A few days ago.

Number 12, Grimmauld Place, the Black family home.

Sirius was lazily lying on the sofa, looking idle, with his black curly hair casually scattered.

Compared with more than a month ago, he was in much better condition, with a little more flesh on his face. He finally no longer looked like a skeleton just dug out of a grave, but a somewhat thin normal person.

His feet were on an elegant and simple coffee table. Every once in a while, Sirius would glance at a palm-sized piece of paper. In addition to some simple lines, there were dense black dots on it. The few names written in golden ink occasionally moved.

This state lasted until noon. When the house-elf Kreacher dragged his body out, Sirius's eyes rolled.

Kreacher was holding a dirty rag in his hand. It was hard to say which one was cleaner, this rag or the rag he was wearing. Maybe this rag was his worn-out clothes?

Sirius was thinking in a trance. At this time, Kreacher slowly moved to his side step by step. Sirius glanced at him from the corner of his eye, watching him jump onto the coffee table, holding up a rag and muttering: "I don't know where the prodigal son learned this bad habit, just put his feet on it. The hostess usually likes to drink tea here, and has entertained many equally noble guests..."

"Kreacher, your feet are dirtier than my shoes!" Sirius roared angrily.

"...carrying so many precious memories, if the hostess knew, she would be so sad..."

Sirius' eyebrows jumped wildly, and the elegance between his eyebrows disappeared. He jumped up, holding the cloth strip behind the house-elf's neck - let's call it the back collar, and prepared to throw him out.

Kreacher did not resist, but kept on chattering, "He is incomparable to his brother, who really takes responsibility--"

"Are you talking about Regulus?" Sirius paused and said, "He is an idiot. I always thought he was smart enough to protect himself...but in the end, he ran to join the Death Eaters!"

"Master Regulus is not an idiot!" Kreacher struggled violently, his body swaying, looking like a clockwork toy, "He is ten thousand times better than you, he joined the Death Eaters in your place..."

"What did you say?" Sirius glared, lifted Kreacher up to his level, "Speak clearly--"

But Kreacher kept struggling, his nose and tears were a mess, and Sirius threw him on the sofa with disgust.

"I tell you, Kreacher! He is an admirer of Voldemort, always has been. Do you know why everyone in the family likes him more? Because he has become the noble Black they hoped for..."

"I even wrote him a letter, asking him to stay away from Voldemort and hide away. But what happened? He joined the Death Eaters as soon as he graduated. My parents must be so happy that they have finally washed away this stain on me. They can tell the outside world that a brave little hero has emerged from their family, right?"

Kreacher lay on the ground, sobbing softly, spewing a string of profanity from his mouth, "...shameless, making friends with Muggles...dirty, cowardly, stinky..." Sirius

said angrily, "Stinky? Then I'll let you try the Muggle method. To be honest, I've wanted to do this for a long time."

He carried Kreacher to the bathroom on the second floor, threw him into the bathtub, and carefully turned on the faucet with a little snake pattern. "It's so dirty. I've been in Azkaban for twelve years and I'm never as outrageous as you!"

Kreacher was held down by Sirius. After washing from head to toe, he also used his magic wand to conjure a brush and kept scrubbing, even cleaning the dirt in the wrinkles of Kreacher's bald scalp. He said triumphantly: "You should be satisfied now, right? I, your master, serve you..."

A minute later, he began to regret it. The water in the bathtub was like a dozen bottles of ink poured into it, and it also emitted bursts of foul smell. "Ugh~" He couldn't help but feel nauseous and raised Kreacher's hand in disbelief: "You have been using this thing to cook for me these days?"

Sirius opened the plug of the bathtub and let the water flow. Half an hour passed -

Kreacher sat on the sofa cleanly, his skin was pink and tender, and even the hair in his bat-like ears was white and fluffy like cotton wool. He seemed very uncomfortable and stared at his toes.

Sirius came out of the bathroom. He also took a bath for himself, otherwise he would have a strange smell on his body.

He looked at the taciturn Kreacher with satisfaction, lying comfortably on the sofa reading comics, which were given to him by the guy called "Felix Hep" to help him kill time. He picked out the ugliest one and gave it to Kreacher along with a bunch of Easter chocolate eggs.

The afternoon was pleasant enough, and even the air was a lot fresher. He stayed there until the afternoon, and walked out of the Black mansion on time and came to an activity room in the Grimmauld Place community.

"Hey, young man, you're here again today?" said a skinny old man.

"Yeah," Sirius said casually, and he put some chess pieces in place, "I go first?"

"Then you should choose the white chess piece," said the old man.

"Does it matter?" Sirius held a black knight in his hand, and he muttered, "It would be nice if this chess piece could move."

The old man laughed heartily, "You are so funny... But no!"

The two played two games, both of which ended with Sirius losing. In the third game, he kept scratching his chin and thinking hard, "I remember it wasn't so difficult. When Remus and I played, we could move sixty or seventy steps..."

An old woman carrying a cloth bag walked into the activity room, looked around, came over and grabbed the old man's ear, "Your son and daughter-in-law are back, why are you still playing chess here?"

"Finish this game, finish this game--" the old man begged for mercy.

So the old woman sat next to them and watched them play chess. The old man frowned. At this moment, it had reached a critical stage. The two were fighting hard. The old woman watched coldly and suddenly said, "Old man, move your queen."

"Yes." In Sirius's stunned expression, the old man used his white queen to eat Sirius' black knight.

"This is unfair!" Sirius said, "You two against me alone!"

The old woman curled her lips, "You can ignore him, I taught him." However, she stopped talking, but the situation was irreversible. Sirius watched himself being killed.

The old man broke up the chessboard, "This game doesn't count, let's play later." He took the old woman away.

"Did your son have a quarrel with the family next door?"

"No, he also gave a gift. What's the word? Turn over a new leaf... They haven't played the stereo in the middle of the night in the past six months. If you don't believe me, I still listened to the advice of a young man and handed over a card. Like the young man just now, they all have black hair..."

At the same time, in a gloomy and dilapidated inn,

a sharp voice whispered, his voice was as cold as the cold wind: "Go, Barty, inform Peter... bring Harry Potter to me, I want him alive."

"Yes, my master! I am willing to give my life for you!" said little Barty Crouch with messy light yellow hair fanatically.

"No, my dear Barty," said the voice behind the chair, "you must remember that this is just a dangerous attempt - under Dumbledore's nose, you must first protect yourself."