Campfire Night Talk

Loren followed Hermione, his mind still on what had just happened. As he walked, he felt something moving in his coat pocket.

The clothes were outdoor gear provided by the hotel, and he clearly remembered that the pockets were empty.

Without thinking twice, Loren took the contents of his pocket out.

Then, he fell silent, staring at the broken little mirror in front of him.

A cold, penetrating sensation emanated from my fingers. The oval mirror, about the size of my palm, was covered in white cracks, making it impossible to see anything clearly. Below it was a slender stick handle, the tip of which was inlaid with a delicate red gemstone.

The material feels like some kind of metal. The entire mirror is sculpted in the shape of a flower, with the handle representing the stem and the mirror surface as petals. It's completely black; I don't know if this was its original color or if it's faded over time.

After a slight hesitation, Loren put the mirror back in his pocket and kept it.

It's more or less a magical item, and it even contains magic related to illusions. Whether you use the mirror itself or discover new magic through it, it's a worthwhile investment.

Hermione picked up another twig and put it in her linen Small Pouch. Turning to look at Loren, who was dawdling behind her, she said irritably, "It'll get dark soon if you slow down any longer. Come and help!"

"Coming!" Loren snapped out of his daze and answered, quickening his pace to catch up.

The two gathered some firewood, and when they estimated that the Mr. and Mrs. Granger had almost finished setting up their tent, they returned along the marks they had made along the way.

As night fell, the forest was enveloped in a bluish-black gloom.

Loren, Hermione, and the Mr. and Mrs. Granger sat around a campfire, the fiery red light shining brightly in their eyes.

Since it was their first day in the forest and time was limited, they heated up some canned food for dinner. After eating, facing the bright, warm fire, they all felt a little lazy.

Wendell leaned back, hands behind his back, and sighed contentedly, "Canned beef at the campsite always tastes better than what we eat at home."

Monica squatted on a rock, too lazy to move, and gave him a sharp look. "So you picked out and ate all the canned beef on the first day, what are you going to do for the next few days?"

Wendell didn't answer, he just chuckled.

"Did you count how many cans are left?" Monica asked.

Wendell was still smiling. "That's enough. There's also canned fruit, canned luncheon meat, and several other kinds of canned goods."

He moved closer to Monica, his smile widening. "How about we call the hotel tomorrow and have them send some fresh meat for a barbecue? We can also stock up on canned beef."

"Does this even qualify as camping?"

"We're camping, so we don't need to be so strict."

The couple chatted away, discussing their plans for the next few days and what activities they would do, completely ignoring their two young children.

Loren held a thin twig and kept stirring the blazing fire. Five or six Mars flew up with each stir and then went out into the air.

Consider that small mirror as compensation for their emotional distress. Although he didn't know how to use it or even if it would still work, Loren accepted it with a clear conscience.

Leave it for now, and when we get back we'll have Flamel or Dumbledore take a look. If anything seems amiss, burn it.

Loren then stirred up another clump of poorly burning firewood, and the flames flickered and swayed, burning even more intensely.

Hermione squatted down next to Loren, looking at the fire pit and then at Loren, her little face full of confusion. She didn't understand what was so fun about starting a fire, while Loren had been playing with it for almost half an hour.

Hermione didn't get up, but instead moved closer to Loren with her calves and whispered, "Is it fun? You seem to really like playing with fire. You used to play with blue flames to keep warm at school too."

Loren nodded. "It really is a lot of fun."

He handed Hermione a small stick and taught her how to make the fire burn brighter by adding more firewood when necessary.

Hermione tried to imitate him by poking at the fire, stirring up more Mars, but she didn't find it fun.

She waved the stick in circles over the bright flames, making the flames sway with the stick. "What's wrong? You haven't said much since you came back from gathering firewood. You seem to have something on your mind?"

Loren glanced at the Mr. and Mrs. Granger, who were whispering to each other, and when he saw that they weren't paying attention, he said in a low voice, "There are some things I haven't figured out yet. I'll tell you later."

He had encountered the mirror illusion twice, and he really had no clue what to do with it.

Hermione tapped Loren's little stick with her own, annoyed. "How many times have you said 'I can't tell you now, I'll tell you later'?"

She pouted, looking aggrieved. "So mysterious, it's always like this."

"At least I didn't lie to you or fool you. Doesn't that make you feel better?" Loren laughed and tapped back with the stick.

Two sticks collided in the fire, sending Mars flying.

Hermione rolled her eyes, using her enhanced strength to subdue Loren's little wooden stick, and said fiercely, "So, should I thank you?"

The girl looks like a little squirrel pretending to be fierce; she's incredibly cute.

"You're welcome, it's what I should do." Loren smiled, but since he couldn't pull the small wooden stick out of his hand, he gently touched the girl's knee with his knee.

The two started making a lot of little gestures, like bumping each other's knees or shoulders, having more fun than playing with fire.

In front of their parents, the two initially kept their actions relatively restrained, gently touching and bumping each other, with each other going back and forth.

But as the fight progressed, the intensity increased, and Hermione lost control of her strength, ramming Loren with her shoulder and causing him to stumble.

Both of them were squatting with their legs together, and unable to maintain their balance, Loren's body tilted to the side.

Hermione couldn't withstand the force either and fell onto Loren along the direction of inertia.

Ouch!

This sound was made when Loren fell down.

Ouch!

The sound also came from Loren. Hermione leaned on him and pressed down on him, using some kind of subconscious fighting instinct to hold down Loren's hand, preventing him from getting up.

Two screams jolted the Mr. and Mrs. Granger, who were lost in their sweet world, awake. What they saw was their usually well-behaved and adorable daughter pinning Loren to the ground and beating him until he screamed in agony.

Both of them were stunned and stood there dumbfounded for a moment.

When Hermione came to her senses and realized what was happening, she struggled to sit up with her little face flushed red.

During this time, while searching for a point of support and leverage, he pressed on Loren's ribs a few more times, and Loren cried out "Ouch!" twice more.

After Hermione got up, Loren slowly sat up as well.

It didn't hurt at all; he only cried out twice because the Mr. and Mrs. Granger were there.

He devised a way to rebel against tyranny even faster than Apparition —by using Hermione's parents to control Hermione.

"You two are actually fighting?!"

Wendell asked in surprise. He knew that Hermione had changed a bit in the past year, but the quiet and well-behaved Hermione turning into a delinquent girl who got into fights was too much and too fast. He needed to process and understand it.

Monica remembered the book Hermione had borrowed from their study and realized, "You're really interested in learning Krav Maga Analysis?"

Faced with her parents' question, Hermione's face turned bright red and was burning hot, as if she had been roasted by fire.

Loren coughed meaningfully, "It's like this, Hermione received a magical item as a gift, which enhanced her physical fitness and fighting abilities."

Wendell and Monica turned to look at Hermione, Hermione met their gazes and nodded shyly.

"However," Loren said in a wronged tone, "Hermione has been bullying me ever since, using her fighting skills as an excuse."

Hermione stared wide-eyed at Loren, her face blank. How could this man be so shameless?

Wendell and Monica hesitated for only a moment, but quickly came to believe Loren's story, after all, the scene they had just witnessed and the book "Krav Maga Analysis" were strong evidence.

Loren sighed and continued, "I know Hermione was just joking with me, but she doesn't realize that when she's enhanced, her hits really hurt."

He glanced at Hermione, sighed again, and looked hesitant.

Wendell and Monica assumed that Loren had been wronged, but because they cherished their friendship with Hermione, they hesitated to speak up.

"I'm not!" Hermione exclaimed indignantly, pointing her finger at Loren. A surge of intense emotions welled up within her, and her fingers trembled uncontrollably with anger.

Monica patted the stone next to her and called out, "Hermione, come sit here, I have something to say to you."

Hermione had no choice but to hang her head and go over, pouting as she sat down next to Monica.

Monica pulled Hermione into her arms and whispered something in her ear.

She felt that Hermione wasn't the type to bully her classmates, but she just couldn't control some of her behavior and intensity. Monica whispered a few words of advice to Hermione.

After a while, Monica looked up at Loren and gently called out, "Loren, come sit down here too."

Wendell made room for Loren, who happily sat down on Monica's other side.

"You're friends, you should love and help each other, you know?" Monica put her arm around Loren and said in a coaxing tone, like she was talking to a child.

Both Loren and Hermione nodded, behaving obediently.

Loren grinned at Hermione.

Through a strange tacit understanding, Hermione actually understood what he meant. "If you lay a hand on me again, I'm going to tell my parents."

Hermione clenched her fists tightly and glared at Loren from where Monica couldn't see her.

Loren understood what she meant. "You're doomed when school starts."

But Loren didn't care. He'd deal with the future later; at least Hermione couldn't do anything to him during the holidays.

Seeing that the two children had reconciled, the four of them gathered around the campfire and began to discuss their plans for the next few days. Wendell and Monica told Loren and Hermione about the plans they had just come up with.

Hermione nestled in Monica's arms like a kitten, occasionally nuzzling against her affectionately.

Loren, on the other side, rested his head on his knees, poking the fire with a small stick. The warm conversation was punctuated by the crackling of firewood. Occasionally, tiny sparks of fire would scatter.

Wendell's amused voice came from the side. "Now we should continue with the horror story. I still have a legend about Bloody Mary to tell."

Hermione and Monica enjoyed the tenderness between mother and daughter and ignored him.

With the best intention of keeping the atmosphere from becoming awkward, Loren chimed in, "The last story to appear is always the scariest."

"Of course!" Wendell raised his voice, becoming interested.

He began his narration in a deep, chilling tone. "In the Bathory family of Hungary, there was a Lady Elizabeth Báthory. The young Lady Báthory had reddish-brown hair and snow-white skin, and was the most beautiful woman in Hungary."

"She was very proud of her beauty and often lay in bed with a mirror to admire her own beauty."

"Later she married and had eight children with a general. Childbirth and the years took away her beauty, and she longed to regain her youthful beauty and was willing to pay any price for it."

"Madame Bathory heard from a traveling traveler about an evil way to restore her beauty."

Wendell's voice suddenly rose, "Bath in the blood of virgins!"

After he finished speaking, he looked around at the faces of his two children and his wife, wanting to see how frightened they had become.

But no one was scared.

Loren's expression remained impassive, but his mind was in turmoil.

Both are stories of regaining youth and beauty through bathing in blood, but one involves a Earl, and the other a general's wife. Did one story evolve into two legends, or did such an event actually occur?

Wendell paused, clicked his tongue, and continued, "At first, she lured country girls into the Castle with the lie of offering high salaries to hire servants, and then abused and murdered them."

"Later, the village girls from the nearby towns all hid at home and stopped showing themselves. Madame Bathory began to lure noble girls into the Castle under the pretext of learning aristocratic etiquette."

"She locked the girl in a cage full of spikes, hanging her in mid-air, while she stood below the cage, bathing in warm blood, in an attempt to preserve her youth."

"At the end of the story, because too many girls had gone missing, the king discovered Madame Bathory's crimes and imprisoned her in a tower, where she grew old and died."

Hermione's brows furrowed deeply. "Why did the king only sentence her to life imprisonment when she murdered so many people?"

Wendell was taken aback. Was this the main point of the story?

Monica stroked Hermione's head and said, "Because the laws were flawed back then, societal progress reduced such incidents."

Hermione nodded, agreeing with this statement.

Wendell couldn't help but speak up, "I want to ask, is there really a magic that can restore youth by bathing in blood?"

Hermione sat up from Monica's embrace and shook her head seriously. "Wizards may have magic, but they also age and die just like ordinary people."

At this point, Hermione glanced at Loren and silently thought to herself: That's true for the vast majority of cases, except for the use of Sorcerer's Stone to create the Elixir of Life.

Monica glanced at Loren, who seemed preoccupied, and Hermione, whose face was tense and serious, and angrily slapped Wendell: "You ruined our nice campfire camping trip with your horror story. The story was no good, and you told it badly too."

Wendell was beaten but couldn't fight back, so he forced a smile.

Loren added another pile of firewood, and the bright flames surged with heat, dispelling the darkness and cold of the forest.