With a bang, the door was roughly pushed open. A hurried sound of footsteps came from outside the corridor. A figure rushed into the hall like the wind, panting as he looked at the person flipping through the newspaper and said, "Have you read today's Daily Prophet? Peter is dead. That guy is actually dead."
"Don't worry, this is not like your character." Black looked up at his old friend and poured him a glass of butter beer, motioning him to drink something to catch his breath before talking. "I just saw it in the newspaper. They said Peter died of illness in Azkaban prison."
"This is very suspicious." Lupin took a deep breath and said, "He couldn't die of illness in Azkaban so soon. You know what I mean."
"You suspect Peter has escaped by some means." Black frowned, as if considering the possibility of this. Having been imprisoned in Azkaban for twelve years, he knew the situation in the prison very well and had more say than most people.
The old friend's words were biased. As far as Sirius knew, many wizards went mad and died within a few weeks after being imprisoned in Azkaban prison, but Peter... Remus was right. Peter had a history of faking his own death, twice.
Why isn’t it difficult to have a third time
"Not only that." Lupin drank the butter beer in one gulp, took a breath and continued, "I heard that Mrs. Peter went to visit him in prison before he died. Later, a few days after Mrs. Peter came back, she went crazy and set a fire, burning herself and her entire house."
"This incident was not reported in the newspaper. And how did she get into Azkaban prison?" Black frowned deeply. He felt more and more that Remus's guess was correct and there was something wrong with this matter.
Their old buddy might actually have escaped from prison.
The two of them carefully read the previous day's Daily Prophet and finally found the report about Mrs. Peter's self-immolation in an inconspicuous corner.
The article is not long, and the general meaning is:
Mrs. Peter couldn't accept that her son had turned from a hero into a murderer, and she became insane.
No matter how you look at it, both of these things are suspicious.
In particular, Peter died on the third day of his mother's visit to him, while his mother died on the second day of the visit.
"There is a way to confirm whether Peter is dead." Sirius said suddenly.
"What is it?" Lupin asked.
"Ask someone for divination." Sirius gave a strange smile.
"You mean Anderson?" Lupin immediately realized what his old friend meant.
"Yes, I heard that Mr. Anderson has a strong ability to predict the future. He can even predict what will happen in the future." Sirius directly turned Phineas into someone else. "I plan to invite him to watch the Quidditch World Cup. I can ask him for help then. It's much better than us racking our brains and guessing blindly here."
Lupin frowned and asked, "Will he be willing to help?"
"Yes," said Sirius meaningfully. "Mr. Anderson charges a fee, but I think it's worth spending a little money to get to the bottom of this matter."
Sirius didn't care much about the Black family's property. At least for him, it was not important whether Galleon was alive or dead.
If Peter really escaped, Sirius would never let him go this time.
Yes, Peter is dead!
There was a cruel smile on Blake's lips. Then die completely and don't show up again.
Although Albert's action at the time was the best option and helped him restore his reputation, it was a pity for Black that he was unable to kill Peter himself to avenge James and Lily.
Now, that opportunity may have come.
"Forget about that, Remus. If you have time, help me clean the house." Sirius pleaded, "I want to bring Harry to live with us in the near future, but I can't finish it by myself even if the summer ends."
"Well, I happen to have nothing to do lately." Lupin nodded in agreement. He doubted that even if Sirius was given a year, he would not be able to finish the cleanup.
"That's great, then you can come with us to watch the Quidditch World Cup!" Sirius suggested.
"I'm afraid not." Lupin shook his head and refused.
"Why?" Sirius asked in confusion.
"Normally, the World Cup final will be around August 20th, and you know, it will be close to the full moon at that time." Lupin explained, "I can't take the risk."
Sirius was silent, he had almost forgotten about it.
"Well, where are you going to start cleaning?" Lupin asked, patting Black's shoulder. "If you want to clean this place thoroughly, don't just stand there and watch."
The two were busy for the whole afternoon but still failed to clean up Harry's room. They found a nest of vixens in the bedroom. In order to eliminate these annoying pests, Sirius used a large amount of vixen killer, making the whole room a mess.
"I feel like I'm about to become a house-elf. Maybe I should ask Dumbledore to borrow a few house-elves to help with the spring cleaning, so that it can be done faster."
Sirius sat tiredly in a chair, eating the simple food made by Lupin. Cleaning the room was obviously not his strong point.
He ultimately didn't do that.
In fact, Sirius hoped that his old friend could move to number twelve, Grimmauld Place and live with him so that they could take care of each other, but Remus rejected his kindness.
"James' son is uncannily like him," Sirius murmured, as if lost in memory. "He really is."
"Harry is quieter. Unlike James, he always likes to show off in front of girls, and he doesn't talk incessantly." Lupin missed his old friend a little.
"But Harry also loves to get into trouble." Sirius smiled happily.
"Yes," said Lupin, "Harry is brave, but also reckless."
"I've rarely seen a Gryffindor student who isn't reckless." Black could barely hide the smile on his face. "I remember you said Harry's Patronus was also a stag."
"Yes, the stag," Lupin nodded. "It appeared at the Quidditch match last term."
"However, Harry doesn't seem to have had a good time these years. I plan to take some time to visit his Muggle relatives." Sirius's eyebrows flashed with a trace of displeasure, "If it weren't for Dumbledore..."
"Dumbledore has his own considerations," Lupin interrupted, "and I will go with you then."
"Let's not talk about this anymore, let's talk about your story!" Sirius changed the subject.
"Me? It's the same as always. At first I wanted to work for the Ministry of Magic, but was rejected. You can probably guess why. Finally, thanks to my father's connections, I got a part-time job at the Ministry of Magic and worked for half a month." Lupin smiled helplessly. Thanks to my father's house, I didn't have no place to live. Later, I kept working. You know, I couldn't keep working for too long. If anyone found out that I was..."
Lupin paused, chuckled, and continued, "Then, I thought if I could open a shop of my own, I wouldn't have to worry about being discovered, but it didn't work out..."
The reason, of course, is that they didn’t make enough money to open a store.
"And then?" Sirius discovered that his old friend had not had a good time in recent years.
"Later, I had fewer and fewer opportunities to work in the wizarding world, so I could only do odd jobs in the alley. When I didn't have a job, I worked as a salesperson in a Muggle store. Sometimes I worked as a cleaner. Anyway, they were all very odd jobs, and I could barely make ends meet."
"We can open a store together," Sirius suddenly suggested, "Anyway, I don't have anything else to do, so I have to find myself a proper job."
Lupin was silent, honestly quite touched.
Of course he knew that Sirius suggested opening a shop for him, so that at least he could have a stable job and wouldn't have to work part-time jobs everywhere.
"We'll talk about this later." Remus was somewhat tempted, but did not agree immediately because he didn't know what kind of store to open.
In recent days, the Dursley family has been shrouded in a shadow of fear.
The incident originated a few days ago, one morning after the Dursleys went to King's Cross Station to pick up Harry Potter.
Vernon saw his nephew suddenly take out a letter from his pocket and hand it to him, saying that his godfather asked him to help pass it on. The content of the letter was roughly as follows:
A man named Sirius Black claimed to be Harry's godfather and said he would come to visit them in two days to talk about Harry.
In Vernon's impression, Potter didn't have a godfather, but his little hope was ruthlessly shattered by Harry.
"He's my mom and dad's best friend, and he's a convicted murderer, but he escaped from a magical prison a while ago, and he's willing to keep in touch with me via owls to find out how I'm doing."
To this day, Vernon still hasn't forgotten the look on Harry's face when he said those words.
What made him even more terrified was that such a murderer actually planned to visit them, which made the Dursleys panic.
Vernon even thought about calling the police, but he had no choice but to meet the murderer named Blake.
Because even the police couldn't stop the murderer named Blake from appearing in front of them.
"When will he arrive?"
Vernon asked with trembling lips. His face was very pale and it was obvious that he had not been having a good time these days.
"It should be soon. The agreed time is eleven o'clock."
Harry looked up at the clock on the wall, trying hard not to laugh, keeping his face expressionless. He did not tell the Dursleys that Sirius was innocent and had been rehabilitated.
Dudley huddled in the corner of the sofa in extreme fear, and Aunt Petunia was equally terrified.
In fact, Vernon wanted his wife and children to leave and go face the notorious murderer Black by himself, but Aunt Petunia disagreed. Even Dudley did not leave, even though they were all very afraid of the murderer who was about to visit them.
Unbeknownst to the Dursleys, the murderer who was about to visit them, Sirius Black, was getting dressed up for the encounter and was looking in the full-length mirror, adjusting his suit to make himself look more formal.
More than a decade of life in Azkaban took away a lot from Black. The man in the mirror was no longer as handsome as before, and he no longer had the spirit of his youth.
However, since his name was cleared and his reputation restored, Black's hope has been rekindled, and his body, which had been worn out by ten years of imprisonment in Azkaban, has regained vitality.
"Is this all right?" Black looked at himself in the mirror and turned his head to ask Lupin, who was also wearing an old suit.
To be honest, Sirius didn't like this kind of clothes, but Remus thought it was necessary to wear it like this as it was a very formal meeting.
To be honest, Lupin didn't want to go. After all, this was Sirius's family affair and he was just an outsider. But he was worried that his old friend would make a mess of things. As someone who had dealt with Muggles before, he obviously knew better how to get along with them.
After all, this meeting was for Harry, so they had to give it some thought.
"4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey!"
Lupin pulled out the note Harry had written to them from his suit pocket, read out the address, then took out his pocket watch to check the time and said, "It's time to leave now."
They did not Apparate directly to number 4 Privet Drive, but appeared near Privet Drive to avoid causing trouble for Harry.
It is necessary to be particularly cautious when using magic in Muggle living areas. Once magic is used around underage wizards, the Ministry of Magic will think that the underage wizard is using magic, which will be very troublesome to explain.
"It's here." Lupin looked at the number plate of Number 4 Privet Drive and walked up to ring the doorbell.
When the doorbell rang, the three Dursleys in the living room huddled together in fear, and Harry hurried to open the door.
After waiting for about dozens of seconds, the two heard hurried footsteps coming from inside the door. The door was opened and Harry's surprised face appeared in front of them.
"Professor Lupin, why are you here too?" Harry couldn't help but ask.
"I'm worried about Sirius," Lupin said with a smile.
Sirius looked around the environment in which Harry lived, then followed Harry into the house and saw the Dursleys huddled together in the living room, looking terrified.
Compared to the surprise on Sirius's face,
The Dursleys were stunned to see the legendary murderer enter the living room, because Lupin and Black were dressed too normally.
"I'm Sirius Black." Sirius Black took a deep breath and said what he had repeated countless times in his mind: "James and Lily's classmate and good friend, Harry Potter's godfather. I think Harry should have told you about me. The person next to me is Remus Lupin, also James and Lily's classmate and good friend, and a professor at Hogwarts."
Sirius had selectively forgotten that Remus was a former Hogwarts professor, and Harry noticed this, but didn't say much.
"I think I should have made it clear in the letter. I'm here to discuss Harry's support and custody." Sirius knew that this family was not kind to Harry, but he still forced himself to suppress his anger and irritability and be as polite as possible.
"When we adopted him, we heard that you weirdos had nothing to do with him anymore," Penny said, staring at Blake closely.
"For some reason, Mr. Black was regarded as a member of the mysterious... dark forces; he was imprisoned in Azkaban-prison, and the Ministry of Magic did not discover this serious mistake until not long ago." Lupin explained. "This mistake has been corrected, and Mr. Black has restored his reputation and freedom."
The Dursleys all stared at Harry. Although they were frightened by wizards, they were even more angry at being tricked.
"We need you to allow Harry to come and stay for a while during the next summer vacation." Lupin frowned. He could feel that these Muggles were not friendly to Harry.
"Don't you want custody? I agree, but why..." Vernon wanted Harry to get out of here immediately so that their family could return to normal.
"Harry's mother used an ancient magic to protect him. This magic may be related to family, affection or blood." Sirius said impatiently, "This is also the reason why Dumbledore decided to send Harry here."
"In order to continue this magic, it is necessary for Harry Potter to live here for a period of time every year before he comes of age - after all, you are the last relatives in the world who share the same blood with him," Lupin added.
This was the first time Harry had heard of such a thing. He had actually privately complained to Dumbledore why he did not allow him to live with Sirius.
Penny said simply, "As long as he keeps quiet and doesn't do anything weird."
"I will," Harry promised with a nod.
"That's great, it looks like we've reached an agreement." Lupin said happily, "Harry, we'll pick you up later."
"We don't expect you to take care of Harry like your own child. You just need to treat your relative's child like a normal family." Sirius suddenly stared at the Dursleys and threatened, "I don't want to hear anything bad, understand?"