"But she succeeded, didn't she... although she can't change back." Harry shrugged, "That's quite a problem; when you come back, we'll find a way to turn Pabi back into a human."
"Okay." Vivi nodded, "I have a theory, but I need to see Pabi first to confirm it."
"I knew it, you always have a way." Harry smiled again.
It felt so good to see Vivi, Harry felt his own intelligence had regained its peak—though it was borrowed intelligence.
Before knowing Vivi, the external brain among their group of friends was Sebastian... but sometimes, the "brilliant ideas" from Sebastian (as Omnius calls them) easily sent them to Azkaban.
"By the way, Harry," Vivi said again, "your wand—Holly Wood, Phoenix Feather, eleven inches—is placed right behind my portrait; it's also the token to our vault at Gringotts."
Harry stood up, walked forward to take a closer look at Vivi's portrait and reached out to touch it.
Unlike the Vivi in his memory, the portrait didn't feel pleasant.
Cold, rough.
"Quickly, take the wand!" Vivi scolded softly, her face blushing suspiciously, "It's just a portrait…"
Harry's face reddened too; it wasn't that he had such thoughts, he just felt that Vivi seemed very... lonely now, yes, lonely!
He hurriedly took the wand out from behind the portrait but found that the tip of the wand seemed to have a scarlet gem, from which something like a red vein extended, winding all the way to the base of the wand.
"What's going on? What's happened to the wand?" Harry asked curiously.
Recalled that last time when he used the Holly wand, it wasn't like this.
"After you left, the wand was stuck in Lanlock's corpse." Villatia, holding that book, said, "When I pulled it out, it was already like this—the token for Gringotts is just this, but I should remind you, when the fairies see this wand... they might have a bit of a reaction."
"Oh." Harry waved the wand, feeling his old friend quivering joyfully.
He didn't pay much attention to Vivi's previous words, just a little reaction, after all, the Gringotts fairies had seen it all and wouldn't mind.
Tucking the wand into his chest, Harry leaned against the rock, intending to chat casually with Vivi to ease his not-so-calm thoughts.
He said offhandedly, "By the way, Vivi, have you heard about Gellert?"
"What?" Vivi asked.
"Well—uh." Harry organized his words and said to Villatia, "It's just... our current school principal, Mr. Albus Dumbledore, defeated your brother Gellert in 1945 and imprisoned him in Nimongard Castle..."
"I've heard about that." Vivi said with a mischievous smile, "Oh, my foolish Gael… actually defeated by someone, and the story was even written on a Chocolate Frog Card, dragging the Grindelwald family's name through the mud!"
Though she was smiling, Harry, knowing her well, noticed she was really angry.
"Huh?" Harry asked curiously, "How do you know about things outside?"
Vivi looked down at him and said, "Of course, it was Lily who told me. After she first entered the Map Secret Room, I asked her about a lot of things from the outside world..."
Harry suddenly felt a bit dry-mouthed.
He realized that, to send him messages and await his return, this girl had injected her memories into the portrait, one hundred years had already passed.
Days at the Dursley family felt like years; he couldn't imagine how lonely Vivi must have been in this Secret Chamber.
"Vivi," he said, "wasn't it boring in the Map Secret Room... for over a hundred years?"
"Not really." Vivi said lightly, "Though the wait is boring, the moment you finally reach the outcome proves that the wait wasn't futile at all."
At the end, she added, "This portrait is just a copy of my memory, for the me in Slytherin's Study, it was just a brief moment in the past."
"However..." Villatia flashed a particularly dangerous smile, "You must remember to tell that me about Gael's situation."
"What do you mean?" Harry felt a chill down his spine.
He had a very bad, very bad premonition.
The last time Vivi smiled so gently and dangerously was because he and Sebastian secretly practiced Crucio.
Vivi smiled like that all the way when she took him to Slytherin's Study.
After arriving at Slytherin's Study, Vivi asked him to use Crucio on her.
[No, Vivi, I can't...]
[Only by casting Crucio on me, can we open Slytherin's Study—otherwise we'll be trapped here forever.]
[Crucio!]
The girl gave a muffled groan, the feeling of torturous pain simultaneously transmitted into Harry's mind.
No, this didn't feel joyous at all...
Harry saw the anguish from the curse, a bit of blood already oozing from the corner of the girl's lip.
[Vivi, I...]
Before Harry could finish, the girl suddenly lifted her head, gazing at him with a wild smile at the corner of her mouth.
[Harry Potter—isn't it a delightful feeling to cause pain? Hahaha...]
She grabbed Harry by the collar, another hand shaking yet steadily clutching the hand holding the wand, pressing it against her own throat.
The beautiful neck was forming a lovely vortex pressed by the wand.
[Continue.] She said, [Saru didn't teach you the essence of the Drilling Curse, but I will...]
[I...]
Since then, Harry didn't dare use the Cruciatus Curse again—except for that time in the Forbidden Forest, he was transferring the pain.
"Harry? Harry?"
Seeing Harry dazed, Vivi called out.
Harry then snapped back to reality, "Oh," rubbing his somewhat sore temples.
Vivi soothingly said, "Of course, I want to go back to visit my foolish brother—and also, I am curious to meet that principal who defeated my brother, to see just how powerful the Wizard who defeated Gael is."
Harry shuddered, inexplicably feeling a wave of sympathy.
Not just for Dumbledore, but also for Grindelwald.
However... Dumbledore was a bit better off, Harry thought that Principal Dumbledore, undoubtedly the strongest White Wizard in the world with a century of battle experience as his foundation, surely wouldn't be handled easily by Vivi.
But Grindelwald was in for it.
As the younger brother, surely he wouldn't use a magic spell against a sister he hadn't seen in a century, right?
Harry could foresee Old Grindelwald being thoroughly beaten up by his sister, and that would really be...
Alright, hopefully his seventeen-year-old sister would take into account that her brother is over a hundred years old and wouldn't break his brittle bones.
"Harry?" Vivi's voice came, "What dangerous thoughts are you having?"
"Oh? Ah?" Harry reeled in his wandering thoughts, "No, nothing."
"Put away that strange smile on your face; I saw it." Vivi reminded him.
"Oh, haha." Harry scratched his head, chuckling awkwardly.
Vivi bowed her head looking at the map's view of all Hogwarts, beginning to subtly urge him to leave, "It's getting late, Harry, you should return to the dormitory and go to bed now."
"I wanted to stay with you a little longer." Harry reluctantly said.
"I'm right here, not going anywhere." Vivi chortled, "But you now, being a twelve-year-old beanstalk, I heard children who stay up late don't grow tall, do you want to end up shorter than me?"
Remembering Vivi's nearly six-foot stature, Harry quickly stood and said, "Alright, Vivi, I'll go to bed now…"
"Hmm..." Villatia nodded to him.
Watching Harry's figure receding, Vivi suddenly thought of a serious problem.
Harry has now returned to being twelve, embarking again on his first year at Hogwarts—yet the one in the study was a seventeen-year-old, sixth year student.
This...