Chapter 478 - 29: Sirius’s Reward

Chapter 478: Chapter 29: Sirius’s Reward

At the coldest point of November, even though Love Train could cast away the misfortune of the cold, Yimi still did not want to leave somewhere warm.

The study outside Professor McGonagall’s bedroom also served as her office. Once the weather turned cold, Yimi stopped wanting to run all the way to the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom. Instead, she turned into a cat and sprawled beside the study fireplace. The padded wizarding robe that wrapped her up like a barrel slipped off automatically when she changed, bunching around her like a cat bed.

The robe would get dirty if it was left rolled up on the floor like that, but at least McGonagall did not have to worry about Yimi getting too close to the fire and singeing her fur.

Yesterday, McGonagall and the others had asked her a great many questions, many of which she could not understand. Without realizing it, she had grown so tired that she fell asleep. In the end, McGonagall had carried her back.

It was too cold today. She did not feel like thinking about editing her magic book for the time being, and the moment that thought occurred to her, she contentedly settled down to laze around with the glass biscuit jar hugged in her paws.

Perhaps it was because she had just been through a fierce battle, or perhaps because Christmas was almost here and the child seemed to have some inexplicable connection to it. Either way, McGonagall gave her a few days off and did not assign her any new words to learn.

The ladybug Rita Skeeter had transformed into rested not far away. She was not at all annoyed by the sight of Yimi lying motionless and sleeping the day away, because the little cat’s appearance itself was already giving her material for a story.

Today’s headline naturally belonged to Sirius’s wrongful imprisonment, but Rita had already finished writing the copy about the little one. Tomorrow’s front page would undoubtedly belong to her.

Of course, for the moment Rita had not written anything too outrageous. The story was merely about "the relationship between Professor McGonagall’s adopted granddaughter and Jesus," along with interviews from numerous students about the light that had illuminated Hogwarts. Never mind what spell it had actually been—Rita intended to hype it up as a miracle, or at the very least claim that the Hogwarts professors believed it was one.

What was the benefit of doing that? Attention, of course! Just look at what she was seeing now: this little girl was an unregistered Animagus. First build someone into a hot topic, then dig up their dirt afterward. That was how you made the later story hit even harder.

It was not even time for class to end when the door to McGonagall’s office was pushed open. A vigorous voice greeted Yimi.

"Hey, you lazy little cat! Daytime isn’t for sleeping!"

"Meow?"

Before Yimi could react, Black scooped her up and held her over his head. "Guess what happened? I’ve been acquitted! More than ten years ago, they skipped the trial entirely and threw me straight into Azkaban. Now Peter gets to spend the rest of his life there in my place!"

"Mraow~" Yimi yawned.

Harry followed in behind him and glanced back somewhat guiltily. "I think you should’ve waited until class was over before coming to get me, Sirius."

Harry had just been in Snape’s class when Black barged straight into the classroom and pulled him out, claiming Dumbledore had allowed it. In reality, Dumbledore had only said that Sirius could take Harry home for a visit today—today only. He had never said Sirius could drag Harry out in the middle of class.

"Leave you there to get blamed for no reason? Today’s a good day, Harry. You should be happier." Black did not seem particularly concerned.

In fact, before he even arrived to take Harry away, Gryffindor had already lost twenty points. Ten were because Ron looked at Snape for too long and Snape deducted them on the grounds of, "Do you have some objection to me?" The other ten were because Ron lowered his head and stopped looking at him, at which point Snape deducted them for "not paying attention in class."

On top of that, Ron still had two weeks of detention hanging over his head. Snape was not the sort of person to let matters go simply because admitting he had been attacked by a student was embarrassing.

Black set Yimi down. "Remember what I promised you? You can choose one thing from the Black family and take it with you. Though I doubt the place will be very clean today. Nobody’s been back there in years."

"How did you get acquitted?" Harry asked. "Didn’t they care that you’re an unregistered Animagus?"

"Oh, they very much wanted to care. But that day Dumbledore started by taking them to task over the Dementors attacking students." Black grinned broadly, looking delighted.

"Of course, that isn’t the main point. The people at the Ministry probably still think they’re greater than Dumbledore. The real point is that Fudge’s front teeth were knocked out by someone wearing an Invisibility Cloak. They’re all panicking over some unknown attacker right now, so they don’t have the energy to deal with quite so many things."

That really was strange. The mention of front teeth made Harry think of Hermione’s. She had originally had a pair of prominent buck teeth, but after the Whomping Willow knocked them out and Yimi healed her, they had returned at a normal size. Hermione looked much prettier because of it.

God bless.

Harry shook Snape’s displeased face from his mind and asked excitedly, "How are we going? On broomsticks?"

"We’ll use the motorbike I gave Hagrid. I guarantee the Ministry could come up with another complaint just from seeing it." Black sounded utterly unconcerned.

"We’re going to your house?" Yimi changed back into human form and pulled on her padded wizarding robe again, instantly turning back into a tiny barrel.

Rita heard what they were saying and hurriedly fluttered over, trying to fly into Yimi’s pocket and follow along.

But in the next instant, she saw the little girl turn her gaze toward her.

Then the glass jar that had originally held biscuits came down over Rita’s head.

The Black family’s ancestral home stood in northwest London, at Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, in a Muggle neighborhood.

While Sirius’s father was still alive, he had placed nearly every secrecy measure known to wizardkind over the property. Its location would not even appear on a map.

Whenever the place came up, Harry could clearly see that what appeared on Sirius’s face was not pride, but a trace of disgust.

The moment they entered, Harry was assaulted by a faceful of dust. The place clearly had not been cleaned in a very long time. He covered his nose and mouth, then turned toward Yimi and found that she seemed completely unaffected.

Black had not even told Professor McGonagall before bringing Yimi over. In any case, he would have to take her back later.

As Black stepped inside, he seemed to be searching through old memories. "I told you it wouldn’t be very clean. You two—"

"Beasts! Whores! Filth! How dare you defile the ancestral home of my family!"

A shrill scream cut him off and made Yimi jump.

"I almost forgot about you. Shut up, you stupid old hag!" Black swore, grabbed a piece of cloth, and threw it over the source of the voice. The dust he kicked up left Harry, standing beside him, filthy all over again.

Harry saw what had made the sound. It was a portrait hanging on the wall, just like the ones at Hogwarts, though the woman inside looked even less friendly than Sir Cadogan.

"Unnatural son! How dare you come back? You freak! Get out of here!"

"Ignore her. If she didn’t have a Permanent Sticking Charm on her, I’d have thrown her into a rubbish heap years ago." Black headed deeper into the house as he spoke.

Harry tried to identify the objects in the house from their shapes. Everything was coated in such a thick layer of dust that most things could barely be recognized.

At the far end of the entrance hall, he saw a plaque by the stairs leading to the second floor. The things mounted on it looked like a row of shriveled house-elf heads.

Harry frowned and reached out to cover Yimi’s eyes, only to turn his own gaze aside and meet the eyes of another shriveled house-elf head.

No, it was not just a head. This really was a living house-elf, and an extremely old one at that.

In a voice that was quiet yet perfectly audible, the elf muttered, "Poor Kreacher. His miserable master has come back with two little bastards. They smell like criminals from the gutter, the disgusting old wastrel. What would poor Mistress say to old Kreacher if she could see this from beyond the grave..."

For a moment, Harry thought he had heard wrong. In his experience, house-elves were the sort of creatures who placed themselves in an inexplicably humble position and treated everyone with extreme deference. Dobby certainly did, at least.

"Get out of the way, Kreacher!" Black roared at the house-elf.

Kreacher muttered more unpleasant things under his breath, then obeyed and moved aside.

Black patted Harry on the shoulder. "Sorry about the first impression, Harry. I suppose you’ve heard about this sort of thing... The Black family cares a lot about blood. If you don’t like it, we can move somewhere else. We probably should’ve done that from the start."

Harry shook his head. "No. This is infinitely better than the Dursleys’. It just needs some cleaning."

He unconsciously lowered his hand and saw Yimi tilting her little face up at the row of house-elf heads, looking extremely curious.

Seeing that, Black gestured to her. "Go look around for anything you want, girl. If I remember right, there isn’t much valuable on the ground floor. You should check upstairs."

"Meow."

Yimi obediently started climbing the stairs, though she did not seem especially enthusiastic.

She had never been particularly interested in Black’s promise in the first place, but if someone was giving her a present, why would a kitty refuse?

Still, if she had known beforehand that the place was covered in dust, she would not have wanted to come.

The second-floor drawing room had windows looking out onto the street. Aside from a family-tree tapestry on the wall, there was nothing particularly remarkable, so Yimi headed toward the bedrooms on that floor.

Her small hand had just touched a bedroom door when she saw Kreacher crouched by the stairway, staring fixedly at her. The moment the little kitty looked back, he pretended he had not been watching and began walking upstairs while muttering loudly enough for Yimi to hear.

"What a disgrace. That hateful wastrel. What would Mistress think if she were still alive? Her traitorous son brought some little bastard into her own home to steal things..."

"What did you say?" Yimi ran over angrily. She could tell the strange thing was insulting her.

Kreacher stiffened, turned back, and bowed to Yimi. "Kreacher did not notice the young mistress just now."

Then, in a voice Yimi could hear perfectly clearly, he added, "Filthy little brat with sticky fingers."

"Grrr~" Yimi angrily pointed at him. Since she rarely spoke English, she could only combine the words she had learned from McGonagall over the past few days and invent her own insult. "You ugly marmot!"

"Kreacher!" Hearing the commotion, Black came back to the stairway and shouted upward. "Can you get somewhere we can’t see you?"

Kreacher muttered under his breath and started heading upstairs.

Black beckoned to Yimi again. "Ignore him. Keep looking for whatever you want, girl. Take anything you like from this house."

The little kitty was fuming. She had helped someone and come here to accept a reward, yet this thing was insulting her and even accusing the kitty of being a thief.

The more she thought about it, the angrier she became. Yimi pointed at Kreacher as he climbed the stairs and blurted out in a fit of temper, "Can I have him?"

Kreacher’s expression froze.