HP: For a better world

Snape was still brewing the potion.

June was drawing to a close. The next full moon was drawing closer, and in order to buy time, Snape had robbed Aragog so hard that he had no choice but to admit that he would not be able to secrete spider silk for a while.

After questioning Aragog's incompetence, Snape reported the recurring hobby of a half-giant to Dumbledore.

We continue to increase our efforts to purchase lacewings and eight-eyed giant spider webs that have been soaked for 21 days.

Because few potion masters used to use the webs of the giant eight-eyed spider in their potions. Therefore, wizard hunters who specialized in hunting giant eight-eyed spiders mostly hunted for their rare and valuable venom, rather than the spider silk that seemed to have no use except for its toughness. Therefore, this material was rarely stocked in potion shops.

Most of the spider silk that can be purchased is the broken and scattered spider silk that hunters bring back after fighting with a group of eight-eyed giant spiders and trying every means to make up for the losses.

Neither the quality nor the quantity was sufficient to support Snape in finding the real formula and brewing the potion.

Snape could only try to find ways to cause trouble for the lone eight-eyed giant spider in the Forbidden Forest, while taking the risk of modifying the potion formula and using the silk of ordinary spiders instead.

Fortunately, the two materials were indeed essentially the same. Compared to the silk of the giant eight-eyed spider, the silk of ordinary spiders was easier to obtain. After Snape brewed the potion, he also found that it was milder in medicinal properties.

But the red rash that appeared on Winster's body after drinking the potion was still indiscriminately expelling blood and lycanthropy components.

“…It’s still not right.”

Snape analyzed calmly, and he exchanged opinions with Madam Pomfrey who was on duty nearby. He believed that Winster must have ingested something else while escaping into the Forbidden Forest and drinking the potion.

Winster has been in a coma for more than two weeks.

During these two weeks, the rash on his body remained severe and the high fever recurred and persisted.

The bed sheet had a reddish tinge for a long time. The rash covered his body, and his face and skin could not be seen clearly.

Thanks to the ever-reliable technology of St. Mungo's, although the high fever persisted, it still ensured Winston's vital signs, supporting Snape to find the missing potion ingredient after repeatedly brewing the eighth batch of potion experiments.

"Is it still wrong?" Madam Pomfrey glanced at Winster worriedly.

The sheets that had just been changed began to be stained again. Time was running out.

"What's wrong? Aren't all of White's ideas recorded in his notebook?" asked Madam Pomfrey.

"I don't know..." Snape said irritably, "I followed all the traces of Winster running into the Forbidden Forest and tried all the herbs and possible things along the way. Most of them would only destroy the stabilized potion structure, and those that remained were either poisonous or had no effect at all. If the potion he drank was poisonous, I'm afraid it wouldn't last long enough for us to find him."

"What should we do then?" Pomfrey anxiously looked Snape up and down, who was unkempt and dishevelled, and who knew he hadn't taken a shower for several days, and asked, "Are you planning to give up?"

"Of course... not yet." Snape shook his head tiredly, took out the bottle of blood-stained Felicis from his pocket and placed it in his palm. "Sometimes I wonder if it is really this Felicis that gave him luck and allowed him to hold on until now."

"But we all know it's just a bottle," Pomfrey said.

Snape rubbed the bottle of Felicis Felix with his fingertips incredulously.

He had never had time to clean the blood stains on the bottle of Felix Felicis until now when he took it out and rubbed it.

The dried blood powder was scraped off by his nails and fell off as his nails moved.

"...Dumbledore is already contacting some of his old friends. I hope it's not too late." Pomfrey sighed.

"Contact them and then it will be resolved?" Snape laughed sarcastically, "I don't dare to count on that at all."

He stared intently at the bloodstained bottle of Felicis in his palm, as if he could see something from it.

He frowned habitually and scraped the blood stains on the bottle mouth with his thumbnail, saying, "The werewolf problem has not been solved for centuries. Can those old monsters solve it all at once? Moreover, they have long ignored the wizarding world. It remains to be seen whether Dumbledore can persuade them."

"…But there must be hope, right? Severus, how long have you not slept? You seem to have been marinated by energy tonic—"

Snape: "...not that exaggerated."

He narrowed his eyes uncomfortably, glanced at the bed, and lowered his voice again: "I'm just doing what I can."

"Okay... you just keep talking nonsense... I'm not surprised at all." Pomfrey rolled his eyes and directed the nurses next to him to help change Winster's bed sheets.

During their short conversation, Winster's rash broke out again, and almost immediately, large amounts of bright red liquid were secreted and then gradually faded.

Pomfrey was already used to it, and after using a few more spells to cool Winston down, he used some distilled spirit to help his skin heal.

Snape watched in silence as Winston's blood gushed out and then stopped.

Bottle...bottle mouth.

"Sometimes... you don't have to take it too seriously. People in our academy are all very thoughtful, but it's wise to learn to let it go."

Madam Pomfrey put away her wand, watched Winston's temperature drop again, wiped the sweat off her face, turned around and gave Snape a gentle hug.

Snape, who was absent-mindedly looking at the missing piece on the mouth of the Felix Felicis bottle, suddenly froze. He felt uncomfortable all over and sweated as he felt Madam Pomfrey approaching and moving away briefly.

"I know you may not listen to my advice," Pomfret said as gently as he could, "but you should find a way to rest, Severus. Even if you drink a lot of tonic potions, if you don't rest, you won't rest."

Snape breathed a sigh of relief after being freed from the comforting hug, and said uncomfortably, "…It's not the right time yet."

He looked at Madam Pomfrey's disapproving eyes and quickly changed the subject, "I think I found something."

He showed the blood-stained bottle mouth to Pomfrey, "There is a clear tooth mark here... I was busy trying other things before, so I may not have looked carefully--" Snape squinted and stared at the bottle mouth of the Felix Felicis. The dried blood stains on it were so glaring.

"——Now it seems that White may have drunk something other than the herbs in the Forbidden Forest."

"—his blood."

Snape said solemnly.

Madam Pomfrey's eyes moved back and forth between Wins and the bottle of Felix Felicis and she exclaimed softly.

"It's not impossible..."

The biggest drawback of the supplementary ingredients in the potion that White drank was that it could not accurately distinguish the difference between White's own blood and the wolf-transformed components, and it frantically expelled the blood in a mutually destructive manner.

At the beginning, when Winster had just fallen into a coma and his blood pressure was gradually recovering, there was no such problem - it was only after the potion that was originally left behind and did not escape with Winster was used that the problem suddenly became serious.

"You mean to say that the potion White wrote down was not actually the formula for the potion he drank - there should have been blood from his wound mixed in by mistake?"

Snape spoke cautiously: "That should be the case."

He never overestimated the optimism of a situation, but... blood was the last possibility.

If it still doesn't work... I can only say that this gamble has failed from the beginning.

"and you??"

"I'll go back and try--" Snape turned and left, unwilling to waste any time.

----

In the north of England, at the southern end of the North Sea, there is a place called Cape.

"Is this the guy who is going to be sent to Azkaban?"

A man in a white shirt and women's striped pajamas was tapping the notebook he had placed in the store out of boredom.

He was one of the wizards responsible for registration and reception in Azkaban. He usually stayed in the small fish shop in the harbor on the cape to provide a temporary place for the Aurors and strikers who were escorting the prisoners.

"Yes, by order of the Minister." One of the Aurors who had escorted Peter all the way from Hogwarts spoke up. He shrugged and complained, "Excuse me, buddy, do you have a room where we can temporarily lock this kid up? We have come all the way here without a rest, and we have to take care of this cripple. We are so tired -"

The man looked up and down at the prisoner they were holding.

He pointed inside the store, his expression very surprised, "There are two empty rooms, enough for you to live in one and lock up in the other - who did you bring here? He didn't even have a rest all the way... What crime did he commit?" He glanced at the three Aurors who looked annoyed but not worried, and couldn't help but ask curiously.

"I heard that the student bitten by a werewolf in Hogwarts was killed by him..." Before the talkative Auror could finish, the Auror Captain came up from behind and interrupted him, knocking on the man's counter. "Okay, has your curiosity been satisfied? Give us a room quickly - and when will the ferry to pick him up from Azkaban arrive?"

"Well, have you notified them? If not, we may have to wait until next month when the department sends prisoners away..."

"Of course we have." The captain said impatiently, "This is a special order from the Minister. He has already told Miss Umbridge to explain it clearly to Azkaban. Do you doubt that Miss Umbridge will ignore the Minister's order?"

"...Oh, no, no, of course not." The man said quickly. Even though he was a messenger on the Azkaban ferry that no one cared about, he had heard of Umbridge's reputation - referring to the fact that she had dealt with all those who had offended her not long after she took office. Some people even simply did not call her the right position on her first day as the Minister's Secretary.

He still has to rely on this job which is better than nothing to make a living, he can't give it up.

"Why don't you contact and ask?"

The squad leader cursed.

"Okay, okay, I'll contact them right away," the man muttered as he reached out and picked up the receiver of the fishy-smelling telephone next to him.

"What's his name? I need to write it down..." The man said while holding the receiver between his ears. He took out a feather pen with most of its feathers fallen off from under the counter and poked at the notebook that looked like it had never been written on.

"Peter Petillo," the captain said, folding his hands, frowning and sniffing, "Why is there such a strong fishy smell here? It smells like herring."

"…It's because of Muggles! They are building bigger and bigger ports - they have built towns near Azkaban. There are more and more Muggles, and it is becoming more and more difficult to find a place where they won't bother you. In the past, no matter where we opened a pub, it would always be sought out by Muggle drunks from that place." The man complained loudly, "I had to change my shop to sell herrings to avoid them coming to my shop drunk and asking me why I was dressed so strangely and if I was planning to have some fancy dress ball -" he was angry.

But at this time the person on the other end picked up the phone, his expression suddenly changed, and he said something to the other end.

"Yes, yes, there is an appointment from the minister... The prisoner's name is Peter Petillo - you said it's the same name as the Merlin first-level hero?" The man glanced at the captain.

The team leader remembered the minister's instructions and mouthed to him, saying: Same name.

"It should be just the same name. Aren't you curious about how the werewolf got into Hogwarts? I heard that it was done by the guy who came back this time... We can talk slowly after your shift - tell me when the ferry will arrive first, we are in a hurry here."

The captain looked at the man again and said, "Three days left. The ship is on the way. If you can't wait, you can go and take a ride on the Muggle ship."

"No." The captain said, looking at Peter, who looked pale, "We just put him on the ferry and that's it. At most, I'll follow him a little bit to see this guy being sent to the cell - have they informed the prison that this is an Animagus?"

"They should have been notified, right?" The man came out from behind the counter to lead the way. "I heard from Mike that the higher-ups specifically ordered them to add bars to a cell so that not even a fly could get out—" He chuckled with gloating, "Maybe they're planning to seal the entire cell. Only the kind that Dementors can get in."

"——Is this the guy?" The man looked at Peter in surprise. "I can't believe this guy is a master of shapeshifting——What kind of animal is he?"

"Rat." The captain said, "But don't worry, he was forced to change back. As long as he doesn't touch the wand, this kid can't escape."

He said contemptuously, "He was throwing a tantrum and crying all the way, begging us to let him go - to be honest, I really can't see what's so great about this kid."

"Then I'm relieved. There are quite a lot of rats here. If you say so, just throw him here." The man said, pushing open a heavy wooden door with iron bars. Inside was a hastily piled bed supported by wooden boards. In the corner was a thin blanket crumpled into a ball. Then he pointed to another room that looked better and said, "You guys live here."

"Okay..." The team leader glanced at it indifferently, and agreed when he didn't find any problems.

"But do you have anything here to hold him for a while?" He asked, pointing at Peter, who was being held up by the other two Aurors without his legs. "We have to spend three days here, and we don't have the heart to wait for this guy to poop and pee. Let him do it himself in this room."

The man took a closer look at Peter's broken section. "Is this caused by some kind of black magic? I have a wooden leg left by an old striker, which can be used to replace it for him..."

They put wooden legs and feet on Peter and stuffed him into the makeshift cell.

The door slammed shut.

Peter curled up on the ground and sobbed. After a long time, he groped his way along the cold and damp ground with his new wooden legs and stood up shakily, then climbed onto the wooden bed beside him.

After a while, the door was opened again, and one of the three Aurors casually threw a smelly ceramic pot into his arms: "Here, this is your urinal for the next three days, keep it well."

Then he closed the door again and left.

…The night deepens.

Peter sat on the wooden bed, bent over and struggled to adjust his legs and feet that had just been pressed down today.

His leg could not be restored for the time being, as there were traces of black magic left by the Shadowless God. Without a corresponding antidote, it could not be removed... He could only live with this wooden leg for the rest of his life, or wait for the Wizengamot to interrogate him, and be given a belated kiss by the Dementors to end this pain.

On the floor lay his dinner, made of herrings from the same shop, but Peter had no appetite.

He pulled the crumpled quilt on the ground to rest, but accidentally exposed a gap covered by the quilt.

A small black-eyed mouse squeaked its way through the gap and set its sights on the herring dinner.

Peter hesitated.

“…Squeak, squeak?”