Mysterious Journey
Chapter 1089 Lockhart's Story
In Lockhart's book, *Wanderings with Werewolves*, he detailed how "he" helped a village get rid of a werewolf scourge.
However, Arkhipovna knew that the person who actually did it was the Armenian old wizard in front of her, Gilderoy Lockhart just stole his achievements and erased his memory with a Memory Charm—for her, this was a very unacceptable past stain.
"Not exactly, there's not much sentiment between werewolves, they only care about themselves—"
Old Hashi shook his white, disheveled head and said, "For a long time in the past, werewolves mostly acted alone, they feared wizards, and even feared Muggles in big cities. But since the past few months, the situation has changed. Werewolves have begun to band together for warmth, perhaps they don't dare to intrude into the realm of the British magical world for the time being, but in the turbulent Armenian border forests, there are at least three werewolf tribes..."
"Three werewolf tribes?" Elena repeated, her expression gradually becoming serious.
This was information that even the Heavenly Mandate Group hadn't grasped. When werewolves formed a social class, the degree of trouble increased by more than one level.
"You said just now... the reason they came to our door today was because they saw the newspapers a few days ago and learned that you were the prototype of the story of *Wanderings with Werewolves*—but I still don't understand, what is the connection between the two? The *Werewolves* novel has been published for a long time."
She frowned slightly, her eyes quickly sweeping over the messy mud prints at the entrance of the living room.
"Could it be that those werewolves want to sacrifice an enemy to complete some primitive tribal ritual for the expedition?"
"Sacrifice? Tribal...primitive ritual?"
The old Armenian wizard looked at Elena, a strange expression of almost pity in his turbid eyes.
Okay, he now believed that this should be the daughter of that brat Lockhart. Only a writer could come up with such a bizarre idea, right?
"That *Wanderings with Werewolves* is the ritual, little one," he said in a hoarse voice.
"What do you mean?"
"You don't understand, with the publicity from major newspapers, people all over the world now believe that everything written in that *Wanderings with Werewolves* actually happened, except that the original prototypes are different, and the werewolves think so too—"
"This is the truth anyway, is there anything wrong with that?"
Arkhipovna said, eager to hear about Lockhart.
"Everyone now knows that you are the wizard who drove out the Wagga Wagga werewolves, and you—"
"Wait, is the problem with 'everything'?" Elena squinted her eyes, "What do those visiting werewolves want to get?"
"Almost no werewolves are transformed voluntarily, you should know that, right?"
The old Armenian wizard said in a deep voice, a very complicated look flashing across his ugly, old cheeks.
"Compared to ordinary wizards, for many werewolves, the act of 'driving out werewolves', if placed from an outsider's perspective, is not something that violates their taboos that much—as long as it doesn't happen to them—what's really deadly is the means of 'driving out werewolves'."
"Means? Is there anything wrong with the 'driving out werewolves' means that Lockhart wrote about in the text?"
Arkhipovna also reacted at this time, and took out a copy of *Wanderings with Werewolves* from her backpack.
She quickly flipped to the last page, her fingers moving on the paper, frowning and softly reading out the last paragraph word by word:
" ...Then, I pounced on him—and slammed him to the ground with a bang—"
"I pinned him to the ground with one hand, and held my wand in the other, against his throat—then I slowed down and used the rest of my strength to cast a very complicated human-reverting spell. He let out a miserable howl. Immediately afterwards, the fur on his body disappeared, and his large fangs retracted."
"He turned back into a human, simple and effective."
"Naturally, another village will forever remember me, this hero, an incredibly noble wizard who freed them from the monthly panic of being attacked by werewolves, but the story of Gilderoy Lockhart continues, until the day all my ideals are realized..."
"Okay, I think I know the reason."
Elena let out a breath and said slowly, "So... those werewolves are here for that spell?"
The old Armenian wizard nodded silently, without speaking.
"Human-reverting spell?" Arkhipovna asked curiously, "If they're here for the spell, then why not just give it to them?"
"The problem is—there is no such thing as a 'human-reverting spell' in this world."
Old Hashi gave a miserable laugh, saying dryly, the expression on the old man's face looking particularly frightening.
"I killed that guy, he howled, and died. When he died—those fangs and fur all retracted—that's the real history, understand? The only curse-breaking method for the curse of werewolves, which has existed in the wizarding world for hundreds and thousands of years, is death."
"Gilderoy Lockhart made me forget these terrible things, and to be honest, I've had a much easier time these past few years."
The old wizard stopped, took a big sip of cold tea, and the wrinkled face couldn't help but wrinkle tightly.
"At least now, when I recall the life of lost memories these years, it seems that I can rest well every night. When that guy suddenly came to apologize a few days ago, I initially thought he was coaxing me to cast a spell on me. His Memory Charm is really good—frankly, he should be the most powerful obliviator I know so far. The most damned thing is that he awakened those memories so clearly."
"Um, of course. He found a lot of famous reporters and opened a... um... press conference."
"After the press conference, he came back to me—I couldn't chase him away, he said he wanted to get my forgiveness no matter what."
"After returning to the town, I gave him a little trouble, and I was too lazy to cast spells on him. I'm already past the age of fighting with people, so later I asked him to brew a pot of tea, made some desserts, and chatted with me casually. To be honest, this guy's eloquence is really good, and then..."
The old Armenian wizard stopped and took another big sip of tea.
"What happened later?!" Arkhipovna couldn't help but urge impatiently.
"Later... those werewolves found this place and broke in directly—"
Old Hashi let out a long sigh, saying weakly, and pointed his chin in the direction of the door.
"Just as we had made the tea, they broke in, smashing the doorknob, the moon hadn't risen yet... three or four of them had wands, as for the rest of those guys..." The old wizard's gaze fell on the Remington m870 in Arkhipovna's hand, and shrugged his shoulders rather helplessly, "...they were all holding Muggle weapons, I almost thought I had returned to the battlefield fifty years ago."
"They—how many people were there?" Arkhipovna asked, holding her breath.
"About twenty or so," the old wizard said uncertainly, "but I think the number might be several times higher."
"Are there any heavy weapons?"
Elena asked, her expression not as relaxed as before.
She raised her wand and waved it in the air, and some common heavy firearms appeared in mid-air.
The magic shield that Grindelwald gave her might not be able to withstand a heavy machine gun sweep. If the other party also had something like a single-soldier rocket launcher, then the rescue plan for Lockhart would be much more complicated. Werewolves heating up weapons would not be much worse than wizards heating weapons.
Now she could only pray that the Armenian government was strong enough not to lose too many dangerous weapons to the werewolves.
"This, this, this... these few. By the way, where did you learn these magics?"
The old wizard looked up at the magical light and shadows in mid-air, raised his hand and pointed at a few of them, asking curiously.
However, Elena was obviously not in the mood to answer his questions now.
Murphy's Law always liked to jump out and show its presence at this time—Elena even suspected that those werewolves had attacked a medium-sized Soviet army armory. Even the various weapons that appeared in front of Aghasiyan were enough to support a miniature war.
"Then, one last question..."
Elena dispersed the phantoms, walking towards her suitcase while rubbing her eyebrows.
"Why did they take Gilderoy Lockhart, and not you? Just how ridiculously did that idiot brag?"
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Yay!