Inside the Muggle train carriage, the scenery beyond the windows slowly unfolded like a painting, verdant mountains and golden wheat fields spreading before their eyes in one beautiful scene after another.
Yet the atmosphere inside the carriage was like frozen air, extraordinarily tense.
Wormtail tightly cradled Voldemort, who had just finished his liquid meal. Both keenly sensed the strange looks the surrounding Muggles cast their way, as though those gazes could pierce their disguises and see their true identities.
Voldemort's eyes were cold as frost, and a hint of helplessness tugged at his lips.
"My friend, can't you behave a little more normally? Constantly sneaking shifty looks around makes it very hard not to attract these lowly Muggles' attention."
His voice was low and full of authority, yet it could not conceal a trace of weariness.
Although Voldemort had thought Wormtail was growing cleverer, coming up with the idea of using Muggle transport as cover to mingle with Muggles and reach their destination unnoticed.
He had even deliberately dressed himself to better suit Muggle tastes and concocted a perfect persona-a middle-aged man who had spent his entire fortune on treatment for his deformed child.
When the railway police questioned him three or four times along the way, he used that excuse to get through it every time.
Yet those shifty little eyes, constantly peeking around, always made him seem out of place, like an unwelcome visitor ready to steal a child at any moment.
The air in the carriage seemed to have frozen. The whispers of the surrounding Muggles and the occasional curious glances they cast over made the journey feel exceptionally long.
The prolonged ordeal also gave Voldemort, now full, some different thoughts. He silently pondered Wormtail's unusual behavior, unease rising within him.
Ever since they had decided to