What did twelve-year-old Harry need this house for? It was still useful.
Especially when he thought about the skyrocketing housing prices in London.
Dumbledore had already helped Harry with all the checks and paperwork.
He then took the child to the Ministry of Magic one weekend to fill out a form.
The Black House at 12 Grimmauld Square belonged to Harry.
It was not much more complicated than buying a bag of candy from Honey Dukes. Strangely, in addition to an old wizard with a white beard, there was also Rufus Scrimgeour. The brown-haired Auror, who looked like an old lion, glanced at Dumbledore and Harry with a cold and sharp gaze. Logically speaking,
As the head of the Auror office, Scrimgeour was not in charge of this kind of thing.
So, was he here because of the Savior or because of Dumbledore?
Harry finished filling out the form and recited a spell to prove his identity under Dumbledore's guidance.
Then, he returned the form to the old wizard and looked up at the sharp and tough Auror.
He showed his most innocent and harmless smile, which made Scrimgeour take a step back. His sharp eyes blinked twice behind his gold-rimmed glasses.
Then, he glared at Dumbledore.
It was as if the boy's smile was a weapon in Dumbledore's hand to destroy the Auror's willpower. Harry did not know what Scrimgeour was thinking.
He did not think about it.
But when the old lion was tortured to death by the Death Eaters with the Soul Snatching Spell, he did not reveal Harry's whereabouts.
Harry respected him very much.
Even though they had never been friends.
Dumbledore passed by Scrimgeour as he was leaving the Ministry of Magic with Harry.
The latter whispered to Dumbledore, "Keep an eye on your American friend, Dumbledore." Then he strode away. Harry could barely tell that his left leg was a little limp.
It seemed that Dumbledore's frequent interactions with the Americans had alerted the Ministry of Magic. Harry raised his head and looked at the old principal's face, but did not see anything unusual. Dumbledore asked him, "Harry, I guess you should take a look at your house?"
Of course. Harry nodded quickly. Then he heard Dumbledore say, "But I may have to go to …" He pointed at the director's office of the Ministry of Magic and smiled. "Perhaps you would like Professor Severus or Professor Kamia to accompany you?"
Snape? It might take some effort to get him into the Black house. Harry frowned and said, "Then I'll have to trouble Professor Kamia."
Dumbledore agreed happily. Then, he brought Harry to the Ministry of Magic's cafeteria for a working meal. While eating sandwiches, Dumbledore saw many people whose names he knew. He even saw the purple-haired Tonks following behind Moody. Looking at the time, Dumbledore estimated that this' cousin 'had just graduated not long ago. She was still an intern Auror. Harry saw Moody reprimand Tonks impatiently and leave, leaving the female intern stomping her feet behind. She reluctantly turned around and walked two steps before she turned back and gave her senior a middle finger.
Harry chuckled. Dumbledore also saw the scene just now and said to Harry, "I remember that young girl. She's a student with a lot of character … I also remember that her name is … Ah, it's Nymphadora."
Harry swallowed the sandwich and began to drink the milk. He smiled and said, "Tonks doesn't like people calling her Nymphadora."
Dumbledore's expression did not change. He also smiled and said, "It seems that you two know each other."
Harry did not deny it. "Tonks' mother is also Black." After slowly drinking half a glass of milk, Harry felt that he was almost full. It was about time for him to ask a question. "Headmaster Dumbledore, I don't understand why you trust Kamia so much." Regardless of whether she was Voldemort's sister or not, she was suspicious enough.
Dumbledore looked at Harry gently. His eyes seemed to say, "You've finally asked."
Dumbledore quietly cast a Mute Spell around him and asked, "It seems that Harry doesn't trust our Professor Kamia very much?"
Harry wrinkled his nose. "She has cheated me more than once."
"But, Harry …" Dumbledore blinked. "She has also helped us more than once." So, this reason did not work.
Harry was in a dilemma. He did not completely trust Kamia. It was the kind of distrust that he felt when she was in the same camp but was always on guard against her betrayal. The reason for this distrust was not because Kamia had done anything bad or had any criminal record, but because … Harry's eyes were blank. "Headmaster, can we believe in God?"
Can we really believe in Kamia? Kamia, who wants to rebuild the Babel Library, is not human! She has so easily erased this story so many times. She doesn't care about the characters in the story at all, does she? Who knows what will happen when the door of the library opens? Is this story still around? Are our characters still around? Even if it's still around, it's not … the current version.
Therefore, Harry did not dare to cooperate with Kamia. "They say that ants are almost two-dimensional creatures compared to humans. If you put a piece of paper on their path, they will lose themselves because there is no up and down in the world of ants. There is only front, back, left, and right. What about us? Whether it's Muggles, wizards, elves, or even dementors, in front of God, is there any difference between us and ants? We don't care whether we step on ants or not, but will they care whether we live or die? " Harry was deeply afraid, not because Kamia was malicious. He was afraid that one day, Kamia would easily betray the world without any response. She was not a good and evil dualist.
Dumbledore calmed Harry's emotions with a period of silence, then slowly said, "Harry, do you know where I first met Professor Kamia?"
Harry shook his head.
"In an orphanage, beside Tom Liddell. At that time, her name was Jerry Liddell." Dumbledore looked into Harry's eyes and said, "A very thin, very pale little girl. The caretaker of the orphanage, Mrs. Cole, told me that she was a silly child. She slept most of the time and could barely speak. When I saw her, she was locked up with Tom in a locked utility room. Jerry was asleep, and Tom was hugging her, looking at us vigilantly. She was like a beast. "
Pausing to recall the scene for a few seconds, Dumbledore smiled almost sadly. "I don't know how much you know about Voldemort, but I can't deny that although I was already biased against Tom at that time, I can't deny that he took good care of Jerry. He and his pet, Nagini, protected Jerry very well. Jerry could barely speak, but she could call out Tom's name clearly, and she could also say the word 'brother'. They were twins who were abandoned in the orphanage together. They were born to support each other. If … if that incident didn't happen, perhaps Tom wouldn't have become Voldemort. "
Harry hesitated for a moment before asking, "Jerry … How did she die?"
"You can guess what Tom's life in the orphanage was like, can't you? Oh, it seems that you already know. In short, the Liddell siblings were not welcome there. When I went to find them, I had already seen that. So Tom couldn't wait to enter the Hogwarts. But he asked me, 'What about Jerry? Jerry also has magic power. Can she go to the Hogwarts with us? I checked Jerry's body. She was indeed very weak and was rapidly deteriorating. Later I found out that it was a sign of soul exhaustion. But at that time, I had never seen such a weak child. She was like … my Arianna. "
"So, I told him that no, Jerry was too weak, but we could try to send her to the medical wing and provide her with better medical conditions. Tom agreed and promised very firmly that when he grew up, he would pay off the debt. But we couldn't cure Jerry. We tried our best and only managed to relieve her sleepiness. She was awake for a little longer, but her body was still deteriorating rapidly. But the doctors and I kept it from Tom. We hoped that he would be able to enter the school safely. So Tom was very happy and had a strong desire for magic. We could all see that, although he was really a very reserved child. Just a week before school started, Tom asked me if Jerry could go on an outing organized by the orphanage. It was an annual event, but Jerry had never been able to go. "
Harry had a bad feeling. Dumbledore continued, "I thought that it would be good for these two children to have more contact with children their age. And Jerry, we didn't know if she could grow up and participate in this kind of event. So I told Tom to bring Jerry along and have a good time. I even discussed with Tom that when school started, I would take good care of Jerry for him. Tom was very happy. At that time, he still respected me. I was also very happy that this child was not as extreme as I thought because he had a sister. People who cared about others would not go to extremes. So Tom took Jerry with him. They went to the beach for an outing with the children from the orphanage … Mrs. Cole told me what happened after that. "
Dumbledore's voice became flat. "She told me that the Liddell siblings and some other children went to explore the cave. Something happened, and Jerry fell into the sea. She told me that it was a complete accident. She also told me that Tom had always been a strange child. Who knew if he had done something terrible again, like Billy's rabbit … When she said this, Tom was right behind her. I had never seen such a terrible look in his eyes, and it belonged to a child who had just turned eleven. I couldn't find out what happened in the cave. I was afraid that I would unearth the dark truth and trigger Tom's mental breakdown. I could only take Tom to look for Jerry's body, but we didn't find anything. Jerry seemed to have evaporated into thin air, although there were many witnesses who saw her fall into the sea. It took me a lot of effort to drag Tom out of the cave. He just sat there on the ground and asked me, 'What else can it take from me, sir?' "
Harry's body was cold. He could almost see the childhood Liddell standing in front of him, asking coldly.
"You know what happened after that, Harry. But I couldn't predict it. I could only watch Tom's fate unfold, and then ask myself again and again, 'Could there have been a different ending? Could I have been stronger and held Tom back, or held Gellar back, or held myself back? ' I couldn't do any of those things, Harry. The only thing I could do was continue to live, and the world didn't get better or worse. "
Dumbledore also seemed to be trapped by his memories. He paused for a moment before continuing to tell another story. "I did mention Arianna just now, didn't I? My little sister who protected me with her life. She was fated to be with a green bird named Jia Mei. She taught me that sometimes we should believe in some unbelievable things. So, when I saw Jerry for the second time, I didn't act too stupid. At that time, the war was over, the Ministry of Magic had announced Voldemort's death, and Xenophilius brought Jerry to me and told me that her name was Kamia. "
"Kamia? Jia Mei? Or as your friend Hermione discovered, there were more names? " Dumbledore chuckled. "These names that appear repeatedly in legends are indeed unbelievable, aren't they? Jerry Liddell, who died many years ago, appeared decades later. It's also quite unbelievable, right? But Harry, at this time, I was already an old man. I had experienced two wars and witnessed the death of so many relatives, friends, and students. I think I was able to accept some unbelievable truths. So, when Kamia told me about the existence of Voldemort's soul vessel, I believed her. When she asked to teach in the Hogwarts, I agreed. When she chose Lockhart as the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, I also believed that she had her reasons … As for why? Harry, just think of it as the confidence of an old man — after he made so many mistakes because of his confidence? I don't know, Harry. Before the end of the world, we should be less suspicious of each other, right? Especially when the world wants to send us some messages. "
"The world is … sending messages?" Harry suddenly felt that he seemed to have caught on to something.
Dumbledore chuckled. "Harry, you are not a stupid child, but sometimes you are too cautious. You actually understand, don't you? Paddy has already taught you. The world we live in is not senseless. It has its own set of rules, its own set of rules. It codes its voice and hides it in the ocean, in the rainforest, in the tides, in the monsoon, and in the pattern of a conch shell. Then, scientists deciphered it and called it the laws of nature. Sometimes, it finds its voice difficult to be heard. It needs people to speak. Sometimes, it incorporates its own ideas into a movement. Then, you see women wearing trousers, participating in social work, and having their own vote. Sometimes, its expression is more obscure. Then, you see children under the age of ten working in shoe factories. You see patients who have their frontal lobes removed become walking corpses. You see the outbreak of war, the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima, and the nuclear deterrence still exists today … Harry, our world has always been sending out its own voice, with symbols, with rhetoric, with colors, with notes, with messengers walking on the wilderness, but not everyone can hear it. "
(… I can often hear them, with the sighs of the reeds swaying in the wind, the songs of the birds, the moans of the waves, and the tender sobs of the violins, for a long time, mourning our fallen world.)
(… Don't you hear it? Harry, don't you hear the world's cry for help? It's weakening fast, it doesn't have much time left … God, it's almost a child!)
Harry instinctively reached out to press the scar on his forehead and murmured, "Fallen … world?"
Dumbledore looked at the lost and pained boy with emotion and said gently, "Our world, it is sending out a cry for help to all who are listening. We may not understand it, we may not be able to fully decode it, but it is definitely a cry for help. The world, it is not waiting for death. It is trying to save itself. It is desperately trying to send a message to us. "
The world … saving itself? Harry gradually felt a force supporting him. He looked up at Dumbledore and said, "So … we can't give up yet, can we?" If even the world is trying to survive, how can we give up?
You've already exceeded your reading limit for today. If you want to read more, please log in.
Login
Select text and click 'Report' to let us know about any bad translation.
