[HP] Raven

Episode 18

The summer vacation from the fifth grade to the sixth grade is long overdue.She returned to her ancestral home in Austria again. Her grandmother occupied all the rooms on the roof alone. Mrs. Everly had a collection of statues and portraits of various shapes, most of which were covered with canvas, standing in the room one by one. , like a milky white monster, the dim light casts jagged shadows, like a man-eating demon in a fairy tale.

Mrs. Everly never talked about her past. The only thing Alex was sure of was that she was indeed her grandmother, who gave birth to her own father, who eloped with her mother and became herself again.But even if there was a real relationship between them, Mrs. Everly never talked to Alex about what her father was like when she was a child. She didn't talk to Alex about family-related topics, although they did. It's family.

The only exception was her long-dead husband, the only family member Alex had ever heard Mrs Everly mention, only a brief sentence, as she passed the portrait on the side wall of the study, the grandmother said But, "he's your grandfather," that's all.

Alex was curious about what her father looked like before, but she didn't dare to ask.It was hard to mention her father without mentioning her mother, who she feared would be the trigger for Mrs. Everly's well-bred breakdown.If, she just said, if Mrs. Everly used some radical words to humiliate her mother, then it would be hard for Alex not to conflict with her, and this is obviously what Alex didn't want to see, so She carefully circumvented everything involved, like a night ship circumventing a reef hidden under the sea level.

She always carried the Muggle photo of her mother with her, the woman with amber eyes smiling softly at her, standing still, forever at her 25 years old.

She sent Lily-Evans a lot of letters this holiday--just as Lily sent her letters last summer.But most of the replies were very short, sometimes only one sentence, sometimes two or three sentences plus a small gift, and it took two or three weeks to return to normal.Her Ravenclaw friends were going to the library for NEWTs in the new semester, and writing letters became a more common way of communicating than meeting each other.Heidi Parker told her that she plans to study herbal science in the future, Helen Claude wants to do a literature review at a researcher on the history of magic, Edmund said that he hasn't made up his mind yet, he might want to travel to France for a few years, Booth Barton's attainments in Charms are better than Hogwarts, and there may be an opportunity for him to study further.But their headmaster of Ravenclaa, the knowledgeable and talented Professor Flitwick, is also willing to give advice to his lover Edmund Pike, such as writing him a letter of recommendation for going to the Charms Society.

As long as they talk about future plans, there will inevitably be a sense of vicissitudes of life for everyone to go their separate ways. Fortunately, the letters are endless, and it is not too alienated. This sense of distance even makes Alex feel relaxed.

Confined in the ancestral home, Alex continued to read books related to black magic in order to relieve boredom. She even started to learn German by herself in order to understand some of the contents.Grandma obviously found out that she was studying black magic. There were countless house elves in the ancestral house, but Alex never counted them. They were silently lurking in different corners. Her whereabouts are well known, and grandma can know everything she wants to know, as long as she wants to.

During dinner—yes, a year after stepping into the ancestral house, Alex was finally allowed to eat in the dining room on the east side of the first floor. The gray-haired Mrs. Everly put down the knife and fork and used her cold and sharp pair of His blue eyes flicked over to Alex.

"I know you've been studying black magic recently."

Know.Alex felt a little amused.Her telekinetic grandmother apparently had more than one eye and more than one ear in the house, the omniscient mistress of Everly's ancestral home.

She raised her eyes from the asparagus in front of her, put down the heavy silver knife and fork, smiled politely at the gorgeous lady in front of her, and nodded slightly.

"Yes, grandmother."

Mrs. Everly's right hand wearing a huge diamond ring picked up the second crystal-carved wine glass on the right, and took a shallow sip of the pale amber white wine.After putting down the glass, she raised her chin slightly and looked at Alex sternly.

"I hope you can actually learn something."

"I will try my best, grandma." She showed a docile smile, as if she was not her grandmother in front of her, but a professor who was known for her strictness.

In the corner of the study, Alex saw a photo of her grandmother when she was a student. The president of Durmstrang's student union is proficient in black magic. The girl in the photo also has a pair of sharp and indifferent blue eyes, holding a hand that says German certificates and trophies, looking at the camera with a slight frown, the corners of her mouth are also down, as if nothing is worth her pleasure, and the highest honor in her student days is just an annoying stumbling block.

Grandma got up and left without finishing her glass of wine, and the burgundy carpet had faded to a half-yellow, half-red color, absorbing all the footsteps that should have been there.

The report card of Alex's OWLs exam finally arrived in the middle of the holiday. The owl flew all the way from the UK to Austria, which made the owl suffer a lot. She flapped her wings and threw the envelope on her desk, and she couldn't wait to fall into it. She wolfed down the feed bowl and almost got into a fight with her grandmother's two owls on the windowsill over food.Fearing that the hostess would be angry, the house elf exclaimed and quickly took out an extra feed bowl and put it on the windowsill, which eased the conflict between the intruder and the lord.Alex's grades were pretty consistent between O's and E's, except for Defense Against the Dark Arts - she only got A's.During the previous school year, she practiced so much black magic that her wand became very unruly when it came to white magic.However, this is actually to be expected, she is not supernatural enough to be familiar with two sets of magic systems at the same time.

She glanced at the report card, folded it, and put it in the book.

Letters from 12 Grimmauld Place arrived here and there in sporadic mid to late holidays.Regulus Black said in the letter that he started preparing for the OWLs a year later, and his parents had very high expectations for him.He apparently thought of her as some sort of tutor, asking her all kinds of homework-related questions in letters and sending her presents, which she guessed was compensation, sometimes a small packet of peppermint chocolates, or a bottle of Sparkle. Ink with gold dust, it looks like Professor Slughorn's favorite thing.Or sometimes it was a small stone engraved with Elvish, a branch of which both he and Alex liked the ancient runes.

His vulture—named Chaos, which Alex won't admit to admitting—had terrified her for a while, too, of her grandmother's owl.Fortunately, Regulus mentioned at the end of the second letter "PS: Please prepare ordinary owl rations for Chaos, thank you very much", so every time you notice a figure that is too large compared to the owl Infestation, Alex had to ask the house elf to give him a large bowl of owl rations alone, probably because he was really hungry, but he really didn't dislike it at all, he ate it clean every time, sometimes he was tired She would also stop on the window sill of her house and take a nap, and fly back to England the next morning with her letter back.

For a while, she suspected that her grandmother actually knew that she was corresponding with Regulus of the Black family. After all, Mrs. Everly knew everything about this house, and vultures were too high-profile animals.But her grandmother never interfered with her social life. She neither stopped Alex and Muggles like Lily-Evans from interacting, nor did she mention the "always pure" Black family to her.

She is indifferent to everything about Alex.At least it seems so.

When the holiday was coming to an end, she found out in Lily Evans' letter that Sirius Black had run away from home. He seemed to have been expelled from his family, and some people said that his mother was just trying to scare him. In order to let her "unrepentant son" come back earlier, however, this is obviously impossible if she knows her son well enough.

This incident seems to be a sensation in Gryffindor - Lily said that she hadn't planned to receive letters from James Potter, but couldn't bear to let his owl hang around her window for too long, I still accepted it.Although Potter is a self-conscious megalomaniac, Owl is innocent.Lily said so in the letter.She also stated that James Potter was extremely excited to report that Sirius had moved into the Potter house.

From the beginning to the end, Regulus Black didn't say a word about his brother's departure.

Unexpected, but reasonable.She put away the letters, put them all in a cardboard box, stuffed them all into a drawer and locked them, and began to prepare her school luggage.

--

Finally, she met Lily Evans in her first potions class in the sixth grade. The red-haired girl seemed to have eased up a lot, and even greeted Alex and smiled at her .

"Good morning."

Alex nodded to her and put the book on the spot next to her. "Good morning, Lily."

In the first lesson of the sixth grade, Professor Slughorn introduced the Love Potion to everyone—the most effective and powerful love potion in the wizarding world. Spiraling steam.

"How about you smell it first?" Lily asked Alex mysteriously.

She took a closer look and frowned.

"What's the smell?" Lily asked quickly, "Does it smell bad?"

Alex looked down at his notes, feeling a little bewildered. "A strange smell...reminiscent of a medical wing? A bit like leather and gasoline."

"What's going on?" Lily felt a little interesting.

Alex looked at her: "What about you? Try it, what will you smell?"

Lily leaned closer, and immediately began to frown. "Hmm... grass? A Quidditch pitch? Kind of like a broom store."

"This is too strange." The two laughed together in a low voice.

Came the voice of James Potter over there. "I smell lilies!"

Alex glanced at Lily, raised his eyebrows teasingly, and Lily gave her a threatening look, Alex remained silent knowingly, waved his hands as if in surrender, and let go of the topic.

"Let me try it!" Sirius Black's voice came.

Alex took the quill to write the observation summary on the sheepskin, and paused involuntarily.

Sirius seemed to have discovered something novel. "James, my love potion has no scent."

James Potter laughed: "Poor Padfoot, do you have a cold?"

Sirius admitted. "Yes."

James teased him with his arm. "I catch a cold when I come to my house, isn't the magic fireplace in the Potter's guest room not hot enough?"

Sirius thought about it for a while. "It must have been too windy in Godric's Hollow when we went out to explore at night, and the dew wet my hair."

"That's too bad," James relished, as if it was a worthwhile joke, "Merlin, Padfoot's love potion is tasteless, poor Padfoot..."

Alex heard it, frowned calmly, and started discussing the potion notes with Lily.They all decided to take the NEWTs potion certificate, and the pressure of the course work was not small.

"If possible, I hope they won't be so childish... It's just a love potion, there's nothing to shout about." Lily muttered.

Alex let out a "ha", looked up at her, and asked jokingly: "Miss Evans, what is 'love potion'? It is the greatest love potion."

"A love potion can't get you real love, it can only bring you the illusion of love...it's just a potion, Alex." Lily said seriously, adding "just" Accented.

"Aren't illusions wonderful?" Alex closed the notebook, "I thought all beautiful things were illusions."

"Alex," Lily said.

"Lily." She shrugged.

"Anyway, the illusion of love..." Lily paused, as if struggling to find some reason to refute, "it's never love. Love must be real... and it must be a beautiful thing."

Alex was taken aback when she heard this statement.Human emotions are not connected, so she doesn't discuss such emotional topics with others, but she is still somewhat curious about Lily's views.

she asked. "How to say?"

Professor Slughorn clapped his hands, announcing that it was time for get out of class to end, and they started walking out along the crowd with their books in their arms.

Lily pondered for a moment, then spoke solemnly. "Love is a human instinct, Alex, it brings joy to people, it creates a higher desire than survival."

"But it also has a bad side." Alex turned her head and glanced at Snape who had been staring at the red-haired girl in the corner of the corridor, expressing her discomfort at his too direct gaze, "Love gives People bring pain, and they also bring burdens to people.”

"That's right, but... I can't tell..." The red-haired girl blinked her beautiful big eyes, and asked with a hint of naive imagination, "Maybe it brings more happiness, otherwise why would people want What about pursuing love? Why pursue something that keeps torturing yourself?"

"Maybe people don't always seek advantages and avoid disadvantages, Lily," Alex paused and took a deep breath, "People follow the happiness brought by love, but they also pursue the pain and destruction brought by love. "

Lily was dumbfounded. "So you thought so."

"Just talking casually." Alex smiled noncommittally, turned around and walked into the Charms classroom with her.

--

Sixth grade started with more homework than fifth grade, and Alex had to spend more time on books than usual. Occasionally, after the curfew, she would still turn into a raven and fly to the Forbidden Forest, and then return to human form inside. , go for a few laps and take a walk, and let go of your brain filled with knowledge.

She stood in the forest, enjoying a quiet night alone.

"Who is it!" She suddenly noticed a strange noise behind her, and turned her head to see a huge black dog, standing not far from her, with all fours on the ground almost as high as her chest.It was the first time for Alex to see a dog with such a huge skeleton, but unexpectedly, she didn't feel any fear. Its gray eyes watched her quietly, with unexpectedly peaceful eyes, not like a murderous hunter.

She remembered that on the night of the full moon she had seen Lupine transform into a werewolf, the black dog had indeed been there, and a very large deer had calmed the transformed Lupine.

Seeing Alex standing motionless, the black dog took two steps in her direction, Alex still didn't move, and looked at it quietly.

"Hmm... are you Fang's friend?" Alex remembered that Hagrid had a hound named Fang, and she even hugged him.

The black dog barked twice.Alex found herself speaking what was on her mind.Talking to a dog might sound like a stupid thing to do, but... what does it matter.

"So, are you also walking at night?" She took a step closer to the black dog.

"Wow." The big dog lay down in front of her, overly obedient, as if inviting her to stroke its furry head.

Alex hesitated for a moment, then put her hand on top of its head and stroked it slightly.Very soft to the touch, it must be very warm.she thinks.

"You live in the Forbidden Forest?"

"Wang."

"Know Hagrid?"

"Wang."

"...What color collar do you like?"

"Wang Woo!"

Well, Alex got it, he didn't like collars.It is not uncommon to find any unreasonable animals in the Forbidden Forest. Compared with giant-eyed spiders, unicorns, and centaurs, a big dog that understands human language is obviously nothing.

After thinking about it for a while, Alex tried to play some games with the huge black dog that she thought the dog might like, such as darts or ordering it to "get up, get down", but it didn't do anything. If he didn't cooperate, he yelled at her a few times to express his protest—the slightly annoyed kind.Alex, who was confused, didn't know what to do with it, and she never had a dog.

Finally, she looked at her pocket watch.

"Well, it's time for me to go. It's getting late, and I'm going back to the cellar before Filch's second night round."

"Wang."

She waved her wand, lighting the path in front of her with "Lumos", and she began to walk slowly towards the castle.The dog was so humane that she was embarrassed to turn into a raven and fly away in front of a dog.She walked for a while with her head down, and when she was about to leave the Forbidden Forest, she realized that the huge black dog had been following her. After four or five steps, she stopped, and so did it, sitting on the same spot, The tail wagged frantically and seemed to be very happy.

"Go to Hagrid, over there," she pointed to the Hogwarts Castle shrouded in darkness, "it's not where you should go."

The black dog still barked inexplicably, but finally turned around and walked slowly towards the Forbidden Forest.

The author has something to say: In fact, the question about Lily and Alex talking about love is also something I have been thinking about... What is love, and does it have anything to do with happiness hhh

And in Azkaban, I remember Sirius said, "I was very cute when I became a dog, and James suggested that I always become a dog" ← Sure enough