An Encounter with a Millennia-Old Female Ghost

[Changed]

[The Boy Who Lived]→[Star of Salvation]→[Reincarnated Merlin]

[Reincarnated Merlin (Magic Affinity +7, Creativity +1, Magic Resistance +3, Time Resistance +1)]

[You have proved through your actual achievements that you are not merely gifted; you also possess astonishing creativity. You are a living legend, destined to stand tall on the monument of epic history.]

A new title had finally arrived, bringing with it rare bonuses to [Creativity] and [Time Resistance].

The bonuses encompassed by the retained [Star of Salvation] could be disregarded.

But...

One day, the entry will be found on the original

It still didn't have the bonus to luck he wanted most.

And the core entry's resistance was [Resistance to All], which included resistance to space-time, fate, physical attacks, and everything else.

"Keep [Reincarnated Merlin]."

Harry breathed out a plume of warm air.

He looked down. Beyond the clouds, everything was blanketed in snow, and Hogwarts Castle was just a black speck.

The paper wings covered in Cloud Seal Script beat behind him. The next moment, he plunged headfirst into a thick snowdrift.

Ripples spread through the earth beneath the snow. Harry sank into the ground, moved upward beneath the castle, avoided the sewage pipes, and sprang out through the floor on the sixth floor.

Only a single breath had passed.

"Marietta, it's Harry Potter!" "Cho Chang, look at me—does my hair look messy?"

"Keep your voice down, he's coming." "Is he going into the common room?"

When Harry emerged from the corner, two Ravenclaws exclaimed in surprise.

But he stopped in front of the spiral staircase leading to Ravenclaw Tower.

"You should come out now," he said to a wall.

"Is that...?" Cho Chang began uncertainly, then watched a ghost float out of the wall. "The Grey Lady!"

The Grey Lady was Ravenclaw Tower's resident ghost. Students from other houses assumed that "Grey" was her name.

She was famous for her exceptional beauty, as well as her haughty, disdainful expression.

Even Ravenclaw students rarely managed to strike up a conversation with her.

But now...

Her face looked somewhat translucent.

She was blushing!

Her haughty expression had vanished, replaced by a young woman's shyness.

"Don't call me 'you.' Just call me Helena."

Cho Chang wondered if she'd heard correctly. What had the Grey Lady just said?

Her name!

Even Marietta, who was starstruck, froze in place.

Harry was just as dumbfounded.

He'd intended to keep things strictly business and use the [Wisdom Rune] and [Ravenclaw's Diadem] as bait to complete the Bloody Baron's task.

But after they met and exchanged a few words, the Grey Lady became unusually enthusiastic and used the task as an excuse to ask him out several times.

Could she really be into my type?

She was fooled by Voldemort just a few decades ago. Didn't she learn to be more careful?

[Ring ring ring! The [Heart of the Millennia-Old Female Ghost] quest is complete!]

[10 experience points, Silver Talent · 1, and Silver Magic Knowledge · 1 have been received.]

The Dogskin Book seemed to agree.

"Why don't we go somewhere else?"

Cho Chang saw the Grey Lady glance in their direction.

Then she and Harry walked right through the wall!

"They went through the wall! Was the Harry we saw a ghost?" Marietta cried.

"Maybe?" Cho Chang had grown curious about Harry himself—not the Savior or Leviathan of Knockturn Alley.

"Thanks to you, Harry, I finally realized my mother hadn't lied to me. The [Wisdom Rune] really can only be used by her, or by a genius like you, gifted enough to imitate other people's magic."

"Magic ultimately develops into something personal, like Fantastic Beasts. Only a particular kind of magic can activate a particular rune."

"I'm sure my mother would be astonished to know that someone can use her rune."

Helena spoke softly, her beautiful face growing even more translucent.

Taking advantage of being a ghost, she approached Harry without restraint, her transparent hand nearly resting on his shoulder.

"You can agree to stop hiding from the Bloody Baron now, right? This is already the third time we've met."

"Why bring him up again? Do we have to talk about him every time we meet?" Helena said agitatedly. She pulled open her cloak, revealing a black wound on her snowy-white chest. "He killed me. Because I kept rejecting his advances and refused to go back!"

"Can't we have something purer, something deeper between us? At least... friendship."

"First, I'm still a child." Harry shook his head. "Second, I want a child of my own, and a proper family."

"What child could be so tall and sturdy? Though I can't bear your child, I can..." Helena lowered her eyes. "I can become corporeal for an hour every day, a soft statue with sensations that can be touched, by cursing my own ghostly body."

[Ring ring ring! The loneliness of Ravenclaw's Daughter has been brewing for a thousand years. Great Savior, take pity on her and generously help her release her pent-up passion.]

[Reward: 100 experience points, Golden Magic Knowledge · 3]

Huh?

You damn book, now you want me to be a gigolo?

At least there's no time limit. I can wait until I'm in my thirties. By then, I should have gotten over my scruples.

Harry kept a straight face, his smile turning grave. "If you still want to stay at Hogwarts, in the Ravenclaw Tower your mother built, don't say things like that."

Helena didn't waver at all. "I can wait. You're still young and don't understand yet. I inherited my mother's beauty. No man can resist me."

Harry punctured her confidence. "Tom Riddle."

"He's not a man," Helena said. "He split his soul apart, and with it, his humanity and reason."

"This afternoon, Fudge is coming on behalf of the Order of Merlin to award you a medal, isn't he?"

"I bet that even with so many elite wizards gathered here, if he's nearby and able to move, he'll show up to announce his presence—and launch an attack!"

"Ha." Harry finally laughed.

He'd read the books and seen the movies. After Voldemort regained his full power, that bastard had known to lie low and scheme, isolating Dumbledore from the Wizarding World.

"Impossible. Absolutely impossible!"

Impossible. Absolutely impossible!

Even though Harry was wearing only a light shirt in the blizzard and high above the ground, he now felt a trace of cold in the winter sunlight.

Voldemort, how the hell could you?!

Doesn't that mean my first kiss...

Helena's flawless, lovely face flashed through his mind.

Now he stood on the old Quidditch Pitch, the center of everyone's attention.

It had been transformed into an awards stage.

In the sky hung the glowing, color-changing magical words Sirius had suggested.

[Congratulations to our student Harry James Potter on receiving the Order of Merlin, First Class]

Harry looked at the familiar faces and spotted Quirrell among them.

But even though he had secretly merged with the Sith Sword Hilt again, he couldn't sense Voldemort on him.

He knew Voldemort was here, but Voldemort's presence seemed to blend with the natural world, impossible to detect. It was no longer murky and evil; instead, it seemed somehow bright and majestic.

"Harry, what are you looking at?"

"Draco and the others."

Harry looked at the wizard beside him who had spoken—Albus Dumbledore, the only person Voldemort feared.

I must be crazy to think Voldemort would really launch an attack.

Right. How could that possibly happen?

If it does, I'll be a dog!