Chapter 94

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Autumn came quickly and insensibly in the yard. The leaves on Dracula Willow were about to turn yellow and then fall. The grass would lose its bright color, and the forbidden forest's pine needles were already darker and more threatening. Only the ferns that grew strangely here and there, and other cold-resistant plants, would remain green for long.

The castle's atmosphere was somewhat oppressive from the Dementors' presence, and the students' emotional instability was frozen at the "despondency" mark. Sometimes, standing on the Astronomy Tower in the light but already cold autumn wind, one could see Dementors appear from time to time over the treetops, followed by whitish cobwebs of frost.

And now, on a cloudy morning on the eve of Halloween, I stood on this very Astronomy Tower, looked into the distance, and summed up the results of the first two months of the school year.

I stopped looking for Peter Pettigrew, for I simply had no idea how to do it at all. I was sure I'd put him to sleep and hide him in a cage, though the only indication was the absence of a finger on his paw. But it's also possible to transfigure someone into an animal with given characteristics. What was stopping Peter from doing that from time to time by substituting himself for someone? But there's another issue, the Marauder's map. Although, if Lady Walburga's words are to be believed, name magic is a very complicated thing. The tapestry somehow determines the right name, but only if you associate yourself with that name. If the map works on similar principles, that would explain why it shows Severus Snape as Snape and not Snape-Prince, Prince-Snape, or just Prince. The Head of Slytherin certainly doesn't associate himself with that surname. So it turns out that Peter could easily find a Muggle, erase his memory and turn him into a rat if necessary. He wouldn't show up on the map because an "empty" mind doesn't associate itself with the name at all, and maybe he'd even show up as Scabbers on the map. Now I thought about it and realized that Scabbers sometimes reacted differently to his surroundings: purely ratty at times and sometimes quite reasonable and wary. But then... Then I must appear as Knight-Black. I need to check it out. Anyway, the problems begin to snowball.

The cutting of the basilisk ended just a couple of days ago, and as a result, I have a few ingredients at my disposal, if I may say so. Who knows how many meters of hide, a heart, a liver, a bunch of fangs, and only two of them are adapted to work with poison and have channels to the glands. I cut those out, too, by the way. Everything else is pretty useless, although these parts' usefulness has yet to be found out by a lot of tests and checks. The reason for this is simple: each basilisk is unique in its own way. The artificiality of origin of these magical beasts and absolute individuality of development, depending on both the wizard's desire and magical environmental conditions, can create from identical after birth - absolutely different in properties and abilities snakes. As I read in books, fifty years ago, while it was allowed, in India, they bred basilisks in special nurseries. Each snake was created absolutely identical conditions in everything - to unify the properties and quality of ingredients. In general, there was still a lot of work to be done.

Studying went on as usual, and I have nothing to note that stands out from the daily routine. During the DADA lessons, Lupin was no longer trying to drag some creature to demonstrate us the spells - much more theory and practicing spells on the dummy. Hagrid decided to follow the same methodology, who suddenly remembered that children consider themselves immortal and much smarter than an adult experienced forester, who had found out from his own experience the peculiarities of communication with this or that beast. So he does not want a repeat of the incident with Malfoy. That's why now in classes on Care of Magical Creatures, everyone grows quite nasty chimeras - Blast-Ended Skrewts. They bite, spit fire, and have poisonous stings in their arsenal. At the same time, they look like some kind of crabs with short and thick legs, a scorpion sting, and some kind of jet engine in their, excuse me, butt, and their mouth is round, like a worm. In general, it's a disgusting creature.