"Dougt!"
Before Dougt could finish speaking, Irene walked out of the basement and interrupted him sharply, a trace of anger in her low tone.
"All right... all right... I understand. Those are things from the past." Dougt didn't want to mention these old events, they always reminded him of things that made him angry.
Dougt stopped halfway, leaving Adrian confused.
Ten... ten what?
While Adrian was guessing silently, Irene threw a book at him, hitting him on the head.
"Read properly and stop asking about irrelevant things," Irene said with a dissatisfied look, then turned to Dougt.
"Did you get what I need?"
"Of course, though this thing wasn't easy to handle. You have to find a box that can trap it, and it took a lot of effort to send it here."
Dougt grinned and continued complaining, but then his tone changed and he patted his chest, indicating that if it was for her, this trouble wasn't a big deal.
Irene wasn't interested in listening to this nonsense and threw the bag in her right hand over.
"Is this enough?"
"Look at what you're saying. I'm just doing a small favor, not making a deal." Dougt smiled in a flattering way. After catching it, he changed hands and tossed it onto the counter, gesturing for Adrian to put it away.
The bag wasn't large and felt very light when it hit the wooden counter, but there was a sound of metal clinking together.
Adrian guessed the bag's internal space had been expanded and its weight reduced.
He looked through the unfastened opening. Inside were glittering gold coins, lots of them, all Galleons.
From their conversation, Adrian understood clearly enough. For that value in Galleons, Dougt could only have gotten a Dementor.
Thinking about this, Adrian suddenly looked at the middle-aged man with respect. A former Deputy Director of St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries had such skills.
As for the bag Dougt threw on the table, Adrian didn't touch it. He understood his mother's character, Irene was never willing to accept help from others without paying.
Dougt understood this too and sighed, persuading her helplessly.
"I received news a few days ago that the Ministry of Magic will be making a big move soon. They're stepping up investigations of dark magical items. Minister Fudge has shown a lot of determination this time, even the manors of pure-blood wizard families are within the search range. The Ministry probably won't bother with Knockturn Alley, but it'll still affect business."
Hearing this, Adrian remembered. In the original story, there had been a large-scale search before Harry's second year.
Even the Malfoy family was affected and had to find a way to get rid of the Horcrux diary. It showed that the Ministry's investigation wasn't simple.
Irene's expression changed. If the Ministry really did this, then for the next few months, they probably wouldn't see a single major sale.
After all, the people who actually bought dark magical items were mostly wealthy pure-blood families. Expecting the poor residents of Knockturn Alley to spend money wasn't realistic.
Even so, Irene insisted.
"I'll find a way to deal with this. You should take the money."
Seeing Irene's insistence, Dougt had no choice but to put the bag of Galleons into his pocket. Then he insisted on staying for lunch with a thick face.
This time, Irene didn't refuse, but Adrian felt helpless because Dougt kept trying to get close to him, seemingly wanting to use him as a way to get closer to Irene.
Adrian searched through his memories and found that Dougt had always been like this. He'd never concealed his affection for Irene.
Of course, Irene had never concealed that she had no interest in Dougt either, but he remained cheerful about it anyway.
Until the afternoon, Adrian couldn't get rid of the middle-aged man. The Dementor for practicing the Patronus Charm was being kept at Dougt's house and supposedly wasn't easy to move.
Dougt directly suggested that if Adrian was going to do something with the Dementor, he could come to his home, and it would be safer to have Dougt watching over things.
Irene readily agreed, then drove Adrian and Dougt out of the dark magic shop.
"So the Dementor is for you, little Adrian?" Dougt's expression was strange. He'd thought Irene was involved in some dark magic experiment that needed a Dementor.
"I'm using it to learn the Patronus Charm. What else?" Adrian shrugged.
"If I'd known you were going to use it, I would've just brought the box over," Dougt muttered to himself.
Adrian naturally saw through Dougt's careful scheming and felt speechless. He didn't want to spend an afternoon with this old man.
As soon as they went out, within a few minutes Dougt pulled out a flask from his long sleeves and took a drink. He hadn't drunk in front of Irene because he didn't want to damage his image in her mind. In front of Adrian, though, he couldn't help himself.
Dougt's house wasn't far, just through a small alley, but the location was remote with almost no other houses around. Some trees and weeds grew in the empty spaces. On the side of the house hung a crooked, dusty sign with a few words outlined on it.
St. Mungo's Magic Hospital
Adrian looked at it with a weird expression. If he remembered correctly, the hospital in the wizarding world was called St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, right?
The man had dared to hang up a sign after deleting just two words. That took nerve.
Fortunately, no one had come to cause him trouble over all these years.
When they reached the door, Adrian realized someone was waiting there. It was a wizard in his thirties. The wizard robes on his body were shabby, his eye sockets deeply sunken, and the left hand under his sleeve faintly gave off black smoke.
Werewolf?
Adrian looked at him and quietly gripped his wand in his right hand. After only a few days, he hadn't forgotten the battle that night. One of the silver-haired werewolves had been hit by dark magic on his left hand.
The shabby wizard didn't make any hostile moves. Instead, he walked up to Dougt and pulled back his sleeve, revealing his left hand, corroded, pitted, with a disturbing appearance.
"Can you help?" the wizard asked.
Dougt had been drinking, but that didn't affect his judgment at all. After looking at it for a while, he held up five fingers in a gesture.
"Only five days left?" The wizard was silent for a moment before speaking.
"I mean, it'll cost five hundred Galleons total," Dougt said bluntly.