Hogwarts: Voldemort, don't stop me from studying

Chapter 998 Memory 2
Abigail shook her head stubbornly and said, "You said you would respect my choice. So..."

She straightened up, looked at him with fiery eyes, and said with utmost determination, "Don't stop me, Braun."

Braun was silent for a moment, then smiled helplessly: "Alright then, I'll help you keep looking."

Next was the third copy, which Abigail found herself in a secluded corner.

…………

The emaciated man knelt on the ground, tears streaming down his face: "Please, for I am about to die, tell me—Khalil…my child…is he still alive?"

“Khalil? Who’s that? I’ve never heard of him.”

Abigail said this without any emotion, even with a hint of impatience.

There was no pity, no guilt, not even a trace of human warmth.

She had just experienced a memory alteration, and her whole being seemed to have been shattered and then reassembled. Her true emotions were almost nonexistent, and most people and things in the world were meaningless to her.

Her world was flat and gray; other people's pain was like looking through a bulletproof glass—she could see it, but it barely stirred a ripple in her heart.

Her mind was filled with nothing but obedience and the thought that she would do anything for the Purifiers.

In her mind, necessary sacrifices were permissible and even normal in order to completely eliminate the wizards.

Just like Abigail herself, she sacrificed almost all her personal hobbies in order to cleanse the organization, honing all her abilities to the extreme, and did countless murders to cover up wrongdoings for the organization.

Take Brolin, for example. His family died because of this, and his lover left him as well, but the man's will remained steadfast and never wavered.

Abigail greatly admired this about him.

By the same token, it is only natural that others would sacrifice themselves for this cause.

Especially those children who possess magical powers, if they don't join the Purifiers, they will eventually become their enemies, fighting each other to the death.

The organization did not choose to completely eliminate the threat, but instead took them back and carefully nurtured them; this approach was already quite merciful.

As for using the Oblivion Charm to make them forget their parents, that was entirely for their own good. Otherwise, having a child with magical powers would not be a blessing for ordinary people, but a disaster.

For example, Langdon Johnson, Carrier's father.

He failed to forget what he should have forgotten, and as a result, despite being just an ordinary person, he managed to create such a huge stir, almost causing wizards from all over the world to target the Purifiers.

To protect the organization, Abigail had no choice but to kill him decisively.

—All of this is completely correct and just.

But when she saw Caril at Hogwarts, and saw the vibrant smiles of those children who had grown up in loving parents, why did she suddenly feel lost and pained? Why did she begin to doubt the "Purgers"?
…………

"Boom!"

Abigail's body swayed violently, almost overwhelmed by the fragmented memories of Hogwarts.

She staggered backward, grabbing the shelf to avoid falling, the crystal bottles clinking together with a crisp sound.

Fortunately, the protective magic above was very sturdy. If you look closely, you can see that the wooden frame was also carved with tiny grooves to ensure stability, so none of the bottles fell down.

Abigail was already deathly pale, breathing heavily, her face and back covered in cold sweat, her hands and feet trembling slightly as if in spasms.

The cloak fluttered down, and he observed the changes in her aura, asking curiously, "What did you remember? Your face looks so pale... like you've seen a ghost. Oh, ghosts aren't so scary. That old hag from before was much scarier! She could mold other people's memories like clay."

Abigail kept her eyes tightly shut, biting her lower lip so hard that she could even taste the rust.

She didn't want to answer, and she couldn't answer. Her throat felt like it was being choked by something, and even breathing was painful.

A moment later, she forced herself to open her eyes, her gaze unfocused and unfocused for a few seconds before finally settling.

In my peripheral vision, I saw something flashing.

"What...is that you holding?"

Abigail asked in a hoarse voice.

"Oh, you mean this?" The cloaked figure hesitantly pulled out a crystal bottle and said, "This is what I found from the top few layers. Your name is on the label... But given your current state, I suggest you take a break, have some water, and you can look at the memory again tomorrow, or you can just not look at it at all..."

Abigail slowly shook her head.

"No." She uttered a single word wearily, as if unwilling to let herself go, snatching the crystal bottle and mechanically tightening her fingers.

"Boom."

A soft sound.

The silver memories within the bottle, like a caged bird released, flowed out instantly, as gently as a wisp of smoke, drifting towards her brow...

……

"We can't afford to keep her at home, so take her with you."

Through the kitchen door, young Abigail, clutching her only playmate—an ugly rag doll—hears a man speaking in a listless voice.

Despite the lack of evidence, a term inexplicably popped into her mind—"Dad".

Her father, his back hunched, a pipe dangling from his mouth, repeatedly haggled with the person over the price:

"She's capable!"

"You're still not eating enough!"

"Just think of it as buying livestock, much cheaper than livestock... it'll grow big in two more years!"

Finally, a stack of old banknotes was slammed onto the peeling table, and a stranger picked Abigail up and threw her into the back of the truck.

There were a few children there, their eyes vacant and their expressions blank, like a group of drab puppets.

As she was leaving, her mother chased after her and stuffed a shriveled apple into Abigail's pocket.

The girl clutched her mother's hand in terror, crying and pleading, "Don't sell me, Mom! Don't sell me... Dad, Mom..."

She cried her heart out, and the woman, while weeping, resolutely pulled her hand away.

As her familiar home rapidly receded from view, Abigail crouched in the corner of the carriage, sobbing softly.

A boy walked over, pushed her down, took the apple out of the girl's pocket, and eagerly took a bite.

"Crack!"

As the sweet fragrance wafted out, he said vaguely and coldly, "Stop crying! We were all sold out by our own parents... The people who sold you out weren't really parents."

……

They sat in a truck for what seemed like an eternity, until a dozen or so more children joined them, before finally arriving at a farm.

The farm was so vast that it seemed to stretch to the horizon, and suddenly her world consisted only of endless fields.

Every day before dawn, we were woken up by a whistle to pick cotton bolls, dig up beets, spray pesticides, collect potatoes... We could only return to our dormitory, which was more crowded than a pigsty, to rest when it got dark.

The food was so coarse it was hard to swallow, the place to sleep was dark and damp, and when I was so exhausted I didn’t even have the strength to cry.

The turning point happened one evening.

That day, she was so exhausted that she almost collapsed. As she was carrying the wheat straw away from the field, her legs suddenly gave way and she fell.

The child operating the lawnmower wasn't skilled enough, and the massive steel behemoth roared toward her, the spinning blades splattering grass clippings like a mist of blood.

"Run!!!!"

Someone shouted at the top of their lungs.

At that moment, her mind went blank, as if all sounds had been sucked away by an invisible vortex, and all she could see in her instantly constricted pupils was the approaching blade.

"boom!"

The lawnmower, like a charging bull, relentlessly rolled over the spot where the girl was, leaving a green carpet that smelled of grass, before finally stopping at the edge of the lawn with a low, sputtering sound.

The terrified screaming children and the farm supervisor who rushed over only realized a few seconds later that there was no horrific scene on the ground as expected—no pieces of clothing, no bloody remains, not even a trace of blood.

Until someone shouted, "There!"

A dozen meters away, under a crooked tree, the girl stood there, staring blankly and in terror at the grass, completely bewildered by what had happened.

(End of this chapter)