Archaeologists at Hogwarts

Chapter 16 The Longbottoms

"Take it easy, Neville - your name is Neville, isn't it?"

Neville didn't speak, he didn't know what to do now.

Who is this man?Why did he send grandma away?What is he going to do to his parents?
"I'm a friend of your parents, Toby Highmore."

He suddenly heard a strange man say: "You can call me Professor Haimer, that's right, it's the professor you think of, I'm in charge of teaching the ancient magic course, have you bought that book? It's also called "Ancient Magic" , what do you think of reading it?"

Neville's mind went blank, of course he knew who Toby Highmore was, it was written in that awful book "Ancient Magic" - by Toby Highmore.

"Is it bad?"

He saw this man named Higher rubbing his chin and said: "I knew that book was still too difficult for freshmen, maybe I should speed up the process of writing a new book - just like Miranda Gosack wrote "Standard Spells", I can also publish a set of "Ancient Magic: Elementary", "Ancient Magic: Level II", what do you think of this idea?"

Why does he keep asking himself how he is?And how did he know what was going on in my head?

"Because you have written your thoughts on your face."

Toby shook his finger and said, "I don't think it's hard to read."

Neville watched helplessly as Toby opened the flower curtains of the hospital bed. A couple lay on the hospital bed. They were thin and emaciated. .

They saw Toby, but they didn't recognize him at all. They seemed speechless, or they couldn't speak, and even their movements seemed cautious and full of timidity.

"Frank, Alice, I'm here to see you."

Toby said softly, but there was no response from the two of them.

"Ugh."

Toby sighed heavily: "I really didn't expect it to be like this when we meet again. Seriously, if I knew this, I wouldn't be coming back. You guys look really miserable."

He looked back at Neville, and Neville's plump face was flushed purple.

Toby couldn't tell for a moment whether he wanted to run away or beat himself up.

"Relax, Neville."

Toby said: "I'm an old friend of your parents. They helped me a lot when I was young. At that time, I was being chased by bad guys. It was your parents who accepted me and hid me so that the bad guys didn't find me. .”

"At that time, they had just got married, and Mrs. Longbottom was there. She didn't know the whole story, but she desperately hoped that your parents could have a baby soon. She thought that my arrival would break their beautiful newlywed life, so she decided to would be dissatisfied with me."

"Pride, arrogance, thinking that you can control everything, and stubbornly thinking that your own ideas are the most noble, this has cost me dearly. Fortunately, your parents were not involved, and they still had a healthy child in the end. —that is, you, Neville, and I'm sure they'd be proud of you."

Neville didn't go to see Toby, or his parents, and his face was getting more and more purple.

This time Toby was able to confirm that Neville was just trying to escape.

"Are you feeling ashamed?"

Toby asked softly: "Do you feel ashamed by such parents? Don't you want future professors to discover this secret?"

Neville clutched the seam pocket of his trousers tightly, and said in a suppressed voice, "No, I just can't take it, I can't take it."

"Oh!" Toby yelled suddenly, as if frightened: "So you can talk, I thought their child was a mute."

Neville was stunned, his tears were held back, he didn't know if Toby was mocking himself, or just joking.

"Wait a minute." Toby suddenly wondered, pointing to a piece of wood protruding from Neville's trouser pocket: "Is that your wand? Why does it look so much like Frank's?"

Toby changed the topic too quickly, and before Neville could recover, Toby took the wand out of his pocket and put it in front of his eyes for a careful look.

"Hmm," he murmured, carefully discerning the pattern on the wand: "It really belongs to Frank, it looks like it's been a few years old, didn't Madam Longbottom buy you a new wand?"

"Grandma thinks this will allow me to better inherit my father's talent." Neville whispered, his fingers curled up again.

"Tut tsk tsk." Toby shook his head in disgust, and made a series of strange noises: "I've never heard of such a saying, wizards always have a wand that suits them best, and that's in the Ollivander wand shop. Don't forget [the wand chooses the wizard], it took me a long time to understand this sentence. In short—”

He patted himself on the side of the waist, and Al woke up from his sleep. He got out of his collar in a daze, and felt a hand stuffed into the pocket on his belly, and he lost a lot of weight.

"Is the current price of the wand still the same? I can't remember clearly. Forget it, I'll give you all of these. Remember to buy the wand first, and use the rest to buy snacks. Remember not to let Mrs. Longbottom see it. If you are discovered, don’t say that I gave it—”

Neville didn't know how to react. He saw Toby stuffing a lot of gold coins into the pockets of his clothes, which became bulging. In order not to be discovered by others, Toby also put the extra gold coins into other pockets Moved.

"One last thing."

Toby whispered, "Don't tell Mrs. Longbottom about this, she won't understand."

Toby took out a crystal ball from Al's pocket, which was hollow, half of which was filled with clear and transparent water.The water seemed to be alive, constantly jumping and surging, turning into tides for a while, and waves for a while, beating down hard.

Neville saw Toby hiding the crystal ball in the middle of his parents' hospital bed, and heard him say at the same time: "I suspect that these waters come from near Avalon. Have you heard of Avalon? That is an important part of many legends." The island will also be called Utopia, Blessed Island, Blessed Island, or Paradise of Bliss, whatever it is called.”

"Speaking of it, you won't believe it. I found these waters from Loch Ness. God knows why. I originally planned to find Avalon with these lake waters, and then find Merlin who was imprisoned in the oak tree in the legend. It is said that He's still alive, and he went to Hogwarts."

Toby slapped it hard twice at the end, making the crystal ball more difficult to detect.The Longbottoms were taken aback, and Toby quickly apologized quietly to them.

"But now?"

After sorting everything out, Toby turned back to Neville and said with a smile: "Let's put it here with your parents first, I found that this water is very effective in healing the wounds caused by the Cruciatus Curse, and it probably won't take long for them to recover. "

"Have faith in them, Neville."

Before leaving in a hurry, Toby finally told: "Remember, you must buy a wand that belongs to you, and don't break Frank's wand, he will go back sooner or later. Well, I have to hurry Withdrew, Mrs. Longbottom should be back."

Neville didn't know how he got home. Mrs. Longbottom was still complaining about the hapless therapist, babbling non-stop in the living room.

Neville went back to his room alone, he carefully took out a piece of wrapping paper of Blowing Super Bubble Gum, and took out a box under the bed.

The box was opened, and it was already filled with all kinds of candy packaging.

After putting away the candy wrapper in his hand, Neville put on his pajamas and lay down on the old-fashioned bed.

I fell asleep in tears.

(End of this chapter)