Sirius woke up very abruptly—one second he was completely unconscious and the next second all of the neurons in his mind started flaring all at once. He groaned as he tried to get up from where he was lying and immediately realized that something was wrong when he felt the distinct sensation of grass under his palms.
He opened his eyes and stood up as he looked around, and the scenery that appeared in front of him was utterly unfamiliar to him, he was inside a small clearing with rays of sunlight streaming in from above and he seemed to be surrounded on all sides by dense plants and trees that did not look normal.
His first instinct was of course to panic and scramble to find a way out of whatever this place was, but thankfully before he could do something reckless a refreshing scent suddenly filled his nose and all of his worries disappeared as he instantly calmed down.
He looked down and found the source of scent to be a vivid green flower petal, that was slowly burning away inside a small bowl. Sirius bent down and after examining it for a few moments, he surprisingly identified what this petal was.
It was the second most commonly used antidote in the Wizarding World after, of course, Beozar, and while this one was a lot less powerful, and worked a bit slower, the one striking advantage it had was that it was very cheap and easy to find.
"So you finally woke up..." A woman's voice drifted into Sirius's ear and he immediately stood up with a start and started looking around alertly. But even after he circled his eyes all over the clearing, he couldn't find where the voice originated from.
On his second observation, Sirius tried to search a bit more intensely and it paid off, as the moment his eyes passed through a particular spot on the left side, he felt a soft poke inside his mind as if there was something wrong with what he was seeing.
He focused a bit more intently on that spot and after a few more moments the notice-me-not unraveled like a transparent waterfall and a middle age woman appeared in front of his eyes where there was no one before.
The first Sirius noticed was the woman seemed to be in her 50s, and she seemed a bit familiar to him. She was looking at him with a sharpness that he could only compare to Professor McGonagall from his memories. Her blond hair was tied in a bun, and she was wearing a comfortable green witch's robe while standing in a relaxed manner.
"Oh... You noticed me a lot quicker than I expected," she said in a calm voice, "It seems you're not completely hopeless after all,"
"Who are—" Sirius started to ask her but stopped midway when he recognized that the woman before him matched the description that had been explained to him, "Are you Beth Breaker? The Curse Breaker?"
"Indeed I am," Beth answered easily and continued before Sirius could follow up, "But before you ask me anything else—Let me ask you this, What were you exactly doing before you arrived at my place? Partying with some of your old buddies?" She asked while raising an eyebrow.
Sirius was confused about her question for a moment, but the moment he tried to focus on his memories, his mind was suddenly bombarded with images of what happened the last time, and how he had behaved when he Portkeyed over.
'Oh Shit—What the hell was I thinking!' Sirius shouted inside his mind as hazy memories of his antics started to appear. His face immediately started burning from embarrassment, as Sirius couldn't remember ever feeling this stupid in his life.
"Y-You've got it wrong! Miss Beth. I wasn't partying or anything, what happened was..."
Sirius tried to explain the best he could and Beth stood silently while listening to his side without interruption, "—and then I sniffed the Magical weed before my elf could warn me against it. And coincidently the next moment the portkey went off, and you know what happened after that..."
"So, let me get this straight, You were checking on your greenhouse, and accidentally sniffed a flower— while acting like a stupid first-year, I might add— that happened to be a rare one only used by old pureblood families. Are you sure, you weren't pranked by your elf," She asked while looking at him with disdain.
"Yes," Sirius answered, as he was sure that it wasn't deliberate because a couple of days after he became Kreacher's master, he had made sure to close all the loopholes in all the ways that the elf could hurt him intentionally or unintentionally.
"And it wasn't my fault that I didn't recognize that plant at all," Sirius mumbled while trying to look through his memories, "I don't think we were taught about it at Hogwarts,"
"Of course, you weren't," Beth said with a snort, "They wouldn't teach about "Magical Weed" as you say, to a bunch of teenagers. It's supposed to be taught during your NEWT years, but that doesn't excuse you from sniffing an unknown plant just because it looked pretty,"
"Ugh!" Sirius groaned as he didn't need her to remind him of his stupidity.
"And let me remind you— since it doesn't look like you took Herbology NEWTs," Beth said while waving her hands at her surrounding, "Don't go sniffing around on any of the plants surrounding you, as you won't be waking up again if you do,"
"W-What these are all poisonous," Sirius stuttered while looking at the plants surrounding the clearing, and on a second glance, he noticed that the plants did look a little weird, as all of them were either purple or violet colored.
Sirius immediately stopped breathing, hoping that the small amount of poison he had inhaled, wouldn't affect him too much. He immediately tried to summon his wand from his holster to cast a bubble-head charm but couldn't—as he noticed for the first time that he didn't have his wand on him.
"Don't worry, you're safe for now," Beth said calmly, "I placed a ward around you that filters the air—among other things," Sirius breathed a sigh of relief, all the while his eyes were searching around where he stood, wondering if he had dropped the very important stick, "If you're looking for your wand, then it's here," She raised her left hand and Sirius immediately recognized his wand resting on her palm.
"Oh! thank you," Sirius said gratefully while walking toward her but when he was a few steps away from her, he suddenly bounced back. He barely kept himself from falling on his back and when he looked ahead, his eyes found a thin light blue semicircular barrier separating them that completely encircled the clearing.
"You didn't think it would this easy for you to get away after disrespecting your teacher," Beth asked while tilting her head, "Did you?"
"I told you already," Sirius replied defiantly, "It wasn't intentional,"
"I don't care about that," She shrugged uncaringly, "But don't worry too much, I was going to give you your wand anyway. I only kept it in case you reacted... Unexpectedly,"
"Here!" she said and threw the wand toward Sirius who caught it reflexively.
"Now, I am sure you learned it when you were a kid, but let me revise it for you, Anyway, 'When you make a mistake, you get an appropriate punishment so that you don't repeat the mistake,'" She said evenly, "So let me tell you your punishment— there is a ward around the clearing created by yours truly, that traps you from leaving this place in addition to protecting you from the poisonous plants all around you,"
"Unfortunately for you, I happened to not use a Wardstone while creating it," She said and a wicked smile appeared on her face, "That means that the ward wasn't made to last, and in fact, it's shrinking as we speak. So if you don't escape from here in time, the poison in the air would make this your tomb, which is not too bad if you ask me, as not a lot of people get a beautiful place like this as their resting place,"
"But don't worry too much, I am not as cruel as to leave you without any help," She said benevolently before waving her wand in a familiar motion, and suddenly three books came flying through the air before falling in front of Sirius, "You have, I would say—two days, I think... before the ward shrinks to a null. And your only way to salvation is the three books in front of you,"
"Now, if you read book number 1," She said while pointing to the leftmost book in front of him, "and understand its contents to an appropriate level you should be able to decipher the ward I placed around you which should also enable you to recreate a similar one, prolonging your stay here,"
"And if you survive long enough to read book number 2, and are smart enough to decipher its content, you should be able to find the hidden ward that I left inside this clearing, which has a small portkey inside that should take you straight to my house,"
"A-And what about book 3?" Sirius asked while gulping.
"Oh, that one is a muggle self-help book, I once saw inside a store. I heard from someone it's supposed to help you if you start losing all your motivation and start getting depressed and suicidal,"
"You're joking right," Sirius asked with a forced smile.
"Who knows," Beth shrugged innocently, before waving airily and walking away from Sirius, "Now, I left my knitting mid-way, so enjoy your stay here, and if you're hungry—" She turned back and looked toward Sirius seriously, "Eat Some Grass!"
She went away while whistling a merry tune, and before long Sirius was left alone with three books and a wand while surrounded by plants on all sides that looked more and more ominous as the seconds ticked.
...
"Let's see how good you are," Sirius mumbled a few minutes after Beth went away while looking at the place where he thought the ward line was.
The first thing Sirius decided to do before anything else was, check the strength of the ward keeping him trapped here, so he raised his wand toward the barrier and immediately began bombarding it, starting with one of his least destructive spells.
"BOMBARDA"
Not much seem to have happened as the moment the spell reached the ward line a transparent blue shield appeared and the power of the spell spread over it evenly, before it vanished.
Of course, Sirius never expected that to work he just wanted to set the baseline and see where the ward line was exactly.
So after he took an optimal distance, Sirius took a deep breath and then started flooding the shield with all the destructive spells he had learned.
*boom*boOM*BADOOOM*
He slowly started pouring more and more magic into the spells which simultaneously increased their destructiveness. But the shield kept on absorbing them easily and, at last when he used his most powerful spell, it bend just a little but the moment he stopped, the barrier went back to its pristine condition without a scratch.
From that Sirius was able to conclude that most of the top wizards like the hit-wizards and Aurors would be helpless before this ward.
"Let's see if you can take some real heat," Sirius said with a smirk on his face, as he was really happy to let loose for once without worrying about breaking anything.
Deciding to up the ante Sirius transformed into his half-grim form, which enhanced almost all his physical attributes including magical strength, without changing him too much physically.
After he got adjusted to his new form, Sirius centered himself, and raising his wand he immediately shouted the incantation of his most powerful spell, and almost instantly a thick stream of blue light rushed out of his wand and impacted the shield with a loud bang.
There was a difference immediately noticeable compared to the previous impacts, as this time the shield seem to have actually turned inward at the point of impact, and it actually looked like he was making a progress.
*Shoo**Shoo**Shoo*
Sirius kept the continuous stream of the beam from his wand going for a while and before long the shield started to make a whining sound as if it was on the verge of tearing, so he immediately cut off his magic, as he didn't actually want to remove the ward yet.
"She's damn good," Sirius said while breathing a bit heavily.
While he was reluctant to admit it, Sirius couldn't deny that Beth was really an expert as even though he was not even a novice in the matter of wards, he still knew that it was very hard—almost impossible to create a ward this good in such a short amount of time if you're not at the top of the field.
Sirius closed his eyes and after a few calming breaths, came out of his half-grim form. While he had been continuously training his new animagus form they still cost him a lot of stamina, which meant he could only maintain them for so long.
While he could stay in his grim animagus form for as long as he wanted. When he turned into his half-grim form, he could only last for about an hour, and for the Cerberus form, which he had nicknamed, Beerus, he could stay in it for about 30 minutes.
Speaking of his Beerus form, Sirius decided to try one more thing. He closed his eyes and in almost a blink turned into Padfoot. In his canine form, he approached the ward and stopped just before the point where he had last seen the ward line. He raised one of his paws and carefully tried to move it through the barrier, and he passed through without any problem.
He turned back into his human form with a smile of satisfaction, Sirius had almost expected that the ward wouldn't stop his animagus form, as from his memories he knew that being an animagus was very rare.
While a lot of people start the process to become an animagus, very few of them see it through to the end and seeing as they only get a single chance in their life to become an Animagus, its rarity was expected.
So it was very rare that people make their ward Animagus-proof while drawing them, and considering that even places like Hogwarts and Azkaban don't stop Animagi, it was very understandable.
"Well, at least I have a backup plan, in case it doesn't work out,"
A lot of the tension in his shoulders went away after finding two ways of leaving the ward. But instead of using any of them and escaping right away, Sirius turned around and went toward where the books were scattered.
Ultimately the purpose of this trip had been to learn so while he may have gotten here in a way that wasn't very likable, he still decided to follow through with the assignments he had been given by the Expert.
He sat on the ground comfortably and picked up the first book Beth had pointed towards. There was no title written on the cover so he immediately went to the first page and started reading.
The first book was mostly about all the things you need to know about the basics of the wards, things like:
? ﾝﾐﾡ? ﾝﾐﾭ ? ﾝﾐﾬ ? ? ﾝﾐﾚ? ﾝﾐﾝ?
? ﾝﾐﾨ? ? ﾝﾐﾨ ? ﾝﾐﾞ? ﾝﾐﾞ? ﾝﾐﾭ ? ﾝﾐﾟ ? ﾝﾐﾡ? ﾝﾐﾫ? ? ﾝﾐﾬ ? ? ﾝﾐﾚ? ﾝﾐﾝ ? ﾝﾐﾫ? ﾝﾐﾮ? ﾝﾐﾝ ? ﾝﾐﾨ?
? ﾝﾐﾨ? ? ﾝﾐﾨ ? ﾝﾐﾢ? ﾝﾐﾮ? ﾝﾐﾞ ? ﾝﾐﾮ? ? ﾝﾐﾡ? ﾝﾐﾜ? ? ﾝﾐﾚ? ﾝﾐﾝ ? ﾝﾐﾨ? ? ﾝﾐﾨ? ? ﾝﾐﾚ? ﾝﾐﾠ? ﾝﾐﾭ ? ﾝﾐﾧ? ﾝﾐﾨ
? ﾝﾐﾨ? ? ﾝﾐﾨ ? ﾝﾐﾫ? ﾝﾐﾚ? ﾝﾐﾞ ? ? ﾝﾐﾚ? ﾝﾐﾢ? ? ﾝﾐﾚ? ﾝﾐﾝ
? ﾝﾐﾨ? ? ﾝﾐﾨ ? ﾝﾐﾨ? ﾝﾐﾛ? ﾝﾐﾧ? ? ﾝﾐﾚ? ﾝﾐﾝ?
? ﾝﾐﾧ? ? ﾝﾐﾨ ? ﾝﾐﾧ...
In short, this was a "Wards simplified for the stupid," and that wasn't what Sirius thought. It was actually a quote on the first page of the book. It was also at that moment Sirius realized that the book was actually written by Beth from her experience over the years, which made sense as he didn't remember seeing it when he searched for books on Warding.
About half an hour into his reading, Sirius groaned as he realized that he had only read about four pages of it, and of those he could say that he was able to understand only half of it. Every single sentence was filled with a lot of information that took him at least three tries to barely comprehend, it was like that one time when he was in high school and tried to read a Post Graduate Medical Text.
Sirius didn't think that he would be able to even read half of the first book by the time the ward shrinks if he went at this rate.
Just when Sirius was feeling down, he suddenly remembered a concept that was used in various Harry Potter fanfictions. The concept was that after the Main Character learns Occlumency, they suddenly become some kind of genius and immediately start comprehending NEWT books at the age of four.
So Sirius immediately decide that it wouldn't hurt to try, so he quickly closed his eyes and tried to raise his occlumency. It took him about 15 minutes before all the thoughts and emotions in his mind went numb and he was able to access his most optimal state.
He opened his eyes slowly and picked up the book with a blank look and started reading from the start. And almost immediately, he was able to see an enormous difference.
His focus had improved exponentially after all the distractive thoughts inside his head had disappeared. The previous hard-to-understand text become a lot more comprehensible, and he was even able to connect paragraphs on different pages to comprehend on a deeper level.
About half an hour later, when Sirius had almost read about1/4th of the first book, a sharp pain suddenly went through his mind as if a needle was stabbing inside his skull.
"Ugh," Sirius groaned while grabbing his head as he was involuntarily pulled out of his Occlumency state. As he looked down at his hands, he was shocked to realize that his nails were sharpened like when he was in his half-grim form.
It took a while before Sirius was able to gather himself and understand what had happened. While at the start of his study session, he was only in his normal Occluded state, midway through he unconsciously accessed his half-grim which enhanced his mental strength by a lot and inadvertently improved his learning capabilities.
So he unintentionally went over the limit of his half-grim form while using occlumency, which completely exhausted his mental energy.
Sirius fell on his back and while lying there just concentrated on breathing and looking at the scattered rays of sunlight streaming through the canopy above him. About 25 minutes later Sirius felt that he had recovered enough of his strength for another go at the book.
He immediately went back to the book and tried to repeat what had happened the first time. After a couple of tests with his Occlumency while in his half-grim form and without his form, he was able to conclude some facts.
In his normal state, he was only able to focus about 30% of his mind on the texts before him and his comprehension abilities were abysmal. And after he used occlumency, he could utilize almost 60% of his mental faculties, double of his normal state to concentrate.
But the cherry on the top was that if he used his half-grim state along with Occlumency, it felt as if he had applied a cheat code and discovered a hidden function, as he was able to use 95% of his brain, which was completely absurd.
"Looks, like it's going to be a lot easier than I thought," Sirius said while looking at the books in front of him. Sirius was sure that Beth would not expect him to be able to comprehend these books at the speed he could.
/
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