For a moment, Sirius was stunned speechless.
He looked at Lupin, who was staring in the same disbelief, and neither of them seemed to know how to describe what they were feeling.
The shack—broken-down and leaking—fell silent.
Water was seeping in everywhere. Black damp stains crawled up the wooden supports, slick and cold.
The metal reinforcement had gone dark red with rust, and the straw spread across the floor was no longer straw at all. It had soaked up so much water that it lay heavy and pressed flat together. When stepped on, it made no sound—only that sickening sinking sensation, as if you were treading on something soft and resistant.
Water dripped onto Snape's gloomy face. At that moment, he would rather have had some loud, troublesome knight in a portrait break the silence than be left in this soundless house with his own thoughts.
Instinctively, he recoiled from what he was thinking. The thing those fools chased after so eagerly was poison to him.
He had never gotten used to receiving anything. He was always the one losing.
Like a beggar who had starved too long, his stomach had forgotten how to digest food. If you forced something into him now, it would probably kill him.
In the corner,
Peter woke up.
He opened his bead-like eyes and looked around blankly.
It seemed he remembered something. His breathing began to quicken, and his eyes kept darting toward the door.
Everyone in the room had their own thoughts.
Sean was watching Pettigrew, and every so often he could sense exactly what he was thinking.
That made him faintly satisfied.
It looked like the plan was proceeding normally.
The goblin contract was meant to control both body and mind, and so Sean had naturally chosen to use it a little differently.
While Pettigrew was unconscious, he had quietly blurred that part of his memory.
That way, Peter would only remember being discovered, with Sirius and Lupin trying to kill him.
Then Snape burst in, a fight broke out here, and he "luckily" got a chance to escape.
Across from him, Lupin and Sirius were both shooting Sean confused, subtle looks. In the span of a few seconds, both of them seemed to be trying to convince themselves of something.
Naturally, this was exactly when Peter managed, without much effort, to steal a wand that had fallen to the floor. Being as cautious as possible, he turned into a rat.
After a brief scurrying sound, a rat missing a toe slipped into a damp, shadowy hole.
After some unknown stretch of time, the rat finally poked its head out beyond the Whomping Willow tunnel.
It peered around cautiously. The ground was dark, with only the faint glow of the castle windows in the distance. Then it scurried forward, panting hard, squeaking once or twice as it ran.
Only after the rat was gone did Sean truly relax.
Until Peter officially found Voldemort, Sean had no intention of letting events deviate too far.
Otherwise, who could say whether Peter would still manage to find him?
At times like this, Sean was always cautious.
Once Peter had done what needed doing, though, Sean intended to restore his true memories.
And so, on this very day,
the Dark Lord's servant broke free.
A quarter hour before midnight, the servant would slip his chains and set out to rejoin his master.
And with that servant's help, the Dark Lord would rise again—stronger than before, more terrible than before, and more cunning than before.
"Where's Peter?!"
Sirius suddenly shouted, full of fury.
Lupin and the "completely uninformed" Sean both immediately looked toward the corner.
It was easy enough to see that the rat-like man was gone.
And with him, Lupin's wand.
Snape snapped out of that strange, resistant, half-softened state and frowned as he glanced toward the corner. The cringing figure really was gone.
The sound of the rain dripping had covered for him, making sure no one noticed the sound his transformation had made.
"This moment—I've waited twelve years for it!"
Sirius roared furiously.
"Severus!"
Snape gave a short, cold laugh.
It hid the flash of worry in his eyes.
Peter had escaped, just as everyone now knew.
When they emerged from beneath the Whomping Willow, Sirius moved closer to Sean.
"Did I play my part well enough, Mr. Green?"
he asked, refreshed and almost cheerful.
Snape's situation had clearly rattled him, but Sirius had once said he was willing to place his life in the hands of the wizard standing before him.
That was the kind of person he was. Once he decided to trust someone, he refused to question any of their decisions.
"Very well, Mr. Sirius."
Sean nodded in approval.
"We're… really not telling Headmaster Dumbledore?"
Lupin lowered his voice, sounding uneasy.
"Oh, come off it, Moony. At this point, what exactly have you ever told Dumbledore? And what's the point of always asking that one extra question?"
Sirius said under his breath, though he was grinning so hard his eyes were tearing up.
Up ahead, Snape, walking in front of them, listened to their low murmurs and suddenly said with a sneer:
"You'd better be careful, fugitive. Your face is posted everywhere. Why not turn into a dog? It suits you, doesn't it? You do bark often enough, don't you? And speaking of which, I believe there are people ahead."
Sirius looked furious but didn't dare say anything. He glanced forward in alarm and really did spot several students out wandering the corridors this late, right near the castle entrance.
"We're definitely finding the lucky messenger tonight!"
a young witch said excitedly.
"Oh, give it a rest. This is the ninety-third time you've said that, Ginny,"
another little witch said irritably.
"Shh! Lower your voice. What if the patrol bat hears us—"
Ginny hurriedly clapped a hand over the other girl's mouth.
Too late.
Because around the corner, there was already a giant bat waiting.
Sirius didn't even bother hiding his mockery. It was hard to say how a black dog managed to look that smug, but somehow he did.
"Out after hours!"
Snape stormed forward in fury.
The little witches all went deathly pale.
They could already imagine which toilet they were going to end up scrubbing.
…
By the time November arrived, the weather had turned bitterly cold.
The mountains around the school were gray and snow-covered, and the lake looked as cold and hard as tempered steel. Every morning, frost coated the ground.
The first Quidditch match was about to begin.
On Friday, Sean woke especially early, before dawn.
At first he thought it was the howling wind that had roused him. Then he felt cold breath blowing at the back of his neck, and he sat bolt upright—
Peeves was drifting around beside him, blowing hard into his ear.
"Oh my, your face is so red, Mr. Green. I'm helping you, you know. No need to thank me—though if you happened to say a good word about me to the knight…"
Peeves cackled.
"Thank you, Mr. Peeves, but I have a cold."
The moment he spoke, Sean realized he was sick.
His voice sounded thick and hoarse, as if something were stuck in his throat. His face was burning too.
In a place like England, of course, getting sick was hardly unusual.
The cold, damp, foggy weather lingered all year. Sunlight showed itself as rarely as a miser parted with gold, and the damp crept into your bones until one careless moment left you with a cough or aching joints.
People were long used to it, and had developed their own ways of dealing with it—a steaming cup of milk tea, a few slices of toast with jam, wrapped in a thick blanket by the fire, treating it all like a little bit of forced rest gifted by life.
Sean had used far too much magic the night before, spent a long time in a damp house, and then walked through violent wind and rain for ages…
Catching a fever was the normal outcome.
But Sean wasn't used to stopping.
Practicing magic had become the main rhythm of his life. In a day of twenty-four hours, he had once managed to practice magic for twenty-five.
And that, of course, was thanks to the Time-Turner Professor Snape had given him.
Now his head felt foggy, his limbs weak. Practicing magic in this state would only yield low-quality work.
That meant poor gains in both proficiency and understanding.
So the only thing he could do was stop and review his progress.
Dark Magic had already reached Master, and reshaping Dark Magic had shown him the road toward Legend. He only needed to steadily keep building proficiency and he would reach it according to plan.
Transfiguration, meanwhile, was both the magical field he knew best and the one he wielded most powerfully. Many of his self-created spells—Dragon Wingbeat, Vine-Stone Warden, and Elemental Activation—were extremely potent, but unfortunately his proficiency with them still wasn't high enough. Those spells had immense effect, but equally heavy costs.
To reduce that drain, Sean needed to raise their proficiency quickly.
Which made time allocation necessary.
He focused on Vine-Stone Warden and Elemental Activation. One was only at Skilled, the other at Beginner. He planned to push both to Expert within one or two months.
Thunder rolled overhead. Wind slammed into the castle walls. Somewhere deep in the Forbidden Forest, branches cracked under the gale.
Sean entered Ravenclaw common room, then headed into the corridor beyond.
The statues there all seemed to blur slightly. Even wrapped in a scarf, he could still feel the fierce cold wind.
He was on his way to the hospital wing to get a Pepper-Up Potion, but before that, he still had to attend Potions.
Upper-year Potions lessons were always very early.
He hadn't even reached the classroom when he heard someone call his name.
"Mr. Green!"
It was an older witch he didn't know well.
"Good morning. Oh, have you got a cold?"
Sean nodded.
"Um, Mr. Green, I'm over here."
the voice said awkwardly.
"Oh, are you alright? Can you really get through our lesson? Please, please don't abandon us…"
Her voice was almost trembling.
Sean turned in another direction and nodded again.
Even if he couldn't really cast spells, guiding older students through potion-brewing wouldn't be much of a problem.
"Mr. Green—"
the voice now sounded almost tearful.
"I'm over here."
"What exactly are you doing—"
Before Sean could locate the slightly doubled-looking witch, another voice floated over, sharp and stern.
At the same time, there was another, gentler one:
"Severus, you really ought to be a little more lenient with students preparing for exams… Ah, Green, are you alright?"
"I'm alright, Headmaster Dumbledore."
Sean said.
He also remembered that it was about time to report Sirius's situation to Dumbledore.
"You should be in the hospital wing!"
Snape snapped, his voice fast and clipped.
"Oh, Severus, didn't you hear him? He said he's alright."
Dumbledore's beard was trembling with laughter as he watched the young wizard fail to locate where people actually were.
"Be quiet, Dumbledore, it's not your—"
Snape bit back the rest of the sentence when he saw Dumbledore's eyes widen slightly.
"Come on."
Sean felt someone grab his arm.
"Oh… looks like the castle's in a bit of an uproar again?"
Dumbledore said, smiling meaningfully.
…
Sean ended up resting for the entire day, and if steam hadn't been coming out of his ears, he might have found it almost comfortable.
The Pepper-Up Potion worked instantly. Even Madam Pomfrey, strict as she was, agreed to let Ron and the others drag him off to watch Quidditch.
"Take one proper day off and watch the Quidditch match, you busy little thing."
Madam Pomfrey said firmly, shutting the hospital wing doors without hesitation.
And so Sean had no choice but to follow the younger wizards to the Quidditch pitch.
Even though it was still raining, Quidditch matches weren't canceled over trivial things like lightning storms.
On the way through the corridor, they ran into Wood, Harry, and a Hufflepuff who looked every inch the kind, dependable sort.
"That's Diggory, fifth year, much bigger than you. Seekers are usually light and agile, but in weather like this, Diggory's weight is actually an advantage. He won't get blown about so easily."
Wood said to Harry, pointing at the Hufflepuff.
"This is going to be a real fight."
"Don't worry, Oliver,"
Alicia said, trying to reassure him.
"We don't care about a little rain."
But it was not a little rain.
The downpour was vicious. Even up in the covered stands, droplets kept blowing in now and then.
Sean sat with Justin and the others, holding the pumpkin juice Justin had made.
The warm, sweet drink slid down his throat, and Sean felt much better.
Curled at his feet was a shaggy black dog. It seemed invisible to everyone else, as though under a Disillusionment Charm.
The match was going fiercely when suddenly a terrible cold rolled over the crowd.
That was not normal.
"What's that?!"
Sean heard someone shout.
Then he saw them.
Dementors.
At least a hundred of them, dark and endless, closing in across the green field.
He stared at them as the cold pierced him to the lungs. Mist began blurring the world.
Along the edge of the grounds, more and more Dementors appeared from every direction, closing in and surrounding them.