A broken Hogwarts

"Pet?" Sirius raised his left eyebrow, "What pet?"

"Ahem, it's nothing...can I not want it? I already have Hedwig." Harry frowned. The thought of raising a long, slippery snake gave him a chill.

"You promised this yourself." Owen looked at him in disbelief, "Are you going to regret it?"

You've always forced it on me... Harry cursed and resisted the urge to roll his eyes: "I don't like snakes."

"The basilisk will be very sad to hear this." Owen looked at him with the eyes of a betrayed man.

"It won't be sad. It has good food and shelter now, and is very happy." Harry said angrily. After the gag, his mood became inexplicably lighter.

"So, Harry, you want to raise a snake?" Sirius crossed his shoulders with a strange look on his face.

"Harry is a Parselmouth. Of course he has to make use of such a useful ability." Owen said with a smile.

Harry glared at him, this guy really didn't care about anything. He didn't want to mention the specialness of being similar to Slytherin in front of Sirius, because he felt that Sirius didn't seem happy that he was in Slytherin House.

"Oh, I forgot. Parseltongue is such a strange ability, isn't it?" Sirius's expression became a little weirder, and then he grinned harmlessly, "I don't remember your parents having this. Ability."

Harry just breathed a sigh of relief, and then his heart started to grow again: "They really don't know how to do it? They say that Parseltongue is hereditary..."

"I'm sure." Sirius shrugged, "But I think it may be something passed down from generation to generation. I think your father may have the blood of Slytherin or some Parseltongue wizard, and when you come here, the blood returns to the ancestors. Yes, sometimes this happens."

"If you use it well, it can really come in handy." He mused.

"That's it, Harry. I'm giving you a chance to use your abilities." Owen clapped his hands and said in a lively tone.

Harry glanced at him sideways and told him with his eyes, "It's weird that I believe you."

"That snake is very powerful. It can perfectly serve as your bodyguard. The most important thing is that it is very smart. It is as smart as humans. It can understand and perform complex tasks, such as helping you to find out information and acting as an informant." Owen said seriously, "If you have a way to transport it to the Forbidden Forest, with its help, you might be a little safer this school year."

"If it weren't for the fact that it holds a grudge, hates me so much, and doesn't listen to me at all, I wouldn't be willing to give it to you." He said half-truthfully.

"What's more," he raised his lips mysteriously, "its origin is not ordinary, very extraordinary."

Seeing the smile on Owen's lips slowly widen, Harry had a bad feeling. Yes, it's the familiar feeling of being cheated again.

"If that's the case, then it's really not bad, provided that the snake is obedient." Sirius was considering it seriously. He didn't mind using some unconventional means to protect Harry's safety, such as sending a big snake to Hogwarts. He thought Hagrid would be very happy to have an extra little cutie.

"Then it's settled. Remember to come to my house to find me after dawn." Owen said with a smile. He took out his pocket watch and checked the time. It was already close to dawn. Considering that people who played all night needed to sleep in, he set a later time: "How about five o'clock in the afternoon? I will open my house to you. The permissions of the fireplace allow you to reach directly through the floo network."

Harry looked at Owen, then at Sirius, shrugged and said, "Okay."

"Well, it's getting late, I should say goodbye." Owen bowed politely, and then walked towards the living room, preparing to go home through the fireplace there.

After Owen's figure disappeared into the flames of the fireplace, Harry and Sirius faced each other and fell into an uncomfortable silence for a while.

"Well, I don't know what to say." Harry coughed lightly and said in a dry voice, "I'm sorry, Sirius, I didn't come out from behind the stairs at that time..."

"You're kidding! That's the smartest thing you did tonight." Sirius interrupted, "If you really walked out and threw away your wand, I would be pissed to death on the spot. I I guess James and Lily's son can't be that stupid."

Harry smiled and moved his eyes to the side: "I just want you to know that I don't care about you."

"Do you think I'm someone who makes trouble unreasonably?" Sirius patted his shoulder vigorously, "Okay, go back and rest. Don't think too much, just leave the rest to me."

"What are you going to do?" Harry asked in a low voice as he walked with his head down, "About Bellatrix and Peter Pettigrew..."

"I just want to ensure your safety." Sirius frowned again, "I know them. Bellatrix will never give up avenging her master, even if her first goal is to find her Master. She is fanatically obsessed with Voldemort."

Harry lowered his head, tore a piece of colored paper, and asked again: "What are you going to do?"

"Write a letter to Dumbledore, and then take some necessary measures." Sirius thought for a while, and then took a deep look at Harry: "Actually, I would rather you hide and not go to school. No one can compare to me. Learn more about Bellatrix's madness..."

He shook his head: "But I think you won't agree."

"Of course." Harry said dully.

"It's okay, you can't hide it all your life, you have to face it anyway." Sirius said, "I'm glad that you are not incapable of dealing with danger. Your performance today is very good, but you are still too immature. I have to give you some special training."

Harry's anxious mood was instantly filled with anticipation. He smiled and walked up the stairs.

……

The weather in summer changes constantly. The sky is still clear and cloudless in the morning, but it becomes overcast in the afternoon.

The air is humid, and the wind blowing in from the window carries the scent of moist flowers. The white rose bushes surrounding Shafiq Manor are swaying gently in the wind, like elves dancing in the music of nature.

The living room was very quiet. Mr. Shafik was not at home. Mrs. Shafik, wearing a meticulous dark blue robe, was sitting elegantly in an armchair and enjoying afternoon tea. She had a copy of "The Prophet" that she had just finished reading. daily".

Owen stood in front of the beautifully carved fireplace, tapping his wand on it to ask Harry to come over later.

The Floo Network is the most convenient mode of transportation for wizards. Although it is easy to be monitored by interested parties, it is still very safe. Wizards can easily set up their own fireplaces to allow visitors to come, or to allow people to poke their heads through the fireplace to report news.

After finishing tinkering with the fireplace, Owen sat in the armchair next to his mother, picked up a piece of tea with his fingertips and tasted it slowly. He picked up the "Daily Prophet" next to him, and last night's prison break was published on the first page:

"The Ministry of Magic confirmed today that an unprecedented prison break occurred in Azkaban Prison. Peter Pettigrew and Bellatrix Lestrange escaped from Azkaban last night. They are probably Azkaban." The most evil prisoner Caban ever held.

"'We are doing everything we can to recapture them,' said Minister for Magic Cornelius Fudge. 'We implore the wizarding community to remain calm and protect themselves and their families.'

"We all know that Peter Pettigrew was recently confirmed to be the real perpetrator of a shocking crime that occurred twelve years ago. He killed thirteen Muggles with a spell and framed the blame on Sirius Black. Causing him to be imprisoned in Azkaban for twelve years...

"Bellatrix Lestrange kidnapped an Auror and her wife with four others twelve years ago, and brutally tortured them to madness. She was sentenced to life in Azkaban. imprisonment.

"The two crazy fugitives are still missing, and we have to worry that similar tragedies will happen again..."

A large photo of the two fugitives was printed next to it. Peter Pettigrew looked much thinner, his small eyes were darting around, and he still looked timid. The woman next to him had thick eyelids, a wide chin, a haggard appearance, long and messy hair, and was grinning arrogantly.

Owen put down the newspaper and sighed in his mind: "Tsk, compared to the original Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry's third grade went directly from teaching mode to hell mode."

"It's been such an eventful time." Mrs. Shafiq gently put down the teacup and sighed with a rare sadness, "Bellatrix, she is not easy to mess with at all."

"How's the relationship between mom and her?" Owen refilled her tea and poured himself another cup.

"It's neither good nor bad," Mrs. Shafiq said.

"We used to be very close when we were in school. After all, she is my cousin." She showed a look of reminiscence, her beautiful side face was quiet and soft, "She was not like this at that time. Although she was proud and willful, she was pretty good to her friends. good."

"After she became a member of the Death Eaters, we gradually became estranged. When we met again later, I couldn't even believe that she turned into such a cruel and crazy look." She sighed softly, "She follows the Dark Lord fanatically. No one else is as...obsessed with the Dark Lord as she is."

"Is it love?" Owen said enthusiastically.

Adeline looked at him with a smile, her tone was gentle but stern: "This is not something to joke about, Owen."

She stared into Owen's eyes calmly and seriously: "I suggest you keep an appropriate distance from Harry Potter next semester. I think Bellatrix may be targeting him. If you get too close to Harry, If she's close, she won't mind using you to deal with Harry, and she won't care whether her actions will kill you...even if you are my son."

"Of course, this is just my suggestion. It's up to you how you choose." She suddenly pursed her lips and smiled, her dark green eyes reflecting Owen's shadow, "I just hope you understand that you have to consider everything. Consequences. And, stay safe.”

"I know." Owen nodded with a smile and responded obediently.

In fact, he also thought it would be better to stay away from Harry. He just wanted to study quietly and watch movies. After all, it was Harry's trouble, and it wouldn't be fun to involve himself in it.

Hmm, but isn’t it a little late to start keeping your distance now? Owen thought wildly.

Sure enough, he shouldn't have been curious about Harry in the first place and allowed this big trouble to enter Slytherin.

"By the way, it's best not to walk out of the gate of the manor casually in the near future." Mrs. Shafiq suddenly warned softly, "Last night, your father and I found a few people wandering around in the woods outside, poking their heads towards the manor. We don't know. What’s the purpose?”

"Oh? Didn't you catch a question?" Owen raised his eyebrows. For Shafiq Manor, which has been peaceful for hundreds of years, this thing is quite novel.

"We tried to do this. But those people were very vigilant and did not come into contact with us. After realizing that they had been discovered, they apparated directly." Mrs. Shafiq said with a smile, but Owen felt it keenly. There was a coldness in her smile.

When Mom smiles like that, it usually means someone is in trouble.

Owen nodded innocently and watched Mrs. Shafik stand up and walk out of the living room.

He picked up the tea cup and slowly sipped the black tea. Time passed by minute by second, and the cloudy sky outside the window became lower and lower.

When the hands of the clock pointed to five o'clock, the flames in the fireplace soared high and turned green. A figure staggered out of the fireplace, scattering a layer of ashes on the clean carpet.

"Ahem, I'm really not used to using floo powder." Harry coughed for a while and slapped the ashes on his body vigorously.

He looked at the stained gorgeous carpet under his feet, coughed slightly in embarrassment, and then remembered that he was a wizard. He took out his wand from his pocket and said "Clean up."

"Good afternoon, Harry. You are very punctual." Owen waved to him lazily, "Would you like some matcha cookies?"

"Forget it, Sirius is still waiting for me." Harry looked at the beautifully decorated living room and straightened a crooked golden candlestick beside him. He thought he had knocked it accidentally when he came out of the fireplace.

There was a small "click" sound in his ears, and Harry felt his ankle tighten. Before he could react, his whole body was lifted up into the air by invisible ropes by his ankles. He was hung upside down in mid-air, swinging back and forth like a swing, and his glasses were almost thrown off. "Ah!" Harry exclaimed, still a little dazed. what happened? Was he caught in a trap? But isn’t this Owen’s home?

As he reached for his wand, he shouted in a panic: "Owen, what's going on?"

Owen sat motionless in the armchair, watching Harry swinging in mid-air in amusement, and taking a sip from his teacup. He said in a light voice: "Don't worry, there is no danger, it's just a little prank played by my father."

Mr. Shafiq still did not give up playing pranks on Owen, and took great pains to set up a variety of small traps in the house. But he failed to trick Owen, and instead Harry, who was visiting for the first time, was tricked.

"Prank?" Harry finally took out his wand and was stunned when he heard the words. He pointed his wand at the top of his tied ankles and muttered "split apart" to the invisible ropes.

With a "pop", his body fell back to the ground. Fortunately, the carpet on the floor is very soft, and it doesn't hurt if you fall on it.

"So you just stood there and watched? You are the only one who can pull off such a prank." Harry said angrily as he got up. He didn't believe Owen's father would do such a childish thing.

"I would not plan such a prank with little imagination." Owen said slowly, justifying his professional level as a magician.

Harry didn't speak, just rolled his eyes secretly.

"Okay, let's go see that cute little snake." Owen drank the last sip of black tea, stood up from the armchair, and led Harry to the dungeon on the second underground floor.

The two of them followed the stairs leading to the basement to the underground floor, and then walked through the dark and long corridor. There are several doors on both sides of the corridor, and a painting hangs on the wall between the doors, which looks hazy in the dim light.

Harry followed Owen, looking around with interest. When passing by a painting, the character in the painting turned his head and looked over, his eyes lit up with a glimmer of white light, like fireflies flickering in the dark night.

He curiously moved closer to take a closer look, but suddenly he felt his feet were empty, and then there was a feeling of weightlessness...

Hearing a "pop" from behind him, Owen turned his head and saw that Harry was gone. Well, some people disappear as they walk.

He glanced at the shining portrait, walked over slowly, and saw a rectangular hole on the floor in front of the portrait. He looked into the hole and saw Harry lying on his back at the bottom of the pit two to three meters deep, with several large soft white mushrooms under him, sprayed with earthy-yellow spores.

The corner of Owen's mouth twitched, and he fished the dizzy little wizard out of the pit with some disgust. He looked at him sneezing wildly there, and his cheeks stained yellow by the spores looked extremely funny.

"I'm curious, why do you always fall into such clumsy traps?" Owen's expression was hard to explain with a touch of inquiry, and he looked at Harry as if he was looking at a new breed of mentally retarded person.

"I...Aji! I'm just curious...Aji..."

There were no further twists and turns. Harry, who had learned his lesson, followed Owen obediently, not looking sideways. The two of them came to the end of the corridor, went down the stairs there, opened the iron door at the bottom, and entered the darker, damper and colder dungeon.

This place has been abandoned a long time ago, many rooms have become places where debris is piled, and the air is slightly turbid.

Owen lit an oil lamp and held it in his hand. He stood outside a cell locked by iron bars and hung the oil lamp beside the door.

Through the flickering light, Harry saw a large snake coiled in the corner of the room. Its brown scales were illuminated by the firelight, and there were black mesh patterns on it.

After discovering their arrival, the big snake's body coiled tighter, its cold snake eyes looked over, and it bared its sharp fangs at them.

"You can leave here today." Owen hissed.

The big snake just looked at him coldly, refusing to communicate with him as usual, and was even calmly looking for opportunities to bite him.

Owen shook his head. He was not born with a Parseltongue and had no natural ability to make snakes obey. There was nothing he could do against a snake that refused to cooperate and still held a grudge. He said to Harry: "Communicate with it."

Harry took a deep breath, stepped forward and hissed, "Hello?"

The big snake stared at him for a moment, and slowly lowered its head, showing a completely different submissive posture from before. It spoke for the first time in front of Owen: "Hello, respected wizard."

Seems pretty friendly. Harry relaxed a little and continued: "My name is Harry Potter, you can call me Harry. Um, do you have a name?"

"Nagini." The big snake spit out the serpentine, and the snake's eyes reflected the firelight.

"So, Nagini, will you follow me out of here?" Harry asked.

The big snake was silent for a moment, and then said: "Can I ask you to take me home?" Its voice was always low and gentle, without any ups and downs.

"Where is your home?" said Harry. If Nagini didn't want to follow him, he would be happy to let it go home.

"The black forest of Albania," Nagini said.

Harry was stunned for a moment, feeling that the place name seemed familiar. He quickly realized, wasn't Voldemort hiding there?

His eyes widened suddenly and he turned to look at Owen standing next to him. He told himself that this snake had an extraordinary origin. Could it be that...

"Why do you want to go back?" he asked.

"Waiting for someone." Nagini said, her yellow vertical pupils still cold.

"Who?"

"A black mist." The big snake said coldly, "Sometimes he will also possess small animals. In the forest, he is the only one who can communicate with me fluently and tell me stories about wizards. We got to know each other. Thousands of days and nights..."

"One day he suddenly disappeared from the forest. I kept waiting for him and went to look for him outside the forest. Until he was caught and locked in a cage, and was bought by the hateful wizard." Nagini looked at Owen coldly One glance.

"Are you still unwilling to accept the reality? He left you without saying goodbye and left the Black Forest alone." Owen raised his chin slightly, looking down at the big snake in the cell, with a hint of coldness in the corners of his raised mouth. sneered, "You're abandoned, Nagini."

"He will not abandon me." Nagini shrank her neck, as if she was about to attack him in the next moment.

"But we have seen him." Owen smiled coldly, "He possessed a human body and traveled thousands of miles to this country, and he never mentioned you once. If you don't believe me, you can ask Harry. "

Harry blinked and nodded: "Yes." Anyway, Voldemort did not mention Nagini to him, so there was nothing wrong with her.

The big snake slowly lowered its head and rested its head on its tail. Although the cold snake eyes did not reflect any emotion, it could still make people feel its depressed mood.

Why do you think Voldemort is like a heartless man who always gives up but always gives up... Weird thoughts suddenly appeared in Harry's mind.

"So, make your choice, Nagini." The smile on Owen's face deepened, and he spoke gentle and cruel words, "Follow Harry and leave, or stay here forever."

The big snake raised its head slightly, looked at Harry and said, "Will you abandon me?"

"Uh, no, as long as you don't do anything to betray me." Harry said bravely as he was put on the shelf.

"Then I'll leave with you." Nagini's posture became much gentler.

"Very good, I have a contract magic here." Owen showed a flawless smile, "Although it is very complicated and difficult, I can preside over the ceremony for you."

"Contract?" The big snake coiled its body warily.

"You know, human words are the most unreliable thing." Owen's pleasant voice had a hint of bewitchment, "Only a contract can guarantee mutual loyalty."

Harry's expression was slightly distorted. He always felt like he was coaxing a simple child, and he felt an inexplicable feeling of guilt. However, this step was necessary to prevent Nagini from running to help Voldemort.

"Okay, I agree." Nagini looked at Harry and said emotionlessly.

The smile on Owen's face grew wider. He pulled out his wand and said, "I need some of your blood."

After taking the blood of one person and one snake, he pointed at two drops of blood with his wand and recited a long spell in hissing snake language, his voice sounding as if it came from the distant horizon.

This contract spell was obtained from the basilisk and was a voluntary contract between a wizard and a magical animal. Slytherin and the Basilisk made this contract in the first place, so that the Basilisk would remain loyal to Slytherin even hundreds of years later.

In the sound of Owen's spell, the two drops of blood suspended in the air slowly stretched, and finally intertwined, entangled and deformed with each other, and finally formed a complex cross shape.

He looked at the big snake behind the iron railing and asked with a solemn expression: "Nagini, are you sure you accept the contract voluntarily?"

"I'm sure." Nagini said in a steady voice.

Owen waved his wand and pointed the tip at its forehead. The blood droplets entangled in a cross shape fell on the head of the big snake and blended into the smooth scales silently without any trace.

"The contract is established," Owen read.

He blinked his left eye at Harry, who was still in a daze, raised the wand in his hand, and the iron bars holding Nagini disappeared.

The big snake suddenly coiled up its body and got into a posture ready to attack. It showed its sharp fangs towards Owen, intending to give this guy a serious bite.

"Don't do this, Nagini," Harry said quickly.

Nagini reluctantly gave up the attack, swam out of the cell with flexible and powerful movements, and followed Harry obediently.

Owen nodded contentedly, his expression as happy as a cat that had stolen fish. This inconsistent scene satisfies the evil taste in his heart.

He closed his fingers and turned the wand in his hand into the inside of his forearm. When he opened his fingers again, the wand was gone, and there was a black gemstone ring sandwiched between his index finger and middle finger. He tossed the ring to Harry.

Harry hurriedly caught the ring, his expression frightened. There is a needle coated with basilisk venom hidden inside this ring. Can you please stop throwing it around randomly! Anyway, you won’t be the one who gets poisoned then, right?

"Okay, let's go out." Owen said with a smile. (End of chapter)