Time flew by, and soon it was Easter.
Audrey counted on her fingers; she only had two months of vacation left.
—Although she spent half her time teaching young wizards now, she was good at finding fun and had finally found some in the classroom.
She used Transfiguration to create all sorts of dangerous creatures for the students to face.
If they failed the challenge, she would make a few colorful, glowing words flash over the student's head for the entire day: "I AM DEAD."
It seemed like a punishment, but the young wizards actually loved those light effects, even taking pride in the text floating over their heads!
It must be said, the way young wizards' minds worked was indeed quite different from normal people.
Additionally, Audrey still wanted to complain: you wizards not only celebrate Christmas but Easter too! Have you forgotten that a few hundred years ago, you were hunted to near extinction by a group of Jesus-believers? [WITCH-HUNT]
In any case, there weren't many normal people in the wizarding world.
While complaining about the wizarding world, Audrey didn't reflect on herself; she might actually be the most abnormal one.
It was a Saturday, the day of the Quidditch match between Slytherin and Hufflepuff.
Miss "I'm Totally Normal" Audrey Astley was lying comfortably in her gold as usual, sleeping deeply.
Usually, Isaline Windsor would have come to drag her to cheer for Slytherin, but even though the match had already started, there was still no sign of her.
Audrey slept for an eternity, even missing lunch; by the time she woke up, it was already four in the afternoon.
"Who wakes first from the great dream? I know my life's own theme.
Spring sleep is sufficient in the golden house, outside the window lies the Black Lake!"
Suddenly, there was a distortion by the bed, and a letter abruptly appeared in mid-air.
Audrey reached out and took the letter.
—This was a dedicated communication line she had established with Ukraine. As long as she was in her dormitory, she could contact Ukraine at any time. In this era where mobile communication was still in its infancy, this was already a highly efficient method of contact.
Of course, the Two-Way Mirror didn't count.
Opening the letter, Audrey scanned it quickly.
"Not bad. Now that we control Ukraine's grain and energy industries, we are basically invincible."
Audrey nodded slightly and spoke.
"Reply: Recent developments are noted. Continue to expand cooperation with the great Eastern Power, exchanging heavy industry for agriculture and light industry. We've mostly exhausted the dividends of the Karbovanets; change the settlement currency for all our subsidiaries to US dollars or RMB."
As she spoke, a quill on the nightstand automatically recorded her words.
When she finished, an official letter was complete.
Audrey waved her hand, and the letter disappeared from the nightstand.
"Oh, I'm just too busy! Truly managing ten thousand things a day!"
Audrey stretched and rolled off the bed.
Looking at the time, it was almost dinner, but why hadn't Isaline come yet?
It was strange; usually when Isaline came to annoy her, Audrey was mostly impatient, but now that it was like this today, Audrey felt out of place.
'I didn't upset that girl, did I?'
Audrey thought carefully.
'She shouldn't be angry; maybe something delayed her?'
Thinking this, Audrey walked out of her dormitory.
She might as well look for the girl!
Isaline's dormitory—empty.
Common room—empty.
Great Hall—empty.
Isaline was nowhere to be found.
In the Great Hall, Draco Malfoy was happily boasting at the long table, mostly about how Harry Potter catching the Snitch was just luck, or how Hufflepuff, who beat Gryffindor last year, lost to Slytherin today, blah blah blah, and so on.
Audrey slapped the back of the little dragon's head.
Draco turned around angrily, "Who did that!"
Once their eyes met, he realized it was someone he couldn't afford to provoke...
"Cous...! Ahem, it's Audrey," he rubbed the back of his head. "What's wrong?"
Audrey asked, "Have you seen Isaline?"
"Miss Windsor?" Draco shook his head blankly. "I haven't seen her."
Audrey looked at Gemma Farley, who also shook her head. "I haven't seen Isaline since noon."
Audrey fell silent; Isaline had likely run into trouble.
Not bothering with dinner, she rushed out of the castle. She took the strand of hair she had found in Isaline's room, placed it between her left thumb and index finger, and tapped it lightly with her wand. The hair stood up, and a sticky black substance began to ooze onto its surface.
This was actually a type of curse.
Using a target's item or body tissue, one could curse a target thousands of miles away.
This time, Audrey was using a "Tracking Curse." Once under this curse, Audrey could find you even if you ran to the ends of the earth.
The black substance was like a drop of oil floating in mid-air.
Audrey waved her wand, pointing the tip toward the sky, and the black substance vanished instantly.
A moment later, Audrey sensed Isaline's location.
The Forbidden Forest.
She was in the Forbidden Forest!
With the crack of Apparition, Audrey vanished from the castle gates.
In front of a familiar ruin entrance.
Looking at the blurred Gryffindor crest, Audrey's brow furrowed.
She didn't want to assume the worst of others.
But this was deep within the Forbidden Forest, far from the centaur and Acromantula territories—an area even Hagrid wouldn't easily step into.
Therefore, the only living person who knew about this ruin and would egg others on to come was Kamo Tsuruko.
Audrey rushed into the ruins, truly worried about Isaline.
Arriving at the previous hall, everything was as before, except for a wide-open doorway.
Audrey carefully identified the Ancient Magic echoes in the hall and found that the door hadn't been opened by normal means.
The technique was clumsy and the method crude—it had actually forced the door open by altering two magic circuits.
Audrey shook her head. With such a method of breaking in, any bit of bad luck would have caused an explosion. It was truly a case of "fools rush in where angels fear to tread."
It seemed Kamo Tsuruko had spent a lot of effort over the past three months to break through here.
Audrey walked through the doorway and saw a long metal bridge. On both sides were bottomless abysses—to an ordinary person, it looked like an abyss, but to Audrey, it was just an illusion. The depth on either side of the iron bridge was less than two meters; even falling off wouldn't kill anyone.
To be fair, the atmosphere in this area was too eerie. On the opposite banks of the abysses were various bloody torture devices, and the roaring flames made one feel as if they had entered hell.
As Audrey moved forward, the iron bridge trembled slightly. She heard wretched wails and saw "people" with rotting bodies climbing up from the abysses on both sides.
A giant dragon's head suddenly burst from the wall, letting out a terrifying howl. The flesh on the dragon's head was almost entirely rotted away, revealing large patches of white bone.
Audrey waved her hand, and the frightening scenes suddenly vanished—an illusion was just an illusion, far too childish.
But thinking that Gryffindor's trait was "courage," Audrey understood.
It turned out that Godric Gryffindor's method of testing whether an heir had courage was to create a terrifying environment to scare them...
She shook her head. The four founders of Hogwarts really each had their own unique characteristics.
Slytherin was an old chuunibyou.
Hufflepuff was a big foodie.
Gryffindor was a childish brat who liked scaring people.
She wondered what kind of style Ravenclaw had.
...
Through the portal at the end of the iron bridge, Audrey came to a fighting arena.
The moment she walked through, Audrey realized this portal was a one-way trip.
She didn't panic at all. Having the legacies of Hufflepuff and Slytherin, Gryffindor's little tricks couldn't trap her.
"Ah! Ah! Tsuruko, think of something quickly!"
"Senior Windsor! I can't do anything either! I can't cast any magic here at all!"
"What do we do now! We can't get down!"
"Maybe, maybe Senior Astley will come to save us!"
"I shouldn't have believed you! I should have just given Audrey gold as a birthday present! Why did I need to explore ruins?"
"Senior Windsor, you should know in your heart that the gift you gave Senior Astley last Christmas clearly left her unsatisfied!"
"That... that..." Isaline thought of the hand-knitted unicorn-hair gloves Audrey had given her and immediately lost her bravado. "How was I to know she'd suddenly give me something so precious..."
"Intent! The intent is what's important!" Tsuruko shouted. "A gift without intent has no soul! That's why I suggested you look for treasure in the ruins! Everything you've put in here will be a precious sentiment to Senior Astley!"
Isaline let out a long sigh. "Well, the sentiment is certainly enough now, but we're about to lose our lives!"
...
Audrey listened to their conversation and began to examine the arena.
She saw a thick pillar in the middle of the arena.
Isaline and Tsuruko were clinging to the pillar, four or five meters off the ground. Fortunately, there were footholds on the pillar, otherwise the two would have fallen long ago.
At the base of the pillar, a group of pitch-black wolf-like creatures crouched, their heads tilted up, staring fixedly at the two girls with glowing green eyes.
Audrey waved her wand, wanting to disperse the wolf pack, but suddenly found that when the magic reached the tip of her wand, it was blocked by something and couldn't be released.
Even with her magic quality, it only caused a few sparks to flicker at the wand's tip.
Oh, interesting.
Did Gryffindor ban the flow of magic in this area?
The sparks from Audrey's wand caught the wolves' attention, and they all looked over in unison.
"Audrey!"
"Senior!"
Isaline and Tsuruko shouted together.
Isaline was full of regret now, her eyes welling up with tears.
"Audrey, run! You can't use magic here!!"
[Reviews - Power St0nes - Comments are highly appreciated to keep me going.....(+50 chapters) patre0n.c0m/talecrafter]