Hogwarts: Voldemort, don't stop me from studying

Sirius also cheered up and wrote the invitations one by one.

Regulus's funeral was actually a bit awkward.

He was a well-known Death Eater, but he died in the end for resisting Voldemort. Although no one knows the reason yet, even among the Death Eaters, they think Regulus is a coward who fled from the battlefield and was executed.

On either side, he would be hard to be accepted.

After careful consideration, Sirius found that he didn't know whether his brother had ever had friends like him and James. The people who often walked with Regulus when he was in school were either in prison or in the grave.

Sirius didn't intend to invite those who might not even know what Regulus looked like, nor did he want to invite those who might slander Regulus, even if those people were once his comrades.

This way, there won't be many people he can invite.

Sirius considered for a long time and finally sent an invitation to the Malfoy family.

His favorite cousin was Andromeda, but he also had a good relationship with Narcissa when he was a child. Most importantly, Regulus liked his cousin Narcissa very much and listened to her the most among his sisters.

——And Narcissa was not a Death Eater. The one who joined the Death Eaters was her despicable husband, Lucius Malfoy.

Sirius convinced himself with that last bit.

He was a free-spirited person, and even eleven years in prison had not changed this. For the first time in his life, Sirius was so patient and meticulous, restraining his own preferences to consider something.

These little wizards who came to help played a big role.

Without them, Sirius didn't know what he would have done with the funeral. Maybe he would have bothered Lupin from beginning to end, but in the end, no one would be satisfied.

But the children did such a good job that Sirius felt that he would not be able to forgive himself if he messed up everything because of his own willfulness.

Owls, carrying invitations, flew in all directions, braving the cold winter wind and snow.

……

In his free time, Wade always stayed in the study.

The Black family is indeed an ancient and wealthy pure-blood family with an extremely rich collection of books, some of which are not even in the restricted section of the Hogwarts Library.

The numerous books in the collection were things that Mrs. Black valued very much before she went mad, so Kreacher had always maintained them carefully. There was only a little dust on the books, and there were not even any holes caused by insects.

These books were originally attached with powerful protective magic. If people other than the Black family read the books, some would corrode people's palms, some would cause serious damage to the eyes, and some even had fatal curses attached to them.

But as the current patriarch, Sirius removed most of the harmful magic directly. For those that he couldn't solve for the time being, he threw them into the box in the basement along with the books.

Kreacher looked very distressed.

Originally, he had recently regarded Sirius as his master and would work diligently and follow orders.

But after this incident, Kreacher wiped his tears, packed up all the books thrown into the basement, sprinkled insect repellent powder on them, and secretly cursed him as a "prodigal son" several times.

But Kreacher only blamed Sirius and did not vent his anger on Wade who was reading a book.

Kreacher heard from Lupin what Wade had done and was very respectful to him. When Wade was reading, he would always bring some hot tea or cakes to the study from time to time.

It was not known whether Mrs. Black knew about this, but she had been very quiet recently and the curtain covering the portrait had never been drawn.

When everyone was tidying up the fifth floor, they occasionally heard faint crying sounds coming from Regulus' room.

On the third day, the Italian wizard painter hired by Sirius arrived. He carefully painted a portrait of Regulus based on several old photos.

It was not the pale and weird appearance of Regulus who had turned into an Inferi, but the proud and high-spirited boy before the age of sixteen.

From that day on, Mrs. Black became completely quiet.

Occasionally, the wind would gently lift the curtains, and everyone would see her quietly closing her eyes, as if she had fallen into a beautiful dream from which she would never wake up.

Only Lupin would often interfere with Vader's reading.

Most of the books in the Black family's collection were related to the dark arts, and Wade even found a description of the Horcruxes in one of the books.

Sirius thought that there was no harm in understanding the effects of dark magic, as long as they didn't study it or even become obsessed with it. What they mainly learned was how to defend and resist dark magic.

He grew up in an environment surrounded by dark magic, but was not greatly affected, so Sirius believed that Vader could do it too.

Although Lupin had different opinions, he did not directly stop Wade from reading or lecture him about right and wrong. Instead, he would visit the study from time to time.

Whenever Wade read some books about the Dark Arts, it wouldn't be long before Lupin would tell one or two similar stories after dinner or while cleaning.

A certain wizard made a mistake while studying black magic, and was twisted into a monster by magic. He wandered in the dark forest all day long, living a life worse than death.

A dark magic creature studied by a wizard could not endure the abuse, so it suddenly attacked, killed its master and fled.

A certain wizard became addicted to black magic and his character changed drastically. He suddenly killed all his family members one night, and then caused a series of tragedies. In the end, he was eliminated by a white magic wizard who happened to pass by.

And so on.

The young wizards listened with great interest, but Michael looked at Wade with a half-smile every time he finished listening.

"What book have you read?"

After the story was over, he whispered to Wade.

"It's just a hand sticker."

Wade replied: "Just to understand the way wizards studied magic in the past. In their time, this behavior was not considered out of line."

"Yeah." Michael laughed jokingly, "For ancient people, cannibalism seems to be quite normal, right?"

Wade hesitated for a moment: "Even now, in some countries cannibalism is not illegal."

"real?!"

Michael's eyes widened, then he quickly adjusted his expression and snorted, "Haha, the Weasley twins are much better at acting than you when they lie."

Wade looked at this naive classmate with sympathy: "It's true."

Michael was silent for a while.

"……real?"

"Ah."

"Muggle laws?"

"To be precise, some Muggle countries do not have regulations that make cannibalism illegal. Of course, our Ministry of Magic does not have similar regulations, right?"

"Even though I said that..." Michael tried to save his worldview: "But the law doesn't have any regulations because cannibalism doesn't happen... unless there's famine... unless there's an extreme survival situation..."

He patched up his words carefully, but saw a mysterious smile on Vader's lips.

He said nothing, but it seemed like he said everything.

Michael: “…”

Because of that smile, the boy was scratching his head and struggling for most of the night. The next morning, he got up from the bed with a pair of dark circles under his eyes, ran out of the Black mansion, and spent half a day in the nearby Muggle library.

After coming back, Michael was silent for a long time.

"Crazy Muggle."

Before going to bed, he couldn't help but express his feelings to Wade.

But Vader shook his head.

"You see cannibalism in books, so you think it's cruel and crazy. But in a society where the strong prey on the weak, cannibalism actually happens all the time, you just don't notice it."

"Look, isn't Regulus 'eaten'?"

Michael was shocked, his scalp tingled and goose bumps appeared all over his body.

……

The day before Christmas was Regulus' funeral.

It had been snowing since morning, with tiny snowflakes falling on the ground and on the buildings. At first they condensed into broken ice, and then gradually gathered into one piece, covering the mottled old marks on the walls and the garden that the little wizards had carefully decorated.

But the vast expanse of white is very suitable for a funeral.

Sirius was wearing a black wizard robe, only black and white, and it was the first time that everyone saw him dressed so solemnly. Lupin accompanied him to greet the guests who came to the funeral.

Wade saw the Malfoys and Draco Malfoy. The three of them were very similar, with light blond hair, pale skin, and proud expressions.

But when talking with Sirius, both sides remained restrained, at least no conflict occurred face to face.

He also saw a light brown-haired witch and a man dressed in Muggle clothes walk in. The witch quickly came forward and hugged Sirius, and Sirius's expression softened a little.

Then Wade knew that the witch was Andromeda who was expelled from the Black family. Sirius had pointed to the family tree and introduced his family to these curious little wizards.

On that huge family tree, Andromeda's name had already been burned.

In fact, the Black family, which prides itself on being pure-blooded, has members who are expelled from the family in almost every generation, and sometimes more than one.

Behind the two of them was a beautiful young witch with striking slate-grey hair.

Even though adult wizards who are good at Transfiguration can easily change the color of their hair, her hair color is really special and has an unforgettable effect.

Andromeda introduced her to Sirius - saying that this was her daughter, Nymphadora Tonks.

Sirius had actually seen Nymphadora as a child, but the girl now was of course a stranger to him.

They shook hands politely.

While they were talking, Draco Malfoy stared at Tonks. When he heard her name, he immediately showed an expression as if he had seen something dirty.

Although he didn't say a word, it seemed as if he had said everything.

Tonks blinked, and as everyone went to greet the new guests, she turned her head sharply to look at Draco Malfoy, her head suddenly turning into the shape of a Hungarian tree.

"what!"

Draco Malfoy turned his head and saw a huge dragon head, with longan-sized brown eyes staring at him. He was so frightened that he screamed.

Everyone looked towards him.

"She...she...she just..."

He pointed at Tonks and tried to explain incoherently, but he saw that Tonks had changed back to her original state, with an elegant and surprised expression on her face, looking at him with everyone else.

"Be polite, Draco."

Narcissa said calmly, glancing arrogantly at the half-blood Tonks before looking away.

Andromeda glared at her daughter and told her not to make trouble.

Mr. and Mrs. Weasley rushed back from abroad.

Mrs. Longbottom also arrived and Neville hurried to stand beside her.