The day before Christmas, Andy sent the gifts he had prepared by owl. Except for the photo that Harry wanted, which was a bit troublesome, all the other gifts were things that could be bought with money.
The main thing that stood out were three words, money well spent!
On Christmas Day, Andy's family got together for a warm meal.
There were no other changes in Andy's family, except for the fact that his aunt, Ashia Collins, had a new boyfriend. Oh, one other change was that Andy became rich.
Having given out a lot of gifts, Andy naturally received a lot of gifts as well.
After sorting out the snacks and checking that none of it laced with a love potion or something similar, Andy packed the snacks and threw them to Isabel.
The little girl was already mad with joy.
Out of all the gifts, it was only Hermione's gift that was the most thoughtful. It was a book of European Legendary Stories, which contained many legendary stories that were circulating in the Muggle world.
Some of the stories could be matched up with those in the wizarding world, and Hermione had marked those stories with a red pen. The spells mentioned in the book were marked with a yellow pen.
This saved Andy a lot of reading time.
Hermione still knew Andy very well, Andy was indeed very curious about these legends and stories, but since they had nothing to do with magic, Andy had been too lazy to read them.
With this book, Andy would be able to fully understand where the magical and muggle communities overlapped.
Take Merlin, for example.
Merlin was only a character in folklore in the Muggle world, but in the magical world, he was real.
What about the kingdom of Camelot mentioned in the stories?
Even in the wizarding world, the records are vague.
There was a name, but no address, and there was a story, but no specific timeline.
So much so that there were even Slytherin wizards claiming that Merlin was a wizard who graduated from Slytherin House.
Isn't that a load of rubbish!
In the legends of the Muggle world, the era of King Arthur in which Merlin lived was around the fifth century, while Hogwarts was founded around the tenth century.
There was a difference of more than five hundred years in between!
This confusing timeline, as well as ambiguous bookkeeping techniques, made Andy feel that a part of the history of the magical world had most likely been artificially covered up.
This included the history of magic that Andy had learnt at Hogwarts.
Those histories seemed like they were normal, but if you read them in conjunction with those legendary stories, you would realise that the so-called magical history was actually incomplete.
Muggles treat wizards and magic as lore.
So what do wizards treat as lore?
Obviously, anything that can be treated as lore by wizards must have something to do with the gods.
Especially the story of Death and the Three Brothers.
When Andy was a child, Helen also told Andy this story.
But in Helen's perception, the Death God did not exist, it was just a small bedtime story. And the Deathly Hallows mentioned in the story were even more illusive fable.
Helen told Andy that those were all fiction!
Although Andy had only seen the first film of Harry Potter in his previous life, he still had some memory of the names of the other parts of this fiction.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
The author of the original story had explicitly told Andy that the Deathly Hallows were real, and the three brothers were also real.
What about the Death? Does 'He' exist?
An interesting point.
Muggles treated wizards and magic as myths, while wizards, who were the myths themselves, didn't believe in their own myths.
"Maybe God is real too!" Andy speculated.
Just as wizards avoided muggles, maybe gods avoided wizards.
It was written in the history of magic that many years ago, wizards didn't hide from muggles like they do now, they could live with muggles.
It wasn't until the muggles united to persecute witches that the relationship between wizards and muggles grew tense.
Since then, wizards and magic have become legends in the muggle world.
So Andy had reason to guess that in the history of the wizarding world, some gods and goddesses had come into contact with wizards and left behind those legendary stories.
For example, the story of Death and the Three Brothers.
On Christmas night, Andy went through the book that Hermione had sent him roughly.
There were many places where the legendary stories of the wizarding and muggle communities overlapped. Although there were some differences in the accounts, they were generally similar.
The most famous was the story of Merlin.
Andy leaned on the bed and thought in his heart, 'If one wants to investigate the truth about the gods, the most suitable point of entry is actually the Deathly Hallows.'
Because the Deathly Hallows had appeared in the original story.
The invisibility cloak in Harry's hand was most likely the invisibility cloak in The Deathly Hallows.
It might not be impossible for Andy to find the Resurrection Stone and the Elder Wand if he followed the clues.
There was also a point mentioned in the story of the Three Brothers that if one collects all three Deathly Hallows, one can become the master of Death.
Andy scoffed at this.
It was obvious from the story that the three Deathly Hallows were just things that Death made casually.
No, no!
The Elder Wand is a branch that Death casually broke, and the Resurrection Stone is a stone on the shore, but that Invisibility Cloak ... is something that Death himself had.
The invisibility cloak ...
Andy raised an eyebrow, 'After school starts, I might as well borrow it from Harry and study it.'
Closing the book and placing it on the bedside table, Andy rubbed his temples with a headache. Sometimes Andy really felt like there wasn't quite enough time, there was just so much to learn and understand.
And Andy was too distracted.
"Good night!"
After saying goodnight to the fat cat Patronus, Andy dispersed the Patronus charm, emptied his brain and began to sleep.
***
After Christmas, there was only one thing that Andy had left to do.
Welcome Hermione.
But that would be a week later, and Hermione, even if she came over, it would at least be after New Year's Day.
In the past two days, Andy and Hermione had exchanged several letters, mainly just chatting about the legendary story.
Compared to Andy, who often let his thoughts wander, Hermione was considered to be more pragmatic. The little witch was half-hearted about legendary stories but was enthusiastic about investigating them.
Andy sent Hermione a copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard and told her that the story of the Three Brothers was most likely true and that the Deathly Hallows had appeared in the history of the magical world.
The little witch is really showing a lot of motivation.
With the toolman helping with the investigation, Andy could finally focus all his energy on practising magic.
As time passed, day by day, Andy's use of Apparition became more and more skilful.
Thanks to his strong magic talent, the day before Hermione's arrival, Andy was already able to use magic to hit his target a moment after the Apparition.
The next step in the practice was to repeat this process over and over again.
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