36. I’ve had enough!
When Elaine opened her eyes, she was still in a trance, and some indescribable feeling entangled herself with anxiety, emptiness, lack, confusion, and boredom.
She closed her eyes again and continued to sleep. If she slept, she wouldn't have to think about it. Once she slept, it would be fine.
"Good morning, even though I say that, it's already afternoon."
Dumbledore's calm voice came from the side, and Elaine ignored him.
"It's not good if you still don't want to get up. You can't lie here forever and escape reality."
"Do you remember this melody? You played it when we first talked. Oh, although I still don't know its name, I have listened to it quite often in the past three years. It can make me relax."
"Professor Sglughorn is very worried about you. He doesn't understand why the potion didn't work. He plans to take leave to look for more advanced medicinal materials. I asked him to wait, but he doesn't seem to understand."
"Nott made lunch for you. He is making a fuss in the kitchen, thinking that his meal is too bad. If you don't get up to eat, he may attack the ingredients we have stored. It's really bad."
"Your friends, Miss Granger and Miss Greengrass, Mr. Potter and Mr. Weasley, and many classmates came to visit during lunch break─"
"They're not my friends."
"If you say this, they will be very sad."
"not my business."
what is most annoying
Probably when I was trying to sleep, there was an old man nagging me beside me on purpose.
"I can understand, but you have to accept this process. There is no way around it."
"You can understand, how can you possibly understand?"
"Then just pretend that I can't understand it, but it won't change anything. You still have to accept the current situation─"
"It's so noisy, shut up."
"Miss Shafiq"
"Don't call me miss"
Even if she didn't want to listen, it didn't matter. The more Dumbledore talked, the more Elaine became more conscious, and the more conscious she became, the angrier she became. Finally, she couldn't bear it and finally sat up and shouted.
In the school hospital, the girl lying on the bed glared angrily at the old man sitting next to her. The melodious sound of the piano lingered in the space, surrounded by hanging curtains.
Even after being yelled at, Dumbledore still looked calm. He raised his head, and his deep blue pupils were like a mirror, reflecting Elaine's distorted face.
"Miss Shafik," Dumbledore repeated nonchalantly. "Whether you want it or not, you have to accept it. This is reality. It's time to wake up from the dream."
"Louji, accept the reality. It sounds so nice. You can do it. Even if you know that you killed your sister with your own hands, you can still accept it."
Dumbledore was shocked. Although he showed a sad expression, he still said the same answer.
"Yes, I can accept it because that's my fault and that's the reality and we have to accept it."
"Do not."
"You have to accept it, Miss Shafiq."
"Don't accept it, I don't belong here," Elaine shouted through gritted teeth. "I am a student at Leeds Conservatoire. My classmates and friends are not these stupid kids."
"No." Dumbledore said, "You are Elaine Shafik. You are eleven years old and a new student at Hogwarts."
"Nonsense, I am Du Chen, I am Chinese, I am already twenty-eight years old, I am not a Shafiq, a wizard, or Voldemort, it has nothing to do with me, I am, I am just an ordinary man."
Crazy yelling, hysterical curses, mixed Chinese and English.
However, no matter how loudly Elaine screamed, the sound of the piano that echoed in the room still overwhelmed her voice, and there was no movement outside.
Dumbledore watched calmly and said nothing.
Not getting any response, the anger drained Elaine's strength. She gasped like a fish out of water, and soon her gasping turned into sobs.
"I want to go home"
"I've had enough of this, please, let me go back."
"Sorry, I can't do that," Dumbledore replied.
"You can do it, you are the strongest wizard in the world of Harry Potter." Elaine grabbed Dumbledore's robe and begged, with a hint of confusion in her sad expression. "I'll tell you everything, tell you everything I know, please."
"I can't do it, and no one in the world can do it." Dumbledore replied gently. "No one in this world can go back to the past, not even me."
"Time Converter"
"It can only take you back five hours. You have to face it, get used to it, and accept it."
"It's impossible," Elaine murmured to herself, "I can't accept it. I didn't do anything wrong. Why would this happen to me? I'm not wrong."
"You can do it, accept it, and get used to it." Dumbledore emphasized again. "Just accept it. Time will help you get used to it, but you have to take that step first."
""
No one made a sound for a while, only the dream melody kept repeating in the room.
"How can you get used to this kind of thing?"
When she spoke again, Elaine's tone was much calmer than before. Even though her eyes were red and swollen and she was depressed, her eyes had regained clarity.
"I originally thought it was impossible." Dumbledore said, "But it happened like this. It's strange, no, we are more resilient than we thought, and we are strong enough."
"That's because you haven't become a woman."
"Well, does turning into water count?"
"No, you know you can recover." Elaine weakly resumed her lying position, "But I will always look like this, forever, and I will even grow breasts as I grow older. This is really a nightmare. .”
"This is the annoying thing about reality. It doesn't make sense, but you still have to accept it."
"You have to accept it, you can only accept it"
There was another long silence, and I don’t know how long it took before Elaine spoke again:
"I thought I was used to it, but when I found myself bleeding from the lower body at night, you know how panicked I was. It was then that I realized that I had never taken this seriously before."
"I just deliberately forgot, put it aside and didn't think about it, pretended that I was still a man, and tried to isolate myself from other people. I didn't know until I actually put on a skirt and was noticed by everyone."
"Just like before I came here, I lost my right hand and my friends. I never faced it seriously, but weakly chose death to escape reality."
"It seems that I haven't learned any lessons at all."
Raising her right hand high and looking at her fingers, Elaine clenched her fist with a wry smile.
"Being able to understand this means that you have already crossed that hurdle, which is a good thing."
"Yeah, that's a good thing. At least I feel better now."
After rolling on the bed a few times, Elaine sat up again.
"Professor, can you take me to look in the mirror? I remember you have a special mirror that can reflect the side of desire."
"Okay, but you have to drink medicine first. There's something wrong with your body."