The Return to Hogwarts

Thinking about this, Amosta's mood also became heavy. On the night he left Hogwarts, during the brief farewell, the overflowing despair in Snape was almost unbearable for Amosta to look at. This showed that his love for Lily Potter was probably not ordinary.

To onlookers, being devoted in love is a respectable and admirable virtue, but for the person involved, it is, in most cases, a very tragic thing.

Previously, Amosta had hoped that one day he could help Snape escape the prison that bound his heart, but given the current situation, that hope seemed slim. Moreover, if Voldemort were to return and fail once again, with no chance of redemption, Snape, having exhausted all his obsessions, would very likely choose to end his own life.

"It seems this matter still depends on Potter."

If Amosta's speculations are correct, then Snape's feelings for Harry must be more than just simple dislike; they must be a complex emotion. If anyone could help Snape escape his cage, without a doubt, only Harry, as Lily's son, has that possibility.

Amostella withdrew from the mental world of florist Tramon, and, upon leaving, slightly altered her memories.

In the distance, the setting sun cast its glow, reddening the horizon. Amosta stood not far from the church, listening quietly to the hymns emanating from within, his expression solemn.

This trip to Godric's Hollow yielded no clues about Black, but unexpectedly revealed some of Professor Snape's past. However, Amosta was not happy about gaining a deeper understanding of Professor Snape; on the contrary, he felt heavy-hearted.

Leaving aside those young wizards, in Hogwarts and even the wizarding world today, who is Amosta Blaine's most concerned wizard? Without a doubt, it is Professor Snape.

The world is about to be thrown into turmoil, and wizards are now riding the crest of a wave of change. Amostella hopes that once the wave subsides and the seas return to calm, Severus Snape will be safe and sound.

When Snape returned to Hogwarts before, he was resistant to his return because he knew that the ship of Hogwarts might not be able to withstand the rising tide. He hoped that Amosta could stay far away and not get involved in the trouble. But now, Amosta hopes that Snape will leave Hogwarts and find a place to start a new life.

Is it possible?

Amosta looked down at the shadows stretching across the ground and smiled helplessly. Everyone's life belongs to themselves, and it's not something that can be easily interfered with.

After a sigh, as the sun set, Amosta took out his wand, preparing to use London as a transit point to return to Hogsmeade. Before leaving, he glanced at the Potter mansion nestled between a few buildings, his eyes revealing a complex emotion.

Okay, let's leave it at that for now.

Amosta withdrew his gaze and raised his wand. The familiar streets of London had become clear in his mind, and his figure had become blurred. However, just as he fully entered the higher dimension, a thought suddenly jumped into his mind, making his eyes instantly sharpen. He took a step back and locked onto Potter's old house again.

"footprint."

Chapter 164 Clues

boom!

Dust billowed, and in an instant, Amosta was back in the bedroom on the second floor of the Potter family's old house.

The remaining sunlight on the horizon was blocked by several houses. In the broken bedroom, a soft, dark light rippled like water. The tip of Amosta's staff emitted a bright light, dispelling the enveloping darkness. His sharp gaze fell on the footprints that stretched from the large hole in the wall all the way to the picture frame.

The flowers were a gift from Professor Snape, and the tear stains on the broken glasses frame were most likely also left by Professor Snape. That's all fine. What's problematic is this set of footprints.

The footprints left on the thin layer of dust on Amosta's floor looked solemn.

Before leaving, a question suddenly occurred to him: after all these years, would Snape only come to mourn his former love this year?

Impossible. If everything was as he guessed, Snape would probably come here several times a year. So why is there only this set of footprints in the room and nothing else unusual?

Washed clean by the rain? Amostah looked up at the mostly intact ceiling and dismissed the guess.

Or perhaps Professor Snape had not entered the room before, but was disturbed by Sirius Black's escape from prison, which led to the Potters' deaths, and thus barged into the room?

Amosta couldn't rule out the possibility, but his intuition told him that wasn't the case.

What supported this intuition was his understanding of Severus Snape. Because of those painful memories, the man had become accustomed to hiding himself over the years, both in his true thoughts and his actions.

He guessed that Snape must have entered this bedroom many times, but each time he left, he would use magic to cover his tracks so that no one would notice. It wasn't to guard against anyone, but simply because he didn't want anyone to know.

If this is indeed the case, then the owner of these footprints...

Amostella raised her wand and tapped her temple—the Sensitive Charm!

In an instant, the world suddenly magnified before my eyes, the fine dust on the ground seemed to turn into pebbles, and even the faint sound of the air flowing became incredibly clear.

Amosta seemed to have suddenly transformed into a seasoned Muggle detective, using his sharp eyes and keen mind to analyze everything within his field of vision, trying to find more clues.

In fact, if Amosta had arrived earlier, the traces of his personal magic would still remain in the air, and he would have had some means to use. However, too much time had passed, and the magic flowing naturally in the space had erased the traces of magic left by his unconscious state. Amosta had no choice but to use this 'foolish' method to find clues.

Starting from near the picture frame, Amosta's gaze gradually moved closer to the cave entrance, observing the footprints on the ground, trying to find traces left by the owner of the footprints.

Suddenly, his focused gaze fell on the broken wall below the cave entrance. He quickly flew over, bent down, and picked up a small strand of silk thread from a sharp wooden board. The thread was grayish-white, its surface stained with dirt, and a slight stench could be smelled. Amosta held the thread and examined it back and forth, and before he knew it, a smile appeared on his lips.

Amusta is somewhat familiar with this fabric. Just over two months ago, Professor Gilderoy Lockhart, who made the front page of the Prophet's Daily for the last time in his life, wore clothes of this color, which were very eye-catching.

Now, the sun has completely sunk below the horizon, and the peaceful village is lit with dim candlelight in every household, while the clear wind singing louder and louder over the open fields.

To avoid attracting attention, Amosta extinguished the glow at the tip of his staff, concealed himself with a Disillusionment Charm, left Potter's old house, wandered around the neighborhood a few times, and then entered a secluded, dark alleyway where no one ever came and went.

The two- or three-foot-long thread did not fall to the ground after leaving Amosta's fingers, but remained steadily in mid-air. As the wand made a mysterious swirling motion, the thread gradually turned into powder, and a small, thin, transparent aura, as pure as water, appeared before Amosta's eyes.

Amosta gazed at the spoils of the trip, his expression turning solemn, and he murmured softly.

"Tracing back to the source--"

call---

The transparent aura, gathered into irregular clumps, caused ripples before Amosta's eyes and slowly moved in a certain direction. However, before Amosta could follow, the aura turned back and moved in another direction, like a headless fly, bumping around everywhere.

Amosta narrowed his eyes, silently pondering why this situation had occurred.

There are three possibilities. First, Blake is probably very vigilant. Just like when he was active as the Golden Viper, he was protected by magic that prevented tracking and location tracking and was covered by hidden curses, making it impossible to directly locate his position.

Secondly, Blake is currently in a place protected by powerful magic, which has isolated him from all tracking magic.

Third, the aura carried by this tuft of silk is very weak, and after a month, if Blake is in an area with a strong or mixed magical magnetic field, it will be difficult to locate him.

So, which possibility could it be? Amosta leaned against the earthen wall with his arms crossed, quietly staring at the chaotic aura.

"The first possibility is that Black needs to obtain at least a wand. Hmm, for him, with the Ministry of Magic and Dementors relentlessly pursuing him and constantly on the verge of uncovering his secrets, it would be extremely dangerous to rashly attack a wizard and steal a wand. Having hidden for so long without being discovered, Black must be very cautious and most likely won't do that."

After a brief moment of thought, Amosta ruled out the first possibility, while the second and third possibilities were actually quite similar; if it really were one of these two scenarios...

Amosta cracked his knuckles, which meant that Black was very likely already in Hogsmeade, the Forbidden Forest, or even lying in ambush at Hogwarts.

Thinking this through, the aura surrounding Amosta became sharper.

Amosta wanted to capture Black, and the Ministry of Magic's exorbitant bounty was only one of his objectives. He also wanted to take the opportunity to avenge Potter, with whom he had a blood relationship, and to restore stability to the underworld as soon as possible. After his trip to Godric's Hollow, he had another reason.

That is to avenge Professor Snape's former love, which overlaps with the reasons above, but the actual meaning is different.

"Hmm, my contract with Remus Lupin... After we capture Black, let's inform Professor Snape and have him kill Black. Perhaps that will ease some of his inner turmoil."

Amosta stopped the almost dissipating aura from moving. After thinking for a moment, he sealed the aura in a strand of gray hair on the top of his head. If Blake appeared in a certain area nearby, this strand of hair would react.

The thought that Black might already be lurking near Hogwarts filled Amostella with a sense of urgency. He raised his wand, preparing to Apparate back to Hogsmeade. For the next while, he would probably have to patrol the village every day, just like the Dementors.

boom--

Just then, the dim light shining through the glass window of a Muggle family's house a hundred feet away suddenly went out, plunging the entire house into darkness.

Amosta paused for a moment, then smiled. Muggle technology was advancing rapidly, but it hadn't yet reached the level he had when he transmigrated in his previous life. In his distant memories, back when he was a child living in the countryside, he often encountered such embarrassing situations at night.

A few memories of the past cheered Amosta up a bit. He withdrew his gaze and prepared to leave, but before his body could disappear into nothingness, a few days earlier, a sentence from Tonks suddenly popped into his mind.

"--Black's ancestral home is protected by numerous ancient and powerful spells, making it inaccessible."

Chapter 165 Grimmauld Place

It took Amosta a little time to find Grimmauld Place, because when Tonks mentioned the place to him, he only casually mentioned that it was "a run-down neighborhood in northwest London." But northwest London is such a broad area that Amosta couldn't possibly walk every Muggle street and ask everyone if they had heard of Grimmauld Place.

However, having worked outside for several years, the experienced Amosta was not encountering this kind of problem for the first time.

After returning to London that night and resting in a hotel, he went to the largest Muggle police station in the area early the next morning. He then walked in confidently with the Disillusionment Charm, hypnotized a policeman, found the archives, and spent half an hour successfully locating the exact location of Grimmauld Place.

Before setting off, he stopped by a fast food restaurant for breakfast. By the time he reached the three-mile radius around Grimmauld Place using Muggle methods, the sun was already high in the sky.

"It is indeed a dilapidated place—"

Three miles away, in a 24-hour convenience store, behind a clean glass window, Amosta, eating a hot dog, looked around at the neighborhood that was almost detached from the city and muttered something.

It was daytime, but there were hardly any cars or Muggles on the main street. The tall streetlights on both sides of the road were badly damaged. A gust of wind blew by, and old newspapers that had been abandoned on the roadside swirled into the air and hung on the clothesline outside a house balcony.

There were traces of magic in the air—this did not surprise Amosta; he had anticipated this situation, otherwise he would not have approached the place so slowly using Muggle methods.

The surveillance magic was the work of the Aurors. They monitored a large area around Grimmauld Place, and if they detected anyone using magic within that area, an Auror would appear behind you the next second, threatening to put you in solitary confinement or something similar.

However, Apparition is not prohibited in the area; in fact, the Aurors would love for Sirius Black to do so.

"So how exactly should I get close to that house?" Amosta thought to himself, his cheeks bulging.

Within this area, there exists not only surveillance magic, but also a considerable number of Aurors, forming a network from points to lines, and from lines to a network, evenly distributed within a three-mile radius of Grimmauld Place. They will not overlook any loopholes, and can support each other in the event of an attack.

Amosta had dealt with Aurors before and acknowledged their professional skills, but their problem was that they couldn't handle highly skilled wizards.

For Amosta, it wouldn't be a problem to force his way in under the guise of the Golden Viper, but he didn't want to do so. He had been using the identity of the 'Golden Viper' for several years and had already gained a certain degree of fame and prestige. Amosta didn't want to make this identity irreconcilable with the Ministry of Magic.

For the sake of the stability of the wizarding world, the Ministry of Magic can tolerate wizards in the underworld doing things that break the law, but this tolerance certainly won't apply to Sirius Black.

A new alias?

That wasn't impossible. But considering that Tonks had only recently been discharged from St. Mungo's, Amosta hesitated for a moment and ultimately abandoned the idea.

Du, du, du—

Amosta stared expressionlessly at the desolate street, tapping the table lightly with a rhythmic sound. After a moment, the tapping abruptly stopped, his raised fingers hovering in mid-air, and a strange smile inexplicably appeared on Amosta's lips.

"Then let's lure the tiger away from the mountain."

As night deepened, the dim moonlight was gradually obscured by the moving dark clouds, and shadows surged forth from one end of the street like a tide, slowly but firmly pulling the world into an eerie atmosphere.