Chapter 219 Sirius Black

It was a house, a messy, dusty house.

The wallpaper had come off the walls, there were stains all over the floor, one piece of furniture was broken, seemingly by human beings, and the windows were boarded up.

Inside the room lay a man, a man who didn't look alive.

A mass of dirty, tangled hair hung down to his elbows; if the eyes hidden in deep, dark sockets wouldn't have rolled, he could have been a corpse; and the waxy skin clung to the bones of his face in a way that made him look alive as a skeleton.

He was Sirius Black.

Sirius was depressed now. Just a short while ago, he had taken a big risk to sneak into Hogwarts Castle, trying to catch Peter Pettigrew, who had betrayed Jaime, in the dead of night.

Last night was the night of the full moon, and Lupin, the only one inside the entire castle who could recognize his Animagus form, had to endure the process of shapeshifting into a werewolf alone, and couldn't possibly go out and inspect the entire castle as usual.

At the same time, last night also happened to be All Hallow's Eve, and the professors and students had enjoyed the All Hallow's Eve dinner in the auditorium, where everyone was well-fed and deeply asleep.

As a result, he was able to sneak into the empty Gryffindor tower unnoticed, as well as enter the Gryffindor common room with a slip of paper recording a week's worth of passwords that a clever half-blooded cat, Beaver, had brought over to him.

Sirius thought that last night was the best chance to catch Peter, and if he missed this opportunity, he might never be able to catch the dastardly rat again.

But he had failed after all.

Peter wasn't stupid, and the rat, who only wanted to live, likewise knew that last night was a full moon, and it was unlikely that Lupin would be patrolling the castle grounds as he usually did.

What had happened in the meantime had allowed Peter to determine that Sirius had found out about the fact that he was hiding from Ron playing pet, and that it was no longer safe to remain in the Gryffindor tower.

So he ran out of Ron's bed ahead of time, and used his tiny mouse body to run hard toward the forbidden forest. Only by thoroughly integrating into the vast forest could he gain greater vitality ...

In fact, it was no wonder that Sirius had pounced; Peter, whose sense of survival was drawn full, had actually tried to escape a long time ago.

It was only that the hybrid cat beaver Crookshanks that Hermione had raised was too smart and had long ago realized that he was not a normal mouse, which was why he tried to go over to the boys' dormitory several times to catch him.

If it wasn't for Peter's naive little master, Ron Weiss, coming to shield him, I'm afraid he would have been exposed long ago.

It was also because of Crookshanks' suspicions that Peter had no way of escaping under the heavy guard of a cat.

Fortunately, last night, Crookshanks went to look for Sirius with Neville's note recording the password of the common room in his mouth, and Peter finally found a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to escape and simpered out of the common room.

Only a mouse's crawling speed is really limited, and Peter was captured by Dracula and Dumbledore halfway there ...

Of course, Sirius was unaware of the fact that Peter had been captured, and was chagrined, half lying on the dusty floor of the Shrieking Shack, wracking his brain to think of any other way to capture Peter.

"That dead rat is too alert, no, this can't go on!" Sirius thought with secret hatred as he scratched at his stray hair that he had pulled into a ball.

"I'm afraid that rat is willing to even stay in the sewers with real rats in order to stay alive ... If it really comes to that, I may never find him again."

Thinking like this, he stood up from the ground and carefully used his magic to restore the dust on the ground to its original state ... He had to be careful at all times not to let others find any traces that someone had been here.

At the same time, Sirius secretly made up his mind and decided to take the risk and make another trip back to Hogwarts.

If he couldn't catch the enemy who betrayed Jaime and Lily this time, it would be useless for him to live on for a long time, so he might as well let go!

Sirius figured it all out and tiptoed over to the other side of the shack and lifted a broken plank.

Underneath the plank was a deep passageway that he knew would lead to the northeast side of Hogwarts Castle next to the Beater's Willow.

Sirius picked up his wand, which he had seized from someone else, and lit the glow of an illumination spell on the tip.

Then, instead, he saw an upright figure with silver hair walking silently down the tunnel.

The originally low secret passageway that required bending down to pass through, surprisingly, every time he took a step, an area became spacious and flat, and even automatically laid a layer of neat tiles around the tunnel, thus leaving that silver-haired figure's entire body unblemished.

The figure didn't light any lamps, and the only bright light in the tunnel shone in from the tip of Sirius's wand, which, after heavy reflections, shone on that handsome but pale face, adding a bit of eerie atmosphere.

"Are you ... you a human or a ghost!" Sirius subconsciously exclaimed.

As he said so, he suddenly realized that no matter whether that figure was a human or a ghost, he should immediately control that unexpected visitor to prevent his position from being leaked.

So he immediately cast a powerful stupefy spell on that figure.

However, the figure just casually raised his hand and cupped Sirius's stupor spell in his hand, followed by a gentle grip ...

As if the stupefy spell did not work on him, it was just crushed into a piece of trivial light points, and waved away with the figure's open palm.

Sirius' eyes widened under the cover of his dirty hair.

Even though it was just a stupefy spell that he had hastily cast, as an outstanding wizard who had once fought on the front line against Death Eaters, he didn't think that the power of this magic spell was much different from the spells carefully prepared by those outstanding Aurors.

Yet it was such a magic spell that was actually caught by a man with his bare hands ...

This was too exaggerated!

Realizing that he might not have the means to deal with this figure that gradually came before him, Sirius developed a sense of retreat in his heart and silently retreated two steps back.

...

Changing back to Dracula's perspective, he had just walked inside the deep and dark tunnel for several minutes.

Changing the terrain while walking with Transfiguration slightly slowed down the progress, but in order not to rub against the surrounding dust that hadn't been cleaned up for I don't know how many years, it didn't hurt to slow down a little bit.

As a vampire count who preferred to be active at night, he also didn't need any lights and could easily see things in the dark tunnel.

Just as he kept walking until he was about to get impatient and was ready to phantom shift directly to the Shrieking Shack, a bright light suddenly appeared in front of him.

A figure as withered and frightening as a skeleton, with a complexion more green than Regulus Blake's shadowy corpse, and with a mass of long, dirty hair appeared behind that bright light.

Then the skeleton spoke:

"Are you ... you a human or a ghost?!"

Dracula: "..."

To be honest, although Dracula was technically neither a human nor a ghost, being asked such a question by such a long-haired skeleton was really a bit too much for him to take in.

Then, the skeleton also picked up his wand and used a stupor spell on him.

Dracula wasn't too happy in his heart anymore, so of course he didn't show the slightest bit of mercy, and directly raised his hand and rubbed that stupor spell into points of light.

Then, he took a step and instantly appeared in front of that skeleton.

"Before asking someone if they are a human or a ghost, I suggest you take a look at what you look like first!" Dracula said coldly, "Don't you think so, Mr. Sirius Black?"

Sirius' eyes grew very intense as he heard Dracula's precision call out his name.

Instead of responding, he simply took a half step back once more before instantly phantom shifting out of the Shrieking Shack.

"Snort, how is it that wizards are so unoriginal one by one?" Looking at the disappearing Sirius, Dracula snorted, "Do you really think you can run away with Phantom Shift?"

The light in his eyes flowed, instantly capturing the previous spatial fluctuation, and then following the trail of Sirius' Phantom Shift, he made the same Phantom Shift and disappeared in the same place.

In the next moment, Dracula appeared in the middle of a remote deserted mountain, and in front of him was Sirius Black, who had a season of heart.

"Hello again, Mr. Blake." Dracula hooked the corner of his mouth and playfully greeted Sirius.

"What?!"

Sirius hadn't even gotten over the shock he had just felt when his fragile mind suffered another shock and his heart missed a beat.

He subconsciously used Phantom Shift again, however, before his body could get into the vortex of spatial fluctuations, he was yanked out by a large, illusory hand, dragging him hard in front of Dracula.

"I haven't even stated my intention, why are you running?" Dracula frowned at Sirius in front of him and said in a cold voice, "Don't you want to hear what I'm looking for you for first?"

"Running into someone as creepy as you, do I have to stay there for Christmas if I don't run?" Sirius seemed to know at this point that he couldn't run away, and slumped to the ground in a bit of self-loathing.

"Like I said, do you want to look at what you've grown into before you think about calling someone else creepy." Dracula's mouth twitched as he grabbed Sirius by the collar and dragged him over to a nearby pond.

He pressed Sirius' head down so that the skeleton's withered cheeks were reflected in the water, "Take a good look at your own image! I thought the Blake family was in pretty good condition before, but I didn't expect to produce a skeleton like you."

Sirius was abruptly quiet, staring silently at the water that was occasionally rippling.

"Hahahahaha ... So I've become like this?" After only a second of silence, he suddenly laughed madly, "You may not believe it, but I used to be the schoolboy of Hogwarts ... Professor Dracula?"

After Sirius relaxed from his tight state, he finally recognized Dracula from his trademark silver hair and great strength.

"Really?" Dracula glanced at Sirius' face, then averted his eyes with a face full of disgust, "So the ... so-called schoolboys all turn out to look like this in the end?"

He thought of the originally very handsome schoolboy Tom Riddle, who later turned into a nose-less Voldemort; and then he looked at the Sirius-Blake in front of him, who had been tortured by a dementor into a skeleton ...

Dracula was silently worried about Cedric Diggory's future in his mind.

"Professor Dracula ...," Sirius, still looking at the water, suddenly spoke out.

"Hmm?"

"Before you send me to Azkaban, could you help me catch someone?" Sirius said hatefully, the bitter hatred in his voice seeming to go up to the clouds, "That person deserves to be locked up in Azkaban more than me, and deserves to be taken by the Dementor's Kiss more than me!"

After saying this, he was afraid that Dracula wouldn't agree, and continued to add a few more chips:

"After this is done, I will allow you to send me to the Ministry of Magic to collect the highest bounty, and I will even give you all the remaining wealth of the Breck family ... We can sign an unbreakable oath!"

Sirius knew that he had no chance of resisting, but still wanted to try and see if he could trick this powerful professor into helping him get Peter arrested, otherwise he would not be willing to die!

"Save your breath, you don't even have a few people left in the Breck family, how many broken dollars can you still have left?" Dracula's tone was dismissive.

"Wait, Professor Dracula, you probably don't understand pureblood families ...," Sirius said eagerly, "Even if our family has fallen now, the wealth accumulated over the years is by no means a small number! I ..."

"Don't bother with that, I know how much wealth you still have." Dracula interrupted, "It's only a few hundred thousand Galleons, and most of it isn't liquid, it's not much fun."

Sirius: "?"

Hundreds of thousands of Galleons didn't feel like enough, what kind of person was this Professor Dracula? And how did he know how much wealth the Breck family had left?

Sirius was very confused.

Of course he couldn't possibly know that his brother Regulus Blake had been rescued by Dracula and that the house elf Kreacher had already taken an inventory of the family's remaining wealth, and that Regulus was currently planning to revive the Blake family's various hidden assets.

"Well, if the man you're talking about is Peter Pediru, then we've actually got him." After watching the fun, Dracula finally put away teasing Sirius and told the truth.

"Snape used the truth spit to ask that rat all the truth, and by now Dumbledore should be thinking about how to remove your wanted notice."

Sirius' eyes widened suddenly.

"Is that true?!" He jumped instantly, his tone laced with suppressed ecstasy.

"Of course, there's no need for me to lie to you." Dracula laughed lightly, "Just go back to Hogwarts in a while and take you to see for yourself."

"... But before we go back, I think it's time for you to have a good bath, so you don't scare the timid little wizards."

Dracula had an impish grin on his face and kicked Sirius into the pond.