bacchusnovels Chapter 392 Cute girl, you won't kill me, will you?
Chapter 392 Cute girl, you won't kill me, will you?
Chapter 392 Cute girl, you won't kill me, will you?
"No one will kill you, at least not until we figure some things out," Sean said calmly.
"Get it right?" Peter cried out, his eyes darting frantically around the room, past the sealed windows, then to the only door. "I knew he'd come back! I knew he'd be back sooner or later! I've waited twelve years!"
"Did you know Sirius Black would escape from Azkaban?" Lupin frowned slightly and asked suddenly. "You know, no one has ever done it before."
"He possesses dark magic we could never even dream of!" Peter's scream grew even more piercing, his voice almost bordering on hysterical madness. "Otherwise, how could he have escaped? I bet that person whose name we can't even mention taught him a few tricks!"
Sirius Black suddenly laughed. "Voldemort? He taught me a few moves?"
Peter shuddered, Sirius's voice like an invisible whip lashing at him.
His face grew even paler, and his breathing became rapid.
"What? Scared when you heard your old master's name?" Sirius continued, his voice low and laced with a chilling sarcasm. "It's understandable, Peter. His men aren't too happy with you, are they?"
"I don't know—what are you talking about, Sirius—" Peter's voice trembled slightly, and he wiped his face with his sleeve, but couldn't wipe away the sweat on his face.
"For the past twelve years, you haven't been hiding from me," Sirius said slowly, his tone becoming sharper, "but from Voldemort's old henchmen. I heard some things in Azkaban; Peter and the others thought you were dead."
"If they knew you were still alive, they would have made you speak long ago—I heard them growling your name in their dreams; they think you betrayed them."
"Voldemort went to the Potters' house based on your information, and then he got beaten up."
Sirius's voice grew lower and lower as he spoke, "Not all of Voldemort's men are in Azkaban, Peter. Some of them are still outside, feigning repentance, waiting for their chance. If they knew you were still alive—"
"I don't know what you're talking about—" Peter shrieked again, but his voice now carried a hint of fear.
He tried to remain calm, but when he looked up at Lu Ping, his eyes were almost pleading, "Remus, you can't believe this—"
"What madness!"
Lupin did not answer immediately; he simply stared intently at Peter.
“I must admit, Peter,” he said, “I simply cannot understand why an innocent person would be willing to be a rat for twelve years.”
Little Pettigrew's scream almost pierced the air, "I'm innocent, but I'm scared!"
He waved his hands frantically, as if there were something filthy in front of him. "If Voldemort's men are looking for me, it's because I sent their most trusted lieutenant to Azkaban—that traitor, Sirius Black!"
Sirius's face contorted, like an enraged bear.
"How dare you!" he roared. "Me, Voldemort's spy? When have I ever fawned over anyone stronger or more powerful than me? And you—"
Sirius Black pointed at Pettigrew, his finger trembling. "I don't understand why I didn't see through you from the start. You've always liked powerful friends to get their protection, haven't you? It used to be us—me, Remus, and James—"
Little Star seemed to have nowhere to hide from the accusations. He raised his sleeve to wipe his face, but his hands were trembling violently.
"I, a spy—you're crazy, that's not true. I don't know how you could say such a thing," Little Star mumbled incoherently, but his voice sounded very weak and hard to believe.
In arguments and defenses, momentum is very important.
Sometimes, even if you are in the right but have no reason to complain, you may still appear to be the unreasonable party to outsiders.
"Lily and James made you the Secret Agent on my advice," Sirius said, his teeth grinding. "I thought it was a good plan, a switcheroo—Voldemort would have thought I was the Secret Agent, and never imagined they would use such a despicable and incompetent thing as you."
"When you told Voldemort you could offer him the Potters, that must have been the most triumphant moment of your despicable life, right?"
As soon as he finished speaking, Little Pettigrew's face turned ashen, and he rubbed his hands together incessantly, as if trying to wipe away some unseen stain.
He mumbled some indistinct words, and Harry only caught words like "absurd" and "crazy." But his attention was drawn to something else—Little Star's fearful eyes were darting around, scanning the windows and doors almost every second, as if he were ready to run away at any moment.
"Professor Lupin?" Hermione asked timidly, "May I—may I say something?"
"Of course, Hermione," Lupin replied in his usual gentle tone.
"Um—Scarlett—I mean, this guy," Hermione swallowed, her gaze turning to Peter Pettigrew with a complex expression, "he slept in Harry's dormitory for three years. If he really was Voldemort's accomplice, then why didn't he harm Harry?"
"Yes!" Pettigrew shrieked in agreement, pointing at Hermione with his crippled finger as if grasping at a straw. "Thank you! See, Remus? I didn't touch a single hair on Harry's head! Why would I?"
"Let me tell you why," Sirius said coldly, "because you never act without a clear objective."
"Voldemort has been missing for twelve years, and people say he is half-dead."
"You wouldn't kill someone under Albus Dumbledore's nose for a crippled, disgraced wizard, would you?"
"You need to be sure he's still the ultimate ruler before you go back to pledge allegiance to him, right?"
"Otherwise, why would you find a wizarding family to take you in?"
"Because this way they can listen carefully to the news, right, Peter?"
"What if your old patron makes a comeback and the situation becomes safe? You'll go back to him then, won't you?"
A series of "is it or isn't it?" had completely robbed Little Pettigrew of the strength to defend himself.
He opened his mouth a few times, panting like a fish pulled ashore, but it had no effect.
"Um—Mr. Black—Sirius?" Hermione asked tentatively.
Sirius heard someone call him that and turned his head sharply, as if he had been pulled back to reality.
He stared at Hermione, a hint of confusion in his eyes, as if he wasn't quite used to being addressed that way.
"I hope you don't mind if I ask," Hermione continued cautiously, "how—how did you escape Azkaban? Without using dark magic?"
"Thank you!" Pettigrew nodded vigorously. "Yes! That's me—"
Seeing Sean's cold gaze, he swallowed back what he was about to say.
Sirius frowned, seemingly considering whether or not to answer Hermione's question.
"I don't know how I did it," Sirius said slowly. "I think the only reason I didn't lose my mind is because I knew I was innocent."
"It wasn't a pleasant thought, so the Dementors couldn't suck it out of my head, but it kept me conscious."
Knowing who I am allows me to preserve my magic. So when things get too unbearable, I transform in my cell—into a dog.
"A dog?" Ron asked in surprise, but then swallowed the rest of his question.
“You know, Dementors are blind,” Sirius continued, his voice weary and desperate. “They approach people by sensing their emotions. When I turned into a dog, the emotions they sensed weren’t quite like humans, nor were they as complex. So they thought I was gradually losing my mind like the other prisoners, and they didn’t pay much attention. But I was very weak, extremely weak. Without a wand, I had no hope of banishing them.”
Sirius stopped, as if recalling some unpleasant scene, and his throat bobbed.
"Then, I met someone—"
"A person? What person?" Sophia suddenly raised her hand and asked.
"I don't know." Sirius shook his head. "I only remember someone in Azkaban helping me a lot."
He chose to gloss over this part and went straight to the most crucial part: "Later," Sirius's gaze fell on Pettigrew, and he said, word by word, "when I saw Peter in the Daily Prophet's photo next to Harry, I realized how dangerous things were."
"Peter isn't an ordinary rat. He's at Hogwarts, right next to Harry. If news reaches his ears that someone's power is rising again, he'll take action at the most opportune moment."
Peter Pettigrew was still shaking his head, his mouth opening and closing, but he couldn't make a sound.
His eyes were fixed on Blake, sweat trickling down his cheeks.
“Once Peter is certain he has a new ally,” Sirius said through gritted teeth, his gaze sharp as a blade, “he’ll offer up the last member of the Potter family. If he can regain their trust with Harry, who will dare say he betrayed Voldemort? He’ll be welcomed as a hero, won’t he, Peter?”
"So I have to do something, because only I know Peter is still alive—" Sirius said softly, his eyes shining.
His voice was a mixture of pain and obsession.
Harry recalled what Mr. Weasley had once told his wife: "The guard said he always talks in his sleep about the same thing—'He's at Hogwarts.'"
"It's like someone lit a fire in my head," Sirius continued. "The Dementors couldn't destroy it—it wasn't a pleasant thought, it was an obsession. But it was that thought that gave me the strength to keep my mind clear."
He paused, his gaze shifting to the ground as he recalled the endless torment he had endured in Azkaban.
Then Sirius took a deep breath and continued, “One night, when they opened the door to bring in their food, I turned into a dog and slipped out silently. The Dementors are not sensitive to animal emotions, so they didn’t notice my intention—I was terribly thin then, so thin that I could squeeze through iron bars. Then, in the body of a dog, I swam across the sea and returned to the mainland.”
Harry stared at Sirius's face, and the stubbornness mixed with dejection made him feel somewhat at a loss.
Sirius did not avoid his gaze.
Although Harry's grip on his wand had loosened slightly, his inner turmoil remained unsettled.
"Believe me," Sirius said hoarsely, "believe me, Harry. I have never betrayed James and Lily. I would rather die than betray them."
Harry finally wavered.
He felt as if his throat was blocked, unable to speak, and could only nod stiffly.
"No!" Peter Pettigrew's scream broke the brief silence.
The voice was shrill and loud. He suddenly knelt down, writhing like a panicked mouse, as if Harry's nod was a death sentence.
He crawled on his knees toward Blake, his hands clasped tightly to his chest, pleading for mercy, "Sirius—it's me—it's Peter—"
Your friend—you won't—
Sirius Black ruthlessly kicked Peter's hand away.
"My robes are already filthy enough, don't touch them," Sirius said coldly, his eyes filled with disgust.
Peter turned to Lupin, as if he had found a last hope. He crawled over to him and pleaded, "Remus! Remus, you don't believe this nonsense, do you? If they really changed the Secret Service plan, Sirius would have told you, wouldn't he?"
Lupin didn't move, but calmly said, "If he thought I was a spy, he certainly wouldn't have told me, Peter. And I think..."
"That's why you didn't tell me, isn't it, Sirius?" He looked at Black, his tone flat, yet tinged with a hint of sarcasm.
"Forgive me, Remus." Sirius's voice carried a hint of guilt.
"Not at all, Bigfoot, old friend," Lupin said casually, rolling up his sleeves to reveal his wrists. "You'll have to forgive me for once thinking you were a spy."
"Of course." A brief smile flickered across Sirius's face. He rolled up his sleeves as well, his gaze fixed intently on Peter.
"Shall we take him down together?" Lupin asked.
"I think so," Sirius nodded.
"No—no—!" Peter screamed in terror. He shuffled toward Ron, practically crawling on his knees.
"Ron, I'm your good friend, you won't let them kill me, right? I'm your Scabbers, you'll be on my side, won't you?"
Ron stared at him with utter disgust, gritting his teeth as he said, "I actually let you sleep in my bed!"
"Kind child—kind master—," Peter pleaded, "you won't let them do that—I'm your little mouse—I'm a good pet—"
Sirius Black sneered, "If you're better at being a rat than a human, then there's nothing to brag about, Peter."
Ron disgustedly dodged Peter's outstretched hand, preventing him from touching him.
Peter Pettigrew knelt helplessly on the ground and turned to Hermione.
He desperately grabbed her robe, his voice sharp as claws tearing through glass.
"Cute girl—. Smart girl—you...you won't let them kill me, will you?—help me—"