Victor stared at the ring in front of him, a little stunned. A lion head decoration, a red gem… this was clearly not Ravenclaw's style! It looked more like…
Thinking of this, Victor carefully looked at Helena next to him and asked tentatively in a low voice, "Helena, your father isn't…"
"Yes, the founder of Gryffindor House, Godric Gryffindor!"
"…" Victor was speechless. He felt a strong sense of a dramatic soap opera coming on.
"So you asked me to come here just to get this ring out?"
"No!" Helena shook her head. "I wanted you to help me. I want to see my father!"
"That's impossible, Gryffindor has long… wait, no way?!" Victor subconsciously wanted to say that Gryffindor was long dead and there was no way for the two of them to meet. But he immediately thought of the scene where Rowena Ravenclaw had emerged from the diadem and instantly realized what was happening. He asked, "Did Gryffindor also leave something of his own at Hogwarts?"
"Yes. Although my mother passed away before my father, she told me before she disappeared that she could feel that my father was here at Hogwarts!" Helena said. "So, I want to ask you to help me find him."
"But why?" Victor was confused again. "Why didn't you acknowledge each other back then?"
"My birth was a complete accident. Although Gryffindor was very much in love with my mother, he didn't even know that he had been with her."
"Why not?"
"My mother used a powerful Obliviate charm on him, though I don't know why she would do that."
My goodness…
What kind of family drama is this? And I just happened to stumble upon it! Victor felt overwhelmed by the drama. He let out a helpless sigh and began to speak. "Now that you've said that, I think I have a rough idea why it had that name!"
"To be honest, back then I already suspected that Gryffindor might have a corresponding inheritance passed down as well."
"What do you mean?" Helena was a little confused but quickly asked, "Do you know where my father is hiding?"
"I'm not sure, but there is a clue," Victor replied. "Now, we need to go to a place…"
Meanwhile, in Dumbledore's office at Hogwarts, Dumbledore had just finished listening to Professor McGonagall's retelling of what Harry and Ron had told her. Dumbledore was silent for a moment, then said with certainty, "That strange house-elf must be from a pure-blood family. Only their elves would use a piece of cloth as clothing."
"That's what I thought, too, but house-elves have a unique magical power. We have no way of tracking who the house-elf that appeared in Mr. Potter's room was," Professor McGonagall said with some worry. "And what concerns me the most is that the house-elf said 'Hogwarts is in danger'…"
"Albus, I'm worried that something unpredictable might happen at school!"
"We don't need to worry about that for now, Minerva!" Dumbledore said calmly. "When facing an opponent from the unseen darkness, we can choose to wait for now. Regardless of the house-elf's intentions, based on its actions of going against its master to stop Harry from returning to Hogwarts, it will appear again sooner or later. Tell the school's house-elves to keep a close eye out for any strangers entering the school. Their powers are of the same origin, so they can sense and track each other."
"Understood, I'll go and arrange it now!"
Professor McGonagall took the order and immediately turned to leave the office to implement it.
Dumbledore looked at her receding figure and suddenly felt very tired. This really was a time of trouble. Why was it that ever since Harry came to Hogwarts, strange things that were unlikely to happen before had suddenly started to happen one after another?
He rubbed his aching head, lamenting his old age, while unwrapping a chocolate frog. Just as Dumbledore finished his snack and was about to indulge in his memories, the arrival of one person and one ghost interrupted his routine.
"Oh, Victor, Ms. Helena! Is there something you need so late?" Dumbledore asked, confused, looking at the person and the ghost in front of him.
"Professor Dumbledore, I'd like to borrow Gryffindor's Sword and the Sorting Hat!"
Before Dumbledore could even agree, Victor walked over to the glass case that held the sword without another word and also took down the Sorting Hat next to it.
Although Dumbledore was curious, he didn't stop him. Instead, he just watched silently from the side. He knew that there must be an important reason for Victor to do this.
"Wake up, you old hat!" Victor grabbed the Sorting Hat and shook it up and down violently.
"Oh! It's you again, you annoying little wizard!" The Sorting Hat, awakened by the shaking, immediately shouted angrily, "Don't think that just because you have the Ravenclaw inheritance, you can insult the great hat so casually!"
"I don't want to bicker with you today. I ask you, do you recognize this ring?" Victor asked, directly showing the ruby ring he had just gotten.
"…" The Sorting Hat was silent for a while, then replied, "I don't recognize it!"
"If you don't recognize it, then why were you hesitating just now?!"
"I don't recognize it, I just don't recognize it. I just had a sudden, inexplicable feeling of familiarity, that's all."
Victor narrowed his eyes and looked at the Sword of Gryffindor in his hand. He suddenly remembered that in the original story, this very sword had absorbed the venom of the Basilisk and thus gained the ability to destroy Horcruxes. And according to the inheritance that Rowena Ravenclaw had given him, weapons made by goblins could absorb anything that made them stronger.
And so, Victor instantly seemed to have thought of something. He directly pried the gem from the ring and pressed it onto the sword.
Sure enough, the moment the gem touched the sword, the blade, made of goblin silver, suddenly showed a distortion like liquid mercury, and the red gem on the ring melted directly into the hilt. Then, Victor took the sword and directly stabbed it into the Sorting Hat.
The entire office fell into a dead silence.
"Godric Gryffindor?" Victor asked tentatively.
"Oh, that's a very nostalgic feeling…" The Sorting Hat suddenly used the tip of its hat to scratch its head in a very human-like way. "Brat, how did you find out about my existence?"
"Last time when I asked you for clues about the Ravenclaw diadem, for a moment, you didn't use an honorific when referring to Rowena Ravenclaw. You just called her Rowena."
"From that moment on, I've always suspected that you might exist in the Sorting Hat in another way. After all, the Sorting Hat is your hat. Even if the other three founders' thoughts are in it, you should be the dominant one!" Victor explained his long-held suspicion.
"You are indeed worthy of being Rowena's successor. Your wisdom is extraordinary!" Gryffindor said in admiration. "But unfortunately, unlike Rowena, I didn't leave any inheritance for future generations, besides this hat and sword. If there was anything, it would be that ring I gave to Rowena that you found!"
"Then you've misunderstood. I didn't call you out today for some kind of inheritance. I was entrusted with a mission!" With that, Victor stepped aside.
Helena slowly floated forward, looking at the "Sorting Hat" with a complex expression.
"Oh, it's Helena! I didn't expect to see you again after all these years. I was the one who named you back then." Gryffindor's voice was filled with nostalgia. "Thinking back to when you were first born, you were really so cute!"
"Father…" Just as Gryffindor was talking nonstop about past memories, Helena's single word, "Father," suddenly interrupted him.
Dumbledore, who had been watching the events unfold from the side, was also so shocked by the word "Father" that he spat out the hot cocoa he had just drunk.
"What… what did you just call me?" The tip of Gryffindor's hat stood up straight, and the outline of his eyes widened a lot.
"I am the child of you and Rowena Ravenclaw. In other words, you are my father!" Helena explained.
"No! That's impossible! I don't remember me and Rowena…"
"My mother used a powerful Obliviate charm on you back then!" Helena directly interrupted Gryffindor. "I don't know why she did that, but it seems she didn't want you to know about my existence."
"…" Gryffindor fell into silence once again after hearing this explanation. After a long while, he slowly said, "You were always so stubborn, Rowena…" After thinking for a while, he finally understood why Rowena Ravenclaw had hidden the fact that they had a daughter from him.
Among the four founders, Rowena Ravenclaw was the one with the least talent and the weakest magical power. But at the same time, she was also the most stubborn and competitive of the four, even more so than Salazar Slytherin.
So in order to catch up to the other three, she constantly used her wisdom to make up for her lack of talent. She would even challenge Gryffindor, the strongest of the four, every now and then. But she had never been able to win a single time.
"Back then, I was very conceited. I thought that by showing off my superior magical power, I could win Rowena's heart. Now, it seems that thought was truly childish," Gryffindor said slowly. "It's probably for this very reason that Rowena always competed with me in her heart, and even developed a hint of resentment toward me."
"I'm sorry, child! I'm so sorry that I wasn't able to fulfill my duty as a father when I was alive. And even in this state, without emotions, I can't give you any love."
"It's okay…" Helena gently shook her head. "For all these years, I've been living in regret, but my mother resolved the knot in my heart. The reason I asked Victor to find you was just to ask you where you hid the ring my mother gave to you back then."
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