Honeydukes.
"Thanks. Sorry to trouble you." With the help of Mr. Flume, the owner of the sweetshop, Lupin carried Tonks into the room the Aurors were using.
It was next to the shop's underground storeroom, and the air was thick with the rich scent of sweets.
"Not at all." Mr. Flume was an easygoing man. "All the Aurors are out right now. If you need anything, just call for me."
"I may need to trouble you to keep an eye on this Miss Auror for a bit. I only brought her back," Lupin explained.
"No trouble. The Ministry's paying, anyway," Flume said. "Would you like some sweets?"
"No, thank you. I'll be going now." Lupin waved a hand and moved to leave at once.
He was still bothered by what Kingsley had said about the Aurors finding suspicious traces at the Shrieking Shack.
Sirius might be reckless, but he wouldn't leave traces around the Shrieking Shack. There was a secret passage to Hogwarts there.
Whatever Sirius was planning, the Shrieking Shack, with its hidden passage, was a base worth keeping. He wouldn't expose it carelessly.
And what Kingsley had said about someone spotting a monster bothered Lupin even more.
"Aberforth said that monster was cunning. So how did anyone find its trail? Maybe he exaggerated after all."
Lupin stepped out of the Aurors' temporary office, intending to leave, but his gaze landed on a wooden plank in the candy storeroom.
Under that plank was the entrance to a secret passage. As one of the makers of the Marauder's Map, Lupin didn't know every secret passage by heart, but he knew most of them.
And he certainly hadn't forgotten the only two passages that led off the school grounds.
By the same logic, Sirius knew about them too.
"Compared to the Shrieking Shack, the passage here really does feel safer, with Aurors stationed here..." Lupin smiled, but just as he was about to leave, his heart jolted.
That was true. This really was the Aurors' temporary post. But right now, the only one here was a trainee Auror who was drunk and unconscious.
All the other Aurors had been drawn away by a single piece of intelligence.
"Which means this place is at its weakest right now. If someone wanted to break in, this would be the perfect time. Whether it's Sirius... or that monster."
Just then, the heavy sound of footsteps reached Lupin's ears. A fierce, murderous aura tinged with a faint smell of blood spread down the stairs into the underground storeroom.
This definitely wasn't Sirius.
Lupin looked up and met a pair of eyes full of amusement.
Their owner was a man with an almost perfect face. But that perfection didn't give any sense of harmony. Instead, it felt twisted and terrifying.
"I didn't expect anyone else to be here besides the sweetshop owner..." Raichel licked the blood from the corner of his mouth, his eyes gleaming with frenzied bloodlust.
Lupin instinctively stepped back, his heart clenching as if he had come face to face with a natural predator.
His hand moved into the pocket of his coat on instinct, closing around a small potion vial.
It was a nearly perfect Wolfsbane Potion. It couldn't completely free a Werewolf from the curse, but after drinking it, a Werewolf could maintain perfect control over their transformation for a full month.
Lupin had earned this potion through all his time working under Midgard. It was meant to save his life in a critical moment.
And the man in front of him already made Lupin feel that he was in deadly danger.
Lupin's little movement didn't escape Raichel's notice. He glanced at Lupin's hand inside his pocket, and the corner of his mouth lifted slightly.
"Looks like you still want to resist. Good. Come on, then." Raichel smiled cruelly. His mouth split wider and wider until it reached his ears, and dense rows of sharp teeth spilled from the corners of his lips.
With the sound of flesh tearing, a pair of wings spread from Raichel's back. His neck stretched out like a python as he lunged at Lupin.
He was so fast he was almost a blur. Lupin only caught a shadow before he was sent flying.
With a loud crash, Lupin slammed into a heap of sweets. The sweet smell mixed with the scent of blood and drifted through the basement.
Raichel was simply too fast. Lupin didn't even have time to drink the potion.
The crash in the basement jolted Tonks awake. As a trainee Auror, her reactions were quick. She instinctively grabbed her wand and rushed out of the room, only to see Raichel, who looked like some kind of bird-serpent.
The alcohol haze in her head cleared at once, and Tonks immediately snapped into combat mode.
"Don't move!" Tonks shouted by pure procedure, but her hand never stopped moving. A vicious curse flew straight at Raichel's face.
But the powerful curse only burst into a spray of magical sparks against the scales growing across Raichel's face. The next moment, Raichel noticed the little mouse who had wandered into the fight.
"I didn't expect there to be an Auror who hadn't gone to work. What a pity." Raichel slowly turned to look at Tonks, who had her wand pointed at him. "You think that fragile little stick can hurt me?"
Tonks's face turned deathly pale. The snake-like head was terrifying enough to leave her badly shaken.
"You... what kind of monster are you?" Tonks asked, her voice trembling.
That question enraged Raichel. His eyes turned blood-red as he roared, "You dare call perfect me a monster? I am the most perfect lifeform."
Burning with rage, he extended a tail from behind him. It rapidly swelled in size and lashed toward Tonks.
At that moment, a figure burst from the wreckage of the storeroom. Several flashes of cold light swept through the air, and Raichel's tail was sliced into three pieces. Blood sprayed everywhere, and the severed tail writhed on the ground.
"Aaaagh...!" Raichel cried out in pain, and only then did Tonks see the figure standing in front of her.
It was a gray-furred Werewolf, with scraps of clothing still hanging from his body. He stood upright, and one claw was smeared with a great deal of blood.
"You... so you're a Werewolf? No, that's not right. How could a Werewolf transform under these circumstances?" Raichel roared.
Tonks stared blankly at the Werewolf in front of her. "It... it's you..."
She recognized him. He was the man she'd met in the pub.
Crunch, crunch.
As Lupin felt power surging through his body, he spat out the shattered remains of the potion vial.
He hadn't had time to drink it, so he'd had no choice but to shove the bottle into his mouth and bite it apart. If not for a Werewolf's tough constitution, a mouthful of glass shards alone would have been enough to cost him half his life.
He shot Raichel a barely visible eye-roll, then flexed his claws, adjusting to his strength.
From that brief clash just now, it seemed his strength was slightly greater than the monster's. And in terms of speed, his transformed body was no slower.
"Hide yourself properly." Lupin glanced back at Tonks and gave the order. In the next instant, he charged straight at the exposed Raichel.