Old photos
There's a café on the main road in Godric Valley, right across from the church.
Queenie found a corner spot and waved to Hermione and Ron as soon as they entered.
The two girls hugged warmly, and Ron nodded and greeted her, "Long time no see Queenie! This village is nice... Where's Harry?" Just as he finished speaking, he felt a flick on his forehead, and at the same time, the lemonade on the table was pushed out of thin air in front of Hermione.
Hermione blinked and said with satisfaction, "Very cautious, excellent."
Ron was unhappy with Harry's preferential treatment. "Why didn't you play Hermione?"
Harry's voice, deliberately lowered, rang out in the air, "You've decided that you won't need Hermione's notebooks anymore starting in sixth year?"
"You did the right thing, buddy. Just don't let Hermione's knowledge pop out of her head!"
Hermione glanced at him, then pulled a hardcover book from her bag. The cover was adorned with gilded, cursive lettering—"The Tales of Beedle the Bard."
The four of them read through the legend of the three brothers together, and Ron was now completely convinced that Harry was a descendant of the third brother—Harry, the living legend, the descendant of the third! Otherwise, why wouldn't he be the savior? A family tradition!
Hermione remained troubled by the question of the realism of fairy tales, always feeling that fairy tales shouldn't be confused with reality. For example, she had loved Cinderella and The Frog Prince since childhood, but she was also keenly aware that these were stories collected and embellished by the Brothers Grimm—wait, what if they had witnessed magic firsthand during their visit to Germany and incorporated it into their stories? Perhaps Cinderella's fairy godmother was a witch, and the Frog Prince was under a transformation spell cast by a wizard; perhaps Grimm's Fairy Tales were also a work of factual account…
“Your expression right now is just like mine when I first learned about magic—oh, so Lockhart’s novels are all true after all.” Queenie didn’t seem to think anything of it; her understanding was already at the next level. She picked up the book and flipped to another story. “But it’s not all true, is it? Look at this, how could someone survive without their heart? Even a wizard couldn’t do that, right?”
“Of course not.” Hermione answered instinctively, but she quickly hesitated. “No, I’m not sure. I know too little about the Dark Arts… No, it should be possible. Voldemort didn’t even have a body, yet he’s still alive and well. He even used Harry’s blood to rebuild his physical body.”
Queenie only knew that the Dark Lord was resurrected, but she didn't know that he was resurrected using Harry's blood. How strange, then isn't he essentially Harry's bloodline...?
As for Harry, he was helping Queenie pick out pickles for her mini burgers, and he was particularly focused because the Invisibility Cloak made his movements less convenient.
Ron saw it. "Queenie doesn't eat pickles? Can I have some? I think the taste is quite peculiar."
Hermione, "..." How come they don't care at all?!
With permission granted, Ron happily forked the pickles into his plate and cut Hermione half of his nut bread. "Try this," he said, "it's even better than my mom's."
Hermione, "..." Her straightened lips relaxed.
"Could I have some of your shrimp sandwich?"
"..." and then level it out.
Queenie laughed out loud; innocent people are so cute.
Distracted, Hermione temporarily abandoned her thoughts on fairy tales. She took a bite of her nut bread and hesitated before saying, "Hmm, Harry, we were thinking—could we—"
"Oh, by the way, do you want to go see my mom and dad? There's a statue of them in the village, right in the small square."
“Of course!” Hermione breathed a sigh of relief, exchanged a glance with Ron, and followed up on his words, “But we didn’t see any human-shaped statues in the square when we came here?”
“You have to get closer to see; the stone tablet changes when a wizard walks by.” Harry said, giving Queenie’s hand a reassuring squeeze, which earned him a good rub on his thigh. “Uh, cough cough… the cemetery is behind the church, and you can visit my house later. There’s not much to see there, but many kind people left encouraging messages for me there. You might know, like the message boards in dessert shops; some of them are quite interesting…”
When they went to see the statue again, Queenie learned from Hermione and Ron's conversation that besides the Potters, there was also a statue of baby Harry. She was quite disappointed by the selective manifestation of the magical statue. They then tried having the wizard take pictures of the statue with his phone, but Queenie still couldn't see it. Finally, they messaged Sirius, asking him to look for any photos of Harry as a child.
“Otherwise, we’ll have to give Harry a shrinking potion, but we don’t know exactly how much, a pint?” Hermione said seriously.
Harry was stunned. How much? Was it to shrink him back to infancy, or to make him disappear? He messaged Sirius again, begging him to find the photos and save his godson.
They spent most of their time in the cemetery. Hermione was very interested in the inscriptions on the tombstones. Godric's Hollow was one of the oldest semi-wizard settlements in England, and she found many familiar surnames.
As Hermione passed a broken tombstone, she knelt down to wipe away the moss and carefully examined the markings on it. “Strange symbol. I’ve read ‘A Brief History of Mystic Symbols,’ but I’ve never seen this before.”
The tombstone was quite dilapidated, and the engravings were not very clear. Ron crouched down and tried his best to make out the details. "Triangle, circle, and a vertical line. It might be a family crest or something, but it's too simple compared to other family crests."
“Ignotus Peverell…maybe. This tombstone looks like it hasn’t been cleaned in a long time. Maybe the name no longer exists.” Hermione moved to the next tombstone. “Look! It’s House Abbott. They might have some connection to Hannah!”
Queenie and Harry waited for them hand in hand, and to be honest, it felt a little strange, like holding the hand of someone wearing a mitten.
"Your invisibility cloak is great, but I find it a bit inconvenient. Can't it turn into clothes or something?"
"I'm afraid I can't do it; spells generally don't work on it."
Well, that's precisely what makes it so precious.
Queenie switched hands and held his, while her other hand groped up his arm, touching his shoulder, neck, and cheek.
"Now I know where your mouth is, too bad."
"..." Harry knew what she meant. "I can learn the Disillusionment Charm." He didn't mean anything by it; it was just that he made too many movements when he went out, and wearing a cloak was not very convenient. If he used the Disillusionment Charm well, he would generally not be discovered.
"Disillusionment Charm?" Hermione happened to turn around and heard this. She looked at the air next to Queenie with admiration. "Harry is right, the Disillusionment Charm is a pretty useful spell. Ron, let's learn it together. Harry's cloak can't fit all three of us in at the same time now."
"Huh?" No way, his Apparition skill is barely passing.
After the hollow tour ended, Hermione suggested visiting Bathilda, "This is the first time I've been so close to the author of the textbook, I want to meet her!" She also wanted to ask about the Deathly Hallows.
“I do know where she lives, but she might not want to see us,” Queenie said. “And from what I’ve observed, her memory is failing badly, probably because of her age. She might not even remember me—even though we met just yesterday afternoon.”
But they decided to give it a try, since Bathilda seemed quite friendly.
Bathilda was at home. They rang the doorbell and waited for a while before the door finally opened.
Queenie smiled. "Mrs. Bathilda, do you remember me? We had tea together at Professor Dumbledore's yesterday afternoon."
Bathilda's cloudy eyes rolled, and she slowly nodded before looking at Hermione and Ron behind her.
"They are my friends. After hearing that you are the author of our history of magic textbook, they especially wanted to meet you. Perhaps you would be willing to tell us some interesting stories about magic?"
Bathilda's house was filled with piles of books, and its decor and smell were just like a typical grandmother's house.
They settled into the lounge, and Bathilda brought over milk tea in a bone china teaware set adorned with beautiful vintage patterns. She seemed delighted to have someone visit her; even the wrinkles on her face smoothed out.
Hermione was eager to discuss the history of magic with her. Bathilda spoke slowly, but she was clearly much more interesting than their Professor Binns. Even more amazing was that, despite her poor memory, she could still recite those historical events with great familiarity.
Queenie took a sip of her milk tea, paused, and guessed that Bathilda must have mistaken salt for sugar.
To be polite, Queenie swallowed with difficulty. When she looked up, she saw Ron was also drinking. His expression first furrowed, then he showed a look of savoring the taste, and then he took another big gulp, as if he thought it tasted good.
"..." Queenie put down her teacup and went to pick up the photo album on the table. Seeing that Bathilda didn't object, she started flipping through it. Harry looked at it next to her, and Bathilda had no idea that there were five people in the room at that moment.
Most of the photos are portraits, the kind that move, and they seem to be arranged chronologically. There are many group photos of wizards, like members of some kind of association, photos of a young Bathilda with others, and family photos, but it's unclear whether they are Bathilda's family members, as she doesn't appear in the photos.
“It’s Headmaster Dumbledore!” Harry said quietly. “I’ve seen him in—well, in other people’s memories, but he looks much younger in the photos.”
Harry took her hand and pointed to Dumbledore's location, where a reddish-brown-haired young man confidently had his arm around the girl beside him. On his other side was a slightly younger boy with a gloomy face, constantly dodging Dumbledore's attempts to put his arm around him. Next to them was a gentle woman watching them.
"Hmm, it seems that Professor Dumbledore's relationship with his brother is not so good."
She continued flipping through the album, and in the next few photos appeared a handsome blond boy with a smug and unrestrained smile. They saw a photo of him and Dumbledore, the two dashing young men standing side by side, leaning slightly close, smiling at each other, glancing at the camera every now and then.
They should be very good friends.
“He’s really tall.” Queenie gestured to show their proportions and exclaimed, “Professor Dumbledore is already very tall, and he’s three inches taller than Professor Dumbledore.”
“Gellert is 3.15 inches taller than Albus,” Bathilda said suddenly. “Albus tried to surpass him before puberty was over, but he couldn’t.”
“Gellert?” Harry muttered softly. “That name sounds familiar.”
Hermione gasped. "Gellert?" She covered her mouth, her eyes wide with disbelief. "Gellert Grindelwald?!"
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