From Azkaban to Hogwarts.

Fortunately, Sirius didn't intend to protest much—he was more comfortable with Harry and Lupin than with the market.

"It's so good that you're back."

At the hospital entrance, Mrs. Pomfrey rarely smiled. "You weren't this punctual when you were in school."

She learned at work today that Sirius had gone to the market yesterday, but she wasn't too angry—moderate exercise is necessary.

All she did today was remind the two of them to limit their time spent wandering around, and to her delight, they both did it.

Lupin and Sirius exchanged a glance, their expressions turning awkward—if they were alone, they would probably be smiling knowingly, but Harry, wearing the Invisibility Cloak, was behind them.

“Oh, by the way, Professor McGonagall came to see Mr. Black today,” Mrs. Pomfrey said, “but she wasn’t in a good mood; she left a fruit basket and left—no wonder, given what happened.”

Chapter 318 Quidditch and Self-Defense Lessons

"This is roughly the course schedule. Professor William, you can use this as a reference."

In the faculty lounge, Lupin placed the prepared lesson plans in front of William. "Thank you for your help, Professor William."

“It’s okay, but they might not accept this fact,” William said with a smile as he took the book and flipped through it—because of the Saturday tutoring sessions, he didn’t really know much about Lupin’s course.

"Hmm...you've learned all of this?"

William pointed to the last few organisms on the lesson plan and said, "Professor Lupin, your teaching pace is very fast. It seems I need to make some adjustments."

"My God, you actually prepared the test paper?"

Singed, who had been listening with a smile, couldn't hold back any longer. He stared at William with an incredulous look on his face.

"Let's get a feel for how well the students have grasped the material during this period—is there a problem with that?"

William spread his hands and turned to Lupin. "Should the exam paper be placed in your office, Professor Lupin?"

Lupin hesitated for a moment, but finally nodded. Although he was too inclined to use exam papers to assess students' usual learning, the students had all been handed over to William, and the exams had already been taken, so it shouldn't be unreasonable for him to take a look at the papers.

“Okay, it’s settled then. By the way—” William lowered his voice, “Have you come up with a reason for taking leave? You need to stick to the same explanation. Those students at school are very curious.”

"Can't I be sick?"

Lupin was taken aback.

“Be more specific…” William shook his head, then launched into a completely irresponsible rant, “You underestimated the curiosity of those students—you might as well say you were experimenting with making truth serum and then got poisoned… After all, that stuff requires a monthly cycle, and if you're hospitalized next month, everyone will just think you went and tried it again.”

“That might be a surprisingly good idea…” Lupin smiled, clearly not taking it seriously. “Alright, I’ll go check what disease I might have…”

This remark caused the professors gathered together to laugh.

"Thump... Ouch!"

A child's innocent voice rang out, followed by Afra's earnest apology.

"Sorry, Uncle, I was just trying to scare them and then I didn't notice you."

Professor Snape, who was being apologized to, seemed a little irritated, but there was something else mixed in. He didn't even say anything, and left with a livid face.

After the door to the faculty lounge closed, Afra glanced at it, then raised her hands high, stuck out her tongue, and ran towards William and the others. "Afra is here! Even though she was discovered!"

"Professor Taylor has finally decided to let you come to school to play?"

Singed smiled, then took out a small box from his person. "Take this and play with it, Afra."

"Thank you, Uncle."

Afra steadied herself, bowed respectfully to Singid, and then eagerly accepted the gift.

"Oh, right, that uncle who looked really fierce was eavesdropping with a strange expression, so Afra bumped into him!"

As if remembering something, she loudly proclaimed her recent achievement.

'I guess he wants to teach? Lupin is on leave, so Professor Snape wants to take this opportunity to have some fun?'

He shook his head in confusion, 'I've already prepared the exam papers, how could something like this happen?'

-

'Lupin...Blake.'

Snape walked down the corridor, his heart filled with indescribable complex emotions.

He hated Black and Lupin, but now he had to thank Black for his relentless pursuit of Peter Pettigrew.

But he knew perfectly well why Blake was chasing that rat.

'Useless...couldn't you just kill that damned rat?'

'No…it shouldn’t be me…no, no…I should kill myself…' he told himself, 'How did you have the courage to live…wasn’t this all caused by you?'

'I have to protect him…no…I hate him…'

A jumble of thoughts surfaced and settled in his mind, then more bizarre ideas emerged.

Sometimes he longed to infiltrate Azkaban and personally deal with that conman named Pettigrew; sometimes he wanted to heed Albus's advice and prolong his life until he killed the real killer; and sometimes he wanted to grab Lupin and Black by the throat and interrogate them…

"professor?"

Suddenly a voice rang out; it was Marcus Flint, his Quidditch captain.

"We need a permit... We're going to play against Gryffindor, and we need more training."

Gryffindor... Gryffindor...

“Okay,” Snape nodded, “go to my office.”

-

'Oh my god... my class!'

Harry was running wildly down the corridor—because tomorrow was the day of the match against Slytherin, and Oliver Wood, their captain, was giving him new hints even during the shortest break between classes, so much so that he was still listening to questions about the match formations in the corridor during class.

'Damn it... what's the point of skipping Lupin's class?'

He was momentarily speechless—Sirius had mentioned yesterday that skipping classes was a common occurrence at Hogwarts, and now he was skipping Lupin's class.

Not to mention he had promised to spend more time with Lupin, but he broke his promise as soon as he made the promise.

'This way, that's it... we've finally arrived!'

Harry rushed to the door, and without even calming his heartbeat, he pushed it open and ran inside.

"I'm sorry I'm late, Professor Lupin, I—"

But the person on the podium wasn't Professor Lupin at all, but Professor William. The entire classroom fell silent, and everyone sat up straight, looking at Harry.

'Did I go to the wrong classroom? But Ron and Hermione… no, everyone's here?'

“This class started ten minutes ago—” William looked at Harry with a smile, “but you haven’t missed anything. There’s still plenty of time for the exam. Sit down, find a seat, and start the exam, Harry.”

Harry then noticed that everyone had a test paper full of questions in front of them, and judging from their expressions, it seemed that no one liked this arrangement.

"Excuse me, Professor, what about Professor Lupin?"

“I’m sick,” William said, trying to put on a sad expression.

There was no other way, because a child had appeared in the castle, and Lupin secretly asked him to check the wolfsbane potion again—although Dumbledore vouched for Professor Snape's trustworthiness, he was still somewhat uneasy.

Of course, the examination was conducted in secret, and William personally watched Lupin take the medicine and also cast a protective spell on his office.

But this meant that William wasn't really worried about Professor Lupin's husky-like sleeping posture after drinking the potion—if it weren't for respecting privacy, he would even be a little curious about how a werewolf would sleep after transforming.

"The name of that disease is a bit hard to pronounce, and I'm not quite sure about it either, but it will definitely be cured next week."

William nodded. "So, hurry up and do the test. Like I said at the beginning, try to do it as carefully as possible. The grades will be given for reference—if the overall grades are too low, Professor Lupin may have to change his teaching methods."

This statement was incredibly impactful; even Harry, who was about to compete, instantly forgot about the so-called plans and tactics, focusing all his attention on the test paper.

It's obvious even without thinking that changing the teaching model is definitely not easier, especially since there's already a teaching model for this course.

'Hmm, this should reveal some things—the advantages and disadvantages of the Lupin teaching method.'

"The questions are of moderate difficulty; there should be some perfect scores," he said, watching Hermione, who was the fastest at answering the questions, "but I'm not sure how many."

However, it was only natural that everyone else wore masks of pain on their faces – the previous self-defense course had been the most popular, with everyone happily singing as they arrived at the classroom to prepare for today's lesson, only to be suddenly hit in the face with a test paper.

...

"Very good, time's up."

William snapped his fingers, and a pile of papers flew toward the podium, stacking neatly together—after hard training, William's magic of simultaneously manipulating multiple objects was now passable.

"The exam is over, we can start class now."

Chapter 319 The Marauder's Map and Quidditch

"Ouch... It's so cold... Did I kick the cup away again?"

Half-asleep, Harry felt a chill on the back of his neck and realized something was wrong.

Without any hesitation, he reached out and touched the side of the pillow closest to the bed.

The next second, the curse tore through the darkness and struck the source of the cold wind with tremendous force.

"Obstacles are numerous!"

"Thump—Ouch..."

A dark shadow crashed heavily to the ground, and Harry tensed up – could it be that he was acting out of his mind and had attacked the prankster?

But the facts quickly put his mind at ease.

"Potter, the dirty one! Potter, the sneak attacker!..."

The voice of the mischievous sprite came and then faded away, cursing all the way through the walls. Clearly, its prank had failed—the strength and mood of this magical sprite were both a mystery, leaving no room for guessing.

'Damn it, it's still pitch black.'

Harry glanced out the window and saw that it was windy and raining heavily outside.

There's a game today... and it won't be postponed because of the rain. Will Sirius be going?

"Harry, was that Peeves just now?"

Simon, Harry's roommate, mumbled a question while half asleep, then fell asleep again before Harry could answer.

As for Ron and the others, they didn't even wake up.