Hermione drew up the curtains and hid in the small private space. She dipped the quill into ink and wrote a line in the diary.

"I'm Hermione. Harry told me about the letter you wrote to him."

Then, she stared at the diary with her big eyes, waiting for Cyrus to respond.

Cyrus was still searching for the manuscripts that might have been left by Lily Potter in Godric's Hollow. Suddenly, these words popped into his mind, and he immediately perked up.

During the summer vacation, he wrote a letter to Harry, telling him that the diary could actually be used to contact him, and asked Harry to tell him through the diary if he heard any prophecies about him.

Now there was a response from the diary. Could it be that there was progress in the prophecy? He calmed down and responded: "Good evening Hermione, where's Harry?"

Where's Harry? Hermione's eyes widened with anger, and she wanted to tear up the diary on the spot.

I finally borrowed the diary from Ginny, and the first thing you asked was, "Where's Harry?" What's wrong? Are you not going to answer me without Harry?

She wanted to rush to the Gryffindor boys' dormitory, open Harry's curtains and twist off his skull, then tell Cyrus: Harry is dead, you picked it! Oh, and it would be best if Ginny came along, so that the two of them could bury Harry in Hagrid's pumpkin patch together!

She was so angry that it took five minutes before she responded.

"No Harry, only me! What, you only talk to Harry?!"

When Cyrus on the other side saw this line of text, he realized something was wrong.

"Such a heavy resentment..."

A brown kitten with fluffy hair, a puffy mouth and a sulky face appeared in Cyrus' mind, so much so that he even suspected that the pen of the little witch opposite was about to pierce the diary.

Cyrus felt bad, very bad.

It seemed that Hermione was extremely resentful, and she seemed to be looking for an explanation.

Of course, Cyrus also knew that he was a little bit unkind. After leaving Azkaban, he had not contacted anyone except Harry.

In fact, Ginny wrote a lot of things in the diary during this period. Although she didn't know that Cyrus could see the contents of the diary, she still showed her inner thoughts to Cyrus without reservation.

But Cyrus read all of them and didn't reply.

He doesn't have that much time to play house with the little girl.

But now, Cyrus needs to use his intelligence to try to smooth out the kitten's standing hair: "Because I trust you, Hermione. You are different from Harry, you are very smart. You are the only one who guessed my plan before, aren't you?"

"I'm sure you'll be fine. Harry and Ron wouldn't survive more than two hours without you!"

Hermione, who was lying on the bed with her butt sticking up, read these words and immediately wagged her tail proudly.

Mr. Sellers, he has some vision! But -

Hermione's face changed again.

If you think I will forgive you because of this, you are totally wrong!

The writing in the diary continues.

"I believe you will handle everything, Hermione. But Harry is different. You can see that he is in trouble almost every semester. I thought he had encountered something again this time."

Cyrus praised Hermione first, and then excused himself. But the effect of this move did not seem to be so good. After a moment, he saw Hermione's short reply: "Really? Then what does this have to do with you only writing letters to Harry and giving him birthday presents? You didn't write to me on my birthday."

This sentence was like a riverbank full of resentment that was opened up to vent. In an instant, all kinds of complaints rushed out at once! "You don't write to me!"

"Don't write to Ginny either. If it weren't for Harry, I wouldn't even know I could contact you this way!"

"Do you know how worried we were during this period? Ginny tried to plead with Dumbledore every day and wrote many letters to the Ministry of Magic. She was not happy until she saw you escape from prison."

"But I'm still worried because of the pursuit by the Ministry of Magic and those Dementors..."

As Hermione wrote, she felt wronged and shed tears. Big tears fell on the diary, but did not wet the book. The tears were absorbed by the diary.

She barely mentioned herself, but kept talking about how worried Ginny was, but in fact she was just as scared as Ginny was, especially after seeing those Dementors with her own eyes, those monsters were so scary!

Cyrus' mind was filled with the salty feeling of tears.

He was a little overwhelmed, but felt very warm in his heart.

At Hogwarts, he had friends who cared about him, even if he had tried to deceive them.

"Don't worry Hermione, I'm fine now. Dementors are just a few broken toys to me. No one can do anything to me except Dumbledore. And it just so happens that there is a tacit understanding between Dumbledore and me now. He is not so anxious to send me to Azkaban. I think you must have contributed to this."

After seeing Cyrus' reply, Hermione slowly calmed down. Just as she was about to continue writing, her roommate suddenly opened her curtains, scaring her so much that she quickly pressed the diary under her.

"Hermione, are you okay, I heard you...crying?"

"I'm fine, I'm fine, really." Hermione quickly reached out to wipe away her tears and forced a smile.

After venting her emotions, she wasn't actually that sad now, but it was still a little difficult for her to change her expression immediately.

"Come on Hermione, we all know Ron is a bit of a jerk," her roommate said.

They thought Hermione was sad for Ron. Ron and Hermione had been arguing all day long because of their pets.

"It's nothing to do with Ron, but... I'm fine, thank you," Hermione said softly.

She sent her roommate away before continuing to look at her diary, where a new paragraph of text had already appeared.

"How about you? It's not easy to take so many courses, is it? In fact, you can give up some courses appropriately. For example, Divination class is really unnecessary for you. You can continue to take Muggle Studies class. From the perspective of wizards, I think it is necessary to look at Muggles.

"You will find the arrogance of wizards, their short-sightedness, and that most of them do not understand Muggles and are unwilling to understand Muggles. In fact, Muggles are becoming increasingly powerful. If you plan to become the Minister of Magic in the future, I think you need to think about the relationship between the wizarding world and the Muggle world. I think you can be a bridge."

Hermione was stunned.

There was too much information in these two paragraphs, and she didn't know how to answer for a moment.

Mainly because the word "Minister of Magic" shocked her too much.

This is like the Prime Minister of the Muggle world, and she herself is just a third-year student, distracted by her studies, does she have the ability to think about such things? "I can't be the Minister of Magic, Mr. Sellers. Have you forgotten that Malfoy called me a 'mudblood' last year? Most of the Slytherins see me that way. And it happens that they have power and advantage in the wizarding world."

"That's hard to say. It's obviously incorrect to determine superiority by bloodline. And this outdated idea will be discarded sooner or later like rotten meat." Cyrus replied, "I hope you can look at wizards and Muggles from two perspectives and think about the relationship between them. If you haven't forgotten how Harry and Ron came to school last school year, you will know that magic and science are not completely mutually exclusive."

Of course he knew that Hermione would become the Minister of Magic in the future, and this identity would actually be useful to Cyrus.

In fact, Cyrus has been thinking about the future. When he becomes the leader of the magic world one day, will he let the wizards hide? Cyrus does not desire war, and in fact does not like blood and killing, but he plans to break the Statute of Secrecy.

The law of secrecy is like a piece of gauze, which was originally used to bandage the bloody wounds of wizards. But over time, this piece of gauze has been connected to the flesh and blood of the wizard's wound. While the scar has not yet completely healed, the wizard must remove it himself!

Even if it would bring bloody pain when it was opened! Otherwise, by the time the wound was completely healed, the gauze would have grown into the flesh, and it would be too late.

Of course, breaking the Statute of Secrecy is not an easy task. It is tantamount to going against the entire wizarding world. The Ministry of Magic around the world will stand against Cyrus. More than half a century ago, a loser was imprisoned in Nurmengard.

"Okay, let's not think that far ahead. What about recently? Is there anything troubling you?"

"Too much! Too much!" said Hermione immediately.

"Studying 12 subjects is too tiring. I don't know how I can stick to it. I feel like Divination is bullshit! But you told Harry that Professor Trelawney is a real prophet, so I'm not so willing to give up. And Harry, Ron insists that Harry has encountered bad luck. Hagrid is also a troublesome thing..."

Hermione complained bitterly.

Cyrus could understand Hermione's pain during this period from the text. The heavy workload made her mentally strained, and the conflicts with her friends almost made her collapse.

"Trelawney does have some gift for prophecy, but you won't learn much from her. Prophecy requires 'third eye', which is a talent, just like Parseltongue. I think you will lose nothing by giving up this course. Neither I nor Dumbledore have the gift of prophecy," he consoled.

"As for the unknown - Hermione, you need to remind Harry and Ron and tell him to not forget what I told him before. Sometimes a seemingly dangerous omen may be the exact opposite. Things that are kept together day and night will reveal their fangs."

"But if you know something, why don't you just tell us?" Hermione asked the fatal question.

Cyrus was silent.

He suddenly felt that what Hermione said made sense.

"Well, Hermione, I think you're right, but it's a long story."

Cyrus thought about it and decided to tell the truth.

Dumbledore obviously had his own ideas. He knew that Peter Pettigrew was the traitor. However, after reminding Harry and Hermione, he did nothing and let Peter escape.

This was obviously intentional, Dumbledore needed a servant by Voldemort's side who could help Voldemort resurrect.

If he is not alive, how can he be really killed? It is not a wise thing for Cyrus to break Dumbledore's layout. Dumbledore is in charge of the overall situation. Except for a few small mistakes, he can make everything go in the direction he wants.

All this is also beneficial to Cyrus. As long as the plot can develop according to the original work, Dumbledore and Voldemort will die, and no one can restrain him anymore.

But Dumbledore was cold and heartless.

He treats everyone as a chess piece, and as long as he can win in the end, he doesn't mind how much the chess piece suffers, and he doesn't even mind sacrificing the chess piece.

But Harry is not a pawn without feelings and no pain, he is a good boy. And Sirius has also helped Cyrus, they are both good people, at least they deserve to live a happy life.

"You can speak slowly."

"Sirius Black is actually innocent."

Hermione had prepared to listen slowly, but Cyrus' words made her fall silent. He was like throwing a bomb into a calm lake and detonating it!

Although Hermione didn't understand the connection between Sirius and ominousness, it was enough to surprise her.

"But that's impossible. I heard that he killed many people, and there are many people who can testify--" Hermione retorted subconsciously.

"That's true, but sometimes what you see with your eyes and hear with your ears may not be the truth." Cyrus explained slowly, "Sirius is innocent. The real guilty person is Peter Pettigrew. He betrayed Harry's parents and became Voldemort's lackey. It was because of his betrayal that Harry's parents were killed."

Hermione stared blankly at the words appearing in the diary, not knowing how to respond.

Cyrus explained the truth of that year to her word by word:

He talked about the Marauders who had been inseparable during their school days, about James Potter and Sirius being like brothers, about James making Sirius Harry's godfather, about Voldemort's determination to kill the child of the prophecy, about them exchanging the identities of the secret-keepers...

"In the end, Peter Pettigrew blew up a street and killed more than a dozen people, and Sirius was willing to go to prison and voluntarily accept the punishment he thought he 'deserved'."

Cyrus brought this old story to a close.

Hermione didn't respond to him for a long time. Her mind was full of complicated thoughts. If what Mr. Sellers said was true - no, since it was said by Mr. Sellers himself, it couldn't be false - how should she tell Harry the truth about all this? At the same time, she also had another question.

"You said Sirius Black went to Azkaban voluntarily, so why has he escaped now?"

"It's because he discovered that Peter Pettigrew is still alive."

"What? How is this possible?" Hermione almost shouted, crouching down and writing quickly, "But you said he used magic to blow himself up, and only one finger was left at the scene."

"Yes, that's what they saw back then, but I also said that what you see with your eyes is not necessarily the truth, right? Peter Pettigrew just faked his death. He cast a spell to confuse people and cut off one of his fingers. Then he turned into a rat in the explosion and hid in the sewer to escape.

"He didn't dare to show up because the information he provided led to Voldemort's 'death' and many Death Eaters wanted to kill him. During the summer vacation, Ron's family won a lottery and the incident was reported in the news. Sirius saw their family photo. Do you remember what I just told you about Peter Pettigrew's Animagus form?"

"Rat, you mean Scabbers..." Hermione opened her mouth blankly, and the image of the mouse with dry yellow hair appeared in her mind. Yes, it was missing a finger.

"How else can a mouse live for 12 years? Think about it, after Sirius escaped from prison, has Scabbers always been uneasy?"

Hermione felt like she was falling into an ice cellar, and her whole body was cold. Such a terrible dark wizard had been lurking around them for so long, and they were completely unaware of it. If he wanted, he could even kill Harry at any time.

"I'll catch him right away!"

"Wait, don't be impatient." Cyrus stopped her.

"There is no rush tonight. Peter Pettigrew would not dare to act rashly. Let's wait until tomorrow. You can find a few more professors. If he gets away, it will be difficult for Sirius to overturn the case. You can find Lupin and McGonagall. They will listen to what you say patiently."

Hermione nodded heavily. Now she knew that the so-called ominous person was actually Sirius himself.

"But this story is so long, I don't know how to tell Harry," she said in a daze.

"You don't need to tell me. After this incident, the person who killed his parents will be punished, and he will have another family. Is there a better ending than this?"

Hermione felt a little relieved and said, "I didn't expect Scabbers to be Peter Pettigrew. No wonder it keeps staring at him. I knew my Crookshanks is the smartest!"

"That being said, Hermione, I think you should still apologize to Ron about this matter." Cyrus reminded, "You now know Pettigrew's identity, but I think you really didn't take Crookshanks's treatment of Scabbers to heart before, right?"

"But what Crookshanks did was a good thing." Hermione was a little unconvinced.

"But this is based on the premise that Scabbers is Peter Pettigrew. You didn't know this before, right? What if Scabbers was just an ordinary mouse?" Cyrus said slowly.

"What if it was just an ordinary mouse, but Crookshanks killed it? Although we all know that this is the habit of cats, Scabbers has been in Ron's house for so many years. We should take our friend's feelings into consideration, right?"

"But……"

"You're a good boy, Hermione. Go and apologize to Ron. Not for Peter Pettigrew, but for Scabbers."

"I see, Mr. Sellers, you are right."

After that, Cyrus talked to Hermione about some other things, such as what he had experienced recently, how he escaped from the Dementors, and what it was like inside the Ministry of Magic.

He made Hermione laugh so hard that she had to bury her face in the quilt to ensure that she didn't make too much strange noise.

Her roommates thought Hermione couldn't help crying again, and they all decided to scold Ron the next day!

Of course, when chatting with Hermione, learning is absolutely indispensable. She asked a series of questions in one breath, almost turning into a hundred thousand whys.

Cyrus answered them all for her.

Hermione didn't sleep at all that night.

Eventually, their conversation ended with Cyrus promising to write to each of them at Christmas.

Hermione was satisfied, and then she was late for the first time.

She was absent from the entire morning's classes.

Of course, the professors knew that she was tired, and this was common among similar students in previous years, so no one blamed her.

Thanks to the 1500-point reward from It’s Really Troublesome to Name Something, the 100-point reward from book friend 20220102004628662, and the 100-point reward from Kopcn. Thank you, boss!!!

(End of this chapter)