The wind blew from the direction of the Forbidden Forest, pressing the grass blades flat on the ground.
The grass undulated like a deep green lake ruffled by the wind. Occasionally, one or two beetles that roosted at night would crawl out from under the grass roots and then hurriedly scurry back inside.
Dumbledore hovered in mid-air, his silver beard billowing to one side in the wind, his blue eyes behind his Half-moon Spectacles scanning the ground below inch by inch.
Only he himself knew that he was completely incapable of finding Peter.
What he just said was half true and half false.
It really is true, "I know you're here"—the name on the Marauder's Map is definitely real.
Peter Pettigrew had indeed been with Ron for twelve years, and if he were to run away, the area outside Hogwarts would be his most likely escape route.
The false statement was "I am about to begin using deeper search magic," because Dumbledore knew better than anyone that he did not have the means to precisely locate an Animagus.
Animagus Transformation is an extremely sophisticated form of magic; when a wizard transforms into an animal, his magical essence is covered by the animal's body.
It's like pouring a whole bottle of ink into a glass of water; you can no longer see the original shape of the water.
If Peter were a dog or a deer, things would be easier, because large animals have a wider range of movement and leave more traces, Dumbledore could use a tracking charm to follow.
But Peter chose a mouse, a grayish mouse weighing less than half a pound, which could disappear into the grass or squeeze into a crack in the rocks without leaving a trace.
The only way to possibly distinguish Animagus from ordinary animals is through Legilimency.
Dumbledore did indeed have this thought when he stood at the edge of the Forbidden Forest.
He closed his eyes and spread his mental energy out like a net, covering the grass below and an area of about several tens of meters around the Forbidden Forest.
His Legilimency is extremely precise; if he concentrates on a single object, he can even discern what that person ate in the morning or what they dreamed about last night.
The problem is that there are too many objects.
The Forbidden Forest is the largest wildlife habitat in the Hogwarts area.
Mice, squirrels, rabbits, hedgehogs, all kinds of birds, all kinds of insects, and even a few wild cats and a fox that appeared out of nowhere.
After Dumbledore's Legilimency was deployed, he felt as if he were in a crowded square trying to identify the heartbeat of one person.
Hundreds and thousands of faint, animalistic minds were within his perception range, each lacking complex thought processes.
This widespread, shallow Legilimency is so pervasive that it's impossible to discern which of them still harbors the soul of a forty-year-old man.
Unless he were to cast a spell on each rat individually, but the number of rats in the Forbidden Forest was countless, neither the time nor his energy supported him in doing so.
Dumbledore was silent for a few seconds, then looked deeply at the ground.
He raised his wand again, the tip drawing a slow arc across the ground.
" Revelio."
A pale golden light emerged from the tip of the staff, spreading outwards along the ground like a pool of gold dust poured onto water, seeping into the depths of the grass through the gaps between the blades.
The light swept across blades of grass, across cracks in the rocks, across every footprint in the soil, then gradually dimmed and finally disappeared completely.
Nothing happened.
Dumbledore knew this would be the outcome, but he tried anyway.
This is the last Anti-Animagus Spell that can be cast without touching the target.
Its effect is extremely weak, only reacting to Animagus who has just transformed and whose magic has not yet completely subsided.
If Peter had just transformed into a mouse, this spell might have caused him to radiate a golden light.
But almost twenty minutes have passed since Peter ran out of the dormitory. Even if you picked him up now and put him in the sun to look at him over and over, you wouldn't be able to see any flaws with the naked eye.
Dumbledore put his wand back into his sleeve, hovered in mid-air, and took one last look at the quiet ground.
The moonlight shone on his face, clearly illuminating his expression, which was calm yet tinged with weariness.
He knew very well that Peter was most likely somewhere in the grass beneath his feet.
But he couldn't catch Peter; he had no clear target. Legilimency was like a bow without a target.
He couldn't possibly drag out and inspect every single mouse in a patch of grass just because one person was hiding there.
Furthermore, he couldn't possibly unleash a wide-area search spell over the entire Forbidden Forest.
Let's not even talk about the fact that a large-scale search is likely to have almost no effect.
You should know that the Forbidden Forest is a habitat for Magical Creatures, including centaurs, unicorns, distant relatives of Acromantula, and all sorts of other species whose names you don't know that have lived there for thousands of years.
Those creatures are extremely sensitive to magic. If you use a wide-range search spell to sweep through them, you might not necessarily Peter, but you will definitely see a dozen or so angry centaurs rushing out of the forest with bows and arrows, demanding to know why you used a spell to sweep through their territory.
Dumbledore landed back on the ground and straightened the hem of his robe.
He glanced at the patch of grass again, sighed deeply, then turned and walked back towards Hogwarts Castle.
Peter crouched in the dirt under the stone, listening to the footsteps fade into the distance.
His heart was still pounding; ever since Dumbledore uttered the name " Peter Pettigrew," his heartbeat had never been normal.
For the past few minutes, his mind was almost blank, his instincts as a mouse and his thoughts as a wizard were intertwined.
Only when the footsteps completely disappeared into the distance did he finally dare to stick his head out from under the rock.
Moonlight shone down from the edge of the stone, casting a thin, elongated patch of light on the ground in front of him.
His beard twitched, he inhaled the cool night air, and then slowly crawled out from under the rock.
His four legs were still weak, and every step he took on the mud felt like walking on cotton.
He turned his head and looked towards the Forbidden Forest.
The dark forest was not far ahead, its canopy forming a deep black silhouette in the moonlight, the outline of the trunks resembling a row of silent sentinels.
Once he runs in, once he disappears into that forest, he can vanish completely.
The Forbidden Forest is so big, it could harbor tens of thousands of rats.
Even if Dumbledore brought the entire Order of the Phoenix to search the mountain, they would never find him.
He instinctively wanted to take a step forward, but before he could even muster the strength, a thought suddenly flashed through his mind, like a nail driven into the very moment he was about to take that step.
Dumbledore really left?