Chapter 471 - 22: Cat, Dog, Rat

Chapter 471: Chapter 22: Cat, Dog, Rat

Black was furious, but he was too exhausted to do anything except lie there helplessly.

The entire wizarding world was searching for him in force. Since escaping yesterday morning, he had eaten only two rats raw, just like a real dog.

"Meow?" Seeing him like this, Yimi did not continue attacking after that one smack. She nudged his forehead with her muzzle.

The kitty only wanted to beat you up a little. Why do you look like you’re about to die??

Black kept staring toward the entrance. After making sure nobody besides this cat had come in, he transformed back into a human and weakly pushed himself upright.

Yimi’s eyes widened and she took two steps back.

Cats weren’t the only ones who could turn into humans?

Black glared at Yimi, but did nothing to the cat who had attacked him. He threw the dead rat he had failed to force down yesterday in front of her, then picked up the newspaper and pointed at the rat printed in it.

"Can you understand what I mean? You came from Hogwarts, so you should have seen it. Can you bring it to me?"

The entire wizarding world was hunting him, so he certainly could not go to Hogwarts himself. Reaching the Shrieking Shack safely in a single day had already been fortunate enough. He wondered whether the cat in front of him could simply bring that bastard Peter straight to him.

"Meow." Yimi turned around and ran back through the passage.

The kitty had just smacked the doggy, but the doggy had not fought back, so the kitty would bring him what he wanted as compensation.

Black could only hope she was not going to fetch her owner. He leaned against a corner of the room and waited for a while, still eyeing the dead rat Yimi had refused to eat and wondering whether he should make do with it today.

He did not have to wait very long. Yimi quickly returned with exactly what she thought Black had asked for.

Black saw a newspaper clenched in her mouth. His own vicious-looking face was printed on it beneath today’s headline about "Sirius’s Escape."

"..."

"I meant the rat!" He snatched the newspaper away and threw it aside, then picked up the dead rat from the floor with one hand and held his own newspaper in the other. "The rat in the newspaper. It’s at Hogwarts. That’s what I want you to bring me!"

Hearing this, Yimi got angry too. She stood upright on her hind legs and planted her paws on her hips. "You only pointed at the newspaper. You didn’t say what you wanted me to bring. How was I supposed to know?"

The little kitty had made that whole trip for nothing.

Black stared at her. "?"

His severe hunger slowed his thoughts for several seconds before he finally managed to shout, "You’re an Animagus!"

His strength gave out again and he leaned back against the wall.

"What’s wrong with you?" Yimi came closer to look at him.

"Just ordinary hunger. Who exactly are you? A professor at the school? Did anyone else come here with you?" Black stared hard at Yimi, unable to believe she had not seen the news about him.

"I’m Professor Yimi. I teach Defence Against the Dark Arts." Yimi tilted her head at him. "What do you want to eat?"

Black gave a snort that almost sounded like a laugh. He tightened his grip on the wand of dubious origin in his hand. "Anything would do for me. A pot of rat soup, for example? What exactly are you trying to do? If you’re here to capture me, you can do it now."

Yimi was filled with respect.

This person had excellent taste.

Unfortunately, the little kitty was not carrying any rats right now, and she had run out of red wine too. The supplies the Knights of the Blood had prepared for her were all back at SAO headquarters.

Knowing how awful hunger felt, she took a pot and some snake meat out of her Storage Space. Under Black’s stare, she cut the meat up with her cat claws—literally slicing it with her claws. Since she was using SAO’s Adaptive Power anyway, she had discovered that staying in cat form actually saved her the trouble of using a knife.

She dumped everything into the pot at once.

Before long, a rich savory aroma filled the room. Yimi had already tried the meat before. It made an excellent dish that was no worse than a large fish, and most importantly, she had kept far more of it this time.

She pushed the finished snake soup toward Black. "Eat."

"You really haven’t seen the newspaper? Or did you poison this? What kind of meat is it?" Black hugged the bowl of soup. In truth, hunger had a way of making a person stop thinking too much, didn’t it?

Perhaps it was psychological, but even though the soup had only boiled for around three minutes, it tasted better than anything he could remember eating in his life.

Once he regained some strength, his mood settled a little. He continued staring at the cat in front of him. "I was framed."

"Meow?"

"The rat I pointed at in the newspaper is an Animagus. Peter Pettigrew. I don’t know whether you recognize him, but he’s actually with Harry. I have to kill him! He betrayed all of us. He killed those Muggles. He betrayed James! It wasn’t me!" Black spoke with vicious intensity.

He could not possibly be in a good mood, but he tried to restrain himself. "Since you haven’t tried to arrest me, I assume you’re willing to listen. Are you someone I know?"

"No." Yimi shook her head and turned to leave.

The kitty and the doggy were even now.

Besides, she suddenly remembered that Grandma Cat had never given her any pocket money. Even if she went to Hogsmeade, she would not be able to buy anything. Humans she had lived with before sometimes failed to give her spending money too. Reimu, for example, not only refused to give her any, but even tried to squeeze money out of her.

Black instinctively raised his wand. The moment he heard Yimi say she did not know him, he regretted telling her so much, because it suddenly occurred to him that someone willing to help a wanted fugitive might be a Death Eater whose ties to Voldemort were not especially deep.

What good person would help a wanted criminal? This person was even cautious enough to stay in cat form while cooking.

But if she really were a Death Eater, shouldn’t she have attacked the moment he tried to clear his name? He had seen how those tiny claws were sharper than knives. They could even slash through the air and leave cuts in objects ahead as though they were magical tools.

Then again, perhaps she simply found the claws convenient and therefore had not transformed back. In that case, did this surprisingly young-sounding cat lady not understand the sincerity of speaking face-to-face? Even if she was not a Death Eater, she probably had an identity she could not show openly. Her claim to be the Defence Against the Dark Arts professor was probably questionable too.

For now, Black had no other option. Even obtaining food was extremely difficult, so he could only ask this person for help. "Bring that rat to me and everything can be proven! If you help me, you may choose anything the Black family left behind. I’m the sole heir."

...

Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione looked at one another.

"The ingredients for Polyjuice Potion, assuming the cat-girl didn’t lie to us." Hermione put the stolen ingredients into the cauldron.

They had caused a commotion during Snape’s class earlier. Harry had thrown a firework invented by Ron’s twin brothers into Goyle’s cauldron, splattering Swelling Solution over half the class. Snape had been furious.

Hermione had taken advantage of the chaos to slip into Snape’s storeroom and steal the ingredients.

She told the two boys, "It needs to brew for around a month. The lacewing flies alone have to stew for twenty-one days."

"Twenty-one days... I don’t think Dobby will bother me again. He hasn’t appeared in ages. The Chamber of Secrets is over, but who knows whether there’ll be some other conspiracy afterward." Harry looked at Ron.

Ron pursed his lips. "Ginny confessed everything. She’s the one who brought the diary into the school, but that doesn’t get us anywhere. The little kitty said Professor McGonagall already has the diary. That’s the safest possible result. Are we really supposed to tell her Ginny was the one who brought it in and get Ginny expelled?"

They were about to leave when footsteps sounded outside. Afraid they might be caught doing something suspicious, they decided to wait a little longer before coming out.

"They really decided to let Dementors come to the school? This isn’t Azkaban!" It was Professor McGonagall’s voice, and she sounded furious.

"Outside the school, Minerva. I will not allow Dementors to set foot within the school grounds." Despite what he said, Dumbledore did not sound particularly pleased either.

McGonagall calmed down somewhat and lowered her voice. "What about Sirius? Do you think Harry needs to be told about him? The first person Sirius will go after now that he’s escaped has to be Harry."

"Let’s discuss it in my office."

"..."

Harry looked at the other two, confused and anxious. "They’re talking about the news from this morning? What does it have to do with me?"

He received only two shaken heads in response.

"I need to go back and get my Invisibility Cloak." He wanted to eavesdrop on more.

Harry ran out immediately.

Ron looked at Hermione. "I think someone from the Ministry probably came again just now. They already came once this morning."

Hermione was about to say something when the classroom door opened again. Yimi walked in, and the little girl looked noticeably happy when she saw the two of them there.

"You came to class?"

Hermione waved her hands and shook her head. "No, we’re here for something else. We’ll definitely come with you next time."

Yimi gave a dissatisfied little snort, then turned her attention to the cauldron on the table. "What are you making?"

"Polyjuice Potion. We used the ingredients you told us about, but it’ll take a month before it’s ready." Hermione did not sound very pleased. Her unspoken meaning seemed to be: you’d better not have lied to us.

"A month." Yimi remembered that there really was something like that.

It seemed a lot of potions needed to cook for a very long time before they were finished. What a bother.

She took out her own pot. It had been washed clean, of course. Mixing nonhuman tissue into Polyjuice Potion could cause problems. Yimi switched to SAO’s Adaptive Power and poured the contents of Hermione’s cauldron into her pot.

"What are you doing?" Hermione stared at her in confusion.

A minute later, Yimi lifted the lid. The contents had visibly changed color.

"It’s done."

"?"

Only after finishing did the little kitty turn to Ron. "Is your rat, still here?"

Yimi had not completely understood what Black was talking about, but she didn’t even find that rat appealing as food.

She could have simply run to the common room and looked for it herself. But the evil creature belonged to Ron, and no matter how foul it smelled, she ought to ask its owner first.

"How do you know I keep a rat? You really are that cat!" Ron stared at her warily.

Recently, Ron had become extremely sensitive about Scabbers’s safety.