From Azkaban to Hogwarts.

Chapter 505 The Cat's Natural Enemy is the Dog

"How are you feeling now, Harry?"

At the edge of the Forbidden Forest, Lupin held an umbrella for Harry, his eyes full of concern.

Having just finished his first Animagus transformation, Harry gripped his wand again, glanced at Sirius Black who had been taken away, and quickly looked away like Lupin. "Well, to be honest, it felt a bit strange, but it wasn't bad."

"It's like seeing the world from another perspective, and I feel like I've lost the ability to speak, but gained something else in return..."

Harry said, glancing at his wand, "It's really hard to imagine that Animagus Transfiguration could eventually be used without a wand."

“That’s normal,” Lupin glanced at Blake, who was being dragged in mid-air, out of the corner of his eye, and decided to pretend he hadn’t seen anything. “We’ve actually had a few very, very interesting discussions in our office.”

"That is, is the wand also a kind of limitation for wizards?"

As Lupin spoke, he tried tapping the trees around him with his left hand. After failing, he shook his head with a smile and then began to make a series of rather clumsy hand gestures.

As the final gesture was completed, some of the leaves on the tree began to fall, turning into petals scattered on the ground.

“Look, I’m far from that,” Lupin said, looking at his left hand. “Professor William shared all the interesting information he’d collected, but perhaps because he’s used to wand spells, Professor Moody and I aren’t very adaptable to it. Right now, we can only cast the simplest spells without a wand or incantation.”

"Of course, Professor Moody is a bit better, but he only managed the most suitable Transfiguration transformation... It seems we've strayed a bit from the topic..."

Lupin smiled. "For the next while, you'll need to familiarize yourself with Animagus transformations while controlling your learning pace, Harry. I hope you can keep this life-saving spell hidden and not show off too much in Transfiguration..."

"Too outstanding?"

Harry felt he couldn't quite grasp the concept—with a friend like Hermione, probably not many people would say they wished they weren't too outstanding.

“That’s right. Although it’s a bit hard to accept, even Miss Granger can’t catch up with you until you explore your own Transfiguration—” Lupin sighed. “Before they learned Animagus in their fifth year, they would occasionally refer to my Transfiguration assignments, and after they finished, those problems that took me a long time to understand, they could solve with just a glance…”

Those were truly disheartening years—even in the advanced Transfiguration class, human transformation, one of the ultimate Transfiguration techniques, was not something every student could explore, yet Animagus's training directly accomplished just that…

If you had to use a recent video game analogy, it would be like collecting all the items to win the game and defeating the boss halfway through, then turning around and starting over from the middle again...

"You can tell just by looking?"

Harry was somewhat surprised, but his left hand involuntarily began to mimic Lupin's movements with light, quick strokes. Just as he realized what he was about to do, he prepared to stop, but a strange feeling arose—if he just kept going…

This feeling is like being afraid of hairy insects, entirely subconscious—or like a professor teaching him some aggressive spells, which he immediately understood and used.

He followed his instincts, made the final gesture with his left hand, and then lightly tapped the tree. Instantly, the leaves on the tree began to transform into flower buds, which then began to bloom at an incredible speed…

"... "

"... "

Harry looked at Lupin, Lupin looked at Harry…

"Let's practice Animagus transformation a bit more... and try to be able to cast spells quickly without a staff..."

After a moment of hesitation, Lu Ping finally managed to utter this sentence.

-

"Professor William, it seems your friend has come looking for you!"

William, engrossed in dealing with a jumbled mess of curses, suddenly heard this report. He quickly put down what he was doing, quietly prepared his defenses, then grabbed his wand, ready to see which friend had come to Greece…

He was prepared. If it was someone who genuinely didn't want to reveal their name coming to visit, he would simply run away—shouting wouldn't do any good. If he didn't shout, the people inside could still live; if he did shout, it would force that person to silence him…

With this in mind, he quickly arrived at the entrance hall of the corridor, casually took out the time converter, and directly pulled out his own illusory image—after last year's research and this year's experience, he was already able to create his own dummy with this thing, lifelike, not very useful, but at least able to fool a wave of attacks.

'But that's all I can do. This thing is too dangerous... I don't want to die without knowing why...'

After making it even more realistic, William had the dummy walk in front, and then he heard a joyful shout from ahead.

"William, over here!!!"

'Adams? What's he doing here?'

As William pondered this, he casually pulled out a revealing potion, leaned against the wall, and propelled his avatar forward. As Adams ran over, he casually splashed the potion onto him.

"Hey, why aren't you saying anything—what?"

The drug test was successful—it was indeed Adams. William nodded, dispelling the sham. "What are you doing in Greece?"

"Tourism—why would they create an aggressive mannequin...?"

Adams grumbled as he used his wand to dispel the potions, muttering, "I should have known..."

"Necessary checks, necessary checks. Come, come, this is the reception room—you need to sign a confidentiality agreement to go in. You have to go through a few steps before you can go in."

"No need, professors, please come in!"

The wizard who came to greet them barely suppressed a laugh, and also lowered his voice, "This isn't a high-priority unit, so please remember not to send those famous items..."

"You don't need to worry. Excavations are permitted here, and every year a huge amount of stuff is unearthed and sent to us..."

As if afraid William wouldn't believe him, the wizard in charge of reception even showed off a few small trinkets he carried with him, "Of course, the really famous ones definitely won't do, but you can rest assured about the rest..."

...

'So, have I been too focused on studying curses these past few days?'

Ultimately, William did not take Adams to the inner room, politely declining the receptionist's offer with a smile, and stating that he was currently unaware of the institution's inventory records and, of course, had no intention of interfering...

"Go ahead and do it. Desserts and drinks are perfectly fine, and we have alcohol too, but I can't drink with you..."

William smiled and sat down. "If we want souvenirs, we can just buy some on the black market. As long as they're not particularly illegal, I should be able to get them."

“Thanks then. I was just thinking of bringing some special ingredients to Singed,” Adams agreed without hesitation, then looked at William, “At first I thought it was just someone with the same name. If they hadn’t specifically said they were a professor at Hogwarts, I wouldn’t have believed it…”

"Why are you showing your face here? I remember you kept your whereabouts a secret all summer!"

“Don’t even mention it,” William sighed. “The things we want to pursue are all controlled by the authorities. If we don’t reveal our identities, they’ll let a wizard of unknown origin participate in our research?”

"What's all this secrecy about?"

"Most are curses, a small portion are modern applications of various ancient spells..."

"They should go to a bigger institution, the Greeks are so stingy..." Adams complained. "The same thing happened at the conference I attended before. I traveled all that way to listen to a bunch of wizards discussing things, but the food wasn't even as good as Hogwarts..."

"I still can't skip it... Professor Sprout pushed all the meetings onto me... It's finally over... These meetings never end..."

As Adams spoke, he suddenly remembered something and pulled a book from his bag. "A gift for you—it was supposed to be an introduction to local poisons, and also some black magic..."

William didn't take the book, but looked at Adams with a questioning gaze.

Do you have some misconceptions about the position of professor of self-defense?

We teach students how to deal with black magic, not the other way around.

At the same time, as an apothecary, I concoct potions to save lives, or at the very least, potions for other purposes, but poisons…

This doesn't seem quite right, like telling the chef to feed the pigs...

"Fine, I give up. Don't go to such lengths to prepare gifts next time..." William glared at him, annoyed. "You're terrible at self-defense; you can't even fight back when you're getting beaten up..."

Adams's laughter, which had already begun to flow freely, came to an abrupt halt...

-

"My wallet suffered a little loss... but I did manage to find some useful items."

After William returned from the black market and saw Adams off, he couldn't help but sigh – he hadn't personally tested the curse yet, so whether it would provide a huge boost was still unknown, but his eyesight had certainly improved rapidly.

After seeing all sorts of genuine goods, he could hardly hide anything from the black market.

At first glance, you can tell whether something gives you the right feeling or not.

At first glance, Azkaban's knowledge of forgery techniques was enough to discern exactly what techniques were used to make this fake...

To put it simply, he even managed to snag a bargain…

"I feel like this unsealing team isn't going to improve me much anymore. I can quickly finish my first report and then go check out those key units..."

It just so happened that word got out that he was unwilling to accept some small gifts from the team. Although everyone's attitude didn't change, it still felt strange—it was time to switch teams.

'Accepting these items and giving a few to Adams wouldn't necessarily lead to this, but... this is his territory... if I really took them, I'd probably never see those best things again in my life... pretending I don't know is the best course of action...'

-

"Unbelievable... they actually launched a sneak attack..."

When Sirius woke up, clutching his head, he was already in Filch's room.

“Um, Mr. Black, Professor McGonagall asked you to mop the castle floor…”

Filch tried to speak calmly, still somewhat confused by Professor McGonagall's actions—it was not unheard of for her to refute the board of directors, to fall out with them, or even to completely expel them from the board.

But... having a school board member mop the floor...

This was truly something that had never happened before in the history of Hogwarts.

He was a traditional administrator, keen to restore old systems, including, but not limited to, taking more measures against errant students and ghosts, and banning more new contraband from entering the school.

He loved the castle and its stories, so when Professor McGonagall brought a school board member to him bound and gagged, he hesitated greatly… He had to listen to the headmaster, but this man was a school board member.

"Mopping the floor?"

Sirius's eyes widened—this worried Filch a little; in all these years, Hogwarts had made such demanding requests of the Board of Governors…

"It's just mopping the floor, why did you have to knock me out?"

...

'It's hopeless... The glory of the past is gone...'

Filch was somewhat upset by what a school board member said...

"Where are the mops...? Could you lend me a few more?"

"can."

Filch decided to give the school board members enough face—students would naturally use one mop to mop the floor, but the school board members could take more.

-

"Ah, Blake?"

"It's me," Sirius Black, who had stopped his magic at the sound of footsteps in the distance, looked up while pretending to hold a mop. He spotted a Gryffindor classmate he used to play with back in school. "Long time no see. How have you been?"

"Fortunately, the family business is doing well," he shook hands with Sirius, "What's this?"

"Mopping the floor, letting me soak up the atmosphere of the school. Come to think of it, we've all graduated for a long time, but doing a little work here reminds me of the happy times we had back in the castle."

Sirius casually concealed some of the truth, but still managed to touch the hearts of his former classmates.