From Azkaban to Hogwarts.

Lupin looked at the crowd with pleading eyes.

"I'm not very good at it."

“My expertise in this area is about the same as yours, Remus.”

"Sorry, I don't know much about Legilimency."

All three deans declined, so Lupin set his sights on William.

"Sorry, I'm still researching memory magic..."

William shook his head as well—his current focus was on Occlumency, and spells like Legilimency, which could be partially replaced by Truth Potion and had no defensive effect, were not currently within his research scope.

So Snape finally got his wish and walked up to Pettigrew, picking up his wand—if Dumbledore hadn't been watching, William would have had to pull out his wand to stop the crime, judging from his slightly smug smile.

However, the next moment, Snape's smug look vanished, replaced by regret, confusion, and a gnashing hatred.

'I've been attacked again...'

William, who was watching from the sidelines, became even more determined to postpone learning Legilimency—just as the natural enemy of Dementors is their guardian deity, the natural enemy of Legilimency is Occlumency.

That's not just a shield; it also has a backlash effect. Once the backlash occurs, the caster's own Occlumency spell will be rendered useless (Note).

After Snape painfully broke the spell, his eyes became even more somber.

"Use truth serum, Albus. I brewed a fresh batch over the summer. (Note)"

“I’m afraid we can’t determine the magnitude,” Dumbledore shook his head, “and he himself didn’t make any major mistakes.”

Brain block can counteract the effects of truth serum, and there are other ways to counteract it—basically, successful use of truth serum requires trickery or other methods to mix it with other substances before feeding it to the patient, or it has to be force-fed in a high dose, and the success rate is not high.

“Wake him up. We need to know what has happened all these years.”

Dumbledore ultimately made his decision.

Then, the stun spell was lifted, and Peter Pettigrew, now back in human form, slowly opened his eyes—William could even feel Lupin trembling beside him, almost dropping his wand…

"squeak?"

A sound like a mouse squeaking was heard, and then Little Pettigrew looked at everyone in confusion.

"Squeak? Squeak?"

He didn't even stand up; he turned around and crawled up on his backside, his demeanor and actions exactly like a rat.

"Peter?"

Lupin called out tentatively, but there was no response. Little Pettigrew, crawling on the ground, seemed not to recognize the guy named Peter at all. He just crawled on the ground, trying to find a dark corner.

Suddenly, he noticed a piece of candy that had accidentally fallen to the ground. He picked it up happily, brought it to his mouth, and then savored it in front of everyone.

"Squeak!"

As two cheerful sounds rang out, William saw Lupin's hands trembling wildly.

"Peter?"

He continued shouting, but his tone had lost all excitement; instead, it carried a strange sorrow, as if he had heard news of a friend's death. His face was deathly pale, as if he were under some kind of curse.

"Blemishes?"

William called out tentatively, and the little dwarf crawling on the ground reacted instantly. He even put down his food and tilted his head to look at William, just like a pet that was eating and suddenly heard someone call him.

This reaction made William instantly regret shouting out those words—he even saw Lupin next to him suddenly redden his eyes and his eyes become moist.

"Peter? Wormtail?"

Lupin's voice even sounded a little like he was crying; he was almost pleading.

But after Peter had shown some reaction, he stopped eating the candy and started eating it on his own, as if he had never heard of those two names before.

William clearly heard Professor McGonagall sniffling. Professor Flitwick simply turned his head away, unable to bear watching any longer. As for Professor Sprout, he even took out a handkerchief from his pocket and began wiping away his tears.

"Ugh…"

William sighed, shook his head, and couldn't bear to watch any longer. He turned his head and saw that Lupin had even put one hand on the chair, almost losing the strength to stand up.

It's better not to meet than to meet again—more than a decade has passed since we parted, and the living have become like animals. Forget about communication, we can't even exchange a simple greeting. There is no greater human tragedy than this.

“Remus, take him to the university hospital first…” Professor McGonagall’s voice was a little hoarse. “Mrs. Pomfrey will take good care of him; she’s a professional. Once he’s a little more stable, we’ll send Peter to St. Mungo’s. He’ll be fine, I promise.”

Professor Snape seemed to want to speak, but ultimately held back.

"Professor William, can you help me?"

Lu Ping asked, his eyes red-rimmed.

"Okay, how about we carry him over on a stretcher?"

“Hmm,” Lupin nodded, then conjured bandages with his wand. “We need to keep him under control—or he’ll hurt himself, that overconfident idiot…”

William quickly used Transfiguration to create a suitable stretcher, and then the two said a brief goodbye to Dumbledore before using their wands to control the stretcher and head towards the school hospital.

-

"Thank you for your hard work. Let's put him in a hospital bed first," Mrs. Pomfrey nodded to William and the others, her expression neither sad nor happy.

"Please, Mrs. Pomfrey."

Lupin finally came to his senses and earnestly asked the school doctor for help.

“I do my best to treat every patient… but…” She shook her head, leaving the rest of her words unsaid—other professors might not know, but self-defense techniques and treatment overlapped so much that it was impossible for the two professors not to know.

“Let’s go, Professor Lupin. We need to give Mrs. Pomfrey enough time to examine her. If we’re here, she’ll only be distracted by us.”

William tugged at Lupin, who was pulled away in a daze.

It wasn't until William took him to his office and asked the elf to bring him some wine that Lupin felt a little better after two drinks.

"Damn Blake!"

William heard the sound of gritted teeth, "He's a complete bastard! We studied together for so long, how come I didn't recognize that bastard's true colors!"

“James was killed by him, and now he’s ruined Peter like this!”

Lupin slammed his fist on the table. "He should rot to death in Azkaban!"

"... "

"You scoundrel, shameless, despicable!"

"... "

Lupin didn't seem to have a lot of swear words. Half a day passed, and he hadn't come up with any new words even after drinking a whole bottle of wine. Finally, he slumped heavily onto William's table, his head sinking, and fell asleep.

'Sigh... I'm a werewolf, my friends are being killed, and my brothers are being betrayed...'

William looked at Lupin, sighed, and then poured himself another drink.

Thanks to the alcohol, he finally recovered from his previous sorrow.

'Something feels off...'

The scene was too bleak, but now that he had calmed down a bit, William felt like he had been deceived.

"The Animagus, having lost his memory, has even forgotten that he is a human being..."

"However, the biggest problem is that, according to the original reports and the records that have been dug up again, Sirius Black stayed where he was after he supposedly killed Peter Pettigrew and laughed, and then he was arrested and imprisoned."

"Whether Peter was controlled by the Transfiguration technique or trapped in the Animagus transformation, Sirius wouldn't have had time to resell it to a store after he controlled him."

"But how could a store sell rats of unknown origin without going through special channels?"

Wizard pets are different from ordinary mice; they require simple training.

Even pet mice can't be caught directly in the wild; they're bred generation after generation—just think about the price, and you'll understand. The training of wild mice and the training of domesticated mice are not even in the same league.

Besides, rats reproduce quickly and are easy to raise; even the most down-on-their-luck shop wouldn't catch wild rats to train.

So here's the question—how did a deformed rat sneak into a pet store?

Sirius's plan?

That's impossible—if Sirius had the time or inclination to arrange this, he wouldn't have been standing there laughing as he entered Azkaban.

There's definitely a problem, but I can't say it outright.

William shook his head. Given Peter's current state, if he dared to say there was a problem without any special evidence, Lupin could challenge him to a duel while drunk—to put it bluntly, his guesses were just guesses, and he had many seemingly plausible excuses.

'I need to check that pet store, and then check other things—although Little Stark didn't say anything, the fact that an Animagus alone is capable of countering Professor Snape's Occlumency tells me a lot.'

William pointed at the bookshelf, and a magic book immediately flew out.

'Let me calculate, I was turned into a rat through the Animagus twelve years ago…'

'The newspaper clearly states it, no need to verify the information—Little Star graduated in 1978, and then the accident happened in 1981…'

'Three years to learn Animagus?'

Or is it that you can learn it on campus?

William looked at Lupin, who was lying there drunk, "Wormtail—I think Lupin shouted that out..."

"A worm's tail, does that refer to a rat?"

"That's...on campus?"

"Wait—I've seen this name before!"

William suddenly remembered the parchment!

Chapter 298 Guardianship in Various Meanings

Late at night, at Hogwarts Hospital.

The school hospital, which had only recently opened for the semester, had no other patients requiring hospitalization, and the surroundings were so quiet that not even a mosquito could be heard—Madame Pomfrey possessed a superhuman amount of knowledge about those details-oriented magic techniques.

The only patient, Peter Pettigrew, was lying quietly in bed, but his eyes were not closed.

"Are we going to run away?"

He pondered this idea for a long time, but he still couldn't make up his mind.

Sirius Black already knows he's not dead and is now hunting him down all over the world—if he escapes Hogwarts, he'll hardly have to worry about being caught by Sirius anymore.

However, that would also mean that Dumbledore would realize that there were serious problems with what happened before.