22.chapter 22
George and Al stayed in the Forbidden Forest until dusk before sneaking back to Hogwarts. After experiencing it twice in one afternoon, Al was a little exhausted, dragged his steps to the restaurant, and sat down in his seat.
"Where have you been?" Draco's attention was pulled away from Harry and he asked unhappily, "I've been looking for you all afternoon."
"You didn't, you were just playing with Harry." Al calmly exposed Draco, "My brother has no time to pay attention to me, so I had to go play with Weasley."
George heard his last name and winked at Al from across the table.
Draco was choked and had nothing to say. He had indeed spent a pleasant afternoon with Harry, but Al was never there, and he thought Al didn't know he was here.
"Eat quickly. Go back to bed after eating. I'm very sleepy." Al said while stuffing food into his mouth while falling asleep. Draco always admired him for chewing constantly and being able to do it next time. He fell asleep on the plate in seconds.
There was a commotion at the table, and Al was eating absentmindedly, noticing that George had added a piece of sugar to Ron's pumpkin juice when he wasn't looking.
Ron was unprepared. He picked up the pumpkin juice and drank it in one go. Aldo wondered if he would accidentally choke on the candy for a second. There was a "crackling" sound, and Ron's red hair seemed to have been electrocuted. Seemingly pointing vertically in all directions, this turn of events shocked Ron. Although he didn't know what happened to him, judging from the cheerful atmosphere on the dining table, he had made a fool of himself again.
Al burst out laughing along with everyone else around him. Except for the professor, everyone had one thought in their mind: Fortunately, it wasn't me who got pranked.
After finally returning to the dormitory, Al fell asleep on the bed, almost falling asleep after a moment until he was woken up by someone.
"Stop it, Draco, let me sleep." Al waved his hand impatiently.
"You haven't showered yet, Al." Draco continued to shake him reluctantly.
"Then clean it up for me, please." After muttering, Al's consciousness became blurry again. Half asleep and half awake, he seemed to hear the door of the dormitory ringing, and then the room became quiet again.
Something seems wrong. The uneasiness in his subconscious prevented Al from falling into a deep sleep calmly. A voice in his mind whispered to him: Draco was out.
where did he go
Al finally woke up. He slowly sat up from the bed and lit his wand. Sure enough, Draco was not in the room and had gone somewhere.
Al held his forehead and recalled that on Christmas night, Harry used the invisibility cloak given by his father to go on a night trip. As a result, he found the Mirror of Erised, which can reflect the deepest desires in people's hearts. Draco was not involved in this plot, so where did Draco go at this point?
While thinking that his eyelids were still fighting and about to stick together, Al shook his head hard, slapped himself twice, and finally woke up.
He casually put on a robe, and while mentally complaining about Draco's careless child, he slowed down and left the Slytherin cellar.
The light of the wand was kept low by Al. Without George and Fred, he might encounter Filch. As he walked along, Al looked for the tall armor described in the original book in various corridors. It was too difficult to find. There were a lot of armors in Hogwarts. And if Al hadn't been so impressed by the plot of the Mirror of Erised, he wouldn't have been able to remember what was at the door of that room.
Fortunately he never encountered Filch, but occasionally the wand's light would cause the portrait on the wall to complain. After searching for an unknown amount of time, Al stopped in front of a door that was ajar. There's a suit of armor next to this door, and it's really tall, with the top of its head almost touching the ceiling.
There were faint voices coming from inside, which sounded like Harry and Draco's. Al couldn't help but rolled his eyes, doing something illegal.
How dare they be so blatant? I really don’t know whether these two children are brave or stupid.
Al cautiously looked in through the crack in the door, but the room was dark and he couldn't see anything. Thinking that it must be Draco and Harry inside, Al suddenly became playful and thought about how to scare these two children.
Before he could come up with a brilliant idea, the sudden female voice in the room made the blood drain from his face.
"Xiao Heng, look at mom, don't sleep, open your eyes, please wake up quickly."
That was his name in his previous life.
That was his mother's voice.
Al pushed open the door to the room uncontrollably and rushed in with a quick stride.
The scene in front of me suddenly changed.
The strong light stung Al and he covered his eyes with his hands. There were several people standing in this narrow room with white sheets on the walls. Al stood at the door, barely opening his eyes and looking at these people in shock.
The woman lying beside the bed was his mother.
This was a ward, and even though eleven years had passed, he could still recognize it at a glance as the ward where Al lived before he died of illness. The familiar face on the hospital bed that I had not seen in eleven years had its eyes closed, pale and without a trace of blood. A lifeless straight line on the bedside electrocardiograph screen announced that this person had lost his life.
Al walked towards his mother unsteadily. His father was also beside her, holding her shoulders, but he could hardly stand still. His face was full of tears. In the past twenty years, Al had never seen his father cry. Live like this.
For a moment, Al couldn't tell what was an illusion and what was reality. Did he really come to the wizarding world, or was he a hallucination on his deathbed? Is the new life just a joke played by God on him? Now he wants to take it all back and let Al face the reality that he is dead?
A second before his fingers touched his mother's shoulder, Al's feet gave way and he fell down, losing consciousness immediately.
Before he fell into coma, he seemed to see someone's white hair and a white beard that was as long as a waterfall.
When he woke up again, the room was already bright. Al sank into the soft bed, turned his head slightly, and saw Draco sleeping peacefully on the four-poster bed next to him.
Al rubbed his temples and felt that he had a terrible headache.
Draco didn't have a night out last night, so was it just him who went out, or was he just having a nightmare?
Why did he see the scene after his last life and why did he see Dumbledore before he passed out?
If it wasn't a dream, was it Dumbledore who sent him back?
Al jumped onto Draco's bed, grabbed Draco's shoulders without gentleness, and began to shake him vigorously.
"Wake up Draco"
This time it was Draco who grunted impatiently, causing Al to stop quickly. Al didn't give up, until Draco couldn't do anything, he sat up with eyes blank, and asked: "Did you go on a night out with Harry last night?"
Draco yawned hugely: "Yeah, I wanted to pull you along, but you didn't want to get up. Harry and I found something very interesting. Harry said he saw himself in it. My family, I also saw my parents and you, but we are all grown up, and I still hold my father’s scepter.”
Family and power, sounds like Draco. So, everything that happened last night is true.
As Al recalled what happened last night, Draco rubbed his eyes, leaned close to Al, and touched his cheek.
"Why are you crying?"
No matter what was in that room or who brought him back, Al vowed never to take a step closer to that room again.