Chapter 144: Bogut in the closet
Chapter 144: Bogut in the closet
Evan thought about the prophecy as he went down the stairs. With that prediction, he started considering taking Divination next year!
Professor Trelawney wasn’t usually that reliable. She was more of a vulgar liar always making up some tragic predictions about her students. But once she enters her real prophetic state and makes a prophecy, her words become crucial in the development of all future events.
According to her teachings, the signs of fate should become clearer with the approaching of Voldemort’s return.
Evan must maintain constant contact with her to ensure that he’d be the first to know the new predictions.
Five minutes later, he came to the door of Professor Lupin’s office. There was no one in the narrow corridor on the third floor. Even the portraits in the hallway were empty.
The third floor was much colder than the rest of the castle. Evan couldn’t find out where the bleak wind was blowing from there, making it particularly gloomy. He then thought that perhaps it was because Voldemort’s relationship with the Defence Against Dark Arts course, these rooms were also a little dark, as if all the misfortunes were to happen on this floor.
“Aberto!” He pulled out his wand and gently knocked on Professor Lupin’s office door.
With a click, the door was opened. All the furnishings inside the house were the same as last night, but the atmosphere was colder and cheerless.
Evan waved his wand and ignited the fireplace. The warm flames dispelled the coldness. The green monster, Grindylow, was soothing its limbs in the large water tank at the corner. It floated on the water and continued to bubble upwards. After seeing the light, it immediately buried itself in a mess of plants in the corner of the tank.
Although it is not very good to search through other people’s things, Evan believed that Professor Lupin would forgive him after knowing his reasons. He stood in front of the fireplace and carefully checked the room out. There were few places where things could be hidden, and it did not seem to be a particularly difficult task to find the Marauder’s Map.
But in reality, that wasn’t even close!
Ten minutes later, Evan still did not find the parchment.
He had carefully searched Professor Lupin’s desk, and he found nothing except for a few missing teacups, an old-fashioned kettle, textbooks, and after-school students’ assignments.
Prof. Lupin certainly wouldn’t take the map away. Since it was not on the desk, then it might be placed elsewhere.
Evan’s eyes went to the old wardrobe next to the tank, where the teachers put extra robes.
He walked to it, but it suddenly shook and slammed against the wall.
Evan was shocked. He raised his wand against the old wardrobe and didn’t know what was inside. He cautiously opened its door and there was nothing except a worn, almost faded, small suitcase and two extremely old, patched wizard robes.
From these things, one can see just how tight Prof. Lupin’s financial situation was.
No one wants to hire a werewolf. He had been wandering alone. Even the only two sets of robes left on his body were fifteen years old. Evan vaguely remembered seeing Professor Lupin when going through Harry’s album. He was attending the Potters wedding.
It was so pitiful, Evan sighed. He simply stepped forward and found the map in a robe.
It was exactly the piece that Professor Lupin wore yesterday. Evan has never been so happy before. The old wardrobe in front of him shook again. This time, he noticed the location of the robe’s dangling. He lowered his head and found a small compartment under the wardrobe.
He hesitated and pulled the door open. It was very dark and something seemed to be hidden in it. It was like…
Evan took two steps back in a rush, gasping and his eyes wide open.
“This… This is impossible!” He just saw a face in the wardrobe.
Hermione’s face!!!
It was not her familiar smiling face, but a face full of fear, bloodied, and as pale as a dead man’s face.
That was terrible. Evan never expected to see such a thing. The feeling of fear rose from the depths of his heart. He gulped, and his whole body was in sweat. His right hand that was holding his wand trembled slightly. He wanted to become sure of what he saw, but was afraid to see that face again.
He took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down.
This fact is too absurd. How could Hermione run to be there in Professor Lupin’s wardrobe? She clearly stayed with Harry in the Gryffindor Common Room upstairs and had just embraced him.
Could it be that Hermione was dead and her body was cut into pieces and hidden in the castle?! And the one who has been in contact with him is actually someone pretending using the Polyjuice potion? Or is it that Professor Lupin has a special appetite and he hid Hermione’s face in his wardrobe?!
Evan shook his head hard to sway those absurd ideas.
“Lumos!” he muttered softly, and the tip of his wand glowed brightly, lighting the dim office completely, and he was ready to go and confirm what he saw.
He has not acted yet. He saw Hermione crawling out of the old wardrobe in a strange posture.
In the strong light, Evan clearly saw a grinning smile on her lips, her face was cold, and her body was all bloody.
She was approaching him. Because of her injuries, she took every step with extreme difficulty.
Evan stepped back and involuntarily tightened his wand.
“Hermione?!” he tried to shout, but his voice was so low that he couldn’t hear himself.
There was no response from her. She was still getting close to Evan and her body was stiff like a walking corpse.
“No, you’re not Hermione! Don’t come any closer!” Evan suddenly shouted, and his body’s magical power gathered at the tip of his wand.
Hearing him, “Hermione” stopped suddenly. Regardless of what she was, she seemed to feel the danger from the wand in Evan’s hand.
The next second, her body began to deform.
When Hermione disappeared, her body was shrunk into what seemed like a black dot in the air, and then a stout humanoid monster appeared in front of Evan, who saw him with long black hair. Further up, it was a ferocious, terrifying head! It was Fenrir Greyback, the werewolf that attacked him and Hermione yesterday in Hogsmeade.
His eyes were full of blood and madness. They looked 1000 times more terrible and fiercer than Hermione’s.
But Evan didn’t feel scared. He didn’t know why. He suddenly wanted to laugh.
He knew exactly what it was. It was a Boggart!
Harry told him the other day that in order to help him practice the Patronus spell, Professor Lupin found a new Boggart in Filch’s filing cabinet. They had been using it to simulate Dementors.