A certain Hogwarts professor of runes

Chapter 218 Doubt

Later, Dobby returned to report the results to Felix.

"Mr. Heip, that woman named Skeeter has agreed, and in the process, the little silver bird on my head..."

"I understand, Dobby. This is the test I mentioned to you. The results are better than I expected."

……

As evening fell, Felix walked into the auditorium in high spirits.

"Hmm, which house's table should I choose today?" he thought, his mind wandering. This was one of his pleasures; he always heard interesting things while eating. "Ravenclaw, I guess. The hawks' been keeping a low profile lately."

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the Slytherin players walking into the Great Hall, chatting and laughing with brooms in hand, and he knew then that the Quidditch season was about to begin.

Felix spotted a small group of Ravenclaw students and prepared to sit next to them. The somewhat chubby boy with freckles on his face was having a lively discussion.

"—I recently learned about the Kaba, yes, it's a webbed aquatic creature—like a scaly monkey—Professor Lupin is quite good—"

Felix glanced at the teachers' section subconsciously and, sure enough, saw a slightly tired-looking figure.

"Professor Lupin?" Felix changed direction and sat down next to the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, greeting him in a friendly manner.

"Professor Hyp," Lupin responded just as gently, "please forgive me, I'm still recovering from a cold." He fiddled with the scarf around his neck.

"October is indeed flu season, I remember it was the same last year." Felix smiled and added some bacon and potatoes to his plate. "Mrs. Pomfrey has been very busy lately."

Lupin looked on with a nostalgic expression. "She was indeed a responsible school doctor. She helped me a lot when I was in school."

Felix had clearly misunderstood. He thought Lupin was referring to the fights he had with Slytherin students during his school days, which would inevitably involve Snape. So he kept quiet and changed the subject.

"You should have received the dueling class schedule by now, Professor Lupin?"

"Miss Granger entrusted it to me last week," Lupin said thoughtfully. "I saw the contents of the Extraction Charm, which can be used to deal with Grindelwald..."

Felix asked, "Those green water monsters with horns? I remember there were a bunch in the Black Lake, but they must have been tamed by mermaids."

“Indeed,” Lupin reached for a dish of sauce in the distance. “This makes my teaching much easier. Oh, thank you—” he said.

"You're welcome," Felix said, pushing the sauce towards him, their arms touching.

He lowered his gaze, and that strange feeling returned. From their first handshake, he had noticed that Lupin's hands were unusually thick and much coarser than normal.

Lupin, oblivious to the fact that Greendylow's fingers were very strong but fragile, the trick to getting rid of them was to prevent them from gripping you.

"The strongest and the weakest?" Felix asked with interest. "It's somewhat similar to Professor Flitwick's view. He also believed that wizards are strongest when attacking, but this also exposes their weaknesses. Therefore, when casting spells, they should be as fast and concise as possible, while leaving room for maneuver..."

Lupin said with a smile, "Professor Flitwick is indeed very experienced, and his fighting championship is highly prestigious."

“Speaking of which…” Felix said slowly, “Flitwick also wanted to enter the Ministry of Magic when he was young, but he was rejected because of his bloodline.”

Lupin stopped and listened quietly.

"...Of course, the reasons can't be so straightforward, but everyone knows the Ministry of Magic's character. Professor Lupin, what are your thoughts on the Ministry of Magic's discrimination problem?"

Lupin smiled and said, "This is not a new argument. Back when I was in school, people were always criticizing the Ministry of Magic for being rigid in its thinking and inactive, but more than a decade later, it hasn't changed much."

"Perhaps it's time for the Ministry of Magic to undergo reform?"

“It’s difficult,” Lupin pondered for a moment. “Unless we replace him with a minister with a strong will. As for Fudge, he’s just a politician, a cowardly coward,” he said bluntly. “Living a routine life every day has exhausted all his courage.”

Felix was surprised by his attitude toward Fudge and wondered where this dislike came from, considering that Fudge's moderate views were quite popular.

At least, the wizarding populace doesn't really want a minister who interferes too much in their lives—except during wartime.

The two then turned their conversation to Sirius Black.

“Miss Granger once asked me a question that I couldn’t answer,” Felix said. “She asked why Black, who had been living peacefully in Azkaban for over a decade, suddenly chose to escape. You see, if he had been caught, he might have been met with a Dementor’s kiss.”

"Professor Lupin, you should know him very well. Do you have any guesses?"

Lupin frowned. Felix's words struck a nerve with his long-held, hidden confusion, and some unrealistic fantasy stirred within him once more. This thought made him repeatedly savor the happy times of the past in the quiet of the night, but it also left his weary heart scarred.

"Lupin, oh Lupin, what are you expecting?! Have years of wandering completely clouded your judgment?"

But on the surface, he simply said indifferently, "I have been unable to understand his thinking ever since Blake betrayed me."

"It's a shame," Felix said softly. "Harry and the others asked me about Black's secrets; they're worried they might run into Black someday."

Lupin couldn't help but reiterate his point: "Hogwarts is safe."

……

Back in his office, Felix reviewed his conversation with Lupin. On a piece of parchment, he wrote "Remus Lupin" and then "Sirius Black," connecting the two names with a line and adding a question mark. He then fell into deep thought.

He knew very little about Blake, nothing more than the stark contrast between his childhood and adulthood.

As for Lupin... Felix always felt very awkward.

Dumbledore trusted him, and he himself had seen his figure in Frank and Alice's fragmented memories, which made it almost certain that Lupin was a member of the Order of the Phoenix.

But Snape made no attempt to hide his malice towards him. In Felix's view, the reason Snape refrained from casting the evil curse was because of Dumbledore's presence.

Felix checked the records from that time and found that Snape and James Potter had the most conflicts, followed by Black, but Lupin and Peter Pedirou were involved in very few disputes.

Is it a case of hating someone because of their surroundings?

Snape, however, had a good impression of Peter Peterou; at least he addressed him as "Peter" instead of using the surname "Pedirou." Given Felix's understanding of his headmaster, this was quite remarkable.

If Lupin were dead, Snape certainly wouldn't have changed the way he addressed him as "Remus".

Felix began to write down the points where he had doubts about Lupin—

"Gentle in nature, yet Snape harbored extreme hatred for him."

He possessed extraordinary abilities and was favored by the young wizard, yet he was once destitute.

"Her body was weak, and she was easily defeated by a cold. Was it because Mrs. Pomfrey's medicine was ineffective?"

The hair on his arms is unusual.

An abnormal dislike for Minister of Magic Fudge;

Felix heavily marked the name "Fudge," a minister who had only been in office for a few years and, aside from covering things up, had only implemented a handful of policies, so few that it wouldn't take long to count them all.

Before long, he remembered Belby's complaints about the Ministry of Magic from the previous year—

"Take a look at the newspapers lately! It's all about 'good news for werewolves' and 'amending the werewolf registration law.' Only registered and regulated werewolves have the right to buy werewolf poison. The Ministry of Magic is using my potions to subdue the scattered werewolves..."

(End of this chapter)