After hearing Dracula's question, Lu Ping thought quietly for a moment.
"If I had to guess where Sirius would stay, I think he would stay in the Shrieking Shack." He said slowly, "There is a secret passage connecting to the Whomping Willow, and that's where everything started..."
"The Shrieking Shack?" Dracula raised his eyebrows. "Is that the haunted house in Hogsmeade?"
As a well-known attraction in Hogsmeade, the haunted Shrieking Shack naturally aroused the interest of Dracula.
But after staying there for a few nights and realizing that it was just an ordinary shack, he lost interest in it.
Dracula's curiosity was aroused again when he heard Lupin suddenly mention the shed.
"In fact, the Shrieking Shack has never been haunted..." Lupin shook his head slightly and said, "The screams and howls that the villagers often hear are actually made when I transform into a werewolf on a full moon night."
"Is that so?" Dracula nodded thoughtfully.
No wonder the villagers of Hogsmeade said that there had been no ghost screams coming out of the Shrieking Shack for more than ten years. Lupin had already graduated from Hogwarts, so the Shrieking Shack would naturally not be used anymore.
"Professor Dracula, you know that I am a werewolf, but you probably don't know how I became one." Lupin continued, "My father offended a werewolf in the court of the Ministry of Magic. In order to avenge him, the werewolf sneaked into my house on a full moon night and bit me when I was very young."
"That werewolf was Fenrir Greyback, and he was captured by you in Dracula's Castle in Romania."
"Is it such a coincidence?" Dracula was a little surprised.
If Lupin hadn't suddenly mentioned it, he would have almost forgotten that there was a werewolf locked in the dog cage. He also wondered if Selena had forgotten to arrange for her subordinates to bring him food.
It would be funny if he starved to death in the cage...
"At that time, my parents tried various methods to prevent transformation into a werewolf, but nothing worked." Lupin continued, "After all, the wolfsbane potion only appeared recently. It gradually became popular after Damocles Belby made improvements."
"This potion can indeed make werewolves safe. As long as you take this potion a week before the full moon, you will remain sane when you transform. With this potion, I can curl up indoors, be a harmless wolf, and wait for the full moon to pass..."
"However, before the wolfsbane potion was invented, I would turn into a real wolf one day every month, cruel and bloodthirsty. I would never have come to Hogwarts, and other parents would never have been willing to let their children come into contact with me."
"But I was lucky to meet Headmaster Dumbledore, who was very sympathetic. He said that as long as certain precautions were taken, there was no reason not to let me come to school." Lupin sighed and said to Dracula.
"The Whomping Willow was actually planted to help me get to Hogwarts. The shed was also built for me..." He pointed to the Whomping Willow in the northeast of the castle, "There is a passage next to the roots of the Whomping Willow, which connects from Hogwarts all the way to the Shrieking Shack..."
"That passage was opened for my use. Once a month, I am secretly sent out of the castle and sent here to transform. The Whomping Willow was planted at the entrance of the passage to prevent anyone from encountering me when I am dangerous to others."
Dracula nodded slightly.
"That makes sense. Otherwise, it would be a bit unreasonable to plant a dangerous plant so close to the teaching area of the school." He chuckled. "Of course, there are many unreasonable things in this school."
Lupin smiled knowingly and continued to tell his story:
"In those days, my transformation was... it was terrible. It was very painful to become a werewolf. I had no mind, only bloodlust and desire for destruction. I wanted to bite people but I stayed away from people, so I could only bite and scratch myself."
"The villagers of Hogsmeade heard the noises and screams I made from the Shrieking Shack, and thought they were hearing the sounds of a particularly fierce ghost. Instead of stopping it, Dumbledore encouraged people to spread such rumors, thinking that this would further keep people away from the shack..."
"Of course, I didn't expect that even now, even though there has been no such sound in this house for many years, the villagers still dare not approach it."
"If you think about it this way, being a werewolf is indeed not easy." Dracula nodded. "In comparison, vampires don't have so many problems. They are always in their proper state. They don't have to suffer the pain that werewolves go through every month."
"It wasn't that painful..." Lupin smiled and shook his head. "At that time, except for the time when I was transformed into a werewolf, I was happier than before. I had friends for the first time, and three good friends at that. James Potter, Sirius Black... and of course, Peter Pettigrew."
"There's no way my three best friends wouldn't notice me disappearing once a month."
"I made up all kinds of stories - told them my mother was sick and I had to go home to see her... I was particularly worried that they would ignore me once they found out I was a werewolf. However, they were very smart and soon figured out the truth from the Defense Against the Dark Arts textbook..."
"But what I didn't expect was that they didn't ignore me at all. Instead, they did a lot for me, which not only allowed me to endure the pain of transformation, but also made my time at Hogwarts the happiest time of my life. They learned Animagus and used animal forms to accompany me through the full moon nights."
"Are all three of them Animagus?" Dracula asked in surprise.
"Yes, that's right," said Lupin. "It took them nearly three years to achieve this. James and Sirius were the smartest students in the school, and once they had achieved it, they also helped Peter complete his Animagus Transfiguration."
"They were lucky. After successfully learning the Animagus Transfiguration Technique, they did not go astray or make any major mistakes. They did not choose to register with the Ministry of Magic... So few people knew that there were three more Animagus in the wizarding world."
"What a touching friendship!" Dracula said with emotion, "They can't keep their friends company in human form, so they turn into animals to keep each other company... I can't believe that there will be a traitor in such a group."
Lupin's expression became heavy again.
"Well, thank you for your story, Professor Lupin." Dracula said with understanding, "I think I understand now. The reason why Sirius Black can avoid the sight of me and Dumbledore is actually very simple. It's just because he is an Animagus."
"If you think about it this way... the reason for escaping from Azkaban is probably the same. Those brainless Dementors would never be interested in an animal, and the Dementors in Azkaban could never stop an animal."
When Dracula sneaked into Azkaban to find information about Sirius Black, he transformed into a bat and entered the prison through the narrow Dementor entrance.
"So you have always known where Blake might be? Why didn't you tell Dumbledore about this for so long?" Thinking of this, Dracula glanced at Lupin, "Are you still willing to believe that he was wronged, that even though he escaped from prison, he is actually a good man?"
"For this reason, I never dared to believe that Sirius would betray James..." Lupin said softly, "But on the other hand, I have always felt a little guilty in my heart, thinking that I had betrayed Dumbledore's trust..."
"He was the only one who accepted me when no other principal would, and he had no idea that I had broken the rules - the rules he had put in place for my safety and the safety of others."
"In fact, he never knew that I had allowed three of my friends to illegally become Animagus. During the school day, I tried to forget the guilt whenever we sat down to plan our adventures for the next month, but I still didn't change anything about it... I indulged in the company of my friends who transformed into animals on full-moon nights."
Lupin's face was a little heavy, and his voice was even filled with self-loathing. "Since Dumbledore hired me to come to Hogwarts, I have been struggling with myself, and I can't make up my mind whether to tell Dumbledore that Sirius is an Animagus..."
"But I didn't say it. I think it was just because I was too cowardly. Telling him would mean that I had betrayed his trust when I was a student, and that I had admitted that I had led others to break the rules with me... and Dumbledore's trust was extremely important to me."
"This mentality has not changed even after I became the werewolf leader today... At the beginning, I showed up in the most conspicuous place in the castle every day, hoping that Sirius would realize that there were still people in Hogwarts who could recognize his Animagus form. My actions during that period did have some effect."
"But later on, I seemed to have convinced myself that Sirius had used the evil magic he learned from Voldemort to sneak into the school, and his becoming an Animagus had nothing to do with this..."
"Severus was always sarcastic to me, and in a way, he was always right about me."
Lupin shook his head in self-mockery, his eyes full of complexity.
"I actually don't understand what kind of conflict there was between Snape and the rest of you during school?" Dracula asked curiously. "More than a decade has passed, and the hatred in his eyes doesn't seem to have faded at all."
"Well... this matter is a bit complicated. It includes the fights during the youthful period, the rift between the two rival schools, the conflict caused by different philosophies, the emotional confrontation, the generation and rescue of life threats..."
Lupin's series of adjectives made Dracula's mouth twitch violently.
"Why do I feel like the dramas that old guy Nico has watched are not as complicated as the story between you..."
"Yes, it is indeed very complicated, and there are some things I cannot tell you because they involve Snape's privacy." Lupin smiled lightly, "But there is one thing that is very closely related to me, and I can still tell you about it -"
"When I was in school, Severus was particularly interested in where I went every month," he recounted. "We were in the same grade, and we didn't like each other very much."
"He especially disliked James, jealous of the way James was in the limelight on the Quidditch field, and jealous of the intimacy between James and Lily when they talked and laughed... until one day, Severus saw me walking across the field with Madam Pomfrey in the evening of a full moon night, and she led me to the Whomping Willow to transform in the Shrieking Shack."
"Sirius had no sense of propriety at the time and told Severus as a prank that he could follow me into the tree hole by touching the knot on the trunk with a long stick; Sirius thought that this would be... well, funny. Of course, Snape tried it..."
"If he had really walked into the Shrieking Shack, he would have encountered a thoroughbred werewolf... But fortunately, after James heard what Sirius did, he reacted in time and followed Snape to pull him back, otherwise I really don't know what would have happened."
"No wonder Snape said that you never care about other people's feelings or even lives. It turns out that such a thing has happened." Dracula said thoughtfully, "But after all, his life was saved by James Potter. Why does he hate Harry so much now?"
"According to Severus himself, he would rather die in the Shrieking Shack than be rescued by James..." Lupin sighed dejectedly, "The matter between James and Severus is much more complicated, and it is difficult to explain it in a short time."
"It's okay. What I have the most is time." Dracula was eager to hear the story and raised his lips slightly. "When I have time, I will go to your office and listen to you talk about the grievances between you and Professor Snape."
Lupin opened his mouth, as if he wanted to refuse subconsciously, but then he smiled and nodded.
"Hey, we're at the staff lounge." Before they knew it, the two had walked to the door of the staff lounge together. Dracula pushed the door open and said, "Go in and see your old friend!"
After sending Lupin into the lounge, Dracula closed the door and went to the Whomping Willow alone as Lupin had instructed.
The Whomping Willow, which is usually very irritable, is always very quiet in front of Dracula. It sways gently with the morning breeze, and deliberately moves a few branches to considerately make way for the entrance to the secret passage under the tree.
Dracula smiled and nodded, then walked into the hole under the tree.
He planned to go to the Shrieking Shack himself to capture Sirius Black so that these three best friends from more than ten years ago could have a good reunion!
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