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Chapter 188: Prisoner of Azkaban

"We are working to recapture Blake," said Minister of Magic Connelly Fudge this morning, "and we ask the magical community to remain calm." Certain members of the International Confederation of Wizards had criticized Fudge for not informing the Muggle Prime Minister that Blake was at large.

...

The newspaper bearing the bold, capitalized English headline was gently blown by the breeze at one corner, revealing a strand of flowing silver hair and a handsome, sinister face.

"Huh, someone escaped from prison in Azkaban?" Dracula took a sip of his bright red liquor and read the newspaper in front of him with interest.

At this moment, Dracula was staying in the residence of the Breck family, which he had visited once before, reclining on a soft sofa, gently shaking a tall wine glass filled with red wine with one hand, and holding a copy of the Daily Prophet in the other.

Nearly a year had passed since Dracula had resurrected Regulus Blake, who had long ago been crafted into a shadowy corpse by Voldemort.

After nearly a year of organizing and tidying up, Regulus Blake and the house elf Kreacher, who had gradually adapted to the body of a cadaver, had gradually taken care of the residence, which had been abandoned for more than ten years, in a decent manner.

Kreacher, as an old house elf who had lived in this house since Regulus' mother, Walburga Blake, was a child, even though his mind had become rigid, as a house elf born in the Blake family, one of the so-called "28 Pureblood Sacred Clans", he was still very good at his personal business skills. The return of Regulus has made it possible for the Pokemon to be a part of the family.

The return of Regulus had revitalized the aging house elf, and Kreacher, who had always been resentful and full of grievances, had actually become full of energy and motivation.

Dracula then leaned back comfortably on the soft sofa, sipping a sip of red wine from his goblet every now and then. Kreacher stood next to him respectfully, and whenever there was not enough liquid in his glass, he would promptly refill it.

Now, where they were was a House Blake magical training room.

Regulus was practicing casting spells at a mark with a custom-made wand suitable for dark creatures, hoping that the Lord Vampire Count, who was very specialized in dark creatures, could instruct him on how to better utilize the magic within the shadowy corpses.

However, Dracula's attention was completely caught by the newspaper in his hand, and he did not bother to watch Regulus' spell-casting movements at all.

"Sirius Black ... Is this prison escapee your brother?"

Dracula asked to Regulus, who was still practicing his magic not far away, as he tapped his thumb on the large photo on the front page of the newspaper.

The large photo on the front page showed a man with a sunken face and long hair tangled together, he was slowly blinking at the man who was reading the paper and looked to be in a worrying mental state.

"Sirius?" Regulus was stunned for a moment and slowly withdrew his wand, his expression becoming a little cold, "I thought he was dead."

"If the information in the papers is correct, then he should be dead yet." Dracula glanced at the picture with interest, then turned his head to Regulus, "Didn't you subscribe to this newspaper, and you didn't even know about it?"

Regulus, because of the fear that his physique would be revealed, had barely left the door of the Bleeker mansion for a year, and could only rely on Kreacher to buy the newspaper in order to have a channel to learn about the magical world.

"I haven't even had a chance to read this newspaper today before you came over." Regulus said, "And the Daily Prophet is going back more and more, all day long it only publishes meaningless content, I sometimes have no interest in reading it ..."

"I remember one paper the other day that actually had a large listing of a Ministry of Magic staff member winning the lottery on a fairly front page, boring as hell."

Regulus pursed his lips indifferently and moved his eyes to the side.

"Oh?" Dracula became interested again and looked to Kreacher, "Kreacher, get me all the newspapers you subscribed to a few days ago, I'd like to see how the Daily Prophet depicts something as simple as winning the lottery."

Kreacher bowed and disappeared with a thud.

When he returned again, he was holding a thick stack of Daily Prophet in his hands.

"Let me look for it... ... Hmm, is this it?" Dracula casually flipped through a few papers before finding what Regulus described as something about a raffle.

When he saw this page, his expression suddenly became a bit playful-

HEADLINE: Ministry of Magic staff win big prize

CONTENT: Arthur Weslai, Director of the Ministry of Magic's Division for the Prohibition of the Misuse of Muggle Items, has been awarded the Daily Prophet's annual Galleon Award. An elated Mr. Weasley told a reporter from the Daily Prophet, "We're going to spend the money on a summer trip to Egypt, where our oldest son, Bill, is doing spell-breaking work for the Ancient Spirit Court Wizarding Bank." The Weasleys will be in Egypt for a month, returning before Hogwarts school starts. The Weasleys currently have five children attending school there.

The content is followed by a corresponding photo of the nine members of the Weasley family standing in front of the pyramids.

Everyone in the Wesley family looks very excited, waving vigorously at the camera with happy smiles on their faces.

In the picture, Mrs. Weasley is small and chubby, while the balding Mr. Weasley is tall, and all six of their sons and one daughter have fiery red hair. Ron was standing in the center of this picture, tall and thin, with his pet rat, Bamm-Bamm, standing on his shoulder and his arm around his sister, Ginny.

"The Wesleys really can't stay idle, they're obviously so poor already, it's amazing that they still want to get out and about no matter what vacation they're on." Dracula laughed softly, "All the little wizards in their family are so unforgiving, maybe they just inherited it from their parents ..."

He smiled playfully and shoved the paper with the information about Mr. Weasley's win back into Kreacher's hands before picking up the one with the big news of Sirius Black's prison break on the front page once more and looking up at Regulus.

"Mr. Dracula, I'm going to go back to the storeroom to find some more information on spell casting and Kreacher will take care of you." Without waiting for Dracula to say anything else out loud, Regulus greeted him stiffly, then walked straight to the door of the magic training room.

"What's the rush?" Dracula raised one hand and the door to the training room closed abruptly, "What are you running away from, Regulus?"

"... I'm not running away." Seeing the door to the room in front of him close up, Regulus' footsteps stopped for a moment, forcing himself to keep an indifferent expression on his face as he said.

"Didn't escape?" Dracula slowly hooked up the corner of his mouth, "If there really was no escape, then why did you just change the topic to this news of winning the lottery?"

"Sirius Black is your brother you haven't seen in years anyways, even if the relationship is bad, it's not so bad that you hear about him after many years and don't even have a trace of extra interest, right?"

"I guess ... this newspaper you've actually read it, right?" He asked with a smirk.

Regulus stood still and exhaled deeply.

"I really can't hide it from you after all, Mr. Dracula." He turned and smiled helplessly at Dracula, "I have indeed read this newspaper ... I didn't realize that the first encounter with Sirius after a decade of resurrection would be in a newspaper."

"How are you two brothers getting on?" Dracula asked with interest as he gently shook his glass, "I see that you care quite a bit about your older brother as well, or you wouldn't have avoided the topic of having him so much."

"No, you did guess wrong this time." Regulus shook his head, "The two of us have a poor relationship ... Let's put it this way, it's no longer the extent of a bad relationship between the two of us, perhaps it would be more appropriate to describe us as being like water and fire."

"We Blake's were never students of Slytherin until Sirius came along as a deviant. He grew up disliking the ways of the purebloods and often fought for the poor hemp wizards and half-bloods. Then he did get sorted into Gryffindor."

Regulus slowed his tone and leisurely recounted the past of the two.

"Mother was so enraged that she was about to kick Sirius out of the house on the spot. She later decided to give Sirius a chance, though, and was going to use Professor Slughorn's connections to transfer him back to Slytherin."

"But Sirius seemed to be so happy with Gryffindor as a house that he didn't want to transfer at all. And after returning home from every holiday, he angered our parents by covering the walls of his room with the honors he earned in Gryffindor, even using a permanent pasting spell to put Gryffindor banners, pictures of muggle girls in bikinis, pictures of motorcycles, and pictures of himself with his friends on the walls ... "

"My mother and father were completely disappointed in him and pinned their hopes on their second son, me."

"I never knew what they expected of me and couldn't bear to disappoint their wishes, so I grew up doing what they told me to do, the exact opposite of Sirius."

"Then I became the only pride of my mother and father, and Sirius became the one they completely ignored, as if they had never had such a son."

Regulus sat down on the other couch, took a sip of the water Kreacher handed him, and went on to narrate.

"By the time he graduated, he joined the Order of the Phoenix and I joined the Death Eaters. In the midst of these two opposing camps, as you can imagine, our relationship became even more strained."

"But both of my parents endorsed the Dark Lord's philosophy and dismissed Sirius' actions as pureblood traitors. So they struck him off the family list completely, and you may remember some of the burnt holes amongst the genealogical tapestry ..."

"One of which is where Sirius was originally located."

Dracula gently set down the cup and newspaper in his hands and looked thoughtfully at Regulus.

"The Order of the Phoenix?" He asked, "Are you talking about that Order of the Phoenix that Dumbledore founded to fight the Death Eaters?"

"Of course, there is no other Order of the Phoenix besides that." Regulus said.

"Which means Sirius Black is a member of the Order of the Phoenix, under Dumbledore." Dracula rubbed his brow, feeling that this was getting a little strange, "But the paper said that Sirius was a Death Eater who did his best to support Voldemort."

"Let's see, the reason he was taken to Azkaban back in the day ... Well, he blew up thirteen lives with just one spell. And did that in broad daylight in front of witnesses. It probably caused a lot of trouble at the time, so Sirius' level of danger was judged very high by the Ministry of Magic."

"So he was the one who later betrayed Dumbledore and turned to the arms of the Death Eaters?" Dracula asked, "If that's the case, the biggest divide between the two of you actually disappeared naturally."

"No," Regulus hesitated, shaking his head slightly, "No matter how much I usually dislike Sirius as a person, hating his arrogance, recklessness, rashness, love of the limelight, and various other habits, I'd still like to say... ..."

"Anyone could have joined the Death Eaters' camp, but it's Sirius who is out of the question!" Regulus said, "And with his empathic attitude with those hemp-breed wizards, I don't really think he'd go and blow up a dozen muggles with a spell!"

"I've always known that Sirius was quite close to a few of his friends, and he used to dine out at James Potter's house after he was evicted, and old Potter practically treated him like a godson."

"Hehe, the Potter family was killed by the Dark Lord, so how could Sirius turn to the camp of the Death Eaters instead after the Dark Lord lost his power to do those hurtful things?"

"There is indeed something wrong." Dracula raised one eyebrow, "Also, did you just say ... Potter? What's with the last name Potter again, is it in the same family as Harry Potter?"

"James Potter is indeed Harry Potter's father." Regulus said with a nod.

Dracula frowned slightly, quietly combining the various clues here in his mind, trying to deduce the most complete story line.

The events known to him were that Voldemort had traveled to Godric's Hollow twelve years ago to try and kill the Potters, but had suffered in the midst of the blood magic that Harry's mother, Lily Potter, had invested her intense feelings in, and had been rebounded by his own sorcery spell to such an extent that he had become a humble remnant of a soul.

It was only after this incident that Sirius Black snapped, killing twelve Muggles and a wizard, and ended up being imprisoned for life in Azkaban by the Ministry of Magic.

Under the dissection of Sirius' own brother, many illogicalities in this naturally surfaced.

'Looks like it's time to find another opportunity to make a trip to the Headmaster's office to torture Dumbledore.' A giddy look of interest surfaced in Dracula's eyes.