"Good morning, Prophet."
"Yo, the Seer's back from his morning run?"
"Well, if it isn't the famous Diviner Skyl!"
The moment the transfer student walked into the Great Hall, everyone started laughing at him. Skyl waved his hand, telling the bunch of troublemakers to settle down.
Percy's eyes lit up when he saw him. "Come here! Skyl, I saved you a seat." He patted the empty spot beside him, and once Skyl sat down, he fawningly brought over a bowl of pumpkin porridge. Like a gold-medal butler, he held up a plate and asked what Skyl wanted to eat.
"Showing me kindness for no reason, Percy. Go on, what do you want?"
"Oh, Skyl, that's such an unpleasant way to put it. As your roommate, can't I simply care about you? Here, have some porridge. Eat a sandwich too, and some Swedish meatballs."
Skyl could not stand this guy's fake affection. Ever since he had revealed his Divination skills, his roommates had all become disgustingly attentive. Bringing him tea and water was nothing. Even when he was sleeping, they practically wanted to rush over and tuck him in. It made Skyl genuinely afraid that this lot was about to awaken some ancient British boarding-school nonsense.
Seeing that the food on his plate was about to overflow, Skyl quickly made him stop.
"All right, you just want me to do a Divination for you, don't you?"
"You saw through me even that quickly, Skyl. You really are a prophet." Percy's exaggerated, winking expression was ridiculous. Normally, this guy was serious and rigid, like a model student who cared only about studying, but once he got excited, he was no different from most of their classmates. In his bones, he was still a Weasley.
Skyl glanced sideways at him. "Say it, then. What do you want to know? I don't guarantee that my Divination will be accurate. If you cause trouble out there in the future, just don't sell out your roommate."
Percy was overjoyed. He quickly glanced left and right, then leaned close to Skyl's ear and whispered, "Can I become Minister for Magic one day?"
"You career-obsessed maniac." Skyl was very helpless. Sure enough, people all over the world loved asking fortune-tellers about their future wealth and official careers. It was practically a universal truth.
He could only say, "The future is like history. Both are little girls people dress up however they please. What happens later is very hard to say with certainty. I think the odds of you becoming Minister are not high."
Percy looked a little disappointed. He changed the topic to something more practical and said lightly, "Skyl, everyone has seen your teaching ability. Since you now know how to do Divination, could you teach us some real skills?"
As soon as he said that, the surrounding students immediately agreed.
A rather thick-headed wizard beside them chimed in, "Exactly. Professor Trelawney is always so mysterious and crazy, like some cheap carnival fraud. You know my O.W.L.s result in Divination was only Exceeds Expectations, and Trelawney doesn't have any real skill…"
Skyl and several students around him had already begun giving the wizard frantic looks halfway through his words, because the Divination professor, Trelawney, was passing by the long table at that very moment and happened to hear everything he said.
"Mr. Wood! What did you just say?"
The thin Sybill Trelawney trembled with anger like a reed in the wind. She shrieked, then began muttering to herself, "A cheap fraud? No real skill? I cannot endure such humiliation. No, absolutely not. I am still a professor, after all…"
Oliver Wood, whose mouth had brought disaster upon him, went deathly pale.
"Detention! You will come to my office for detention! And yes, twenty points from Gryffindor." Trelawney nervously looked toward Professor McGonagall at the staff table, then suddenly changed her words. "Ten points. Ten points from Gryffindor."
Wood said awkwardly, "But Professor, I still have to arrange Quidditch practice tonight."
"Then come to my office this afternoon."
The unlucky Wood could only nod.
Professor Trelawney stormed out of the Great Hall in a huff, not even eating breakfast.
"Oliver, you idiot. We were giving you signals, and you still didn't see them? How do you dodge Bludgers on the Quidditch pitch?"
Amid the laughter of his classmates, the gloomy wizard ate two more sandwiches.
That afternoon, Wood returned to the common room after finishing his detention and brought back huge news.
"All eyes on me. I have massive news for you. Professor Trelawney made a prophecy!"
The Gryffindors all let out a unified "Tch."
"When does Trelawney not make prophecies? Divination is how she makes a living."
Wood shook his head grandly and said with complete certainty, "This time was different. You didn't see the professor's expression. It was just like when Skyl makes a prophecy, half asleep and half awake, with the voice drifting up from her throat. When she woke up, I asked, 'Professor, was what you just said true?' But she said, 'I merely dozed off. I absolutely did not make any prophecy. You must have been dozing too.' But I'm very sure her prophecy had something to do with the Dark Lord!"
Hearing him speak so seriously, and with the most terrifying figure in the wizarding world mentioned, the students who had not been interested at first also gathered around curiously.
"What prophecy did Trelawney make?"
"I don't remember it very clearly. Wait, let me think. What she said was probably something like, the Dark Lord's servant will break free from his chains and rejoin his master, then the Dark Lord will rise again with the servant's help… something like that."
Skyl, who was sitting by the window correcting homework, was also a little surprised when he heard this. This prophecy was about Peter Pettigrew escaping Hogwarts and going to find Voldemort. However, this should have happened next year. And with Harry's current abilities, subduing Peter Pettigrew should not have been a problem, so how could he still escape?
If Afu broke free, it really could cause trouble. Skyl would never let Voldemort get what he wanted.
He immediately closed his eyes for a short nap, entered his trance state, and searched for Peter Pettigrew's movements.
At this moment, Pettigrew appeared inside the Shrieking Shack. It was an abandoned house in Hogsmeade. The school had a secret passage leading straight to the Shrieking Shack, with the entrance beneath the Whomping Willow. Back when the werewolf Lupin was at school, he had to hide in the Shrieking Shack every full moon to suppress his urge to harm people. As one of the four friends from back then, Pettigrew used to come to the shack with James and Sirius to keep Lupin company.
Now Pettigrew had returned to human form. He was sprawled on the cold, pitch-black floor, bowing before his master.
"Master, great and beloved Master, I didn't know you were here. You disappeared before, and I was so frightened. Now that you have returned, everything is all right. Please lead us back beneath the sunlight again. Wormtail is willing to do anything to satisfy you."
The one before whom Pettigrew was groveling so humbly was naturally the wolfhound Afu.
The restless dog sat on the ground, his eyes bright as he looked at Pettigrew's servile, fawning appearance. His dog's mouth twisted, revealing an expression of deep satisfaction. It had been too long since he had enjoyed the taste of power. After spending so long as a dog, he had almost forgotten the sweet experience of enslaving humans.
Afu spat out a ring. It was precisely the heirloom ring inlaid with the Resurrection Stone that Skyl had taken from the Gaunt shack. In other words, one of Voldemort's Horcruxes, with a fragment of his soul hidden inside it.
Pettigrew tremblingly took the ring in his hands. Suddenly, his whole body shuddered, and another person's voice came from his mouth. "Wormtail… you must leave Hogwarts. Escape. If you stay here, only death awaits you. I will be watching you. Go find Nagini. Obey my commands. Once I recover my body… I must make that damned…"
The remnant of Voldemort's soul possessing Pettigrew shivered violently, not even daring to say that person's name.
"No, no. I only need to gain freedom. After that, I only need to wait. Sooner or later, he will grow old. He will die too. And I… the great Voldemort, shall live forever… heh heh heh."
Peter Pettigrew let out a sinister laugh, turned around, and ran out of the Shrieking Shack. Pulling his hood tight over his head, he wandered toward the moorland beyond Hogsmeade.
The wolfhound Afu watched his servant Wormtail leave with his Horcrux. A relaxed expression appeared on the dog's face. He narrowed his eyes at the setting sun as sunlight fell over his dog head, making him look almost like a free man.
The perfectly satisfied Voldemort did not know that Skyl was standing right beside him, watching Pettigrew flee Hogwarts together with him.
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