As always, the password for the headmaster's room was the name of a sugar. Dumbledore was looking up from a pile of old books just as Snape entered, with a half-eaten plate of lemon butterscotch at his hand. The flaming phoenix is snoozing on its golden perch. Sensing someone coming in, it opens its beautiful, jewel-like eyes with a gentle sweep, flaps its wings twice and then naps.
The schoolmaster put down his quill, set aside the books and parchment in front of him, and with his long fingers ran a casual sweep over the ebony table. The polished tea set fell smoothly into his hands.
Dumbledore shook his teacup with his customary good-natured smile, and the astringent aroma spread around the room, entangled with the strong smell of old books. "I only noticed when I was making tea this morning that I had run out of sugar. I was going to ask the house-elves for some, but I was so busy that I forgot. But now it seems that the sugar is not quite right."
A mahogany chair, glowing in the lamplight with the same honey-tint as the black tea in it, slid silently behind Snape.
Dumbledore had not forgotten how much Snape hated unnecessary society, and how seldom he had come by himself to communicate by owl for anything. So, he must have something serious to say.
Snape sat down, thick black running from the ends of his hair to the tips of his feet, only his face was horribly pale and drawn, and his voice was deep: "Regulus is not dead."
The rumor that he was killed by the Dark Lord for trying to defect is false.
Dumbledore's blue eyes flashed behind his half-moon crystal spectacles, his hands folded. "You've seen him?"
"Diagon Alley." "With one of my students and became her guardian."
"Guardian? Who is the student?"
"Beverly Greenberg. She said that Regulus had been brought up by a teacher who saved his life and that he would be the child's guardian." Snape's expression showed no emotion, but the purely mechanical tone of his retelling made Dumbledore think he had an idea of his own.
"You seem to have a different opinion."
"At least judging by Regulus' performance, my dissent has reason to be taken seriously."
Dumbledore nodded. "You noticed something was wrong with him?"
Snape, recalling Regulus's blank, mild, almost innocent manner, frowned again and his voice hardened. "I suspect that the Dark Lord did not kill him, but he did make him pay. Of course..." At this point, his already deep voice was deliberately drawn out longer, and his words were laced with sarcastic sarcasm. "I don't rule out the possibility that his acting talent is superior."
Dumbledore picked out a lemon creme caramel and dropped it into his mouth; he could almost imagine Snape delivering a quick and quick dementure shot at Regulus, or one of those veritaseritaserum that was tucked in one of the corners of his office cabinet.
Snape's dislike of the Black family was unmistakable.
Thinking this, Dumbledore turned his eyes again to Snape. He remembered Regulus, a year younger than him, when he was a freshman and now he worked with him.
Sometimes the traces of time around and on their own body are so casual will be noticed. Just as she had dinner with Professor Sprout the other day, and was talking about how nervous she was when she went to class for the first time as a professor, all of her former students were now deans just like herself.
"Then I'll be off." Snape stood up to leave, his black tea untouched.
Fawkes, now awake, gave a soft, sweet cry. Dumbledore walked over to his old friend, ran his finger over the phoenix's feathers and ran it down Fawkes's beautiful red neck, where his beak touched his hand in a friendly way.
Maybe there's a good time to meet that kid.
Dumbledore went over to the Pensieve and removed his memory with the Elder Wand. A thin, silvery thread is picked over the tip and blended into the water of the Pensieve.
Soon Regulus came back clearly as he had arrived at the school. The Sorting hat announced the boy's house, Slytherin, loud and shrill. In the next scene, he had a gentle smile on his face that didn't match the green tie on his chest, and with girls he was always polite and gentlemanly, not at all like his brother Sirius, despite their resemblances.
Snape returned to the cellar, where the cauldron he had left on the flames before leaving was now bubbling green and sticky. He stirred it, examined the color and texture, and waved out the fire.
The timing is good, and the cooking is OK.
He sat down and began to look through some of the books he had bought. The light of the day after the rain, as it approached evening, took on a kind of faint, fading splendour, and glistened gray on the edge of the window sill.
...
After seven o 'clock in the evening, Aurora made the usual dinner and went to see Beverly. She's been in a bad mood all afternoon, because Regulus was here. Aurora could probably understand that Beverly could never feel better about the person her master had abandoned to protect.
She didn't say much about Regulus, because she didn't know much either. The only thing she remembered was that on a stormy night, when her master dragged the half-dead young man back, Beverly saw Regulus by the light of the lightning, and described him as gaunt and gray as a zombie.
Then, his master weakened day by day, the other day back to normal appearance. Finally, the master died, and Regulus woke up with a completely fragmented memory.
He has no memory of who he is or why he came back the way he was when he was rescued.
Aurora looked at Beverly and hugged her gently.
She then returned to her temporary home. Mrs. Blunt was kind enough to lend Aurora a room in her house, which saved her a considerable rent. Aurora returned the favor by becoming the house cleaner.
It was nearly 10:30 p.m. when she returned to her room. Aurora washed her raincoat and prepared to hang it out on the balcony before going to bed.
At this moment, she suddenly found a strange place -- in the rain cap of her raincoat, I do not know when there was a heavy old dark green soft leather book, four corners are decorated with silver metal.
The book looked old, and the pages on the sides were different shades of color, as if they had been oxidized over time. On the cover, a big silver "S" lies quietly on the dark green cover, like a snake snaking through the forest.
Aurora froze for a moment, holding it in her hand to make sure it was not her illusion. If I remember correctly, it had not been in my rain hat when I had tea with Professor Snape this afternoon, and my raincoat had not been touched since I had brought it back. How could there be another book out of nowhere?
Don't you... Has anyone been in here? !
Aurora felt suddenly awake at this thought, and a sharp chill ran up her spine to her head. She quickly reached under her pillow for her cypress wand, put on her coat, made sure her room was empty, locked the window and crept out.
But the house was quiet, and there was no noise except the sound of Mrs. Brent breathing evenly from next door.
Aurora walked around the living room and then went back to her room. She was hesitant to inspect all the places by herself, especially since she had been forbidden to use magic when she left school.
Everything in the room was still the same, the inexplicably extra book still lying on the table, the sharp silver "S" in the light of the cold light, reminiscent of some stage plays in the ghost-masked executioner's axe.
As she thought about her day, she suddenly remembered that she had been hit hard by something and fallen into her hat while hiding in a shop in Knockturn Alley, thanks to Snape. Then she was too scared to escape and had to come back all the way back when she met Professor Snape...
Wait, after meeting so many people along the way, why did no one ever remind me of the book in my hat? Didn't this book come out of that store by accident?
Aurora walked slowly toward the book, gently lifting the corner of the cover with her long wand, and slowly opening the cover to reveal the front page.
The dark green cover opened more and more arcs, and the light crept over the ancient pages, tearing at the dark dust inside. Aurora bit her lip and looked into the book with restraint, beads of sweat hanging on the end of her delicate white nose. She almost feels like she's holding a scalpel to her chest.
Finally, when the edge of the book touches the table, the contents of the book are fully revealed.
Aurora stood a little closer and looked at it, and there was only one sentence:
It's been a long time waiting for you to fully open this journal.
Unlike the aggressive "S" on the cover, this sentence was written with a kind of rambling elegance that could have reached the pleasing level of a textbook, and the letters were drawn with a flexible, slender outline, a writing with more life and tension than branches, like the twining of some tiny, gorgeous snake.
It's so beautiful it makes you feel numb and chill.
Slowly, the letters began to twist and connect, turning into a snake that swam lazily across the parchment, its long, narrow vertical eyes now and then looking at the completely frozen Aurora.
Then, just moments before Aurora was about to risk being invited to tea by the Ministry of Magic by firing a Burning Curse at the bizarre book, the snake waved its tail down from its head and its flexible, slender body split apart once more into one sentence: "Give it up, it won't work. You can't ruin me. It's a shame I thought you were a gifted wizard when I met you in that shop so boring you wanted to kill something, instead of a boy who knew nothing."
Then the letters changed again: "Put down your harmless little rolling pin and come and sit before me."
The last "e" ended with a long, slender snake tail that was waving idly, as if it were waving -- or waving -- at Aurora.
Aurora did not want to go. Her nightgown was wet through with the cold sweat of the summer night, and it was cold and sticky to her back. She wanted to grab the book and throw it out the window, preferably right in the middle of the rubbish heap downstairs, and let the rats chew it up.
But the truth is she can barely move a finger. She was so afraid of snakes, she was really afraid that the one inside would jump out and swallow her alive before she could throw him out.
I've heard that pythons wrap their prey until they suffocate before swallowing it whole without chewing. Should she thank snakes for their feeding habits? Watching yourself get swallowed is a horror movie. But the process of choking to death is not good either...
"Tut." The letters contracted into an impatient tone and spread again, and the writing took on a more violent tone. "Sit here!"
Aurora sat down in front of the diary trembling, her hands cold with sweat, her lips moving pale, unable to pronounce a syllable, her pale brown eyes staring at the page.
Black tangles on the page, and writing emerges: "Tell me what you see?"
Aurora stared for a moment, not understanding. The quill floated out of the pen holder and landed between the spine of the book, and Aurora realized she was being asked to write.
She picked up the pen with a shudder and chose a spot far away from the snake that had been transformed into letters again, the contrast between the beauty and ugliness of the young and vain handwriting against the other side.
She wrote, What do you want me to read?
The snake hissed at her disapprovingly, swam over and ate all her handwriting, then morphed into a sentence: "You can't see anything but this book and my writing?"
Aurora stared blankly, looking up from the ceiling to the corner and back to the book, where the snake was staring at her.
She writes again. Nothing.
The snake looked at her strangely for a moment, then pulled Aurora's writing over with its tail again and swallowed it whole without chewing. "And now?"
Whether it was an illusion or not, Aurora thought the handwriting was different again, more formal than before.
She stared intently at the book and finally wrote honestly, "Nothing. What do you want me to read?"
The snake squinted at the girl, tickled his chin with his pointy tail up, and then flashed what Aurora thought was a creepy smile. "You're so much more interesting than anyone I've ever met before. That's all for today. Good night."
It stretched itself around the page and disappeared into a line door that had appeared out of nowhere on the page. The diary itself closed again, leaving the silver S staring straight at her.
Aurora stared at the book with a shudder, opened the window, closed her eyes, seized it, and flung it outward with all her might. Soon she heard a heavy thump outside.
Trembling, she relocked the window, drew the curtains, put the chair behind the door, and got into bed on her hands and knees with the lantern in her arms, the thin quilt over her head, all huddled up.
All night, Aurora wondered whether she was asleep or not, and she could not stop thinking about the vivid paper snake swimming through the pages. Aurora did not fall asleep until a dim glow of the fish's belly appeared on the horizon, only to wake up a few moments later.
She pulled herself out of the covers wearily, her hands sore from clinging to them the day before, and as weak as if they were broken.
Aurora adjusted her breath, then slowly opened her eyes. The light of the early morning sun was filtering through the thick curtains and casting a bright yellowish light on the ceiling overhead.
No murderous, creepy journals, no snakes, no S.
She got up, straightened herself slowly, flattened her pale blond hair, which had been fried by her bad sleeping position, tucked her wand up her sleeve, and turned to collect the raincoat that had been hanging out to dry the day before.
But as soon as she opened the window, a dark figure suddenly hit her in the face like a runaway cannon. Aurora staggered and fell to the ground with a thud, almost blindfolded by the double impact.
She groped for the covering of her face, and began with the cool, fine leather. Aurora let out an instinctive scream and threw it aside.
The dark green cover fluttered open on its own. The snake inside looked so angry that it wanted to rush out and kill the little golden bastard right now.
This time the writing seemed to fly more sharply than ever before, the cut as sharp as a knife, the ink so thick that it almost dripped: "You dare throw me out the window? !"
Aurora clutched her wand tightly, and as her mind churned out numerous curses and rejections, she decided that being cast into Azkaban would not stop her from burning the diary by magic. Maybe I'll get to see Sirius, whom I haven't seen in years, though that's not a very pleasant way to do it.
Sensing what she was up to, the diary quickly flew over and hit Aurora on the wrist, dismissing her wand. The snake swam irritably across the page, and at last he said, "So you want to destroy me too? And risk getting caught and thrown in jail without even knowing what I am? Stupid!"
This calmed Aurora down, and she was right. She had only one chance to cast a spell at it before the Ministry of Magic put her in prison. But there's no way you can destroy this weird thing with the spell you know.
It's not terrible to go to prison. It's terrible to go to prison and maybe meet this mysterious thing. If so, she would rather face the potions.
Aurora took several deep breaths. Then she got up, picked up her quill, and wrote on the page, "Who are you? What do you want from me?"
The snake cocked its head to glance at the sentence, opened its mouth to let the words pop into its mouth, one by one, in a gleeful line, and then responded -- "Tut, tut, didn't I say that last night? You are not the first to have me, but you are the first to be immune to the magic I have left here."
"So?
The snake ate the word and continued wagging its tail. "That's it. You can't be controlled by magic and you can talk to me."
Aurora shook her hand so that the tip of her pen almost sank into the parchment. "Are you bored?"
"How about being locked in this book for over a thousand years?"
"Over a thousand years? Who the hell are you?"
"Watch your language, little fellow. Generally speaking, after living this long, you shouldn't expect the other person to be of the same race as you."
"You... Not a person?" It's a stupid but scary question.
"I was, a long time ago." The snake swam lazily. "But it doesn't matter. I've finally found someone who won't be controlled by my magic. Tell me, little fellow, who taught you occlumency?"
Aurora looked at it for a long time and then wrote, "I never learned this. What magic did you put on this diary?"
"Don't try to trick me!" The snake suddenly shed its languid look, raised its upper body to stare at her, and after a few moments, with a sort of exasperation, conjured up a list of words. "You can't be Occlumency without being affected by my magic. Who taught you?"
"I really haven't studied any of this stuff you're talking about. I've only been studying magic for a year. You've got the wrong person." When Aurora had finished writing, the snake spat menacingly at her, swam over and tore up the black words and swallowed them all in a most ferocious manner.
"Wait a minute. You said you saw me in the store yesterday. Are you really from that store? But why didn't anyone see you?"
Maybe it's a warning, Aurora's quiet, warning her not to take people's stuff. But she didn't mean to... Maybe she should send the book back and apologize to her boss.
"I can make myself invisible, invisible, invisible." The Snake wagged the tip of his tail triumphantly. "The owner of that shop can't do anything to me. He's too easily fooled by my magic." Then he looked at Aurora again. "You say you haven't learned anything. How can you not be influenced by me?"
"How should I know..."
The snake slurped the sentence and then conjured it out: "You are special. Your spirit is different from others. I can't figure out why at the moment, but it's nice to finally have someone interesting to talk to. A thousand years..."
Aurora felt a chill. She had never wanted to talk to the snake. It was eerie. But he's just said he doesn't have the same mental capacity as other people... Is it because they do not belong to this world, the soul from another time and space relationship?
She wrote, "I can't talk to you, I have to go to school soon, or could I find you someone who actually knows occlumency?"
The snake stretched out its tail impatiently and smashed the words. "What are you afraid of? Your last professor who pulled you out of Knockturn Alley didn't see me either? Which school do you go to?"
"Hogwarts," said Harry.
The snake stopped talking and stared at her for a long time. "What college are you in? One of the Gryffindor fellows?"
That guy? Aurora frowned at the odd choice of words, but replied, "No. But since you know so much, you also know that my professor is from Hogwarts. Are you a student there, too?"
"Didn't you call anyone Professor yesterday?" "When I was a student, there was no Hogwarts. Tell me, what is it like now?"
"No Hogwarts? Aurora murmured the words, then remembered the dark green and silver S of the cover, and a sudden, extreme chill rose above her head. "You are..."
The snake's chin was high and its long, pointed tail made a domineering name:
Salazar Slytherin.
Aurora was suddenly petrified.
The next moment, trembling, she wrote three words on the page: "You lie!"
Then she snapped the diary shut.