Harry Potter: Glory Bows to Me

The little girl's red cape gradually disappeared in the snow.

Several people stood there, no one spoke. The wind passed through the valley, bringing a piercing chill.

Amanta stared at the void quietly until the last ray of red disappeared in the vast white snow.

She lowered her eyelashes.

In the snow at their feet, the lines of poetry were still eye-catching. Even if they didn't know that this was related to the July Prophecy, it didn't look like a child's random scribbles.

"That's... surprising." Luna suddenly spoke in a soft voice, "Maybe she just saw the prophecy by chance and... wrote it here."

"It's not that simple," Harry whispered, still staring at the ground, his fists slowly clenching, "That's part of the prophecy, Dumbledore told me."

"For a girl this young, her family won't let her go too far even during the Christmas holidays." Hermione frowned, as if she was still recalling the little girl's face.

"So, the person who told her these words," Amanta continued calmly, with a judgmental tone, "may be nearby."

After the words were spoken, the atmosphere froze for a moment.

The snow is still falling, and the poems on the ground are about to be covered up.

At this time, Luna sighed softly.

"We are now standing in front of Harry's parents' old house," she said slowly, "perhaps we should go in... maybe we can find something worth remembering."

Harry's breathing hitched for a moment, and then he nodded.

"Let's go in first."

Amanta walked to the door, raised her hand and pointed, whispering: "Open the door."

The door lock clicked and slowly opened.

A long-forgotten smell blew in, a mixture of old wood and lime, and the door hinges creaked.

Five people walked in one after another.

The room was dark, dust was floating in the air, and moonlight leaked in through the cracks in the broken windows, illuminating a layer of light silver mist.

"Fluorescence."

Under the light from the tip of the wand, they gradually saw everything in the room clearly.

The walls were mottled, the floor was old and some places had collapsed, and there was a crooked baby cradle in the corner of the living room. There were also some old toys on the wooden shelf against the wall, one of which was a broken little teddy bear lying on its side with a buttonhole missing.

Amanta's eyes swept over these objects. She was not a person who was easily disturbed by emotions, but at this moment, her heart was a little shaken.

Harry walked in front, and could hardly take his eyes off the things that were so strange to him.

He stopped in front of a yellowed photo in front of the cabinet.

It was a photo that couldn't be more ordinary - James Potter was holding the baby Harry, and Lily was standing beside him, her hair as red as flames, and the smile on her face was warm and bright.

Harry raised his hand, his fingertips hovering over the glass frame, but he was hesitant to touch it.

Amanta walked over and stood beside him without saying a word.

"...I can't remember anything." Harry whispered, his voice trembling. "I never remembered what they looked like."

Luna took a step closer and took his hand. "But they left you behind. You're proof that they're still alive."

Harry bit his lower lip and nodded, blinking a few times, trying to force back the tears.

"This little bear, you can see that Harry loved hugging it when he was a child." Hermione squatted down and patted the toy, trying to change the subject.

"Did Harry often chew on it when he was a child? It's now broken." Neville leaned over to take a look. "I have a similar one and I almost bit off its ear."

A few people laughed softly, and the atmosphere finally eased a little.

They split up and checked the rooms in the house.

Amanta walked up the stairs and saw several doors on the second floor were ajar. She pushed open one and dust blew in her face.

However, something in the corner caught her attention.

There was a corner almost hidden by the old wardrobe, and on the floor, there was a strange symbol drawn.

Deep red, like dried blood, the color settles in the wood grain, presenting twisted and strange lines.

In the center of the symbol is the shape of a door, and inside the door is a more complex pattern - like a snake, an eye, or some ancient language.

Amanta held her breath, squatted down, and touched lightly with her fingertips.

"This isn't an ordinary symbol," she whispered, her brows slowly furrowing, "This is like... some kind of magic."

"What did you say?" Hermione rushed over when she heard the voice, and her face changed immediately when she saw the mark on the ground.

"There is more than one place." Amanta stood up and looked around. "This symbol... I just saw a part of it under the stair railing. There is also a similar mark on a window frame."

Several of them gathered together one after another.

On the walls, window sills, floor cracks... it looks like a series of symbols left by someone on purpose.

And for some of the lines, the ink is not yet dry, as if they were drawn just a few days ago, or even more recently.

Harry frowned and lowered his voice: "This house... is there anyone coming here all the time?"

Amanta's eyes sank, and her mind was already working rapidly.

"And it left some kind of signal."

She stared at the blood-red symbol.

"We need to find out what this is."

*

The night was dark and the ground was covered with thick snow.

The wind blew from the end of the valley, and they finally retreated from the Potters' old house.

The door creaked again and slowly closed.

Amanta walked at the end, her eyes sweeping over the strange symbols.

It was horrifyingly red, as if it was drawn with blood.

"...Are we really going to stay here tonight?" Neville yawned, holding up the inconspicuous dark brown tent with both hands. "It's too quiet around here. It feels like... the entire Godric's Hollow is deserted."

"Don't be afraid," Harry patted his shoulder, "I'll sleep in the same room with you tonight, and I guarantee you won't snore."

"I don't care whether you snore or not," Neville whispered, "I care about those symbols. I seem to have heard my grandmother talk about something similar. That thing may be related to forbidden magic."

"It does smell like a forbidden technique." Hermione frowned and flipped open her notebook. "Have you noticed that the patterns drawn in each 'door' are different? Some look like variations of Greek numbers, while others look like a fusion of Norse Runes...but they are all incomplete."

"Like a code?" Luna asked, squatting on the snow, placing a round moon stone she had taken out of her pocket on the ground, looking at it in thought.

"Not necessarily," Hermione hesitated and turned to look at Amanta, "but I just noticed that several symbols appear repeatedly in different patterns, and the order is similar... Do you think it's like a kind of counting?"

Amanta silently took the notebook from her hand and ran her fingertips over several of the patterns.

When she discovered these symbols, she could feel the slightest magical fluctuations still remaining at the edges of the symbols, and these symbols...

"Countdown..." she repeated in a low voice.

"What do you mean?" Harry came closer, frowning, "Are you saying this thing has something to do with... time?"

"Maybe," Hermione turned the page and tapped the tip of her pen on the notebook, "I even wonder if they are some kind of time-set mechanism, and when a certain time comes..."

"Bang!" Neville tried to smile lightly. "You mean someone would blow up an old house that has been uninhabited for more than ten years?"

During the conversation, the tent was finally set up.

Neville quickly and efficiently performed the Extension Charm, and the palm-sized cloth bag expanded with a "bang" into an ordinary triangular tent. The entrance was narrow, but once you walked in, it looked like a two-bedroom, one-living-room apartment.

There is a fireplace, a kettle, and even a small bookshelf with a few old books.

Several people breathed a sigh of relief and entered the tent one after another.

Only Amanta fell last.

She stood outside the tent for a while, her head tilted slightly, listening to the sound of snow falling. It was very subtle, very light, but it seemed to echo with some illogical rhythm.

The wind blew through the ruins, making a slight whistle.

She suddenly felt like someone was staring at her.

It was an instinctive sensation, just like when a cheetah senses movement deep in the grass and its back instinctively tenses.

She raised her head sharply and glanced around.

Snow accumulated around her boots, and the white was empty, with only the outlines of a few dilapidated houses in the distance. It was so quiet that even the sound of a wand waving was amplified.

Nothing.

"Amanta!" Hermione poked her head out of the tent. "Come and look, there is another pattern here that I don't recognize. Have you seen it?"

Amanta turned around and frowned slightly.

She took one last look at the silent snow behind her before walking into the tent.

The tent was warm, the fire was crackling, and there was a faint scent of herbs in the air.

Amanta washed her face, changed into a clean sweater, and squeezed into a bedroom in the corner of the tent with Luna and Hermione.

The room was not big. There was a bed against the wall, covered with a soft duvet. There was a faint night light at the head of the bed, which looked like a small lamp picked from the Hufflepuff dome greenhouse.

When the cushion sank, the smell of thyme and dried mint almost gave Amanta an illusion - she seemed to be back in the Herbology classroom, with Professor Sprout holding her cheek with his clay hand and asking her to use her sense of smell to identify the types of herbs.

"...The bed is so soft." Hermione whispered, turning sideways to try to get closer to Amanta, but could only lean against Luna's back on the other side in vain. "It's so soft that I feel like I'm sinking in."

"It's like being wrapped in herbs," Luna murmured. "I can smell mistletoe, too."

Amanta closed her eyes and said in a daze, "There should be lavender..."

The conversation between the three people was intermittent and gradually faded away in the warmth.

Amanta didn't last long, sleepiness creeping into her bones.

She soon fell into a dream.

……

A snow-white teacup was placed in front of her, steaming, with tea leaves condensed at the bottom.

She blinked and saw that the tea leaves looked like black lines, stacked, twisted, and entangled into the shape of a door, or a huge "eight".

Professor Trelawney appeared from nowhere, the light reflecting off the lenses behind her eyes, and she kept chattering:

"Disaster, absolutely disaster. Look here, child, look at this shape. This is the shattered and reassembled disaster star! The destruction of the wheel of fate! You must be vigilant, you must--"

"Shut up." Amanta muttered in a low voice, feeling that her head was about to explode, "What kind of disaster is this..."

She tried to raise her hand to push the teacup away, but the dregs twisted like living things and suddenly flew towards her.

"Amanta!! Wake up--!"

A scream came crashing down on me.

She suddenly opened her eyes, struggled to jump up from the bed, and almost rolled off the bed.

Her arm was held tightly by someone, and Hermione's panicked face was beside her.

"H-Hermione?"

"Harry and Neville are missing!" Hermione's voice was shaking. "I just woke up and went to the bathroom and suddenly found that the door of the other room was open and there was no one there -"

Amanta's head exploded.

Luna also sat up, with tears on her eyelashes: "What's wrong? I thought you were talking in your sleep..."

"What time is it?" Amanta turned over and sat up, looking around and found that it was still dark outside the curtains.

"It's just after four o'clock." Hermione took out her pocket watch and said hurriedly, "We can't wait any longer. We have to go out and find them."

Amanta walked to Harry and Neville's room and pulled back the covers. The bed was cold and it was obvious that no one was there anymore. Apart from the two of them, Neville's wand was gone, and Harry's cloak disappeared as well.

She subconsciously looked at the vast expanse of snow outside the window.

That ominous premonition... came to my mind again.

"Quick, take your wands." Her voice was calm and clear. "Let's split up and look for them. It's snowing so hard outside, they won't get far."