Hogwarts: Lacus doesn't want to be a witch who destroys nations.

Chapter 100 Investigation

The carriage creaked and groaned through the blizzard, its wheels rolling over the frozen dirt roads of the Siberian wilderness. With each bump, Lux wondered if this rickety thing could even last until the next sunrise.

Karl skillfully rode an old horse transformed by shapeshifting, disguising himself as a groom. He wrapped his scarf around his neck so that only his sharp eyes were visible, and he actually looked quite convincing.

Eve and Lux ​​huddled in the back of the car, wrapped in a coarse blanket that smelled musty. Eve's blood-red eyes were fixed on the white snowfield outside the window, and she remained extremely silent the whole way.

"So where exactly are we going for your wilderness survival training?" Lux asked for the third time on the way, tucking her numb feet deeper into the blanket, while Lumi, who was using it to warm her feet, grumbled in dissatisfaction.

"Go somewhere where no one's holding up a report and asking, 'Comrade, please show me your magic license.'" Karl didn't turn around, his voice muffled by his scarf, "and while I'm at it, I'll teach you something Hogwarts wouldn't dare teach."

Eve, who had been silent all along, suddenly moved. She stretched out her slender finger and pointed in a direction through the frosty car window: "Right—turn right at the fork in the road—there's the smell of a wooden house."

Karl raised an eyebrow and glanced at her, but didn't ask any questions. He pulled on the reins, and sure enough, in less than ten minutes, the outline of a low, dilapidated log cabin appeared in the snowstorm, looking like it would be buried by snow in the next second.

"Is enhanced sense of smell also a vampire's ability?" Lux asked curiously.

Eve blinked slowly, as if she needed time to process the problem.

"I don't know," she finally replied, her tone flat and emotionless.

"But the firewood in the house was damp, the potatoes were sprouting, and the vodka was diluted with water—I knew all that."

The group entered the small house, which looked even more dilapidated inside than outside, having been abandoned for many years.

Carl waved his wand, unleashing several silent cleaning spells that instantly vanished the dust, even the old ashes in the fireplace.

Eve then automatically and consciously began rummaging through drawers and cupboards, pulling out half a bag of frozen potatoes, several pieces of dried meat as black as charcoal, and a small bottle of murky liquid from some secluded corner.

She held the bottle up to the light, her expression unchanged, but her tone was certain: "It's vodka."

Lux: "—You can sense even when it's sealed?"

"By smell." Eve put down the bottle and began to carefully sort the potatoes, setting aside the sprouted ones. "You can't eat the sprouted ones; they'll make you fall asleep."

"That's poisoning," Lux retorted, noticing that Eve was unusually clear-headed today.

Karl's gaze swept over Eve: "It seems our vampire lady is somewhat moved by the scenery of her homeland?"

Eve looked up at the sound, her eyes still vacant, but her lips moved slightly as she murmured, "It seems like someone else has said something similar before—"

Lux and Karl were both taken aback.

Carl already knew that this vampire had some problems; she seemed to have no memory, and her relationship with Lux was very strange.

Every day, Lux would punch Eve hard and then feed her her own blood. Karl thought this might be a way to tame vampires, so he didn't interfere.

"You—you remember?" Lux looked at Eve in surprise. Ever since Eve was modified by LeBlanc, her memory has been completely blank. Apart from her instinct to eat and her hatred for LeBlanc's magic, she is almost like a newborn baby.

Eve slowly shook her head, a faint trace of confusion flashing in her blood-red eyes: "No—I don't know, I just—"

--Feel."

She tried to describe it, but her mind remained blank. A look of understanding flashed in Karl's eyes. He walked to the window, gently brushed away some of the frozen frost with the tip of his wand, and looked out at the endless coniferous forest covered with thick snow and the low-lying outlines of villages in the distance.

"Memories may fade, but the instinctive imprints of the senses and emotions are more deeply ingrained." His voice was calm, as if stating a magical principle.

"Especially for creatures like vampires, the connection between blood and geography is far beyond what ordinary people can imagine. She was born here, and even though she has lost her memory, the aura of this land can still awaken some—fragments."

Karl pushed open the door, and a cold wind carrying snowflakes rushed in. Lux instinctively wrapped her coarse cloth coat tighter around her.

"Let's find a place to stay in town first," Karl brushed the snow off his shoulders, his tone regaining its previous composure. "It's too far from the Ministry of Magic; they can't investigate here for the time being."

He pointed to the chimneys that were faintly visible in the distance.

"It's a small town, and there's a train station, which will make it easier for us to move around later. We'll be exploring the surrounding area."

After resting for a while, the group left the cabin. Karl didn't use a carriage because the snow on the ground was too thick, and a horse running swiftly in such weather would be too conspicuous. They also walked the short distance.

Lux followed behind, stepping in Karl's footprints. The snow was so deep that her boots sank halfway in, and she was panting heavily.

Seeing this, Eve reached out and grabbed Lux ​​by the back of her collar, lifting her gently so that Lux's feet left the ground, like a cat being lifted up: "Hey! What are you doing?"

"It saves effort." Eve's voice carried an air of self-assurance.

Karl glanced back, a slight smile playing on his lips. Lux struggled a couple of times but couldn't break free, so she resigned herself to her fate: "Then change your position, I'm about to suffocate!"

Over the next few days, Carl seemed to have fully embraced the role of mentor. He didn't rush to leave this remote place; instead, he seemed to have embarked on a truly aimless academic expedition, if one ignored the content of the expedition.

They traveled slowly between several cities by train, and sometimes Carl would use Apparition to take them on short jumps, always landing in sparsely populated abandoned cabins or caves in the suburbs.

He seemed to be intentionally avoiding any magical monitoring points that might reveal his whereabouts, and his movements were completely unpredictable.

Lux had secretly tried to memorize the route or leave magical marks, but Karl always managed to easily find and erase them, only giving her a half-smiling look that completely extinguished Lux's little scheme.

Carl seems to have an unusual interest in observing the lives of Muggles.

He would take Lux and Eve, conceal themselves with the Disappearance Charm, and stand on the edge of the communal farm's threshing floor, watching people process the frozen grain in a primitive way, or linger outside the only supply and marketing cooperative in a small town, watching residents line up with ration coupons to buy black bread and frozen potatoes.

Sometimes they would even take them into a factory to watch the roaring machines running.

"Amazing resilience, isn't it?" On one occasion, after observing a Soviet worker painstakingly repairing a truck with his almost frozen fingers.

Karl suddenly spoke, his voice unreadable, whether it was praise or sarcasm: "Inefficient, a waste of life, but they always find a way to survive. A blind, almost instinctive will to live. The magical world has been arrogant for too long, always thinking they are too weak to be worth mentioning, but ignoring the power behind this wild growth."

Lux watched silently as the worker exhaled white breath and pounded his aching lower back, feeling a pang of unease. She thought of Vova and the others, those who struggled to use magic to make their lives and the lives of those around them better.

On a snowy evening, they passed by a hall where a simple party was being held. Through the frosted glass windows, they could see people inside dressed in their best clothes, dancing clumsily to the cheerful melody played on an old accordion, while children screamed and chased each other.

Eve stood quietly in the shadows outside the window for a long time, until Carl gestured for her to leave. Only then did she whisper, "—It used to be like this—happy—"

These fragmented moments, belonging to Eve rather than the "artificial vampire," left Lux with mixed feelings.

She subconsciously kept a closer eye on Eve, and even began to habitually squeeze out a few more drops of blood each day when feeding her, as if that little bit of warmth could truly awaken more of the human side of her.

Of course, Karl's teaching never stopped.