Chapter 499: Memories

Miravia sat on the sofa, idly fiddling with her wand as she watched the two of them bicker back and forth.

At this point, their so-called camaraderie seemed rather flimsy, considering how easily they argued over the smallest things.

"Why don't you just make a Pensieve yourself?" Miravia said.

She had left Wade an entire goblin workshop, complete with everything he might need, so making a Pensieve was hardly difficult for him.

Hearing that, Wade suddenly seemed to think of something and nodded repeatedly.

"That works... that works."

Tom stared at him in surprise.

He had actually agreed?

And even if Wade made the Pensieve himself, knowing his personality, he was not going to ask Tom to reimburse him for the materials?

"A Pensieve has some useful properties, but I think it can be improved in a few ways..."

Wade pulled over a sheet of parchment and immediately began writing things down.

"You..." Tom hesitated, unsure what to say.

"He's probably come up with another new idea. Let's not disturb him." Miravia stood up. "Come on, Tom. Until the Pensieve is finished, I'll help you practise your duelling skills."

"Really?" Tom asked in delight.

"Of course. Come on, bring Nagini too. Don't worry, my training isn't very intense. I'm very gentle. Wade was trained by me too, you know."

Miravia cheerfully walked out of the room as though she had just found an interesting new toy to play with.

The smile on Tom's face stiffened.

Gentle?

If he had not personally watched Miravia kill more than twenty people with a single Killing Curse the previous night, he might almost have believed her.

Thinking back to Wade's technique of splitting spells during combat, Tom finally realised who he had learned it from.

That explained quite a lot.

...

Over the following days, Wade did not leave his castle again.

Every day, he either stayed in his room reading and conducting research or sparred with Miravia. Between the two activities, his days were fairly productive.

Not long afterward, Anne also teleported over through her ring. After spending a few days in the moving castle, she became reluctant to leave.

Later, André visited once as well. After reporting to Wade and staying in the moving castle for several days, he hurried away again to attend to his own affairs.

Toward the end of the holiday, the Riddle family finally returned from the safe house to Riddle Manor, and Tom took the opportunity to go home for a while.

By the time he returned from Riddle Manor to the moving castle, the goblins at the workshop had already delivered Wade's improved Pensieve.

In the castle's training ground, Wade's newly completed Pensieve had been placed in the centre, ready for its first test.

"Tom, bring over that box of memories," Wade said.

Tom had already prepared it beforehand and immediately took out the box.

Throughout the holiday, Miravia had put him through her "gentle" hellish training every day, nearly tormenting him to death in the process.

Of course, the results of that training were obvious.

If the current Tom were to take part in that night's battle again, he definitely would not behave like the reckless rookie he had been back then.

Wade randomly selected one of the small bottles and poured the white, mist-like substance inside into the Pensieve.

The originally clear, liquid-like mist inside immediately turned cloudy as the new memory mixed with it.

Wade stirred the mist with his wand, then beckoned to Tom.

Tom nodded and lowered his face into the basin.

The next second, he felt the entire world turn upside down.

When his feet finally touched solid ground again, he found himself no longer in the familiar training ground, but in a stretch of wilderness.

Soon, Wade, Anne, Miravia, and Nagini appeared beside him as well.

"What are we... doing here?" Tom asked, looking around in confusion.

"What do you think?" Wade replied calmly. "We're hunting."

Tom was just about to ask what he meant when several wizards suddenly burst out of the nearby grass.

Every one of them looked absolutely terrified.

They ran past Tom while repeatedly glancing back toward the tall grass behind them, as though something dreadful was pursuing them.

Tom could feel the tension in the air, so he closed his mouth and, like the fleeing wizards, stared intently at the grass.

Suddenly, an enormous beast burst out.

It was around five metres long and roughly three metres tall, towering over the fleeing wizards.

Wade recognised the leopard-like creature immediately.

It was a Nundu.

"Roar!"

After seeing the wizards, the beast slowed to an almost leisurely pace.

It leapt onto a nearby rock and let out a thunderous roar.

As it roared, its neck swelled like a balloon and rows of sharp spines rose upright.

A large amount of white mist also poured from the Nundu's mouth, spreading rapidly through the surrounding air.

Before long, two of the fleeing wizards suddenly collapsed to the ground.

"Can its roar kill people?" Tom asked in shock.

Wade looked at him helplessly.

"I told you to read more books. That's a Nundu. The gas it exhales is poisonous. Right now it's standing upwind. People obviously can't outrun poison gas."

"I've heard of Nundus before," Miravia said with a trace of regret. "Unfortunately, there weren't any in the Forbidden Forest back then. Otherwise... I would have had another specimen for my collection."

Wade remembered that the transfer student had kept quite a few magical creatures inside the Room of Requirement.

Naturally, all of them had been "rescued" by her.

Wade was actually rather curious about what had happened to the phoenix Miravia had "rescued" back then.

But he obviously could not ask her directly about something like that.

It would be difficult to explain how he knew she had once kept magical creatures in the Room of Requirement.

He would have to probe carefully over time, without arousing her suspicions.

"At this distance, anyone who isn't a specialist would have a hard time surviving against a Nundu," Wade said.

"But this should be one of their memories," Tom said. "Which means at least one of them must have survived in the end."

Clearly, for some reason, these Alliance members had been targeted by a Nundu and were now being hunted through the wilderness.

Could this be a memory of one of them turning the tables and killing the Nundu?

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