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Inside an old, dusty room.
An antique ceiling fan spun noisily above, rattling with a ga zhi ga zhi sound.
Its blades were thick with years of dust. Each rotation sent wisps of fine particles drifting down in the dim light, cloaking the entire room in a hazy, nostalgic filter.
“I remember this place,” Ian said.
His figure flitted busily from corner to corner, rummaging through the clutter on the table. Sometimes he bent down to look under it, sometimes he stood on tiptoe to reach the old boxes on high shelves.
Seeing Ian dashing about, seemingly searching for something, Lupin finally began to shake off his disbelief. Still confused, he asked Ian, “What are you looking for?”
Lupin was still struggling to comprehend what Ian had done to acquire so many shop deeds.
These were letters from the Sacred Twenty-Eight. Although it wasn’t clear which house they came from, Lupin simply couldn’t fathom how Ian had managed to obtain such astonishing wealth from their hands.
Lupin prided himself on having conducted a thorough background check on Ian. This boy was nothing more than the orphaned heir of a fallen Prince family, abandoned to an orphanage after their house declined.
At most, he might have had some strategic value to the Sacred Twenty-Eight. Even with all their deep-rooted influence, using Diagon Alley shops, essentially money-printing machines, as bribes was utterly absurd. And it wasn’t just one or two shops, Lupin had seen the thick stack of deeds, and it made his vision blur.
He nearly cried on the spot.
He, a poor man, probably couldn’t even afford to rent a toilet in Diagon Alley. The only explanation Lupin could come up with was that the Prince family had once forged a binding contract with one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight houses.
A magical contract, one that the Sacred Twenty-Eight couldn’t ignore even if they wanted to. Otherwise, with their nature, they’d find a way to weasel out of any debt.
“Of course I’m looking for the symbol of my identity,” Ian said.
Lupin blinked, momentarily stunned by the response, before glancing at the wand strapped to Ian’s waist.
“Isn’t the symbol of your identity hanging right there?” He figured Ian had simply overlooked the obvious, but his comment didn’t stop Ian from continuing his search.
“I’m not talking about my wand.”
Ian dumped a pile of his old toys on the floor, broken diggers, armless and legless toy soldiers, all things that had mostly been wrecked by his younger siblings.
“Honestly, I don’t think you should carry your wand so visibly,” Lupin warned. He knew how many pickpockets prowled London.
Even if they didn’t recognize what a wand was, thieves wouldn’t hesitate to snatch something that looked valuable. Lupin had seen wizards robbed of their wands by Muggle pickpockets before.
“I cast a Confundus Charm on it. Muggles won’t notice anything’s there,” Ian replied calmly. Growing up as an orphan on the streets, he was more familiar with London’s crime rates than Lupin was.
“You used magic outside school?” Lupin raised his eyebrows in surprise.
“I practice every day,” Ian said matter-of-factly, revealing his strict self-discipline.
“You didn’t get caught by the Ministry? Not even a warning letter?” Lupin was incredulous. He knew all too well how the Ministry monitored young wizards.
They used something called the Trace, a magical tracking charm more advanced than a typical Tracking Spell. It detected both a young wizard’s location and any nearby magical activity.
Some said the trick was embedded in the wand itself, others believed it was part of a magical contract hidden within the Hogwarts acceptance letter, activating as soon as a student accepted their enrollment.
These were all just speculations from students who had run afoul of the rules. No one really knew the truth. Even many adult wizards still didn’t understand how the Trace actually worked.
“I think they’ve been too busy with other stuff. Didn’t you hear the Minister of Magic went to Hogwarts and came back with a serious case of Dumbledore-phobia?”
“My roommate said the Minister is now so paranoid he’s afraid Dumbledore might poison his water. He makes his most trusted aides repeatedly sweep the Ministry for danger every day.”
“They’re already overwhelmed handling a paranoid Minister. Who has time to monitor some young wizard?” That was Ian’s theory. He was also puzzled why the Ministry hadn’t come after him. To be honest, he hadn’t figured out the Trace either.
“Hah, a power-hungry official, blinded by authority. Anyone with eyes can see that if Dumbledore wanted to bring down a Minister, he’d never need to resort to something as petty as poisoning.”
Lupin’s tone carried clear disdain as he spoke. If Ian remembered correctly, Lupin was also a member of the Order of the Phoenix, someone with unwavering loyalty to Albus Dumbledore.
“Exactly.”
Ian fully agreed with Lupin on this one.
“If you ask me, the real issue is Fudge’s own warped sense of self-awareness…”
He muttered as he bent down and crawled halfway under his bed. But before he could finish his sentence, his voice abruptly cut off, and he froze completely.
Red soulfire lit up Ian’s face.
Under the dark bedframe, he found himself face-to-face, wide-eyed, with a black-robed skeleton hiding underneath.
The atmosphere turned…awkward.
After more than ten seconds of silence,
“Wooo~”
The black-robed skeleton, perhaps wary of the person outside, finally raised its skeletal “claws” in a delayed attempt to scare Ian, though its voice came out barely above a whisper.
“…”
Ian stared at the bony creature and thought, This thing must be brain-damaged.
Then he looked at the skeleton’s hollow skull.
Oh.
No brain.
Well, that explains it.
“What’s wrong? Are you stuck under the bed?”
Lupin, watching from across the room, saw Ian’s lower half sticking out motionless for quite some time and kindly stepped forward to help.
“No! I’m fine! Don’t touch me!” Ian instantly wriggled backward like a snake, scrambling out and quickly getting to his feet, stopping Lupin from crouching down to talk to him.
He was already misunderstood enough by Lupin. If Lupin saw he was keeping a literal skeleton under his bed, Merlin only knew what kind of report he’d send to Albus Dumbledore.
Even though Ian didn’t really believe Dumbledore would come after him, he still thought it was best not to disturb the headmaster during his holiday time with Grindelwald.
“You look kind of nervous.”
Lupin didn’t seem particularly suspicious, instead, he made his own assumptions. “Let me guess, you’ve hidden some adult magazines under the bed, haven’t you?”
It was probably Lupin’s experience talking. He wore the expression of someone who had “been there, done that” and thought he’d figured Ian out completely. Clearly, this was standard Gryffindor boy logic.
“Uh, yeah, that’s right. I’ve got my own privacy…” Ian, being a physically and mentally well-adjusted, morally upright student, really didn’t want to admit to such a ridiculous accusation.
But to avoid exposing the skeleton situation, he had to grit his teeth and accept this slander, silently swallowing the humiliation of being labeled a pervy kid, a label that wasn’t entirely accurate.
Hmm…
Much like the terms “unemployed,” “job-seeking,” and “in a transitional career phase,” Ian had just invented a new conceptual label for his current situation.
“You’re a bit young for that stuff,” Lupin said, patting Ian on the shoulder in a sympathetic, older-brother sort of way. “But I get it. Mature kids take charge early.”
Ian forced a smile, awkward, yet polite.
“So, what exactly are you looking for?”
Lupin finally returned to a normal line of questioning, which made Ian secretly breathe a sigh of relief. As he moved away from the bed, he pulled the blanket down a bit to cover the space underneath.
Lupin noticed this gesture but didn’t think much of it. After all, when he was a wanderer, he had a whole suitcase full of animated wizarding magazines.
The Muggle ones, like Daily Girls or whatever, never really appealed to him.
“I told you… It’s the symbol of my identity.”
Ian resumed his search and finally found what he’d been looking for in an old shoebox, a keychain shining with a gaudy golden glint. Even though the gold paint was flaking off in places, the industrial-grade coating still gave it a sheen even shinier than real gold.
“Now this is the vibe!”
With Lupin staring in confusion, Ian attached all his keys to the keychain and clipped it proudly to the most visible spot on his belt.
Clink! Clank! Jingle!
Ian then began strutting energetically around the room. The noise from his waist was loud and eye-catching, and his look of smug satisfaction made Lupin want to smack him.
“You look like a nouveau riche.”
Lupin commented, clearly exasperated.
“I am nouveau riche,” Ian replied sincerely, leaving Lupin completely speechless. That level of honesty really was disarming. Lupin wanted to complain more but suddenly didn’t know where to start.
“You’re… surprisingly honest.”
That was all Lupin could manage to say, rather dryly.
“You’re the first person to see my inner qualities. Great insight. The wolfsbane potion you need for tonight? It’s on me.” Ian’s main goal was to make sure Lupin didn’t lose control and hurt anyone at the orphanage. Even though he had seen a specially reinforced cage in Lupin’s room, he still didn’t want Lupin risking it by drinking some dodgy “fizzy wolfsbane soda.”
Emphasis on “fizzy.”
“It’s already too late to brew it now, isn’t it?” Lupin said, though his eyes betrayed interest. He looked conflicted, not just because brewing now would take too long, but because he also suspected Ian might sneak some “experimental” ingredient into the potion.
Not that Lupin was a coward.
He was from Gryffindor, after all.
It was just… those entries in that werewolf modification project diary had seriously unsettled him.
“Of course I’ve got a finished one. Otherwise I wouldn’t tolerate you staying in my house,” Ian said as he pulled a bottle of decently effective wolfsbane potion from his money pouch.
This particular potion was from the fifth time loop. After noticing a serious decline in ingredient potency, Ian had brewed a batch intending to sell them in Knockturn Alley.
Naturally…
Even though the potion’s effectiveness had dropped, it was still genuine potion. The crooks in Diagon Alley had taught Ian a lesson or two, his understanding of scammers had leveled up.
“Although this isn’t as good as the ones my uncle brews, it’s still better than what those so-called certified shops in Diagon Alley sell. They water theirs down with stuff like Draught of Peace to pad the volume.”
Ian understood well: no business without deception. Even the official stores cut corners, just a little less obviously. Or they used ingredients just shy of expiring.
So in a way, his potions, made from expired ingredients, weren’t that different from theirs. Six of one, half a dozen of the other.
“I’ll figure out a way to pay you,” Lupin said, after a moment of visible inner struggle. In the end, his need for wolfsbane won out over his pride.
He had no choice.
Even if he transformed in some remote place, he could still end up hurting an innocent person. And around London, there weren’t many remote places to begin with.
A lot of werewolves broke psychologically because of this, wracked with guilt after accidentally hurting someone, eventually spiraling into mental instability and madness.
That’s one reason so many wizards believed all werewolves were lunatics.
“You think I look like someone who needs money?” Faced with Lupin’s stingy attitude, Ian instantly struck a classic “Dragon King smirk,” shaking the massive keychain on his hip so it jingled proudly.
“…”
Lupin, the type who felt guilty accepting favors and awkward about debts, twitched at the corner of his mouth and held back his urge to retort, more and more convinced that Snape’s nephew didn’t act like a Ravenclaw at all.
Granted…
There were boastful Ravenclaws, but their kind of pride was a world apart from Ian’s. Ian’s particular brand of flaunting reminded Lupin of the Slytherins he couldn’t stand.
But then…
Looking at the wolfsbane potion in his hand…
“Well, to be fair, you don’t see many Slytherins with this kind of generosity,” Lupin subconsciously started defending Ian in his mind, maybe unnecessarily so.
That’s just how Gryffindors were.
They might dislike certain types of people or groups, but they never denied a helping hand. That’s why Lupin found Ian’s personality not exactly unpleasant, just a little hard to adjust to at first.
“All right. Now that you’ve taken another one of my potions, you owe me a ride to Diagon Alley,” Ian said bluntly, the moment Lupin pocketed the wolfsbane.
That made Lupin pause.
“Going to check on your shop?”
He could practically see Ian swaggering down the street, showing off.
“I won’t sleep tonight unless I go. You’ve never struck it rich like this, so you wouldn’t understand how it feels,” Ian replied with such heartfelt sincerity that Lupin immediately wanted to take back every nice thought he’d just had.
Sometimes, this little wizard really was too much… And yet, because it was the truth, Lupin couldn’t help but feel a sting of bitterness.
“Don’t you have a phoenix?” Lupin wasn’t unwilling to take Ian to Diagon Alley, he was just wondering why Ian didn’t use a more efficient method.
“My phoenix can only take me to places it’s already been. And it’s only a few months old. Clearly, it’s never been to Diagon Alley.” Ian gave an exaggerated shrug.
“No wonder it screeches so weirdly,” Lupin muttered. He’d never actually seen a baby phoenix, so he just assumed that’s why Ian’s phoenix sounded so… disturbing.
“There’s a fireplace in my room.”
After glancing again at the jingling keychain on Ian’s waist, Lupin gave his answer without hesitation. But his response left the little wizard rather confused.
“Our orphanage can use the Floo Network?” Ian asked, clearly surprised. After all, the Floo Network wasn’t just something you could access freely, it required a formal application and strict approval.
Not only that, but regular payments were necessary to maintain the connection. Ian seriously doubted someone who couldn’t even afford decent clothes had the spare funds to keep up with Floo Network fees.
“Of course it can.”
Lupin replied as he led Ian away from the ominous room, which Lupin still didn’t understand the danger of, and toward a room he had carefully selected and cleaned for days in preparation.
“In fact, you’re not the first student from this orphanage to go to Hogwarts. The last one who left here had exceptional talent.”
“He modified the room he lived in and, by some illegal means, managed to connect it to the Floo Network, allowing access to a specific shop in Knockturn Alley.”
Lupin explained the background, though he didn’t reveal the student’s identity as Voldemort. Maybe he didn’t want to burden Ian with unnecessary psychological pressure.
He could be thoughtful like that, sometimes.
But… the little wizard actually knew exactly what was going on.
“Oh! As expected of my senior!”
Ian gave a heartfelt expression of admiration for Voldemort. When it came to being bad, Tom-senior really was in a league of his own. Ian merely bent school rules, Tom-senior was the definition of lawless.
Illegally tapping into the Floo Network…
That was probably the magical equivalent of stealing electricity in the Muggle world.
“Your senior wasn’t exactly a good person.”
Lupin added, his tone low and somber, a vague warning. Every time he thought about that student who had once left this place, a wave of sorrow for his fallen friends would wash over him.
“What a coincidence,” Ian responded simply and cryptically.
Lupin couldn’t help but glance at him several times. He led Ian back into his own dimly lit room and walked toward a wall covered in clutter.
Then,
Lupin used his wand to move the piled-up junk aside and lightly tapped the wall. What appeared to be an ordinary wall suddenly began to move, like the bricks of the Leaky Cauldron.
But this wall was transforming.
It didn’t simply slide or swing open.
Instead, it began to vanish in an elegant, magical fashion, as though space itself were being rewoven, revealing a hidden alcove behind it.
There sat a slightly worn fireplace, still carrying a faint warmth. Ian figured Lupin must’ve recently used it to travel to Knockturn Alley to buy some wolfsbane potion.
“How did you even find this place?” Ian asked curiously, examining the wall that had hidden the fireplace. The magical traces were complex and difficult to perceive.
He wasn’t underestimating Lupin’s abilities, but this clearly looked like something created in Tom-senior’s later years. No way a worn-out werewolf could’ve just stumbled across it.
“Dumbledore told me.”
Lupin’s answer confirmed Ian’s suspicion. No ordinary wizard could’ve discovered something Voldemort hid. But old Headmaster Albus Dumbledore? That was another story.
“You’ve never used the Floo Network before, have you?” Lupin asked, noticing the eager look in Ian’s eyes. Smiling, he pulled out a small cloth pouch.
“There’s a first time for everything in life.”
He offered a little life wisdom as he aimed his wand at the fireplace. Without uttering a spell, a small flame sparked to life and quickly grew within the hearth.
Tongues of fire licked upward,
The flames swiftly engulfed the entire interior of the fireplace.
“That was an Incendio spell. I used a nonverbal casting technique, you might learn it yourself in the upper years,” Lupin said with a trace of pride.
It was moments like this that showed why he might have become a teacher in the original timeline, he definitely had a knack for sharing knowledge.
“Amazing.”
Ian clapped sincerely, giving him some emotional validation.
Lupin visibly brightened at the praise.
“Study hard, little one.” Chuckling, Lupin reached into the cloth pouch and grabbed a small handful of glittering powder, which he tossed into the roaring fireplace.
“Whoosh~”
In an instant.
As the flames surged up,
It was as if they had been tinted with an otherworldly hue, the fire inside the fireplace turned emerald green in the blink of an eye, and the flames leapt to a height taller than a person.
“The key to using the Floo Network is speaking clearly. Be careful not to choke on the ash that may kick up, and don’t move around randomly during the process,”
“If you start feeling dizzy, don’t panic, that’s normal. Some people just, ” Lupin continued explaining the proper use of the Floo Network to the little wizard(s).
This time, his tendency to act like a teacher was actually helpful. Ian listened intently and committed every detail to memory. However, just as he was about to repeat all seven or eight usage rules to confirm them,
“Of course, this particular fireplace is a special one. It can only transport to one designated location, so saying the destination out loud doesn’t actually matter.” Lupin’s final summary nearly made Ian mentally collapse.
He almost pulled out his little notebook just to write down Lupin’s name, for future payback.
“I’ll go first to demonstrate, and also to be there waiting when you arrive.” Sensing the not-so-friendly glint in the little wizard’s eyes, Lupin chuckled awkwardly and quickly dashed into the fireplace.
“Hogwarts!”
He called out the name of the school that held the happiest memories of his life.
In the next moment,
With a crisp swooshing sound and the flicker of flames, Lupin disappeared right before Ian’s eyes. The room, now dim once again, held only him and the dancing fire.
Now that Lupin had departed, the flames returned to their normal hue and shrank down significantly, once again looking like an ordinary fireplace.
“Interesting.”
Ian muttered, analyzing the inner workings of the Floo Network. Of course, to truly understand how the Floo Network functioned, he would have to step into it and experience it firsthand.
“Twilight Zone!”
Ian picked up the small cloth pouch Lupin had left behind, threw a small amount of the sparkling powder into the flames, and after watching them change color, carefully sealed the rest of the Floo powder before stepping inside.
This was unlike anything Ian had ever experienced. Totally different from Apparating, he could see the flames swirling around him, but they didn’t burn. Instead, they felt warm and comforting.
Hot gusts of wind even lifted his robes. The sensation was like walking into a vacation resort with perfect weather, except everything around him, seen through the flame’s glow, was an indistinct blur.
The scenery spun.
Though not violently.
Only the howling in his ears was a bit sharp, and his ears felt a little pressurized, reminding Ian of that sensation during airplane takeoff.
Ian strained to look outward.
A sequence of fireplaces and rooms flashed past in the swirling chaos, private homes all linked to the Floo Network. What Ian was doing now was essentially a magical form of illegal border-crossing via the Network.
“Even without a nose, he really was a genius.”
Ian genuinely praised the legacy left behind by Tom.
As the swirling images outside began to settle, Ian found himself arriving in an extremely dim shop, or more precisely, in front of a wide, shadowy wizarding store’s stone fireplace.
“Not a bad ride, huh?”
Lupin was already there waiting for him. Upon seeing that the little wizard didn’t look nearly as disheveled as he expected, his tone even carried a trace of disappointment.
“It was alright.”
Ian’s eyes swept around the surroundings. Just as he suspected, Tom-senior’s fireplace had been linked to Borgin and Burkes, the infamous dark magic shop in Knockturn Alley.
All the items in the surrounding display cases were unmistakably illegal. On a cushion inside a glass case sat a withered human hand, a stack of bloodstained playing cards that once belonged to Scabbers, and a glass eyeball staring blankly into space. Grotesque masks loomed from the walls, and the countertop was littered with various human bones.
Sinister instruments, some rusted, some still stained with dark dried blood, hung from the ceiling. Their spiked shapes made it obvious they were brutal torture devices.
“Creepy, huh?”
Lupin noticed the little wizard’s gaze.
“Mm.”
Ian nodded and looked toward the counter, where an old man sat motionless behind it. He didn’t even look up at them, as if people stepping out of his fireplace was a daily occurrence.
“Can I buy something?”
Ian’s intrigued expression caught Lupin off guard.
To Lupin,
Most young wizards who saw the items in this shop would at least go pale, if not burst into tears. But this one? Ian looked positively flushed, with excitement?
“These things aren’t for kids,” Lupin said grimly. “A single misstep, and you could be cursed by whatever’s attached to them.” He grabbed Ian and tried to drag him away.
However, Ian pulled his hand away from Lupin’s grip a bit unwillingly.
“I’m an alchemist officially acknowledged by Professor Nick! Of course, I won’t be influenced or corrupted by the magic on these items. And I’m looking at these dark magic objects with a critical eye!”
Ian declared with great righteousness, picking up a still-wriggling severed arm. It reminded him of the black-robed skeleton under his bed. He wondered if this dark magic arm could be attached to the skeleton.
“Probably not.”
Ian recalled the skeleton’s “magic immunity” trait and put the moving arm back down, instead picking up a glass eyeball, something that might be stuffed under a Dementor’s eyelid, perhaps.
Lupin looked at Ian with a bit of speechlessness. For a moment, he didn’t dare leave the shop first. He knew Ian had been tinkering in his room recently, deeply immersed in alchemy research.
“These are all forbidden items banned by the Ministry of Magic.”
Lupin sighed, trying to use the law to scare Ian off.
“I’m not using them.”
Ian blinked innocently.
He held up the lone glass eyeball from the display case and looked over to the shop’s counter. The eyeball turned on its own as he raised it, its bloodshot pupil glaring at Ian.
“Shopkeeper, do you have a second one of these?” Though the eyeball was clearly cursed, Ian had already used his magic power to briefly block the enchantment.
That little trick seemed to surprise the shopkeeper.
“You little brat, broke, just like your broke parents, you can’t afford this.” The stooped old man brushed back his slicked-back hair.
He made no effort to hide his disdain.
Shopkeepers know exactly how to judge customers. Seeing the scruffy werewolf standing beside Ian, Borgin & Burke probably assumed the little wizard didn’t have a single Galleon to his name.
Of course,
This time, he was dead wrong.
“Huh?”
Ian looked down at his waist. Sure enough, his coat was covering his symbol of status. He quickly pulled it aside to reveal a long string of keys.
“Clink, clink, clang~!”
The crisp sound was oddly pleasant to the ear.
“Open your damned eyes and look again,” Ian shot back sharply. He was the kind who would return an inch of kindness with half a yard, but if someone offended him by a fraction, he’d return a thousandfold.
“Don’t cause trouble!”
Lupin tensed up the moment Ian started talking back to a black-market wizard from Diagon Alley. His hand reflexively grabbed his wand, worried Borgin & Burke might lash out.
“He’s just a kid, sorry, please don’t take offense.” Lupin’s voice was meek. And who could blame him? Even Gryffindor grads knew better than to play hero here.
Knockturn Alley.
This was enemy territory, filled with enough dark artifacts to ruin a squad of Aurors. With an uneasy look, Lupin felt like he and the little wizard were moments away from getting themselves killed.
“Hm?”
However,
The expected attack didn’t come. Borgin & Burke frowned for a second, but upon catching sight of the keys dangling from Ian’s waist, his eyes visibly sharpened.
As a longtime black market dealer entrenched in Knockturn Alley, Borgin & Burke had his ear to everything happening in the wizarding world. That’s how he always managed to slip past Ministry raids.
Precisely because of this,
When he saw the keys hanging at Ian’s side, keys that were supposed to belong to more than a dozen pure-blood family shops, he instantly connected the dots to recent big events.
“My apologies. It seems I’ve been blind and foolish. I should be the one apologizing to you.” He put on his pince-nez glasses and spoke with surprising sincerity.
“…Huh?”
Lupin’s brain briefly froze.
The Borgin & Burke he knew was never this polite.
Among dark wizards, Borgin & Burke was a name spoken with fear. Anyone able to run a shop in Knockturn Alley for so many years did not survive on goodwill.
“Now you’ve got me confused…” Ian shot Borgin & Burke a strange look as well, picking up on Lupin’s disbelief and confusion. He hadn’t expected the shopkeeper’s attitude to change so drastically, he didn’t even get to play out the dramatic “smirk of the dragon king” scene he had prepared.
“Any intelligent person, upon understanding what you’ve accomplished, would show due humility before you…” Borgin & Burke even bowed slightly.
“What did you do?”
Lupin couldn’t help but whisper.
“I want to know what I did too, for him to actually feel a trace of fear toward me inside.” Ian’s eye twitched slightly. He had already sensed Borgin & Burke’s rather obvious emotions.
“I’m someone who knows how to pick sides well, so you don’t need to pretend in front of me. Anyone with eyes can see what you’re up to… Maybe you don’t trust your werewolf bodyguard here?” Borgin & Burke spoke slowly, his gaze sharp and piercing, somehow instantly seeing through Lupin’s identity.
Of course,
It was also possible that the wolfsbane potion Lupin bought earlier had been distributed through Borgin & Burke.
“I’m not a bodyguard! Which eye of yours sees me as one?” Lupin, having his identity exposed, was a bit flustered but instinctively argued back.
“That’s right, Mr. Lupin isn’t a bodyguard, he’s my nanny.” Ian spoke up to defend Lupin, though Lupin probably would have preferred he hadn’t said anything.
“…”
The down-and-out werewolf wanted to retort.
But,
Remembering Dumbledore’ meticulous warnings,
He suddenly realized,
He did seem a little like a nanny assigned to watch over the little wizard.
“Oh, even as such an ally, you still don’t trust him, you haven’t revealed your plan to him?” Borgin & Burke’s tone carried some surprise.
He wasn’t sure what kind of misunderstanding was happening here.
“I think your choice of words and your way of thinking… is kind of strange. Maybe you know things about me that I haven’t realized myself?”
Ian put down the eyeball in his hand.
He absolutely didn’t believe that his secret plan to secretly build a money-printing machine had already been discovered by someone else.
“If you don’t want to expose yourself, I naturally won’t say more… If you like that eyeball, I do have another one here. I’ll give you both.”
Saying this,
Borgin & Burke took out a box and humbly handed it to Ian. Although still puzzled, Ian naturally wouldn’t pass up something free.
“Thank you.”
He even showed some politeness.
Just as Ian received the eyeball, and Lupin was still stunned, Ian grabbed the down-on-his-luck werewolf and dashed out, afraid Borgin & Burke would change his mind at any moment.
“Next time we meet, I hope you’ll accept me, a fence-sitting yet destined-for-greatness Ian Grindelwald Dumbledore Ambrosius Prince.”
The hoarse voice of Borgin & Burke called softly behind them.
But every word was clear and ringing.
“I knew those guys were still spreading rumors even after going home!” Ian was so angry his hair nearly stood on end. His wand, sensing his emotions, even started to glow faintly.
“What did he call you!?”
Lupin stopped at the doorway.
His body stiffened.
Mechanically, he turned his neck toward the little wizard.
A turbulent storm rose inside his heart.
(End of chapter)
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