459 Chapter 458 Durmstrang's Graduate Nun (2 in 1)
Jon and Hermione received extremely warm hospitality from the Delacour family.
Their trip had gone very smoothly, and they had found Gabrielle's mum, dad, and sister without encountering any twists or turns in the middle.
By the time they got to the midday meal, they also had the chance to exchange information with each other.
After the Delacour family had urgently escaped from France in the very beginning, they had initially settled down in Germany, and then the first thing they thought about was picking up Gabrielle.
But at that time Voldemort had already completely taken over the whole of France, re-correctional camps had already been set up, and France was in chaos, so the Delacour family had no chance of contacting any of the connections they had left behind in France before.
At that time Madame Maxime had also fled from Beauxbatons, and even if they had been able to contact someone, there would have been no way to find their youngest daughter, who had been turned into a ghost and entrusted to Hogwarts.
Then later on, Germany became unsafe because of the confrontation between Witching Horizon and Voldemort, and fierce bloodthirsty individuals began to create chaos everywhere, so the Delacour family had no choice but to travel further north, to Copenhagen, Denmark.
They lived there for about half a year, and it was during that time that the entire Delacour family became exposed to Muggle habits.
The worsening situation in the magical world had made them prepared for the fact that if it really came to that inevitable point later on, then their family would rather abandon their identity as wizards and everything related to magic, and just be muggles than be pureblood slaves.
Similarly, even at that time, this family did not give up on the idea of trying to bring back Gabrielle, and Mr Delacour tried countless ways to reconnect with his previous connections who were still in France, to try and get some information.
However, at that time, just before the Witching Horizon broke through the re-correctional camp, the war was at its most intense point, Mr Delacour's attempts not only failed to yield any results but also exposed the family's hiding place in Copenhagen.
They were forced to make a second move, and after this time Mr Delacour, as head of the family, finally made up his mind to keep his wife and eldest daughter safe first, choosing to believe in Madame Maxime's ability to provide good care for Gabrielle.
They then travelled to Aarhus, where they changed their family name and settled down for good, Mr. Delacour for the last time used his magic to give the family a false identity that would be legal in Muggle society, and then sealed the wands of all the members of the family.
They had begun to understand and become accustomed to Muggle's daily life, and even when they had been harassed in the first few months, they had called the police to solve the problem.
And it was under these circumstances that Jon and Hermione came to the door with Gabrielle in tow.
Jon also provided an account to the Delacour family regarding what had happened in the last two years in the wizarding world.
From the battle of capturing the re-correctional centre that took place not long after their family had just decided to completely cut ties with the wizarding world, to the three power struggles that began later on when only Paris and Beauxbatons were left in France that hadn't been reclaimed, and lastly, to the fact that Witching Horizon had now completely reclaimed the entirety of France.
It was only now that the Delacour family realised what had happened in the magical world when they had been left with no hope at all.
Gabrielle's father was ashamed of this.
He confessed to Jon about his incompetence and how he had no choice but to run away from the situation instead of joining forces with those around him to fight back.
Jon, on the other hand, consoled him that at that time, when the Witching Horizon had not yet been formed, fleeing was the most correct choice.
If he really chose to resist at that time, then the Delacour family would not be able to make a single wave, and the whole family would directly disappear from the face of the earth.
The key to the French wizard's ability to fight Voldemort is Dumbledore.
Only with the top combatant who can fight hard with Voldemort himself, the Witching Horizon qualifies to call the shots with the two magical governments of Britain and France at that time.
Jon certainly didn't add himself to the list of these big events he was recounting.
But even if he didn't, Gabrielle, who had already wiped away her tears, couldn't hold back at all, telling her parents and sister all the experiences she had with Jon when she turned into a ghost, as if she were throwing beans at them.
To be frank, Gabrielle's experience was much more wonderful than most of the Hogwarts students.
When she was still in ghost form, she followed Jon to the North Pole, and that trip could be said to have been deep into the tiger's den.
It was also from her that the Delacours' learnt that the young man in front of them, who seemed harmless on the outside, didn't seem to be as serene as he appeared to be on the outside.
After chatting everything out and having a nice lunch at Delacour, the family of course had decided to move back to France with them.
It just didn't have to be such a rushed move, they had been living here for a year now, and there were still things to pack. People couldn't just disappear, their relationships in Muggle society had to be sorted out, so they weren't in a hurry to leave the same day.
Jon and Hermione weren't in a hurry to go back after they had taken Gabrielle to find her family either.
It was supposed to be summer holidays, they had never been to Denmark before, and with the Delacour family's gracious invitation, it really wasn't a problem to stay and play for a few days.
So after determining to stay and play for a couple of days, Jon first wrote a letter to Dumbledore, informing him that the trip had gone well, and asked him to also help convey this matter to Madame Maxime so that she could rest assured.
Aarhus, as the second-largest city in Denmark, and also a harbour city, does have quite a few places worth visiting.
The old buildings here are basically in the Gothic style, the most famous of which is St. Clement's church in the centre of the city, which retains part of the old sections from 1197, and which underwent a major revision in the fifteenth century into the Gothic style, with a repair in the sixties and seventies when a spire was added.
It was mainly Gabrielle's sister Fleur who acted as a guide for the afternoon outing, and she looked like she couldn't wait to talk to her sister after not seeing her for a long time and had a million things waiting to be said, so she led Gabrielle ahead of them, while Jon and Hermione followed them.
"My mum's religious, and at first I followed her through the pre-dinner prayers when I was in primary school. But then after being taken to Hogwarts Castle, I stopped believing."
Hermione looked up at the church, which was full of the scars of age.
"Maybe there really is a god in this world, but the odds are that it isn't some omnipotent God are high, instead it might be an immensely powerful wizard found by the muggles in the world."
Jon chimed in.
"In fact, I used to be surprised as to why a large portion of wizards still have the habit of being religious, after all, if one understands the magic in-depth, one would know that in fact, the essence of the magic we master is the ability to do what the mind wants, and magic is the source of this ability. Wizards already possessed such an ability, so why bother to believe that there would be a God in this world? At the time, I issued this question to my teacher, Professor Slughorn, and he told me that magic also has boundaries, just as no one can violate the Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration till now, even the most powerful wizards have no way to conjure food out of thin air, or even turn another inedible thing into something that can be eaten. Precisely because wizards couldn't do it, they would fantasise that an omnipotent God would be able to do it, and so the teachings could be spread throughout the magical community."
"And the point of believing or not believing in the religion is not based on whether or not a wizard has extraordinary abilities that a muggle doesn't have, but rather on whether or not the individual has a materialistic world-view that believes that matter determines consciousness, and the magic we use obviously breaks that law; magic allows the 'will' to change matter, which leads to the fact that wizards will be much more prone to believing that the world might possess an omniscient and omnipotent God who can rely on consciousness to control the world."
Hermione saw the cross directly in front of the church.
"Perhaps it's because the laws of magic haven't been found for real yet? Magic is consciousnessless, which makes it also a substance, could it be possible that wizards' so-called reliance on their 'will' to influence the world could just be a case of artificially altering one substance with another substance like muggles mastering the use of tools?"
"I think I remember reading somewhere that someone had studied that question." Jon mused.
Before he could come up with an answer, Hermione had already named the source of this conjecture.
"It was in Durmstrang's library, and there was a section of notebooks that were making all sorts of hypotheses like this one, which clearly doesn't seem like something that a pure wizard could come up with."
It was only after hearing her speak of Durmstrang's library that a dawning realisation appeared on Jon's face.
This was not surprising at all then.
It wasn't surprising that some odd bit of knowledge could be found in Durmstrang, especially given that Jon had some inside knowledge of what Grindelwald was doing.
"It's just enough for us to talk about it amongst ourselves, but don't let anyone else hear about it, if some paranoid wizard hears about it, there could be trouble."
Their conversation wasn't loud, but since Fleur and Gabrielle had been walking right in front of them, they could vaguely hear some of the contents.
But obviously, even if they had been getting into Muggle society for a while, there was no way that Fleur would have been able to understand all of this, and she just looked down at Gabrielle with a weird look on her face and asked in a small voice.
"Are they in love? That's a strange way for a couple to communicate with each other."
"No!"
Gabrielle answered loudly and surely, but it was more like a gesture of anger.
Fleur was still wondering why she was reacting so violently when an unexpected voice suddenly inserted itself into their chat.
"Professor Green?"
All four of them froze at the sudden address, and Jon froze for a few seconds before reacting to the fact that this address was calling out to him.
He turned his head to the source of the voice, a girl who had just walked out of the church, dressed as a nun, waved at him with wide eyes.
"And you are?"
The nun turned her head and whispered something to an older nun beside her, and then the old woman, who looked like she must have been in her seventies or eighties by some estimation, gave Jon a deep look and then turned to leave.
The nun who had been given permission, on the other hand, trotted cheerfully to Jon's side.
"Helene Rosier, Professor, you probably don't remember much about me, but you do remember my cousin Diane, don't you? I'm just two months younger than her."
Hearing her introduce herself like that, coupled with the title of professor, would make Jon certain that this was a student of Durmstrang.
Or it should be said ex-student.
The fact that she was only two months younger than Diane meant that they were in the same class, and now that Diane was supposed to be a graduate by the end of the semester in which the Triwizard Tournament was taking place, this girl named Helene should be the same.
The only wrong thing was that Durmstrang student came to Denmark to become a nun in the church after she graduated?
Although Jon was nominally a professor of Durmstrang, he really didn't know much about the employment options after graduation in this magical school.
Were the options this wide?
"I had a feeling that it might be you from a big distance away, but didn't quite have the nerve to recognise you, the last time I saw you properly was on the night when the Triwizard Tournament finally ended, and I remembered that you got younger in age due to some kind of magic accident at that time, and I didn't expect you to actually change back so quickly."
Helene was obviously a very enthusiastic girl, she had no problem grabbing Jon's hand and started talking to herself.
Jon, on the contrary, had the presence of mind to pull his hand out of the arms of the young girl, who looked like a novice nun, by lightly jerking his hand out of her arms.
It was only at this point that Helene seemed to notice the presence of others around her.
The little girl who was glaring at her in exasperation didn't look like a stranger to her, Gabrielle had been running around with her Ghost identity back in Durmstrang, and many of the Durmstrang students knew her.
As for Hermione, who looked like her facial expression hadn't changed much and was still full of smiles, but her eyes were slightly narrowed, she was even less of a stranger.
As a part of the students who had followed Vinda Rosier to Hogwarts Castle this year, she of course knew that the girl with the long chestnut-coloured hair and the duck-tongue hat on her head was Jon's date at last year's ball.
It was only Fleur that she hadn't met, but just by her face, which was an enlarged edition of Gabrielle's, she could guess what their relationship was with a little bit of brainstorming.
"Are you out travelling, Professor?"
Helene asked with an ambiguous smile as she waved her hand at Gabrielle, Hermione, and Fleur, the rest of the group as well.
Being able to tell that this Rosier was clearly not as serious as her sister Diane, and was definitely thinking of something rude in her head, Jon nonchalantly tapped her on the head in return to make her take a few steps back.
"We are here to take Gabrielle to her family, I don't know what kind of matters you're dallying about, don't be careless and fail to maintain the boundaries just because you think you're already out of Durmstrang, alright?"
It was rare for Jon to use his position as a professor to lecture someone about something like this, mainly because the students of Durmstrang were pretty much obeying Grindelwald, and they had basically all identified Jon as a professor, only after the Triwizard Tournament.
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