r18novel Chapter 219 The Warm Current of the Harbor
Chapter 219 The Warm Current of the Harbor
Chapter 219 The Warm Current of the Harbor
The firewood crackled in the fireplace, its leaping flames bathing the dining room in a warm orange glow. The long table was laden with food prepared by Emily. The aroma of the food, the warmth of the burning wood, and the salty sea breeze carried through the window blended together to create the feeling of home.
"Try it, Karen," Emily said, forking a piece of rib onto Karen's plate. Her gaze lingered gently on his face, as if to make sure every inch of him was unharmed. David slurped up the gravy from his bread, letting out a satisfied sigh. He winked at Karen, "How was school? Anything interesting happened?"
Lily immediately put down the Yorkshire pudding she was struggling with, her little face beaming, and leaned forward in her chair: "The castle! Karen!"
"I want to hear the most fun stories from the castle! And the big dog! You said there was a big dog!" She waved her little fork, which was covered in gravy.
Karen smiled and gently pressed her fork back onto the edge of the plate. The cold touch of the Horcruxes, the writhing of the dark thorns, and the shrieks of Voldemort's remnant soul were all pushed to the farthest corner of her memory by the warm glow before her, blurry and distant.
"The most interesting story ever!" Karen deliberately dragged out her words, watching Lily hold her breath, her big eyes wide and unblinking. "Well, not long ago, a very, very amazing treasure was hidden in the school!"
"What treasure? Gold? Gems? A sparkling crown?" Lily asked eagerly.
"It's more powerful than any of those!" Karen lowered her voice, creating an air of mystery. "It's a Philosopher's Stone! Legend says it can turn any metal into pure gold, and can even make potions that grant immortality!"
David asked in surprise, "The Philosopher's Stone? I remember it being related to Nico here, so how come it's at Hogwarts?"
Emily raised an eyebrow slightly: "Is it safe to leave something this important at school? Are your professors comfortable with that?"
"Of course there are safety measures!" Karen immediately chimed in, her tone lightening as she began to describe things in a different style. "The challenges set up by Headmaster Dumbledore and the professors themselves are really fun! The first one is guarded by a super—super huge three-headed dog! Taller than our house!"
Lily gasped, her mouth agape, her little fists clenched tightly.
"But don't be afraid," Karen blinked, "it's not that fierce. It has a little secret: if you play a nice lullaby for it, its three big heads will droop little by little and it'll sleep soundly, snoring away! Just like a big dog under a sleeping spell!" He imitated the sound of snoring.
Lily giggled, her tension vanishing instantly: "The big, snoring dog!"
"What about the second challenge?" David's interest was piqued, and he put down his fork.
"The second challenge is a room filled with vines," Karen gestured with her hands. "Those vines are lush and green, and they look pretty ordinary, right? But as soon as you get close, they're like shy little girls, all rushing towards you in a flash, wanting to give you a warm hug!"
"A hug?" Lily tilted her head.
"Yes, they hug, they hug really tightly! You can call them 'Hugging Vines'! But they're most afraid of two things: bright light and warm fire. As soon as you light a lamp or start a small fire, these shy vines 'whoosh' and shrink back, it's so funny!" Karen described the dangerous Devil's Web as if it were a harmless mimosa.
Emily couldn't help but laugh: "Hug Vine? That's quite a fitting name."
"The third level is even more interesting," Karen continued, "The room is filled with all sorts of little keys! Golden ones, silver ones, ones with little wings, like a bunch of mischievous little elves! They fly so fast, buzzing and darting around everywhere. To find the right key that opens the door, you have to be quick-witted and nimble-flying, and you even have to ride a flying broomstick to chase them! It's like playing a super-sized game of hide-and-seek!" He turned the thrill of chasing keys into a fun game.
"Flying broom! Chase the key sprite!" Lily squirmed excitedly in her chair, as if she was about to rush out to find the broom at any moment.
"The fourth level is a giant chessboard room!" Karen's voice was tinged with excitement. "The floor is covered with black and white squares, filled with stone soldiers, knights, castles, and queens! They're not just for show; if you want to get through, you have to become a chess piece yourself and join this stone chess game. Those stone pieces move on their own, charging forward with a bang, so impressive! Like stone soldiers that can dance on their own!" He cleverly concealed the deadly aggression of the giant chess pieces.
David stroked his chin, his engineer's mind racing again: "Automatic chess playing? That efficiency—wow, if we installed an automated material handling system in a shipyard, how much manpower would we save? But it's made of stone—the wear and tear rate would probably be terrible."
"The last two challenges will rely on your clever little brains." Karen looked at Lily, pointed to his head, and said, "For the fifth challenge, you have to guess what kind of potion is in the bottle. Some potions will make you walk through fire, some will make you cross the Blackwater River, and some... well, they might make you grow rabbit ears!" He made a rabbit ear gesture, and Lily burst into laughter again.
As for the sixth level, Karen thought for a moment and continued the story according to the original text: "The sixth level is the most magical! There's a super large mirror called the 'Mirror of Your Heart.' If you stand in front of it, it will reflect what you most desire in your heart! However, truly clever people can use this mirror to safely hide the powerful magic stone, so no one can find it!"
After the story was finished, a relaxed atmosphere filled the dining table with laughter. Lily kept pestering Karen to tell her if the "Hugging Vine" was really afraid of light and fire, David was still pondering the power source of the stone chess pieces, and Emily watched with a gentle smile as Karen used the sugar coating of fairy tales to wrap the edges of the magical world. He cleverly avoided the dangerous parts, leaving only a fantastical and interesting adventure shell. This shell was a shield protecting his family.
"Karen, Karen!" Lily couldn't wait to slide off the chair and run to Karen's side, grabbing his arm with her little hands. "My Teddy! Look at my Teddy!" Her little face was flushed with excitement and a little pride.
"Oh? What new magic has our little witch got this time?" Karen feigned curiosity, ruffling Lily's soft hair. Lily ran back to her little chair, picking up her brown teddy bear, its fur slightly worn, that had been with her for years. She carefully placed it on a smooth, uncarpeted wooden floor in the center of the dining room. Then she took two steps back, took a deep breath, puffed out her chest, and her playful expression was instantly replaced by a rare focus. She held out her tiny index finger, staring intently at the teddy bear on the floor, her pink lips pressed into a serious line.
The dining room fell silent. The crackling of the fireplace became the only background noise. Emily put down her knife and fork, her hands unconsciously folding across her lap. David also stopped chewing, leaning forward slightly. Karen's smile faded, a sign of respect for watching the little witch demonstrate her magic.
Lily's brow furrowed slightly, her nostrils flared. All her attention was focused on that one point. A few seconds of silence followed, as if time itself had slowed. Suddenly, Emily let out a soft "Ah."
The brown teddy bear, without warning and with extreme slowness, left the smooth oak floor!
It seemed to be pulled upwards by an invisible, extremely thin thread, swaying and floating. Inch by inch, its speed was as slow as a snail's crawl, its posture carrying a newborn clumsiness and cautiousness. Its legs dangled limply, its round, glassy eyes staring blankly at the ceiling. It hovered about five inches above the ground, as if supported by an invisible bubble. The air in the entire restaurant seemed to freeze, with only the flickering light of the fireplace casting shadows on the teddy bear's soft fur.
Lily's face flushed red, fine beads of sweat appeared on her nose, and she was so focused that she almost forgot to breathe. She struggled to maintain that invisible "thread." Five seconds—maybe six seconds—the teddy bear began to sway from side to side as if drunk, and then, the invisible force suddenly vanished.
With a soft "plop," the teddy bear fell back onto the floor, lying on its side, one of its button eyes facing its startled parents and its brother, whose eyes were filled with relief.
"Hoo-hoo!" Lily let out a long, exaggerated breath, as if she had just finished a long run, her small chest heaving. She wiped the sweat from her forehead with her sleeve, and her face instantly lit up with a smile brighter and more dazzling than a fireplace flame, tinged with a little pride and a slight weakness from exhaustion. She ran over and picked up the teddy bear, hugging it tightly to her chest, then turned around, her big eyes sparkling as she looked at Karen, asking expectantly, "Did you see that, Karen? I made it fly! It flew!"
"I saw it! Lily, you're amazing!" Karen's voice was filled with genuine admiration. He stood up, walked over, and knelt down to look his sister in the eye. "Five seconds! Much longer than I could make a feather float back then!" He extended a finger and gently brushed her sweaty little nose. "And you controlled it so well, you didn't let it fly around and hit anything. Our little witch is truly talented!"
Emily quickly walked over, knelt down, and cupped Lily's rosy cheeks in her hands. "You're amazing, baby! Mommy saw it! Our Lily is the best!" She kissed Lily's forehead and hugged her tightly.
David walked over, his large, warm hand ruffling Lily's hair. He patted Karen on the shoulder, his hearty smile tinged with a touch of wistfulness: "I never expected our little witch Lily to practice so secretly, never giving me or her mother a performance!"
Lily giggled in her parents' arms and her brother's praise, having long since forgotten her exhaustion, leaving only the pure joy of having her magic successfully used. Hugging her teddy bear, she chattered excitedly about the feeling of "commanding" it to fly.
In the dead of night, the entire building fell silent. The sound of waves crashing on the shore seeped through the cracks in the windows, becoming a rhythmic white noise. Karen sat at her familiar little desk, the warm glow of the lamp casting long shadows of the surrounding furniture. Spread out on the desk was a large notebook given to her by Nico, with several parchment pages scattered beside it, covered with sketches of various alchemical symbols and hastily drawn markings of energy flow paths. None of it was about Horcruxes; it was all about alchemy.
Karen didn't continue studying these things. Instead, she reached deeper into the bag and pulled out another hardcover notebook, noticeably older and without any writing on the cover. This was a copy she had specially copied from the Hogwarts library before summer vacation—a summary of the introductory theory and methods of Occlumency. The parchment felt rough and cold to the touch.
He opened the notebook; on the yellowed pages lay a theoretical overview written in a rigorous, slightly old-fashioned handwriting.
The essence of the brain-sealing technique is not about building an impenetrable wall, but about controlling the realm of thought. Its core lies in the concentration of will and the orderliness of thought.
aims:
Establish a mental barrier: resist external mental intrusion.
Take control of your inner thoughts: strip away useless emotions and precisely control the retrieval and storage of memories.
Constructing a mental maze: You can actively set up logical traps or false memory corridors to confuse intruders.
Then came some methods of practice. The two most common methods were: one was the external stimulation method, which was fast and effective. The principle was that a trusted wizard would repeatedly cast the Legilimency Spell to stimulate the brain to produce magical resistance, similar to immune system training. We don't have the means for this at the moment, but we can seek Professor Castor's help from Nico later.
Another method is long-term self-meditation. The steps are to first enter a state of "stillness of mind" through meditation, blocking out distracting thoughts, and then implant false memories into this calm state over a long period of time, such as fabricating everyday scenarios, continuously reinforcing them until they can be recalled at any time. However, it takes a relatively long time to see results.
Karen tried to follow the instructions in the notes: she closed her eyes and tried to focus on her breathing—inhaling, her abdomen slightly expanding; exhaling, the breath slowly being expelled. However, her thoughts, like slippery fish, were completely out of control: Horcruxes, Voldemort, Castor's words, even Lily's hovering teddy bear at dinner—countless fragments swarmed in, instantly shattering her pitiful concentration.
After several futile attempts, he opened his eyes, rubbing his temples in frustration; his mind had indeed been unsettled lately. His gaze casually swept across the room, and Karen suddenly realized something, focusing his attention. The world instantly stripped away color, transforming into lines and halos of pure energy flow. Everything before him seemed to slow down, or rather, Karen's perception was infinitely focused and sharpened.
Karen maintained this state, not trying to think about anything, simply staring at the notes on the table. His sense of time became blurred. Only when he felt the slight mental fatigue from maintaining the Eye of Truth did he slowly withdraw this talent.
The world was once again filled with color and texture. The notebook was still the same ordinary notebook. But Karen clearly felt that her mind was clearer than ever before, and the previous restlessness and distracting thoughts had vanished.
He immediately tried meditating again. This time, clearing his mind became exceptionally smooth; he closed his eyes and no longer needed to consciously focus on his breathing.