"No!"
The moment Corinna took the folder from Mrs. Cole, she whipped out her wand and pointed it at her. Shirley's eyes welled up, tears tracing paths down her cheeks, her small frame shielding Mrs. Cole, but it was all for naught.
The surrounding space shattered in the next instant, and they were pulled from the memory back to reality.
The Pensieve lay silently before them, its silver depths swirling gently, while Mrs. Cole rested nearby. Dumbledore, beside them, still had his eyes closed, his hands resting on the Pensieve.
The little witch's shoulders trembled, and she stumbled towards the armchair, tears splashing onto the floor. She covered her pale little face tightly, fearing she might wake Mrs. Cole, and knelt down, silently weeping, both sensible and heartbroken. Adam stepped forward and gently ruffled her hair, remaining silent.
"I'm so sorry, my dears, I was just a bit..." After what felt like an age, Dumbledore finally removed his hands from the Pensieve and looked at them apologetically.
"N-no worries, Professor," Shirley choked out, wiping her tears furiously, trying her best to appear less upset, "that was something that happened a long time ago."
Dumbledore sighed heavily, turning to gaze at the night sky outside the window, where the faint sounds of children's laughter could be heard. "You needn't worry, I'll handle this, especially..." He suddenly stopped speaking, looking at Adam and Shirley as if he wanted to say more but couldn't.
"Something to do with that mark?" Adam finished for him.
Dumbledore nodded weakly, a profound sadness and disappointment clouding his eyes. After a long silence, he spoke again. "It's quite late now, and it seems I no longer have the luxury of time to stay with you here."
He gently beckoned Fawkes, then tapped his wand against the table, and a piece of parchment and a quill appeared before him. With flowing gestures, he quickly penned a letter. Fawkes, the phoenix, let out a soft trill, snatched the letter, and vanished once more in a flash of fire.
"I'll have Tina come to fetch you," Dumbledore said, "but it would be best if you returned to Hogwarts before the end of this weekend."
Dumbledore put away the Pensieve, and just as he was about to raise his wand, Adam suddenly called out to him.
"Wait, Professor, Happy Halloween." Adam rummaged in his small pouch and pulled out two golden-brown pumpkin pasties, holding them out.
Under his half-moon spectacles, his blue eyes glistened slightly. He nodded gently and murmured, "Thank you, my boy, for choosing to trust me once again."
"It's alright, I was just a bit curious why you always seem to conjure other things out of thin air," Adam randomly brought up a seemingly unrelated topic, but Dumbledore didn't mind, explaining patiently. "Professor McGonagall mentioned before that Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration explicitly states you can't conjure food out of nothing, but it seemed you conjured a dish of sugar cubes last time."
"Indeed, Transfiguration cannot conjure food, although you can transform other objects into the appearance of food," Dumbledore replied, "However, you wouldn't gain any nourishment from it, and it would revert to its original form once the magic fades." Dumbledore tapped his wand lightly on a nearby table once more, and a dish of sugar cubes appeared. "That's a little trick with a Summoning Charm. These sugar cubes appeared out of thin air because they were already in my pouch, much like your own little purse."
Adam thoughtfully asked, "Like the food that appears on the Great Hall tables?"
"Essentially, yes." Dumbledore collected the dish of sugar cubes and the pumpkin pasties.
Just then, Adam suddenly asked, "Are these enough for the two of you? Do you want some more?"
"I believe these should be enou—" Dumbledore's words died in his throat, and he let out a helpless sigh. "Well, it might not necessarily be *him*, in a recent letter..."
Adam shook his head, silently pulling out another perfectly wrapped pumpkin pasty from his little pouch, and gently retrieved one of the pasties from the old man's hand. Under Dumbledore's slightly twitching gaze, he put away the alchemical bomb that had been disguised as a pasty.
"Perhaps we should make another vow, like the one at the Ministry last time?" Dumbledore, his expression complex, said softly.
"No need for that, Professor Dumbledore, I trust your judgment." Adam cast his gaze towards Mrs. Cole, sleeping peacefully nearby, and then to the small, quietly sobbing figure kneeling on the floor, and continued. "I merely wish to protect those who have helped me, and that doesn't conflict with your intentions."
With a soft 'pop,' Tina appeared in the room, with Fawkes the phoenix by her side. The moment she saw Shirley, her nose stung, and she bent down to hug the little witch tightly.
"Grandma Tina..." Shirley looked up, revealing half of her delicate, pitiable little face, her lips tightly pressed. Tina lovingly extended her sleeve, trying to wipe away the tear stains, but they just wouldn't clear.
Dumbledore watched the scene unfold, unable to bear it any longer. He gently patted Adam's shoulder and whispered an apology. He quickly turned towards Fawkes and vanished in a burst of fire. Adam, too, knelt down at this moment, gently comforting Shirley.
It took a while for the little witch to calm down before she looked at Adam and Tina, asking in a tearful whisper, "So, Aunt Corinna, what was that mark on her hand? Why did she attack Mrs. Cole and try to take me from here?"
Adam remained silent. Tina stroked Shirley's back, and after a moment's thought, began to speak. "That was decades ago. There was a powerful wizard who launched a massive revolution, aiming to reform the relationship between wizards and Muggles, and he prophesied that Muggles would initiate a devastating war. His followers spread across Europe, even reaching North America, pushing the entire wizarding world to the brink of war."
Tina's voice paused slightly, as if she were transported back to that time. "That man firmly believed that using the Deathly Hallows could help wizards rule the world, so his followers adopted the symbol of the Deathly Hallows as their banner. That group was known to outsiders as the Wizarding Supremacists, but they preferred to call themselves the **Saints**."
"Who was that?" Shirley stared at Tina blankly. "So, Aunt Corinna is a Saint too?"
"That man was Gellert Grindelwald. As for Corinna..." Tina gently ruffled Shirley's hair. "I've never heard of her, not by that name anyway. Perhaps she used a different one back then."
Adam unwrapped a Chocolate Frog, gently holding it to Shirley's mouth. "When you're feeling down, a little something sweet always helps, doesn't it?"
Shirley nodded sadly, biting into the chocolate, and looked at the Chocolate Frog card in his palm. Dumbledore's image appeared for a moment before vanishing, leaving behind a few lines of text: "Albus Dumbledore, current Headmaster of Hogwarts, widely considered the greatest wizard of his age. Notable contributions include: Defeating the dark wizard Grindelwald in 1945..."
She looked up in surprise, meeting Adam's gaze, and whispered, "So Professor Dumbledore went to find this person? But isn't he already..."
"Grindelwald was only imprisoned in Nurmengard, the very prison he built to hold his opponents." Adam took her hand and helped her up, glancing at the messy bookshelf. "It might not be exactly as we saw, you know. When you were living with Corinna before, did you ever see that mark on the back of her hand?"
Shirley nodded emphatically. Adam then looked back at Mrs. Cole. "And Mrs. Cole's dark magic injuries have healed, which suggests that what we saw wasn't the only thing that happened two years ago. If we want answers, I think it would be best to ask the other person who was there at the time."
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