— — — — — —

Astoria slept incredibly well that night.

For the first time ever, both her body and soul felt completely, utterly relaxed.

Until—

Drip... Drip...

The girl frowned slightly and groggily opened her eyes. She couldn’t figure out why the room was leaking, or why her body felt so heavy, like her blanket had suddenly gained several times its normal weight.

Then she opened her eyes fully and discovered Daphne wrapped around her like an octopus.

Not only was her sister sleeping even more soundly than she was, there was also a suspicious glimmer of drool shining at the corner of her mouth.

Astoria: "..."

This was exactly why she hated sleeping with Daphne.

Her sleeping posture was terrible, and she treated every soft thing around her like a body pillow.

Seriously, how did Tom put up with her?

Astoria stared blankly at Daphne for a while. Meanwhile, having lost her "pillow," Daphne frowned unhappily before slowly opening her eyes as well. After a brief daze, her entire face lit up with joy.

"Astoria, you’re finally awake!"

"Sister, when did you get back?" Astoria glanced around the room. The sky outside was already pitch black. Judging from the darkness, it was probably around two or three in the morning.

The eldest Greengrass daughter immediately pounced on her again like a starving tiger, hugging her tightly and rubbing against her over and over before finally speaking with a satisfied expression. "Tom brought me back. When I got here, you were unconscious, and Mom was unconscious too. I was terrified."

"Thankfully Mom woke up pretty quickly. Tom said you weren’t in any danger either, but I still couldn’t stop worrying, so I stayed here the whole time taking care of you. Touching, right?"

By the end of it, Daphne proudly puffed out her chest like she’d accomplished something truly remarkable.

Astoria’s lips twitched slightly.

If this counted as "taking care" of someone... then yes, it really was very touching.

"Thanks, sis," Astoria replied cooperatively. "How’s Mom now? And where’s Tom?" 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

This time, Daphne shook her head, "Mom’s fine. As for Tom, no idea what he’s off doing."

"Forget about him for now." Daphne leaned in curiously, eyes sparkling. "How are you feeling? I saw the memory projection from before. You became huge, like really huge."

She spread her arms dramatically to demonstrate.

"And your hair too..."

Daphne reached out enviously to stroke Astoria’s long wavy blue hair.

After only a single day apart, Astoria’s hair had turned an icy blue, and it had grown much thicker as well.

The beautiful color alone was enough to make Daphne jealous, not to mention how silky and gorgeous it felt.

But what fascinated her most was still that strange "transformation."

After seeing the memory scene Tom had shown her earlier, Daphne honestly felt like that form was exactly what she dreamed of becoming someday.

Cold and elegant. Beautiful. A perfect figure. Absolutely flawless.

Unfortunately...

Daphne lowered her head to look at the modest little "hills" on her chest, and immediately wilted in frustration.

"I’m not really sure either..."

After hesitating for a moment, Astoria chose to hide the truth.

Now that she was awake, she also remembered everything from that state. She knew very clearly that the transformation was connected to the bloodline fusion inside her, but as for how to activate it, she still had to figure that out herself.

"Alright then."

Though visibly disappointed, Daphne didn’t press further.

The two sisters lay on the bed whispering back and forth. When the conversation turned to what Astoria had felt during her coma, she couldn’t help remembering those dreams.

Or perhaps they weren’t dreams at all.

Maybe they were the real memories of her cursed ancestors.

Every single one of them was suffocatingly tragic.

That same feeling of despair was something Astoria herself had once known intimately. From the moment she became old enough to understand things, her life had already entered a countdown.

Short. Fragile. Destined to end far too soon.

And when the topic finally reached that final golden phantom, their aunt, Livia Greengrass, the atmosphere in the room grew heavy.

Daphne had been born the same year Livia died.

Astoria had never even met her.

But today, she had felt that woman’s emotions firsthand.

"There’ll never be another tragedy like this again."

Daphne hugged her little sister tightly and spoke with rare seriousness. "From now on, the two of us are never separating."

Astoria nodded hard before breaking into a smile, "Mm! Sis, from now on, I’ll take good care of you."

"Hey, that’s not how it works. Older sisters are supposed to take care of younger sisters."

"Like when you almost drowned me in the bathtub?" Astoria rolled her eyes.

Daphne looked flustered. "You’re still bringing that up? I told you a million times, you’re not allowed to mention that anymore!"

Astoria nodded seriously, then continued, "Fine. Then let’s talk about when I was eight and you took me flying on a toy broom, crashed into a tree, and left me bedridden for half a month."

"Uh... Astoria, maybe we should change the subject."

...

..

Inside the library, Tom had set up a trigger spell in Astoria’s room. The moment she woke up, he received the notification.

Still, he didn’t rush over immediately.

He’d already performed all the necessary examinations anyway.

At the moment, Tom was flipping through the Greengrass family genealogy, trying to uncover some kind of connection or entanglement between the Greengrass family and Slytherin.

The blood curse had only started a little over four hundred years ago?

Only after examining the family records did Tom realize that the curse had existed for far less time than he’d originally expected.

"Hey, Tom, have you noticed something?" Ravenclaw suddenly said, drawing the boy’s attention. "The names in the Greengrass family all sound really Greek, don’t they?"

"Huh?"

If Ravenclaw hadn’t pointed it out, Tom honestly never would’ve made the connection.

Recalling the Greengrass family names...

Selene, the moon goddess of Greek mythology.

Iris, goddess of the rainbow and a primary messenger between the gods and humanity.

Helian, derived from Helios, the sun god who drove the chariot of the sun across the sky.

Andromeda, the Aethiopian princess who angered Poseidon because of her mother’s bragging about her beauty, then got chained to a reef as a sacrifice to a sea monster before eventually being rescued by Perseus.

Opal, representing the gemstone itself, tied to fate and mysticism.

Daphne, originally daughter of the river god Peneus. After Apollo became obsessively infatuated with her beauty, she refused him to the bitter end and eventually transformed into a laurel tree.

Astoria, derived from Asteria, the goddess of shooting stars, oneiromancy, and astrology, mother of Hecate, goddess of night.

...

After going through them one by one, Tom finally realized the naming pattern within the Greengrass family.

And the moment Greece came to mind, every bad thing naturally became someone else’s fault.

"Herpo the Foul?"

Ravenclaw voiced the conclusion for him, but immediately shook her head and denied it herself.

"You said it already. The blood curse only appeared a few hundred years ago. That timeline doesn’t even overlap with Salazar, much less Herpo."

"But Herpo created Horcruxes." Tom quickly found what he considered a perfectly reasonable argument. "Why is everyone so certain he’s dead?"

Tom’s head had never lacked conspiracy theories.

Especially now that even feathered serpent Quetzalcoatl had appeared. At this point, no matter what kind of ancient enemy suddenly crawled out in the future, he wouldn’t be surprised anymore.

Ravenclaw, on the other hand, belonged firmly to the rational camp.

She trusted evidence and reality. Without concrete proof, she had no interest in creating unnecessary worries for herself.

Neither managed to convince the other, and after arguing for a while, the discussion naturally fizzled out.

"You really are way too serious about this..."

The moment Tom left the study space, Morgan, who had nearly fallen asleep listening to their debate, instantly perked up. She scooted over beside Ravenclaw and muttered quietly, "Why are you so determined to argue everything out with him? Whatever he thinks, just go along with it. He’ll be the one doing all the work, after all."

Ravenclaw blinked, confused.

"I understand what you mean, but our discussion wasn’t anywhere near the level of an argument. And Tom isn’t one of those arrogant, mediocre wizards who can’t tolerate disagreement. There’s no need to tiptoe around him."

"Oh, my dear little sister..." Morgan sighed theatrically, putting on the tone of a worldly older sister imparting wisdom. "You’re right. Tom isn’t the type to turn redder than his hair just because someone disagreed with him. But understanding something and feeling good about it are two different things."

"There’s no need for us to argue with him over every detail. If he wants to do something, just support him. So what if he creates a few extra imaginary enemies? So what if he’s wrong? So what if he accidentally targets the wrong people? What matters is making him happy and saving ourselves the headache. That’s what we should be doing, instead of obsessively chasing truth and correctness all the time."

As a witch, Morgan understood better than anyone how wonderful it felt to live exactly as one pleased.

She herself had once lived that way.

Until... that damn hateful Merlin started fixating on her.

.

.

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