Chapter 143

Based on Harry's current knowledge and experience, he had not yet grown enough to see the big picture. At this point, Harry had only just realized that the Soviets were betting on both sides, and was beginning to shed the Communist International lens imposed by his childhood upbringing, learning to think from the perspective of a British wizard.

Even until the TARDIS stopped again, Harry still couldn't figure out how the international situation would develop, or what role the wizarding world played in it.

"Oh, sorry, the brakes had another glitch," the Doctor said. "But sometimes I think the TARDIS might have its own consciousness."

Harry cautiously poked his head out and realized he had arrived at a pet shop in Diagon Alley—crowded and noisy, filled with the cries of various animals, where a witch with thick black-rimmed glasses was walking between the shelves. Harry stepped out of the TARDIS, disguised as a cabinet, and idly surveyed the shop.

"Ah-ha, got you at last," a sudden male voice rang out, instantly drawing everyone's attention.

A man in a gray suit, with dark brown hair and bright blue eyes, held his wand outstretched in both hands, slowly advancing toward the small animal section.

"Sir, are you perhaps going to—"

"Don't question a professional Auror!" he rudely cut off the shopkeeper's greeting. "I'm hunting a dangerous fugitive—extremely dangerous, as dangerous as Sirius Black, or rather, he is Sirius Black."

Customers gasped in unison, frozen in place. A little girl clutched her cage tightly, staring in terror at the intruding Auror.

"Be careful, child—you might have unintentionally become an accomplice to Black," the man said, slowly approaching her. "Now, hand me that cage. Let me examine this little creature…"

The girl trembled as she handed him the hamster she had just bought.

"Listen, Black," the man leaned his face close to the cage, glaring fiercely at the tiny, huddled, speckled brown hamster inside, trembling with fear. "You think you can hide?"

Harry watched the man and remembered Professor Doudou's words: that "colleagues" would handle the escaped Peter.

Now it seemed this colleague might not be very reliable.

As Harry, amused and curious, observed the unfolding scene, a man in a black overcoat stepped forward from behind him—Jonny English had once again resumed his Auror identity.

"I can see, Baur, you're trying to learn my efficient capture method," he said with unshakable confidence. "But clearly, what's truly efficient isn't the method—it's me."

Jonny English gently raised his right hand. A mouse, gripped by its tail, dangled limply in midair. Harry recognized it at once—it was Peter Pettigrew, disguised as Scabbers, trying to escape.

"Oh, sir!" Baur snapped to rigid attention. "If you've taken personal charge, it's certainly foolproof."

"Alert lifted, everyone," Jonny grinned proudly, holding Scabbers up for all to see. "Please continue enjoying your day—the infamous Black has been captured."

Beneath his Invisibility Cloak, Harry suddenly felt a tap on his shoulder—he realized Jonny was signaling him to follow.

Jonny and Baur, who appeared to be two men but were in fact four, exited the pet shop and then found an empty alley to Apparate. This was Harry's first time following an Apparition while invisible. He had feared the spatial rotation might fling off his precious Cloak, but when he reappeared on a seaside boulder, the Cloak remained perfectly in place. Even the slightly dazed Auror Baur noticed nothing amiss.

"We've arrived, sir," Baur said, gazing with quiet awe at the castle standing firm in the frigid waters. "We've reached Azkaban."

"More precisely, only its outer perimeter," Jonny corrected his subordinate's imprecision, explaining to the invisible Harry. "Azkaban is surrounded by an Anti-Apparition ward. We must first reach the shore, then take a boat to the castle."

In Harry's everyday life, the word "castle" always meant Hogwarts—he paused, startled by the sudden use of the term.

"It's hard to imagine how Black escaped," Baur said, gesturing toward the distance from shore to Azkaban. "Even if he could turn into a rat, a rat swimming that far is simply unbelievable." Harry judged the distance to be about four miles.

"Shh, did you hear someone speaking?" Jonny raised a finger to his lips.

Harry strained his ears. Amid the howling wind and crashing waves, a ghostly female voice faintly emerged. When he made out the word "Kalia," his heart jolted.

The already overcast North Sea sky plunged into total darkness. A cold, pale light bloomed along the horizon. A massive, almost monstrous full moon began to rise. The previously turbulent sea now lay utterly still. Beneath Azkaban, rising from the sea, black mist rippled, disturbing the moon's reflection in the dark water.

This abnormal phenomenon alerted Baur. He raised his wand, scanning the surroundings, and quickly sensed something was wrong. Under the bright moonlight, Harry easily spotted the faint outline—the Phantom Charm Zhang Qiu wore was vastly inferior to the Deathly Hallows.

"Well," she slowly materialized, "I came to see if perhaps Peter was fleeing in panic under the moonlight?"

Scabbers, who had been feigning death in the cage, suddenly leapt up—he too sensed a chance to escape.

"Impossible, Zhang," Jonny spoke first, preventing Baur from overreacting and making a mess. "We've already caught it. This cage is extremely sturdy. Peter, in rat form, cannot escape. And if he tries to revert to human form—hmm!"

Jonny chuckled triumphantly. "Unless he's willing to be crushed into a paste of rat meat by high-strength alloy."

"But the divination said the full moon caused massive chaos—and that gave Peter his chance," Zhang Qiu frowned. "He should have seized the opportunity to flee."

"He couldn't flee if he tried," Baur proudly agreed. "Unless our Auror Office's Tiger lost his mind and let him go."

"Then let him go," Zhang Qiu said calmly. "Even locking him in prison now won't help."

"If you know you'll mess up your bed every night, do you skip making it in the morning?" Jonny half-closed his eyes.

"Professor Doudou hasn't recovered from the muscle relaxant yet. I'm curious why you're here?" Zhang Qiu said slowly. "If the Doctor's plan matches my guess, then the Department of Mysteries is indeed exploring a dangerously forbidden field. So we should be doing something similar—and if you don't want your subordinates to know about it…"

"Stupefy!" Baur suddenly cast a Stunning Spell on himself and collapsed straight to the ground.

"Oh!" Zhang Qiu, who had been preparing to threaten Jonny, froze in shock, unsure how to continue.

"You see, British Aurors are this professional," Jonny said with a wry smile, shaking his head. "And you may have underestimated the significance of the Doctor's plan."

"For an individual traveler like you, some costs are unbearable," his voice now perfectly mimicked Professor Doudou's. "The Doctor's Plan uses the TARDIS's paradox function to distribute the burden among thirteen wizards who share the same name—allowing us to safely acquire knowledge you consider forbidden."

"You're certainly clever, but that has little to do with what we're discussing today," Zhang Qiu refocused. "I want the divination fulfilled—I don't care how. If this method fails, I'll try another."

"I invoke the name of Xuan Jun: permit Peter Pettigrew to escape in the chaos." She revealed the mark on the notebook's front page once more.

"For someone with no background, a diplomatic incident could cost them dearly," Jonny said calmly, waving the cage. "But the name Xuan Jun doesn't frighten me. Whether it's the Doctor's Plan or CBE, I'll do what I must, undisturbed."

"Perhaps I arrived too late. Wait—I need another plan," Zhang Qiu said, frustrated. "The progress is far behind. I can't abandon this critical node."

"If you'd only seen Baur, you might have succeeded," Jonny said. "But I came. Without me, Baur might not have caught Peter at all. But that's not the point. The point is—why do you think I came?"

Zhang Qiu's grip on her sword hilt slowly loosened. She looked at Jonny with confusion.

"I came because someone asked me to observe her journey. Had she not said that, I never would have thought to come to this moment," Jonny said meaningfully. Another unresolvable temporal loop. "In other words, it was fated that I would stop you here."

Zhang Qiu gripped her notebook tightly, her expression shifting uncertainly, as if hesitating.

"Zhang Qiu!" Neville burst out from behind the rock. "I had to stop you—future you asked me to. History isn't so—"

A loud crash cut him off.