In the Harry Potter Without Harry Potter

Chapter 426: Should I go with Professor Potter? (2 in 1)

Jon and Lupin came to Paris together.

Unlike Azkaban of Britain, the French wizard prison was not quite as intimidating.

After Voldemort became Minister of Magic in France, the British and French prisons were completely merged and all the felons were sent to Azkaban.

Now that the Witching Horizon has regained control of France, the new wizard prison has been built near the outskirts of Paris, and the most guilty felons have been placed in the centre of the Witching Horizons' central combatant quarters, with Snape being the most critical of those men.

Snape was the highest-ranking Death Eater captured by the Witching Horizon, apart from the Lestranges, who were killed by Jon himself.

Therefore, upon being brought back to France, he was guarded with the highest level of security.

Not only were all his magical items confiscated, but his clothes were also replaced with simple prison clothes, his hands and feet were shackled, and the cell he was kept in had no windows except for a door, not to mention ventilation ducts and sewers.

For someone as guilty as Snape, he could have been sent on his way after all the useful information had been extracted from his brain.

But Dumbledore had delayed Snape's sentence, to accommodate Lily, who was in Finland at the moment, receiving support from the Nordic Ministry of Magic, as if to let Lily take her revenge.

But on the morning of Lily's return, Snape disappeared from his cell!

Not only had Dumbledore personally arrived, but Sirius, Moody, McGonagall and Lupin had also arrived.

Jon had followed suit and of course, no one had raised any objections; with his contribution to the Order of the Phoenix these days, there was no way anyone would still treat him like a normal student.

"All we found in this cell was this chipped denture, and these two pairs of intact hand and foot cuffs."

Moody gruffly cupped a broken denture in his hand, the pair of shackles were nothing to look at, the only thing of interest was that Snape hadn't used any violence to break it, it was as if the man had just got smaller and pulled the hands and feet out of them.

"The denture has hollow space, and our men have found residues of potion in its interior, and the initial judgment is that he should have kept a backhand in his mouth all along so that when faced with a situation like the one at hand, he could simply bite the dentures out of his mouth, drink the potion in them, and escape from the cell by the effects of the potion, which we haven't examined yet. "

Looking at the cell, Sirius behaved more grumpy than anyone else here seemed to.

"This can't be happening! We checked his entire body when he first fell into our hands! Our Aurors are professionals, there would never be such an obvious omission!"

"But Snape is also a more professional Potions Master than anyone else." Lupin said in a hushed voice, "His talent in potions is undeniable, and with all the resources he has enjoyed by staying in Britain all these years, he must have mastered a lot of potion recipes that are not known to the public. Some potions are much more magical than even magic, is it possible that our people were dazzled by some kind of potion that he drank?"

They made various guesses, except for Dumbledore who kept calmly observing the cell and eventually his eyes settled on the wall near the door.

He walked over to it, and such a move certainly caught the eyes of the others.

Dumbledore touched the area between the wall and the door where it was slightly damp compared to the rest of the room.

"He escaped through here."

Moody, who had decades of experience as an Auror, also spotted something wrong with the area, his magical eye darting around.

"It's a potion that can cause a brief transfiguration of the human body?"

"Yes, like the polyjuice potion that can produce a change in a person's appearance, there are many other kinds of potions in the magical world that can turn the human body into something dead as an alternative to the effects of certain transfiguration spells." Dumbledore said softly.

Sirius had stepped out of the cell, and he followed the dampness that stretched from the doorway to the outside and soon spotted a very shallow trail.

"He hasn't been gone long enough yet without his wand in his hand, we still have a chance to find him!"

Having spotted this, Sirius didn't stop and followed the trail out of this prison cell with impatience, Lupin and Moody following close behind, with only Dumbledore and Jon following unhurriedly at the end.

Once Sirius and the others had all disappeared from view, Jon looked at Dumbledore with a suspicious look on his face.

Dumbledore noticed the look in his eyes as well and turned his head to ask with a smile.

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

"A prisoner like Snape, especially with a vengeance of so many people staked out in his death, Professor, I don't think that you would make such a clumsy mistake as to let him escape from here." Jon said looking straight at Dumbledore.

Dumbledore blinked.

"That's just your guess, Jon, once people get older there will always be times when they get confused, I'm no different, no one is free of mishaps all the time."

But Jon didn't withdraw his gaze, he was still staring into Dumbledore's eyes.

"But Headmaster Grindelwald has always said that I have a gift for prophecy, and for some reason, Professor, I just have a feeling that this has something to do with you."

Hearing such an almost brutal determination from him, Dumbledore looked like he was running out of options as he suddenly asked Jon softly.

"Have you mastered your Animagus powers by now?"

Jon sensed that this was a serious question from Dumbledore and not some kind of diversionary move.

"Probably have them all at my fingertips."

"What about the Apparition, which is unique to the Phoenix?"

"That's what I've been practising, and by now it's basically flawless."

Dumbledore lowered his voice.

"When Lily comes back later and finds out that Snape has escaped from prison, she's going to want to track him down herself. You take the initiative, say you're going with her and then just keep following her, be on guard to protect her in the meantime and if anything goes wrong don't hesitate to just turn into a phoenix and bring her back."

Jon's eyes twitched, Dumbledore was clearly treating him like Fawkes.

"No problem, but Professor, you have to give me the inside story on this, right? Why did you let Snape go?"

"As I told you, Jon, Snape is actually a very pure man and such purity is what made him the Death Eater and murderer he is today, but it's also the same purity that makes him hateful and pathetic at the same time. And he's much more important than anyone could have imagined, something that even I only learned yesterday, and I'm sure Voldemort will find out about that soon enough, so his departure will be useful to us."

There was some inconsistency in his words, if Snape was important, why would it only be useful for him to leave?

But Jon looked like he had thought of something about it, had a thoughtful look on his face, and didn't pursue the matter any further.

And at this point, they had also made their way out of the cell and into an area of the Auror's quarters outside the cell.

The place was lit up with lights because of Snape's escape, and each of the Aurors searched every corner of the premises, and soon they found something more.

Someone's wand was missing!

It was no small thing, but it wasn't one of the Auror in this quarter who had lost his/her wand though, it was the French wizard who was in charge of logistics.

The cook, who was responsible for preparing food for the Aurors on night patrol, who had just fallen asleep during the morning hours of the day, ended up waking up not even an hour after resting to the sound of movement from the search in the premises and then realised his wand was gone.

Sirius and the others had all arrived in the room as well when Jon and Dumbledore approached, and there were obvious signs of dampness on the floor.

"This garrison has been enchanted with Anti-Apparition Charm, even if he had the wand he wouldn't have been able to just leave like that!" Moody grimaced, he was the main person in charge of watching over Snape, and he was certainly the one with the most responsibility now that the prisoner had escaped.

Sirius took the lead and rushed out, the trail Snape had left was still there, but the air was dry today and if they didn't hurry it wouldn't be long before the trail would eventually break again.

The group followed the trail left on the ground all the way beyond the garrison, and by the time they were completely out of the reach of the Anti-Apparition Charm, Sirius and the others were looking worse and worse!

At this very moment, Lily, who had come all the way back from Finland through the Floo network, also finally arrived at the Witching Horizons' Auror headquarters.

No emotion could be seen on her face, she just followed behind them with an expressionless face and came out of the quarters as well.

"What's the result?"

Seeing the look on her face, Sirius became slightly nervous instead.

"He stole a wand and is now out of range of the Anti-Apparition Charm based on the trail left behind, and the professionals among us are scouting the surrounding area for a residual Apparition Charm record."

Lily didn't make another sound, she just looked up at Dumbledore.

"Why didn't you tell me about catching him in advance?"

Five days had now passed since the day the Triwizard Tournament had ended, and Lily hadn't had time to follow the information on the British side of things due to her busy schedule in Finland.

Being in the far north of Europe, Finland people hardly paid much attention to the situation on the British and French sides, and the Finnish magical newspaper reporters had been the first to run away for fear of their lives at the start of the Triwizard Tournament, so they were now doing secondary reports in the country based on information from other newspapers.

So with no notice from anyone, it was only yesterday that Lily got the news from the Witching Horizons' inner circle that Snape had been taken alive as a prisoner, but by the time she got back today, the man had escaped!

Dumbledore said with a sigh.

"I was hoping to give you some buffer time."

Jon squinted at the old man, if he didn't know the inside story he would have thought that Dumbledore had no knowledge of how Snape had got away.

Lily didn't continue to question Dumbledore about anything further.

Hatred took over her, but it didn't overwhelm her; it wasn't her who had captured Snape, so she had no reason to accuse anyone of anything.

"It's a good thing that he had escaped."

She said coldly, just as she faced the vacant stare.

"I'll catch him with my own hands and kill him to do right for my husband and my son!"

Everyone in the crowd fell silent, everyone knew exactly what kind of animosity there was between Lily and Snape, and that if Snape hadn't overheard the most ridiculous prophecy ever made in the first place and proceeded to inform his lord, then James and Harry wouldn't have died at all back then.

This silence lasted for a long time before Dumbledore spoke with a slight nod.

"Let's wait until the results come in later. If he did use the Apparition to leave, it wouldn't be too far from the headquarters, as that would leave more of a trail, so we won't be waiting too long I guess."

Just as Dumbledore had predicted, since this was part of the Witching Horizons Auror headquarters, scouting around the compound didn't take much time, and soon a group of Aurors spotted the traces left by the Apparition in the woods near the fringes of the premises, and using the spell, they then backtracked to the point where the apparition had landed.

"It was on Knockturn Alley."

Sirius said restlessly after learning of Snape's whereabouts.

"He must have gone back! Back to rejoin the Dark Lord and serve him up!"

At that, Lupin said calmly.

"Not necessarily, let's not forget that it was the Dark Lord who gave up on him at Hogwarts Castle, and for him to go back now at this time, let alone get rehired, it's still up in the air if there's even a place for him around the Dark Lord."

"Then why is it, Knockturn Alley? If he doesn't want to go back to the Dark Lord, he can go anywhere in Europe!"

Lily had drawn her wand and her voice was cold.

"He's not a fool, rejoining Voldemort would not guarantee either his future or his life, but it's also clear that the destination he fled to would not hide from our search, and these days Britain is the only place in all of Europe where we are least likely to investigate and operate."

Moody frowned at her.

"You want to go to Britain and track him down?"

Lily didn't answer his question but looked up at Dumbledore.

"You know what has been the driving force that has kept me meticulously alive in this world, Professor Dumbledore."

She used the title she had used as a student, while quietly waiting for Dumbledore's answer.

Dumbledore rubbed his brow.

"We cannot send many people to enter Britain, so heading to Knockturn Alley to continue the chase would be dangerous, and that is precisely why I would not approve of you going off on your own like that, Lily."

The atmosphere became unbearably silent.

And it was at this point that Jon, who now maintained the appearance of a six-year-old and was only just above Lily's waist height, gave her sleeve a timely tug.

"Er, so anyway, the Triwizard Tournament is over, and I've got nothing to do for now, so why don't I go along with Professor Potter?"

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