The little raven seemed to erupt with endless resentment, startling even Sirius.
"Ahem... I won't ask anymore." Sirius cleared his throat. "I get what you mean. If all that's true, then you really do seem more trustworthy."
"Provided what you said is true. I'll verify it myself. For now, though, it's better if we keep our distance."
On the surface, someone who had once held a professorship at Hogwarts did sound more reliable. But that had been the Defense Against the Dark Arts post. Merlin knew what kind of monsters ended up in that position.
So even after Harris Raymons revealed his identity, Sirius still did not trust him.
"Hmph..." Harris Raymons let out a cold snort. "Fine. Do whatever you want. If you insist on stumbling around on your own, go ahead. Here's a piece of advice. While you're at Hogwarts, don't provoke a certain student."
As he said it, a trace of wariness showed on his face.
"Don't provoke a certain student? Who are you talking about?" Sirius paused. Anyone this man went out of his way to mention had to be unusual.
"His name is Leonard William. A dangerous person. If you happen to run into him... then I'll get to find out whether the Ministry of Magic really will pay that generous bounty."
With that, Harris Raymons flapped his wings and took off. "That's all. Take care of yourself."
Sirius watched Harris Raymons disappear from sight, scratched his hair, and stood there looking baffled.
"He told me to watch out for a student... that student can turn me into a bounty? Who exactly is he looking down on?"
That famous Gryffindor recklessness of Sirius's flared right back up.
"You tell me not to provoke him, and I'm just supposed to listen? I absolutely have to see what's so special about this student." Sirius entertained the thought with complete disregard for his own life.
Up in the sky, the flying crow, Sta, suddenly vanished. The next moment, it reappeared inside a room.
Harris Raymons sat at his desk, writing a report by the light of a kerosene lamp about activities at Hogwarts.
Sta appeared in front of the desk and affectionately rubbed against Harris Raymons's fingers.
"Go play somewhere else. I haven't finished this report yet." Harris Raymons impatiently brushed Sta aside and continued writing furiously.
He was already busy to death, keeping track of Sirius's movements and writing reports. He did not have time to dote on a crow.
"Caw!" Sta cried in dissatisfaction, hopped to the side, and pecked resentfully at a dried quail nearby.
Just then, there was a knock at the door, accompanied by a cold voice.
"Mr. Raymons, there is a meeting you need to attend."
Harris Raymons frowned, casually tossed his quill aside, and shouted, "I know, I'll be there in a moment."
Then he muttered under his breath, "So annoying. Another bloody meeting. Why are there so many meetings?"
He got to his feet. Seeing that, Sta bounced back over to his side and let out a caw.
"All right, I know. Up you go." Harris Raymons reached out and placed Sta on his shoulder.
This was the token of his right to attend the meeting. In Raven, only wizards who possessed a crow were entitled to hold a seat at that gathering.
"I wonder what this meeting is about this time." Harris Raymons followed the colleague who had come to notify him and made his way to the council hall.
The seats in the hall were arranged in a ring, clustered around three central places like stars around the moon.
In the dim hall, three beams of light descended from nowhere and illuminated the three highest seats.
Those were the seats of Raven's three council elders.
Harris Raymons found his seat and sat down. As the student of the second council elder, his place was naturally near the front. Not many people were qualified to sit here.
Most of them were Raven's older members, people who were usually obscure to the outside world, but who had all achieved something in one field or another.
Aside from them, the remaining seats were occupied by the council elders' students.
"Raymons, I heard your last mission failed."
The moment Harris Raymons sat down, a mocking voice sounded in his ear.
He looked up and saw a man so handsome it no longer looked human.
Yet while the face was handsome at first glance, the more one studied it, the stranger it became.
The eyes, nose, and mouth were all individually flawless, but put together they somehow created a sense of disharmony.
It was as though the face had been stitched together from separate parts.
Apart from the elusive first council elder and that elder's student, the only other young person seated in this row besides Harris Raymons was the student of the third council elder.
Raichel, the one who studied bloodline wizard inheritance.
Because their research directions were different, the two had never gotten along very well. It was normal for them to speak to each other with barbed sarcasm.
"I never deny my failures, Raichel." Harris Raymons glanced at him. "Admitting mistakes helps a person improve. On the other hand, people who keep making excuses for themselves only sink deeper and deeper into lies woven out of their own errors."
Raichel had once, in an overly aggressive experiment, injected the bloodlines of dozens of magical creatures into his own body, causing himself to lose control and mutate.
Although the third council elder had ultimately saved him, it had left his face with that eerie stitched-together look.
"Heh..." Raichel touched his face and sneered. "You call that a failure? Looks like all that research into those outdated old spells has made your mind slow and old-fashioned too. The current me is countless times stronger than the old me."
Harris Raymons shot Raichel a contemptuous look, then turned away in disdain.
It was true that Raichel's failure had ended up becoming a blessing in disguise. Those dozens of chaotic magical-creature bloodlines had somehow formed a bizarre composite state inside his body, allowing him to possess the abilities of dozens of magical creatures at the same time.
At first, the third council elder's branch of wizards had been excited beyond measure. They kept conducting human experiments in an attempt to replicate Raichel's condition. But after countless failures, they eventually had no choice but to accept the truth.
That had been a miracle.
And miracles could not be replicated.
As the product of that miracle, Raichel could be called utterly unique.
But in the eyes of rational researchers, such a miracle had no value at all. In Harris Raymons's view, wasting so many resources chasing a miracle was far less worthwhile than calmly studying ancient magic and researching how to popularize it.
At least their research could be extended to every wizard. Even if its use came with certain aftereffects, those were still acceptable.