"Boss, two Firewhiskys, one Butterbeer." Kyle threw a few Galleons onto the bar counter.
Tom, looking like a shriveled walnut, poked his head out from behind the bar. "Professor Dumbledore specifically instructed me that I cannot sell you any alcoholic beverages other than Butterbeer."
Kyle curled his lips. "Then make it two Butterbeers and one Firewhisky."
"The whisky is for this gentleman," Kyle pointed to Mr. Granger beside him. "He received quite a scare in Knockturn Alley and needs a drink to calm his nerves."
Tom didn't say anything else to refuse and turned to get the drinks.
"Thank you so much for today." Mr. Granger looked at Kyle gratefully, evidently recognizing the young wizard who had helped them at Platform Nine and Three-Quarters last year.
"You're welcome. Hermione and I are friends."
Tom brought over the two Butterbeers and the one Firewhisky.
Kyle picked up the beer and took a small sip. It was cloyingly sweet; he didn't really like the taste.
After a large gulp of Firewhisky, Mr. Granger's hands finally stopped shaking so much.
"I originally thought the magical world was safe, but looking at it now, I guess I'll never forget this incident for the rest of my life."
Mr. Granger covered his head helplessly. "Truly a terrible experience."
"There is a spell in the magical world called the Memory Charm," Kyle spoke up.
Seeing Mr. Granger suddenly look at him with brightened eyes, Kyle added, "I am not very proficient with this spell. Perhaps Mr. Weasley can help you; he often has to deal with this sort of thing."
Speak of the Weasleys, and the Weasleys appear.
"Is there anything I can help with?" A familiar voice chimed in.
The one who spoke was Mr. Weasley.
At this moment, the large Weasley family was climbing out of the fireplace one after another.
It seemed like a Harry was missing?
"Hello, my name is Arthur Weasley." Mr. Weasley proactively extended his hand.
"Roy Granger." Mr. Granger's tone sounded sickly.
Soon, Mrs. Granger also arrived at the Leaky Cauldron; she had just returned from buying clothes at Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions.
Noticing that her husband's complexion wasn't very healthy, Mrs. Granger hurriedly ran over.
"Honey, are you not feeling well?"
In order not to worry his wife, Mr. Granger simply described his encounter in Knockturn Alley just now, skipping over the part where he was tortured by dark wizards.
But this still caused Mrs. Granger a bout of worry.
"Ah, rest assured. I have a lot of experience handling this kind of situation."
The warm-hearted Mr. Weasley readily agreed to help, and he pulled out his wand.
Watching Mr. Weasley's wand aim at her husband's forehead, Mrs. Granger's eyes were full of concern. "Will there be any problems?"
Mrs. Weasley patted Mrs. Granger's arm and comforted her, "It's okay, trust me."
"Obliviate."
As Mr. Weasley incanted the spell, Mr. Granger's eyes suddenly went blank.
A moment later, he came back to his senses.
"What happened? Why is everyone gathered here?" Mr. Granger looked at the dozen or so people in front of him with a bewildered expression.
After confirming her husband was fine, Mrs. Granger's worry instantly turned to joy.
But the little beaver beside them still looked weighed down by anxiety.
After removing part of Mr. Granger's bad memories, the Weasley family bewilderedly discovered that Harry was missing.
Harry had been living with them at the Burrow during this time.
"He didn't go to Knockturn Alley too, did he?" Ron muttered in a low voice.
Ron's words instantly made Mr. and Mrs. Weasley's faces turn pale.
Mr. Weasley, who had just been excitedly discussing the Muggle world with Mr. Granger, instantly stopped the topic and shot up from his seat.
"We have to go find him!"
On the stone steps outside Gringotts, two petite figures sat shoulder-to-shoulder.
Shortly after Mr. Weasley removed the bad memories from Hermione's father, Hannah had also arrived at the Leaky Cauldron.
The Weasley family had all run off to find the missing Harry.
Mrs. Granger, due to the events her husband experienced earlier, had lost interest in shopping.
So they all stayed in the pub, including Hermione.
Inside the Leaky Cauldron, the empathetic Hannah immediately noticed Hermione's abnormality and proactively took Hermione outside to clear her mind.
At this moment, Hannah was focusing intently on licking the strawberry-and-peanut-butter ice cream in her hand, bit by bit with the tip of her tongue.
Beside her, Hermione looked preoccupied, not even noticing that the scoop of ice cream in her hand was about to melt.
"Hannah..."
"What is it?" The little iron girl, who was tackling her ice cream, turned her head. "Your ice cream is about to melt."
"Oh, oh." The little beaver flusteredly began to deal with the ice cream in her hand.
After a flurry of frantic movement, the little beaver finally asked the question she wanted to ask.
"Hannah, if I were a murderer, would you still be friends with me?"
"Of course I would!" Hannah answered without hesitation. "As long as you are still the Hermione Granger I know, I would still choose to be friends with you. So what if you were a murderer?"
Hearing Hannah's words, Hermione's mood still didn't improve.
Feeling it was a bit strange for the little beaver to ask such a question, Hannah thought for a moment, and her rosy face suddenly turned pale.
"Hermione, you didn't actually kill someone, did you!?"
The little beaver rolled her eyes at her grumpily. "How is that possible!"
The next second, her tone turned to worry.
"It was when Kyle was saving my dad in Knockturn Alley... he killed..."
The little beaver paused, as if saying the next sentence required a great deal of courage.
"...killed those dark wizards who kidnapped my dad."
Hannah had a look of disbelief on her face. "Kyle... he actually killed people?"
The little beaver nodded helplessly.
"But no matter what, Kyle did it to rescue Uncle Granger..."
Hannah gazed firmly into Hermione's eyes.
"We can't distance ourselves from him because of this!"
Just as Hannah was comforting Hermione and telling her to look on the bright side, Kyle, the person in question, was staying in a room on the second floor of the Leaky Cauldron.
After setting up a circle of soundproofing wards around himself, Kyle fished a two-way mirror out of his pocket.
The two-way mirror was an alchemical product used for communication. Dumbledore had given him one after he was attacked twice in the Forbidden Forest.
Soon, Dumbledore's wrinkled old face appeared on the mirror's surface.
"Old Man, I killed someone."
Hearing Kyle's first sentence, Dumbledore instantly felt his vision go dark.
His son had left home for less than two hours, and he already had several human lives on his hands?
Moreover, exactly how hard was Kyle's mental resilience for him to report the matter of killing several dark wizards in Knockturn Alley in such a casual, understated tone?
Dumbledore took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down.
The most important thing right now was to clarify what had happened.
"Gellert, what are you doing? Don't snatch it! Let go!"
The image in the mirror shook for a while, and soon, Grindelwald's face appeared before Kyle.
Unlike Dumbledore's face, which was as gloomy as ink, Grindelwald felt very gratified by his son's decisiveness when he saw Kyle's calm and breezy expression in the two-way mirror.
The child has grown up.
"You didn't leave any tails, did you?" Grindelwald asked.
Kyle shook his head. "I cleaned it up very cleanly."
He told Grindelwald the ins and outs of the matter in full detail.
Grindelwald's expression did not change much.
After Kyle finished speaking, he simply dropped a sentence faintly, "Good work. Looks like I won't need to go over there and clean up the aftermath for you."
Although he said that, Grindelwald still decided to send an Acolyte over to check the situation.
Then, without waiting for Dumbledore to snatch the two-way mirror back, he cut off the communication.
Grindelwald tossed the disconnected two-way mirror back to Dumbledore and walked out of the study in a dashing manner.
Seeing that Kyle's face was no longer visible in the mirror, Dumbledore's already gloomy expression turned even darker.
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