"Arawwwwwwgh!!"
In the village near Hogwarts, Hogsmeade, from within the Shrieking Shack.
A bizarre noise, neither a human scream nor an animal's cry, echoed out.
The residents of Hogsmeade frowned but ignored it as if the shack didn't even exist. It was the proper etiquette of a good wizard to avoid getting involved in strange affairs as much as possible.
"Arawww… haa, haa."
How much time had passed?
The screaming finally began to subside around the time the full moon's light, which had illuminated the dark night, was obscured by hazy clouds.
When the screams turned to ragged breaths, only one man was left collapsed and panting inside the shack.
His clothes were torn to shreds, like rags ripped by sharp claws, and his gaunt body was matted with cold sweat and beastly fur.
The man, Remus Lupin, barely managed to steady his breathing and muttered, "This pain… is something I can never get used to."
Werewolves live their lives struggling against a curse that is like an inescapable fate. The feeling of fur sprouting from a living human body, of bones and muscles twisting, of one's reason slipping away—it is a pain unimaginable to those who have not experienced it.
Although recent developments in potions had made it possible to retain one's reason even while transformed, that didn't mean it lessened the pain.
Having barely recovered his strength, Lupin pushed himself up from the floor and looked around.
The Shrieking Shack was both Lupin's sanctuary and his prison. As he stood lost in thought, gazing at the various scars he had carved into the walls over a decade ago and the empty Wolfsbane Potion vial on the table, he heard a voice.
"To complain about such meager pain, you've got it easy."
Lupin turned at the familiar voice and sighed upon seeing the man's face.
"Is that you, Severus?"
"I will say it again, do not speak my name with that mouth. Address me as Professor Snape."
Lupin gave a bitter smile at the thorny words. He was in no position to argue with Snape about it.
The voices that greeted him after he returned from his werewolf form had always been those of his friends. It was a true irony that the voice welcoming him now belonged to Snape, the very person he and his friends used to torment.
"I am always grateful for the Wolfsbane Potion."
"Of course, you should be. With that meager salary of yours, it's a precious item you normally wouldn't even dare to look at."
*But if my salary is meager, then isn't yours as well, since we have the same job?* Snape seemed to notice Lupin's thought, his expression souring.
Lupin, choosing not to point out the sorrows of the largely honor-based Hogwarts professorship, noticed something and raised an eyebrow.
"But Seve… Professor Snape. You seem to be in a better mood than usual. Or is it just my imagination?"
The reason Lupin could so quickly discern a change in the emotions of Snape, with whom he was hardly close, was simple. There was a significant difference in his attitude toward him.
Normally, upon seeing the newly-human Lupin, he would have spewed all sorts of insults, like 'a pitiful, dog-like state' and 'be aware that I am always watching to see if you are a traitor.' For some reason, however, the level of vitriol was much lower today.
Thinking it was impossible, but with a sliver of hope, Lupin asked, "Could it be that, even now, you could…"
"Hah, Professor Lupin. Are the effects of the transformation still lingering? You seem to be barking more than usual today."
Right, of course not. As Lupin clicked his tongue, Snape offered a faint smile—which, naturally, made Lupin doubt his own eyes—and said.
"Well… alright. If you're so curious, just think of it as me having found a better way to torment you, thanks to the help of a certain wizard."
There were two main reasons Snape hated the Marauders. First was their ill-fated relationship during their school days. Surprisingly, this reason didn't hold as much weight.
In truth, the greater reason Snape hated the Marauders was that they had failed to protect Lily.
But now that Peter Pettigrew had been caught and Sirius Black exonerated, he had learned the full story, and more than half of his reason for hating Lupin had vanished.
And the remaining animosity from their school days was currently being resolved very happily through the Nightmare Hat.
Lupin had no way of knowing these details, but he gave a hollow laugh at Snape's strangely relaxed expression.
"…Hah. I don't know what it is, but that's good news. That you've found some peace of mind."
But at those words, Snape tilted his head as if surprised.
"You don't know what it is? Didn't Professor Dumbledore tell you?"
"…Is it something I should know?"
"Pfft, ah, I see. If you don't know, then so be it. It doesn't seem like something I should be the one to tell you."
*So the Order of the Phoenix doesn't know yet either?* Lupin felt a strange unease at the sneer that occasionally flickered across Snape's face as he spoke.
Until now, even when Snape had sneered, Lupin had brushed it off with a smile, grateful for the potion and accepting it as his own karma. But the nature of this sneer felt different somehow.
"I am simply surprised anew at the flimsiness of trust. It seems you haven't earned much of the professor's trust, Lupin."
"What… do you mean by that?"
"If you're so curious, find out for yourself. It's not the sort of thing I can tell you directly."
*I didn't think you wouldn't know something that even that son of a dog knows.* With that parting sneer, Snape left.
Left alone, Lupin frowned in thought.
*Someone Snape would call a son of a dog… does he mean Sirius?*
If so, was there something that Sirius and Professor Dumbledore were hiding from him? A new worry threw Lupin's mind into turmoil.
Biting his lip, Lupin left the shack. As he walked through Hogsmeade, lost in thought, he suddenly heard a scream.
"Aaaah! Pervert!"
*A pervert? Where?* Lupin frantically looked around, only to finally realize.
"Ah."
*I'm the pervert.*
He had forgotten that his clothes were in tatters, practically worse than wearing nothing at all. *I have to change before rumors start,* Lupin thought, hastily hiding himself.
***
Meanwhile, Aisen, the one who had just disturbed Lupin's peace of mind, was at that very moment…
"Oho, you've already secured a new client?"
"Yes! Master, at this rate, we should be able to recover up to 40% of the farm's original profits by next quarter!"
"Excellent. It's great being a wizard, not having to pay taxes."
I was touring the farm connected to the Room of Requirement, discussing its operations with Deek.
One of the perks of living as a wizard was not paying taxes. How could Muggles possibly collect taxes from wizards who used Galleons?
You might ask what the Ministry of Magic does, but they're too incompetent to handle something like tax collection. The Ministry, a symbol of ineptitude, is not a department capable of such a high-level task.
If you ask how the Ministry operates then, that is truly a mystery. Perhaps its members voluntarily contribute to a development fund or something.
Anyway, having roughly finished with the farm business, I called out to Ardeura, who was playing with Blackwing in the distance.
"Ardeura! Let's go!"
*—Kirururuk!*
*—Keeee.*
It seemed Ardeura had also sensed the trace of its parents in Blackwing, as she had been playing with it for a long time and only came over when I called.
*Hmm, come to think of it, Ardeura, an immortal phoenix, must have experienced all sorts of meetings and partings. If I became an Animagus, could I talk to her?* The sudden thought intrigued me.
Now that the farm work was mostly taken care of, what should I do next?
Just as I was pondering, the door to the Room of Requirement burst open.
"Master! Did you hear?"
"Harry, if you cut off the beginning and end and just ask if I heard, how am I supposed to know?"
"You can just read my mind with Legilimency."
"And did you sell your Occlumency somewhere?"
"Ah, right."
Looking embarrassed, Harry cleared his throat and said, "Well, they say a pervert was spotted in Hogsmeade recently."
"In Hogsmeade?"
"Yes. You know the Shrieking Shack, right?"
"Ah, I've heard of it."
The Shrieking Shack was a time-honored, abandoned house in Hogsmeade, with legends of it being haunted passed down for ages… or so they say.
"But it wasn't there 100 years ago. Isn't the 'time-honored' part a lie?"
"Ah, is that so?"
"And if you want to see ghosts, you can just sit blankly in the Great Hall. It's a certainty that far more ghosts live in Hogwarts than there."
In the first place, I wasn't even sure why wizards were afraid of ghosts.
Harry nodded in agreement.
"That's true. Anyway, the truth about the shack isn't what's important. The rumor was that it was an abandoned, ownerless house… but recently, an employee from Suri Broomsticks saw someone come out of there!" (TN: "Suri" can mean "repair" in Korean. This might be a literal name like "Repair Broomsticks" or a different shop in this fic's version of Hogsmeade.)
"Well, it's common for an abandoned house to turn out to have an owner. I myself have property in Hogsmeade, you know. Though it's been neglected for 100 years, so it's no better than an abandoned house."
At my nonchalant response, Harry gave a triumphant smile and said, "But, what if that person was none other than the rumored pervert?"
"…What are you talking about?"
"They say the person who ran out of that abandoned house was practically wearing no clothes, and they boldly wandered the streets for a while before disappearing."
"Good heavens. The 20th century has truly become the end of days."
No matter how much individual freedom was respected, a world where an exhibitionist roamed the streets freely was something I, a 19th-century British gentleman, simply could not comprehend.
"Perverts like that aren't common these days either, so don't worry unnecessarily. You've been living in the modern era for over six years now, what's with the sudden comment?"
"You're right. Six years already, time flies, doesn't it?"
"Anyway, that's why I was planning to check out the rumor on our next trip to Hogsmeade! You'll come with me, right?"
"For a reason like that, I'm always game. It's been a while since I've been to Hogsmeade."
There used to be no curfew at Hogwarts, which was another rule that had become stricter over the past 100 years. As a result, we could only go on outings to Hogsmeade now that we were third-years. Of course, if I had really wanted to go, I could have used a secret passage anytime.
In any case, we set out to find the eccentric individual who had reportedly appeared in Hogsmeade.
***
"Oh, hello, Professor Lupin!"
"Ah, boys. It's been a while. What brings you to this part of town? It must be boring with no one around."
"Well, a rumor's been going around that there's a crazy pervert who walks around without clothes on over here."
"..."
"Professor?"
***