Chapter 489: Black on the Run

The Knight Bus was moving too fast, throwing him backward.

Harry struggled to sit up and peered out the dark window, seeing they were speeding down a completely different street.

Stan wiped his eyes and regarded Harry’s stunned face with interest.

“We were right here before Mr. Green signaled us to stop.”

He said,

“Where was it again, Earn? Somewhere in Wales?”

“Mm.”

Earn said.

“Why can’t Muggles hear the bus?”

Harry asked.

“Them!”

Stan sneered,

“They don’t bother to listen properly, do they? And they don’t bother to look—they notice nothing.”

“You’d better wake up Mrs. Marsh, Stan,”

Earn said,

“We’re almost at Abergavenny.”

Stan walked past Harry’s bed and climbed up a narrow wooden staircase to the upper level.

Harry kept staring out the window, feeling uneasy.

His gaze turned forward, where Wizard Sean was seated elegantly, refining his book, *Chronicles of Wizarding Magic*.

Harry didn’t know what it meant, but he knew that if this book were shelved at Green’s Bookshop, he’d have to buy at least three copies.

It would be even better if he could get a signed edition.

Many in the wizarding world held this consensus:

——Green’s Bookshop sold the finest series of books in the entire wizarding world.

Whether you were a Muggle-born, a half-blood, or a pure-blood wizard, you could learn the past, present, and even some predictable futures of the wizarding world from them.

And whether you were a gifted wizard or an untalented one, you could learn magic from these books.

Harry found it hard to imagine how Wizard Sean, a wizard whose talent rivaled Headmaster Dumbledore’s, could possibly imagine the difficulties ordinary wizards faced in magic—

And so comprehensively?

Of course, the Green Notes had once written:

【I once faced the same difficulties wizards faced, pondered the same questions wizards pondered…】

Harry wasn’t especially convinced of the truth of this statement, but Wizard Sean was different.

【I wrote these books so that wizards just beginning their journey through the vast ocean of magic could find a clear direction.

The foremost duty of wizarding knowledge is continuity—wisdom that cannot be passed on is not wisdom.

My changes may be insignificant; perhaps history itself is indeed nothing but ashes… but within the ashes, there is still warmth.】

As he thought this, Wizard Sean before him seemed to grow distant and near at once.

Harry could clearly see Wizard Sean sitting there, yet it felt as though he existed within the book itself.

The Wizard Sean in the book was the best teacher Harry had ever met—attentive, omniscient.

If you couldn’t learn it, he taught you again;

If you still couldn’t learn it, he taught you again;

If you still couldn’t learn it, he never blamed you—when you turned to the second page, you’d see written:

Of course, the above method has omissions—this is the author’s fault—let us learn a simpler method.

Would Wizard Sean be the best teacher?

Harry didn’t know.

But would the Green Notes be the best book?

That was unquestionable.

The Knight Bus continued its journey.

Wizard Sean couldn’t help recalling Mr. Stan’s words.

His notes had originally been meant only to organize his own thoughts, then gradually became a way to help lost Hogwarts students struggling with obscure magic—and incidentally earn a few Galleons.

Now, these meticulously compiled notes had somehow begun to change the entire wizarding world?

Details once ignored by gifted wizards were now brought to light; once vague knowledge gained concrete expression; once ambiguous magic was given discernible stages…

Would ordinary wizards, once deemed unremarkable, reignite their passion for magic?

Wizard Sean didn’t know, but he had met Mr. Stan.

He knew those notes were always useful—they had helped wizards. Nothing mattered more to him than that.

He smiled faintly as he saw Stan returning downstairs, followed by a witch in a travel cloak, her face slightly green.

“This way, Mrs. Marsh,”

Stan said cheerfully. Earn slammed on the brakes, and all the beds slid forward about a foot.

Mrs. Marsh pressed a handkerchief to her mouth and stumbled down the steps.

Stan tossed her bag out after her and slammed the door shut with a heavy thud.

Another loud bang, and they sped down a narrow country lane, trees parting to let them pass.

“Mr. Green.”

Stan approached hesitantly.

“Mr. Stan, do you think any part of the Spell Standards needs revision?”

Wizard Sean said seriously.

“Ah—that’s the most perfect book! How could there be anything to change!”

Stan quickly patted his chest.

“Please tell me your true thoughts.”

Wizard Sean’s green eyes seemed to pierce straight into his soul.

Only then did Stan mumble awkwardly:

“I’ve never been able to master higher-level magic—I haven’t advanced a single spell to the level of [Expert], Mr. Green. Of course, that’s just because I’m stupid…”

“That’s not your fault.”

Wizard Sean said suddenly,

“I haven’t written the section on silent spells yet.”

An awkward silence fell. Stan stared at the young wizard, as if something was stuck in his throat.

Finally, he could only leave, sullenly and as if fleeing.

To give his confused mind something to do, Stan unfolded a copy of *The Daily Prophet*, bit his tongue, and began reading.

On the front page, a large photograph showed a gaunt man with long, tangled hair slowly blinking at him.

Harry quietly leaned over.

It was strange—he felt he recognized the man.

“That’s him!”

Harry exclaimed,

“He’s in Muggle news too!”

Stan flipped back to the front page and grunted,

“Sirius Black. Of course he’s in Muggle news, Neville. Where have you been living?”

Seeing Harry’s blank expression, he let out a condescending laugh, tore off the front page, and handed it to Harry.

“You should read the papers more, Neville.”

Harry held the paper under the candlelight and read:

【Black remains at large.

The Ministry of Magic has confirmed today that Sirius Black is still at large—he is likely the most evil prisoner ever held in Azkaban.

“We are doing everything in our power to recapture Black,”

Minister Cornelius Fudge said this morning,

“and urge the wizarding community to remain calm.”

Some members of the International Confederation of Wizards have criticized Fudge for informing the Muggle Prime Minister of this crisis.

“To be honest, you know, I had no choice,”

Fudge snapped,

“Black is a fugitive. Anyone—wizard or Muggle—who encounters him is in danger.

I have demanded that the Prime Minister guarantee he will not reveal Black’s true identity to anyone.

To be frank—even if he did, who would believe it?”

Muggles were told that Black carries a gun (a Muggle weapon used to kill each other, like a metal wand),

while the wizarding world knows Black killed thirteen people twelve years ago with a single spell, and fears another massacre may occur.】

Harry stared into Sirius Black’s gloomy eyes—the only thing that seemed alive on his haggard face.

Harry had never encountered a vampire, but he had seen photographs of them in his Defense Against the Dark Arts class.

Black’s skin was pale and ghastly, resembling a vampire.

“Wizard Sean, we won’t run into him, will we?”

Harry asked nervously.

Wizard Sean said nothing; he seemed to be reading a book.

“It’s pretty creepy, isn’t it?”

It was Stan, who had been watching Harry read the newspaper, who asked now.

“He killed thirteen people? With just one spell?”

Harry said, nervously handing the newspaper back to Stan.

A deer’s mutterings.

This book now officially enters Volume Four: The Watcher of the Stars.

The pace will slightly quicken from here, flowing smoothly into the Goblet of Fire.

The plot of the Goblet of Fire is fully constructed; Wizard Sean Green’s personality and actions will be reasonably explained within the Goblet of Fire.

Finally, thank you to the reader Dashengzhe Mo for the tip—thank you!