"Don't worry. My foolish teacher has plenty of experience traveling through time. He won't do anything reckless." The Old Wizard saw Anton's mouth twitch and tried to reassure him.
Boom!
One wall of the Safe House exploded!
Goblin Pedro shot out amid the deafening blast, rolled across the ground, and came to a stop beside Anton.
"Damn it, how was I so strong 38 years ago!" Pedro struggled to his feet, blood streaming from his chest and abdomen. "I must've sealed away some more of my memories again. Damn it, I don't even remember that Secret Art of the Goblin I used!"
Thud.
A translucent Aladdin's Lamp rolled rapidly to a stop in front of Pedro. Then a huge cloud of smoke poured from its spout, and a Pedro in a large robe stepped out.
He frowned at Pedro on the ground. "Damn it, which time period are you from? The past, or the future?"
"Whatever. It doesn't matter."
"Are you all trying to drive me crazy? One came yesterday, another the day before, and five days ago two from different periods showed up at the same time! Don't you know I can only remember thirty years' worth of memories? You keep stuffing more into my head all day, and now I have to clean them out again!"
Just then, Rosier and Nagini came rushing over with his students.
Pedro muttered a curse. His robe rippled, and a huge transparent cloth flew through the air, covering Pedro, Anton, and the others.
The cloth was so strange that even the Old Wizard couldn't pass through it. He was trapped beneath it with them.
The others seemed unable to see Anton and his companions as they crowded around.
Pedro glanced irritably at his apprentices. "What are you staring at? Get lost!"
After scolding them, he turned and stared coldly at Rosier and Nagini. "Damn it!"
"I may have invented the Blood Curse, but that doesn't mean every person afflicted by it and turned into a Blood-Cursed Werewolf has to come looking for me!"
Under the cloth, Anton gave the robed Pedro a strange look, then glanced at the three-piece-suit Pedro beside him. He'd heard that line twice now.
The thing was, the other time, Snape had brought Nagini to see him.
It was always Nagini.
Anton even had a strange, absurd thought. Could every Nagini Pedro mentioned be a different version of her from another time?
"Clean out your memories?" The Old Wizard looked puzzled as he stared at Pedro. "You can clean out your memories?"
Pedro sneered at him. "Of course. If I don't want to forget the most important early memories about the Goblin Community, I have to clear out the unimportant ones every so often. For example, you, my foolish apprentice, Fiennes. All I remember is that I hate you and a few essential details for dealing with you."
He tapped his enormous head. "Now that you've become a Ghost, I can safely clear out all my memories of you."
"You only remember a few things for dealing with me?" The Old Wizard was furious. He glared at Pedro. "So all those times you tormented me, I was the only one who remembered them, while you could carry on living without a care in the world?"
While the two argued, a quarrel broke out beyond the cloth as well.
"You don't even remember me!" Nagini stared at him in disbelief, fury rising in her delicate features.
Rosier frowned and stepped in front of his wife, fixing the Goblin with a cold glare.
"Master Pedro, my wife is Nagini. Her surname is Pedro!"
The Goblin was taken aback. "She has the same surname as me?"
He cackled with a vicious, smug grin, as if he'd heard something amusing. "Pedro is a noble surname among Goblins."
He gave Nagini a mocking look. "Come on, tell me. Which fool in my Community chose to be with one of the human Wizards who slaughtered our people, and gave birth to a half-breed like you?"
"Half-breed?" Nagini clutched her chest and staggered back a step, her face deathly pale. The world seemed to spin around her.
Rosier moved to catch her, but she wrenched herself free.
Nagini took two steps forward and stared down at the Goblin. Through clenched teeth, she forced out each word, her voice ice-cold. "My surname is not Pedro. It never was, it never will be, and it never shall be!"
With that, she turned and walked away. Rosier hurried after her, saying something Anton couldn't make out, and their Carriage shot into the sky.
Rosier stayed behind.
He drew his Wand, and a terrifying aura burst from him. "Pedro, she's your daughter!"
"Hahahaha..." Goblin Pedro burst out laughing. "Veela mix with humans, Giants mix with humans, Centaurs, Werewolves—anything you can name does."
As he spoke, the smile vanished from his face, replaced by a cold, hard expression. "But our Goblins are the one exception!"
"You humans killed our entire race! Goblins once spread all over the world. Now, aside from the worthless slaves you keep penned up in Gringotts and all those factories, I can barely find any of my own kind."
"This is a blood feud!"
A gigantic purple-skinned Goblin Golem appeared behind him, with five heads and four arms. It held a longbow, and arrows forged from Magical Power were aimed at Rosier.
"Heh." Rosier gave an inscrutable smile. "She really is your daughter, you ridiculous Pedro."
Pedro was stunned. "Impossible."
The Pedro beneath the cloth was stunned too, wearing exactly the same expression. "Impossible."
Anton was stunned as well. He felt that if someone told him Voldemort was actually a child magically conceived by Dumbledore and Grindelwald, he'd believe that too.
This was far too much for his worldview!
He had never imagined that different intelligent species in the Wizarding World could have half-blood children.
What a mess!
For a moment, his mind was full of weeds.
Anna was stunned too. She stared at Pedro in a daze. "You're my grandfather? Then why did you treat my mother like this?"
Pedro looked at Anna and shrank back a little. "I don't know. I clear out my memories all the time. I don't remember! I don't even remember how I became friends with Rosier."
Endless black mist surged behind Rosier.
It churned as if some terrifying creature lurked within, and faint, distorted screams came from inside.
Rosier pointed his Wand at Pedro. "Listen. I never wanted to come looking for you, but your Blood Curse has already killed your wife. Now your daughter and granddaughter are both suffering from the Blood Curse you invented!"
"Today, you either tell me how to break the Curse, or you'll be buried at the bottom of the lake in Knockturn Alley."
"The Blood Curse?" Pedro shook his huge head, looking confused. "I don't remember."
He stared at Rosier in bewilderment. "I only remember the name of the Curse. I don't remember anything else! It's unbelievable. How could I forget such a powerful Curse?"
"My memories seem to be gone!"
"Hahahaha!" Rosier was clearly furious. He swung his Wand.
Boom!
The black mist behind him surged and slammed into Pedro.
Pedro was sent flying. The purple Goblin Golem behind him was crushed by the immense Magical Power and burst apart.
He plowed a deep furrow into the ground before finally coming to a stop by the lake.
Rosier walked over, his face icy. He planted a foot on Pedro's chest and pointed his Wand at him again. "I'll count to one. If you haven't told me how to break the Blood Curse by then, you die."
Pedro struggled to get up. "I really don't remember!"
"Three!"
Fear glimmered in Pedro's eyes. "I can't die! I'm the only one left in this world who still remembers the Goblin Community's history in full. I can't die! If I die, no one will remember Goblin history anymore!"
"Two!"
Light shone at Pedro's fingertips, and Magical Power surged.
With two loud bangs, his entire arm exploded, and blood spilled everywhere.
"One!"
Panicked and despairing, Pedro cried out, "I really don't remember!"
Rosier frowned. "You really don't remember?"
Pedro swallowed. "I really don't remember. My memories are gone."
With his remaining left hand, he grabbed Rosier's ankle. "Give me some time. I'll go back to the past and look for the answer. I'll tell you, I promise."
The black mist surged and swallowed half his body.
"Don't kill me! I can't die!" Pedro wailed. "I really don't remember! Give me a chance. You're trying to save your wife and children, aren't you? If you kill me, you won't have a chance!"
Rosier stared down at him with cold eyes for a long time. Finally, he lifted his foot from Pedro's chest. "Pedro, understand the resources at a Pure-blood Family's disposal. I can find you easily. You won't have a chance to run."
"Three days. I'll come back here in three days. You'd better have an answer for me."
Pedro breathed a sigh of relief. "I'll tell you, I promise."
With a soft pop, Rosier vanished.
Pedro struggled to his feet and slowly made his way over to Anton and the others. Then he lifted the cloth.
First, he stared at the Old Wizard in surprise, then turned to the Pedro in the suit. "That foolish apprentice died? Then you must be the one who came back from the future. Tell me, where did the memories of my Blood Curse go?"
The Pedro in the suit looked bewildered. "I don't know either!"
"???" The two Pedros stared at each other.
Finally, the robed Pedro clutched his shoulder and turned to leave. "Stay hidden. Don't let anyone find you. Damn it, I must've messed up my memories by wandering through time whenever I felt like it."
"If even my future self doesn't know, I'm doomed. I can't beat him in a fight, so I'll have to find a way to run."
The Old Wizard watched Pedro with a sneer. "I remember this moment, you despicable little man. While Olaro was going mad and killing everyone, you faked your death and left me for Rosier. He nearly killed me."
The robed Pedro whipped around and stared at him, eyes wide. "My female apprentice is finally going mad? A fake death? Brilliant idea! Wonderful!"
He sprinted toward the Safe House. A moment later, it vanished from sight once more.
The Old Wizard stared in disbelief. "I was the one who told him that idea?"
"Hahaha." The Pedro in the suit pointed at the Old Wizard. "My foolish apprentice!"
Of all the mixed-blood pairings in the Wizarding World, the most outrageous is the one between humans and Giants. I still can't understand how Hagrid's father managed to get his mother pregnant.
Before you continue