There was a large magical forest that was undetectable by the muggles and had also been mostly left alone by the magical, due to that the magical plants and magical creatures here had been mostly untouched, which made them quite a rarity, and in the middle of this forest there was a simple two-story that seem to pop out of nowhere but still seemed to blend into the surroundings smoothly.

The house was surrounded on all sides by huge trees and seemed to be hidden in shadow that made it invisible from above, but ample sunlight still somehow managed to reach it somehow through the canopy of dense branches filled with different colored leaves as if they were deliberately making way for the light.

The immediate vicinity of the house was occupied by a wide variety of rare magical plants, that seemed to be straight out of a herbologist's wet dream, and while the plants and trees appeared to be harmless at first glance, didn't look any different from their brethren in this huge forest.

But if someone took them to be harmless, then they would be in for a rude awakening because despite their deceiving appearance most of them were very dangerous. The smaller varieties were mostly poisonous, and while most of them would just knock you out, some were a bit more lethal.

And while the bigger ones were not poisonous, they are still quite hazardous to your health as they were prone to reacting violently and making use of their thick vines and branches liberally on anyone that they consider an intruder.

And even if you somehow managed to pass through the magical plants harmlessly, the second you do so you would be entering the domain of the wards, and if you let yourself be caught in them, then the only thing you could do to save yourself would be to pray to your god hope that someone strong would come and rescue you.

Because unless you were in the class of the likes of Dumbledore, Voldermort, and Grindelwald, you would never be able to escape them safely, and even if you don't use the brute force method of power and instead relied on skillfully breaking, you would still require the assistance of a team full of goblins and curse breaker to even have the minute chance at successfully cracking the wards.

And the reason for that was not because the wards were really heavy like the ones at Hogwarts or around some of the Ancient noble houses, where the magic of wards had seeped deep into the stones making those places almost impenetrable from outside.

Instead, the wards around this house were dangerous because they were some of the trickiest and nastiest wards anyone could ever encounter. They were the kind that would lull you into a false sense of safety before attacking you when you expect the least. The second you think you have cracked one of the wards, two more would pop up making you think as if the more you solve them the harder it becomes, ultimately ending with your spirit broken.

Suffice it to say, the owner of the house was not one of those social butterflies and had instead gone to a great length to make sure that they would not be disturbed at their home by unwanted visitors.

The living room of the house was located on the ground floor and was decorated with the usual things that you would find in a magical household like a fireplace with a pot stuck to its side, a Bookshelf filled with books old and new, a couple of sofas that were charmed to more comfortable than they seemed.

Now, except for the normal stuff, there was also some really unusual stuff that you would expect to find in Burgin and Burke's instead of a living room, like a mummy's hand preserved inside a case, or a multicolored vase that was clearly not made in this millennia, or a necklace hung on the wall which, any competent wizard could feel from feet away, was cursed more than a dozen times.

The woman who owned all this, Beth Breaker, was sitting comfortably on the sofa while reading about ancient curses in an old book that was tearing at its seams. She was blonde-haired and had blue eyes, and while time had left its mark on her it would be evident to anyone at first glance that she must have been a heartbreaker in her younger years.

Her ocean-blue eyes were filled with wisdom and her stern facial features lacked any laugh lines which made her capable of a glare that McGonagall would be proud of.

She took a glance toward the grandfather clock hung on the mantle above the fireplace and after finding that there was still some time before her appointment, leaned back on the sofa with some annoyance while cursing the bearded old man because of whom she was saddled with this unwanted job.

Beth Breaker was a woman in her 70s and while as a witch she would be still considered middle-aged. She was one of the most successful curse breakers of her generation and the life she had lived was filled to the brim with all kinds of adventures, most of them involving life-threatening scenarios.

She had passed through Hogwarts during the same decade when Dumbledore and Grindelwald started getting known across the magical community for their genius. So even though she had passed with one of the highest scores in all subjects, it wasn't anything that was particularly shocking.

So she decided that she would choose one of the most difficult and dangerous professions available to her, Curse Breaking, and prove to everyone that she wasn't any less talented than anyone else.

But unfortunately, she hit a roadblock at the very beginning of her journey. She had been rejected by the goblins when she had gone to them for an apprenticeship and the reason they gave was that she was too young and lacked experience but she knew the real reason was that she lacked a recommendation.

She should have given up like most people in her place would because everyone knew that the goblins almost had a monopoly over the curse-breaking business and no one became a successful one unless it was under them.

But she was young at that time, young naive, and proud so, of course, she didn't give up like any sane person would and in her stubbornness decided that, 'Screw the goblins, I would do it alone and by myself,'

The first time she went on an expedition, she couldn't even last through one-fourth of the journey and got herself heavily injured, she barely made it back and had to stay in St mungos for about two months to recuperate.

That was the second time the sane voice inside her head told her to give up, but like the young musclehead idiot she was at that age, she went right back into another expedition immediately after, just with a bit more preparation this time.

And that was how she spent her twenties and thirties, going on various dangerous adventures to ancient ruins, dangerous tombs, and untouched magical forests, and every single time she came back with a few more injuries, but she survived and she learned from every experience.

And in the end, her sheer stubbornness and persistence were so much that even the healers at St mungos stopped cautioning her and instead started to anticipate her arrival as if she was a regular customer and they were an ice cream parlor in Diagon Alley.

But despite a few close calls where she almost became a permanent resident of Janus Thickey ward, ultimately she achieved what she had set out to do from the very start. 'Become so successful that even the goblins come to her scraping on their knees begging for her help,'

And while that didn't happen in the exact same manner, they had just sent a letter to her asking for her collaboration with their curse-breaking team for an expedition. But for the proud and prickly goblins, asking something for help from a wizard or witch was a matter of deep shame, almost up there with them thanking someone politely.

And by that point in time, she had gathered so much experience under her belt that the expedition which goblins were dreading and were expecting many casualties, went so smoothly because of her that they were left completely speechless.

And so she had earned their grudging respect that day and from then on they kept on reluctantly asking for her help leading their team every time something difficult popped up and she accepted graciously.

She had made them lots of profit over the years owing to her string of successful expeditions that in the end, they even offered her a position as the leader of their human division.

But she declined as by that time she had become renowned enough in the community that she was able to make a team of her own and started leading them without the goblins taking a cut, which was so much more profitable.

After a very successful career, she finally decided to retire and decided to take a very long and well-deserved rest. She had isolated herself completely from the outside world except for a few close contact.

And after a few peaceful years, she had fallen into a very calming routine, and finally stopped being so vigilant all the time, like she was before due to her career.

But alas, her retirement had been broken by that old coot who didn't understand what the word retirement even meant, and who suddenly appeared out of nowhere at her door to ask her to teach someone her craft.

Of course, she had declined immediately but the old man had lived for a long while, was really wily, and had an uncanny ability to call in old favors without ever mentioning that you owe him.

So there was sitting in her living room and waiting for her prospective student, who she was supposed to prepare enough so that he wouldn't die immediately out there.

The clock struck 3 O'clock, the time of her appointment and she immediately felt the telltale sign of a portkey trying to enter her wards, and after a momentary inspection, she let it pass through straight to the entryway.

She stood up and went to the entryway, to welcome her guest, and after a second the man who she was supposed to teach appeared in a swirl of colors. And the moment the portkey stopped spinning him he, instead of standing straight like expected of any adult wizard, fell ungainly on the floor.

She thought that he must have made a blunder or was just a muggle-born not used to Portkeys, so she expected him to at least hurriedly stand up and try to apologize for this unseemly display.

*HeHe*HeHe*

But her eyes suddenly widened at the sheer gall of him, as he just lay there on the expensive rug at her entrance and suddenly started giggling loudly as if he had just heard the funniest joke of his life.

He tried to get up but his hands slipped under him and he once again fell down and started chuckling even harder, all the while she stood there with her eyebrow twitching at the spectacle in front of her.

He got up after a few tries and looked around her home in fascination without even glancing at her, and seemed to look at the various interesting objects placed around her home with his eyes opened completely wide and a wide grin on his face.

"What is the meaning—"

"The vase is so colorful..." Sirius slowly said in wonder while ignoring the woman and moving toward an ancient-looking vase placed beside him, "there are two of them and they look the same, Did you get it from a buy one get one free? Hey, Can I take one of these home with me?" he said while extending his hands toward the empty space beside where the vase was actually placed.

"Ooh it's even passable—look my hands can pass through," he said while running his hands through empty air all the while the host looked on with a stoic look on her face, "Is the other one magical too, " He said while stretching his hands toward the actual vase this time instead of a hallucination, which obviously looked like an expensive relic.

"Huh, what happened... " But his hands seemed to have encountered an invisible barrier of sorts in mid-air.

"Enough!" Beth hissed with her wand raised slightly, finally losing her patience with the insolent fool, "I don't know what you think you are trying to achieve—"

"Oh Wow! You are so old," Sirius said while looking at his host with surprise as if he just noticed her, before he approached her with a dopey smile, "Are you a grandma? I used to have one and she had soft gelly like cheeks, Do you have them too? Can I touch them?"

Sirius didn't wait for a response and immediately started poking the older woman's cheek with a happy grin, all the while the stoic face of the older woman turned more and more murderous as her wand hand kept twitching, wanting nothing more than to erase this foolish creature from the face of the earth.

Beth closed her eyes and took a long deep breath, and when she opened them she flicked her wand, but instead of turning the idiot into a frog, like she wanted to, she just knocked him out, and with another gesture of her wand, he was sent flying straight toward the sofa, which he fell onto *Thump* not gently.

Beth sniffed the air where the idiot had been standing a moment ago, and her eyes suddenly lit up with recognition, and she immediately snorted when she identified the magical herb the smell belonged to, and it also cleared up her confusion about the spectacle she had seen just now.

She stood there for a moment pondering her option before she sighed in annoyance and went toward the fireplace all the while muttering obscenities about a crooked-nosed old goat.

She threw a pinch of floo powder into the fireplace before announcing clearly, "Headmaster's Office,"

The fire flickered for about half a minute before it changed colors and the headmaster's face appeared inside it with his beard struggling to be contained inside the limited space.

"Ah! Beth, I was just about to call you," Dumbledore said while looking at the "young" curse breaker in front of him, "How did your first lesson—" Dumbledore stopped mid-sentence when Beth stepped aside and he saw Sirius lying on the bed, snoring with a dopey grin on his face, "Oh...I see you met Mr. White,"

"He arrived here completely high—on one of the most potent magical drugs I had ever smelled and almost knocked over a 1000-year-old vase which I excavated from a centuries-old Egyptian tomb, and also wanted to take it home with him because it looked pretty," Beth told him with a straight face before she raised her eyebrow and asked, "How do you think the lesson went?"

"Oh..." Dumbledore was a bit speechless for a moment, which wasn't a frequent occurrence by any means, but he quickly gathered himself and tried to salvage the situation, "I am sure there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for this— I mean... look at the way he is dressed—It is obvious that he was actually very serious about this and just happened to run afoul of some unfortunate circumstances. It happens to the best of us..."

"I only agreed to your request because you said that he was very sincere about this and that a young kid's life was on the line, but," Beth paused and looked at the idiot drooling over her sofa, "...from the way I see it, it doesn't seem as if he cares too much about this,"

"Surely you can forgive him this one time?" Dumbledore persuaded, "I am sure we all had some bad experiences when we were young— I clearly remember there was this one time when you were stranded in—"

"You have already called in that favor, you can't use that one again," Beth interrupted with a frown before she continued in a pondering tone, "I can still consider teaching him... if in exchange you promise to teach my granddaughter "That" trick,"

"Ah! That... *Sigh* As I already told you, that is not a trick—it's a very advanced form of magic," Dumbledore shook his head, "And as I said to you before, she is too young to have the amount of magic necessary for that—besides I don't think her mind would be able to handle the load required,"

"My granddaughter is a genius of the highest caliber," Beth said proudly, "You're just saying that because she didn't attend Hogwarts... She is one of the youngest Curse Breakers out there and is already leading a team of her own at such a young age—I am sure she can handle whatever you decide to throw at her,"

"But—"

"No buts," Beth interrupted, "Either you accept the deal or I throw this idiot out of home right now,"

"Ahhh..." Dumbledore sighed and after considering for a few more moments, he conceded defeat, "You drive a hard bargain as always. Alright, I agree with your request, but I will warn you right now. I will not be free for quite a while—What with the tournament and everything,"

"That's alright. Celine is on an expedition right now anyway," Beth said with a small triumphant grin on her face.

"Now, do you need me to send you the antidote for this..." Dumbledore asked her, "Flower he sniffed,"

"No. That's fine," Beth said standing up from where she was kneeling before the fireplace, "I am sure I have some bezoar lying around here somewhere,"

"Alright then. I leave Mr. White here in your care and..." Dumbledore said with sincerity in his tone, "For what it's worth I wasn't lying when I told you that he is very earnest in his desire to learn," Dumbeldore finished and his face disappeared as the fire dimmed.

Beth turned to the nincompoop lying on her sofa and mumbled, "Now what should I do with you," She looked at him for a few moments before a wicked idea appeared in her head, "This is either going to be traumatizing for you or a very good learning experience..." Beth said to the sleepyhead with a mishevious grin the marauders would be very proud of.