#446 - Sirius and Lupin

Hi, Michael:

Thanks to Dumbledore, I'm back safe and sound, everything is fine, and I'll be returning to school this Sunday night.

My Friend Book isn't with me right now, so I have to write to you. I'll tell you the other details when we meet.

Please let everyone know I'm safe, and I hope you're all doing well.

Best wishes, Wade

Wade signed his name, folded the letter after the ink dried, put it in an envelope, and watched the owl fly out the window with the letter.

He actually wanted to go to the apartment he used to live in, to pack up his belongings that he had left there, including all the Christmas presents. But as soon as Wade showed any intention of going out, Fiona grabbed his wrist tightly, her fingers feeling particularly cold.

"Not now," Wade said, patting her arm reassuringly. "Tomorrow morning, I can ask Mr. Moody to accompany me. He used to be the most powerful Auror in the Ministry of Magic. With him around, you can rest assured."

"But Moody hasn't been home lately," Ferdinand frowned.

Then he thought that Wade had already returned, and if Moody had gone out to rescue Wade, he should be back soon.

Ferdinand changed his mind and said, "How about this, I'll go with you to visit Moody tomorrow morning, and if he's not home... we can also contact Lupin."

Ferdinand also has Lupin's contact information.

Anyway, after this kidnapping incident, the couple didn't dare to let Wade go out alone for the time being, and they didn't have much affection for that house in London at the moment.

Although it wouldn't take Wade long to fly there as a peregrine falcon and he could also Apparate, he still smiled and nodded, agreeing.

Wade sent the letter to Michael, sat at the desk by the window to sort out the books—books that recorded dark magic, even copies, were not suitable for ordinary people to see.

Not only because their contents were dark and dangerous, but also because these books themselves had the ability to harm others due to the magic recorded on them. Some would bewitch people to read them, some would attract disasters, and some would cause auditory and visual hallucinations.

So these books usually had to be sealed with appropriate magic, and there were certain techniques for reading them.

Similar to Hagrid's favorite "The Monster Book of Monsters", if you didn't stroke it along the spine, it was no different from a rabid dog and could even bite off your fingers.

Wade was halfway through sorting when he vaguely heard the crackling sound of firecrackers. He looked up at the window vigilantly, thinking that maybe Moody was back, but the next second he saw two familiar figures walking towards the gate.

"Sirius! Remus!"

Wade leaned against the window and waved happily. The two adult wizards looked up at him together, then smiled and waved.

Both of them looked travel-worn and were originally talking in low voices about something, their expressions a bit serious, but when they saw Wade, their expressions immediately relaxed.

Wade quickly went downstairs. When he passed the study, Ferdinand opened the door and asked, "Wade, what's wrong?"

"Sirius and Remus are here!" Wade said.

When they got downstairs, Fiona had already opened the door and greeted the two guests.

"Good afternoon, Mrs. Grey."

"Long time no see, Mr. Grey."

They said with a smile, then eagerly walked up to Wade. Seeing that he was safe and sound, they breathed a sigh of relief.

"That's great, you're okay!" Lupin opened his arms and gave him a strong hug, saying in a slightly trembling voice, "I'm so sorry, Wade."

"It's not your fault, Remus," Wade said, patting him on the back comfortingly. "You know, that's Grindelwald."

"Don't always have such a gloomy expression, Moony."

Sirius put his hand on their shoulders, winked, and said, "What a great adventure, isn't it? Wade, I really wish I were you—facing the dark lord who ruled Europe fifty years ago, that must be exciting!"

Lupin: "…"

He rolled his eyes at Sirius speechlessly—what nonsense are you talking about in front of other people's parents?

Wade couldn't help but laugh.

…

The Grey couple knew they had something to say, and after preparing desserts and black tea, they returned to the study upstairs, leaving the space for the three of them.

After some conversation, Sirius and Lupin learned about Wade's general experience, and Wade also learned about their experience of tracking the actions of the National Purity Party and even fighting to that castle.

"We thought those guys must have locked you up in the National Purity Party's lair. We didn't expect Grindelwald to take you to the battlefield," Sirius said with a frown, his eyes becoming sharp.

Lupin patted Wade on the shoulder and said, "I guess that must not be a pleasant memory. Wade, if... I mean... if they forced you to hurt someone, don't feel burdened. We all know you had no choice."

"Don't worry, I just did some technician work," Wade said with a smile. "Even when they were fighting, Grindelwald just kept me by his side..."

He paused and continued, "Actually, I feel... he should have known about your rescue plan long ago and was originally planning to let me leave with Dumbledore."

While he was speaking, Lupin kept looking at his expression. Seeing that Wade's eyes were still clear and frank, and his expression was not gloomy, he knew that he was telling the truth, and finally truly felt relieved.

Sirius snorted coldly, "That bastard must have bad intentions. Wade, you have to be wary of those guys. Dark wizards are no good!"

He paused, thought of Regulus, and changed his words, "...Most dark wizards are no good! Their kindness is more terrible than their wrongdoing, because those guys must want to get more from you!"

Wade thought about it and felt that this couldn't be considered wrong, so he nodded.

"Be careful and firm in your beliefs," Lupin looked at Wade and said, "Whether it's kindness or malice, as long as we know what's truly important, we won't be confused."

"I understand," Wade said seriously. "Dumbledore said the same thing."

"Speaking of which, that Obscurial took your magical puppets to the National Purity Party's territory—although it was also to save you—Wade, do you know about this?" Sirius asked.

"Mabel?"

Wade recalled the girl who was determined to save her friend, and then thought about the personalities of the Rubik's Cube and Cloak puppets, and suddenly fell silent.

He felt that it was almost impossible for the puppets to be abducted by Mabel, but the possibility of them running to abduct the Obscurial was outrageously high.

But the magical world avoids talking about the thoughts and personalities of intelligent creatures like house elves. If people knew that the puppets also had their own ideas and even organized a rescue operation with strong action... At that time, the history of Muggles hunting witches might be repeated, turning into wizards hunting puppets.

"Mabel is considered my friend. I helped her once on that island."

Wade quietly pushed the blame for the puppets' unauthorized actions onto Mabel, frowned slightly as if thinking, and said after a while:

"She should have wanted to come to me for help, and then somehow found out that I had been kidnapped, so she launched a rescue operation with the puppets."

Thinking of the Obscurus black mist surging and overturning trucks, and the girl's decision to leave the Muggle soldiers to the National Purity Party later, Sirius nodded, feeling that although the child was not old, she had that kind of decisiveness.

Just like Wade, who was also young, but people couldn't treat him as a pure child.

But he still had a question: "Where did she get the news? Even we weren't sure what identity the people who did it had at first."

And Lupin said silently in his heart: Hmm... Wade seems to be hiding something? What's there to hide... It seems that he shouldn't have known about it before either...

Lupin turned over a few thoughts in his heart and turned to Sirius and said, "It should be because of the two of us. Remember? When we were chasing the owl that was delivering gifts to the Grey's apartment, we discussed this matter."

Sirius raised an eyebrow: "You mean... the Obscurial was hiding in the house at that time?"

"Yes," Lupin nodded and sighed, "Thinking about it carefully, I actually saw the colorful cube puppet at that time, but I thought it was some decoration and didn't pay attention."

Sirius also remembered and couldn't help but be speechless.

The Obscurial that had been tracked by the magical world for so long was actually only a few meters away from them, but neither of them noticed.

But the two of them had only heard about the power and danger of the Obscurus and had not seen the means of this creature... Perhaps the Obscurial has some unique hiding skills?

"Actually, I want to go back to the apartment," Wade said, "To see if the puppets have returned, whether Mabel is still there, and my Christmas presents are there too."

Lupin immediately understood what he meant and said, "We'll go with you."

…

Wade didn't plan to leave home for a long time. They went out immediately after dinner, and he also told his parents that he would be back before going to bed.

"There's no way, they're too worried about me."

After going out, Wade explained to the two of them embarrassedly.

"Understandable," Lupin said gently. "If I were your parents, I wouldn't feel comfortable letting you spend the night outside either."

"Having good parents is an invaluable experience," Sirius said with nostalgia. "Fleamont and Euphemia—oh, that's Harry's grandparents—treated me like their own son."

The streets of London were very quiet at night, the brick buildings on both sides stood silently, and occasionally a few windows showed faint light.

The three stood on the side of the road, first observed the surrounding environment, made sure there were no hidden dangers, and no Muggles were wandering nearby, before walking towards the apartment.

Entering the room, with the moonlight outside the window, it felt very deserted. Wade turned on the electric light, and the bright light instantly filled the entire room.

Many gift boxes were piled on the bed, on the floor, and on the shelves. The wardrobe space was still there, and the bell connecting the inside and outside was dozing with its head down.

"Don't sleep."

Wade flicked the bell, and it woke up suddenly, then said happily, "Master, you're back!"

Then it shook and asked, "Huh? Where are Rubik's Cube and the others?"

"That's what I want to ask you," Wade said. "How long have they been gone? Have they been back these past two days?"

"Um..."

The bell fell into deep thought and couldn't answer for a long time.

There was no way, it was just a gatekeeping bell and had no sense of time at all. And when there was no one around, the bell would mostly fall asleep to save energy.

Wade saw that it had been "umming" for a long time without saying anything and knew that he had asked a silly question. He went into the wardrobe space to take a look and didn't see any of them, so he first sent all the gifts in with the Levitation Charm and would slowly unpack them and look at them after returning home.

Wade also put away the magic books in his pocket, filling an entire bookshelf, and placed them in a different room from his previous books to avoid any bad effects between them.

Walking out of the wardrobe space, he saw Sirius and Lupin helping him pack his luggage—the clothes in the wardrobe flew out one by one, automatically folded, and fell into the box, and other items lined up, bouncing and jumping, getting into the box and standing in their positions.

When they went out, Fiona told him to pack up the important things by the way. She felt that this house was unlucky and would never live in it again.

For wizards, moving is a very simple matter. No matter how many things there are, they can be stuffed into a small suitcase.

Sirius and Lupin also visited the wardrobe space by the way. They had actually heard of this place, but they were still surprised to see the huge space inside.

"Remus is also good at the Undetectable Extension Charm, but I've never seen him make the space so big!"

Sirius exclaimed, "I've only heard that Mr. Newt Scamander has a magical suitcase that seems like another world inside!"

"Professor Morey took me to visit Mr. Scamander, and I did learn a lot from him."

Wade looked up at the magic runes in the space and turned to smile, "But his space is for saving endangered magical creatures. My place is mainly used to study alchemy. The landscape is not that rich and interesting."

"Don't let the Ministry of Magic know you have such a big space," Sirius laughed. "Otherwise, it will be difficult for you to go abroad in the future."

Lupin looked at this space, slightly lost in thought, and didn't speak.

Newt Scamander made outstanding contributions to resisting Grindelwald and also protected many magical creatures. He was a very respected person, and Lupin thought so too.

But Scamander also set up a werewolf registration book in the Ministry of Magic, recording all known werewolves in the UK, which was managed by the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures.

Perhaps Newt's original intention was to promote the harmonious coexistence of werewolves and humans, but the Ministry of Magic's methods of execution were always rough, simple, and arrogant.

Werewolves who refused to register would be regarded as dangerous elements to be eliminated, and what about werewolves who registered voluntarily? Whether in life or work, they would be monitored and managed. Lupin had seen and personally experienced many of the inconveniences and discrimination.

Wade turned the wardrobe space into a pencil case, stuffed it into his pocket, looked at the room one last time, and said, "I'll leave a note for Mabel and the others. When they come back, they'll know where to find me."

He pulled out the parchment, and had just written the beginning when Lupin suddenly said, "Look at the sky, is there something flying this way?"

Vader looked up at the window and saw a small ball of fire approaching at high speed in the night sky.