After Sirius was introduced to all the students in the school by Dumbledore at breakfast, he gathered with Lupine and Lily in a professor's lounge.
This is not the first time they have met since they escaped from Azkaban. They had a private gathering as early as last semester when Lupine first came to Carriage as the defense professor.
Their hatred is the most empathetic, and these three people are all the most directly affected victims of that ridiculous savior prophecy.
And now that they are reunited on the carriage, it is also about what happened back then.
"If the person who sneaked into the carriage from the beginning was Wormtail, then he has only done two things so far. He persuaded the third son of the Weiss family to rebel and reported the location of the carriage to the dementors.
"
Lupine was undoubtedly the calmest among them. He knew that if he wanted to successfully find Wormtail, it was best to first understand his purpose in coming to the carriage.
Lily said coldly.
"Actually, there is no way to help us if we find out what he did when he came to the school. These orders must have been given to him by his master. It is very likely that he himself does not know why he did this. We want to catch him, as long as
We can rely on our previous knowledge of him."
She looked at Lupine and Sirius.
"All of us know that he is a very timid person. When he was in school, he was the one who dared not violate school rules in this small group among you. Later, he chose to betray, and a large part of the reason was because
He succumbed to his fear of Voldemort."
In private, Lily had no scruples and directly called the Dark Lord his old name that no one dared to mention.
"So it was definitely not his intention to come to this carriage. He must know that I have always been in this school, and he also knows that I want to kill him with my own hands every day of my life. This is Voldemort's strict order to him.
Force him to obey!"
"With a forced mentality, even if he comes to the carriage, he can't stay with us every day. Looking at me, Lupin and Dumbledore appearing in front of him all the time will scare him.
Mouse gall! If he wants to hide, he will definitely hide in a place where we rarely see him every day."
"And before that, Dumbledore has led us to inspect the entire carriage three times, and we also speculated whether the infiltrator might be an Animagus. Dumbledore also had no idea about this possibility.
He performed a complete reversal of transformation spell in the carriage, but achieved nothing, which meant that he found a place on the carriage where he could avoid this magic, and this place also met the previous condition.
Usually we don’t notice it and we don’t go there.”
Lupine was the calmest among them, and Lily was undoubtedly the smartest among them.
She had no clue about the infiltrator's whereabouts before because she didn't have any information about this person at all. Now that she knew his identity and was one of the people she knew best, all her inferences became clear.
Followed.
Sirius came to the carriage only a handful of times. He could hear that Lily's analysis made sense, but he still stared.
"So where is this place?"
Lily did not go to see Sirius. She had always known that this wizard, who was closer to James than his biological brother, was just like his Animagus form. He was a stupid guy who was only suitable for accepting orders and then executing them.
There were three people in this lounge, and the only one she could discuss with was Lupine.
"We usually have classes on the carriage. There are a lot of potion materials in the Potions class that I need to cultivate and store myself. After your Defense Against the Dark Arts class started this year, I also applied for permission from Dumbledore and found many empty classrooms.
It is used to store some dark magic creatures, so we have been to almost every room in the carriage. Is there any room that we have never entered or rarely entered, and we never actively think of it? "
Lupine had been listening carefully to Lily's analysis. His eyes were thinking and his brows were wrinkled unconsciously.
The atmosphere fell silent. Not only was Lupine thinking, Lily was also recalling with a cold look on her face, wondering if they had missed anything.
Sirius was fidgeting in his chair a little anxiously. He couldn't do much to help at this time and could only wait for Lily and Lupin to come up with the results after using their brains.
And just when everything was quiet in the lounge, a faint, somewhat messy sound of footsteps suddenly came from above their heads.
The sound of footsteps stunned Lupine and Lily, who were originally deep in thought.
A flash of light suddenly lit up in both of their eyes.
"That's not necessarily a room!" Lu Ping said excitedly.
Lily's breathing became obviously faster: "You are the professor of Defense and History of Magic, and I am the professor of Potions and other elective courses. We can choose any room in the carriage as a classroom, but only
Wouldn’t use one of the most special ones!”
Sirius became more and more agitated when he heard the two of them talking like they were guessing riddles.
"Okay! Tell me! Where is this place?"
Lupine and Lily turned to look at him and said in unison.
"Astronomy Classroom!"
To be precise, there is no classroom for the astronomy class. This class requires students to observe the starry sky, and there is definitely no place suitable for this activity in the carriage. Therefore, during the period of exile in the carriage, Dumbledore sorted out the area on the top of the carriage.
The space is used as the location for astronomy classes.
In addition to classes there, Jon applied for permission from Professor McGonagall when he was in first grade. Students are usually prohibited from entering without permission, and astronomy classes are basically held at night. Flitwick, who is in charge of teaching astronomy classes,
Except for the fact that they rarely go there during class, let alone Lily and Lupin, who have nothing to do with this class.
Moreover, during the first three searches, although the roof of the carriage was also involved, it was not the focus of the search. It is possible that Dumbledore's reverse transformation magic did not detect this place!
After figuring out the key to this, Lily and Lupine didn't stay any longer. They left and turned around to walk out of the lounge. However, Sirius moved faster than them and had already rushed out after they said the astronomy classroom.
opened the door.
It was now morning, and most of the students were in class. There were only three of them in the corridor, walking hurriedly toward the end of the carriage. Then they opened the door marked with the astronomy class sign, and walked up a spiral staircase inside.
Go up and finally reach the roof of the car.
Although students are not allowed to come in at will, McGonagall still has to arrange for routine cleaning work. The noise Lily and the others heard on the roof of the carriage just now was caused by the cleaning students walking on it.
sound.
The sixth-grade students, who had no classes in the morning, all looked at the two professors and the new security guard who came today in surprise.
Lily said to them after walking onto the roof of the carriage.
"You don't need to do the cleaning work today, just go back and rest."
The sixth-grade students had no objections to this even if they were confused. After they left the carriage, Lily and the others each took out their own wands.
"Be careful, if you find him, you must not let him escape."
They were standing on the roof of the carriage. The carriage was driving on a suburban road. Muggle cars were passed around from time to time, but the people driving the cars seemed to be concerned about a vehicle that should not appear on the road at the end of the twentieth century.
, turn a blind eye.
The villages, towns and fields in the distance were retreating continuously. Lily and the others divided into three directions and conducted an all-round search of the entire astronomy classroom.
Soon, important clues were discovered about Lupine's location, and he called both Sirius and Lily over.
In front of him, there was a palm-sized, lifted floor, and under the floor was a recessed space that was probably less than half a square meter in size.
Looking at the traces on the edge of the broken board, it was obvious that this place had been dug out not long ago. There was also a layer of soft cushion like cashmere at the bottom, and the cushion was stained with a lot of the same material that Jon had learned in the Charms class before.
The same gray feathers were found in the classroom, surrounded by many dried chicken bones and nut shells.
After seeing this place, Lily and Sirius both held their breath involuntarily.
"He has been hiding here before!" Sirius said through gritted teeth.
Lupine picked up the gray hairs from the cushions and murmured to himself.
"That's him...that's what he left behind..."
And the more this time came, the calmer Lily became. She stared at the dry and hard chicken bones and other food residues inside, and said in a calm voice that was obviously deliberately suppressed.
"This is just the place where he used to hide. It looks like the garbage hasn't been cleaned for at least a month. He hasn't been back here during this time!"
"But we can't rule out that he really gave up on this place completely." Lupine said while casting a spell on the movable floor. "This can help us know whether he will be there later.
return."
Then he restored the trapdoor to its original state.
They found new evidence that Wormtail was on the carriage, but still didn't really find where he was.
Lily's guesses were all correct, but Wormtail was obviously more cautious. This location in the astronomy classroom was probably just one of his three cunning rabbit burrows.
Afterwards, they conducted a large-scale inspection of the entire roof of the carriage, but found nothing more, and finally had no choice but to return to the carriage.
The new clues discovered in the astronomy class gave Lily and the others even more motivation. In the remaining days of October, they conducted a complete inspection of other suspicious places on the carriage, but found no new clues.
clues.
This gave them strong uneasiness, and none of them said the most likely guess - that is, Wormtail is probably no longer on the carriage!
The search by Lily and the others had no impact on the students in the school. Jon had been working hard on the Patronus Charm during this period. For some reason, he had a very bad feeling in his heart.
Even though everything is calm in the school now, and there have been no other accidents since the dementor attack at the beginning of the school year, Jon is always a little uneasy in his heart.
This uneasiness has its origin. In this carriage, Jon can be said to be the person who is most familiar with Voldemort, who is now in a high position, besides Dumbledore. Even if he becomes more rational, his personality is still different.
Changes rarely occur.
He is vengeful and scheming. In the first half of the year, he suffered the humiliation of being cut off from his base. It is absolutely impossible for Voldemort to do just this.
It seems that the weaker his counterattack is, the more Jon feels that there is a storm hidden behind it.
In the last week of October, five days before Halloween, Dumbledore suddenly called Jon to the principal's office that evening.
The principal's room remained the same as before, but Jon felt a different atmosphere, and this unusual feeling came from the portraits of previous principals on the wall.
When he came here before, most of these portraits would be pretending to be snoring and secretly opening their eyes to look at him, but now these portraits are all empty.
No one inside was left among the portraits, only the empty photo frames were left. The entire wall looked like a photo frame shop displaying its products.
"Perhaps the current situation has reached the most critical situation since the fall of Hogwarts Castle seven years ago, Jon."
Dumbledore looked at Jon deeply. He didn't have any extra words, but went straight to the point and told Jon a piece of news that was like thunder.
Even though he had been warned before, Jon still looked at him blankly.
"Professor...I don't understand...were we already surrounded by the Dark Lord's men without knowing it?"
Dumbledore's voice was calm, but just because he was different from usual, with an inexplicable calmness, it gave people a more uneasy feeling.
"If we are surrounded, we only need to find a way to break out of the encirclement. Even if the Dark Lord comes in person, I will be sure to contain him, and then let the people from the Order of the Phoenix take them to continue their escape. But the current situation is
Yes, we have nowhere to go."
He pulled out a newspaper full of French from the side of his desk and placed it in front of Jon. On it was a witch with a determined expression raising her fist towards the camera.
Knowing that Jon couldn't read the French above, Dumbledore directly read out the news headline on the newspaper's front page.
"[The temporary parliamentary meeting was held in advance and will decide the future of the French wizarding community on October 25th]"