Faced with Witch Morgan's jaw-dropping statement, the young wizard's expression gradually began to shift.
His throat visibly bobbed as he gulped, a magic capable of killing a legendary figure should, by all rights, spark endless curiosity. Especially when that magic bore a strong resemblance to his own Avada Plague, but when Ian heard a certain familiar name, he didn't dare ask anything at all.
Medivh killed Morgan? Had he stumbled into the wrong universe? This wasn't some teacher-kills-student trope from Naruto, was it?
What kind of messed-up situation was this?!
Honestly, Ian had never regretted showing off so deeply before, in fact, he wished he could've suddenly developed a spontaneous case of selective deafness.
"Oh… th-this is just… way too terrifying." Trying hard to calm himself, Ian's voice stuttered. His horror was real and unfiltered.
"You look nervous?" Morgan's eyes narrowed into crescent moons, smiling brightly.
With a wave of her hand, she dispelled the runaway magic Ian had unintentionally unleashed due to his emotional instability, and gently floated back down in front of him.
Meanwhile, the ancient Western dragon flapped up to the castle rooftop, curled its massive body, and sprawled out lazily across it.
It kept muttering to itself as it glared at Ian below, still visibly annoyed.
"It's just… I was too shocked. I really thought you passed away of old age, Professor," Ian scrambled to offer a more reasonable excuse for his overreaction.
His acting was normally much better than this, but the situation had blindsided him, and now his mind was a storm of confusion and disbelief.
Maybe… Medivh wasn't one of my future identities after all?
Because otherwise, he couldn't imagine a scenario where he'd kill his own teacher.
While the young wizard was lost in anxious speculation, Morgan suddenly spoke up, coincidentally clearing up the very doubt that had been swirling in Ian's mind.
"Your guess isn't actually wrong," Morgan said, folding her arms across her ornate robes and curling her lip. "I just got tired of living and decided to go court death."
"You know how it is, when someone lives too long, they start chasing excitement. I may not be as ambitious as Merlin, but I still wanted a glimpse of what lies beyond legendary status."
"It just so happened that at the time, I caught wind of something… something related to the Gods. A rumor had begun to circulate among the wizarding world, that the secret to their disappearance lay hidden in a vast canyon."
She spoke as if reminiscing about a distant past.
Perhaps this was one of the perks of being a legendary witch even in death, despite spending so many years in the Twilight Zone, Morgan's memories hadn't dulled a bit.
All those times she'd claimed she "forgot" something, Ian realized now that she had just been messing with him, exploiting his trusting nature.
And now, with a single wave of her hand, this legendary black witch summoned forth a fragment of her ancient memories, pulling Ian directly into a vividly preserved recollection.
Every detail was clear and lifelike.
It bore similarities to the memory magic Ian had learned from Dumbles (Dumbledore),
He saw before him a breathtaking natural landscape:
Towering mountains wrapped the valley like the pages of an ink-wash painting. Clouds floated through the hills, sometimes light and wispy, sometimes dense and dramatic, adding layers of mystique and wonder to the terrain.
Sunlight pierced the clouds, casting golden rays upon the peaks, a truly mesmerizing scene.
A crystal-clear stream meandered through the valley, bubbling gently over rocks, its sound like a soothing lullaby. Colorful, fragrant flowers grew along its banks. And following the stream upstream, one would encounter thick forests with trees that pierced the sky, their leafy canopies providing abundant shade and air.
Birdsong filled the air. Small animals darted between the trees, composing a symphony of life and vitality.
While Ian didn't immediately recognize the mountains or terrain, the forest and surrounding aura were incredibly familiar to him, he had often wandered in places like this, talking for hours with Ariana.
"Godric's Hollow!"
Ian cried out in astonishment as he recognized the illusion before him. And in that moment, he began to understand why, even in death, Morgan had chosen to live next door to the area where Ariana resided.
"Back then, it was just a canyon, it didn't have that name yet." Morgan stepped forward, and Ian immediately followed at her side. He was eager to finally learn the full truth about her death.
The two of them, one in front and one behind followed the winding path through the canyon. After trekking for more than half a day and bypassing the lush forest, they finally arrived at a secluded and tranquil place.
Here, far from the noise of the mortal world, only the soft sounds of nature echoed in their ears.
"Why did we have to walk so far?"
Ian was quite puzzled. Why hadn't Professor Morgan just set the memory anchor directly at the destination? Why make him hike across the whole canyon like some kind of boot camp?
"Maybe it's because you need to remember the way." Morgan's reply was cryptic.
She finally stopped in front of a cliff wall. It was overgrown with thick vegetation, and nothing about it looked particularly special, but she opened her mouth and whispered a password toward the stone wall.
"Ask me a question, O King of Bronze and Flame." She spoke in Old English, not magic language. That was when Ian realized, Morgan's memory magic was a little different from the kind Dumbledore used.
Dumbledore's memory spells allowed the viewer to watch events unfold from a third-person perspective, like peering into someone else's memory. But Morgan… Morgan was taking Ian to actually relive something that had happened who knows how many years ago.
And then,
As Morgan's words fell,
Countless glowing lines began to appear on the cliff face. They connected and intertwined, forming intricate and mysterious patterns, which eventually morphed into a pair of sharp eyes.
Ian was still examining the structure of the magic script when,
The expression on his face suddenly froze.
"In quantum mechanics, a wave function describes the state of a particle. When observed, the wave function 'collapses' into a definite state. Tell me: how does this process happen, and why?" A voice emerged from the stone wall. The tone was soft and gentle, eerily so.
It sounded just like Nana Mizuki. Yes, that familiar voice, asking a thoroughly modern question in ancient Old English. Ian couldn't help but instinctively raise his hand to cover his face.
"I must still be dreaming…"
His soul was practically trembling.
Any last shred of wishful thinking was now completely crushed. Those eyes on the stone wall were all too familiar, sharp like a hawk's. Or rather, perhaps they were the eyes of a hawk.
"The door knocker from Ravenclaw Tower…"
Ian realized, with a chill, that there was probably no washing away the sin of "betraying teacher and ancestor."
And now he was dying to know: how on earth was Morgan going to answer this question, which no one had ever been able to solve?
"I don't know." Morgan's response was unexpected.
But what came next made Ian's lips twitch uncontrollably.
"But I do know that the one Supreme Sorcerer Medivh loved most in this world… is you." Morgan said this slowly, deliberately. Who knew where she had gotten this information?
In any case,
After she spoke,
The runes on the stone wall shimmered again, and that gentle voice returned.
(To Be Continued…)
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