Ivan: I'm Not a Devil!

Peter became more and more convinced that the young wizard in front of him wanted to torture him. Otherwise, why would he injure him with a spell, treat him, and then repeat the process…

What was the point?

Peter's anger boiled over, but when he saw Ivan approaching, it was instantly extinguished and transformed into fear…

Ivan did not continue to torment him as Peter had expected, but looked at the parchment in his hand and spoke to him.

"Okay, that's it for today… Transform into a mouse and I'll take you back."

Peter's tears threatened to fall when he heard this. It's finally over…

To Peter's surprise, Ivan was not only not going to kill him, but was going to send him back to Ron.

Peter's eyes flashed with gratitude, and he transformed into his Animagus form as Ivan had instructed…

However, Peter soon realised that there was something wrong with Ivan's words.

Wait… that's it for today?

'So there may be tomorrow and the day after?'

Peter felt his skin crawl at the thought, and a chill ran down his spine.

Before he could think any further, a white light flashed and Peter was knocked out cold.

"I forgot everything!"

Ivan looked at the unconscious Peter and slowly put his wand away.

He had learned the Memory Charm from Lockhart, and was getting better at it.

To prevent Peter from realising that there was something wrong with his memory, Ivan merely deleted the details of the experiment that night, so that Peter would only think that he had fallen asleep.

After dealing with the rat, Ivan returned his attention to his research notes and nodded in satisfaction.

The Polyjuice Potion's duration was nearly doubled with the addition of valerian and several neutral ingredients!

It was also much more stable than before, and no amount of spell-casting could harm Peter or affect the potion.

This meant that the research and development of the potion was almost complete. With Peter Pettigrew's help, Ivan estimated that he would be able to find the best potion formula in two or three days at most, and complete the improvement of the Polyjuice Potion!

At the same time, Ivan felt he needed to find an opportunity to confirm what the Time-Turner had said about increasing risk with every turn…

Ivan sighed at the thought, grabbed the unconscious Peter and left the Room of Requirement.

When they returned to the dormitory, Harry, Ron and the others were still fast asleep in their beds, so Ivan quietly put the grayish-black rat back in its original position.

…

Early the next morning, a blood-curdling scream rang out in the boys' dormitory, waking everyone up.

After only a short nap, Ivan yawned and sat up, only to find that the noise was coming from Ron's bed.

Ron rubbed his ears in confusion and turned to see his pet Scabbers curled up in a corner, biting his pillow.

"Scabbers… what's the matter with you?!" Ron was so shocked that he reached out to grab the mouse, but it just bared its teeth at him as if it were frightened…

In fact, this was exactly the case. When Peter woke up early this morning, he suddenly found himself aching all over and his body was extremely weak, as if he had been secretly beaten up in his sleep at night…

'Did Sirius sneak in last night?'

But why didn't he remember anything?

As far as Peter could remember, everything had been fine the previous night. He had simply slept through it all.

Or was he really ill?

Peter seemed a little paranoid…

After a while, seeing that it was almost time for class, Ron grabbed Scabbers and stuffed him into his pocket.

Yvonne watched in silence. It was strange. She remembered that she had deleted all relevant memories. Why was Peter still reacting so strongly?

It soon became clear to Ivan that Peter was suffering from muscle aches, even though he had recovered from his injuries.

Relieved that it wasn't his Memory Charm, Ivan got out of bed, washed up, and got ready for class.

It wasn't until dinner that night that Ivan remembered to ask about the condition of the lab rats, so he turned to Ron.

"Ron, how's Scabbers?"

"This is terrible!" Ron exclaimed, looking worried as he pulled Scabbers out of his pocket.

The grayish-black rat had lost its usual vibrancy and was lying limp and unmoving on Ron's hand…

"It looks like it's really sick, like it went crazy this morning, and it's not feeling so good," Ron said, looking upset.

"I have a bottle of Energy Tonic here. You can give it to him to try… it should help," Ivan said after a moment of thought.

"Good! Thank you so much, Ivan!" Ron accepted the potion and was about to pour it into Scabbers's mouth.

The latter seemed to have gone mad, fighting back and even tearing Ron's skin…

Although Peter had lost his memory of the previous night due to the effects of the Memory Charm, he was still traumatized by the sight of the potion's potion, and felt that there had to be something wrong with it, not to mention that Ivan had given it to Ron.

Peter was even more reluctant to drink it…

However, he was only a rat now, and it was useless to resist.

Ron was very determined, beckoning Harry to help hold Scabbers down while he opened Scabbers's mouth and poured the potion in.

Squeak squeak …

Peter screamed so loudly that Ivan was reminded of Peter's prolonged screams the night before.

Ivan was very helpless. This bottle of potion only added some nourishing effects to the potion. It was not poisonous…

After a while, Peter suddenly stopped crying and his body relaxed.

This was because Peter found the potion to be quite sweet… and not poisonous.

After drinking it, Peter felt a natural surge of happiness. His body seemed to have been cleansed, and the stubborn expression on his face slowly relaxed. His exhaustion was gone, and a smile appeared on his face.

Peter looked around and found everything particularly pleasing to the eye. When he saw Ivan, he couldn't help but wonder if he had misunderstood him all along.

This young wizard might really care about me…