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It circled Ariana slowly, deliberately. Its feathers shimred like flowing fire, every beat of its wings resonating with the starlight that clung to her form.
Ariana's expression softened further. Smiling gently, she extended her hand, and the phoenix descended without hesitation, alighting upon the back of her hand as though it had always belonged there.
'Such extraordinary affinity with a phoenix… could that too be a sign of the purity of Dumbledore's bloodline? Was this yet another piece of impossible proof?' Ian's lips moved, but no sound erged.
The wizard who had thought himself prepared for anything now found the bounds of his imagination woefully insufficient for the madness his world kept unveiling.
"Is… this phoenix yours?"
Ariana's gaze flicked between the bird and Leonard.
"Wait… don't tell , you're an ancestor of the Dumbledore family!?"
Her eyes widened in dawning realization. And then, an even greater shock followed.
"No! No, Ancestor Ariana Dumbledore, you are the ancestor!" Leonard's voice rang with disbelief and awe, as though he had just stepped out of a dream into living reality. The woman he had only ever seen in a portrait now stood before him, breathing, speaking, alive.
'Was she a spirit?'
'Or sothing else entirely?'
Leonard's heart churned with a storm of questions.
"Eh?"
Ariana blinked in confusion. She felt as though Leonard had just stolen her line. Ian had told her this was the Middle Ages, so shouldn't she be the one crying out in reverence to an ancestor, not the other way around?
And besides… how on earth did he know her na?
Still lost in that dazed whirl of thoughts, Ariana almost missed Leonard's sudden movent. His eyes widened as if struck by realization, and with a sharp slap to the back of his head, he jolted upright, "I understand now!"
Leonard's eyes widened, staring at Ian with shock and awe.
"You… you must also be my ancestor! Ariana's husband!" He stumbled over the words, unsure how to address Ian, yet his wild leap of logic only grew more absurd by the second.
Of course, from Leonard's perspective, it wasn't entirely unreasonable. After all, stories of immortal husbands wandering with their wives' spirits were common in the old ballads. To him, this explanation seed perfectly sound.
He truly believed he had uncovered the truth.
But--
"..."
Ian froze causing his neck to go stiff, every nerve in his body numbed by disbelief.
"What kind of nonsense is that?!" he couldn't stop himself from blurting out.
Ariana, too, looked utterly lost, unable to follow Leonard's reasoning. In truth, she hadn't even figured out why she had been mistaken for an ancestor in the first place, let alone why soone was suddenly pairing her off with Ian in the family tree.
"Ian? What's going on here?" Ariana turned to him, bewildered.
All Ian could do was shrug helplessly.
"I don't really know… It's probably tied to sothing very complicated. Once I get back, I'll have to ask Headmaster Dumbledore about it. Maybe then the whole ss will make more sense."
He swallowed hard, lowering his voice. "Of course, I'll leave out Leonard Dumbledore's… imaginative remarks. Otherwise the Headmaster will murder ."
The truth was, Ian had already begun piecing together a few troubling suspicions. Considering the Headmaster's recent secret endeavors, it wasn't unthinkable that Ariana might one day be resurrected.
Still, why it had led to such a paradox now was utterly beyond him. Ti was a treacherous snarl of contradictions, and trying to untangle it always left the mind reeling.
"I think… this Dumbledore gentleman must have simply mistaken for soone else," Ariana offered, her thoughts far simpler. She gave an embarrassed smile, settling on the most straightforward conclusion.
As a girl whose mind was still that of a teenager, she could hardly wrestle with the paradox of "which ca first, the chicken or the egg." The idea of being soone's ancestor, let alone Ian's, was simply too strange, too uncomfortable. The more she thought about it, the more awkward it beca.
"Exactly. He's mistaken," Ian agreed quickly.
He caught sight of Leonard opening his mouth as though to argue, and decided to end it before Ariana spiraled into confusion. With a sharp flick, he dismissed the Patronus charm.
"Give my regards to my Teacher and to Pandro," Ian said softly, bidding farewell before Ariana's light faded. Ever polite, she gave a final wave, not just to Ian, but to Leonard and rlin as well.
Leonard instinctively lifted his hand and waved back.
rlin, however, remained unmoved. It wasn't a lack of manners, though Ian would argue the old wizard lacked plenty of those. No, in that mont rlin's silence ca from sothing else entirely: he hadn't taken his eyes off Ian for even a second.
And when Ariana's glow finally dissipated and the sky cleared once more, rlin at last broke the silence.
"That… was your Patronus? A human-shaped Patronus?"
His voice was low and rough, threaded with shock and disbelief. Even his hands, hanging at his sides, trembled faintly.
"Impressive, right? She can even help cut people down if it cos to that."
Ian arched a brow, his tone light, almost playful. To him, being able to shock even the so-called King of Ancient Wizards was nothing short of entertaining.
"This isn't a matter of impressive or not…" rlin's throat worked as he swallowed, his voice low and strained. "As far as I know, there are only two beings capable of pulling souls back from the underworld."
He had clearly seen Ariana for what she was, a heroic spirit.
"Only two? And now ? That many already?" Ian's focus landed on the strangest part, his casual remark oddly out of place. He noticed rlin's shoulders trembling faintly.
"…Heh."
It sounded like rlin was trying to smother his emotions.
"Yes. Two."
His gaze locked on Ian, unblinking, like a blade held to his throat.
"One of them must be Death itself, right?" Ian ventured cautiously.
But rlin shook his head.
"No. Death never interferes in such things. In all of history, only two have done this. One was the Shadow Crow… and the other, the figure alchemists revere as legend, the True Creator."
His eyes glead sharply. "And now, there's a third. You… divh… or should I call you Ian? I hope that is your true na."
The suspicion in his stare was relentless, almost interrogative, and it made Ian's scalp prickle. He instinctively took a step back.
"Of course it's Ian," he said with an awkward laugh.
Leonard, standing to the side, studied him as well, though the Dumbledore heir's gaze lacked the cutting edge of rlin's.
"This is… unreasonable. But if there's one revelation I've gained from this journey, it's that I may finally be glimpsing a truth buried deep beneath the dust of history."
rlin's voice grew grim, almost solemn. "To summon the dead from the realm beyond… that is no re skill. It is an authority. The mark of a sovereign."
Ian swallowed hard, throat tight.
"…And what exactly are you trying to say?"
His heart already whispered the answer.
As expected, "I just want to test a theory."
From nowhere, rlin produced a pitch-black orb and held it out toward Ian, palm open.
"Perhaps the authority over life and death… has always belonged to the sa one being in this world."
Seeing Ian hesitate, rlin thrust the orb straight into his hands.
"What the hell is this?" Ian muttered, weighing the dense sphere curiously.
The answer ca almost instantly.
The orb cracked, splitting apart to reveal sothing bizarre, a tallic, cybernetic eye glinting coldly in the light. rlin's face shifted the mont he saw it, his expression saying just as I thought.
Ian barely had ti to open his mouth, Before his vision filled with a massive fist, as large as a sandbag, driving straight at him.
"Bloody hell! You bastard!"
Among the blooming wildflowers, Ian's body proved firsthand the versatility of wizards.
Clearly, among them there were not only sword saints, But boxing champions as well.
(End of Chapter)
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