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Inside an old, dusty room.
An antique ceiling fan spun noisily above, rattling with a ga zhi ga zhi sound.
Its blades were thick with years of dust. Each rotation sent wisps of fine particles drifting down in the dim light, cloaking the entire room in a hazy, nostalgic filter.
"I remember this place," Ian said.
His figure flitted busily from corner to corner, rummaging through the clutter on the table. Sometimes he bent down to look under it, sometimes he stood on tiptoe to reach the old boxes on high shelves.
Seeing Ian dashing about, seemingly searching for something, Lupin finally began to shake off his disbelief. Still confused, he asked Ian, "What are you looking for?"
Lupin was still struggling to comprehend what Ian had done to acquire so many shop deeds.
These were letters from the Sacred Twenty-Eight. Although it wasn't clear which house they came from, Lupin simply couldn't fathom how Ian had managed to obtain such astonishing wealth from their hands.
Lupin prided himself on having conducted a thorough background check on Ian. This boy was nothing more than the orphaned heir of a fallen Prince family, abandoned to an orphanage after their house declined.
At most, he might have had some strategic value to the Sacred Twenty-Eight. Even with all their deep-rooted influence, using Diagon Alley shops, essentially money-printing machines, as bribes was utterly absurd. And it wasn't just one or two shops, Lupin had seen the thick stack of deeds, and it made his vision blur.
He nearly cried on the spot.
He, a poor man, probably couldn't even afford to rent a toilet in Diagon Alley. The only explanation Lupin could come up with was that the Prince family had once forged a binding contract with one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight houses.
A magical contract, one that the Sacred Twenty-Eight couldn't ignore even if they wanted to. Otherwise, with their nature, they'd find a way to weasel out of any debt.
"Of course I'm looking for the symbol of my identity," Ian said.
Lupin blinked, momentarily stunned by the response, before glancing at the wand strapped to Ian's waist.
"Isn't the symbol of your identity hanging right there?" He figured Ian had simply overlooked the obvious, but his comment didn't stop Ian from continuing his search.
"I'm not talking about my wand."
Ian dumped a pile of his old toys on the floor, broken diggers, armless and legless toy soldiers, all things that had mostly been wrecked by his younger siblings.
"Honestly, I don't think you should carry your wand so visibly," Lupin warned. He knew how many pickpockets prowled London.
Even if they didn't recognize what a wand was, thieves wouldn't hesitate to snatch something that looked valuable. Lupin had seen wizards robbed of their wands by Muggle pickpockets before.
"I cast a Confundus Charm on it. Muggles won't notice anything's there," Ian replied calmly. Growing up as an orphan on the streets, he was more familiar with London's crime rates than Lupin was.
"You used magic outside school?" Lupin raised his eyebrows in surprise.
"I practice every day," Ian said matter-of-factly, revealing his strict self-discipline.
"You didn't get caught by the Ministry? Not even a warning letter?" Lupin was incredulous. He knew all too well how the Ministry monitored young wizards.
They used something called the Trace, a magical tracking charm more advanced than a typical Tracking Spell. It detected both a young wizard's location and any nearby magical activity.
Some said the trick was embedded in the wand itself, others believed it was part of a magical contract hidden within the Hogwarts acceptance letter, activating as soon as a student accepted their enrollment.
These were all just speculations from students who had run afoul of the rules. No one really knew the truth. Even many adult wizards still didn't understand how the Trace actually worked.
"I think they've been too busy with other stuff. Didn't you hear the Minister of Magic went to Hogwarts and came back with a serious case of Dumbledore-phobia?"
"My roommate said the Minister is now so paranoid he's afraid Dumbledore might poison his water. He makes his most trusted aides repeatedly sweep the Ministry for danger every day."
"They're already overwhelmed handling a paranoid Minister. Who has time to monitor some young wizard?" That was Ian's theory. He was also puzzled why the Ministry hadn't come after him. To be honest, he hadn't figured out the Trace either.
"Hah, a power-hungry official, blinded by authority. Anyone with eyes can see that if Dumbledore wanted to bring down a Minister, he'd never need to resort to something as petty as poisoning."
Lupin's tone carried clear disdain as he spoke. If Ian remembered correctly, Lupin was also a member of the Order of the Phoenix, someone with unwavering loyalty to Albus Dumbledore.
"Exactly."
Ian fully agreed with Lupin on this one.
"If you ask me, the real issue is Fudge's own warped sense of self-awareness…"
He muttered as he bent down and crawled halfway under his bed. But before he could finish his sentence, his voice abruptly cut off, and he froze completely.
Red soulfire lit up Ian's face.
Under the dark bedframe, he found himself face-to-face, wide-eyed, with a black-robed skeleton hiding underneath.
The atmosphere turned...awkward.
After more than ten seconds of silence,
"Wooo~"
The black-robed skeleton, perhaps wary of the person outside, finally raised its skeletal "claws" in a delayed attempt to scare Ian, though its voice came out barely above a whisper.
"..."
Ian stared at the bony creature and thought, This thing must be brain-damaged.
Then he looked at the skeleton's hollow skull.
Oh.
No brain.
Well, that explains it.
"What's wrong? Are you stuck under the bed?"
Lupin, watching from across the room, saw Ian's lower half sticking out motionless for quite some time and kindly stepped forward to help.
"No! I'm fine! Don't touch me!" Ian instantly wriggled backward like a snake, scrambling out and quickly getting to his feet, stopping Lupin from crouching down to talk to him.
He was already misunderstood enough by Lupin. If Lupin saw he was keeping a literal skeleton under his bed, Merlin only knew what kind of report he'd send to Albus Dumbledore.
Even though Ian didn't really believe Dumbledore would come after him, he still thought it was best not to disturb the headmaster during his holiday time with Grindelwald.
"You look kind of nervous."
Lupin didn't seem particularly suspicious, instead, he made his own assumptions. "Let me guess, you've hidden some adult magazines under the bed, haven't you?"
It was probably Lupin's experience talking. He wore the expression of someone who had "been there, done that" and thought he'd figured Ian out completely. Clearly, this was standard Gryffindor boy logic.
"Uh, yeah, that's right. I've got my own privacy…" Ian, being a physically and mentally well-adjusted, morally upright student, really didn't want to admit to such a ridiculous accusation.
But to avoid exposing the skeleton situation, he had to grit his teeth and accept this slander, silently swallowing the humiliation of being labeled a pervy kid, a label that wasn't entirely accurate.
Hmm…
Much like the terms "unemployed," "job-seeking," and "in a transitional career phase," Ian had just invented a new conceptual label for his current situation.
"You're a bit young for that stuff," Lupin said, patting Ian on the shoulder in a sympathetic, older-brother sort of way. "But I get it. Mature kids take charge early."
Ian forced a smile, awkward, yet polite.
(To Be Continued…)