"Eh? Ah… wait, you are—? Alright, I may have misunderstood…"
Godric Gryffindor, who initially looked as though he had just been rudely dragged out of bed and was full of irritation, instantly deflated after clearly seeing the face of the person before him.
The one who had summoned him was not one of his old friends, but a completely unfamiliar young woman.
However, he noticed the Resurrection Stone ring in her hand.
So he had become connected to the ring itself, allowing anyone who used the Resurrection Stone to summon him?
Godric rapidly analyzed the situation in his mind.
"There's no misunderstanding, Godric," Rowena said calmly.
The moment the woman before him spoke his true name, Gryffindor immediately narrowed his eyes.
"You are…?" Godric scratched the back of his head.
Annoying.
It felt like he actually had to use his brain now.
Using the process of elimination, he first ruled out Salazar. Then, based on a little information Salazar had once provided, he ruled out Helga as well. Salazar had told him that Helga had retained her original appearance, merely looking somewhat older. The young woman before him looked far too youthful.
"You're Rowena, or perhaps one of Rowena's descendants?" Gryffindor finally reached his conclusion after giving it some thought.
"It's me. Rowena Ravenclaw."
Godric: !!!
"No, seriously… isn't this going a bit too far? Is magic supposed to be used like this?" Gryffindor could not help complaining about his old friend.
In his view, Rowena had obviously used magic to alter her appearance, transforming herself into a young and beautiful girl.
That absolutely sounded like something she would do.
Rowena: …
"I possessed this young girl's body in order to escape the seal within the dungeon."
To preserve her image, Rowena felt compelled to clarify matters.
Very seriously, she informed Godric that she had not used magic to alter her appearance.
At the very least, not after becoming a ghost.
"That kind of magic sounds pretty evil."
Godric's comment caused Rowena to fall silent once again.
This man was so irritating!
Was there any kind of magic capable of harming ghostly projections?
"She willingly offered her body, and in exchange I will provide her with free protection. Besides, her soul itself has not died. It's merely fallen asleep."
After reorganizing her thoughts, Rowena began defending herself again.
"Your soul didn't merge together with hers?"
Rowena directly changed the subject.
"By the way, are you bound to the Resurrection Stone now? Why is it that I can summon you just by turning the stone?"
"Hey, don't change the subject!" Godric widened his eyes. "Don't think I don't know how difficult it is to separate souls once they've merged together!"
"Why exactly would such a phenomenon occur?"
In an instant, Rowena developed intense research interest in Godric's current life state.
As for the matter of soul fusion, she did not actually care very much.
She would deal with it in the future depending on the situation. If Salazar had time, she would simply have him perform the operation and separate her soul from Aries's. According to Salazar himself, he had already done something similar once before.
Once you've done it once, the second time becomes easier.
Rowena believed Salazar's success rate would be very high.
And if Salazar lacked the time, she naturally had her own methods of dealing with it.
Though for someone like Godric, her methods would indeed be considered rather dark.
Seeing that Rowena seemed absolutely determined not to continue discussing soul fusion, Godric had no way to force the matter.
He was merely a summoned projection. He could not even cast spells.
What else could he possibly do?
If the person before him had been Salazar, he still would have had confidence in persuading him through words.
But this was Rowena.
"Could you explain in detail what your final memory was?" Rowena began questioning Godric about the details before his death.
"Alright."
Godric spread his hands helplessly and shared the final fragment of memory from his life.
"So you gained some insight regarding Domains…" Rowena narrowed her eyes. "But during the process of enlightenment, you gradually 'fell asleep.' Hm… interesting…"
"When I woke up again, I saw Salazar. He had become very young, almost no different from when I first met him."
Godric sank into reminiscence.
The scene of his first meeting with Salazar had actually been rather interesting. Afterward, the two had fought side by side, and later even traveled together.
Looking back now, those memories were filled with stories.
Rowena, however, had no interest in the stories between Salazar and Godric.
What she truly cared about was how Godric had "died."
Based on his description, it sounded as though something had gone wrong during a second awakening of his Domain.
Yet it also felt somewhat off.
If the awakening had truly failed, Gryffindor should have completely fused together with the elements of heaven and earth.
Although Rowena had never personally witnessed the consequences of a failed second awakening, she had seen what happened when someone failed to awaken a Domain in the first place.
The entire person would completely merge into the Domain itself, forever unable to separate from it again.
If his Domain had been fire, then he would have become a wildfire sweeping across mountains and plains until rain eventually extinguished him. If his Domain had been earth, then he would have fused together with the land itself, with even his soul dissolving within the power of the Domain.
A situation like Godric's, where he could still be summoned out, was extraordinarily rare.
Was it because he had already possessed a Domain beforehand?
Rowena felt that was unlikely, because the principles behind it simply did not make sense.
Which meant there was only one conclusion left:
Godric had not truly died the way everyone believed. His second Domain awakening had neither succeeded nor failed, leaving him in a bizarre state akin to being "stuck."
Rowena's powerful imagination instantly constructed a vivid scene in her mind:
Godric stuck halfway through a hole in the floor, both hands pressed against the ground while loudly shouting:
"Salazar, I'm stuck!"
She immediately shook her head, forcibly driving the strange image from her mind.
Sometimes, having too vivid an imagination was not a good thing.
At that moment, Rowena suddenly asked Gryffindor something seemingly out of nowhere:
"Godric, what do you think about the staircases I designed inside the castle? Was that a good design?"
Rowena's train of thought often leapt unpredictably. From the idea of being stuck, she had suddenly thought of Hogwarts' iconic staircases, which in turn reminded her of Aries's brutally honest criticism of them.
In the end, she decided to ask once more and see what people truly thought of her design deep down.
"Do you want the honest truth?"
"Of course."
"I honestly think they're unbelievably stupid."
____
12 Chaps ahead at Patreon.com/HornyFBI