Chapter 470
: Letters Across Time
Chapter 470: Letters Across Time
The room seemed unusually cold. Vader exhaled slowly, and a white mist formed in front of his face.
Mabel found it interesting and imitated him, letting out a long breath and then smiling.
A white eagle stood on Wade's shoulder, emitting a soft and faint white light, which made them feel only a slight chill without falling into despair and sadness.
The rest of the people in the room were not treated so well. A figure emitting a terrifying, cold aura slid forward, with a rancid, shrunken hand stretched out...
It was Michael's turn to deal with the Dementors. He stood in the middle of the living room, raised his wand, and said with chattering teeth: "Exodia... Exodia... Exopatria... Exopatria..."
Small balls of silver-white mist intermittently spurted out from the tip of the wand, but they never took shape, let alone blocked the Dementor.
Seeing that the Dementor's palm was about to touch Michael, Theo grabbed his shoulder and pulled him behind the sofa. Ryan jumped out to block Michael and shouted, "Expecto Patronus!"
A misty silver shadow shot out from the tip of the wand, barely holding back the Dementor, causing it to take two steps back.
After a few seconds, the shadow disappeared, and then Theo stepped forward and cast an incomplete Patronus Charm.
He held on for a while, and when he was trembling all over and almost fell, Michael rushed to the front again.
Using the Patronus Charm to fend off Dementors is not an easy task - even if this Dementor is a Boggart version, the sense of oppression and despair it brings to people is no less.
At the same time, using this difficult spell is a double test of magic and physical strength for young wizards whose magic power and spell comprehension levels are not up to standard.
Several of them were sweating profusely, their bodies were soaked, their hands and feet were shaking, and they could not hold on any longer. Lupin strode over and said, "That's enough, you need to rest for a while... Ridiculous!"
There was a loud crackling sound, and the Dementor turned into a dog chewing stick and was thrown back into the box by Lupin, and the patronus on Vader's shoulder also dissipated.
Michael lost all his strength immediately, and he lay down on the ground to catch his breath, saying in frustration: "How could this happen? I can usually summon a patronus."
"This spell is too advanced, it's normal to be slow." Harry pulled them up and comforted them, "Remember that time on the train? I didn't succeed either, and I fainted."
"But you are now fully capable of dealing with that guy..." Michael said, "So I still need to practice more!"
When several people heard that this was said by Michael, who loved to be lazy, they couldn't help laughing.
"Don't worry too much. You've done a good job." Lupin distributed chocolate to everyone and said, "Focus on thinking about happy things and don't get stuck in terrible memories."
He gently instructed everyone how to maintain a more stable state of mind. Harry walked over to Wade and Mabel, just in time to hear Mabel ask, "What were you laughing at just now?"
"The guy who likes to fish in troubled waters the most has suddenly become diligent." Wade said lazily, "It feels like the sun rising from the west."
Mabel said "Oh" in confusion, not understanding what was so funny about it. Then she asked with concern, "Are Mr. Cube and the others okay? I miss them a little."
"Mr. Cube?" Harry repeated the strange name and looked at the girl who was said to be Lupin's distant relative in confusion.
Mabel took the Polyjuice Potion. In the eyes of Hogsmeade and Harry and others, she was an ordinary girl with two pigtails and freckles on her face. She was from the United States and had temporarily dropped out of school due to health reasons and was staying at Lupin's house.
As for the physical reason, Harry and the others considerately did not ask, but judging from their expressions, it seemed that they regarded Mabel as a werewolf like Lupin.
"Mr. Cube is Wade's puppet." Mabel smiled and said, "There are several others, they are all very interesting."
She didn't go into detail about how the puppets had traveled thousands of miles to rescue their master without any orders, so after Harry heard it, the image in his mind was of various fist-sized puppet pets.
It was normal for Wade to have as many puppets as he wanted. Harry didn't pay attention to it and asked, "Where's Khalil? Didn't he come with you?"
"No, he has other things to do." Wade didn't want to repeat the terrible process, so he asked, "Have you been practicing spells so hard recently?"
"I can't be as useless as before next time I meet the enemy, right?" Harry said in a heavy tone, "I don't want to faint again."
Wade thought of the crises Harry had to face a year later in the original book, nodded and said, "It's good to practice more. The world is becoming more and more dangerous."
"Yeah." Harry said with emotion: "Dementors, Obscurus, Wizarding Party, and Death Eaters who escaped punishment like Malfoy's father... I heard from Percy that when they were in school a few years ago, the wizarding world had always been peaceful, and the biggest news was that the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor was in trouble again..."
——And Voldemort is about to be resurrected.
This thought flashed through Wade's mind, and then he heard Harry's next words and said helplessly: "From the year we entered school, troubles have appeared one after another. If it were in a novel, this would be called the treatment of the protagonist."
Harry laughed out loud.
Mabel looked at the two of them, then stared at Harry and asked, "Mortal didn't cause you any trouble, did he? Why is he included in this?"
"Hmm?" Harry said casually without thinking about it. When the girl asked him, he scratched his head and said, "Maybe it's because I often see this name in the newspaper? I subconsciously put it together..."
Mabel looked at Harry deeply, and when she saw that he didn't seem to have noticed anything, she looked away.
Just as Wade was about to say something, he saw a silver shadow out of the corner of his eye.
A Phoenix Patronus flew through the window and landed beside Vader, opening its mouth to speak in Dumbledore's voice: "Please come to the Shrieking Shack at once, Vader."
……
The Shrieking Shack was not far from the Lupins' home. When Wade arrived, he saw Dumbledore, wearing a purple robe covered with gold stars, standing next to the desolate shack.
"Professor Dumbledore." Wade walked over and asked, "What happened?"
"Caryl has escaped from Hogwarts." Dumbledore held out his arm, motioning for Wade to take it, and said, "Come with me, I may know where he is."
With a "bang", the two disappeared from the spot and then appeared in a strange city. Wade saw a yard surrounded by iron fences in front of him, surrounded by shrubs, and inside was a six-story white building.
The sign next to the gate indicated that this was a nursing home.
Dumbledore led Wade towards the nursing home and said, "Not long ago, Professor McGonagall told me that Caryl attacked Hermione in the Gryffindor Common Room, stole her time converter, and escaped."
Wade frowned and said, "He must have gone back to an earlier time and left Hogwarts through a secret passage... a few hours is enough for him to escape to anywhere in the UK."
"That was true, but I'm afraid Khalil has gone back further than is allowed."
Dumbledore said solemnly, "Because just an hour ago, when I finished meeting with Madame Maxime, I received a letter... a letter that was written more than a year ago and specified a delivery time."
Wade's eyebrows jumped: "From Khalil?"
"Yes."
As they were talking, Dumbledore had already brought Wade into the nursing home. A female doctor in her forties was leaning over to talk to a patient in a wheelchair. When she saw the two of them, she immediately came over.
"Hello again, Mr. Dumbledore. You're back so soon." The doctor ignored the two men's "strange clothes" and looked at Wade with surprise: "Oh, you must be Wade Grey! You look exactly like in the photo!"
Wade was stunned: "Photos?"
"Yes." The doctor looked around, then took the two into her office and took out a photo from the drawer. Harry was in the center of the photo, with Wade, Hermione and others next to him.
Wade could tell at a glance that this was probably a photo taken by Colin Creevey from Gryffindor. He was a huge fan of Harry Potter and was keen on taking photos of Harry, and occasionally he would include Wade and others in the photos.
Wade took back the photo and asked, "What's going on?"
The doctor sighed deeply, and said mysteriously with an expression that was a mixture of fear, disbelief, and relief:
"Actually, last year... oh, no, it was the Christmas of the year before last, I met a ghost."
Vader: "...Ghost?"
He looked at Dumbledore, and the Headmaster motioned for him to continue listening.
"Yes." The doctor shuddered and said, "One night, when I was alone in the office, it suddenly appeared... No, it can't be said to have appeared, but it suddenly spoke..."
"What did it say?" Vader asked.
"It allowed me to take a patient home, hide him, and take good care of him until January 1994, 1, when a teenager named Wade Grey arrived and was able to take the patient away."
The doctor's eyes showed fear, and he said, "It also said that it has put a curse on me. If I don't do it, my family and I will die. When Weed Grey arrives, he can help me remove the curse."
"I originally thought it was a prank by the patient, and told it that I would call the police if it continued to act up. But...but everything in my room suddenly started shaking, the light bulbs flickered and exploded, and even I floated up from the ground! I could even feel a pair of hands strangling my neck!"
The doctor touched his neck with lingering fear, as if he was back in that terrible night.
"I... I had no choice. I took the person back... But the next morning... an identical body appeared on the bed... And her cause of death was very strange. She was..."
The doctor lowered his voice and trembled as he said, "She was strangled to death by her own necklace!"
"When I saw the body, I immediately ran home to see it, but the person I brought back was still there... but there was her body in the ward again... I don't know what's going on, I don't even know which one is the ghost..."
The doctor looked at Wade with longing eyes, then looked at Dumbledore and asked, "You will take that thing... I mean that person away, right? My mission is completed, can the curse be lifted?"
Wade understood. He was silent for a while and asked, "Where is the extra body?"
"Oh, because no one has claimed it, and this matter is very... weird, so it's still in the morgue."
The doctor took the two to the morgue. Dumbledore came out and signed a few documents, and then the doctor opened the cabinet that had been sealed for a year.
Dumbledore did not remove the upper layer of cloth. Transfiguration magic or Polyjuice Potion would completely replace all physical characteristics, but there was one thing that could not be changed.
The old man stretched out his slender fingers and pulled the trouser legs of his hospital gown up a little.
On the skinny ankles of the corpse were a pair of iron rings as thick as fingers. They were imposed by the Aurors to prevent the prisoner from escaping.
The old man was silent for a long time, then he covered the white cloth again and asked, "Where is the person he asked you to take care of?"
"Him?" The doctor was stunned by the word, and then said, "The lady recovered very well. Although she didn't regain her memory, she has regained the ability to take care of herself. Her condition is not suitable for staying in the house all the time, so I settled her in my father's farm."
The doctor asked for leave from the sanatorium and drove Wade and Dumbledore to the farm.
Soon after, Wade saw Khalil's real mother, Mrs. Anne Johnson.
She was wearing a loose, simple blue dress and was sitting on a haystack, holding a fat cat and combing its hair.
Unlike her past appearance of always being tense and looking unapproachable, Anne Johnson now looked very relaxed and peaceful, with gentle eyes and a faint smile on her face.
Wade thought of the body in the morgue, and his heart stagnated. He pursed his lips tightly and turned his head away.
The doctor didn't dare to approach Mrs. Johnson. He stopped at a distance, looked at the two and said, "I took good care of her, right? Can this matter be over?"
"of course."
Dumbledore sighed, reached out his hand and stroked her forehead. The doctor immediately felt a warmth all over her body, and she looked at Dumbledore in surprise.
The principal nodded and said, "The curse has been lifted. We will take the people and the bodies away. Thank you for your time."
In fact, there was no curse at all, but the principal knew that saying so would make people feel more at ease.
"I will send you some money as your nursing fee during this period." Wade added, thinking back to the fees charged by most nursing homes, and then increased the price by 50%, asking, "30,000 pounds, is that okay?"
The doctor originally didn't want to take any money related to "ghosts", but when he heard this number, he couldn't help but be tempted.
She was just an intern and her annual income was only about 20,000 to 30,000 pounds.
So after hesitating for a moment, the doctor nodded and said, "Of course... that's enough... well, it actually left you a box... oh, I'm not hiding it, I just haven't had time to say it yet."
A few minutes later, the doctor dug out a long box from the farm's warehouse with the words "To Wade" written on it.
The box had a complicated lock, but that certainly didn't bother the two wizards. The doctor was filled with awe and curiosity when he saw that the strong lock opened with a click without them making any movement.
She realized that she might have touched a corner of the world that ordinary people could not see.
Wade opened the box and saw Harry's Firebolt and Invisibility Cloak, Hermione's Time Turner, and a letter inside.
He unfolded the letter and saw Khalil's messy handwriting.
[Ved, when you read this letter, I must have been dead for a long time, right? I hope you don't feel sorry for me, because this is what I deserve.]
[I'm sorry, but I don't regret it. My mother didn't do anything wrong. It was all because of me, her son, that she suffered all this. So if I have to die, I'd rather die alone... Anyway, I'm dead after going back so far in time. I'd rather use myself to get her back.]
[I know that doing this will have serious consequences, but I will try not to make any changes to known history. If time disorder or other consequences really occur... then there is nothing I can do. I can only wish you good luck.]
[Perhaps you hate me very much now? But for the sake of the cookies my mother baked for you, please help her, keep her away from the magical world and live peacefully... There is no need to restore these bad memories. ]
[If one day you can meet my father, please tell him for me: I am sorry and I love him.
——C.J.
(End of this chapter)