Hogwarts Card System Chapter 056

“Helena, think carefully, think about your time with Ms. Ravenclaw, did she ever mention anything related to this topic?” Ted asked Helena.

“Thoughts, swirling thoughts…” Helena’s eyes were vacant and hollow, lost in contemplation.

For a ghost with little concept of time, this contemplation lasted two or three hours.

When Ted returned after dinner, Helena was still floating there, deep in thought.

It wasn’t until midnight that Ted couldn’t bear it anymore and decided to talk about it tomorrow.

He was about to persuade her to rest first and think slowly, but his words were cut off before he could utter them.

“I… I might have remembered. Mother, she… she seemed to have said something similar…” Her expression was somewhat agitated, appearing both sorrowful and nostalgic.

She walked to the statue and called softly, “Mother? Mother! Mother, I’m back, please open the door for me, it’s Helena.”

Suddenly, Ted felt a magical fluctuation from the statue!

He quickly cast a magical detection spell and, sure enough, saw an increasingly bright blue light on the statue.

Then, Ravenclaw’s statue suddenly blinked and spoke, “Helena, my daughter, is that you?”

It was a gentle and clear voice, giving the impression of an elegant lady full of wisdom.

Pearl-white tears streamed down Helena’s face. She choked and reached out her hands, wanting to embrace her mother, but her hands passed through the statue—she was already a ghost, having passed away nearly a thousand years ago.

“Mother! Mother, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…” she sobbed.

“Don’t cry, Helena, don’t cry. My poor daughter…” It scrutinized Helena.

“I was already very ill at that time. I was worried I wouldn’t see you, and I was also worried you wouldn’t be able to move on. It was my fault, I shouldn’t have let the Baron go find you. His mind had been severely ravaged by dark magic then…”

“Please don’t blame me, Helena, don’t blame me,” she pleaded with her daughter.

“No, it was my fault. Mother, it was all my fault. If I hadn’t stolen the diadem and distracted you, you definitely wouldn’t have… wouldn’t have died. Mother, forgive me, Mother.” Helena was practically sobbing uncontrollably.

Ravenclaw’s statue reached out, virtually embracing her daughter. One was a statue unable to cry, the other a ghost unable to touch, together expressing a thousand-year-late apology.

After a long time, Ms. Ravenclaw comforted Helena, and they finally calmed down.

“When I heard that tragic news, I could no longer hold on. But I was worried about you, Helena, I was worried you would fear death and be unable to move on.”

“Now it seems my worries were correct. But it was too hasty then, and I could only cast an incomplete magic on this statue, which caused me to be unable to awaken on my own…”

“Fortunately, fortunately, I left enough magic in the Chamber of Secrets. Helena, don’t be afraid, come with me…”

As she spoke, a fist-sized ball of light floated out from Ms. Ravenclaw’s statue.

She floated ahead, leading the way, with Helena following behind.

Not long after they started walking, Helena waved to Ted, “Ted, thank you, please come with me. I might have to continue on, and I hope you can be my final witness.”

Ted bowed slightly, said nothing, and followed.

The ball of light floated in front, and the entire castle seemed to come alive.

The portraits seemed to have lost their self-awareness, motionless in their frames. The moving suits of armor would salute on their own, and the moving staircases would float over to form a clear path.

This was much more impressive than the usual castle, like a transforming building block.

Soon, they left the Ravenclaw Tower and crossed the sky bridge to the main tower.

In a corridor on the eighth floor, the ball of light stopped in front of a tapestry.

“This tapestry is quite interesting,” the Ravenclaw light ball said.

It was the tapestry of Barnaby the Barmy being bludgeoned by a troll, telling the story of a wizard named Barnaby who tried to teach a troll to ballet dance, only to be brutally beaten with a club by the impatient troll.

Then, on the wall opposite the tapestry, a door suddenly appeared. It was a double solid wood door, three meters high, with gold painted edges, and a raven pattern in the center.

The door opened, and the ball of light flew in. Ravenclaw’s voice came from within: “Please come in, Helena and the little one. This was my study back then…”

Ted hadn’t expected Ravenclaw to bring him to the Room of Requirement.

He knew about this place but hadn’t planned to explore it in his first year.

He hadn’t expected that Ravenclaw had also left a “secret room” here back then!

Upon entering, it wasn’t what Ted had imagined, filled with bookshelves and experimental tables. Instead, it was somewhat empty—only a curved large table and a few chairs, an ancient-style sofa, and a bookshelf.

However, on the opposite wall, there were many faintly golden-blue lines, converging into an extremely complex geometric pattern.

The bright light flew into the wall, and then all the blue lines connected, rapidly spreading to other parts of the room, extending into the unseen magical脉络 within the walls…

Dumbledore, who was sound asleep, suddenly opened his eyes. He pulled off his pointed sleeping cap, fumbled for the moon-shaped glasses on his table and put them on, looking around erratically. He then reached out to do something, but there was no response.

He looked at his hands, and without even changing out of his starry pajamas, he quickly got out of bed and hurried down the stairs to the Headmaster’s office.

He looked at the wall of sleeping portraits of previous headmasters, some with snot bubbles, and his heart sank—his Headmaster’s authority had vanished!

However, before he could make his next move, the authority suddenly returned.

From the moment he was startled awake from his sleep, until he confirmed his authority had been “usurped,” intended to do something, and then his authority inexplicably returned, it all took less than a minute.

“What happened?” he murmured to himself.

…

Meanwhile, in the Room of Requirement, in Ravenclaw’s secret room, a powerful blue magical energy converged, finally forming the image of a middle-aged lady—Ravenclaw in a blue robe.

She reached out and gently took Helena’s hand!

She touched the ghost!

Ted and Helena were both astonished.

Ms. Ravenclaw chuckled, “No need to be too surprised. Although ordinary methods cannot touch ghosts, some high-level magic can affect them. I merely temporarily borrowed the Headmaster’s authority to mobilize the castle’s magic and create this temporary body that can touch Helena.”

Ted felt like he was listening to a foreign language. What about touching ghosts, high-level magic, Headmaster’s authority, and creating a body?

Was it that powerful?

“Then, you… you are now…” Ted swallowed hard, asking with difficulty.

“I am not resurrected, nor am I Ravenclaw herself. I am merely a fragment of her thoughts imbued with emotion. No one can live for a thousand years, and it’s even less possible to be resurrected after a thousand years.”

She looked at her daughter in her arms, “Time is short, Helena, are you ready?”

Helena looked up at her mother and nodded, “Mother, I’m not afraid anymore.”

After speaking, she turned to look at Ted, “Ted, thank you.”

Ted bowed slightly, performing a salute: “May your journey be smooth.”

Helena smiled and nodded.

Ms. Ravenclaw also smiled, “Thank you, little one, thank you for your help. I hope these will be helpful to you…”

A book appeared on the curved table, then automatically opened its pages, revealing countless words and even illustrations.

Light shone, a soft white light that didn’t hurt the eyes, enveloping both mother and daughter.

Helena waved to Ted, “Goodbye, Ted, goodbye.”

Ted waved back, “Goodbye, goodbye, Helena, goodbye, Ms. Ravenclaw.”

After the white light dispersed, everything disappeared.

In this secret room, although it remained in its original state, the blue lines on the wall had vanished.

Ted briefly surveyed the room, looked at the bookshelf, and then flipped through the book Ms. Ravenclaw had left behind—it was ten centimeters thick, with bronze edges that could kill someone if dropped.

He looked in the direction where Helena had vanished, not expecting one of his friends to be separated by life and death so quickly.

Although he should be happy for Helena, he felt a very complex emotion.

At this moment, the system also joined the fun.

“Ding~ Hidden quest completed: [Ravenclaw’s Chamber of Secrets (Purple)]. Reward: 3000 experience, random card…”

“Purple quest? 3000 experience, random card?!” This was a big surprise.

Ted glanced again at the place where Helena and Ms. Ravenclaw had vanished.

He decided to calm down first and not touch anything here for now. He would go back and compose himself before deciding how to deal with this place.

Based on Ms. Ravenclaw’s last actions, Ted had already gained permission to this secret room.

He would come back later. For now, he would go back and be quiet.

As Ted pushed open the door and exited the Room of Requirement, he had only walked a few steps down the corridor when he bumped into Dumbledore, dressed in his pajamas and wearing a sleeping cap.

Behind his moon-shaped glasses, a questioning gaze appeared.

“Mr. Epiphany, is something amiss?” he asked.