Armenia, the small town of Tsavdzor.

Soft firelight flickered in the fireplace of the Aghasyan family home.

After Dumbledore and the others left, only Arkhipovna and the old wizard remained in the living room.

Perhaps due to the urgency of the situation, or for other reasons, Dumbledore and his companion didn't ask Arkhipovna to join them when they departed. The Russian woman, however, showed no inclination to leave. She pulled a book and a stack of papers from her backpack, and began to read and write earnestly.

Time slipped away unnoticed, marked only by the ticking of the grandfather clock.

After finishing his second cup of tea, Aghasyan finally couldn't resist breaking the silence.

"So, that child wasn't your and Lockhart's daughter?"

"No, she wasn't," Arkhipovna replied without looking up, economical with her words.

"Then you and Lockhart..."

"We haven't been seeing each other long. He's sort of my fiancé."

"Just seeing each other? So you're a writer too?" the old wizard asked, glancing at what she was writing.

"No, I'm a physicist," Arkhipovna answered coolly.

"Oh, oh."

The old wizard opened his mouth, his mind filled with questions, but he couldn't find the right words.

Unlike Gilderoy Lockhart, who never stopped chattering, his "fiancée" was the opposite extreme.

From the moment he woke up in the room for the second time, to the visit from Dumbledore and the hasty departure of the two wizards, the woman named Arkhipovna hadn't uttered more than thirty sentences. Apart from answering questions and providing explanations, she engaged in almost no unnecessary conversation.

Under normal circumstances, Aghasyan would have welcomed the quiet, as he was the sort of wizard who hated getting involved in pointless troubles.

However, the current situation was clearly different...

Whatever had happened before, it was clear from the result that Lockhart had sacrificed himself to save his life.

In this situation, Arkhipovna's silence was like nails being hammered into the old wizard's heart. He would have preferred her to be noisy, questioning, even scolding, rather than waiting for dawn in this suffocating atmosphere. The feeling was awful!

After a few more seconds of silence, Aghasyan glanced at Arkhipovna, who was quietly reading, and tried to start a conversation.

"So, you're currently researching your... physics?"

"Not exactly. I'm reading a novel. And answering the questionnaire that came with it."

Arkhipovna shook her head. She held up the book she was reading, and the first thing the old wizard saw was Gilderoy Lockhart's particularly irritating smiling face, followed by the large, gold-lettered title below Lockhart's photo: *Wanderings with Werewolves*.

"Ah, that one..." Aghasyan chose his words carefully. "If you're interested in the story, you can just ask me..."

"No, thank you. I think Lockhart's book is quite interesting."

Arkhipovna declined politely, her eyes scanning the printed words line by line as she murmured, "I once told someone: novels come from life, but they transcend it. Whether a novel is good or not, the exciting plot twists and turns are important, of course, but they aren't everything... otherwise, the best novels in the world would all be autobiographies of adventurers. A good book is worth rereading, like seashells on the beach after the tide goes out. The writer's vision, sprinkled throughout the text, is what's truly valuable..."

"You understand what I mean, Mr. Aghasyan. Some clumsy fools secretly hide their dreams."

Arkhipovna's eyes flickered, her low voice carrying a complex mix of tenderness and slight disdain.

It was as if she was holding not an adventure novel, but a love letter written to her.

"I..."

The old wizard opened his mouth, feeling that the situation was a hundred times more difficult than fighting werewolves in his youth.

"Don't worry, Lockhart is the most cunning, most silver-tongued guy I've ever met. He'll definitely be able to return safely. Werewolves are normal people before they transform; you can reason with them. Maybe he's on his way back already, or... well..."

Aghasyan fell silent again, not even believing his own words.

As a wizard, if Lockhart could have escaped, he would have returned here by now.

The full moon was approaching, and no one in their right mind would linger in a forest full of werewolves.

Just as he had told the little girl earlier, even a top wizard like Dumbledore could only Apparate away as soon as he heard a wolf howl. There were too many uncertainties, and Aghasyan knew it very well.

Gilderoy Lockhart... was probably gone this time.

"A novel questionnaire? About the book? Let me fill it out with you, if you don't mind."

Aghasyan quickly came to his senses and tentatively looked at Arkhipovna. Seeing that she didn't object, he reached out, took a questionnaire from the stack of parchment, spread it out on the table, and summoned a quill with his wand to help him fill it in.

After all, he was the model for *Wanderings with Werewolves*. If it was a bonus questionnaire, he might be able to...

*Thud.*

The quill fell from Aghasyan's hand.

"What kind of... what strange questions are these?!"

He stared blankly at the questionnaire, his face contorted as he read aloud, "1. What is Gilderoy Lockhart's favorite color?"

"2. What are Gilderoy Lockhart's secret ambitions?"

"3. What do you think is Gilderoy Lockhart's greatest achievement to date?"

And so on, filling an entire page. The last question was:

"18. What is Gilderoy Lockhart's birthday? What would be his ideal birthday gift?"

Many of the blanks had already been filled in, with only the last few questions remaining.

Aghasyan's eyebrows twitched. He glanced at the last question, turned to the Muggle woman who was sitting upright in the living room, filling out the questionnaire, and slowly returned the questionnaire to her with an awkward but polite expression.

"I'm sorry, I thought these were about the book itself..."

"In fact, these *are* things mentioned in the book - the reflections of the creator, beyond the story itself."

Arkhipovna took the questionnaire, looked at the questions Lockhart used to "screen" lucky readers, and replied calmly, "Lockhart mentioned in *Year with the Yeti* that his favorite color is lilac. And the answers to the other questions are hidden in the fragments of his adventure stories. For example, his secret ambition is to eliminate evil in the world and protect everyone who lives in the light and shadows... of course, he'd probably be even happier if he could make a bit more money along the way."

"As for his birthday, and his ideal birthday gift..."

She paused for a few seconds, put down the half-filled "top secret questionnaire," and turned to look at the grandfather clock.

"If he didn't lie about his age in the book, he'll be twenty-nine after midnight tonight. In the last two paragraphs of Chapter Twelve of *Wanderings with Werewolves*, Lockhart says that the birthday gift he wants most is: harmony between all people, magical and non-magical. I don't think I can help with that, but I asked someone to buy a large bottle of Ogden's Old Firewhisky from the store. I think he'll like that, right?"

"Сука—it's his birthday today? What's he doing here instead of celebrating?!"

Aghasyan's eyes twitched. He barely managed to swallow the short, forceful Armenian phrase.

If only he hadn't said so much. A tense atmosphere would have been much better than this.

Now, Aghasyan felt even worse.

The old wizard's eyes wandered around the living room for a few seconds before finally settling on the dusty storage shelves in the distance.

"Well, sitting here and overthinking things isn't going to help. How about I try to do some divination?"

"Divination?" Arkhipovna frowned in confusion.

"This isn't some Muggle con trick. Divination is a very important subject at magical schools."

Aghasyan nodded, stood up, quickly walked to the storage shelves, picked up a box, blew off the thick layer of dust, quickly walked back to the table, and seriously opened the wooden box. He poured out a stack of yellowing cards and began to explain earnestly.

"When I graduated from Koldovstoretz, I almost got an 'Outstanding' in Divination. If the examiner hadn't been so difficult to fool – I mean, too inflexible – I could have been the graduate with the most 'Outstandings.' I'm not very good at crystal ball gazing or tea leaf reading. My divination needs someone to cooperate and participate to be accurate..."

"So, your specialty in divination is... Tarot cards?"

Before the old wizard could organize the things he hadn't used since graduation, Arkhipovna's curious voice reached his ears.

"Uh - you know about these?"

Aghasyan blinked, his hands freezing in place.

Not only in Russian magical circles, but in the entire former Soviet Union – both magical and non-magical – not many people knew about Tarot cards at this point. Although Gilderoy Lockhart was a wizard from Britain, his "fiancée" was clearly a genuine Russian woman. Her appearance, accent, and certain habits were difficult to change.

Aghasyan had planned to use this information gap to create a bit of a show and comfort her.

"I only heard about them recently. I know that each card seems to have a special meaning, but I don't know what they are."

Arkhipovna closed the book in her hand and looked at the stack of cards with a complex and curious expression.

Since learning about the existence of the "Major Arcana" wizards, she had been eager to know what each name meant besides being a simple code.

Although, according to Lockhart's explanation, his "Hanged Man" didn't have any special meaning.

But Arkhipovna didn't entirely believe it. After all, Lockhart's brain was sometimes less intelligent than a lab rat.

As a newly promoted Level A research supervisor, Arkhipovna's permissions might not allow her to query the information of each Major Arcana, but she could determine their number and know which Major Arcana existed by identifying the members she couldn't query:

The Fool, The Magician, The High Priestess, The Empress, The Hierophant, The Chariot, The Hermit, Justice, The Hanged Man, The Tower, The World.

(This chapter is not over, please click on the next page to continue reading!)

The information of eleven "Major Arcana" members was currently unqueryable.

If it was only for differentiation and concealment, it shouldn't show such a strange "skipped number" phenomenon.

Unless...

Each of their main cards also corresponded to a mysterious meaning.

To this end, Arkhipovna immediately searched on the Hyperion.

However, there was no information about Tarot card interpretation in Destiny's various records, and the Divination course at Hogwarts didn't teach Tarot cards.

Perhaps some explanations existed in the non-magical world, and the library at Hogwarts Castle might also have some information.

However, as a researcher "secretly concealed" in the Hogwarts Institute, Arkhipovna couldn't access this content.

And she had a slight worry in her heart that she didn't dare to request information from Hogwarts openly.

Things that Lockhart didn't know might have two explanations:

Either the guy was a simple-minded fool, or... someone didn't want him to know.

And most of the answers were probably hidden in the explanation of the "Major Arcana."

"Mr. Aghasyan, if possible... could you introduce a card in detail to me?"

Arkhipovna glanced at the old wizard who was stunned in place, unsure of what he was thinking, and drew a card from the stack of Tarot cards.

"The Hanged Man. What meanings does this card contain?"

"Uh? Card interpretations? That's not how divination works. A card can have many different interpretations depending on the situation, whether it's upright or reversed, and the order. If I were to explain them all, just the content of all the major cards could take a day or two..."

"There's still a long time until dawn. Can you tell me everything about the Hanged Man first?"

"Everything?"

"Yes, everything."

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Hooray! I didn't procrastinate, I didn't procrastinate!