The sound of footsteps coming from outside the classroom made Xing Ze cut off his thoughts, and Ellie walked into the classroom.
When she saw Xing Ze, a trace of surprise flashed across her cold face, but it quickly disappeared like a pebble sinking into the sea.
"What did you see?" She walked forward and looked directly into the mirror.
"It's nothing, just a tangled past." Xing Ze returned to his original appearance, "What about you? What did you see again?"
"Me?" Ellie chuckled, "A better self, far better than the current self."
"You are really tired of being a human being." Xing Ze withdrew his gaze, "To ensure the safety of the mirror?"
"Given that someone has broken into Hogwarts before, I find it difficult to believe that Dumbledore just placed the magic mirror here casually."
Xing Ze took a few steps back, pointed at the ground and said, "I don't think he left it randomly."
Ellie looked down and saw a magic circle vaguely visible on the dusty ground.
"It's an anti-theft charm." The eldest lady muttered.
Xing Ze looked up at the ceiling again and said, "And this."
There - directly opposite the mirror - there is a complex eye-shaped symbol.
This symbol can be connected to another eye-shaped symbol painted on a crystal ball, mirror or other transparent medium, allowing them to become similar to a monitor.
"I think...he should have seen us coming here." Xing Ze said calmly.
Ai Li looked up. She felt very uncomfortable with Xing Ze's keen observation. "So, what about you? Are you here to ensure the safety of the mirror?"
"Of course not, I didn't even know it was here." Xing Ze smiled, "If I said I was lost, would you believe it?"
Ai Li frowned and glanced at Xing Ze and said, "Sometimes I can't tell whether you are telling the truth or a lie. This uncontrollable feeling makes me irritable."
After saying that, she turned around and walked out of the classroom, "If you are really lost, then follow closely."
Xing Ze found that the path he took before was seriously deviated, and he followed Ai through two almost identical corridors.
They really should put up road signs. Xing Ze complained in his heart again. In order to relieve the embarrassment, he asked: "Why did you ask me for help?"
"What?" Ellie, who was walking in front, slowed down.
"I mean, there were better choices than me just now. Professor McGonagall, Professor Snape, Flitwick..."
"And Quirrell, this is what you want to say, right?" Ellie interrupted Xing Ze, "Yes, I didn't choose him, but you. Be proud, isn't that what you want from me?
Say this? Admit that you are right."
"I don't have such a bad habit."
"Who knows, sometimes it's easy to guess a man's mind."
"Don't dwell on it, Miss Shafiq. What I'm curious about is what changed your mind."
Ai Li stopped and waited for Xing Ze to step forward before replying: "There are many factors. I originally wanted to find a suitable time to talk about it."
"There is never a right time," Xing Ze looked at the long and quiet corridor in front of him, "Let's do it now. I think it will take a while before we can get to the principal's office."
"It will indeed take a while. There's no harm in chatting. I asked someone to check on you and your two companions - Reko Albin and Edwin von Winkler. Our names are correct.
Their names?"
"No."
"Very good, that means there is no deviation in my memory." Her high-heeled buckskin boots made a crisp sound when she stepped on the cold stone floor, "Let's talk about the guy who claims to be a poet first.
"Reco Albin, that lazy and useless poet, a devout devotee of art, that 'genius' who can always turn ballads and poems into obscenities."
"You seem to have a problem with him."
"Me? Don't get me wrong, Xing Ze, I'm just repeating his father's words. How much do you know about the Albin family?"
"Not much, just as much as an ordinary person."
"I guess so. They don't like to appear in public. They are a conservative family and still follow the ancient wizarding traditions. It is conceivable that an outlier like Reko Albin will not be too popular. Therefore, he is
He left the family when he became an adult.
"He planned to travel the whole world, first to England, then to Europe, and then to the United States. But his trip ended in the United States. To be precise, he stopped in a small town in the United States."
"I think he might be tired of it and want to stop and rest for a while." Xing Ze guessed, "Maybe he found a relationship somewhere. It turns out that love can always stop people's footsteps."
Xing Ze noticed the intriguing smile on Ally's face. He curled his lips and said, "Sorry, go ahead, Miss Shafik. I think you must know what our great poet is trapped in."
"It's a pity, I don't know either."
Xing Ze frowned slightly.
"Reko Albin had a sister, and they had a very good relationship. After Reko left the family, the two still maintained close correspondence. It was from her that I learned about Reko's schedule.
"At first, letters came quite frequently, almost every week. The romantic poet could not stay in one place for too long, usually no more than half a month, sometimes even just two or three days.
"In my opinion, this mainly depends on his relationship with those lovers. Yes, every time he goes to a new place, he has to make friends with local women, both Muggles and wizards. Sometimes one, sometimes two
one, sometimes more.
"He was not ashamed of it, and he still talked about it in his letters. Most of the content of the letters was this, and of course there were poems and local folk songs."
Ai Li originally thought that Xing Ze would be impatient to hear these trivial matters, but she found that Xing Ze beside him had taken out his notes and was recording something attentively.
Well, he is not a normal person. Ellie muttered in her heart and continued: "The number of letters started to decrease after Reko arrived in the United States. Apart from the distance, the great poet didn't seem to like the United States very much.
"He first went to New York, then Washington, both for less than a week. Then he went to Boston, and something strange happened. He stayed there for a month. Then he left for a small town called Arkham.
.”
"Arkham?" Xing Ze wrote hastily on the notebook with a pen.
"Yes, Arkham, I looked it up, a New England town on the banks of the Miskatonic River, ancient, mysterious and boring. I can't think of anything that would make Reco, a libertine poet,
—Two years in that dead place."
"I think he didn't correspond with his sister in those two years."
Ellie nodded, "Yes, no one knows what Reko did there in those two years? The people I sent to investigate found nothing, and they couldn't even find where he lived."
"It's really interesting." Xing Ze circled the word "Arkham" with a pen.