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Chapter 218: Chapter 218 The Wolf, the Mouse and the Black Dog

"The Shrieking Shack?" Dracula raised an eyebrow, "The house that is rumored to be haunted in Hogsmeade?"

As a well-known attraction in Hogsmeade, the haunted Shrieking Shack had naturally piqued Dracula's interest.

But after he stayed there for a few nights and realized that it was nothing more than an ordinary to ordinary shack, he lost interest in it.

When he heard Lupin suddenly mention this shack, Dracula's curiosity was once again piqued.

"As a matter of fact, this shrieking shack has never been haunted ...," Lupin said with a gentle shake of his head, "The screams and howls that the villagers often hear are actually from me when I transform into a werewolf on the nights of the full moon. "

"So that's it?" Dracula nodded thoughtfully.

No wonder the villagers of Hogsmeade said that no ghostly screams had come out of this shrieking shack for over ten years. Lupin had graduated from Hogwarts a long time ago, and naturally the Shrieking Shack wouldn't be utilized anymore.

"Professor Dracula, you know that I am a werewolf, but I'm sure you don't know how I became one." Lupin continued, "At that time, my father offended a werewolf at the court of the Ministry of Magic, and that werewolf, in order to take revenge on him, sneaked into my house on the night of the full moon and bit me who was still very young."

"That werewolf was Fenrir Grayburk, who was captured by you at Castle Dracula in Romania."

"Such a coincidence?" Dracula was a little surprised.

If it wasn't for Lupin suddenly mentioning it, he had almost forgotten that there was another werewolf locked in a dog cage, and he wondered if Serena had forgotten to arrange for her subordinates to bring him food.

It would be a bit funny if he were to starve to death in the cage ...

"At the time, my parents tried all sorts of things that prevented the transformation into a werewolf, but nothing ever worked." Lupin continued to narrate, "The Wolfsbane Potion, after all, only appeared recently, and only gradually became popular after Damocles Belby made improvements."

"The potion does make werewolves safe, as long as they take it a week before the full moon, they will remain sane while shapeshifting. With the aid of this potion, I was able to curl up indoors and be a harmless wolf, waiting for the full moon to pass ..."

"However, before the wolfsbane potion was invented, I would turn into an unapologetic wolf, brutal and bloodthirsty, one day a month. I would never have been able to come to Hogwarts, and there's no way other parents would have wanted to expose their children to me."

"But I was lucky enough to meet Headmaster Dumbledore, who was very sympathetic. He said that with certain precautions, there would be no reason to keep me from coming to school." Lupin sighed and addressed Dracula.

"That Beating Willow was actually planted so that I could come to Hogwarts without any problems. That shanty was also built for me. ..." he pointed in the direction of the Beating Willow on the northeast side of the castle, "There's a passageway next to the roots of the Beating Willow that connects all the way from Hogwarts to the Shrieking Shack... ..."

"That passageway was created for my use. Once a month, I was smuggled out of the castle and sent here to be transformed. The beating willows were planted at the entrance to the passageway to keep anyone from encountering me when I was a danger to people."

Dracula nodded softly.

"That makes sense, otherwise it always seemed a bit out of character to plant a dangerous plant fairly close to the school's teaching area." He laughed softly, "Of course, there's no shortage of things that don't make sense about this school in the first place."

Lupin smiled heartily in return, and proceeded to tell the story of his own year down the line:

"In those days, my transformation was ... terrible. Turning into a werewolf was very painful, without any sanity, only the desire for bloodlust and destruction, wanting to bite people but staying away from the crowd, so I was left to gnaw and scratch myself."

"The villagers of Hogsmeade heard all those noises and screams I was making from the Shrieking Shack and assumed that they were hearing the sounds of a particularly ferocious poltergeist. And instead of stopping it, Dumbledore encouraged people to spread these kinds of rumors, thinking that it would go even further in preventing others from going near the shanty ..."

"Of course, I didn't realize that even now, despite the fact that the house hasn't had such noises in years, the villagers are still afraid to go near it."

"When you think about it that way, werewolves do have it pretty rough." Dracula nodded, "In comparison, vampires don't have so much to do, and are in whatever state they should be, and don't have the pain that werewolves have every month."

"Nor was it painful to that extent ...," Lupin smiled and shook his head, "I was happier then than I'd ever been, except for the time I spent shapeshifting into a werewolf. I had friends for the first time, or three good ones. Jaime Potter, Sirius Black ... and, of course, Peter Pediru."

"There's no way my three best friends didn't notice that I was missing once a month."

"I made up all sorts of stories - telling them that my mom had gotten sick and I had to go home to see her ... I was especially worried that they would ignore me once they realized I was a werewolf. But they were smart, and soon realized the truth of the matter through their textbook on black magic defenses ..."

"But what I didn't expect was that they didn't ignore me at all, instead they did a lot of things for me, so that I could not only endure the pain of shape-shifting, but also made my time at Hogwarts the happiest time of my life - they learned Animagus, and spent time with me in my animal form on the nights of the full moon."

"All three of them were Animagus?" Dracula asked with some surprise.

"Yes, indeed." Lupin said, "It took them almost three years to do it. Jaime and Sirius were the smartest students in the school, and they did all they could to help Peter with the Animagus Transformation after they reached it."

"They were lucky in that the Animagus Transfiguration didn't go off the rails or go terribly wrong - after successfully learning the Animagus, they also didn't choose to register with the Ministry of Magic ... so few people know that there are three more Animagus in the magic world."

"What a touching friendship!" Dracula exclaimed, "Unable to keep company with their friends in human form, they turned into animal forms to keep each other company ... I can't believe that even such a combination had a day when a traitor appeared."

Lupin's face grew a little heavy once again.

"Well, thanks for the story, Professor Lupin." Dracula said with understanding, "I can probably see that the reason Sirius Black was able to avoid Dumbledore and I is actually quite simple, it's just because he's an Animagus."

"Thinking about it that way ... the reason for escaping from Azkaban is probably the same, those brainless Dementors are never interested in an animal, and the Azkaban Dementor Import/Export has never been able to stop an animal."

When Dracula had sneaked off to Azkaban to find information on Sirius Black, it was as a bat that he had transformed into and entered the middle of the prison through the narrow Dementor entrance and exit.

"So you knew all along where Blake might be? Then why did you go so long without telling Dumbledore about it?" Thinking so, Dracula squinted over at Lupin, "Are you still willing to believe that he was wrongly accused, that he was actually a good man despite his escape?"

"There are elements of that, I never could believe that Sirius would betray Jaime ..." Lupin said softly, "but on the other hand, there has always been some guilt in the back of my mind that I failed Dumbledore's trust ..."

"At the time, when none of the other Headmasters would accept me, he was the only one who did, and he was completely unaware that I had broken the Code - a Code that he had created for my safety and that of others."

"As a matter of fact, he never knew that I had connived with three friends to illegally learn to be Animagus. During the school year, whenever we sat down to plan the next month's adventures, I kept trying to find a way to forget this guilt, but I still haven't changed anything about it ... I indulged in the company of my friends who transformed into animals on the nights of the full moon."

Lupin's face was a little heavy, and his voice even took on a note of self-disgust, "All the time that Dumbledore has been hiring me to come to Hogwarts, I've been struggling with myself, unable to decide whether or not 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 have meant that I had failed him as a student, it would have meant admitting that I had also led others to join me in breaking the Code ... And for me, Dumbledore's trust was extremely important."

"That mentality hasn't changed even after becoming the current werewolf leader ... I also started out by showing my face every day in the most visible part of the castle, hoping that Sirius would realize that there were still people inside Hogwarts who would recognize his Animagus form. My behavior during that time did have some effect."

"But in time, it was as if I had convinced myself that Sirius had blended into the school using the evil spells he had learned from Voldemort, and that his becoming an Animagus had nothing to do with it ..."

"Severus has always been cynical about me, in the sense that he's always been right about me."

Lupin shook his head mockingly, his eyes incredibly complicated.

"I'm actually puzzled as to what kind of conflict Snape had with a few of you during the school year." Dracula asked curiously, "More than ten years have passed, and the hatred in his eyes doesn't seem to have faded even a little."

"Well ... this matter is a bit complicated to say the least, which includes the fight during the youthful and frivolous period, the dislike between the two arch-rival academies, the conflict caused by the different ideas, the confrontation in terms of feelings, the generation of the threat to life and the rescue... ..."

Lupin's series of adjectives made the corners of Dracula's mouth twitch hard.

"Why do I get the feeling that the drama that old Nicole watched wasn't as complicated as the story between you two ..."

"Yes, it is indeed complicated, and there are some things I can't talk about yet because it involves Snape's privacy." Lupin smiled softly, "But there is something very close to me that I can still tell you about-"

"When I was at school, Severus took a particular interest in where I went each month," he recounted felicitously, "We were in the same year, and neither of us liked each other very much yet."

"He especially disliked Jaime, jealous of the way Jaime made a name for himself on the Quidditch pitch, of the closeness with which Jaime and Lily talked and laughed ... Until one day Severus saw me walking across the grounds with Madam Pomfrey on the evening of a full moon one day, and she led me over to the Beater Willow to scream about the shanty Transfiguration."

"Sirius had little sense of propriety at the time, and mischievously told Severus that he could follow me into the hole in the tree if he touched the knothole in the trunk with a long stick; Sirius thought it was ... well, funny. Snape, of course, tried just that ..."

"If he had actually gone inside the Shrieking Shack, he would have encountered outright werewolves ... But luckily Jaime reacted in time after hearing what Sirius had done and pulled Snape back after him, otherwise I don't really know what would have happened."

"No wonder Snape said that you guys never put other people's feelings or even their lives on the line, so that's what else happened." Dracula said thoughtfully, "But he was sort of saved by Jaime Potter after all, so how come he hates Harry so much now?"

"By Severus' own account, he'd rather not be saved by Jaime than die in the Shrieking Shack ...," Lupin sighed forlornly, "What happened between Jaime and Severus is much more complicated and can't be made clear in a moment's time clear."

"It's all right, time is the last thing I need." Dracula got up to listen to the story and hooked the corners of his mouth slightly, "I'll come to your office when I can and listen to your story of the feud between you and Professor Snape."

Lupin opened his mouth as if he subconsciously wanted to refuse, but then lost his smile and nodded.

"Huh, the faculty lounge is here." Without realizing it, the two had already walked together to the door of the faculty lounge, and Dracula pushed the door open, "Go in and see your old friend!"

After sending Lupin inside the lounge, Dracula closed the door again with his backhand and went alone to the tree under the beating willow as Lupin had said.

The usually grumpy Beating Willow had always been quiet in front of Dracula, swaying gently with the early morning breeze, purposely shifting a few branches to thoughtfully make way for the hole in the secret passage under the tree.

Dracula nodded with a tantalizing smile and stepped through the opening under the tree.

He was going to go to the Shrieking Shack himself and grab Sirius Black, so that the three dear friends from over a decade ago could have a proper reunion!