Fragments of memories surged forward like a tide. He seemed to see scenes from his infancy.
It was the same house, the same people…
His mother was serving bread and wine to the guests.
"Bug, eat some more bread."
Harry saw a complex look in his mother's eyes—a mixture of sigh and sorrow.
"Perhaps… you will never eat bread made by me again."
He saw the chubby young man sobbing as he nodded vigorously.
The memory shifted again. He heard his father's anxious shouts.
"Go! Lily! Go!"
Then came the heavy thud of a body falling down the stairs.
He was sitting in his crib, staring at his mother with a resolute expression.
"Harry, Mummy loves you. Daddy loves you. Mummy hopes you will live safely, healthily, and strongly… Mummy loves you, my baby…"
A voice like the cry of a hawk echoed, and green light filled the entire room.
"Avada Kedavra!"
After an indeterminate amount of time, he saw a young Severus Snape enter the room.
Upon seeing Lily's body on the floor, he collapsed. His expression shifted from disbelief to remorse, and finally to utter despair.
This was the first time Harry had ever seen Snape cry. Even when his father had hung him upside down to humiliate him, he had never seen him cry…
"No! Lily!"
He held Lily's body, shouting hoarsely.
After another stretch of time, Harry realized Snape had disappeared.
Outside the door, another heart-wrenching voice screamed:
"Wormtail! Wormtail!"
After a while, the person seemed to have cried enough. Harry heard them stand up.
"I will kill him! I will kill him!"
…
"Harry! Harry!"
Vivi's voice echoed in Harry's ears.
He returned to reality, his face already covered in tears.
"I'm sorry… I'm so sorry…" Vivi murmured. "Harry… that was the only way I could think of…"
Harry remained silent. The image of Voldemort murdering his parents was still vivid in his mind.
Seeing him like this, Vivi felt lost for the first time in her life.
Just when she thought Harry was going to settle the score with her, he spoke first.
"Vivian, I don't blame you," he said. "Actually, without your help, I wouldn't have survived either… My parents were no match for Voldemort."
The Vivi in the portrait could no longer hold back. She covered her face and wept bitterly.
"Perhaps that curse is also the reason I was able to travel through time," he continued. "If I hadn't spent those few years at Hogwarts a century ago, I wouldn't have met my friends from the Order of the Phoenix, and I might have been killed by Voldemort just a few days ago—"
"And I wouldn't have met you," he added.
In an instant, Vivi's eyes softened.
"Harry…"
"The most important thing right now is to rescue you as quickly as possible," Harry said, looking at her. "Do you know where I can find a basilisk?"
Vivi fell silent for a moment, seemingly deep in thought.
After a pause, she told him, "When we were still at Hogwarts, I heard in Hogsmeade that people in Greece bred such creatures. But a hundred years have passed, and regulations on magical creatures have become increasingly strict. I don't know where basilisks can still be found nowadays."
Hearing this, Harry recalled that the residents of Hogsmeade had indeed discussed basilisks, and even the newspapers had reported on the topic.
At the time, he hadn't paid much attention. After all, he was just a Gryffindor with no particular fascination for basilisks—despite being a Parselmouth.
His discovery of Parseltongue was also connected to Orminus, who had even made Harry take a blood test to check if he was truly a descendant of the Gaunt family.
Orminus hadn't wanted to force Harry to acknowledge his lineage. He simply didn't want Harry to get involved in the twisted atmosphere of the Gaunt family. All he desperately wanted was a normal brother.
The result had left him somewhat disappointed but also relieved. Since then, however, Orminus and Harry had grown much closer.
Harry nodded in understanding. "I see. Leave it to me—don't worry, we'll see each other again soon…"
"Hm," Vivi asked again, "how are the others? You know, I left school shortly after you disappeared and haven't heard any news about anyone."
"No, I… I only know that Gareth is dead," Harry said, somewhat dejected.
"Time… ah, the most ruthless thing," Vivi said with a note of lament.
Harry suddenly spoke up. "By the way, Vivi, I also saw Papiyas. You remember—Papiyas Sweeting from Hufflepuff?"
"Of course I remember. She was the one who helped me hang this portrait in the Chamber of Secrets," Veratia said softly. "But… she didn't seem to be doing well. When I saw her, she was being chased by Voldemort, and I had to save her—"
At that moment, Harry remembered that Papiyas was now a unicorn and told Vivi, "By the way, Papiyas learned the Animagus transformation and is now a unicorn. She can no longer turn back into a human…"
There was a moment of silence between them.
"Yes… she really went through with that spell…" Veratia looked at Harry with a complicated expression. "I warned her long ago that becoming an Animagus is very dangerous. Even though magical creatures like unicorns have long lifespans, it's not something a mortal can do lightly."
"But she succeeded, didn't she… even if she can't go back." Harry shrugged. "That's a big problem. When you return, we'll find a way to turn Papi back into a human."
"Right." Veratia murmured in agreement. "I have a guess, but I'll only be able to confirm it after I see Papi."
"I knew it. You always find a way." Harry smiled again.
It felt so good to see Veratia. Harry felt as if his intelligence had regained control—at least on the surface.
Before meeting Vivi, Sebastian had been the brains of their group… but Sebastian's occasional "brilliant ideas" (in Orminus's words) could easily have landed them all in Azkaban.
"By the way, Harry," Vivi said again, "your wand—the holly and phoenix feather one, eleven inches long—is behind my portrait. It's also the key to our vault at Gringotts."
Harry stood up, walked over, and examined Vivi's portrait carefully. He reached out and touched it.
Unlike the Vivi he remembered, the portrait did not feel pleasant to the touch.
It was cold and rough.
"Take your wand!" Vivi exclaimed, a suspicious blush rising to her cheeks. "It's just a portrait…"
Harry's face flushed. He hadn't been thinking anything inappropriate; he had simply felt that Vivi seemed… lonely. Yes, lonely!
He quickly pulled the wand from behind the portrait, only to find a scarlet gem at its tip, with red veins extending from it and wrapping around the base of the wand.
"What happened? Why does the wand look like this?" Harry asked curiously.
He remembered that the last time he had used this holly wand, it hadn't looked this way.
"After you left, the wand got stuck in the body of the Langlock curse," Veratia explained, still holding her book. "When I retrieved it, it was already like this. It's a souvenir from Gringotts. But I should warn you—the goblins may have a slight adverse reaction to this wand."
"Ah." Harry waved the wand, feeling his old friend vibrate cheerfully in his hand.
He didn't mind what Vivi had just said. A small adverse reaction was nothing to worry about. The goblins at Gringotts were experienced and wouldn't make a fuss.
Harry tucked the wand into his pocket, leaned against a stone, and decided to talk with Vivi a little longer to calm his troubled mind.
He said casually, "By the way, Vivi, have you heard about Gellert?"
"What?" Vivi asked.
"Well… it's… um…" Harry organized his thoughts and said to Viletta, "Well… our current Headmaster, Mr. Albus Dumbledore, defeated your brother Gellert in 1945 and imprisoned him in Nurmengard Castle…"
"I've heard," Vivi said with a smile. "My foolish Gale… getting defeated, and his deeds are even printed on Chocolate Frog cards! He has completely disgraced the Grindelwald family!"
Although she was smiling, Harry—who knew her well—could tell she was very angry.
"Huh?" Harry asked curiously. "How do you know what's happening outside?"
Vivi looked at him and said, "Lily told me, of course. After she first entered the Chamber of Secrets, I asked her a lot about what was happening in the outside world…"
Harry felt a pang of thirst.
He realized that more than a hundred years had passed since the girl had transferred her memories into this portrait, sending him a message and waiting for his return.
His days with the Dursleys had felt like an eternity. He couldn't imagine the loneliness Vivi had endured in this Chamber of Secrets.
"Vivian," he said, "in the Map Chamber… more than a hundred years must have been incredibly boring, right?"
"It's alright," Vivi said naturally. "The wait may be tedious, but the moment the result arrives, it proves the wait was not in vain."
She added, "This portrait is merely a copy of my memories. For me, in the Slytherin study, it has only been a fleeting moment."
"However…" Veratia smiled dangerously again, "you must remember to tell that version of me about Gale."
"Huh? What do you mean?" Harry felt a chill run down his spine.
He had a very bad feeling. A very bad feeling.
The last time Vivi had smiled so gently yet dangerously was when he and Sebastian had secretly learned the Cruciatus Curse.
Vivi had smiled like that the entire way as she led him to the Slytherin study.
Before they reached the study, Vivi had asked him to use the Cruciatus Curse on her.
"No, Vivi, I can't…"
"Only by using the Cruciatus on me can you open the Slytherin study—otherwise, both of us will be trapped here."
"Crucio!"
The girl groaned. The piercing pain struck Harry's mind at the same time.
No, this was not pleasurable…
Harry saw a trickle of blood run from the girl's lips due to the torment of the curse.
"Vivi, I…"
Before Harry could finish, he saw the girl suddenly raise her head, staring at him with a proud smile on her lips.
"Harry Potter… the feeling of tormenting someone… isn't it wonderful? Hahahaha…"
She grabbed Harry's collar. Her other hand trembled but remained firm as she held the hand wielding the wand and pressed it against her own throat.
A beautiful dimple appeared on her delicate neck because of the wand.
"Continue," she said. "Saru didn't teach you the true nature of the Cruciatus Curse, but I will…"
"I…"
In the end, after that, Harry had never dared to use the Cruciatus Curse again—except for that one incident in the Forbidden Forest, where he had used it to distract himself from pain.
"Harry? Harry?"
Vivi called out, seeing him lost in thought.
Harry snapped out of his reverie, massaged his aching temples, and said softly, "Of course I have to go back and visit my foolish brother—and the Headmaster who defeated him. I really want to see how powerful a wizard capable of defeating Gale truly is."
Harry shivered. A sudden wave of sympathy washed over him.
Not only for Dumbledore, but also for Grindelwald.
However… Dumbledore was in a better position. Harry thought that Headmaster Dumbledore was the most powerful white wizard in the world, with a century of combat experience, so he certainly wouldn't be easily defeated by Vivi.
But Grindelwald was in a much worse situation.
As the younger brother, he couldn't just cast a spell on his sister, whom he hadn't seen for a century, could he?
Harry could already foresee the scene of the elderly Grindelwald getting beaten up by his sister. It would be…
Well, he hoped his seventeen-year-old sister would remember that her brother was over a hundred years old and not break any bones.
"Harry?" Vivi's voice sounded. "What dangerous thing are you thinking about?"
"Oh? Ah?" Harry snapped out of it. "No, nothing."
"Wipe that strange smile off your face. I can see it," Vivi reminded him.
"Oh, hehe." Harry scratched his head and smiled awkwardly.
Vivi looked at the panoramic view of Hogwarts below the Map Chamber and began urging Harry to leave. "It's getting late, Harry. You should go back to the common room and sleep."
"I want to stay with you a little longer," Harry said reluctantly.
"I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere," Vivi chuckled softly. "But you are only a twelve-year-old boy. I heard that children who stay up late don't grow very tall. Do you want to be a head shorter than me?"
Remembering Vivi's height of nearly 1.8 meters, Harry stood up quickly and said, "Alright, Vivi. I'll go back to sleep now…"
"Hm…" Veratia nodded.
Watching Harry's figure walk away, Vivi suddenly thought of a serious problem.
Harry had returned to being twelve years old, back in his first year at Hogwarts—but the girl in the Slytherin study was a sixth-year student, seventeen years old.
This…
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