"We must be careful. Peter Pettigrew is a cunning opponent. We shouldn't underestimate him. I noticed that you don't even have a wand?!"
Looking at Black's appearance, Evan couldn't help but facepalm.
In the course of these events, Black was like an ultra-version of harry.
Well, at the very least, Harry sometimes listened to other people's advice, but Black completely disregarded them.
Evan noticed a white card that Black had just left on the floor. It was an owl mailing payment confirmation sheet.
The item ordered was a Firebolt and the recipient was Harry Potter.
This was Black's Christmas gift to Harry. He looked at the astronomical price tag. Evan wondered, this guy had the time and the ability to buy such a valuable product for Harry, but he can't afford to get a wand for himself? It's just unbelievable!
"Wand?!" Sirius Black said dismissively. "I don't need such a thing. I can handle Peter Pettigrew with my bare hands."
"This is not an issue of strength. He might not be on par with you when it comes to power, but if he goes for an escape, anything could happen, just like 12 years ago!" Evan continued to persuade black, "We… You must catch him this time. That's the only way with which you can clear your name."
"You still don't get it, kid." Black roared loudly. "I repeat, I don't care what others think of me. I don't care if I'm seen as guilty. I just want him to die. I can't wait anymore!"
His loud voice shook the dust on the owl's post office roof.
"I can appreciate your desire for revenge, but at the very least you have to think about Harry. I have heard that you are his godfather. This is your final mission, the last thing that his parents entrusted you with!" Evan still had more, "Do you want Harry to have a "murderer" for a godfather? Do you want him to think that of you? That his father's best friend sold out his friends to Voldemort?"
Hearing Evan's words, Sirius calmed down.
His body was trembling gently, with his eyes full of pain.
"In the past 12 years, Harry has had a very bad life at his aunt's house. The Dursley's don't like him. You know that." Evan said softly, "Maybe he'd be willing to live with you, if you manage to clear up your name."
"James and Lily's child, living with me…" Tears flowed out of Black's eyes; he wiped his tears and sobbed. "You're right. For Harry's sake, I shall let that rat live on for a few more days."
"Well, you can come to the Gryffindor common room at eight o'clock tomorrow evening." Evan said happily. "The goal should not be killing Peter Pettigrew, but rather catching him alive. I'll make sure that the rat will be there for you. If possible, I'll catch him myself, in advance."
Evan still had more to say, and as he prepared to further discuss the details of tomorrow's plan with Black, Hermione's voice suddenly came from downstairs.
"Are you up there, Evan?"
"I am, I'll be down right away." Evan hurriedly responded, beckoning to Crookshanks on the window sill, who jumped into his arms.
"Who is that girl, your young girlfriend?" Black had a smile at the corner of his mouth.
"No, just my classmate." Evan hurriedly explained, "You should know her. Her name is Hermione Granger. She's good friends with Harry."
"I do know this girl, a beautiful young girl indeed. Judging from your appearance, she looks like she's your senior student." Black looked at Evan's face and saw his embarrassment. "However, I just saw you with her at Madam Puddifoot's Tea Shop…"
"What I do with Hermione doesn't have anything to do with you!" said Evan, blushing.
"I was more popular than you in my student days. Many girls wrote love letters to me, but I was not as good as you. I have never been with my senior…"
"Shut up and quickly change back to your Animagus form. Stay here until we leave." Evan raised his hand and said politely, "Remember, the time is tomorrow night at eight o'clock!"
Evan finished his words and put his wand back in his waist.
He patted the dust off of his body and took Crookshanks down the stairs. He saw Hermione's little face blushing in the cold and looking at him worriedly.
"I found Crookshanks, Hermione!"
"What is it doing here?" Hermione held Crookshanks. "How did it get to Hogsmeade on its own? It's so far from school…"
She hadn't finished her words, when she stopped and looked behind Evan.
Following her regard, Evan turned his head hurriedly. He saw a big black dog walking slowly down the stairs, slouching and acting decently, like a noble gentleman walking into a high-level banquet. It didn't look a bit like a lonely stray dog.
Damn Sirius Black, getting down and adding to the mess. Didn't he just tell him to stay in the top floor?
"Evan, this big black dog!" Hermione looked at Black in panic, and said in an uncertain tone, "Is it the thing that harry saw?"
���What thing? I said before, it was just a stray dog!" Evan walked over and tried to kick Black, who leaped to the side, dodging Evan's foot.
His eyes went back and forth over Evan and Hermione, with his mouth showing a really human smile, and looking at Evan with a look that all men knew.
Immediately afterwards, he ran to Hermione, squirting his tongue and shaking his tail and finally starting to look like a normal dog.
"Before I turn you into a slug, get off!" Evan pulled out his wand and gritted his teeth.
"Wait a minute, Evan!" Hermione hurriedly stopped him. She looked at Black in disbelief for a while and suddenly said to him in a whisper, "I always feel that this dog is not normal. Harry said he saw it many times before, from the streets of London, to Hogwarts, and now it's in Hogsmeade. Ordinary stray dogs cannot go so far."
"Maybe it's a coincidence. The stray dog that Harry was talking about, I've seen it. They're not the same."
Because he was so close to Hermione, she kept whispering in his ear and her breath met his skin.
His face blushed with the heat of the moment. His heart was bumping fiercely and his thoughts returned to Madam Puddifoot's Tea Shop.
He was one second away from her lips. They still have time; maybe he should go back with her in there and finish what he hadn't done.
"No, Evan! This is definitely not a coincidence. I saw this dog in the vicinity of the forest in the past few days. It was watching Harry's Quidditch practice. It wasn't a different dog." Hermione looked back at Sirius Black.
Black looked at her strangely, and he approached slowly to hear what she was saying to Evan.
"Evan, this big black dog…" Hermione lowered her voice a bit. "I think it's an Animagus!"
"What?!" Hearing Hermione's words, Evan was choked.
Sirius Black, who had just come close, apparently heard the same thing as Evan, and the smile on his face suddenly froze.
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Sirius Black vowed that he would never underestimate children again.
Although this young brunette was only 13 years old and looked vulnerable, she was definitely smarter and sharper than most adult wizards.
Black originally wanted to use Hermione's presence to embarrass Evan a bit. Who would have thought that coming out shaking his tail would do nothing but expose his identity?
He realized that the joke that he made, was actually on him.
When hearing Hermione's words, Sirius Black's first instinct was to escape.
Despite their appearance, the two in front of him were no pushovers. First Evan, and then Hermione, each of them was more difficult to deal with than the other.
Black was fully alert as he took two steps back.
Intuition told him that it was better to have little contact with the two.
However, when he saw Hermione pull out her wand again, he stopped in his place.
He couldn't just turn around and run away. Even though he had a good chance of avoiding Hermione's curse, here is Hogsmeade. The shops on both sides of the street are stuffed with heavily armed Aurors. Outside the town, there are hundreds of Dementors waiting for him.
Hermione only needed to yell, to make it almost impossible for him to escape.
Should he pounce on the girl to stun her? Seeing that Evan had his hand on his wand, he quickly dismissed that idea. Three consecutive contacts made him know Evan well enough to realize that he was a really powerful magician. And although he was inferior to him in combat, his overall strength wasn't much worse than his, not to mention the fact that he now has no wand.
Maybe he should behave just like a real stray dog, thus giving himself the chance to slip away.
Sirius Black hurried to give Evan a look, and then he tried to make himself expressionless. He looked at Hermione with his big eyes straight and appeared very silly.
Seeing Black's appearance, Evan sighed feebly.
What a terrible teammate he was doomed with! He clearly told him to stay up and hide, yet he still comes out with no warning exposing his identity to Hermione.
This is the true dilemma. Forget all about catching Pettigrew, getting though Hermione is the real challenge.
"Hermione, this stray dog can't be an Animagus!"
"No, I have a feeling. The third years recently studied Animagus in the course of Professor McGonagall's class. For personal reason, I looked up the matter after I finished my homework." Hermione quickly looked at Evan's eyes, her face got red and she pointed her wand steadily to Sirius Black. She said in a hurry. "Believe me, Evan, this dog is definitely an Animagus."
Seeing Hermione's expression, Evan secretly admired her learning efforts.
"Hermione, since you have read the book we studied carefully, then you know that the Ministry of Magic has made a register with all the wizards and witches who could become animals. There are detailed records showing what animals that they have managed to become, and the marks that they had on their bodies. There were only seven successful Animagus transformations that were recorded in the past century. This dog wasn't mentioned among them."
"I thought so initially, but he could be an illegal Animagus!" Hermione carried on, "You said to me before, you finished Animagus in the summer. You didn't register with the Ministry of Magic, did you?"
"No, but…"
"Evan, what is your Animagus form?" Hermione suddenly asked.
Since the last time she saw Evan's Patronus at the Quidditch Pitch, Hermione has secretly been doing a lot of research on Animagus for the whole month.
So now, she has more knowledge on the topic than most wizards.
But she still wasn't sure what Evan's Animagus form was.
She was also unable to confirm any relationship between the Animagus form and the Patronus.
On the last day of summer vacation, she met a black cat. She was always wondering if it was Evan. She has always wanted to ask him this question, and now she has finally gathered the courage required to do so.
"My Animagus form is a black cat. You have seen it before…"
Evan froze! Hermione indeed had seen his Animagus before. Not only did she see it, she also embraced it. Not only did she embrace it, she also…
Obviously, Hermione also remembered all of that. The atmosphere became totally awkward.
Sirius was surprised that the two totally ignored him. He quietly took a few steps back, and Evan and Hermione hardly responded.
The corners of his mouth rose. This scene is so familiar to him; he has seen it countless times with James and Lily.
Love, is the quickest way for one to lose his IQ.
Black knew that Evan and Hermione weren't going to deal with him any time soon.
He quietly turned around, and ran out of the Owl Post Office, disappearing quickly into the street corner.
"Evan, your Animagus, the black cat, that night…" Hermione said, biting her lip.
"Hermione, I don't mind giving you a demonstration of my Animagus transformation, but that dog seems to have run away!" Feeling the awkwardness of the situation, Evan said that to divert her attention.
"What?!" Hermione woke up and realized that the big black dog had disappeared. She said anxiously, "Oh no, Evan! That big black dog, he might be Sirius Black, we should report this to Professor McGonagall."
"Relax, Hermione, there is no evidence that the stray dog was an Animagus. It's just your hunch."
"We can't risk it. If he's Sirius Black, then this is probably how he could get into the castle. Professors certainly don't know that Black is an Animagus, so they will not be prepared for this." Hermione said seriously "We must tell the professor about this matter. It is very important."
Yeah, it was really important indeed.
Evan's mouth showed a bitter smile, if she waited one more day, he could have solved the whole thing.
Without her recognizing him, Black could've gone wherever he wanted; he could've even gone to Minister Cornelius Fudge's office without ever being noticed.
Who could've thought that this would happen at the last moment?
If Hermione reported this to the professors, forget about entering the Gryffindor Tower to catch Peter, just approaching the castle would be a great hassle.
Knowing Snape, Evan was sure that he wouldn't even sleep at night, and even go to the forest before dawn to catch black, if he ever knew his Animagus form.
He should try to stop Hermione, but he didn't want to lie to her either.
Lies will be exposed sooner or later. Regardless of whether or not they have goodwill behind them, they will hurt her and cause irreparable rifts between the two.
In particular, considering that Hermione had discovered that the black cat that she met on the last night of the summer vacation was his Animagus form, Evan felt that he was better off being honest.
Perhaps, he could consider telling Hermione everything about his plan, Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew. She would surely believe in him.
In this case, he will get another helper and his odds of catching Scabbers would be even greater.