"I'm sorry, Dad."
The wolf cub, Karen, spoke in a childish voice:
"I… Morris and I were just really curious about Hogwarts, so we wanted to get a little closer for a look… I swear we only wanted to take a quick peek!"
"But on the way, Morris suddenly pushed me aside, and he was taken by that big lizard… I went into the cave to find him. It took everything I had to get back out, only to be surrounded by those poisonous spiders…"
"Then a wizard suddenly appeared… it was a student, I think, but there was a bird with him that looked like a phoenix. The spiders were all scared away. He took Morris with him…"
As he spoke, his voice grew lower and lower. His round little head and triangular ears drooped, and he looked extremely ashamed and downcast.
The man was silent for a long while and looked in the direction of Hogwarts in the distance. He finally said, "Have I not told you all never to go beyond our hunting grounds?"
"Yes, Dad," Karen mumbled with his head down.
"Haven't I warned you over and over again…" The man glared at him with furious eyes and growled, "That the most dangerous place in the entire Forbidden Forest is the area near Hogwarts? That you're absolutely forbidden from approaching that castle?"
"I'm sorry," Karen said, hanging his head low. "We… we were just so curious. We thought if we only looked from a distance, it would be fine…"
"Fine?" the man roared. "Because of that reckless assumption, your brother almost lost his life, and you say fine?"
The wolf cub practically collapsed to the ground and buried his face between his front paws, his small body trembled uncontrollably.
Suddenly, the white she-wolf stepped in front of him and used one paw to nudge the pup to her side. She shot the man a sideways look full of warning and displeasure.
The man locked eyes with her. The muscles at the corner of his eyes twitched slightly, then he looked away.
"Vera, take the children back," he said.
"Woo~?" the white wolf growled softly in protest.
"I'm staying here," the man said with a fierce glint in his eyes. "If that little wizard brat doesn't bring Morris back, I'll find my own way to get him out."
The white wolf hesitated for a moment, but when she looked at the other pups beside her, she nodded. One by one, the wolves—big and small—turned and left.
After running for a distance, a girl's voice rose from among the pack: "So, Karen, did you actually see the school?"
"No," Karen said dejectedly. "Only Morris was taken. I… I hid in the bushes and didn't come out."
"Pfft, coward."
"Shut up, Ivy. If it were you, I don't believe you wouldn't be scared."
"I wouldn't be scared!"
"Keep your voice down! If the centaurs hear us, we're in big trouble!"
"Haha, cowardly Rayne!"
"I'm just being careful! Centaurs, fire dragons, Acromantulas, mermaids, hippogriffs, Thestrals—and I heard there used to be a Basilisk! There's even a thousand-year-old giant squid in the lake…
Why is this school so dangerous? Aren't those wizards living in the castle afraid at all?"
"Maybe they have some special methods, maybe they know how to avoid getting hurt by dangerous creatures… Wizards have lived here for over a thousand years. The Forbidden Forest must feel like home to them. Of course they're not afraid."
"Do you think… there's a wizarding school somewhere in the world that would accept wolves like us as students? We might not know magic, but we're really smart! And we can talk!"
"Keep dreaming! Stuff like that doesn't even happen in dreams!"
The children's noisy chatter gradually faded into the distance, and the brown-yellow fur on the man's pointed ears quivered slightly.
Hearing the hopeful note in the kids' last words, he lowered his gaze and silently counted his weapons again.
Then, he slung on his backpack, parted the leaves and underbrush, and began walking toward Hogwarts.
His only intact pair of trousers was soon torn in several places by branches, leaving strips of gray-green fabric snagged on the sharp tips of the plants.
…
Madam Pomfrey was tending to injured students in the hospital wing. Wade, familiar with the place, quickly found an empty room and began treating the wolf cub's wounds.
Wizards had all kinds of magical spells and potions, but they couldn't instantly fix every injury—otherwise, Mad-Eye Moody wouldn't be covered in scars, and Professor Kettleburn wouldn't have ended up with only one and a half limbs.
After Wade finished dressing the wounds, he turned to find that Madam Pomfrey had been standing behind him for quite some time. He quickly greeted her.
"Not bad work," Madam Pomfrey said approvingly. She stepped forward to take over treating the wolf's wounds and asked casually, "I didn't expect you to bring back a wolf… What caused these injuries?"
"Noberta," Wade replied.
Madam Pomfrey nodded. "Of course. I should've guessed… who else but her?"
She performed a routine examination with her wand, then suddenly froze for a moment.
"Step back, Wade! This wolf might not be ordinary."
As she spoke, she pointed her wand at the wolf cub. Blue-white light streamed from the tip and completely enveloped him.
After a moment, the glow faded. The wolf remained unchanged, though he frowned even in his sleep, as if deeply uncomfortable.
"He's not an Animagus, Madam," Wade said.
Madam Pomfrey frowned. "But the magical energy in his body is far beyond what a normal wolf would have."
"He's a werewolf's child," Wade explained. "He said his father is a werewolf—and this kid can talk."
"Well, that explains it. Is it that family in the Forbidden Forest?" Madam Pomfrey said knowingly.
"You all know about them?" Wade asked, surprised.
"Of course," Madam Pomfrey replied with a smile. "Spend enough time at this school, and you'll learn a little bit of every secret."
"What's the story?" Wade asked, his ash-gray eyes filled with curiosity.
An elder like Madam Pomfrey, brimming with real history, could hardly resist when a younger person showed that classic "tell me a story" look. As she continued tending to the wolf's wounds, she began to speak:
"Many years ago, two werewolves mated in their wolf forms during a full moon. They gave birth to a litter of true wolf pups—extremely intelligent, and beautiful.
Though they had the appearance of wolves, they possessed human hearts. With Dumbledore's permission, they were secretly allowed to live in the Forbidden Forest."
"Two werewolves?" Wade asked in confusion. "But that kid only said his father was a werewolf."
"That was a long time ago. This little one should be third-generation. His mother must have found another werewolf," Madam Pomfrey said with a sigh of sympathy. "I must say, that's not a very wise decision… Poor child."
"Poor?" Wade echoed.
"The mother wolf should have mated with a normal wolf," Madam Pomfrey said. "The stronger the human bloodline in their offspring, the more intelligent they become… But with such a body, the smarter they are, the more they suffer…"
Wade fell silent.
It didn't take Madam Pomfrey long to finish treating the wounds. She turned to Wade and said:
"Noberta's claws and teeth are venomous. This little one needs to stay here overnight. Tomorrow morning, you'll take him back to the Forbidden Forest."
"Understood, Madam," Wade replied, glancing at the sleeping young wolf. "I'll come back in the morning."
…
The eagle-shaped door knocker gave a pleasant and gentle riddle:
[I never speak, yet I answer all questions;
I never move, yet I can take you anywhere;
I never think, yet I can give you wisdom. What am I?]
"A book," Wade answered.
"Correct," the door responded, opening for him.
Wade entered the Ravenclaw common room and immediately saw Michael and several other students who had been to the Forbidden Forest, surrounded by an eager crowd.
Everyone was enthusiastically listening to their "adventure" from earlier that evening, bombarding them with questions.
"Was she really sixty feet long?" a girl asked, both curious and frightened.
"At least," Michael said seriously. "I think maybe even taller. I was looking up from the ground—you know, eyeballing it like that isn't exactly accurate."
"Weren't you scared? That kind of giant beast… If it were me, I'd be scared to death," a younger boy with glasses asked timidly.
"I was scared at first," Michael admitted honestly. "But when Noberta lowered her head and let me touch her neck… I don't know, it was really moving. Can you imagine that kind of feeling?"
A chorus of wistful sighs rose around the fireplace.
"I want to touch a fire dragon too… It's a shame I'm not one of Professor Hagrid's favorite students," someone said regretfully.
"Actually, before we left, Professor Hagrid gave us an assignment."
Michael put on the look of someone about to share a secret and lowered his voice: "If anyone writes an essay to show the professor how much they love dragons, maybe next time he'll bring them along to the Forbidden Forest too…"
Wade shook his head, stepped around the group, and headed upstairs.
He knew Michael wasn't trying to trick others into doing his homework—he just genuinely didn't want to be the only one suffering through it.
Michael hadn't even finished speaking when many students scoffed and dispersed. But a few remained, ready to take on the challenge of this extra essay assignment.
…
Wade returned to his dormitory, tidied up a bit, and then spent some time in his wardrobe space.
The initial remodeling of the space was already complete. A series of connected white functional rooms—bathroom, bedroom, dining area, alchemy lab, potion room, storage—were arranged in an orderly fashion, almost fully meeting all of Wade's needs.
Because of this, he rarely went to the Room of Requirement anymore. It wasn't as convenient as his wardrobe space, and it was farther away. It also happened to be close to Dumbledore's office tower, with a portrait that watched everything all the time.
Although Wade had no real complaints about Dumbledore or Barnabas now, he much preferred the feeling of having a completely private space of his own.
When he emerged from the wardrobe space, it was already late. The communication bean on his desk was glowing faintly.
Wade put it in his ear and gently pressed it.
"Hey, Wade?" came the voice of his father, Fred, from the communication bean. "Still awake this late?"
"You too," Wade said with a smile he couldn't hold back. "Still reading documents at this hour?"
"…Just one more left, I'll be done soon," Fred replied. "Wade, we've got a lead on the person you were looking for."
Wade blinked. "…Huh?"
"'Huh?'" Fred mimicked his tone with surprise. "Don't tell me you've forgotten what you asked me about before? Lycanthropy, a scientist—ring any bells?"
Wade was silent for a moment before he remembered that long-ago request.
A werewolf named Claire had once given Wade a blood sample, hoping he could help find a cure for lycanthropy. Wade had anonymously sent the sample to a university lab, hoping for analysis.
Unfortunately, the results had been inconclusive. Later events made him realize that entrusting such things to strangers was quite risky—there were more Muggles with knowledge of the wizarding world than he had expected.
So, he had stopped purchasing samples from Claire. In his spare time, he had mentioned to his father the idea of finding a specialized expert and setting up a private lab to study lycanthropy.
At the time, it was more of an offhand remark, like a Christmas wish—not something he had high hopes for.
After all, putting together a private lab wasn't just expensive; the real issue was that brilliant and trustworthy scientists weren't exactly growing on trees. You couldn't just find one whenever you felt like it.
At the time, Wade had been envious of a certain shrunken detective—after all, that guy lived next door to a magical, all-capable like a certain robot-cat grandpa who could make any fantastical idea come true. Later on, he even gained a genius girl companion who could create youth-restoring potions.
He never expected that Fred would actually go looking, let alone that—after all this time—he would actually find someone like that.
His father's gentle voice came through the earpiece:
"Just like you said, this person has deep expertise in genomics, evolutionary biology, and bioinformatics. I don't really understand the academic details, but I asked around, and everyone I spoke to had high praise for him—he was once a top scientist in the field."
"…That honestly sounds like you've been scammed," Wade said with a frown. "How could someone like that just fall into our laps?"
"Because he's sick, Wade."
Fred explained patiently:
"He had a stroke. A bad one. I went to see him. He's semi-conscious, paralyzed, and unable to speak. He lives in a care facility, and hasn't had any visitors in over three months. Word is, he won't live much longer—not even his children care anymore."
"So we bring him back, and first we have to heal him," Wade sighed, lying on his bed. "But Dad, I don't know if someone that close to death can be healed with magic."
"We can try. If it doesn't work, we move on." Fred said, "Wade, strong, brilliant, loyal, and knowledgeable—these qualities rarely exist in the same person. And if they do, you can't expect them to be easily available to you."
"I understand, Dad," Wade said with a smile. "It must've taken a lot of effort to find him… thank you."
"I'm just glad it might help you," Fred said with warmth. "We were lucky."
"Lucky, huh…"
Wade instinctively turned his head to glance at something.
On his desk sat a miniature Cthulhu-themed aquarium he had crafted himself. Inside, magically conjured little fish swam around tirelessly, day and night.
He chuckled softly. "...Yeah. We really were."
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⭐Harry Potter: Becoming a Study God (HP:BSG)- +235 Chapters
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