Hogwarts: Even Voldemort Can't Stop Me From Studying

Chapter 641: Chapter 32: Acting Together with Sirius, Part 1

The cold wind swept across the plain, sounding like a faint, fragmented wail. The campfire had already gone cold, and charred stones were scattered all over the ground.

Looking around, there were trampled tents everywhere, and the torn canvas flapped loudly in the wind. Various debris was strewn all over, yet their owners were nowhere to be seen.

A broken pine tree trunk had fallen, pinning down a tin kettle beneath it. Someone’s pajamas were caught in the branches, stained with large patches of blood.

The only moving thing was a Victor Krum figurine. This tiny, thumb-sized man was tirelessly pacing back and forth on the grass, his duck-like gait incredibly lifelike.

Vid looked at this small figurine and thought: It looks so silly, not as smart as my poppet.

...

When the morning light poured in through the small window of the tent, Vid opened his eyes.

He stared blankly at the crisscrossing patterns of the canvas above for a long while.

These days, this was the third time he had had a similar dream.

The first was the Killing Forest, the second was a field littered with corpses, and the third was a deserted campsite.

Occasionally having dreams was not so strange; Vid was a person with a rich imagination. He also dreamed of being chased by soldiers turned from pandas and of giants as tall and majestic as mountains being sealed away.

But to dream of similar scenes three times in a row...

Vid pondered for a long time before getting out of bed. As soon as he opened his bedroom door, he saw Harry running over hurriedly to knock on his door.

”Vid, the Weasley Family is here; shall we go find Fred and play?” Harry said excitedly.

”You go ahead, I haven’t had breakfast yet,” Vid said lazily.

The Weasley Family had arrived at the camp very early to catch the timed activation of the portkey. At that moment, the sky was just barely light, and the morning mist had not yet dispersed.

Harry, hearing this, did not insist and thudded down the stairs.

After breakfast, Vid opened his wardrobe space, took a bottle of Polyjuice Potion from the potion shelf, threw in a hair, and stirred it a few times until the potion turned seawater blue, like a vividly colored cocktail.

He tilted his head back and took a sip; an intense burning sensation spread from his stomach to his whole body, and his bones and muscles seemed to melt and then be reshaped by a pair of invisible hands.

A few seconds later, Vid saw that he had turned into a stubbled young man in his early twenties, not very tall, slightly chubby, with an ordinary appearance—just another face in the crowd.

He changed into suitable clothes, picked a spare magic wand, and as soon as he was ready to go downstairs, he saw someone coming out of the kitchen with a chicken leg between their teeth, holding a plate of sandwiches in the left hand and a cup of hot coffee in the right.

The two bumped into each other and exchanged glances in surprise.

Vid raised a smile, just about to greet when suddenly Sirius threw his things aside, leaped back, quickly drew his wand, and shouted, ”Expelliarmus!”

The red beam hit a layer of transparent shield and bounced away, smashing the living room’s chandelier with a ”thud”.

Sirius was about to continue casting spells when he saw that the things he had thrown were floating around him, and only a few drops of coffee had spilled.

”It’s me, Sirius,” the unfamiliar man across from him said in an exasperated tone, ”I’m Vid Gray.”

”Vid?” Sirius looked at him in shock. ”How did you become like this... Polyjuice Potion?”

”Yes.” Vid waved his wand, and the coffee, chicken leg, and such settled steadily on the table. ”I have something to go out for; please act like you didn’t see me.”

He hadn’t seen Sirius and Lupin during breakfast and, upon asking Kreacher, learned they had gone out on some business. He thought both had gone to protect Harry, which was why they weren’t in the tent.

Now that they’d encountered each other face to face, Vid only found it a bit troublesome but didn’t feel panicked.

He didn’t originally want to do anything bad... or rather, it might be somewhat illegal in a sense, but following Sirius’s principles, it wasn’t particularly serious.

Vid quickened his pace to continue heading out, only to be grabbed by Sirius: ”Hold on, I’ll go with you!”

Vid: ”Do you know what I’m going to do?”

”Whatever it is, it’s more interesting than carrying a bucket to fetch water! Anyway, you’re not about to murder or commit arson.” Sirius said without hesitation, stuffing an entire sandwich into his mouth in a few bites, and then hastily washed it down with a big gulp of coffee.

—I knew it.

Vid thought to himself.

—I was hoping to slip away before he realized!

He stopped in his tracks, saying, ”Don’t rush; eat slowly, I can wait.”

In less than three minutes, Sirius had finished breakfast, wiped his mouth, and said, ”Let’s go... where to? What do we want to do?”

”Doing something that others can’t know about... first, drink this.”

Vid took out a bottle of Polyjuice Potion, tossed in a strand of hair, and it turned a cement-like gray.

Sirius took a sip, showing a grimacing expression, and soon turned into a sparse-haired man who looked about sixty or seventy years old.

Sirius touched his face and then extended his hand to look at the wrinkles on its back, asking, ”What’s this guy’s name?”

”Call it whatever you like, it doesn’t matter,” Vid said. ”You can give yourself a name.”

The two went out, one after the other. Sirius pondered seriously for a moment and then said, ”From now on, call me Patroclos O’hanessian.”

—What kind of strange name is that?

Vid silently grumbled and said, ”Alright, Pat. You can call me Reid.”

”So Reid, what are we going to do?” Sirius asked.

”I heard there are Muggle administrators near the camp; do you know where they are?” Vid asked.

”Of course, follow me.”

Sirius, with a head full of directions as if carrying a navigation system, led Vid through the maze of tents. One moment, Vid felt like they were lost in a sea of tents unable to find direction; the next moment, the scene before them opened up to a deserted marsh.

Next to the camp’s entrance was a small stone house, and in front stood a man with a vacant expression, absent-mindedly handing tickets to two elderly people in long nightgowns, taking the money they handed over.

Not far away stood another wizard wearing lantern pants and an insignia on his chest, seemingly someone from the Ministry of Magic.

Vid pulled Sirius back a few steps, using the nearby tents to block the wizard’s view, then discreetly raised his magic wand aimed at the Muggle.

Sirius suddenly grabbed the other end of the wand, his expression unusually serious, saying:

”Though I did even more outrageous things when I was younger, I still have to tell you—casting spells on Muggles at will is illegal, Vid. If that guy offended you, tell me, I’ll handle him.”