Harry laughed out loud.
Mabel looked at the two of them, staring at Harry and asked, "The Obscurus didn’t give you two any trouble, did it? Why did you include it?"
"Hm?" Harry said offhandedly, not really thinking about it, and when asked by the girl, he scratched his head and said, "Maybe it’s because I often see that na in the newspaper? Subconsciously lumped it together..."
Mabel looked deeply at Harry, seeing that he didn’t seem to have discovered anything, then turned her gaze away.
Vid was just about to say sothing when he caught a glimpse of a silver shadow out of the corner of his eye.
A Phoenix Guardian God passed through the window and landed beside Vid, opening its mouth with Dumbledore’s voice: "Please co to the Screaming Shack imdiately, Vid."
...
The Screaming Shack wasn’t far from Lupin’s house, and when Vid arrived, he saw Dumbledore standing beside the desolate shack, wearing a purple robe studded with golden stars.
"Professor Dumbledore." Vid walked over and asked, "What’s happened?"
"Carrel has escaped from Hogwarts." Dumbledore extended his arm, indicating for Vid to take hold and said, "Co with , I might know his hiding place."
With a "bang", the two disappeared from where they stood and reappeared in an unfamiliar city. Vid saw a yard enclosed by iron railings ahead, surrounded by shrubs, with a six-story white building inside.
The sign next to the gate indicated that this was an asylum.
Dumbledore led Vid towards the asylum and said, "Not long ago, Professor McGonagall told that Carrel attacked Hermione in the Gryffindor Common Room, stole her Ti Turner, and escaped."
Vid frowned and said, "He must have turned back to an earlier ti and then left Hogwarts through a secret passage... A few hours is enough ti for him to escape anywhere in the United Kingdom."
"That would normally be true, but I’m afraid Carrel’s ti reversal far exceeded the allowable range."
Dumbledore said gravely, "Because just an hour ago, when I finished eting with Madam Maxi, I received a letter... A letter that was written over a year ago and was delivered at a specified ti."
Vid’s brow twitched: "From Carrel?"
"Yes."
As they spoke, Dumbledore had already led Vid into the asylum, where a female doctor in her forties was leaning over to speak to a patient in a wheelchair. When she saw the two of them, she imdiately walked over.
"Hello again, Mr. Dumbledore, you returned so quickly."
The doctor ignored the two’s "peculiar outfits" and looked at Vid with surprised eyes: "Oh, you must be Vid Gray! You look exactly like the photo!"
Vid was taken aback: "Photo?"
"Yes." The doctor looked around, then led them into her office, taking a photo out of the drawer. In the center of the photo was Harry, surrounded by Vid, Hermione, and others.
Vid imdiately recognized it as one likely taken by Gryffindor’s Colin Creevey. He was a huge fan of Harry Potter, keen on taking photos of Harry and occasionally snapping shots of Vid and others.
Vid put the photo down and asked, "What’s going on here?"
The doctor sighed deeply, a look of fear and incredulity mixed with a hint of relief on her face. She mysteriously said:
"Actually, last year... oh no, it was the Christmas of the year before, I t a ghost."
Vid: "...Ghost?"
He looked at Dumbledore, who signaled him to continue listening.
"Yes." The doctor shivered and said, "One night, when I was alone in the office, it suddenly appeared... no, I can’t say it appeared, it was more like it suddenly started speaking..."
"What did it say?" Vid asked.
"It told to take a patient ho, hide them, and take good care of them. Until January 30, 1994, when a young man nad Vid Gray arrived, only then could he take the person away."
The doctor looked at Vid with fear in her eyes, "It also said it put a curse on , that if I didn’t comply, my family and I would die a horrible death. When Vid Gray arrived, he could help lift the curse."
"At first, I thought it was a prank by the patient or sothing like that, and I said if it didn’t stop fooling around, I’d call the police. But... but then everything in the room suddenly started shaking, the light bulbs flickered and then shattered, and even I floated off the ground! I could even feel hands gripping my neck!"
The doctor fearfully touched her own neck, as if reliving that terrifying night.
"I had no choice; I took the person ho... but the next day, the next morning... an identical corpse appeared on the hospital bed... and her cause of death was bizarre, she was..."
The doctor lowered her voice and trembled as she spoke: "She was strangled by her own necklace!"
"When I saw the corpse, I imdiately ran ho to check, but the person I took ho was still there... yet there was a corpse in the hospital room... I didn’t know what was going on, I didn’t even know which was the ghost..."
The doctor looked at Vid with pleading eyes, and then at Dumbledore, asking: "You’ll take that thing... I an that person away, right? My task is complete, can the curse be lifted?"
Vid already understood and was silent for a while before asking, "Where’s that extra corpse?"
"Oh, because no one has ever claid it, and the situation is very... peculiar, so it’s still in the morgue."
The doctor led the two to the morgue, and Dumbledore signed several docunts before the doctor opened the cabinet that had been sealed for over a year.
User Comments
0 comments from readers