Chapter 731: Epilogue: Valen
Exclusive Wand Academy is located in the northeast corner of Floating Island. In addition to the normal teaching facilities and buildings, what is more unique about the school is a group of statues on the main compound, dedicated to the first people who got their exclusive wands and changed their destiny. One of the most striking statue is a wand-wielding Niffler, better known as Valen.
Speaking of Valen, she is arguably the most famous Niffler or even magical creature in the Academy. Because at the beginning of the establishment of the school, Valen cooperated to record a series of ‘teaching footages’, thousands of magic-insensitive wizards learned from a Niffler when they tried to systematically understand the functions and applicability of their exclusive wands.
“I’ve seen Valen a few times,” Winnie Valentine said in class, “and she has used the exclusive wand to do things I have never thought of before, which has greatly expanded the scope of use and value of the exclusive wand.”
“There are no less than ten worldwide research topics developed due to her or inspired by her. The most significant research is ‘Magic Reactivation Theory’, which studies the possibility of dormant magic being reactivated to make us normal wizards through learning and practice! There are rumours that Valen has gotten rid of the restrictions of exclusive wands, but of course, it has not been confirmed …”
“What if it is proven?” A student asked.
“It means she may well be the smartest Niffler ever, at least surpassing the twelve thousand magic-insensitive wizards involved in the research in a broad sense … Well, if you don’t mind, let’s get on with the class. By the way, Valen also knows more words than any of you, and she even penned an article for the Daily Prophet, which was rejected, but that article was later published in The Quibbler, which you may have already heard of, ‘Diary of Life on Mars’.”
The bamboo forest behind the Academy houses a nest of Nifflers, born from the siblings of Valen, and every week scientists in white coats will drop by and trade golden, shiny little objects for ten to twenty minutes of time to study their lives, but unfortunately, these Nifflers don’t exhibit intelligence beyond the ordinary – except for the fact that they are all very good at Playing Exploding Snap or any other cards.
Today, two uninvited guests showed up at the school.
“Albus, I have a secret to share with you.” Scorpius said as the two stomped through the wet mud with crisp birdsong coming from the bamboo forest.
“I’m all set to hear about it.” Albus said.
“Dad’s been a little bothered in the past few days-” “Oh,” Albus said softly, as he lowered his head and scraped his toes on the ground, “I think it’s because of what my dad did, he raided Malfoy Manor …” “It has nothing to do with that.” Scorpius said, “It was about a bloke with the name ‘Nott’, Dad had been distracted after he heard he had been arrested, and his home was searched by the Ministry of Magic … I found this in Dad’s office. ”
He pulled out a small golden timepiece, and Albus stared blankly at the delicate hourglass embedded in the center of the timepiece.
“What is this?”
Scorpius took a deep breath, “A Time-Turner.”
“Time-what?”
“Well, it will let us travel through time,” Scorpius said with excitement, “but the last Minister of Magic suspended all research and sealed all records kept in the department whose name I don’t know. I read all of this in Dad’s notebook. I guess if we can find and defeat the person who put the curse on Mom, she’ll get better.”
“But we’re only-” Albus counted his fingers, “five years old.”
“Yeah,” Scorpius said dejectedly, “we can make a promise and wait until we are powerful – like ten years from now – and then use this thing to travel back in time and find the man who put the curse on the Greengrass family to defeat him.”
“It’s a promise.” Albus said.
Two fingers hooked together, both of them giggled contentedly, and then they heard distant chattering sounds, which didn’t sound like humans, but rather like some kind of magical creature.
Albus and Scorpius exchanged a look and walked cautiously in the direction of the sound. The two opened their mouths in amazement when they saw an alcove in their field of vision, after parting off a shrub that appeared very tall to them. They seemed to have trespassed into a nest of more than a dozen Nifflers, some smaller ones with pink and gray fur, playing on a field full of bamboo leaves. In the center of the nest stood a small table ( is it a table?), where three Nifflers were playing cards with three big piles of shiny things beside them.
“It’s wizard cards.” Albus said as he stared at the virtual figures rising above the table.
“The gameplay is the famous Dark Lord battle that has become popular in recent years… Look, two against one.” Scorpius said.
The two sprawled on the ground and watched with great interest, they are only five years old, so their minds are far less complicated, “A good card from Great Demon King set!” “Which one?” “The one with the fluffiest fur, like velvet satin.” Albus said, then he suddenly felt that something was not right, as if the light overhead had become brighter.
The two looked up to see a freshly awakened Niffler cub ruffling the leaves, yawning halfway through and staring wide-eyed at them, no, at the small glowing timepiece in Scorpius’ hand, to be precise.
“Oh no.” Scorpius said.
“What to do?” Albus asked.
“Run!”
At the same time, the Niffler cub squeaked, and all the Nifflers stopped playing and looked to the side in unison, even the ones who were burrowing in holes also poked their heads out – did they hear it right? Baby (treasure) has come by itself? All the Nifflers – except for Valen – looked at each other with glowing eyes, they are very poor, especially whenever Valen comes to visit them.
Valen turned her head around unhappily, she was about to win again, for the hundred and forty … forth time (?). The feeling of winning your two brothers and looting them is too good to be true. After the looting, she will organize a treasure contest to give them some of the treasure that she looted, and the two silly brothers will not hold a grudge or fight.
In her line of sight, two small children who are not yet as tall as the bushes stumbled towards the slope, one of them holding something shiny in his hand.
A real baby? Valen thought with a tilted head, it looks a little familiar.
Albus and Scorpius ran some distance away, huffing and puffing, but instead of disappearing, the subtle trembling of branches and the sound of bamboo leaves behind them drew closer, and Albus’s eyes caught a glimpse of a black shadow outrunning them.
“What to do?”
“Go up the tree!”
The two kids didn’t have time to think about whether this would work, but neither of them wanted to run any further, so they selected a roughly one-foot thick, knotted holly tree and climbed up it, pulling each other up, and by the time Albus reached the nearest branch with Scorpius’ help, he was too tired to speak.
Scorpius poked Albus, and the two looked down together.
A dozen Nifflers with black fur stared intently at them from under the tree, and then a particularly conspicuous Niffler that stood separately from the others, strutting under the tree and looking up at Albus and Scorpius.
That particular Niffler was naturally Valen, and she stared at the time-turner in Scorpius’s hand, her flattened mouth opened wide.
“They’re trying to snatch the time-turner!” Scorpius shouted.
“Don’t worry,” Albus said, “I have a trace on me, so Dad will come looking for us. Theoretically, all it will take would be hiding in the tree until the night-”
“I’m not as optimistic as you are,” said Scorpius, “for example, I’m not quite sure whether Niffler can climb trees or not?”
Baffled by the question, which he hadn’t thought about at all, Albus said hesitantly, “I don’t think so–” The next moment he saw a brownish-red Niffler cub wiggling its round body up a tree, and he immediately shut his mouth, the expression on his face became terrified.
Valen patted the little Niffler and shoved a piece of candy into its hand. Then she made a thoughtful expression, and after a while, she pulled out a mirror from her pocket, and several Nifflers came over curiously, staring at the glowing mirror with their eyes dazzled, while Valen squinted her eyes with a small wooden stick in her hand, as if she was going to swing it over.
When the mirror was connected, Valen chattered a lot and hung up the mirror with satisfaction. After doing all this, Valen stared at the two children in the small tree in a daze. Somewhat in boredom … she pulled out a jar of candy, to which Albus and Scorpius in the tree gulped.
…
“Here.” Scorpius said, agilely catching a candy in the air and shoving it to Albus.
“No, it’s your turn to eat.” Albus said. He eyed Niffler under the tree, which was so hateful, tossing candy into the sky one after another to tempt them to climb down the tree, he was so distracted that he didn’t even notice the appearance of a man not far away, who appeared seemingly out of nowhere, and both were startled when he spoke.
“You can come down now, it’s easier for everyone.” Felix said.
Albus almost fell off the tree, Scorpius’ throat was stuck by candy in his mouth, and his face turned red with urgency, Felix reached out and pointed, his expression quickly eased, Albus patted Scorpius’s back while asking, “Who are you?”
“Oh, sorry, I forgot to introduce myself. Felix Hap.” Felix said, tracing his finger down in the direction of the holly tree, “A common problem of those who become famous, subconsciously assuming that everyone will know who I am.”
Of course, Albus and Scorpius had heard of this name a lot, they just failed to react due to surprise, but they were unable to care about the surprise, as the holly tree under their feet bent towards one side, and with it, they also tilted, the rough bark became smooth, like a slide, then the two of them slid down uncontrollably, and as they approached the ground, hundreds of branches grew wildly, twisting and intertwining with each other to form a bench. Felix sat on one side, looking down and talking to Valen.
“Oh … is that so … well-.”
A big and small pair finished their exchange and looked in unison at the somewhat uneasy Albus and Scorpius. Albus bravely asked, “Hello? Are you really Hap–er, Professor? Sir? Headmaster?”
“Call me sir or professor, Albus.” Felix said calmly.
“You know me?” Albus asked in surprise.
” Yeah,” Felix suddenly got a little embarrassed, “but you may not remember much about me, I got married the year before, so I spent some time cleaning up the ocean trench to work on my marriage venue… but all in all, I’m no stranger to you. ” He looked over at Scorpius, “I know you too when I sent a wand for Draco and Astoria’s anniversary (belated wedding gift due to the time it took to create the wand).”
Scorpius’ eyes widened.
“The wand that made of snakewood and basilisk horn wand core!”
“That’s right, I initially had my eye on unicorn hair, but Mr. Ollivander told me that it wouldn’t fit, that was when it occurred to me that I also had a collection of some basilisk materials … which failed a few times in the middle, and I don’t have to guess why. But all these are irrelevant.” Felix said, “So can you show me the little timepiece you’re holding? It seems better than the one that the Nott’s have hidden away … It should be one of the last two that are still left outside.”
Scorpius hid his hands behind his back warily, tears welling up in his eyes in worry.
“You want to take it away? No, I can’t give it to you-”
“Well, you can keep it for now.” Felix said thoughtfully, “Normally I should have known about it three days later, from my wife after Draco informed her … but it’s hard to predict, as I am not likely to see everything. I didn’t pay much attention to this, being distracted by another matter …” he paused, “Draco had asked for my help, but I wasn’t sure at the time, and now it’s time to fix that.”
Albus and Scorpius looked at him in bewilderment.
Felix blew his breath into his palm. Then countless tiny runes scattered like flower petals and pieced together a mirror in the air. But there was only a frame, the mirror part remained empty. Then Felix rummaged through his pocket and pulled out a thumb-sized glass vial, which he shook gently, and Albus and Scorpius saw that the vial contained a few wisps of golden mist.
“Recently I have consumed a little too much, it is not easy to collect.”
Felix muttered to himself as he unscrewed the cork and picked out a wisp of golden mist with his pinky finger and flicked it toward the mirror frame floating in mid-air. The wisp of gold mist quickly filled the empty part of the mirror as if it was alive, then tiny runes illuminated from the outer edge towards the inner side layer by layer, and the golden mirror surface became flat and smooth after a few seconds.
“Let me think … Astoria … no, it should be Greengrass family.” Felix said seriously.
The image in the mirror kept flickering, people and space were changing rapidly, and it was dizzying to look at, like wearing a pair of dirty, handprint-covered glasses to read a dictionary with small, dense handwriting.
Felix took a moment to explain to the two children: “I will not travel through time, the cost is too great, and I also don’t want others to cause interference in time, but there are many things that can be done, such as the curse of the Greengrass family, it is not really necessary to go back in time, as long as I can see everything that has happened once before my eyes … I was not able to do such a thing during the first few years when I studied time, the energy alone caused a major headache. Found it.”
Albus, Scorpius, and Valen all looked into the mirror, the reflection in the mirror fixed in one place, and the scene became somewhat clearer, what appeared to be a thin, pale-skinned gloomy man with a mouse mustache, reciting something under his breath, blood flowing down his nostrils which curved and clotted in the air, before transforming into eerily throbbing black symbols at the sound of the incantation. The scene was a bit creepy, but Felix watched it with great interest, nodding his head as he watched.
“So that’s it. Somewhat similar to the curse that was once placed on Hogwarts’ Defense Against the Dark Arts class. It is not directed at a specific person, but at the Greengrass family, and as long as the bloodline of this family remains, the curse will not die out, unleashing its accumulated power every few decades. Knowing the principle behind it makes things much better.”
“Much better?” Scorpius asked blankly.
“For example, a spell could be designed to make the curse assume that the Greengrass family has already perished naturally … Of course, it was just an example, I actually have a better way.” The mirror shattered, and Felix carefully collected the visibly faded wisp of golden mist into a glass vial and then got busy.
Valen watched for a while, taking various snacks out of her pocket and distributing them around to Nifflers, and the two children, Albus and Scorpius had long since found themselves hungry and ate with great gusto. “What’s that?” Scorpius asked, pointing to a jar in which he thought he saw tentacles wriggling.
“Don’t touch it, it’s just a pile of cockroaches.” Albus said with great experience as he looked at it. Scorpius looked at him oddly, and Albus said reluctantly, “If you have a brother who likes to pull pranks too, you might know.”
“There’s not much hope,” Scorpius said glumly, then became happy, “but maybe I’ll have an extra little brother or sister.”
“It’s all over.” Felix said, smoothly snatching a piece of lava cake from Valen’s hand and stuffing it into his mouth, “Don’t be a stranger — Valen has the Honeydukes’ lifetime discount card, which even I don’t have.” Valen yelped twice in dissatisfaction beside him, didn’t you use my name for that card?
“The curse … gone? Mom is well?” Scorpius asked with a blank look, he tried to move his arm, hoping to experience a feeling like ‘a lighter body’, but nothing happened.
Felix nodded and shook his head again.
“The curse is indeed gone, but Astoria’s body still needs to recuperate for a while, I hope she can make it in time for the World Cup. Well, you guys have been out too long, it’s time to go back.” He waved his hand, and Albus and Scorpius disappeared from sight.
Felix slumped on the holly tree bench, his fingers fiddling with the glass vial containing golden time energy, his breathing slowed, and his body grew transparent. As if isolated from everything. Valen picked up a small stone from the ground and threw it at him.
Felix rolled his eyes.
“Hermione has totally bought you off, actually if you can change it to candy, I’ll feel better …”
Valen immediately pulled out a brown wig from her pocket, which she wore on her head, and then leaned forward, looking like a certain someone. She clasped her hands over her chest and sneered (if she could) as she thought: Hmph, despair, Great Demon King, our alliance was formed a decade ago, a solid friendship forged while walking around the castle under the moon, nothing can destroy it, nothi …
Valen craned her neck and sniffed at the air.
“Deep-sea fish, some species that probably have never been found before, I wonder how they would taste?”
“Gulp.” Valen gulped, feeling her unbreakable friendship being challenged, followed by the sound of another gulping of saliva in unison, as a group of Nifflers eyes looked over …
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