Jon also met someone.
It was also a woman.
If Helga still existed in this world, she would be an old woman more than a thousand years old. She would be older than many people in this world.
But that was not the case.
Helga was not a pure human. She was a newly ascended god.
She was a god, after all. She would always maintain her beautiful appearance.
After all, between a young god and an old one, one would have to make a choice with their feet.
"So you're here to say goodbye. And from what you're saying, I'm the last one, right?"
"The important people are always at the back of the queue. I think you should firmly believe in this."
"Perhaps I would believe it to anyone else, but you have too many wicked ideas. Who can tell what you are doing?
Besides, it's ridiculous that you suddenly came to say goodbye to me. Although your strength is growing fast, it's abnormal that your strength doesn't grow fast with the help of the Magic Network.
But even if you maintain this speed of growth, you still have a long way to go before you can become a demigod. After becoming a demigod, you still have a long way to go before you can become a god. Not to mention that the path you chose is much more difficult than the normal path to becoming a god. How can you overcome it so easily? "
"Ancestor, you're still too inexperienced. Some strange things have happened to me that I can't explain to you clearly. So I don't know when I may be able to leave. In order to save time, I plan to tell you all the things here first. Otherwise, if I suddenly leave, the things here can't be settled. What if my departure causes the world to be unable to get on the right track and eventually leads to the destruction of the world?"
Helga was speechless.
She really didn't want to hurt Jon's self-confidence, but how could a world be destroyed so easily?
Wasn't it ridiculous?
But this kind of confidence was not a bad thing. Anyway, Helga didn't care. It was Jon's own business. Anyway, it was good that the child had this kind of confidence.
"Do you have anything else? If not, hurry up and go back. The child has grown up and is not cute anymore. I feel a little angry looking at you now. "
"…" Jon expressed his helplessness. "Well, I've said what I need to say. I'll go first."
It was already night when they came out. The manor was very quiet. Blair was reading in the room. Her parents did not live here. Instead, they lived in the Yang family manor with two younger brothers.
Grandmother was old. She liked liveliness and children.
Blair was not young anymore.
In two years, she would enter the Hogwarts to study. At the same time, she would begin to inherit the grace left behind by Helga. This was destined to be a bright road, but no matter how bright it was, there would always be some bumps and bumps in the road.
Hopefully, she would be able to walk on it.
Although they hadn't spent a lot of time together, this child was still his little sister.
"Brother, aren't you asleep?"
Little Blair walked out of the room with a cup in his hand.
"Yes, brother is still busy. Where are you going?"
"It's time for me to sleep. I'm going down to get a cup of milk. Uncle Carlyle and aunty are busy making a new desk, so I have to get it myself."
Jon smiled, rubbed Blair's hair, and took the cup in the little girl's hand.
"Brother will take you to get the milk."
He took Blair's hand and walked down the stairs step by step.
In fact, this kind of life was quite good. He did not have to worry about those messy things, and did not have to worry about those problems that could arise at any time.
However, it was a pity that he could not live such a life.
"Blair."
"Yes?"
"If brother leaves, will you miss brother?"
"Of course I will miss brother."
The little girl said in a childish voice, "But why does brother have to leave?"
"Because … brother has something to do. However, brother will also miss Blair."
He went to the kitchen to get the milk, and then sent Blair back to the room. He told Blair a story to put her to sleep, and then went to the garden.
It was another winter.
But with the existence of the thermostatic magic array, the garden was still as warm as spring.
This was quite good.
… …
Perhaps this was not good at all.
Standing in the cold wind and snow, Hermione looked at the figure in front of her and finally confirmed that this was the person she was looking for.
Because that smell was there again.
Harry had a different feeling. He had a strange feeling. Looking at this person, he did not need Hermione to pinch his arm. The possibility of this woman being Muggle was almost zero. She stood there staring at a house that was completely invisible to non-wizards.
But even if she was a witch, it was strange that she came out in such a cold night just to see the ruins of an old house.
And, according to the rules of magic, she should not be able to see him and Hermione at all.
Harry had a very strange feeling, as if she knew that they were here and knew who they were.
Just as he came to this uneasy conclusion, the woman raised a gloved hand and waved.
Hermione leaned against Harry under the Invisibility Cloak, her arm close to his arm.
"How does she know?"
He shook his head, indicating that he did not know.
But in fact, Hermione knew that she had a special magic mark on her, left by Jon, so that the woman could identify her.
Therefore, the current situation was within her expectations.
She just could not show it.
The woman waved even more energetically.
Harry could think of many reasons not to heed the call, but as they looked at each other in the empty street, his guess about her identity became stronger and stronger.
Could it be that she had been waiting for their arrival for the past few months?
Did Dumbledore tell her to wait here, that Harry would come one day?
Could it be that she had been spying in the graveyard and following them here?
And the fact that she could feel them reminded him of some kind of Dumbledore -like magic that he had never encountered before.
Finally, Harry spoke, and Hermione jumped in surprise.
"Are you Bashida?"
The tightly wrapped figure nodded and waved his hand again.
Harry and Hermione looked at each other under the Invisibility Cloak. Harry raised his eyebrows, and Hermione nodded nervously.
They walked towards the woman. She turned at once and hobbled back the way they had come, past several houses, and turned into a doorway.
They followed her down a path and through a garden almost as barren as the one they had just come across.
She fumbled with the key in the front door for a moment, then opened it and stepped aside to let them in.
She smelled bad. Or maybe it was her room: Harry wrinkled his nose as they edged in and took off the Invisibility Cloak.
He stood close to her and saw that she was so small and bent with age that she barely came up to his chest.
She closed the door, her bruised knuckles against the peeling paint, and turned to look into Harry's face, her eyes sunken in the clear folds of skin, thick with cataracts.
Her face was stuttered with broken veins and geriatrics.
He doubted that the old lady could see clearly, and even if she could, she would see only the bald Muggle he was pretending to be.
The smell of old mildew and dust and dirty clothes and spoiled food was stronger now. She unwrapped the black, moldy kerchief, revealing a thinning head with visible white hair.
"Bashida?"
She nodded again.
Harry felt the locket against his skin. The thing that sometimes ticked or pulsed inside it woke up. He could feel it pulsing inside the cold gold shell.
Did it know, did it feel, that the thing that could destroy it was nearby?
Bashida hobbled past them, pushing Hermione aside as if she had not seen them, and into what seemed to be a sitting room.
"Harry, I'm not sure."
Hermione was nervous, after all. What if? She remembered Jon's instructions. If the person gave the signal, she was to do it and nothing else.
But attacking an old lady felt a little dangerous — of course, she knew, because Jon had said that Bashida had been dead for some time.
"Look at her size. If it doesn't work, I think we can take her down," Harry said.
"Well, I should have told you. I know she's not normal. Muriel says she's old and 'confused.'"
"Come here!"
Bashida shouted from the next room in Harry's ear.
Hermione jumped, for it was not a human voice. But she said nothing, just grabbed Harry's arm.
If it didn't work, she would Apparate.
"It's all right."
Harry said soothingly, and went into the sitting room.
Bashida hobbled about, lighting candles, but the room was still dark, not to mention dirty.
Thick dust puffed under their feet, and Harry's nose caught something more disgusting beneath the musty smell, like carrion.
He wondered when the last time someone had gone into Bashida's room to see if she was still alive, he thought.
She seemed to have forgotten her magic, and was clumsily lighting candles with her hands, the lace on her sleeves threatening to catch fire.
"I'll do it."
Harry said, taking the matches from her.
She stood and watched as he finished lighting candles all over the room, standing on little dishes, perched perilously on piles of books, or on little tables full of mouldy cups.
The last place Harry saw a candle was a bowed chest of drawers, on which there were photographs.
As the flames leaped, reflections flickered in the grey glass and silver frames.
He could see things moving faintly in the photographs.
"Whirlwind sweep," he said softly, as Bashida fumbled with the wood for the fire.
The dust cleared from the photographs, and he saw at once that half a dozen of them were missing. They had been in the tallest and most ornate frames, and he wondered whether Bashida or someone else had taken them away.
Then a photograph near the back caught his eye, and he picked it up.
It was the bright blond thief from the dream, the lad perched on Grigovitch's windowsill, smiling lazily at Harry in the silver frame.
Harry remembered at once where he had seen the lad: arm in arm with the young Dumbledore in The Life and Lies of Dumbledore.
The other missing photographs must have been there, too: in Rita's book.
"Mrs — Barchat?"
He asked, his voice trembling slightly. "Who is this?"
Bashida stood in the middle of the room, watching Hermione as she helped her light the fire.
"Mrs Barchat?"
Harry called again, and went to her, holding the frame. The flames leaped up in the hearth.
Bashida looked up at the sound of his voice, and the Horcrux beat faster in his chest.
"Who is this?"
Harry asked her, holding out the photograph.
She looked at it gravely for a moment, and then looked up at Harry.
"Do you know who this is?"
He asked again, much more slowly and louder than usual. "This man? Do you know him? What is his name? "
Bashida looked blank.
Harry was frustrated. How had Rita Skeeter opened Bashida's memory?
"Who is this man?"
"Harry, what are you doing?"
"This picture, Hermione, is the thief, the Grigovitch thief! Please tell us! "
"Who is this?" he said to Bashida.
She just stared at him blankly.
"Why did you ask us to come here, Mrs — Barchat?"
Hermione blinked and raised her voice. "Do you want to tell us something?"
Bashida did not seem to hear Hermione. She took a few lumbering steps towards Harry, her head slightly tilted, and looked out into the passage.
"Do you want us to go out?"
She repeated, pointing at him, then at herself, then at the ceiling.
"Oh, yes … Hermione, I think she wants me to go upstairs with her."
"All right," said Hermione. "Let's go."
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