Despite his status as a prisoner, Sirius showed no signs of pleading or submission. He glanced at the Daily Prophet lying on the floor and saw his picture on the cover, along with a bounty of ten thousand Galleons.
"Congratulations, kid. You caught the most evil and dangerous criminal of all time. When are you going to take me to collect the bounty?"
"I have no interest in working for the Ministry." Ivan picked up the Daily Prophet, crumpled it up, and threw it into the fire, staring directly at the thin, haggard man in front of him.
"I'm here for you!"
Sirius didn't understand what Ivan was trying to say, but he soon found out.
"Dwarf-Peter!"
Sirius's pupils contracted and he lunged forward, grabbing Ivan by the collar, but Ivan's wand was already at his neck.
The wand's tip glowed with magical fluorescence, calming Sirius somewhat, though his eyes were wild beneath his long, wild hair.
'Where did you get that name?' Sirius enunciated.
A hundred thoughts raced through his mind. Since this strange young wizard had no intention of handing him over to the Ministry, there was only one possibility.
The other party was here to kill him on Peter's behalf! Or perhaps this young wizard's family had died in the explosion thirteen years ago and was here to seek revenge!
After all, he and Peter were the only ones who knew about what happened back then…
He was now a Death Eater who had murdered thirteen Muggles and betrayed his friends.
Sirius's eyes turned red at the thought, and despite the threat of death, he attempted to forcibly subdue the young wizard in front of him and explain the situation.
Ivan was faster, however, and in an instant activated the protective ring on his right hand, causing the Shield Charm to flash around him.
Sirius was thrown violently back against the wall behind him.
"You'd better calm down. I have no intention of going against you." Ivan's tone was curt.
Normally, he would have given Sirius a good explanation, but he was not in the mood!
Sirius struggled to his feet. Having been easily subdued twice by Ivan, he had learned that Ivan was far more powerful than he had expected. "What do you want?" he asked.
Ivan picked up another Daily Prophet from the table, this one with a headline covering the Weasley family's thousand Galleon trip to Egypt.
Ivan pointed to Scabbers, who was in Ron's arms, and said to Sirius, "I know what you're going to do, and I can help you catch that rat, but in return you'll have to take orders from me for a while…"
Sirius turned away from Ivan and looked at the rat in the newspaper with murder in his eyes.
'Why should I believe you?' Sirius scoffed.
He could have caught Peter himself without anyone's help, and he did not trust this young wizard.
"You have no choice! If you don't want to go back to Azkaban…" Ivan pointed his wand at him threateningly.
Sirius fell silent, understanding Ivan's meaning. If he disagreed, he would be handed over to the Auror and imprisoned in Azkaban again.
Most importantly, his Animagus had been exposed. The Aurors would definitely prepare a special prison for him, or even execute him as a dangerous person!
'Fine! How will you help me?' Sirius's eyes twinkled as he relented, willing to do anything to kill Peter, even if it meant taking orders from a minor wizard.
However, if the other party could not give him a good idea, he would not play any wizard's game with him. He would agree for the time being and find an opportunity to escape after recovering his strength.
'And how did you know Peter was alive?' Sirius persisted.
Without replying, Ivan took a blank piece of parchment from his pocket and showed it to Sirius.
"The Marauder's Map!" Sirius immediately recognised it, and his suspicions lessened. With the Marauder's Map, it was only natural that the young wizard in front of him would notice Peter in his rat form.
This was because if you were observant enough, you could spot a mouse with a name on the map.
The only thing that Sirius could not understand was why Ivan would help him, the supposed Azkaban fugitive.
Could it be that he had already interacted with Peter and found something wrong?
It couldn't be that the other party was able to take Peter's memories, right?
Sirius could not understand and was about to question Ivan when Ivan interrupted him.
"The young wizard with the mouse in the picture is called Ron, and Peter is his pet now, in the same dormitory as me. I can easily catch Peter and bring him to you!"
"And Harry, you must have wanted to see him? I could have created an opportunity for you to meet, you could have explained everything to him, and even taken care of him yourself once you were off the hook!
As I'm sure you've seen before, Harry is not having a good time…he's even been disowned!"
Ivan's words were like a hammer blow to Sirius's heart, each one directed at what he longed for the most.
Ivan, however, quickly changed the subject.
"That's if you do something for me, or I'll let the rat go and throw it somewhere you'll never find it! And then I'll tell Harry you betrayed his parents!"
Sirius's face froze, and he gave Ivan a long look, thinking that the young wizard in front of him was a monster!
'You win!' Sirius sighed, abandoning the idea of running away. 'What exactly do you need me to do? Help you deal with any of the older students who bully you? Or do your parents treat you badly and need me to beat them up?'
Sirius thought about what a young wizard of Ivan's age might need to do, and looked at Dobby, the house-elf, and decided that Ivan might be the son of an ancient pure-blood who had run away from his family in an argument.
"Murder!" Ivan said, his face expressionless.
'Are you sure?' Sirius's pupils contracted and a chill ran down his spine.
Although he had just escaped from Azkaban and had been forced into a corner, he still had his limits.
Not killing innocent people is one of the bottom lines!
What made him frown even more was why a thirteen-year-old young wizard would speak of murder so casually.
(PS: To answer a question from a few fellow readers: The book does not explicitly mention the limits of the Time-Turner, and the Unbroken Time-Turner is strong enough to go back decades in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. In short, it is not so strong as to only return for a few hours.)