarse voice, his voice trembling with tears. He ran to Harry and hugged him tightly, Harry feeling as if his ribs were about to break.

"I'm alright, Hagrid," Harry managed to say.

"You sound so weak, you must have suffered a lot." Hagrid wiped his eyes, his eyes gleaming faintly in the darkness. "It's all my fault for not watching you properly... Oh! I see you're bleeding!"

Before Harry could speak, he scooped him up in his arms and strode towards the edge of the Forbidden Forest. "I'm taking you to the school hospital. Oh, and we also need to let the professors know; they're all looking for you in the woods." As he spoke, he raised his tattered pink umbrella and released a green spark into the sky.

Harry's cheeks burned; he felt he had caused the professors trouble again. He quietly recounted his ordeal, briefly mentioning that Peter Pettigrew had been bitten by Nagini and then escaped.

"Nagini's venom is potent; it causes profuse bleeding," Harry said. "I don't know if Peter Pettigrew can cure it on his own; maybe he'll steal the antidote..."

His words abruptly stopped as a familiar, terrifying chill swept over him, and a cold mist began to rise around him. He glimpsed several Dementors floating among the shadows of the trees, like evil spirits roaming the forest. His lungs felt as if they were filled with ice water, and ice shards were cutting into his internal organs. Green light flashed before his eyes again.

"Don't touch Harry, please don't touch Harry! Please, kill me, just kill me..." A woman screamed in his mind, and a shrill voice laughed maniacally...

Harry felt himself fall into a cold, bone-chilling abyss, and in an instant, he knew nothing more.

"Harry! Harry?" After an unknown amount of time, Hagrid's voice came from a very distant place.

When Harry regained consciousness, he was already lying on a soft hospital bed in the school hospital, and his wounds no longer hurt at all.

Hagrid stood beside the hospital bed, his eyes red and swollen, casting a huge shadow that enveloped Harry. Seeing Harry open his eyes, he exclaimed with delight, "You're finally awake, Harry! I didn't know you'd fainted after encountering the Dementors who were part of the search..."

Harry twitched his lips, not wanting to bring it up. He looked away and noticed Sirius Black was also in the ward, looking at him with concern, while Professor McGonagall and Professor Snape were walking in from the doorway.

"I'm fine now." Harry moved his injured right wrist, the wound of which had been completely healed by Madam Pomfrey.

In front of a group of professors who were either worried or on high alert, Harry had no choice but to recount his experience in the Forbidden Forest once again.

Professor McGonagall and Professor Snape exchanged a glance, nodded solemnly to him, and strode out. They needed to seize this opportunity to catch up with Peter Pettigrew.

Sirius told Harry to get some rest here that night, and before leaving, he winked at him approvingly. Harry smiled at him, feeling slightly guilty.

After the professors left, Madam Pomfrey came in with a large bag of chocolates, grumbling about the trouble caused by the Dementors and the escaped convicts, while urging Harry to eat the chocolates one by one.

……

After watching Hagrid carry Harry out of the Forbidden Forest, Owen yawned sleepily, grasped Nyx's warm tail feather, and teleported directly back to the Room of Requirement.

He tossed Peter Pettigrew onto the lab table with some disdain, cast a few cleaning spells on the filthy mouse, and then began to check its injuries.

Peter Pettigrew's leg, where he was bitten by Nagini, was tightly bandaged—a simple bandage Owen had applied with a spell. The white bandage was now completely stained red, indicating the wound was still bleeding profusely.

Owen ripped off the bandage, frowned slightly as he examined the bite wound, then pointed his wand at the rat's head, shooting out a sharp blue beam of light.

The mouse's body swelled rapidly, and soon it reverted to the appearance of Peter Pettigrew. He looked wrinkled, much thinner, with sparse and messy hair on his head, a large bald patch, a pale face, and tattered clothes.

Owen took out a bottle of antidote and used a spell to force it down the other's throat, but it had little effect; blood continued to flow from the wound. He then took a bottle of blood-replenishing potion and poured it into Peter Pettigrew's mouth. With a casual wave of his wand, a brand-new gauze stretched out like a snake and deftly wrapped around the other's wound.

"Nagini's poison is hard to cure, but we can keep him alive with a blood-restoring potion," Owen muttered, looking down indifferently at Peter Pettigrew, who had fallen into his hands again. He waved his wand and summoned a golden rope, binding Peter tightly.

Then he pointed his wand at the other person and said, "Recover quickly."

The unconscious man opened his eyes, stared blankly at Owen for a moment, then showed a look of fear and panic. He struggled with all his might, trying to break free of the ropes binding him, but his movements were weak and feeble due to blood loss.

Owen coldly observed his actions, then suddenly raised his wand, staring into the other's eyes, and said, "Leechium!"

Through the other person's eyes, Owen vaguely glimpsed fragments of colorful memories deep within their mind. Although Peter Pettigrew's thoughts were more difficult to decipher than those of a normal person, directly pointing his wand at someone and using Legilimency was simpler and more direct than silently reading their mind, and it also allowed him to obtain more information.

It took a little longer, but Irving successfully broke through the opponent's psychological defenses and extracted the part he wanted from the dazzling array of memory fragments.

He saw Peter Pettigrew imprisoned in a specially made cell in Azkaban, his joy and hope being drained day after day by Dementors, his mind haunted only by the most painful memories. The despair brought on by the Dementors drove him almost mad; he frantically tried every means to break free of the shackles that restricted his transformations, determined to escape that hell at all costs…

That night, Peter Pettigrew, having lost his wand, begged Bellatrix to help him escape Azkaban, promising to obey her from then on. He was transformed into a rat, bound and taken away from Azkaban, but his good days did not begin.

Bellatrix was a madwoman who attacked Sirius Black on the night of her escape. In the nick of time, Peter Pettigrew, bound and unable to escape, shielded her with a stunning spell, because he didn't want to be sent back to that hellish place even if it meant death…

The two men hid in a dark house in Flip-Flop Alley. The homeowner collapsed after a flash of green light.

Peter Pettigrew remained bound and huddled in a small cage, tormented by the Crucifixion Curse from time to time, while Bellatrix laughed maniacally before him… He served as a tool for venting her anger, because Bellatrix believed that it was his information that had caused the Dark Lord to disappear, and she hated him to death.

He compromised and humbled himself, and thanks to his act of shielding her from the curse that day, he finally managed to persuade Bellatrix and gain some freedom...

He was forced to go with Bellatrix to attack the Hogwarts Express, even though he was very unwilling. When the Dementors arrived, he fled in fear, which thoroughly enraged Bellatrix.

He fled Bellatrix, determined to escape the kingdom and find the Dark Lord. But he was captured by the madwoman, who had already tampered with his body.

After the Imperius Curse was cast, he became Bellatrix's loyal lackey...

He told the other party a lot of information. The betrayal of the Potters, turning into a rat and hiding in the Weasleys' house, the secret passages to Hogwarts, and how the Dark Lord discovered his identity and ordered him to infiltrate Hogwarts... and finally, how Harry Potter once again thwarted the Dark Lord's plot, causing the Dark Lord to disappear again.

Bellatrix was filled with both anger and ecstasy—anger at Harry Potter's despicable attack on her master while he was weakened, and ecstasy at finally hearing news of the Dark Lord. She would find her master and welcome his return.

She was convinced that Harry Potter, the last person to have contact with the Dark Lord, must know his whereabouts. So Peter Pettigrew received an order: infiltrate Hogwarts, find out the Dark Lord's location from Harry Potter, and then kill him.

Peter Pettigrew sneaked into the Screaming Shack through a secret passage, unaware that Sirius Black was prepared and waiting for him to take the bait. He was chased and forced to transform into a rat and hide in the Forbidden Forest, carefully avoiding the Dementors' search.

This evening, he cast an anti-tracking charm on himself and arrived at the edge of the Forbidden Forest, intending to sneak into the castle. However, he happened to see Harry and Hagrid outside the Forbidden Forest. He quietly retreated into the forest, found a group of giant spiders, and used a madness charm to provoke them, driving them out of the Forbidden Forest…

Owen felt his thoughts travel through the narrow tunnel and return to his mind. He rubbed his temples, sorting out his jumbled thoughts, ignoring Peter Pettigrew's frightened expression, and squinted as he twirled his wand between his fingertips.

"So it was the Imperius Curse that made him so reckless..." he muttered to himself. "No wonder Peter Pettigrew didn't try to kill Harry; he wanted to get Voldemort's whereabouts out of Harry."

Thinking of this, Irving curled his lips into a half-smile, his expression somewhat mocking.

If Peter Pettigrew had truly escaped this country, he might have actually learned Voldemort's hiding place from his mouse friends, just like in the original story. Unfortunately, the guy in front of us is living a miserable life and has no chance to leave the country, so naturally he can't find out any news from Albania. After all, how many mice are capable of traveling thousands of miles across the ocean to England?

Then, Owen frowned slightly. "Unfortunately, he doesn't know Bellatrix's hiding place. After he infiltrated Hogwarts, he essentially became a expendable pawn; Bellatrix has already moved elsewhere..."

"Most importantly, Bellatrix did something to him so that he would be notified immediately if Peter Pettigrew lost consciousness due to the spell..." Owen casually toyed with his wand, his eyes vacant as he thought, "So, the channel Peter Pettigrew used to contact the other party is now useless."

He clicked his tongue softly: "This makes it difficult to lure Bellatrix out of this guy. It seems that woman isn't so crazy as to lose her common sense."

Owen didn't consider casting another Imperius Curse on Peter Pettigrew to use the repulsive connection between Imperius Curses to locate him. Although he had learned his lesson in his first year when he and another person cast the Imperius Curse on the same person and were able to sense each other's location, he later discovered through experimentation that this connection only worked when the two people were very close.

"So, one last question: are we going to hand over Peter Pettigrew?" Owen looked down at the panicked little man. "The Imperius Curse hasn't been broken, and I can't control him to work for me right now. Am I just going to keep him around to freeload?"

The Imperius Curse is a very difficult curse to break, and there is no corresponding antidote. Aside from the caster breaking the curse themselves, to break the Imperius Curse, one must either kill the caster or allow the cursed person to resist and break free of its control through their own will.

Reciting a Soul-Stealing Curse to overwrite the existing Soul-Stealing Curse on a cursed person is feasible, but not advisable. This is because it's equivalent to two Soul-Stealing Curse users engaging in a direct and intense battle within the cursed person's fragile mind. The stronger one defeats the weaker one and gains ultimate control, but at that point, the cursed person's mind will suffer irreversible damage, essentially leaving them either mentally impaired or insane.

When therapists at St. Mungo's Hospital encounter someone afflicted with the Imperius Curse, they typically use the curse to incite and strengthen the person's will to resist, encouraging and helping the cursed individual to actively fight against its control. This is destined to be a protracted war.

Irving glanced lazily at Peter Pettigrew; he had no time for such a thing.

"If I hand him over, he'll just become a tool for politicians to curry favor, and there will be no benefit whatsoever," he thought. "It's better to keep him in my hands; who knows, he might come in handy in the future... Hmm, at least I can use him to practice Legilimency when I'm bored."

Owen looked at Peter Pettigrew with his hazy, dark eyes, a graceful and perfect smile on his face. He pointed his wand at the other's head and said kindly, "May I ask you to turn into a mouse, Professor Peter?"

Peter Pettigrew looked at him with teary eyes, his pupils trembling with fear. He sensed a twisted and dark aura emanating from the young wizard before him, a terrifying sense of danger frantically reminding him that something horrific would happen if he didn't do as the wizard instructed.

Although he was under the Soul-Stealing Curse, it didn't mean he would actively seek death, especially since he had always been someone who valued his life.

Peter Pettigrew slightly, his body suddenly shrinking back to its bald rat form. The golden ropes binding him tightened, keeping him firmly tied up.

Using the materials at hand, Owen quickly created a small iron cage with a Transfiguration Charm. The mesh openings were extremely narrow. Unless Peter Pettigrew could squeeze himself into a rat-like shape, he wouldn't be able to escape.

He then chanted an indestructible spell over the cage, threw the mouse inside, and locked it securely.

"Don't try to revert to human form, unless you want to experience being squeezed into a meatball," Owen reminded him with a smile, placing the cage in the corner of the lab table.

He put away Peter Pettigrew's wand, turned and went into his study, lazily curled up in his armchair, and entered his meditation space.

He first reviewed what had happened that day, especially the dark figure that looked like a large dog, and wrote down all sorts of observations and guesses on a long scroll of parchment.

Finally, after thinking for a moment, he wrote at the very top: "Suspected of being 'ominous'?"

Owen shook his head slightly, then pulled out another blank parchment and wrote a new title in beautiful cursive: Enhancement of the Vengeful Shadow's Revenge.

This magic, used to ward off curses, helped him greatly, but it had to be admitted that it had its limits and was difficult to withstand those sophisticated curses. Although it had once backfired on Voldemort's curse, Voldemort was in a very weak state at the time, and even if the opponent was a master of curses, the curse in that state wouldn't be very sophisticated.

"Perhaps we should try to find a solution from the realm of the soul," Owen muttered to himself, scribbling furiously on a piece of paper.

Time passed slowly, and only when he felt somewhat tired did he put down the quill pen. Before leaving the space, he casually glanced at the white mist writing floating on one side of the space, as usual, and saw a newly emerged line of writing:

[The connection point collection port has been deployed; please prepare to collect data.]

"Tsk, so they've finally arrived?" Irving casually shifted his gaze.

No matter what kind of strange incidents he encountered, after experiencing so many, he had become able to face them calmly. (End of Chapter)