As Professor McGonagall’s cage formed, Peter was fully forced back into human form.
“A man! He’s a man—he’s an Animagus!” Sophie Roper screamed.
This triggered a chain reaction.
The young witches and wizards in the entire class shrieked and scrambled backward, desperate to put distance between themselves and the man locked in the cage—who, while trapped and posing no immediate danger, looked filthy and unmistakably sinister.
Tris backed away along with the crowd.
Though he had long anticipated this outcome and wasn’t panicked in the slightest, he still had to put on an act.
At first, Tris thought his performance was convincing enough, but after glancing at Ron beside him, he realized his acting fell quite a bit short.
Ron’s eyes were wide and round, his mouth agape; the word “shocked” might as well have been plastered across his forehead.
“Scabbers… how…”
Tris could understand his shock.
After all, he had shared a bed with this thing for days; it wasn’t like it had turned into an anime catgirl, so terror was the only natural response.
“Who are you? Why were you hiding as a rat beside my student, and what are your intentions?” Professor McGonagall narrowed her eyes slightly, glaring at the man inside the cage.
She failed to recognize Peter.
Professors always told their students, “You’re the worst class I’ve ever taught,” as if they remembered every single year.
In reality, the only ones professors truly remembered were the few standouts.
James Potter and Sirius Black, perhaps even Lily Potter and Severus Snape.
Peter was certainly not among them.
Even if Professor McGonagall had retained some lingering impression of Peter from all those years ago, the figure standing before her now would never have brought him to mind.
The Peter of the past had been short, but he had at least looked like a normal person.
Coming from a wizarding family, his clothes and appearance had been decent enough.
The Peter before her now was prematurely balding in middle age and utterly filthy.
Caked mud covered his clothes, his hair was matted into oily clumps, and his skin was dry and sallow.
His hands, clasped in front of him, were filthy, with long, sharp, dirt-encrusted fingernails—a sight that made several neat-freak girls wince with physical disgust.
Whether from living as a rat for too long or simply his natural look, Tris thought his beady black eyes, pointed nose, and sly, furtive posture made him look like a giant, humanoid rat.
Peter didn’t answer Professor McGonagall’s question.
His shifty eyes darted frantically as he searched for an escape.
Suddenly, he lunged forward—not toward Professor McGonagall, of course, but toward Harry, who was standing closest.
Leave it to a born Gryffindor: Harry was bold enough to get right up front for a closer look.
Peter’s plan was simple: break through the cage and grab Harry’s wand.
A skilled Animagus could perform transformations entirely wandlessly—like Professor McGonagall.
But Peter was not among them; he needed a wand to turn back into a rat.
He certainly didn’t dare face Professor McGonagall directly.
His goal was to snatch the wand, transform into a rat, and bolt.
He had no idea what had just happened.
After being turned into a teacup by Professor McGonagall, his consciousness had been suppressed, leaving him completely oblivious to what had transpired outside.
By the time he came to his senses, he had already been forcibly reverted to human form.
Professor McGonagall hadn’t recognized him, but recognizing Professor McGonagall was all too easy for him.
The mountain of homework from back then still made a chill run down his spine whenever he thought of it.
*Run!*
That was Peter’s only thought at this moment.
Forget about having no wand; even if he had one, he didn’t believe for a second that he stood the slightest chance against Professor McGonagall.
The moment she saw the rat revert to human form, Professor McGonagall had prepared for potential combat, naturally anticipating that he might try to flee.
However, the man slamming headfirst into the cage still caught her slightly off guard.
For a rare moment, a flicker of surprise and confusion crossed Professor McGonagall’s face.
*What gave you the courage to hurl your head against a cage woven with my magic?
Being a Gryffindor?* Enjoying the story? Read on at g.com.
Peter certainly didn’t have the strength to break the cage.
Even a Shaolin monk with an iron forehead would have hit that cage and cursed at how bloody much it hurt.
The impact left Peter light-headed and dizzy.
Stumbling back two paces, he collapsed onto his rear, a look of despair creeping onto his face.
Professor McGonagall looked down calmly at Peter, whose eyes were darting about.
“State your identity,” she said coolly, “or I will make you.”
How could Peter dare reveal his identity?
His beady eyes spun even faster as he desperately scrambled for a way out.
He might have possessed the ability to cast wandless magic back in the day, but practice makes perfect—or in his case, disuse breeds decay.
Having barely used magic over the past decade and more, he no longer held that level of proficiency.
A wizard unable to cast magic was useless, plain and simple.
Seeing Peter remain silent, Professor McGonagall sneered.
“You think staying silent will protect you?”
With a flick of her wand, the cage rapidly transfigured, wrapping around Peter like thick metallic vines and binding him tight.
Peter, who had still been scheming with rolling eyes, instantly panicked.
He thrashed frantically, but he couldn’t loosen their grip in the slightest.
“Mr. Weasley…” Professor McGonagall cast an unreadable look toward Tris.
Tris did his best to maintain a look of panic, bewilderment, and confusion.
Noticing nothing amiss, Professor McGonagall said, “Go to the Potions… oh, you haven’t had Potions class yet. Go to the Charms classroom and fetch Professor Flitwick.”
“Yes, Professor,” Tris nodded.
He actually knew where the Potions classroom was, but fetching Severus Snape really wasn’t a good idea.
What if Severus Snape recognized Peter, put two and two together, and threw caution to the wind by hitting him with *Sectumsempra* or even Avada Kedavra?
When it came to Lily Potter, that love-crazed fool’s rationality was completely unreliable.
When Tris ran to the Charms classroom, Professor Flitwick was teaching a second-year class.
Seeing Tris knock and stand at the doorway, he looked somewhat surprised.
“Ah, Tris! What brings you here? Is something the matter?”
“Professor, Professor McGonagall asked me to fetch you. Um, there’s an intruder.” Tris had already thought through his words on the way over.
He couldn’t and shouldn’t know Peter’s identity, so calling him an “intruder” was the best description for now.
“An intruder?” Sure enough, upon hearing the word, Professor Flitwick instantly realized the severity of the situation.
Nodding immediately, he turned to his class.
“That will be all for this lesson. Class dismissed.”
He nodded to Tris, signaling that they could leave.
Tris nodded, turning to lead the way, but Professor Flitwick pulled him back.
“Is Professor McGonagall in the Transfiguration classroom?”
Tris nodded.
Holding Tris with one hand, Professor Flitwick gave his wand a gentle flick with the other.
Tris suddenly felt the floor beneath his feet turn as supple as leather.
Looking down, he saw the previously hard stone tiles undulating like rolling waves.
In the next instant, the two of them sped forward like a boat riding a swift current.
Tris startled, but quickly realized that despite the spell’s incredible speed, the ride was remarkably smooth.
*There’s a spell like this?*
Overcome with surprise, Tris couldn’t help glancing down at the tiny Professor Flitwick beside him.
Well, as expected of one of the leading scholars in Charms, he certainly had plenty of flashy tricks up his sleeve.
Even though Tris was familiar with the map and had jogged the whole way, running from the Transfiguration classroom to the Charms classroom had taken nearly ten minutes.
Yet Professor Flitwick brought them back in less than a minute.
As soon as Professor Flitwick stepped through the door, he saw the young students gathered in a large circle.
Being short, he couldn’t see what was happening inside and had to push through the crowd.
“Minerva, what is this?” Professor Flitwick asked, not quite understanding the situation.
“This fellow transformed into a rat and hid beside Mr. Weasley, clearly with ulterior motives.”
“Transformed into a rat?” Professor Flitwick froze for a second before suddenly realizing.
He looked at Professor McGonagall in disbelief.
“You mean… an Animagus?”
“Yes, an unregistered Animagus,” Professor McGonagall nodded, confirming his suspicion.
“How appalling!” Flitwick said, shock and anger flushed across his face.
“Indeed,” Professor McGonagall agreed.
“Shall we take him to Albus Dumbledore?” Flitwick asked.
“That was my thought as well. However, since he is a high-level wizard who mastered the Animagus transformation, I asked you along to help escort him, just in case,” Professor McGonagall said.
“Understood.” Professor Flitwick nodded, incanting a rapid string of incantations while tapping his wand twice toward Peter.
Peter’s face had already been pale upon seeing the two professors, but after Flitwick tapped him twice, his complexion turned an even deathlier ash-grey.
Tris sensed something.
Though Peter had looked scruffy and wretched, he had still radiated a faint, peculiar pressure.
But after Professor Flitwick tapped him, that sensation vanished.
*A magic seal?*
Not long ago, Tris had read a newspaper article complaining about the incompetence of modern Aurors.
When applying magic seals to law-breaking wizards, their poor skills caused the seals to wear off too quickly, allowing suspects to escape.
The Auror Office had even issued a public apology over it.
At the time, Tris had thought to himself: *Classic Ministry of Magic.*
Even though Rufus Scrimgeour, the head of the Auror Office, was considered one of the Ministry’s more pragmatic figures according to Arthur Weasley, problems still kept cropping up.
Still, he didn’t need to worry about such things right now.
Professor Flitwick’s charms were certainly reliable.
“Alright, all of you wait here for now.
You may practice your wand movements, but no practical spellwork until I return.
If…” Professor McGonagall glanced at the wall clock, “…I am not back by eleven o’clock, you are dismissed.”
Although the young students had no idea what was truly going on, they nodded obediently.
However, the moment Professor McGonagall and Professor Flitwick left with Peter, the classroom boiled over.
Practicing was out of the question.
A situation like this demanded intense, passionate gossip.
“Ron! Ron! What’s the deal with your rat?” Seamus, sitting in the front row, turned around almost immediately to ask.
The other young wizards and witches turned to look, eyes bursting with curiosity.
“I don’t know!” Ron replied, looking genuinely bewildered and clueless.
“Where did you get that rat from, then?” Parvati, sitting nearby, was clearly bursting with curiosity as well and chimed in eagerly.
Being looked at with such “concern” by a pretty girl made Ron a bit excited, but he genuinely didn’t have an answer to her question.
He could only scratch his head and say, “Well… well, Scabbers… I mean, that rat used to be Percy Weasley’s pet. I only got him this year! Who knew… who knew…”
Tris watched with amusement as Ron tried hard to puff up his story despite having nothing more to say.
In the movies, Ron had kept Scabbers for over two years, so naturally, they had a deep bond.
Finding out the rat was a human had completely shattered his worldview back then.
But now, he had only kept Scabbers for a little over a month, and hadn’t paid much attention to him back home, so there was zero emotional attachment.
At this moment, Scabbers was nothing more than a tool for showing off.
While the others were unaware of this and kept asking questions, Tris’s mind had already drifted far away.
*Now that Peter’s been caught, how will he be handled?*
*Will they kill him outright?*
*After all, his existence makes the Ministry of Magic look completely foolish.
If Peter really dies, then Voldemort’s resurrection plan…*