Returning the Wand

Chapter 360 Returning the Wand (4.8K) (1/2)

The two of them stopped a few steps away from Lynch.

Mrs. Maxim lowered her head slightly, the moonlight outlining her sharply defined profile. She held the small black wooden box horizontally forward with both hands, but instead of handing it to Lynch, she turned to Dumbledore beside her.

"Albus," her voice was deeper and clearer than usual, with a solemnity like that of fulfilling an ancient promise, "this item was kept by me and is being returned intact today. Now, it is returned to its rightful owner."

Dumbledore gazed at the box, his usual gentle smile replaced by a deeper, almost solemn expression. He nodded slightly, his voice gentle yet earnest: "Olme, thank you very much. Thank you for crossing the Channel to bring it back safely, and thank you for your care and hard work in keeping it safe all these years."

Mrs. Maxim nodded solemnly in response: "It is an agreement. It should return to its rightful owner."

Dumbledore reached out his hands and steadily took the box from Mrs. Maxime's hands.

His movements were solemn, as if he were receiving a trust of great significance.

Then, he turned and walked towards Lynch, holding the box in both hands and handing it to him.

"Mr. Lynch," Dumbledore's voice sounded solemn and formal in the night breeze, "that I took it from you many years ago. Now, I return it to you with my own hands."

Lynch looked up from the box and met Dumbledore's gaze.

A moment of silence followed, broken only by the mournful sound of the wind.

Then, Lynch slowly raised his hands, palms up, his movements steady without a tremor, and took the box from Dumbledore.

The box felt cool to the touch, its wood smooth and fine, but what truly made Lin Qi's fingertips tense almost imperceptibly was the incredibly familiar throbbing emanating from its walls—like a long-lost half of himself, finally feeling the call of his true self across the seal and distance. That inherent magical presence, so closely connected to his blood and soul, pressed heavily on his palm.

He held it steadily, as if supporting a past that had been forcibly interrupted and was about to be resumed.

Dumbledore withdrew his hand, clasped it back in front of him, and watched silently. Mrs. Maxime also remained a silent observer.

Lynch lowered his head and stared at the wooden box in his hand.

The moonlight shone on the dark box lid, making the intricate magical patterns seem to come alive, flowing with a dark luster.

He took a deep breath of the cold night air, and then slowly, with one hand supporting the bottom of the box, he gently brushed along the seam with the fingertips of his other hand.

"Click."

A very faint yet exceptionally clear click of a mechanism opening rang out.

He opened the box completely.

The white oak wand lay quietly on the dark velvet cushion.

Under the cool moonlight, it appeared an almost unreal ivory white, straight, slender, and cold.

Its length of thirteen and a half inches is as if calibrated to the most stringent standards, without a single natural curve or knot. Its surface is extremely polished, smooth as a mirror, reflecting moonlight while absorbing all heat.

The eye is first drawn to the unique grip area—which occupies nearly a third of the entire staff.

The handle is not smooth, but rather carved with extremely fine and deep spiral grooves. These grooves are not added later; they seem to be permanent marks left by the wood itself, forcibly twisted and shaped by some invisible force, like the cold engravings left by a glacier slowly and forcefully carved by a threaded drill bit. The grooves spiral upwards, sharp and regular, creating a strong contrast of light and shadow under the moonlight, giving it an unparalleled, almost ferocious grip and directional feel. This spiral structure ends abruptly at the top of the handle area, forming a clear and sharp dividing line.

Above the dividing line, the wand's shape underwent a sudden change.

It tapers sharply and abruptly, without any hesitation, forming a perfectly conical staff with a smooth, almost chillingly clean line. The staff extends all the way to an extremely sharp point that gleams with a cold, inorganic light. It is not the rounded tip of a traditional wand, but a precisely ground, sharply angled point, making it look nothing like a spellcasting tool, but more like a nail that could easily pierce through ice, or something used in a solemn and cruel ritual—a nail of judgment, or an ice pick poised to be unleashed.

From the glacier-like spiral groove at the base of the handle to the sharp, sword-like tip, the entire wand exudes a silent, poised sharpness, and an almost inhuman, perfectly geometric coldness. It lies on dark velvet, like a block of ancient ice from the coldest lands, or a ritual weapon wiped clean, awaiting its next drop of blood.

Moonlight flowed across its ivory-white shaft, sharp spiral grooves, and gleaming, pointed tip.

Everything around seemed to quiet down, even the wind seemed to take a detour.

Lynch's breathing paused almost imperceptibly for a moment.

His gaze, as if drawn by a magnet, was firmly fixed on the wand, sweeping it inch by inch from the beginning of the spiral handle to its sharp, blinding tip. There was no excitement, no emotion; in those deep, abyss-like eyes, there was only an almost frozen focus, and a chilling shiver as something slowly awakening within finally touched reality.

He slowly extended his right hand, his movements slower and more steady than when he had taken the box earlier.

My fingertips first touched the cold, smooth, ivory-white wood, gently tracing the sharp lower edge of the spiral grooves. The touch was cool and hard, the sharp edges of the grooves creating an incredibly familiar, almost limb-like, sense of connection.

Then, his fingers tightened, firmly gripping the spiral-patterned handle area.

Just as his fingertips completely pressed against the grooves of the handle, "whoosh—"

A deep, almost inaudible resonance, yet it reached the very depths of the soul, emanated from within the wand.

The vast, deep-sea-like magical power within Lin Qi, which had been dormant for years but had always been restricted by invisible shackles, surged out uncontrollably and naturally through the white hardwood staff the moment it sensed the return of its natural conductor and amplifier!

There were no incantations, no intentions; it was simply a natural outpouring of quantitative change leading to qualitative change.

Centered on the spot where Lynch stood, an invisible and intangible yet terrifyingly vast magical field, like a transparent giant hammer, silently and violently expanded in all directions in a spherical shape!

Time seemed to be compressed into a mere instant.

In that brief moment, in the blink of an eye, in the blink of an eye, the space itself seemed to be gently "weighed".

Within a mile radius, everything not firmly anchored to the ground or possessing sufficient mass to resist it, including all life within it, experienced a strange, illogical lightness.

Inside Hogwarts Castle, Harry, who was lying on his four-poster bed about to fall asleep, felt the mattress beneath him and his body float up at the same time, as if he had suddenly lost weight. His heart skipped a beat, and then he fell back down heavily.

He blinked in confusion, wide awake, thinking it was just a hallucination caused by his exhaustion.

Ron next door mumbled something indistinctly and rolled over.

In the cold, damp room of the Potions Department's underground office, Snape was grading a maddening paper. Suddenly, without warning, the quill in his hand, the inkwell on the table, and even he himself rose a few millimeters, imperceptible yet undeniably, his robes fluttering even without wind. A drop of ink, just leaving the quill's tip and falling, hovered in mid-air, elongating into a trembling ellipsoid before returning to its spherical shape and falling. Snape froze instantly, jerking his head up, his dark eyes flashing with a sharp, piercing light as he scanned every corner of the room, his fingers already gripping his wand in his sleeve. The sensation came quickly, and vanished even faster, leaving only a chilling alertness in the air.

At the edge of the forbidden forest, several nocturnal creatures cried out in alarm, their claws scratching futilely in the air above the ground.

The surface of Black Lake even briefly showed a slightly raised arc, defying gravity.

The weathervane at the top of the astronomical tower froze for a moment in an eerie way.

Even Mrs. Maxim, standing in front of Lynch, swayed slightly in the irresistible, widespread upward movement, staggering a little, and a hint of undisguised astonishment flashed across her face.

Only Dumbledore, his silver beard rippling in the invisible magical ripples, remained as steady as a rock, as if the force that could cause everything to momentarily lose its weight was merely a gentle breeze passing by him. His blue eyes behind his crescent-shaped spectacles were fixed intently on the wand in Lynch's hand, which seemed to have come alive, and on Lynch's slightly furrowed face, which was trying hard to suppress the involuntary outpouring of power.

All of this, from beginning to end, lasted only the time it takes an ordinary person to blink.

Then, gravity returns.

All the objects that were slightly lifted off the ground—quill pens, ink, beds, people, small animals, fallen leaves, and even water droplets on the lake—softly yet firmly "fell" back to their original positions, making soft, dense "plop" and "tap" sounds, mixed with a few startled gasps and puzzled whispers.

The magic field vanished as abruptly as it had appeared, as if the scene that defied the laws of physics had never happened.

Only a faint, lingering tremor in the air, as if space itself had been gently "stirred," and the sudden alarm bells that rang in the minds of certain perceptive wizards, proved that the moment was no illusion.

Lynch's knuckles turned slightly white from gripping the wand so tightly.

He almost immediately became aware of the brief, uncontrolled spread. Under his strong will, the deep-sea-like magic rapidly receded and subsided with astonishing efficiency, returning to its dormant state within his body, leaving only the unobstructed, seamless connection between himself and the white hardwood wand in his hand. The cold light at the tip of the wand shone steadily, like a cold eye that had finally opened.

He slowly exhaled, and the breath condensed into white mist in the cold night wind.

The surrounding air seemed to be unusually still because of that moment of "weightlessness".

Mrs. Maxim regained her balance, looking at Lynch and the wand in his hand, which shone with an inner light, with suspicion and uncertainty. She then looked at the calm Dumbledore and ultimately chose to remain silent.

Dumbledore finally spoke, his voice still calm, yet seemingly containing a thousand words: "Welcome back, Mr. Lynch. The complete you."

Lynch gently rotated his wrist, the ivory-white, spiral-grooved, nail-sharp wand feeling weightless in his hand. He glanced down at the creation so intimately connected to his soul, his deep voice carrying a barely perceptible sigh in the night wind: "—Undeniably, I miss this feeling."

Before the words were finished, a series of rapid and heavy "thump, thump" sounds, accompanied by heavy breathing, came from afar.

Moody emerged swiftly from the shadows on the side of the castle, his wooden prosthetic leg striking the ground with a jarring sound in the silent night. His demonic eye darted wildly, its eerie blue light scanning his surroundings, while his other, normal eye was filled with vigilance and tension. His wand was already drawn.

"What happened?!" Moody's hoarse voice was filled with undisguised anxiety. His gaze swept quickly over Dumbledore and Madam Maxim, finally fixing on Lynch. He lingered for a moment on Lynch's wand, his suspicion almost tangible. "I sense a—unusual magical fluctuation! It's very large! Is it an attack? Or some kind of dark magic experiment?!" The last half of his sentence was almost a direct interrogation of Lynch.

Dumbledore stepped forward, his silvery-white beard and hair appearing exceptionally soft in the moonlight. He slightly raised his hand, signaling Moody to calm down: "Relax, Alastor. There was no attack, no dark magic. Just a small accident, a little—aftershock of magical resonance. It's all over now."

"An accident? Resonance?" Moody's magical eyes were fixed on Lynch, clearly extremely dissatisfied with this explanation. He retorted gruffly, "What kind of accident could cause the entire castle to—"

Just as he was questioning him, Lin Qi made a move.

With a flick of his wrist, Lynch caught the 13 and a half inch long white hardwood wand between his fingers, then with a fluid, almost uncanny motion, he thrust his arm back—and the hard, sharp wand, like a snake returning to its den, silently slid into the sleeve of his suit, disappearing completely from the cuff to the elbow.

Even more strangely, his arms moved freely, and the sleeves of his suit remained perfectly straight and fitted, making it impossible to tell that there was an object of such length and shape hidden inside.

After completing this action, Lin Qi acted as if nothing had happened. He used his free hand to close the lid of the small black wooden box that he had been holding in his other hand. With a soft "click," the lock was engaged.

He took a few steps and handed the box back to Mrs. Maxim.

"Thank you." Mrs. Maxim took the box, nodded steadily, and cast a shadow over Lynch with her tall figure. "Returning it to its rightful owner, my task is complete." She paused, looked at Dumbledore, and said, "I should go back to the carriage now."

Lynch smiled and said, "Since we're going the same way, I'll give you a ride. There are some minor matters concerning the recent arrangements for the students at Beauxbatons; perhaps we can discuss them on the way."

Mrs. Maxim did not object: "Very well."

The two turned to Dumbledore and Moody, who was still staring at Lynch with a suspicious look on his face.

Lynch said a brief goodbye: "Principal, Professor Moody. Excuse me."

Mrs. Maxime nodded to Dumbledore. "Good night, Professor Albus Moody."

Dumbledore smiled and nodded. "Good night, Orim. Professor Lynch, take care on your journey."

Moody let out a muffled murmur, his magic eye still following Lynch, but with Dumbledore present, he couldn't forcefully stop him any longer.

Lynch and Mrs. Maxim said no more, turned around and walked side by side toward the shore of Black Lake, toward the direction where Beauxbatons' huge carriage was parked.

The moonlight elongated the figures of the two, one tall and one short, one upright and one graceful, as they gradually blended into the deeper darkness at the boundary between the castle and the Forbidden Forest, their footsteps quickly being drowned out by the wind.

Just before their figures disappeared into the darkness, Dumbledore, who had been watching silently, narrowed his deep blue eyes, hidden behind his half-moon spectacles.

His gaze fell on Lynch's empty right shoulder, noticing that the raven that always perched on Lynch's shoulder had disappeared.

Moody glared at their retreating figures, then abruptly turned to Dumbledore, his voice low and laced with suppressed rage: "Albus! That was no simple accident! I even felt my own weight for a moment! And that thing in his hand—what was that? What did he hide? You just let him go with that French woman?"

Dumbledore sighed softly, his gaze still fixed on the direction where the two had disappeared, his blue eyes reflecting the cool moonlight: "Alastor, some things returning to their rightful owners will always cause some ripples. As for Professor Lynch—he's not a problem. Let's leave it at that for tonight. Those little ones in the castle who might have been frightened still need us to soothe them, at least to convince them that it was just—an interesting nightmare."

Moody snorted heavily, shoved his wand back into his waistband, took another big gulp of the contents of the flask, and stomped his wooden prosthetic leg on the ground. He was clearly extremely dissatisfied with Dumbledore's "casual" response, but there was nothing he could do. He could only keep his nerves on edge and follow Dumbledore as he turned and returned to the castle. His dark blue magic eye continued to dart restlessly, scanning every corner of the night.