Chapter 153: Changing the Card

The TARDIS whistled through time and space. After Zhang Qiu's figure flickered a few more times, it finally stabilized. She grabbed her chest with lingering fear and asked tremblingly: "What just happened?"

"You perhaps cannot stay in the second year for too long." The Professor said slowly. "This is too much of a burden on time and space."

"Why?" Zhang Qiu asked puzzledly.

"You will understand." The Professor said vaguely. "But in any case, you can stay here and chat with Harry for a while until you plan to start the next stop."

"Can't we just send her directly to the next stop?" Harry asked curiously. "Don't we know the time and place of her travel?"

"It's best not to do that. Do you remember the thought experiment I told you?" The Professor said. "If you don't open that envelope, what do you think will happen?"

The Professor once told Harry a story: suppose he writes down a string of numbers and puts them in an envelope, ensuring Harry doesn't know what's written inside before opening it. Then, Harry plans to open the envelope to see the numbers an hour later, and then return to an hour earlier to tell the past self the numbers.

Of course, the Harry an hour later can also choose not to open the envelope, because he has already learned this string of numbers from his future self.

"Now let me tell you." The Professor continued. "You might remember it wrong, you might be confused and deliberately say it wrong, or you might have your memory tampered with by someone during this hour, but as long as you open the envelope to check before traveling, the past self will definitely not hear the wrong numbers."

"Hearing the wrong numbers... is it dangerous?" Harry remembered the Professor saying that if you don't open the envelope, you might encounter danger.

"If the numbers are just an experiment I did for you, of course it's not dangerous." Professor Doudou rarely showed a serious expression. "But if these numbers are the password to lift the TARDIS's self-destruction, then it's very dangerous. And Zhang Qiu's situation belongs to 'predetermined fate', which is ten thousand times more terrifying than the TARDIS's self-destruction password."

"No need to be so alarmist." Zhang Qiu waved her hand with a smile. "We'll sit down and have a cup of tea, chat for a while, and then I'll head to the next stop. There's no danger in that."

"Go down the stairs; the second room on the right on the negative first floor is the tea room." The Professor said. "You two chat; I need to overhaul the chameleon circuit."

"Hmm, I think he means he hopes we chat alone?" Harry scratched his head with some confusion as he walked down. "I don't think there's anything that needs to be avoided from him. Could Li Ao's identity be sensitive?"

Zhang Qiu glanced at him with some dissatisfaction and said in a complaining tone: "We'll talk about this later. Now go help me pour tea."

Not long after, Harry brought a pot of steaming black tea on a tea tray, along with a milk jug, a sugar bowl, a snack rack full of snacks, and a series of ingredients such as orange slices, jasmine, jam, and honey.

Zhang Qiu poured herself a cup of black tea, added nothing, and just held it up to blow on it, without saying a word.

Harry didn't think she might be angry, just thinking that from jumping from prison to the Longbottom house, Zhang Qiu was not only physically injured but also had to play games with Li Ao mentally. She must be exhausted.

Just as Harry finished adjusting a cup of tea according to his favorite taste and used biscuit tongs to clip a shortbread for Zhang Qiu, she finally spoke.

"Harry, do you know what the ring I gave Li Ao means?"

"Don't know." Harry only then thought that the ring might have some special features, rather than just a token.

"Accepting it means Li Ao is willing to work for Ge Xuan. In other words, in this way, the fate you occupied by Neville can be counted into all the progress. Even if I don't jump to make up the progress anymore, it won't affect my master's plan."

"That's not bad." Harry scratched his chin. "Although I don't know what your master wants to do by being so entangled in divination, it's a good thing that you don't have to take risks anymore."

"But I still continued to jump, right?" Zhang Qiu said unhappily. "I still took risks to find those fates in the divination, because you said there was a 'next stop'."

"You know why this is, right?" Zhang Qiu sighed.

Harry naturally knew. From the first day of the third year, Zhang Qiu told him that this pursuit of divination was not only for Ge Xuan's plan but also to deal with the life-and-death crisis Harry might encounter in the future.

The two looked at each other, silent. In the blink of an eye, Harry felt like three hours had passed, and the tea in his cup was still too hot to drink.

"Harry, do you know that I originally wrote you a card today." Zhang Qiu spoke again after deliberation.

"Right, I remember that. You seemed to want to introduce me to join the party." Harry still remembered that Valentine's Day card.

"This is why I interrupted it." Zhang Qiu said with a flushed face. "I mean, I will write a better one next time, wait until we are in the sixth year."

"Then..." Harry also pondered for a long time, and finally, he let out a light sigh of relief. "Then I'm looking forward to it."

Another awkward silence.

"I should go." Zhang Qiu gently put the cup back on the table and searched for something in her storage bag.

A strange feeling surged in Harry's heart, as if it were dreamy and unreal, and as if he had messed something up, feeling panicked.

"Zhang Qiu." He deliberated and said softly. "If we put aside those divinations, perhaps as Pansy said, no matter how we think about it, we don't have much possibility of knowing each other. But it is precisely your actions obsessed with divination that make me feel scared and strange. It's better to say that perhaps what I fear is you becoming strange."

"I'm sorry, but since things have reached this point, it's hard for me to stop." Zhang Qiu found what she was looking for from the bag; it was her sword.

"I mean, you perhaps don't have to be in such a hurry to leave. I actually wanted to talk to you about this a long time ago, but things just kept coming one after another." Harry said.

"Did I remember it wrong? Or was it the future you who saved Buckbeak that day?" Zhang Qiu was stunned for a moment. "In any case, we have talked about it, about fate and the chess player. At that time, we had already made things very clear."

"I know, but that's just my new confusion." Harry took a sip of tea; the tea was finally not so hot. "Before that, I wanted to say, what does divination mean to you? Or rather, if we put aside divination, what is the real you like?"

Zhang Qiu didn't speak, just put down the storage bag and the sword, looking at Harry thoughtfully.

"I feel like I'm rambling, but I want to say," Harry took a breath. "All along, we have always been talking about the fate on me, or studying, or the international situation, but I actually don't know much about you."

"Are you sure? In the middle of two trips, in less than half an hour, what do you want to know?" Zhang Qiu said with a half-smile.

Before Harry could answer, she continued: "Actually, the divination matter is already very clear. Xuanjun's divination might indeed be for the interests of the Heavenly Dynasty, but in the process of realizing the divination, we are bound to help you defeat Voldemort, so our goals are largely consistent."

"And then, I admit that I was a bit obsessed this year, but this is also for your safety. If you don't like it, it doesn't matter, because after the crisis is resolved, plus Li Ao can return Neville's progress, I don't have to stare at the divination so closely in the future. I also want to be relaxed." Zhang Qiu shrugged.

"I understand, this is easy to understand." Harry nodded. "But actually, what I was confused about was that what you showed this year is... not quite the same as the Zhang Qiu I knew before."

"Just as Buckbeak said that day, I just grew up." Zhang Qiu looked down at her watch. "If you want to know more about me, we can talk slowly later."

"After all, we are only in the third year." She added.

However, the fact is that some people already have sons in the third year.

"Then, good luck." Harry watched her figure slowly fade and disappear, feeling as if he had done something extraordinary, or as if he had reached some important resolution, but looking back at these fragmented conversations, it seemed he hadn't said anything.

Some memories emerged like a tide. Tom, who lived in the diary, racked his brains to give Ginny advice, laying out the pros and cons, very detailed. That day, he clearly thought it through well; what he liked was a lively, cheerful, simple, and enthusiastic British country girl who loved Quidditch. She didn't need to know any magical magic or secret spells, didn't need to understand so much about the international situation, just needed to worship and admire him, and occasionally help a little bit.

But more memories emerged. He remembered that adventure in the afterlife, remembered her calm confrontation with the visitors from the White House, remembered those smiling faces in the corridor in the morning and in the library in the evening. And right now, in the space-time turbulence that no one knew about, Harry, as a traveler, watched everything, watched Zhang Qiu running around for his fate, walking in the gaps of history with a sword in one hand, just to pursue a possibility of a "gift".

"Perhaps Tom got it wrong." Harry muttered. "His experience is not suitable for me. The one who likes weak little girls is just himself."

"But no matter what, I'm only in the third year, no need to rush to think about these." Harry comforted himself while walking upstairs.

"Oh, Harry, do you want to continue?" The Professor drilled out from under the console with difficulty. "Actually, the time-instant moment has been fully charged."

"Continue, I want to finish watching all of this." Harry said absent-mindedly. "I have some things I haven't figured out yet." ===== CHAPTER 154 =====