The cold wind swept across the plains, like a faint and fragmented sob. The campfire had long gone out, and charred stones were scattered across the ground.
Looking around, all that could be seen were trampled tents. Torn canvas flapped loudly in the wind. Various items lay scattered across the ground, but their owners were nowhere to be found.
A snapped pine trunk had fallen and crushed a tin kettle beneath it. Someone's pajamas were draped over a branch, with large bloodstains covering the fabric.
The only thing still moving was a miniature statue of Viktor Krum—thumb-sized, tirelessly pacing back and forth across the grass with a distinctly bow-legged gait that captured his likeness with uncanny precision.
Wade stared at the tiny statue, thinking: That looks so silly. Not nearly as clever as my magic dolls.
…
When the morning light streamed through the small window of the tent, Wade opened his eyes.
He stared blankly at the crisscrossing canvas above him for a long while.
This was the third time he'd had a similar dream in recent days.
The first was of the Killer Forest.
The second, a battlefield littered with corpses.
The third, a desolate, abandoned campsite.
Occasional strange dreams weren't unusual—Wade is an imaginative person. He'd dreamed of being hunted by an army of panda-soldiers and of towering giants sealed away like mountains.
But three eerily similar dreams in a row…
Wade stayed in bed thinking for a long while before finally getting up. Just as he opened the bedroom door, Harry came rushing over to knock.
"Wade! The Weasleys are here! Let's go find Ron and the others to play!" Harry said cheerfully.
"You go ahead. I haven't had breakfast yet," Wade replied lazily.
The Weasley family had arrived very early to catch the scheduled Portkey, so it was still barely dawn—the morning mist hadn't even lifted yet.
Hearing that, Harry didn't insist. He clattered quickly down the stairs.
After breakfast, Wade opened his wardrobe space, took a bottle of Polyjuice Potion from the potions shelf, and dropped in a hair. He stirred it a few times until the liquid turned a seawater-like blue, bright and vibrant like a cocktail.
He tilted his head back and took a swig. A burning sensation surged from his stomach through his whole body. His bones and muscles felt as though they were melting, only to be reshaped by invisible hands into something new.
A few seconds later, the person staring back at him from the mirror was a stubbly, ordinary-looking young man in his early twenties—short, slightly pudgy, with a forgettable face. The kind of person who could blend into any crowd.
He changed into appropriate clothes and swapped in a backup wand. Just as he finished getting ready and headed downstairs, someone bumped into him—a man coming out of the kitchen with a chicken leg in his mouth, a plate of sandwiches in one hand, and a steaming mug of coffee in the other.
The two collided and froze, staring at each other.
Wade smiled and was just about to greet him when Sirius suddenly threw everything in his hands into the air and leapt back, instantly drawing his wand and shouting, "Expelliarmus!"
The red spell beam hit an invisible shield and bounced off, shattering the chandelier in the living room with a loud crash.
Sirius was about to cast again when he noticed all the things he'd thrown—sandwiches, coffee, even the chicken leg—were floating gently in the air around him. Only a few drops of coffee had spilled.
"It's me, Sirius," the unfamiliar man said in a helpless tone. "I'm Wade."
"Wade?" Sirius stared at him in astonishment. "What the hell—Polyjuice Potion?"
"Yes." Wade waved his wand, guiding the coffee, chicken leg, and other items safely onto the table. "I've got something to take care of. Do me a favor and just pretend you didn't see me."
He hadn't seen Sirius or Lupin at breakfast and had asked Kreacher, who said they had gone out. Wade assumed they were off protecting Harry and weren't in the tent.
Now that they'd bumped into each other, Wade found it a bit troublesome but didn't feel panicked.
After all, he wasn't planning anything bad—well, maybe something mildly illegal, depending on interpretation—but by Sirius's standards, it wasn't a big deal.
Wade picked up his pace, planning to leave quickly, but Sirius grabbed him by the arm.
"Hold on a second—I'm coming with you!"
"Do you even know what I'm going to do?" Wade asked.
"Whatever it is, it's gotta be more interesting than hauling buckets of water. And it's not like you're going to kill anyone or burn anything down."
Sirius said this without hesitation, stuffing a whole sandwich into his mouth in a few bites. He choked slightly and craned his neck before hastily gulping down a large swig of coffee.
—I knew it.
Wade thought.
—I was hoping to slip out before he realized what's going on!
He sighed and stopped walking. "No rush. Take your time eating—I'll wait."
In less than three minutes, Sirius had finished his breakfast. After wiping his mouth, he said, "Alright, let's go… So, where to? What are we doing?"
"Something that other people can't know about… First, drink this."
Wade pulled out a bottle of Polyjuice Potion and dropped in a hair. The potion turned a concrete-gray color.
Sirius took a swig, grimaced as the potion burned through him, and moments later transformed into a balding old man who looked about seventy.
He touched his face, then looked at the wrinkled skin on the back of his hand.
"What's this guy's name?"
"Doesn't matter. Make one up if you want," Wade said.
"You won't need it anyway."
They left together. After thinking seriously for a moment, Sirius declared, "Then from now on, I'll be called Patroclus Ohanesian."
—What kind of ridiculous name is that? Wade thought to himself.
"Alright, Pat. You can call me Red."
"Well then, Red," Sirius grinned, "What exactly are we off to do?"
"I heard there's a Muggle caretaker near the campsite. Do you know where he is?" Wade asked.
"Of course. Follow me."
It was as if Sirius had a built-in navigation system in his head. He led Wade through the maze of tents, twisting and turning.
One moment, Wade felt like they were lost in a sea of canvas with no sense of direction, and the next, the view opened up suddenly—revealing a deserted stretch of marshland in the distance.
Beside the campsite gate stood a small stone hut. In front of it was a dazed-looking man with unfocused eyes, mechanically handing tickets to two elderly people in long nightgowns, and accepting the money they gave him.
Not far away stood a wizard in balloon-like trousers, with a badge pinned to his chest—clearly someone from the Ministry of Magic.
Wade pulled Sirius back a few steps and used a nearby tent to block the Ministry wizard's line of sight. Then, he quietly raised his wand and pointed it at the Muggle.
But Sirius suddenly grabbed the other end of the wand with an unusually serious expression on his face.
"I may have done worse when I was younger, but I still have to tell you this—casting spells on Muggles without cause is illegal, Wade. If that guy did something to you, tell me. I'll take care of it."
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⭐Harry Potter: Becoming a Study God (HP:BSG)- 200+ Chapters
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