Hogwarts: Even Voldemort Can't Stop Me From Studying

Chapter 585: Chapter 192: Letters Across Time_2

Harry laughed out loud.

Mabel looked at the two of them, staring at Harry and asked, ”The Obscurus didn’t give you two any trouble, did it? Why did you include it?”

”Hm?” Harry said offhandedly, not really thinking about it, and when asked by the girl, he scratched his head and said, ”Maybe it’s because I often see that name in the newspaper? Subconsciously lumped it together...”

Mabel looked deeply at Harry, seeing that he didn’t seem to have discovered anything, then turned her gaze away.

Vid was just about to say something when he caught a glimpse of a silver shadow out of the corner of his eye.

A Phoenix Guardian God passed through the window and landed beside Vid, opening its mouth with Dumbledore’s voice: ”Please come to the Screaming Shack immediately, Vid.”

...

The Screaming Shack wasn’t far from Lupin’s house, and when Vid arrived, he saw Dumbledore standing beside the desolate shack, wearing a purple robe studded with golden stars.

”Professor Dumbledore.” Vid walked over and asked, ”What’s happened?”

”Carrel has escaped from Hogwarts.” Dumbledore extended his arm, indicating for Vid to take hold and said, ”Come with me, I might know his hiding place.”

With a ”bang”, the two disappeared from where they stood and reappeared in an unfamiliar city. Vid saw a yard enclosed by iron railings ahead, surrounded by shrubs, with a six-story white building inside.

The sign next to the gate indicated that this was an asylum.

Dumbledore led Vid towards the asylum and said, ”Not long ago, Professor McGonagall told me that Carrel attacked Hermione in the Gryffindor Common Room, stole her Time Turner, and escaped.”

Vid frowned and said, ”He must have turned back to an earlier time and then left Hogwarts through a secret passage... A few hours is enough time for him to escape anywhere in the United Kingdom.”

”That would normally be true, but I’m afraid Carrel’s time reversal far exceeded the allowable range.”

Dumbledore said gravely, ”Because just an hour ago, when I finished meeting with Madam Maxime, I received a letter... A letter that was written over a year ago and was delivered at a specified time.”

Vid’s brow twitched: ”From Carrel?”

”Yes.”

As they spoke, Dumbledore had already led Vid into the asylum, where a female doctor in her forties was leaning over to speak to a patient in a wheelchair. When she saw the two of them, she immediately walked over.

”Hello again, Mr. Dumbledore, you returned so quickly.”

The doctor ignored the two’s ”peculiar outfits” and looked at Vid with surprised eyes: ”Oh, you must be Vid Gray! You look exactly like the photo!”

Vid was taken aback: ”Photo?”

”Yes.” The doctor looked around, then led them into her office, taking a photo out of the drawer. In the center of the photo was Harry, surrounded by Vid, Hermione, and others.

Vid immediately recognized it as one likely taken by Gryffindor’s Colin Creevey. He was a huge fan of Harry Potter, keen on taking photos of Harry and occasionally snapping shots of Vid and others.

Vid put the photo down and asked, ”What’s going on here?”

The doctor sighed deeply, a look of fear and incredulity mixed with a hint of relief on her face. She mysteriously said:

”Actually, last year... oh no, it was the Christmas of the year before, I met a ghost.”

Vid: ”...Ghost?”

He looked at Dumbledore, who signaled him to continue listening.

”Yes.” The doctor shivered and said, ”One night, when I was alone in the office, it suddenly appeared... no, I can’t say it appeared, it was more like it suddenly started speaking...”

”What did it say?” Vid asked.

”It told me to take a patient home, hide them, and take good care of them. Until January 30, 1994, when a young man named Vid Gray arrived, only then could he take the person away.”

The doctor looked at Vid with fear in her eyes, ”It also said it put a curse on me, that if I didn’t comply, my family and I would die a horrible death. When Vid Gray arrived, he could help me lift the curse.”

”At first, I thought it was a prank by the patient or something like that, and I said if it didn’t stop fooling around, I’d call the police. But... but then everything in the room suddenly started shaking, the light bulbs flickered and then shattered, and even I floated off the ground! I could even feel hands gripping my neck!”

The doctor fearfully touched her own neck, as if reliving that terrifying night.

”I had no choice; I took the person home... but the next day, the next morning... an identical corpse appeared on the hospital bed... and her cause of death was bizarre, she was...”

The doctor lowered her voice and trembled as she spoke: ”She was strangled by her own necklace!”

”When I saw the corpse, I immediately ran home to check, but the person I took home was still there... yet there was a corpse in the hospital room... I didn’t know what was going on, I didn’t even know which was the ghost...”

The doctor looked at Vid with pleading eyes, and then at Dumbledore, asking: ”You’ll take that thing... I mean that person away, right? My task is complete, can the curse be lifted?”

Vid already understood and was silent for a while before asking, ”Where’s that extra corpse?”

”Oh, because no one has ever claimed it, and the situation is very... peculiar, so it’s still in the morgue.”

The doctor led the two to the morgue, and Dumbledore signed several documents before the doctor opened the cabinet that had been sealed for over a year.