It is well known that Niffler has a preference for everything that shines, which makes it particularly suitable for finding treasures. This stems from their unusually keen sense of smell, and at that moment, Felix looked at Valen with a new idea in mind.
"Clatter--"
Felix raised his hand to clear a vacant space in the office, the ring on his hand emitted a strong bright light, followed by a variety of miscellaneous items erupted out like a volcanic eruption - Parchment, handwritten notes, scrolls, potions, letters, as well as Christmas gifts from the past few years ... lined up and covered most of the room.
Felix sat in a chair behind him, looked at the frozen Valen, and explained: "All the people I know - their stuff is pretty much here, and the letters or the scents on the gifts are well-preserved ... Hard work, Valen, try to find that person."
Valen looked at the pile of junk that towered higher than herself when she stood on the table, her body shook a little, and at Felix's expectant expression, she stood on her tiptoes and rummaged through a pair of blue wool socks with crudely embroidered black lightning bolts and silver balls of light - a gift from Dobby to Felix. He kinda liked them, the problem is the socks are two sizes too small to fit.
Valen leaned over the edge of the table and pulled the drawer open most of the way backward. From Felix's direction, he could see a stack of written parchment, and Valen looked back at Felix with exasperation, pointing her small hand down very hard.
"Kiki! (This is it!)"
Felix stunned, ain't she too fast? He raised his hand instinctively, and the stack of parchments flew into his hand, he already knew what it is, but still stared carefully at the parchments for a while, and raised his head to confirm: "Are you sure? Valen, this is not a joke ..."
Valen arrogantly raised her waist and nodded heavily.
Felix's eyes once again fell on the parchment, which is a thesis, the content is about the dismantling plan for the Time-Turner - he just read it two days ago, it is from Hermione Granger.
Hermione ... Granger, it really is her.
Felix exhaled lightly, since the target has been identified, he does not have to look for clues everywhere like a headless fly, but then he frowned. More than once he stressed to Hermione the dangers of long-term time travel, she knew all about it, but still did it ...
Is it a last resort, or a mistake?
This just occurred to him, because the core parts of the time-turner in Hermione's hand came from an evil dark wizard who lived two thousand years ago. Although Felix had confirmed with his magical perspective in the underground chamber of the Egyptian pyramids that the Horcrux statue and altar bearing "Herpo the Foul" did not have any magical traces left, but he knew nothing about " Time ".
So when Hermione told him she was going to replace the hourglass in the Time-Turner with the one that was found on the altar, he was happy to see it. As long as they seriously do it, whether it succeeds or fails, it is a huge gain, with many benefits.
He added only one insurance - cautioned Granger not to use it even if the replacement is successful. Felix thought that would be enough, but it became clear that the future occurred in unexpected developments that exceeded his, and Hermione's expectations.
For example, he "died".
It is more accurate to say that Granger thought he was dead, coupled with the urgency of the situation, she could not confirm the real situation, or possibly - she did not want to confirm. In any case, she hurriedly used the time-turner, and the result was an accident ...
Felix thought silently and barely managed to sort out a reasonable timeline.
But there are still a lot of unexplained problems.
Valen has gotten used to the occasional inactivity of the Great Demon King, she sniffed the postcard, yes, it is the witch with messy hair who likes to hug her, and the office is full of her scent, which she didn't notice it before.
Valen looked at the pile of junk on the floor with both eyes, it is a mountain of treasure! She glanced at Felix and understood that this situation would continue for some time as long as she did not disturb him. Valen ran two steps, leaped high from the table, like diving, and landed on a pile of colourful socks, with two small hands paddling, she soon disappeared into the clutter.
The joys of treasure hunting!
Valen happily wandered through the dazzling array of objects, the probability of meeting a treasure is amazingly high, she quickly found a few Golden Galleons, her mouth could not stop from beaming, she is so happy ... she stuffed the coins into her pocket, then she looked to the side and found another thermostatic pendant, Valen hesitated for a few seconds and "Resolutely" decided to give up - She already has three lockets in her pocket.
It is not rare.
Valen sniffed softly and smelled the familiar scent again, the same smell from a stack of rolled-up parchment, she saw the words "house elf" and " inspection" in the loose corner, and after thinking for a moment, she got out of the pile and placed the roll of parchment next to the postcard.
"Kiki! (and this!)"
She shouted a reminder. Valen's heart is pleased, she is working for the Great Demon Lord, in exchange for reasonable compensation for her work.
Felix looked back and watched Valen rummage around, occasionally poking her head out to put a thing on the table, he took a cursory glance, these all are Hermione's things, papers, gifts, and hand-made items ... at the same time, he also keenly noticed that Valen's belly became round, if he saw it correctly, a part of necklace peaked out of her pocket
Felix pondered whether to find time to educate Valen about the relationship between job content and remuneration - if the employees in the company knew Valen's labour cost, they would surely cry.
Once again, Valen emerged out of the clutter. After shaking the black fluffy body, she took a card in one hand and clutched what looked like a glass ball sneakoscope in the other - and shoved it hard into her pocket, but the pocket seemed to be full, and she tried several times without success.
Felix did not look at this greedy little fella, and beckoned, Valen uncontrollably flew over. Meeting the displeased eyes of the Daemon King, Valen realized that she was too greedy, she shrank her body and curtly handed him the sneakoscope in her hand.
Felix continued to stare at her.
Valen blinked, showed an expression of dawning realization, and handed him the card in her other hand, as she said empathically.
"Kiki! (so hard to find)!"
Felix looked at Valen with a blank face, "You think I don't know what you have in mind?" He was about to say something when he caught a glimpse of the birthday card, and suddenly his eyes widened and his heart surged with fear.
The card came from "Ms. Jane", more than two months ago, along with a huge birthday cake mailed to him.
Felix's hand shook involuntarily, more than ten years ago, to be exact, at the opening banquet of his fourth grade, he received a letter from her for the first time. Out of hundreds of abusive letters, this was the only one that encouraged him, and the lady sent several more letters after that until he graduated.
Felix recalled Nicolas Flamel's notes, his heart growing heavy, no single case showed an example of someone surviving long-term time travel ... If Granger was taken by a time-turner a decade back, how bad should the backlash of time be on her?
Can not easily jump to conclusions, he knows nothing about the field of time. Nicolas had never experienced time travel either, he had just collected that information.
"What is the most important thing right now?" Felix asked himself softly, "Yes, that's right."
He held out his hand with an expressionless face, and the miscellaneous items on the floor flowed like water into his ring. Valen hurriedly climbed onto his shoulders and looked down at the spectacular scene, and after two minutes, only three items remained on the floor.
His self-made Marauder's Map, the half-finished Sneakoscope Valen was holding earlier, and - the small glass vial containing a handful of gray hair.
Felix spread out the map, the ink lines on it expanded outward from a central point, quickly revealing the full extent of Hogwarts Castle, and the ink trail did not stop there, stretching all the way to the Forbidden Forest, the Black Lake and the surrounding mountains, including the position of the other four schools are clearly visible.
Hogwarts Castle only occupies a tenth of the entire map, dense of dots and dots of names clustered together, like a squashed, constantly wriggling ball of wool, which will make one's skin tingle.
Felix took out his wand to tap on the map, and whispered: "Hermione Granger."
The map suddenly changed, the writhing lines melted like spring snow and disappeared. Only one golden name remained on the entire map, Hermione Granger, who is taking her final exam in the potions' classroom.
"There's only one name." Felix said with some disappointment.
...
The door to the Potions' classroom opened and the students streamed out.
Hermione packed her school bag while talking rapidly: "The questions aren't too hard, but I'm not sure if I wrote the steps clearly, I should have waved my wand before mixing the potion ..." Harry and Ron showed a very helpless expression, and as they passed through the corridor Hermione still reviewed Potions class test questions, so Harry said her helplessly, "Hermione, you're the only one among us who actually took the test seriously, and we're not even sure which question you're talking about."
"Yeah," Ron smiled in a surprisingly good mood, "I was reading a comic book during the test, you should have seen the look on Snape's face -- oh, sorry, Professor. " As he turned back to speak, he bumped into Felix head-on.
"I'm the one who got in your way," Felix said with a smile, "I was in a hurry to visit Professor Snape for a small matter ... By the way, Miss Granger, I'm still a little uneasy after thinking about it, if you plan to fix that Time-Turner, you should mention it to me in advance--"
"We've already fixed it." Harry said.
"Uh, what?"
"We already fixed it, just last night." Harry said.
"Wait," Felix stared at Harry and then turned to Hermione, "I thought you said you wouldn't try to fix it until the end of the third task?"
"Oh, well ...," Hermione smoothed her hair somewhat flustered, "there was some mishap ... I was... . In good shape, so it was ... uh, finished early." She stammered.
She really didn't want to let the professor know that she was worried about meeting with her parents, so she brought the plan forward on a whim.
"Professor, do you need me to bring the time-turner for you? I left it in my dorm room." Hermione changed the subject, and both Harry and Ron's heart raced, despite the fact that they had decided to let Professor Hap examine it, they are still worried about hearing words such as "dangerous" and "confiscated" from the professor's mouth.
"No need for now, you guys can prepare for the third task in peace, I still hope you can win the trophy." Felix did not hesitate to postpone her offer.
Hermione stared at Felix's figure disappearing around the corner and asked, somewhat suspiciously, "Do you guys find the professor somewhat odd?"
"Did you?" Ron asked, and Harry looked at her puzzled.
"Just--" Hermione opened her mouth and found herself unable to describe how that sense of disconnection originated, "Hey, forget it. We've got the History of Magic test tomorrow, are you guys still going to read the storybook in class?" There was a clear dissatisfaction in her tone.
"I asked Professor McGonagall specifically, the parents are coming over tomorrow morning, Hermione, you're not planning on leaving them out to take the test alone, are you?" Ron
"No?" Hermione raised an eyebrow, "Actually, I-" She suddenly stopped and looked around.
"What's the matter, is someone there, Hermione?" Harry asked, sensing a vague hint of something unusual, but he failed to spot a thing.
Hermione drew her wand and pointed around a few times, finding nothing.
"Maybe I'm just mistaken." She said hesitantly.
"It's not a ghost, is it? Move on, it's over if Mrs. Norris finds you casting spells in the corridor, it's strange, this cat is getting more and more agile, Fred and George don't really dare to wander at night anymore, they're asking all around for the reason ..."
Their voices faded into the distance as Felix glanced back from the front of the Potions classroom and returned to his office, with a few more long brown hairs in his hand. He took out a half-finished Sneakoscope and made a people-finding sneakoscope using Hermione's hair that he had just acquired.
Felix stood in the fireplace and locked eyes with Valen, "I'm going out, I'm not sure if I'll be back tonight, so don't worry."
"Kiki? (Can I come?)"
"Oh, no," Felix whispered, "I don't think so." The turquoise flames rose, and he disappeared from the office.
...
For the next few hours, Felix wandered through Hogsmeade, Diagon Alley, and the wizarding districts of Britain, holding a people-finding sneakoscope without any luck.
"That's clever, Miss Granger, you're hiding well."
This is already close to dusk, Felix sat in a café by the window with a huge clock tower in sight, that is Big Ben, one of the iconic buildings of London. Felix finished his coffee and asked the somewhat balding clerk at the counter, "Is there a newsstand nearby?"
"Oh, certainly, it's just around the corner ..."
Two minutes later -
Felix stood in front of a newsstand and handed the postcard with the motto to the young lady at the Newsstand, he asked politely, "Hello, do you have a similar postcard here?"
The young lady took the card and looked at it carefully for a moment, "It kind of rings a bell, a salesman recommended a whole series of postcards with famous people's quotes a few months ago, but I had already stocked two hundred sets of souvenir cards of London attractions at that time, so I didn't stock them ... Want a set?"
The lady asked, pointing to the souvenir cards of the attractions on the stall.
"Give me a set." Felix flashed a smile as the lady's words verified his last suspicion.
Felix handed her a bill and turned into an alley with a full set of souvenir cards of London attractions, and the next second, his figure appeared two blocks away. When he emerged from another alley, his hand is empty. He looked up to see a dentist's clinic on the opposite side of the alley.
Almost three years ago, he had purchased a wisdom tooth here, and Felix smiled; Mr. Granger must surely remember him deeply, a customer like him would probably be quite rare.
Felix tapped his forehead with the second knuckle of his index finger, the absence of any magical glow in the clinic didn't surprise him, he just looked around and took an extended view, his black and white perspective immediately became colourful.
He had met Granger once before she had enrolled, and he remembered that she had walked here in casual attire, which seemed to indicate that her home is not far from the clinic ...
Felix searched patiently and whispered, "I told her myself that there are no surviving cases involving long-term time travel, and if she thought she is doomed to die ... in the last part of her life, where would she stay? I should have thought of that."
Felix gazed at a faintly visible dot of light in his field of vision and curled his lips. It didn't take him much time to get to the street where the modest townhouses are located. This place is a popular choice for the middle class and the nouveau rich families - Each house is 150-200 square feet in area, and two or three stories high, with a small independent garden and garage.
Felix cast a Disillusionment Charm on himself and stopped near a house, staring at the "Granger" on the door plate for a moment, then walked into the restaurant with a "24h" sign across the street, and randomly ordered a few dishes and went through his plan.
He has no intention of meeting Hermione, at least not until he has the ability to fix the side effects of long-term time travel.
Time travellers will be sheltered by the time-turner; if only an hour or two back, this "protection" would not be obvious, but if across years, decades, or even centuries, without the energy of the time-turner, their fate would be tragic.
The most obvious example is the witch who had the misfortune of going back to five centuries, when she returned to her own time she instantly became old, from the prime of life to dying, St. Mungo's tried almost everything, but the witch's body was like a bucket with many holes, all the means to make up for the loss of her life force were wasted.
Felix could only pray that the flat-headed hourglass taken from the "Herpo the Foul" had enough energy in it.
As darkness fell, Felix sat in the back of the restaurant, tapping his index finger rhythmically on the table, the customers ignored him, then a ripple spread out, his magic and thoughts soon covered the restaurant, and then continued outward until the house across the street and the neighbourhood covered.
He used his Thinking Room magic to replicate and overlap everything around him - a process much like the one he had used to build the Snowflake Gallery at the Quidditch World Cup. He looked up at the clock on the wall; it is nine o'clock at night.
A car parked across the street and a middle-aged couple stepped out of it. Felix closed his eyes as if he is standing in front of the Grangers', they are talking and laughing as they opened the gate, then parked the car in the garage, the curtain of the second-floor door moved a little.
Despite the dim light of the night, Felix clearly "saw" a furry head.
After waiting for a few minutes, he was about to stop the magic, when the second-floor window suddenly opened, and an owl flew out from inside. Under the cover of the night, no one noticed its trail. The owl, like a ghost in the night sky, circled twice over the house and flew off into the night sky.
Hermione stared at the owl for a few seconds and disappeared behind the curtains. But she didn't notice that after flying for a while, the owl looked like it had lost its way and kept circling high in the sky, then flew uncontrollably in one direction, the restaurant window opened abruptly and the owl landed straight in front of Felix.
"It's addressed to me." Felix stared at the envelope and muttered to himself, he opened the letter, it has a familiar "Ms. Jane" writing.
"... I probably will not write again, I am moving to another place. I read in the paper that you became the Trainer for two champion teams at Hogwarts as well as Safety Officer... That's amazing ... I saw the footage of the second task... The champions had to deal with tremendous pressure, I suggest you better give them a hug before the competition ..."
Felix put the letter down and said with a blank expression, "I'm so sorry I can't do what you want, Miss Granger."
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