HP's Foreign Land

Dear Mr. Tabby Cat,

Regarding your statement in the latest issue that the juice extracted from the varietal crab claw can reduce the medicinal properties of scurvy and lovage, I wrote back to England and consulted a senior physician in St. Mungo's. He firmly denied this point of view, and he told me that the crab claw orchid is an ordinary and useless plant.

Although I really wanted to correct him, I was not talking about the Crabgrass orchid but the variant Crablaw, but due to the distance and other factors, I had to give up.Few wizards in England would bother to study things that had been judged useless, and they rarely read The Quibbler.To be honest, if I hadn’t bought a newspaper on the side of the road in a certain country because I was bored while traveling around the world, I wouldn’t take the initiative to read this publication.The Daily Prophet is never sold here.

Did you know that "The Quibbler" is very popular in the Balkans, and the newspapers here often publish excerpts from the articles in "The Quibbler" for expository publications, and the wizards here often discuss the truth of the various incredible issues involved in the article sex.They were surprised, surprised that there were such "frivolous" and "not dignified" publications in the UK...

What follows is a long list of anecdotes that the reader encountered while traveling the Balkans, the paradise beaches of Greece, the dragons of Romania, the stunning scenery of Bulgaria, and so on.Although the choice of words and sentences has his usual rambling characteristics, it does not affect its attractiveness, and it is still interesting and fascinating to read.

From the previous letter, we can know that the reader is planning to go to Greece in mid-July.It's already September now, hasn't he returned to England yet?And the variant crab claw orchid was already published in the last issue.Heimdall glanced at the header of the letter, which was dated August 8th.It's been almost a month, why did it arrive today?Just as he was thinking about it, he suddenly noticed that the ink color of the inscription was not consistent with the letterhead and the text. It looked darker and newer, giving the impression that the letter had already been written, but the inscription was hastily written before the letter was sent.The numbers and names are scrawled, which contrasts sharply with the neatness on it.

Staring at the blank space between the inscription and the end, an idea suddenly came to him. He quickly took out his wand and tentatively cast a revealing spell on the blank space.After a while, a string of black handwriting floated out one by one, vividly visible on the paper——

The long-restrained desire suddenly seized me, and I was full of longing for the solemn ghost world; so I began to sing, like a whisper, and my pitch rose and fell, like the wind playing a harp.I suddenly shuddered all over and burst into tears... (Note: ①)

I'm not sure if you can see the redacted words, but I'm still willing to believe that you can.I can't tell anyone about my depression and anxiety. I'm afraid of being discovered. I hope this letter can be sent to your hands smoothly...Because of stupid desires, I became a slave of the devil, and regret whipped me every moment. What should I do before the end of the day?

Mr. Dragon-Li! HELP ME!

Yours sincerely,

chilo

***

① From Goethe's dedication to Faust.

***

Honestly, he was intimidated.This is no longer a discussion-based reader feedback letter.This is a distress letter.Although the last paragraph made Heimdall feel like a cloud, he could still see the fear and hesitation in the heart of the sender from between the lines.

Heimdall only knew that this reader was called Quirrell, and this was what the other party was willing to tell him, and he didn't know anything else.I don't know anything about age, appearance, address, where I work, what kind of work I do, and the status of my friends.They only corresponded for more than one month, less than two months.What was it that frightened Mr. Quirrell so much?Too afraid to complain to family and friends around you, and choose to send a distress letter that cannot be reached immediately?Could it be that for him, strangers are more reliable than those around him?

Heimdall put down the letter, feeling an inexplicable emotion in his heart.How should a person react when they receive a distress letter from overseas?What's the best way?What should I think?he does not know.

"Can I ask a question?" Heimdall asked his roommate.

Leon, who had already finished his meal, was tasting dessert. He swallowed the sweet pie in his mouth: "Say."

"When you're in trouble, what's your first reaction?"

"Turn trouble into no trouble."

Heimdall didn't say anything more, he handed over the letter in his hand.

"Let me see?"

Heimdall nodded after thinking for a while: "I guess the other party won't mind." Blueleg doesn't know Mr. Quirrell, and there is no connection between them.

Leon glanced, "English?"

"Yes, it was sent from England." Heimdall hesitated, "Can't you read English?"

After wiping his mouth with a napkin, Leon raised his eyes and said, "Bring it here, I can roughly understand it, but I'm not proficient."

With Heimdall's help, Leon read Quirrell's letter.After reading, he dropped the letter, picked up the juice glass and drank it in small sips, his already expressionless face was still expressionless.

Heimdall picked up the light blue envelope, looked at the postmark on it, and asked, "What do you think of this?"

"Don't bother with it at all."

Heimdall raised his eyebrows, "What about replying? Do you want to write?"

"Are you still planning to write a reply?" Leon put down his glass and looked back at Heimdall: "The letter said that he became a slave of the devil because of his stupid desires. I also know this, otherwise why didn’t I tell the people around me, they all died in pain. I couldn’t find a place to cry and complain, so I wrote to you. In the end, you are strangers, and you deliberately wrote ambiguously. It makes you puzzled, but at the same time, you can't let this matter out... Find a place to pour bitter water, it's like saying nothing, but it annoys the person who reads the letter. favorable."

Heimdall was dumbfounded.

Leon snorted disdainfully, "I've seen too many people like this."

Heimdall stared blankly at the envelope for a while, then took out his special stationery bag.This black bag contains not only letter paper and parchment, but also matching quills and other utensils.It was given to him by Mr. Bock, and it is one of Bocking Bock's store merchandise, with Bocking Bock's store logo painted on the bag.

Putting the bag on the table and untying the silver string, Heimdall clapped his palms and said clearly in English, "Attention, reply, the first line at the beginning." The whole bag shook violently, and a The letter paper and a black and white two-color quill flew out of the bag, and the feather stood upright on the paper, floating in front of Heimdall.

Heimdall didn't make another sound, but lowered his head to think about something, and the quill and letter paper stopped motionless on the table as if frozen.Presently he said suddenly: "Dear Snow—and write it down."

As soon as the voice fell, the quill pen began to write automatically, not very quickly, just like the frequency of ordinary people's writing.Letter by letter into words, sentences, paragraphs on stationery...

Afterwards, Heimdall ignored it and picked up another letter and opened it to read.Before he had read two-thirds of the letter, he suddenly raised his eyes to look at the quill that was writing furiously: "Wait, cross out the sentence just now and put it in the next paragraph."

The quill trembled, and then it scratched out the words just written with a swipe.

Heimdall frowned and sighed, "Forget it, rewrite."

The letter paper with a lot of ink stains fell lightly and fell onto the table and became waste paper. At this time, a brand new letter paper flew out of the bag and filled the vacancy left by the previous office with great accuracy.The moment the quill came into contact with the new letter paper, it began to write again without delay.

Heimdall looked back, feeling Leon's gaze on him.So he looked back at his roommate, "What's wrong?"

Leon's expression was a bit strange, quite different from his usual dead face, surprise flashed from his brown pupils: "Can you do two things at once?"

Heimdall was taken aback when he heard the words, and then smiled lightly, "Yes, I can. This seems to be the only remaining advantage I can be proud of."

***

As a writer for The Quibbler, ignoring readers' replies seems to be a disservice to a publication that has no image at all.

Heimdall still wrote a reply to Quirrell. The content of the letter did not involve any sensitive topics. In addition to expressing his own views on Dr. St. Mungo's point of view provided by the other party, he also wrote a nonsense in a nagging tone .Let the other party think that he has not discovered the last little secret of the letter at all.

Before writing back to Quirrell, he first wrote to Snow and posted it before lunchtime was over.Heimdall believed that this letter was already on its way to Great Britain, and hoped that it would arrive as soon as possible and that Snow would reply as soon as possible.

Mr. Quirrell's letter left a small lump in Heimdall's heart. Although Leon's words did "benefit a lot", he still felt a little bit concerned.So Heimdall decided to write to Snow, asking Director Strulusson to use his authority as an official of the Ministry of Magic to look up the name [Quirrell] for him.

Heimdall didn't want to get in touch with Quirrell, and he didn't want to know what the so-called "stupid desire" in the letter was, and he didn't want to know about those "anxiety" and "regret".He is not a saint, he has no obligation to be merciful, he is a contributor to a publication, not a cross on a church wall.Since someone suddenly and inexplicably made him feel bad, as a "victim", he has the right to find out what this "criminal perpetrator" is!

Maybe Snow's letter will tell him that there are a thousand or ten thousand or even tens of thousands of wizards named Quirrell in England, and then he will do what he did before...