In the Harry Potter Without Harry Potter

Chapter 425: Will you come to me? (2 in 1)

Frank, who lives in Devon, thinks he has found the love of his life.

It was Miss Marita Coulibaly, who lived right at the foot of the town's hills, and who had only recently moved to this small town of Billis three years ago, where everyone else in the town thought she was an odd woman.

She spent all her day in her house, either studying the strange, untouchable flowers and plants or hiding away on the first floor, where no one was allowed to go, doing unknown activities.

But Frank found Miss Coulibaly to be a rather attractive woman.

It was a mysterious and sensual beauty that no normal person would appreciate, and he loved watching the lady in her old-fashioned robes that no normal person would ever wear, and he had secretly caught her in private wearing a peaked hat that only a playful little girl would wear on Halloween.

Miss Coulibaly was all nervous when her little secret was discovered by him, she had a little wooden stick in her hand and kept asking Frank if he had seen anything else, acting like a witch in the process!

Frank thought that he had uncovered Miss Coulibaly's private secret of being a childish little girl at heart, which made him happy, as the quickest way to promote affection between a man and a woman is to have a shared secret to keep.

Of course, he said he hadn't seen anything and reassuringly told Miss Coulibaly that he would never tell anyone about her being all alone at home role-playing.

When he left that day, he could clearly feel Miss Coulibaly's struggling expression as she held the little wooden stick, as if she was really debating whether or not to cast a spell on him.

It was that feeling that made Frank feel even more amused.

Miss Coulibaly was such an interesting lady.

It was just that for the past two days, somehow, Miss Coulibaly had been hiding in her house as if she were ill, and had not even looked after the flowers outside her door, but Frank had kept an eye on them, and from time to time had stopped by to water them.

Yesterday, however, as he stood hesitantly on the doorstep to pay a visit, he ended up vaguely seeing that charming young lady through the window as she was, for some reason, drawing on paper a chilling design of a snake poking its body out of a skull.

Frank didn't know what happened when he saw the design, but he felt his body go cold and his mind go blank as if his body had triggered a sense of self-preservation, and by the time he came back to his senses, he had walked away from the compound of Miss Coulibaly.

But the uneasiness in Frank's mind did not dissipate when he got home, and he fidgeted around the house all day today, finally feeling the need to take the biscuits his mother had just made and visit the young lady.

He took his gift to the foot of the hill at the very edge of town, where there was just a fenced yard that looked so out of place with the rest of the town's homes.

Frank looked outside the fence, but before he could make a sound, the small gate to the courtyard suddenly opened itself, whether by the wind or by some other means.

He didn't hesitate for a few seconds before he entered Miss Coulibaly's yard with the basket containing the biscuits.

The lady with black-framed glasses and shoulder-length brown and black hair was sitting in the middle of the garden drinking tea.

The morning sun shone on her making Frank's heart stop half a beat.

"What can I do for you? Mr. Frank."

The beautiful, elegant young lady held her cup of tea and didn't look up, her gaze stayed on a piece of parchment that looked like someone had written her a letter.

"Er, I've come to apologise for yesterday, Miss Coulibaly." Frank swallowed, "I didn't mean to peek at you, I wanted to explain at that time, but my brain for some reason went blank and took control of my body and went home on its own."

"Don't worry about it, it's not your fault, there was some mishap in my Muggle-Repelling Charm."

"Muggle-Repelling Charm?"

Frank stammered and repeated the phrase he had never heard before.

"What have you got for me?" Coulibaly asked casually, without sounding like she was deliberately pulling away from that conversation as if she just took an interest in what Frank was holding.

"Pies, biscuits, my mum made them herself, I always believed there was no one in the whole of Devon who could make them better than she would."

Frank said as he walked into the garden to place the basket on the table.

Coulibaly looked interested and Frank caught a glimpse of the parchment at this time.

'-The only lord we need is you, not that madman, without you to sail the ship, Britain will not be able to withstand Dumbledore's rebellion.'

The words flashed through Frank's mind for just a moment, as before he even had time to fully grasp their meaning, he politely averted his gaze from the parchment.

It was strange, wasn't it? Who would call another person 'lord' these days?

And Coulibaly looked too preoccupied with the basket of biscuits to care what Frank was looking at.

Just then, an owl suddenly flew overhead and started gliding low, aiming for the centre of the garden, and when it reached Coulibaly, a roll of a newspaper was dropped and landed precisely on the wooden table.

Frank watched the scene in awe, while Coulibaly unfolded the roll of newspaper as if she was used to it.

On the large front page was a moving black-and-white photograph of two men standing together, one with a straight, hawkish nose, long greasy hair that fell to his shoulders like a seaweed, a blank stare and a pale, gloomy face.

The other has short blond hair and a much younger appearance, except that his face also looks unsightly, staring at the camera with indifference and suspicion.

Around the background of these two men stood what looked like several children in robes, and even a young boy who looked to be six or seven years old could be seen standing directly behind them, as well as an old man with oddly crescent-shaped glasses.

The headline on the front page was also seen by Frank.

[A week after the end of the Triwizard Tournament, the defeat didn't end as badly as we thought]

"This, why this newspaper..."

"That idiot dared to pick Barty Crouch in that situation but discard Severus Snape, does he even know what he's doing?"

A grim smile that Frank had never seen before crossed Coulibaly's face.

The curved corners of her mouth reminded him of a viper, cold and deadly!

"Miss Coulibaly. What is the meaning of this." Frank subconsciously swallowed, "What was that owl all about just now? And this newspaper, why is the picture on it moving."

"Thank you for the biscuits you sent, Frank, and thank you for coming to my door today and saving me the trouble of going after you."

Once again Frank's words were interrupted as the hand with the bright red polished nails had somehow managed to grip the little wooden stick that Miss Coulibaly had always had at her side, and the tip of it was aimed at him!

The next moment Frank only saw a green light flare up, and then he was plunged into complete darkness.

"Plop."

A young body fell to the ground, but "Miss Coulibaly" acted as if she had done something trivial, her smile unchanged as she returned her gaze to the Daily Prophet.

At the same time, she savoured the morning tea with biscuits that had been given to her by the being she had just killed.

Her eyes gazed into the vacant eyes of the greasy seaweed-headed man in the front page photo, as if the two had actually met face to face in reality, and 'Miss Coulibaly' licked her scarlet lips.

"After knowing how stupid that fool was I suppose you will come to me now, won't you, Severus?"

***

France was restored to its former glory.

After the last isolated part of Paris, the French Ministry of Magic was completely occupied by Witching Horizon, it represented the fall of the whole of France into Dumbledore's hands.

When the results of the Triwizard Tournament were known, Headmaster Karkaroff, who had only been at the school for a year or so, abandoned the rest of the school and fled back to Britain using the special Floo network that had been linked to Britain.

The other professors who had supported Voldemort's rule in France, and the students who had been divided up by bloodlines over the course of the year, were all taken over by the Witching Horizon.

This meant that all three well-known schools of wizardry in Europe had come under the control of the Witching Horizon, at least in terms of education, Dumbledore and the others had won a complete victory.

Not only did the students brought back from Hogwarts Castle have to be dealt with, but the brainwashed and mind-altered muggle-born also had to be rehabilitated back to normal, dignified human beings.

As for the current ruling and governance within the French magical community, Dumbledore had no intention of interfering either, leaving it entirely up to Iniesta to organise and set up the new French Ministry of Magic.

He was frank enough to assure Dumbledore, in front of the new Ministry of Magic, he declared, that as long as the Death Eaters represented by Voldemort were not completely defeated, the French Ministry of Magic would remain under Dumbledore's Witching Horizon.

And as long as there is a single French muggle-born left alive, then they will never forget the sacrifices and efforts made by a group of British wizards like the Order of the Phoenix to bring equality to France today.

This was certainly a welcome development, and Iniesta's clear statement not only silenced some of the negative and discordant voices within the newly formed French Ministry of Magic that had emerged after the complete restoration of France but also dissipated some of the doubts and mistrust towards the French that had existed within the Order of the Phoenix.

Also with Beauxbaton having been completely liberated, Gabrielle was finally able to return to her normal self and never have to live as a ghost again.

When Jon took her to find the body that belonged to her that Madame Maxime had hidden in Beauxbaton, Gabrielle seemed a little reluctant to turn back into a human being, the life of a ghost had made her a little addicted to it.

But in the end, she let her soul return to her body, happy as she was as a ghost, but she was also aware that her mum, papa and sister would be devastated if they saw her as a ghost in the future.

A body without a soul is still alive and breathing; Madame Maxime was fully prepared for this when she left her body in Beauxbaton, knowing that when she escaped from Beauxbaton, there would be no one to maintain the energy that Gabrielle's body would need to grow naturally, so she soaked her body in a special potion that suppressed her growth.

This led to the fact that although Gabrielle had been with Jon and the others for two years in her ghost form, her body had only grown in age for about a few short months, which left her, who should have been ten years old, still only seven or eight in appearance.

But even so, she still looked older than Jon, who still maintained the appearance of a six-year-old today.

"Jon, please, Jon, will you call me sister, you see it fits our current age!"

Even though she had returned to Lyon, Gabrielle was still clinging to Jon, like she couldn't wait to hear Jon call her sister for the pleasure it would bring.

But Jon never relented, no matter how sweetly Gabrielle persuaded him to do so.

"You need to stop daydreaming." The outwardly non-threatening Jon rolled his eyes, "Instead of bugging me here now, why don't you think about how you're going to write to your Mama and Papa now that the situation in France has stabilised, and you can be reunited with them."

Jon's choice of diversion was masterful, and sure enough, Gabrielle stopped pestering him.

"Then you can't sneakily grow up all of a sudden, at most, you can grow up until you're as big as me and we'll go to wizarding school together in the same year later!"

What was going on in the little girl's head, Jon figured he would never be able to guess, he just nodded his head repeatedly and agreed with all his heart, but was already muttering in his mind that in less than two months he would probably be back to his previous 15 years old self.

Just as Jon was getting ready to head back to his dormitory in Lyon's temporary Hogwarts school site, he suddenly ran into Lupin who was walking briskly out of his office and looked ready to head towards the Floo network fireplace room.

"Did something happen? Professor Lupin." Jon asked, seeing the hard look on his face.

Facing Jon, Lupin didn't hold anything back.

"Today was supposed to be the day that the group of Death Eater captives were to be executed, but as they were bringing the prisoners over, they discovered that Snape was missing!"

Jon froze as well.

"Snape's missing?"

----

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