From Azkaban to Hogwarts.

The Dark Lord tapped the head of one of his Death Eaters with his new wand—he was exceptionally pleased with his new companion.

"Yes, Lord Dark Lord."

“So,” Tom laughed smugly, “what exactly is it that you’ve forgotten?”

“It was Barty Crouch who attacked me,” Bertha said, her face filled with disbelief. “I never expected… I never expected…”

"Barty Crouch?"

“Yes, Barty Crouch—he attacked me because I overheard him talking to his elf!”

Bertha raised her head, her eyes becoming incredibly resolute.

"He imprisoned his son, Barty Crouch Jr., in the house and controlled him with the Imperius Curse! That young man is loyal to you, Lord Dark Lord! He seems to have been planning to escape and find you!"

"Barty?"

"Yes, Lord Dark Lord."

"He actually..."

Voldemort's expression softened slightly. After a half-minute silence, he said, "His loyalty will be rewarded, but it's not the right time yet. Bertha—any news of that former headmistress?"

"Not yet, it seems someone is helping him... We can't pinpoint his whereabouts."

"Find him quickly, he's a troublemaker... Also, Bertha... we need more people to join our cause..."

Chapter 510 The End of the Holiday

"Ouch..."

With a low howl, Harry woke up, and after a moment of confusion, he remembered that he had fallen asleep as an Animagus.

Sirius Black is easy to talk to in other areas, but when it comes to training, he's incredibly demanding.

Fortunately, he has gotten used to it and has consistently performed very well.

She lightly jumped off the bed and then examined it—it was covered in wolf fur.

After a slight sigh, Harry could only ignore it. After all, according to Sirius's requirements, he had to remain in his shapeshifting state for a long time, not even when sleeping, let alone changing back to his original form for something as simple as making his bed.

Looking down at his front paws, Harry wondered if he felt a little unfamiliar with using a knife and fork...

He shook his head, pounced on the door with his front paws, and then skillfully walked down to the kitchen on all fours to prepare for breakfast.

"I hope I can have something hot to eat today..."

Harry thought to himself—he wasn't being mistreated; the raw meat Sirius had prepared was of the highest quality.

However, he found himself increasingly craving raw food, which alarmed him, fearing that he might start demanding rare or raw steaks in the future…

"Perfect, Harry!"

Sirius clapped his hands, then quickly picked up Harry and weighed him in his arms. "He seems to have gained some weight—indeed, Animagus can gain weight..."

"Bigfoot!"

Lupin lodged a serious protest, causing Sirius to quickly let go of his hand and return to the table. "Alright, alright, Harry, your Transfiguration training can end for a while. From today onwards, you won't need to be in Transfiguration all the time."

"Ouch..."

Harry growled softly, then stood upright. His fur quickly disappeared, revealing his clothes that had been tucked into his skin, and his front paws transformed back into hands…

"some…"

Harry remained crouched, too afraid to stand up. "I'm feeling a little dizzy," he said.

“You’ve been in that transformation for so long, you’re getting used to that view,” Sirius Black went over and handed Harry his hand, pulled him up, and then helped him to sit down at the table. “How does it feel to return to normal after such a long transformation?”

"My head is still spinning," Harry said, leaning back in his chair, feeling completely out of sorts. "Is today's training going to be canceled?"

“Yes,” Sirius nodded, “you’ve pretty much mastered the basics of concealment and getting used to life in shapeshifting. Your skills are good enough to fool others. Communicating with the pack is something you’ll need to learn gradually…”

"Communicating with the wolf pack?"

Harry had never heard of such a thing before.

"Otherwise, the Aurors and the strikers back then couldn't have imagined that almost every dog ​​was my informant. Like that traitor, who was able to gather a lot of information from the rats..."

"It's a bit of a pity that there are fewer and fewer wild wolf packs now. If this were in the Middle Ages, you would probably have heard more information than any wizard."

Lupin interjected—he didn't want Sirius to dwell too much on which traitor, since the revenge had already been taken, and he hoped Sirius could focus more on planning his future.

"It's okay, Muggles always say that dogs and wolves are pretty much the same, Harry, you can try learning from them..."

Sirius chuckled and joked, then quickly changed the subject before Lupin could speak, "By the way, there's actually another reason why the special training ended."

He and Lupin exchanged a glance, their expressions turning extremely serious. "You should know what time of year it is, right?"

"Um…"

Harry's mind was still a bit disoriented by the new perspective. After a moment of blank staring, he still couldn't figure it out and could only shake his head helplessly.

"This year is the year of OWLS!"

Sirius and Lupin said this almost in unison, and Harry was stunned for a moment before accepting the message.

OWLS year, yes—wait, OWLS year!

Harry's face turned deathly pale—because of the intensive training he'd been doing lately, he hadn't been able to catch up on his homework for a very, very long time!

"That's right, this is it. From now on, you must work hard to complete your homework. We will do our best to help you find information and solve any problems you don't understand."

Lupin's tone became quite serious, and with his professor-like demeanor, his words were very authoritative.

The help he was talking about was clearly not what Harry wanted to see. Merlin's beard, his homework was still so far behind!

Still not quite used to his academic prowess, Harry recalled his old tricks again—asking Hermione for help.

Although Hermione would be angry to see that he hadn't finished his homework, she would most likely declare outright that he shouldn't even think about getting a single bit of it from her. However, if he pleaded with her nicely, Hedwig would probably bring back that life-saving homework from afar.

Previously, the person to be wary of was her uncle's family; now, it's Lupin...

'It's over... Lupin...'

Harry suddenly had suicidal thoughts—he'd been busy with Sirius's special training lately, barely having time to reply to Cho's letters, and as for Hermione…

The top student in the grade originally planned to use the summer vacation to cram for his self-defense course and was going to visit a friend's house for a while, hoping to audit the self-defense professor's classes, but Harry refused with great fear.

Normally, he would be more than happy to have Hermione as a guest, but now that she's actually coming, he'll be in for a lot of trouble explaining himself when school starts... Thanks to this, Harry thinks he's unlikely to get any assignments that will save him his life.

It was no use looking for Lupin—he had no choice but to turn to Sirius for help, only to be met with a helpless look from Sirius.

"Okay, let's see what homework you still have left, and then make a schedule."

Lupin was unusually impartial. Just as Harry was about to ask Lupin to go easy on him for special reasons, like Professor McGonagall had done, Lupin simply shrugged.

"Professor William will be your tutor after the start of the semester. I handed in the assignment sheets to Professor William before the holidays."

...

A decisive blow...

Harry was in a state of near despair—all his Quidditch teammates, when mentioning the Professor, described his fifth year as purgatory…

-

"Ah!"

William sneezed and then became fully awake.

I was just about to complain when I was drawn to the foreign object in my mouth—a dried mandrake leaf that I had just stuffed in there.

Because the first step of the ceremony can only be performed on the day of the full moon each month, William could only perform the first step of the leaf-holding ceremony as this holiday was coming to an end.

He had already tried using similar herbs while eating, sleeping, and talking, so he was relatively used to it, although he felt strange when he woke up in the morning.

"Speaking of which, summer vacation is almost over, and I wonder how many students are still catching up on their homework..."

He didn't believe that all the students could finish their assignments on time, especially those who were about to enter fifth grade—because this was OWLS year, every professor was doing their best to cram them with assignments.

Therefore, most students are theoretically catching up at this time, but it's not a big problem.

Summer homework is meant to help students maintain their learning rhythm. Students with a plan can adjust themselves after the holiday, while those without a plan frantically complete assignments to get back into the school mindset, so they won't have trouble adjusting when classes start again.

"I should get back to preparing my lessons..."

William yawned as he got up, glanced out the window, and saw that the sky was just right.

Because of that Horcrux, he hadn't left the school at all during this period. He had to patiently check himself every day until these last few days when he finally relaxed, did some test papers, rode his flying broom, and then went to the library to study Horcrux-related knowledge.

However, the latter has made little progress—it is unclear whether this was intentional on Dumbledore's part, but apart from the book William obtained from him, none of the books in the library mention the terrifying existence of Horcruxes.

As for other things... the only thing worth mentioning is his understanding of curses. After witnessing that extremely terrifying curse, William studied the book introducing the knowledge of voodoo more deeply, especially the voodoo dolls. He can now create voodoo dolls that can withstand most curses and last for more than a month.

"After finishing this test paper, I'll go practice flying some more..."

Looking at the azure sky outside, William stopped what he was doing and began to ponder—although the fish in the Black Lake were still quite thin these past few days, they were still manageable. After flying away, he could just find a corner to crouch down and have a fish…

That's good, very good...

-

"Albus, I'm back..."

In Dumbledore's office, a slightly gray-haired, travel-worn man sat down unceremoniously in the chair in front of Dumbledore and picked up a dessert from the table without any hesitation.

"How was the journey, Alastor?"

“Very bad…”

Moody tore open the outer packaging, sniffed it with his mutilated nose, and then put it in his mouth. "If you ask me, the Ministry of Magic over there is absolutely terrible—oh, right, they're called the Magical Congress again… anyway, it's awful."

How bad was it?

Dumbledore tapped the table, and two drinks appeared.

Moody poured some onto the table, then mixed it with some of his potions before picking up his own glass. "It's complete chaos. They're even affecting the magical world in Canada..."

"What's even more ridiculous is that, despite the chaos, those guys from the Magic Congress still firmly believe that they have no problems whatsoever and that everything is under control!"

"I never imagined something so outrageous could happen—the Purgers have all shown up, yet those guys from the Magic Council are completely ignoring them!"

Moody complained, "I originally wanted to help Ifamoni find out who orchestrated all of this, but I couldn't get a clue at all!"

"It's true that I can easily spot a potential dark wizard among a group of normal wizards, but how am I supposed to find one when there are dark wizards everywhere..."