[HP Doujin] 1943

Margaret was right, I never dreamed that she could use the Cruciatus Curse.She must have hated me so much that she temporarily lost her mind and cast the Unforgivable Curse on me in full view.

That incident became big news that year, and the whole school knew my name.Fortunately, Professor Elliott was nearby at the time and rescued me in time, the spell did not cause permanent damage, and I was not transported to St. Mungo's.

For the first time in months, people aren't talking about the Chamber of Secrets incident, the Myrtle Warren and Rupert Hagrid accident.The use of the Cruciatus Curse by students on the grounds of Hogwarts was an unprecedented and terrifying event, which not only became a topic of greatest concern to all students, but also alarmed the school board and the Ministry of Magic.They detained Margaret, and conducted several rounds of long trials that summer, because she was not yet of age, and Mr. Landauer's management and dredging in the Ministry of Magic, the first-instance verdict was given to Margaret. Ritter was sentenced to ten years in prison.

Compared with life imprisonment, a ten-year sentence is already very merciful, so after the results of the first trial were published in the newspapers, it triggered a joint protest from the parents of Hogwarts students: children of the Randall family can be given a lighter sentence if they commit crimes in school. deal with it?Where did law and justice go?If this is how the Ministry of Magic works, how can we keep children safe at school in the future?

This wave of protests was huge, causing uproar in the entire magic world. The reputation of the Randall family was discredited, and some people even began to unite to boycott the hotel and mining business under the Randall family.So in August of that year, Margaret's case was retried. This time she was sentenced to 30 years in prison, and the protesters died down.

Looking back on that summer, all I can think of is the gray blue sky in London and the empty marble foyer at 136 Knight Street, and I feel oppressed and depressed.I lived with the Randalls for the first month of that summer because my mother was very emotionally unstable and wanted me by her side.Mr. Randall is busy in the Ministry of Magic every day because of Margaret's affairs. Coupled with the series of tsunami-like public relations crises and trust crises brought about by the Margaret incident to the Randall family business, he is even more busy. Have to be non-stop.

I will always remember the night of Margaret's second trial. I lay on my stomach in the dark corner on the landing on the second floor, watching the butler, Mr. Douglas, open the door for Mr. Randall, and stooped to take it. his cloak.I was startled when Mr. Randall took off his cloak—his hair had turned gray.

It turns out that in this world, there is really a kind of sadness called white hair overnight.

"Miss Margot..." Mr. Douglas asked hesitantly.

Mr Edmund Douglas, a man in his 50s who served the Randalls for decades, had grown up watching Margaret and Tony, and to them he was closer than their parents family.Tony told me that when he was a child, Mr. Landauer was always busy with business, and Mrs. Landauer was always on vacation around the world, rarely going home to take care of the children.For him and Margaret, the real family in childhood was the nurse and the housekeeper.Mr. Douglas had no family of his own, and he loved Margaret and Tony as much as his own children.

I sat on the cold floor with my knees crossed, and looked down the stairs through the gap between the oak railings. Mr. Randall's silhouette looked very old and sad in the faint firelight.He stood there quietly without moving. After a long time, he slowly raised his head and said in a low voice, "Tell Madeleine to let her daughter Elizabeth move out. I don't want to see her again. "

The strange thing is that I don't hold Mr. Randall for this incident.Everyone has their own selfishness. Margaret is his own daughter, and it is only natural that he doesn't want to see me anymore.

When I was 15 years old, I always felt that Margaret was to blame, but many years later, when I thought about the past, I had a deep self-blame: Margaret and I were too naive, we both Both are wrong.In a way, she and I are actually very similar: we are both impulsive, stupid, and willful.People always say that time can change everything, and I didn't understand the meaning of this sentence until I realized that I didn't hate Margaret long ago.

At the end of June 1944, I woke up in the Hogwarts hospital hospital in a trance, with pain from the Cruciatus Curse all over my body, and my mind was still full of hatred for Margaret.

When I woke up, the first thought in my head was: "I hope the Wizengamot keeps her company with dementors for the rest of her life!"

In those intermittent lucid moments, I've vaguely seen the heads of Tony, Carl, and Chris.One afternoon, when I woke up, I saw a thin girl with long flaxen hair sitting beside my bed, looking at me sadly.

"Ada?" I was surprised and delighted, "Why are you back?"

She smiled at me: "I heard about you, and finally persuaded my mother to let me come back to visit you. This is not an easy task. She seems to think that Hogwarts is full of monsters now." Dangerous place for students who use the Unforgivable Curse. However, I'm sure Professor Dumbledore will convince her to let me come back next year. I just met Professor Dumbledore and he said the Ministry of Magic will put me in August Make-up exams for OWLs..."

I watched her mouth open and close to speak, and a faint smile appeared on her face.I felt reassured by her annoying chatter.

"—it's just abominable, luckily you're not permanently injured..." she said, and looked at the door, which was opened by Mrs Agnes and came in with a tray in her hand, next to my bed Putting down the tray, he helped me add a pillow behind my head, and said dissatisfiedly, "Someone came to see you again."

I looked towards the door and froze in amazement: Tom Riddle was standing in the doorway, staring at me motionless.

There was a faint dispute in the corridor, and Tony and Sylvia followed angrily.

"Sylvia!" Tony said angrily, "This is the school hospital, don't make noise here!"

"He's lost his mind again!" Sylvia was even angrier, "He doesn't even know what he's doing!"

Ada looked at Tom with her mouth half open, then looked back at me, her eyes wide open, and she didn't speak.

Mrs. Agnes poured my potion into a glass and said grumpily, "For Merlin's sake, you all shut up! Nobody make a scene in the school hospital! Visitors are only allowed ten minutes. Elizabeth, you drank the medicine, you need a good rest."

She went out, and the group of people at the door walked towards my bed.I looked at Tom, with my mouth half open, my mind spinning dully. I couldn't figure out why he was here. I thought he didn't want to talk to me again in his life.

As soon as Lady Agnes's gown disappeared in the doorway, Sylvia said sharply to Tom: "What are you doing here? You promised me you would never be with her again—"

Tom raised his head and glanced at her coldly.

"But—" she said again.

"Shut up," said Tom curtly.

He didn't raise his voice, and there was even a hint of hoarseness in his voice, but it gave off an unusually strong and sharp feeling.The whole ward seemed to be filled with a cold sense of oppression emanating from him.Sylvia looked as if she had been slapped by him, and turned her head dejectedly.

At that moment, I understood what the so-called "killable eyes" were like.Sylvia lowered her head and stopped looking at him, her fingers trembling slightly on the metal railing of the hospital bed.

It suddenly occurred to me that the last time he scared me to tears, he hadn't really gotten angry yet.If he really got angry, it wouldn't be as simple as scaring people to tears.

He came towards me and Ada got up from the head of my bed and retreated to the foot of it.

He walked to my bedside, looked down at me, and said hoarsely, "Elizabeth."

I shrank back subconsciously.

It's been a long time since I've looked at him this close.I stared at his face, which seemed more handsome than I remembered, as if in a dream.

It was very hot, and instead of a black robe, he only wore a simple white shirt.He had no tie on, the three buttons on his chest were undone, and his sleeves were rolled up to the elbows.His eyes were bloodshot, and his face was haggard and thin.He stared at me with a strange, suppressed emotion in his dark eyes, as if he had so much to say but couldn't utter a single word.

I crouched in the pillow, staring at him blankly, as silent as he was.

We just stared at each other in silence for half a minute.

The atmosphere in the ward was too depressing and embarrassing, I looked away, reached for the cup of brown medicine on the bedside table, and took a big gulp.

This is a bad decision.A disgusting smell like a stinky gutter rushed straight into my forehead. I was unprepared and sprayed it all out, all on the bed sheets and Tom's white shirt.Ada exclaimed, and Sylvia took a step back, a trace of fear flashed in her dark eyes, and she looked at Tom as if she was looking at a bomb.

I was choked and coughed violently.Tom frowned slightly.He didn't take out his wand to clean his clothes, but just sighed slightly, took a step forward, sat next to me, held my waist with a strong arm, gently hugged me, and made me sit upright.

Tom deftly tucked the sweaty hair from my forehead behind my ears, just as he had done so many times after running wild with me through the streets of London.He patted my back and waited patiently for my cough to subside.After my breath eased, he took the cup filled with the medicine sideways, brought it to me, and said calmly, "Drink it slowly."

I looked at him in a trance, and somehow felt as if there would be no tomorrow after today was over.

That tragic sense of fatalism has run through my short life since that day.

I gulped down the rest of the potion, a disgusting taste and a heavy drowsiness appeared in my mind at the same time.I held a warm cup and tried to keep my eyes open.He took the cup from me and tried to help me lie down again.However, I stubbornly broke away from his arm that let me lie back on the bed, and burrowed into his arms, clutching the shirt collar on his chest with hot hands, closing my eyes, and remained motionless.

His movements paused, as if his whole body froze.Then he moved my body towards him and hugged me tenderly.

I breathed a sigh of relief.I thought he was going to throw me back in the pillow.

He later smiled and described my appearance to me at that time: "It's as if you would rather die than let go. It's exactly the same as when you snatched marbles from other children when you were young and refused to let go. .”

Actually, I'm not fully asleep yet.I opened my eyes slightly, and vaguely saw Sylvia's face through the gap between the eyelashes.I have never seen so many emotions on her cold face - loss, pain, resentment, jealousy, deep helplessness.Perhaps, the so-called coldness is just a mask to cover up the fiery heart.

I have hated many people in my life, but I don't hate Sylvia.Because I know that she has done a lot of things for him that I can't do, and I also know that she has loved him deeply all her life. Latrix also inherited this feeling in her blood.

Falling in love with someone is never anyone's fault.

The so-called deep love roughly means merging with another person.Our love has taken root and sprouted from the beginning of our young and ignorant lives, and we have never been separated from each other ever since.

There is a poem that goes like this -

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. How do I love you?speak endless words;

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height, I love you till the earth and the sky,

Mysoul can reach, to the depths my soul can reach.

When feeling out of sight to explore the mysteries of life, the grace of God,

For the ends of Being and ideal Grace. I love you forever, day and night,

I love thee to the level of every day's most quiet need, as if my daily necessary food

Bysunandcandlelight. The same cannot be interrupted.

I love you freely, asmenstriveforright. I love you freely, as human beings strive for freedom;

I love theepurely, I love you purely,

Asthey turn from praise. No longer be fooled by flattery.

I love with a passion put to use in my old griefs, I love you,

And with my childhood's faith.

IlovetheewithaloveIseemedtolose without you,

With my lost saints, I love thee with the breath, my heart loses the saints.I love you dearly,

Smiles, tears, of all my life! And, if God choose, with tears, smiles, and all my life.

Ishall but love thee better after death.

By God, you'll see that my love will survive death and never fade away. 【12】

Coincidentally, the author of this poem is also called Elizabeth. This is my favorite love poem when I was a child.

I said quietly to Tom, "We need to talk."

He nodded and said in a rare gentle tone, "Yes."

"Don't leave me again, okay?" I murmured like someone in a dream, "I'm not who I used to be, I understand what you need to do, and I won't ask you to do everything Explain it clearly to me, and I won't care about you doing things with Sylvia anymore."

"Elizabeth..." He sighed, his voice was low and slow, exhausted, "I'll talk about everything tomorrow. Go to sleep, I won't leave you."

Under the strong sunshine in early June, I hugged Tom and fell asleep on the hospital bed, losing the concept of time and space, always thinking that I was still in that narrow and damp alley, stepping on wet shoes wantonly everywhere run.Back then I was fearless, a heartless, wild girl through and through, who hadn't read much and didn't even know that there was such a big world outside of London.

But at that time, I was happy because of my ignorance.

I wish we could go back to the past.At that time, I understood that simply having you, the other side of the ocean is heaven.

I have since moved several times: my cozy dark red brick farmhouse in the Yorkshire countryside, my tidy flat in Edinburgh.But every time I dream back at midnight, the light and shadow in my mind are the damp and cramped wooden houses and red brick walls on Leicester Street.I later thought that no matter how many roads I walked and how many books I read, the first memories of my life cannot be erased.This is the original form of my life, the origin of all my truest loves and hates.

[12] How Do I Love Thee (How Do I Love You) is a famous work of British poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 1796~1849).