Scrimgeour's brow was furrowed, and the tip of his wand drooped slightly, but he hadn't completely put it away.
The Auror behind him exchanged glances. One of the younger Auror subtly lowered his wand a few inches, then, realizing something was amiss, raised it back up.
Fudge tossed his top hat back and forth between his hands, his lips moving twice. "Then... where is Peter now?"
"He got away," Black said decisively. "As soon as the Dementor surrounded him, he slipped away, turned back into a rat, and hid under a tree root. Nobody could find him."
" The Forbidden Forest is so vast; if he's determined to hide, we might search the entire forest and still not be able to find him."
Fudge's face turned very pale.
He opened his mouth as if to say something, but swallowed the words back and turned his gaze to Scrimgeour instead.
Scrimgeour did not respond immediately.
He stood there, his brown eyes fixed on Black for a long while.
The Auror behind him did the same; although they stopped pressing their wands forward after Dumbledore spoke, none of them put their wands back in their sleeves.
Harry stood at the edge of the clearing watching this scene, and suddenly realized what they were hesitating about.
If what Black said is true, then the Ministry of Magic arrested the wrong person and imprisoned him for twelve years, while the murderer went free for twelve years.
But what Black said was just his own account; Peter had already run away, so there was no way to confront him.
If the Ministry of Magic accepts Black's case, it's tantamount to admitting they made a mistake back then, which would be even more embarrassing than the Lockhart incident.
But if the Ministry of Magic doesn't acknowledge it, and Black is telling the truth, then the responsibility will be even harder to bear.
The Auror were stuck in the middle, unable to move forward or backward.
Black seemed to have realized this as well.
He sat on the broken log, his gray eyes moving from Scrimgeour's face to Fudge 'Fudge, then to the Auror holding wands, and finally slowly raised his own hands.
"I won't run," he said calmly. "You can take me back and lock me up, interrogate me however you want."
He paused for a moment.
"But you have to find Peter. He's in the Forbidden Forest. If you're quick enough, you might be able to seal Forbidden Forest off before dawn."
Scrimgeour stared at his raised hands for several seconds, then slowly nodded.
He turned and glanced at Dumbledore.
Dumbledore nodded slightly, a very small gesture, but the meaning was clear.
Scrimgeour then put his wand back into his sleeve and waved to the Auror behind him. "Take him with you, and be careful."
When the Auror surrounded him, their movements were indeed much gentler than before. Although they still held their wands in their hands, none of them pointed the tip of their wands at Black's nose again.
Fudge finally pulled the hat back up on his head, wiped his forehead with his hand, and the beetle was still firmly attached to the fabric of his collar, its wings folded tightly.
Harry watched as Black was lifted up by two Auror, one on each side. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but Professor McGonagall walked over and placed a hand on his shoulder.
" Potter, you three come back with me."
Her voice wasn't harsh, but it left no room for negotiation.
Ron muttered something under his breath next to Harry, Hermione nudged him with her elbow, causing Ron to swallow the rest of his words.
On the way to the castle, Professor McGonagall walked in front, followed by Harry, his two friends, and Snape.
The black robe cast a long shadow in the moonlight. His steps were unhurried, but every few steps he would let out a very soft, cold snort from his nose. Harry had learned to ignore that sound.
When she reached the side entrance of the castle, Professor McGonagall stopped and turned around.
" Gryffindor -150 points."
Ron's mouth opened.
"Fifty points each." Professor McGonagall's gaze swept across the three faces in turn.
"Leaving the common room in the middle of the night and trespassing onto the edge of the Forbidden Forest. This punishment isn't severe; you should be thankful nothing serious happened tonight."
Ron closed his mouth again.
Hermione looked down at the tips of her shoes, and Harry looked away as well.
That night, Harry tossed and turned in bed, unable to sleep, his mind filled with the image of Black sitting on that piece of wood, talking.
The matter of the Forbidden Forest seems to have come to an end just like that...
But... is it really over?
The next morning, the atmosphere in the Great Hall was more than twice as lively as usual.
Owls poured in in flocks through the windows of the dome, each with a rolled-up copy of the Daily Prophet strapped to its talons.
Ron was the first to grab the newspaper, unfolded it, scanned two lines, and his expression changed.
"What's wrong?" Harry leaned closer to look.
The front page featured a huge photograph of the silvery-white storm that had shot into the sky from the edge of the Forbidden Forest the previous night.
A silvery-white pillar of light rose from the forest, connecting the sky and the earth. The pillar was covered with concentric rings of wind patterns and light flakes, which were still breathtaking even in the black and white newspaper print.
Above the photo is a line of bold black text. " Dumbledore Intentionally Protects Criminals, Mysterious Trench Coat Man Reappears!"
Signed: Rita Skeeter.
Harry snatched the newspaper and read it from beginning to end. Rita, in her usual style, recounted the events of the previous night over and over again in the article.
She devoted a great deal of space to describing how spectacular and terrifying the storm was, using half a page of adjectives to praise how powerful and mysterious the man in the fox mask was, before turning her attention to Dumbledore.
"Where was Dumbledore, the headmaster of Hogwarts, when this mysterious man in the trench coat confronted the Dementor at the edge of the Forbidden Forest?"
"What was this so-called greatest wizard of our time doing while the storm illuminated the entire forest?"
Rita wrote in her article that, to her knowledge, Dumbledore did indeed arrive at the scene last night.
But the first thing he did after arriving was not to arrest Black, who had escaped from Azkaban, but to stand in the open and talk to the fugitive for several minutes.
"A headmaster chatted with a fugitive at the scene of a manhunt, and only handed him over to the Auror after the conversation. What's that called? He didn't even send him back to Azkaban!"
Rita mentioned at the end of the article that "there might have been other hidden reasons back then," but the tone of the entire article was dominated by Dumbledore's inaction and the man in the trench coat stealing the spotlight.
Harry slammed the newspaper on the table.
"How could she write it like that? Headmaster Dumbledore was clearly questioning me, and she insisted on portraying it as covering up a crime."
Ron, who was also flipping through the same newspaper, gasped when he reached the second page:
"She even wrote down what Black said, but everything she wrote was taken out of context. She cut off the beginning and the end, and added a bunch of random nonsense in the middle."
Hermione picked up the newspaper from the side and glanced at it, her brows furrowing deeper and deeper.
She hesitated for a moment before saying, "But... how could she possibly know about last night?"