Chapter 258: Nicolas Flamel Kind of Mouse

Felix sorted through the information he knew so far - 'From what happened today, we can tell that Sirius Black's first target is not Harry, but Ron Weasley. Does it mean that the Ministry of Magic is wrong from the beginning?'

'But it doesn't make sense when Black was imprisoned twelve years ago, Ron was only one year old at the time ... sort of personal vendetta, a feud from a previous generation?'

Felix recalled the Arthur Weasley and Molly Weasley couple he had met at the Leaky Cauldron Bar, they had given him the impression that they were both friendly, welcoming wizards, except for having a bit too many children.

'No, my thinking is off, if Black had a grudge against the Weasleys, he could have just found them, the Weasleys don't have Dementors and Hogwarts for double protection.'

''So, Ron Weasley is the key!''

Felix tried to remember what characteristics this student has, except for that time in the Chamber of Secrets when he burst out with amazing courage, after that he is pretty normal, the homework he turned in has obvious signs of patchwork, and he doesn't seem too smart.....

Aside from that.

As he focused on Ron Weasley's life and social circle, from his friends, parents, brothers, and the sister who had been briefly bewitched by Voldemort's Horcruxes, logically, he thought of Ron's pet scabbers.

If Ron wasn't Black's real target, then the only other living thing on him that might be the one, is the pet rat, scabbers.

"Rat, tsk!" Felix said with a sigh, "Normally I wouldn't really suspect it, but since Black hid the fact that he was an Animagus, could it be that this rat is the same? Or is it a victim who was inflicted with an evil curse?"

Felix considered it for a moment, he still leaned towards the rat being an Animagus, rather than being inflicted with some mischievous forced metamorphosis, which could be seen from the fact that Black had twice and thrice stormed into Hogwarts regardless of the danger.

" Black absolutely hates that rat."

Felix felt a little tingly, although the above ideas are based on assumptions and reasoning, but it has to be said that the possibility is high.

In fact, if scabbers were a victim of malicious metamorphosis, it would be okay to find it and send it to St. Mungo's for treatment, but if it is an illegal Animagus, that would mean that it could turn back into a wizard at any time. Here's the problem: one can't tell if it's a friend or foe.

"He may be hiding from his enemies, or he may have to stay incognito because of something. But--" A great sense of absurdity welled up in Felix's mind. "Yes, if he really wanted to hide, he could have chosen to avoid the wizarding world, a wizard could have lived a very prosperous life in a normal world. But he didn't, instead, he committed himself to lurk into the wizard's family and disguising himself as a pet rat, which is definitely not a sign of goodwill."

The reason he could think of is that this wizard didn't want to disconnect from the wizarding world, and Mr. Weasley worked for the Ministry of Magic, which would suit his needs just fine.

At this point, he almost had a basic judgment, the rat is probably not a good guy when he encounters it, he will first have to give a stunning spell to knock it down, and then it will depend on his real identity whether to obtain information normally or inject the truth agent. As for Sirius Black ...

"It's hard to say, the enemy of the bad guys is not always good guys, reality can be too complicated. Moreover, Black run from my grasp twice ... although each time there is a reason for what happened, but this feeling of being led by the nose feels bad."

Felix always thought that Black had a little brain, the few people involved back his school year though so too - Snape said he was stupid, Lupin said he was impulsive, Professor McGonagall said he was lively, the fat lady did not give an evaluation, but directly revealed a lot of his school days 'adventures' and 'great achievements', some of his train of thought is really not something that normal people can come up with.

"This time he is very clever, seized the Christmas holiday gap, if not for Harry's decent strength, he may truly have achieved his goal."

Next, Felix did two things.

The first thing, he went to the forbidden forest Acromantula colony.

The forbidden forest is covered with thick snow, Felix cloaked in a dark cloak, when his figure appeared in a hollow clearing, a click-clack sound rang around.

This clearing is dyed white by the snow as well, only the central hemispherical spider web nest is conspicuous enough.

"Gork, come out and meet me." Felix sent his voice into the spider web nest.

Snowflakes fell, from inside slowly came out several Acromantula.

Gork had become the new king of the group of spiders, and he occupied the best position in the center of the swarm, with countless large spiders clustered around him, looking a bit like a king.

"Wizard." Gork said grumpily, "What can I do for you?"

"This is not a conversational attitude, Gork, have you forgotten what I said?"

Gork's body froze, "I didn't mean anything else, I was just hibernating."

"Do Acromantula hibernate?" Felix asked curiously, would someone take advantage of the Acromantula's hibernation to catch a few, or extract the venom?

"Winter can make us uncomfortable, we try to stay in the cave and rarely go out." Gork explained, "But it's not to the point where we don't know anything about the outside world, and here I am out."

Felix nodded, "I heard that you can control the spiders in the forbidden forest?" In his view, there are many fist-sized spiders rustling around on those white spider webs, snow, and dead leaves.

"They hibernate, and many won't survive the winter. What you see are the young spiders of the Acromantula, with thick hair that can withstand the snow and ice." Gork said while waving his large claw.

"I happen to need some helpers who are smart enough." Felix curled his mouth, "Listen, Gork, I need you to look for a big black dog or a stranger in the forbidden forest, he probably has a fixed settlement, such as an abandoned beast cave or something like that, after finding it, no need to do anything, remember the location and contact me."

Gork said after thinking for a while, "I can only let the young spider out, our size is too obvious, it will attract the centaur's counterattack."

"That's fine." Felix agreed, and as he said goodbye, he gave Gork a large barrel of sherry - leftover from his Christmas return gift to Trelawney, not really to his liking.

"Count it as a belated congratulatory gift, Gork."

Second thing, he went to the hospital wing and asked Ron for some information about the rat, that scabbers had in fact inherited from his brother Percy.

"How long has it been in your house?"

"Some years, I guess," Ron said, puzzled.

"How about being more specific?" Felix asked methodically, "How old were you when you became aware of its existence, five, six, seven, or eight years old?"

According to his guess, since it was Percy Weasley's pet, seven years would be more reasonable, and considering that the Weasleys were a proper wizarding family, it might be a year or two earlier.

Ron mused, "I think I heard my mother mention that when Percy was five or six years old, he found scabbers one morning and immediately decided to keep it, and my mother actually didn't think much of it because it looked like an ordinary rat with a missing toe. But Percy threw a rare tantrum, crying and screaming, and mother had to agree with him. It's Percy's dark history that he won't ever talk to anyone about."

Ron grinned and ended up yanking the wound on his leg.

"Ordinary rat, and missing a toe ..." Felix repeated softly, he said with a look of admiration, "So scabbers lived at least eleven or twelve years? I remember that ordinary rats that live past three years are usually good."

"This is the Nicolas Flamel version of rat, uh."

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