The scene before Ron was utterly bizarre, and it felt as though a thousand voices were going off inside his head.
One voice insisted that Scabbers was his pet rat, a perfectly ordinary pet who had been with him for years…
Hadn't he even bravely hurled himself at Malfoy and Goyle once?
Another voice was warning him that this man was probably telling the truth…
How could a rat possibly live that long?
And Scabbers really was missing part of a finger.
How could that much coincidence even exist?
Ron swallowed with difficulty.
"What am I supposed to do?"
he asked tentatively, turning to Sean.
"Give Scabbers to me. The new magic hand mirror will record him transforming into a man. As for whether Sirius is telling the truth or not, the Daily Prophet will report it."
Sean said.
The new version of the magic hand mirror came with a recording function.
A wizard could record a short video clip, only a few minutes long, and anyone connected to the same magic network could watch it when they opened their mirror.
That function was highly limited, though—the recording could only be kept for a week.
Sean was holding the prototype himself. It had not yet been released or advertised.
But at the moment, it was exactly what they needed.
"Transform into a man?"
Ron felt the room spin around him.
Why hadn't he thought of that?
When they said Scabbers was Peter Pettigrew, he had instinctively skipped over the fact that Scabbers was still, physically, a rat.
But now he remembered it, and that meant…
"No! Peter Pettigrew… how could he… Oh, Sean, of course I believe you—you know I trust you more than anyone. But… but…"
Ron's face flushed red. He looked at Sean, but the words jammed in his throat.
"How did Peter Pettigrew become a rat?"
Sean knew exactly what Ron wanted to ask, so he gave a small nod.
Before Ron's horrified eyes, the gaunt man in front of him transformed in an instant into a huge black dog.
Ron froze in alarm as he realized that this black dog was the exact same one they had seen at the Leaky Cauldron.
"He's an Animagus. An unregistered Animagus, just like me."
The black dog leapt, and in the next instant turned back into the gaunt wizard.
That was the moment Ron fully believed it.
He collapsed into a chair as though his strings had been cut.
"I let him sleep on my bed…"
Ron said weakly.
"Think of it a better way, Ron."
Sean said.
"What better way?"
Ron asked, clinging desperately to the smallest possible hope.
"At least, as one of Voldemort's followers, he didn't kill your whole family."
Sirius said in an extremely "gentle" tone.
Ron looked completely shattered.
…
Half an hour later.
In the corridor—
"Is there anything else I need to do?"
Ron looked awful, as though Scabbers's true identity had personally insulted his very sense of self.
"After the last class ends, we meet at the castle entrance. I'll take Peter then."
Sean said simply.
"Oh, right. Harry?"
"He's probably still at Quidditch practice…"
Ron said.
"He hasn't really been going much lately, ever since… well, ever since we decided… you know, to work toward becoming Aurors."
Sean looked toward the far horizon.
Scottish weather always changed quickly. Just moments ago the sky had been perfectly clear, and now clouds had already rolled in.
Bai Yi came fluttering down from the beech treetops and landed on Sean's finger.
"Tell Harry I've brought him. After the last lesson, at the castle entrance."
Sean said.
Even though magic hand mirrors had become the main form of communication among wizards, when it came to especially private messages, they still preferred owls.
Just as in the age of instant messaging, some people still wrote love letters by hand.
The owl's wings tore through the clouds.
Above the clouds, the sunlight still blazed. Below them, on the Quidditch pitch, the terrible weather had done nothing to interrupt the teams' training.
The first Quidditch match was getting closer, and under Madam Hooch's supervision, the Gryffindor team was training harder than ever.
Distracted, Harry chased the Golden Snitch while listening to Oliver Wood deliver some bad news to the team.
"We're not playing Slytherin!"
Wood said furiously.
"Flint just came to see me. We're playing Hufflepuff instead. The second match will be Ravenclaw against Hufflepuff."
"Why?"
the players all asked at once, though Harry barely paid attention.
"Flint says one of their Beaters is injured."
Wood said through clenched teeth.
"It's obvious what they're doing. They don't want to play in weather like this because they think it hurts their chances of winning…"
Yesterday, a raging storm had gone on all day, and even now, as Wood spoke, they could hear thunder rumbling in the distance.
"They pull this now?! He's obviously faking it!"
"He actually is injured…"
Wood said awkwardly.
"But we've been training the whole time against Slytherin tactics, and now we have to play Hufflepuff, whose style is completely different.
They've got a new captain and Seeker too—Cedric Diggory—"
Angelina, Alicia, and Katie suddenly started giggling.
"What's so funny?"
Wood asked, frowning at that kind of frivolous behavior.
"He's that tall handsome one, right?"
Angelina said.
"Well-built, doesn't talk much,"
Katie added, and the three of them giggled again.
"Just like Mr. Green. Oh, I definitely won't miss that match."
"You're comparing him to the great Green?!"
Fred exclaimed dramatically.
"He doesn't talk much because he's too thick to form proper sentences."
Angelina and Katie glared at Fred angrily.
Even if Fred had put it badly, there was one thing they both agreed on.
No wizard in the magical world could really be compared to Mr. Green.
"The greatest wizard of the future," "the destined legend," "the wizard who will surpass Dumbledore"…
It was hard to believe they were living in the same era as someone like that, even if he had shown from the moment he arrived at Hogwarts that he was different.
Taking down a troll by himself, defeating a werewolf bare-handed, even snatching a dragon egg in front of a live dragon…
They had even heard that half the girls in Hogwarts liked Mr. Green.
And the other half simply hadn't met him yet.
Not far away, the voices of the Gryffindor Quidditch players sounded vague and distant in Harry's ears.
Ever since returning from Hogsmeade, he had kept slipping into that sort of state.
Only when they said the name Green did Harry finally raise his head.
His mouth slowly fell open, and he even rubbed his eyes.
"Sean's messenger—"
Harry saw Bai Yi land on his shoulder and unceremoniously drop a letter into his hands.
Only then did he come back to himself enough to read it.
A little while later, he seemed to lose his soul completely. First he went silent for a long time, and then his mouth stretched into an absurdly wide grin.
"What's he doing?"
Fred asked.
"Oh, I know exactly what that is."
Angelina said, sounding envious as she looked at Harry.
"What?"
George still didn't get it.
"If I got a handwritten letter from Mr. Green, Merlin…"
Angelina blushed faintly.
Fred and George instantly understood and nodded in solemn agreement.
"I'd faint."
said Fred.
"I'd die happy."
George waggled his eyebrows.
"Oh, you think so too?"
Katie asked curiously.
"Trust me, there isn't anyone in Hogwarts who doesn't."
Fred said, pretending to sound profound.
But Harry wasn't hearing any of them anymore.
He just wanted the final Divination class of the day to hurry up and end.
Unfortunately, that was exactly where everything went wrong.
When he found Sean in the Divination classroom, Professor Trelawney stubbornly insisted that they all had to produce some prophecies of their own.
Nothing Harry and Ron said pleased her, so she kept circling back to the two of them.
Only Sean escaped her attention. She seemed to have assigned him some important task.
As long as he sat there, Professor Trelawney kept saying:
"Yes!"
"Exactly right!"
"Wonderfully precise!"
Harry and Ron both suspected that even if Sean had said Professor Trelawney was going to be struck by a meteor tomorrow, she would have considered staying hidden inside the castle all day just in case.
"Oh! I know what we should do!"
Harry suddenly brightened.
"What?"
Ron asked, equally miserable and frustrated.
Harry leaned over and whispered something mysteriously in Ron's ear, and Ron's eyes lit up at once.
After that, once they had both predicted their own hideous deaths, Professor Trelawney was finally very pleased with them.
But when she began explaining the various ways tea leaves could interfere with everyday life, the two of them were so distracted she soon became annoyed again.
"I think,"
she said, her voice low and full of mystery, though not enough to hide her obvious irritation,
"that some of us among us—"
she gave Harry and Ron a pointed stare—
"would not be so dismissive if they had seen what I saw in my crystal ball last night.
I was sitting here last night, doing some needlework, when I suddenly felt an irresistible urge to consult my crystal ball.
I rose, sat before it, and gazed into its depths… and what do you think I saw gazing back at me?"
"An ugly old bat wearing enormous glasses?"
Ron muttered under his breath.
Harry, weighed down by his thoughts, had to force himself not to laugh.
He jabbed Sean hard, just to relieve the pressure of wanting to laugh and not being allowed to.
There was amusement in Sean's face too, though he hid it very well.
"Death, my dears."
Parvati and Lavender both clapped their hands over their mouths, horrified.
"Yes,"
Professor Trelawney said gravely, nodding.
"It is coming. Closer and closer. Like a vulture circling overhead, lower and lower… lower and lower… above the castle itself…"
Her eyes fixed sharply on Harry.
"If I died every time she said I was going to die, I'd be a medical miracle by now."
Harry said it to the two boys beside him, and for once some of the weight had lifted from him.
"You'd become some kind of ultra-concentrated ghost,"
Ron said.
"The more times you died, the more concentrated you'd get."
And so, at last, the final lesson was almost over.
As usual, Sean looked toward Ron and Harry with a blank face.
The two of them met his eyes at the same time.
Harry's eyes held equal parts confusion and anger, while Ron's held nothing but pure panic.
But once again, things went wrong.
By now, most of the class had already left, and only the three of them remained behind at the back of the room.
Sean saw Professor Trelawney's head slump down onto her chest, and a low gurgling sound came from her throat.
He looked surprised, but also somehow as though this confirmed something.
After all, Trelawney had once prophesied Pettigrew's escape before.
Now it seemed the prophecy had simply arrived sooner.
"What's wrong with her now?"
Harry and Ron asked in alarm.
Then Professor Trelawney spoke, but in that same harsh voice again, utterly unlike her usual one.
"The Dark Lord lies alone, without friend, abandoned by his followers; his servant has for twelve years been bound in chains.
Tonight, before midnight… that servant will set out to rejoin his master. Though he remains bound, the Dark Lord will rise again with the servant's aid, stronger than before, more terrible than before, and more… cunning.
The battle between them must be fought. Only one can… survive. Only… one…"
Professor Trelawney suddenly jerked upright again, and Harry and Ron both jumped in terror.
Sean, on the other hand, looked thoughtful.
He watched as Harry and Ron just stared at her, then walked toward her.
"Is something wrong, my dears?"
"Y-you—you just told us that the Dark Lord was going to return… that his servant would go back to him…"
Professor Trelawney looked deeply shocked.
"The Dark Lord? The one whose name may not even be spoken?
My dear children, that's no joke… returning, dear me—"
"But that's what you just said! You said the Dark Lord—"
"I think you must have fallen asleep too, my dear!"
Professor Trelawney said.
"I certainly couldn't have prophesied anything that outrageous!"
Harry and Ron looked even more astonished. Were they talking to a goldfish?
"It's time."
Sean suddenly said.
Harry and Ron both stiffened. They stopped trying to press Professor Trelawney any further and followed Sean all the way to the castle entrance.
It was very late now, and the light was fading fast. By the time they reached the edge of the castle, the darkness had settled over them like a spell.
Then Sean raised his wand.
The glow from it lit up the thick trunk of a tree, and they realized they had come to the shadow of the Whomping Willow.
"Through the Whomping Willow. Through the passage. In that room, Harry, you'll learn everything you want to know."
Sean said, and in his hand he was carrying a cage that Ron had given him—inside it was Ron's rat, dosed with a Dreamless Sleep Potion.
Ron had already gone back into the castle.
Now only Sean and Harry stood before the wildly thrashing branches of the Whomping Willow.
Harry looked at Sean's outline, blurred in the glow of the wandlight, while the branches lashing at the ground seemed almost to be interrogating his heart.
"I understand."
Harry raised his wand. Light bloomed at the tip, and he began walking step by step toward the Whomping Willow.