HP: Embrace the Darkness

"Mr. Snape, please come to the study with me. This is not the place to talk."

As soon as Joel finished speaking, a white light rushed into the manor hall and hit the table in front of Joel with a loud bang.

The glass on the table shattered instantly, and the fragments shot out in all directions, but were controlled by the magic pattern of the manor itself and fell to the ground with a clatter.

Joel looked happy, gave up the idea of ​​going upstairs, picked up a white wooden bird from the pile of glass, lightly pressed the bird's belly with his fingertips, took out the folded letter and put it inside.

"Mr. Snape, it seems we don't have to go to the study. This is a letter from the young master."

The letter placed in the wooden bird's belly was taken away, and the lines on its wings lit up immediately, and then blue flames emerged and burned themselves.

After a while, there was only ashes left in the pile of glass, which were blown away by the incoming wind.

Snape: "?"

Dumbledore: "?"

Aware of Dumbledore and Snape's confusion, Joel explained while opening the letter.

"The gadget made by the young master is specially used to deliver letters. It is a disposable item. It will be destroyed after delivery. We only used it recently."

Dumbledore suddenly realized, "No wonder every time I go to get the letter, there are only letters at the door and no owls. That's why."

"There's nothing we can do about it. Aces' location has changed too quickly in recent days. Sometimes the owl can't find him. The bird can locate him by relying on their pocket watches. It's the only way we can contact Aces at the moment."

Susanna accepted Joel's words to explain, but kept staring at the letter in Joel's hand, thinking about how to show the letter to Snape. After all, the correspondence between Joel and Artes was often confidential.

Joel took a few seconds to read the letter, and his serious expression relaxed.

"The young master has rushed back from his visit. He should still be on the road now. I don't know if he will come back to the manor. He may just attend the speech."

After delivering the message, he noticed Snape looking at the letter in his hand, and handed it over directly, "Mr. Snape, please read it too."

After learning that Asseth was fine and still rushing back, Susanna breathed a sigh of relief and leaned lazily on the sofa, returning to her previous state of being unable to leave the sofa.

Snape looked at the simple and scrawled "Safe, I'm coming" in the letter. He really didn't know how Joel could read so much information.

Another white light flew in.

The second white light that flew in was much gentler than the previous white light. The wooden bird flapped its wings and flew in without damaging anything, and slowly circled around the hall.

Just as it was about to fall into Susanna's hands, it suddenly braked and stopped.

The wooden bird swayed into the air again, circling back and forth in mid-air. As if it was certain of something, it turned towards Snape, landed quietly in his hand, pecked open its belly, and took out the contents inside. letter.

After doing all this, the wooden bird even rubbed Snape's palm before reluctantly jumping down and setting himself on fire.

Everyone's strange gazes were instantly focused on Snape. Dumbledore was not too concerned about the excitement, with a little teasing in his eyes.

Snape was holding the letter that the wooden bird had put up on his own initiative, as if he was holding a bomb. He didn't look at it, and it didn't look like it even if he didn't look at it. He froze in place.

"It should be a letter from Artes to Professor Snape. The wooden bird detected that its first target of sending the letter was there, so it made a temporary U-turn." Susanna stood up to help Snape, "Let's take a look at what the letter said first?"

The others averted their curious gazes, and Snape opened the letter with relief and glanced at it quickly.

The content of the letter was similar to that of Joel. It was just to report that everyone was safe. It just shared some interesting things about the scenery. The handwriting was much neater and the paper was clean and tidy.

His eyes came to the relatively small characters written in the last paragraph of the letter. Snape unconsciously ran his fingertips over the beautiful and smooth fonts, and gradually fell into a trance.

In the last paragraph, Asses wrote neither to report peace nor to see the scenery.

But: Don’t you want to talk to me yet? Okay, then there’s no need to reply. I’ll come back and ask again.

Aces...isn't he angry?

No one asked to see the letter Snape had received.

Everyone present except Joel knew the inside story. Joel had been hinted at so many times, overtly and covertly, and had more or less guessed it, so naturally he wouldn't be so ignorant.

"Now that the matter has been cleared up, Severus and I will not disturb you further."

Dumbledore coughed twice, stood up to leave, and grabbed his Potions Master.

"Let's go, we have to go to the address on the letter this afternoon to see what happened to Professor Cavendish."

Thinking that Artes might not come back if he waits here, Dumbledore, who was called to the orphanage by name, might be more likely to see someone.

Snape did not refuse, took a thick stack of letters, and returned to Hogwarts with Dumbledore.

"Looking at the number of letters you have, he sends you two letters a day on average?" Dumbledore occupied the sofa in the cellar and stared curiously at the letter in Snape's hand.

The number of letters was more than three times that of what he had received.

After getting the letter, Snape never had time to read it. Now he finally returned to the cellar and had time to read the letter, but was teased by Dumbledore again.

He grimaced, impatient to see off the guests, "I'll go find you in the afternoon."

"It's almost time. How about I wait for you here? Don't worry, I completely respect your privacy. I won't ask anything about the letter, nor will I be curious about the content of the letter."

Dumbledore said solemnly, not paying any attention to Snape's murderous gaze.

Snape's lips curled up slightly and he sneered, "Since you are willing to wait, then wait here."

Picking up the letter, he tossed his robes and walked back to the bedroom, leaving Dumbledore in the office.

Dumbledore shook his head hurtly, a little sad that Snape didn't believe his assurance, and at the same time he was even more curious about the letters.

So many letters, what can I write? Dumbledore leaned on the sofa and thought.

In an inconspicuous alley in London, England.

The sewage left by the rainy night flows in the side cracks and gathers in the corner of the alley to form a small puddle.

Above the puddle, a spider was weaving its web diligently, and it was about to be finished. The air directly above it was distorted visibly to the naked eye.

The white light exploded, and the web it had just weaved was trampled by a man who appeared out of thin air.

The hard-working spider could not escape its misfortune, and was trampled underfoot along with the web it had weaved for a long time. It was considered an end.

Asseth, who had just rushed back to London, didn't pay attention to what he stepped on. After landing, he leaned to the side and rested neatly against the stained wall of the alley.

He didn't dislike the filthiness of the wall. After all, he was self-aware and knew that he was as dirty as the wall now, so he didn't dislike anyone.

After receiving the news from Asses, Rowena and Asses appeared in the alley less than a minute apart. They looked at the man in front of them in surprise and asked tentatively: "Asses?"

There was nothing she could do, it wasn't that she was face blind, it was just that the man leaning against the wall in front of her looked too miserable.

The right side of the man's upper body was almost soaked in blood, with blood stains covering most of his chest. His left arm was bent, holding something wrapped in cloth with one hand, and his right arm was twisted at an incredible angle to protect his left hand.

Rowena has never seen Artes in such a sorry state. Even if he saved Cedric from Voldemort that day, he was still decent, unlike now...

So it's normal to not recognize it for a while.