Chapter 421
Shrinking Vader
Chapter 421 Shrinking Vader
Harry sat on the sofa in front of the fireplace all afternoon, staring at the fire in a daze, and Michael next to him did the same, not even interested in saying a word.
They really wanted to do something, but the adults strictly forbade them to leave the room. Lupin had not returned yet, and a strange young witch named Tonks acted as their "caretaker".
"Hey, you guys, cheer up, okay?" Tonks tried to liven up the atmosphere: "Look at me -"
She turned her nose into a pink pig's nose and made a purring sound, but the two children in front of the fireplace didn't even give her a glance.
"This is the first time my trick has failed!"
Tonks was very discouraged. She raised her voice and said, "Look at the bright side. The child was kidnapped instead of killed. This means that the other party definitely needs him alive. You have to trust the Aurors of the Ministry of Magic. We will definitely rescue him!"
This time, Michael finally glanced over.
"Have the three guys who escaped from prison been caught?"
Tonks: "..."
"Did you find Mo Moran?" Michael asked again.
Tonks: "Uh..."
"I heard that Dementors suddenly attacked passers-by in Diagon Alley yesterday. Did you give any explanation?"
Tonks was about to cry. She felt that all these pots were not her fault, but they kept coming down on her, almost bringing her to her knees.
Michael sighed deeply and buried his face in his hands in frustration, replaying the scene of everyone leaving the house in the morning over and over in his mind.
He actually discovered... He found that Wade was not in a good mood and looked very tired, but thinking that everyone was going to buy things and couldn't leave Wade alone, he didn't ask him to stay at home.
If he had told Vader about his discovery at that time... if he had forced Vader to rest at home... would the accident have been avoided?
The red flames of the fireplace suddenly turned green. Several people turned their heads at the same time. Tonks nervously drew out her wand and shielded the two children behind her.
Then, they heard a young voice: "Hey! What are you doing here? There is no need for so many people!"
"Fred, you stepped on my foot!"
"Sorry, Ginny, but I'm George!"
A group of red-haired people seemed to have no order and squeezed out of the fireplace. Ron was directly pressed at the bottom, and Ginny was pushed onto the sofa by her brother's knee and fell to her knees.
Not to mention Fred and George, who were tripped by their younger siblings and fell one after another, covered in coal dust.
Next came Mr. Arthur Weasley, who, with some semblance of adult decency, stumbled out of the fire, muttering:
"You bastards, wait for your scolding!"
"Mr. Weasley!" Harry poked his head out from behind Tonks in surprise and said, "And Ron, Ginny, George, Fred! Why are you here?"
"Oh, long time no see, Harry. And this one, is this Michael?" Arthur Weasley dusted himself off and said, "We are here to pick you up, kid."
"—pick us up?"
Harry wondered, and Michael immediately frowned.
"I heard that Wade is missing. What happened?" Fred asked as he pulled his sister up.
Ginny blushed and hid behind her brother, wishing her presence was as close to zero as possible.
George asked, "Let's see if we can help... The more people we can find, the better, right?"
"Are you okay, Harry?" Ron looked at him with concern, as if he were some fragile porcelain: "I guess you are feeling very uncomfortable now..."
"What happened?" Fred asked, pushing his brother aside.
A chaotic sound rang out around him. Harry opened his mouth, but no words came out. It felt like his throat was filled with sand.
How could he explain this—carelessness and losing his friend?
Fortunately, the question did not need to be answered, because before Harry opened his mouth, the door was suddenly pushed open, and the cold wind outside, carrying fine snowflakes, rushed in instantly.
Dumbledore stood at the door. His expression was very scary, and his silver-white hair and shoulders were covered with a thin layer of snow.
The old man's body seemed to contain countless rages that were about to burst out, instantly suppressing everyone, and the chaotic noises suddenly disappeared.
Dumbledore's anger was not directed at the people in the room. He restrained his expression, glanced around, nodded at them, waved his wand, and a silver-white Patronus shot out instantly.
After a while, there were "bang bang bang" sounds in the yard like firecrackers. Several wizards appeared, walked quickly into the living room, and pulled down their hoods.
Harry saw Lupin, whose face was pale, Sirius, whom he had not seen for a long time, Auror Kingsley who had tried to take Sirius away, and two other wizards he did not know.
A scary-looking wizard with two different colored eyes saw them, frowned and said, "Why are there so many children?"
Kingsley said calmly, "Because it's also a child who's missing, Moody - these are probably his friends at school."
Alastor Moody tutted, "I think most of them are Weasleys... Arthur, take them home quickly! This is not something for children to participate in!"
"Weider is our friend!" George said angrily, "and our magic skills are not bad either. Don't underestimate us! We can help!"
"The only way you can help is to not cause trouble for our rescue operation!" Moody said coldly.
"We are also involved!" Michael said as calmly as he could, his voice still trembling slightly. "Wade... When Wade disappeared, we were right next to him. Maybe we can provide some clues!"
Moody's blue magic eye spun around and suddenly stared at Michael. He asked in a rough voice, "Oh... Did you find any clues, sir?"
Michael gritted his teeth and couldn't speak.
"This is all my fault," Lupin said suddenly. "I took them out, but I... I was too careless and didn't notice it in time..."
"At this point, it's no use trying to find out who was responsible. The most important thing is to find Wade as soon as possible."
Dumbledore spoke, and he still looked calm, as if the extremely angry scene that Harry and others had seen before was an illusion.
Even though Harry was in a very bad mood, he couldn't help but feel a little confused at this moment - since Dumbledore's anger was not directed at Lupin, then who was he so angry about?
Just as he was thinking this, he saw the headmaster looking over: "Harry, Michael, this place may no longer be safe. You need to stay at the Weasley house temporarily. Arthur, take the children away."
"All right, Dumbledore," said Arthur Weasley hurriedly.
"We want to stay!"
"I can help!"
"We are not children anymore!" everyone shouted. Some adult wizards frowned, showing an expression of annoyance at seeing naughty children.
"I know." Dumbledore seemed very calm. He said, "When I need help, I will ask for your help. But now, we need to deal with this matter as soon as possible. I hope you can cooperate with the arrangement, okay?"
The principal's voice seemed to have a magical power that calmed down everyone who was impatient, worried, and indignant.
His tone was gentle, but his attitude was unquestionable. Harry felt that if they continued to argue, wouldn't it seem even more correct not to let them participate?
Michael clenched his fists and stood up first: "Let's go, Harry. They are right, we can't cause trouble at this time."
Arthur Weasley breathed a sigh of relief and quickly sprinkled Floo powder into the fireplace, saying to Michael: "-The Burrow, children, this is your destination."
The green flames took the children away one by one, and the room fell into silence.
"Tell us what happened, Remus," said Dumbledore.
"Yes." Lupin said in a low voice: "This morning, I accompanied them to the Muggle supermarket to buy Christmas presents..."
Transportation methods, routes, addresses and times, conditions around Vader before and after his disappearance...
Lupin explained the whole matter as quickly as he could.
"The Muggle supermarket heard that a child was missing, and they also provided some help. Fortunately, the supermarket we went to had just installed surveillance cameras recently..."
"A surveillance camera?" Sirius asked in confusion, "What is that?"
"A Muggle stream mirror can record images," Tonks explained enthusiastically.
Lupin paused, and when he saw that no one was asking questions, he said, "We checked the surveillance footage and found that there was an elderly man who was very suspicious."
He thought about how to describe him, and felt that the other person's appearance, height and other characteristics might not be credible, so he listened to Dumbledore:
"Show me your memory."
The old man pointed his finger at the table, and an old stone basin immediately appeared.
He said, “I brought the Pensieve.”
Without hesitation, Lupin thrust the tip of his wand into his hair and pointed it at his temple.
After a moment, he pulled out his wand, with a few strands of silvery-white filaments attached to the tip, as ethereal as fluffy clouds.
Lupin put his memory into the Pensieve, and Dumbledore used his wand to poke it twice. A miniature supermarket scene suddenly appeared above the Pensieve. Wade was pushing a cart to select goods, and a bald old man approached him naturally...
Dumbledore's face turned completely cold.
……
Wade was sleeping when he suddenly heard a strange sound of wind. He opened his eyes dazedly, and when he saw the object in front of him clearly, his heartbeat almost stopped instantly -
A monster with a head as big as a house looked down at him, then stretched out its huge tongue like a bed sheet and licked him. The white barbs on the tongue were like a forest of javelins, trembling and stabbing towards him.
Wade's hair stood on end at once, he jumped up, pulled out his wand and chopped it with all his might!
A string of sparks flew from the tip of the stick. Although it had no killing power, the monster was frightened. It let out a "meow", jumped dozens of meters high, and rushed out in an instant.
Wade looked at his failing wand in shock, then looked at the "monster" that jumped out, and then he realized that it was just a cat with very long fur.
He has always used the magnification spell to challenge other people's nerve limits. Has someone used it on him now?
wrong……
Wade suddenly remembered the height the cat had jumped just now. He was silent for a moment, then slowly raised his head.
The ceiling seemed high and far away, far beyond what he had imagined it to be, and the chandelier was also breathtakingly large.
Look at your own environment again -
He had thought that the floor under his feet was white, but it was actually white silk fabric with the criss-crossing patterns of the fibers clearly visible.
A real 800 square meter big bed.
A rabbit-sized spotted dermestid crawled by, its yellowish-brown carapace gleaming and its feathery antennae wagging twice, as if it was saying hello in a friendly manner, or as if it was weighing whether this strange creature in front of it was edible.
Vader finally realized that it was not someone who was playing a trick on him with the magnification spell, but that he himself was made smaller.
——It doesn't matter. Professor Snape just talked about the shrinking potion last semester. Vader has both this potion and the corresponding antidote in stock...
He reached for his pocket and then froze.
——By the way, he didn’t bring any wardrobe space when he went out this time.
But this might be a good thing... Although there is no way to solve the current dilemma immediately, if he really has the wardrobe space, perhaps the magical item that took countless efforts to make will no longer belong to him.
Wade quickly calmed himself down, waved his wand, and looked for other solutions.
As expected... this place really cast an anti-Apparition spell, the enemy was not as careless as he thought...
Large-scale repelling spells and shielding spells... Now even an owl can't find him, and there's no way wizards or Muggles can accidentally get in...
The room only has a few small windows, which are high up and cannot be opened. However, there are ventilation holes near the ceiling...
Wade glanced at the black grilles and felt the breath of freedom calling to him.
If you turn into an eagle, you can fly up.
But he is in an abnormal state now, and he doesn’t know if he can still perform the Animagus transformation normally... and this is his last trump card. If he exposes it to the enemy in a moment of impulse and fails to escape successfully, he will not have a second chance to use it.
Wade didn't know if there was anyone watching him secretly at this moment, but he suppressed his desire to transform and fly away immediately, and tried using conventional means.
"Split into pieces!"
The light from the spell struck the glass, leaving only a shallow crack on it.
And perhaps it was because of the escape of magic power, but when he used the spell, there would be fine gold powder-like light around the tip of the wand, which reminded Wade of the fairies that Professor Flitwick used to decorate the classroom every Christmas.
This is what happens when those little guys use magic.
He looked at the toy-like wand in his hand and couldn't help but sigh.
Not far away, the cat that had just jumped off the bed in fright looked at the little person on the bed, then looked at the tiny golden lights, and its round black pupils dilated a little.
It bared its teeth, lowered its body, dropped its paws silently onto the ground, and slowly took two steps forward...
(End of this chapter)