Hearing Evan's words, Julien felt a chill crawl down his spine.
"Do you know where we are?" the ghost asked suddenly.
"Starfall Cove?"
"Correct."
"Do you know why it's called that?"
"Did a star actually fall here?"
"Indeed," the ghost named Evan nodded. "Legend has it that a long, long time ago, a star from the cosmos crashed here. It brought an abundance of magical power, but it also tore a wound into this world."
"At first, wizards discovered that their magic was exponentially more powerful here. So, they flocked to this location, built this city, and studied magic together."
"And then what?" Julien prompted, playing his part perfectly.
"Then, for some unknown reason, many wizards here became utterly obsessed with the Dark Arts. They lost their minds and even began attacking each other. Gradually, most of the wizards fled. The city slowly fell into ruin, until nothing but the legend of Starfall Cove remained drifting in the continental winds."
"By the time Pyxis and I found this place, it had already sunk to the bottom of the sea. But even so, it is still a place of miracles, isn't it?"
"Yeah. At least, the wizards of my era could never achieve something like this," Julien sighed, looking up at the ocean above them.
"We theorized that the reason the wizards here went mad was likely due to the leaking aura of those other worlds."
"So, the star that fell from the sky was a double-edged sword," Julien concluded.
"Clever," the ghost, Evan, praised.
"So you were the ones who sealed this place?"
"No, not us. By the time we found it, someone else had already sealed it. After all, this world has never lacked extraordinary individuals. Some ancient sage likely noticed the anomaly long before we did."
"We merely found a fragment of that fallen star. It contained a unique and powerful energy. We used it to reinforce the existing seal and erected a ward around the area. That is why only my descendants and the descendants of Pyxis can enter."
The phrasing sounded a bit odd, but Julien's attention was quickly drawn to a half-moon-shaped groove on the black stone tablet. It was empty. "The fragment? Where is it now?"
"After we reinforced the seal, Pyxis took the fragment with her. She brought it to a wizarding school founded by a few of her friends, saying she was going to use it to seal the 'exit'."
The Mirror of Erised? "But seals require maintenance," Julien realized. "Is that why you've stayed here all this time?"
"Not exactly. There are several similar locations, but this is where Pyxis and I parted ways. I never saw her again after that." A look of profound nostalgia washed over Evan's ghostly face.
Does this Evan lady have some sort of Grindelwald-Dumbledore dynamic going on with my ancestor? Julien thought to himself, the corner of his mouth twitching.
After a long moment, her expression grew serious.
"Recently, however, someone has been destroying the wards we set up. I don't know who it is, and I no longer have the power to stop them. But the destruction of the wards is causing the seal itself to loosen. Look—the runes over there have already grown dim."
"What do we do? Do we need that meteorite fragment back?"
Julien understood perfectly well that the key to the problem was finding the key.
"Exactly, child. That star fragment should still be at that school. You know of it, don't you?"
"Yeah, it has to be Hogwarts. I actually go to school there."
"That is wonderful. Go, child. Find the star fragment and bring it back." The ghost's form began to fade, her voice growing fainter.
"Wait! That place is huge! Are there any clues?"
"I don't know. It should be hidden in a highly secretive place. But your bloodline will be able to sense it. That's how Pyxis found it in the first place. I am tired, child... We will meet again." With those final words, the ghost vanished.
"Ghosts get tired? How come the ghosts at Hogwarts never seem to run out of energy?" Julien muttered to himself. Like the Grey Lady of Ravenclaw, who was always drifting aimlessly around the castle and never seemed to dissipate—though to be fair, he had never actually seen her speak.
At that moment, the entire underwater city shuddered violently. Julien felt his head spin, and in the next second, he was back on the shore, standing in the pine forest right where he had been before discovering Starfall Cove.
Julien leaned against a coastal pine and took several deep breaths before finally steadying himself. Looking back, the area seemed like nothing more than an ordinary rocky beach and an ordinary cliff face once again.
Suddenly, the sound of approaching footsteps echoed from the distance. There was more than one person.
Julien quickly scrambled behind a thick tree trunk to hide.
As the footsteps drew near, a voice called out, "Wolfgang, where is this place you mentioned?"
Wolfgang?
Julien peeked out and saw that the man leading the group was indeed the Wolfgang he had spotted earlier. Behind him trailed two scrawny middle-aged men wearing ridiculously outdated, shabby suits.
"You dense idiots, can't you see the spatial folds up ahead?" Wolfgang grunted roughly.
"No, I can't. And even if you can, it's not like you can get inside," the man who had spoken earlier muttered under his breath.
"What did you say?!" Wolfgang snapped, whipping his head around to glare viciously. "Hurry up and hand over the thing the boss gave us! Morons!"
One of the men in black handed over something that looked like a medical kit.
"Move faster, you fool!" Wolfgang snatched it away, flipped the case open, and pulled out a piece of black, crystal-like ore the size of a pigeon egg.
"Hey, the boss said that thing is highly radioactive. You can't touch it with your bare hands, you have to wear dragon-hide gloves," the first man warned.
Wolfgang froze. "You bastard! Why didn't you say so earlier?!" He immediately dropped the ore onto the ground, lunged forward, and kicked the man hard, cursing relentlessly.
After he finally pulled on a pair of gloves, he produced a wand from Merlin-knows-where and carefully picked up the black ore. It fit perfectly into a socket at the base of his wand handle.
Gripping the wand, Wolfgang flourished it in a circle above his head, pointed the tip toward the beach, and bellowed:
"Detecto Latibulum!" (Concealment Detection Charm)
Instantly, Julien noticed the scenery in the direction the wand was pointing flicker, like a skipped frame in a movie. And that single, flashing frame was the exact image of Starfall Cove he had just seen.
"Did you see it?! Right there!" Wolfgang shouted excitedly.
"Where? I didn't see anything." Neither of the two men had noticed. The flicker had been incredibly fast; if Julien hadn't already seen what was hidden there, he would have likely just assumed his eyes were playing tricks on him.
"You pair of absolute blockheads! Total morons!" Wolfgang cursed loudly. "I'll do it again."
He yelled the incantation once more:
"Detecto Latibulum!"
This time, absolutely nothing happened.
"Detecto Latibulum!"
"Detecto Latibulum!"
...
"Detecto Latibulum! Cough, cough, Detec... Bleurgh! Bleurgh!"
Wolfgang cast the spell over a dozen more times, to no effect whatsoever. His voice grew hoarse, and he eventually found himself gasping for breath. A wave of intense nausea hit him, and he collapsed to the ground, violently throwing up.
After resting for a long while, Wolfgang crawled back to his feet. "I'm trying this one last time. You two better not mess this up!"
The two men in black exchanged a helpless look but didn't dare say a word.
"Detecto Latibulum! Lum! LUUM!"
Poof.
With a soft puff, the black ore embedded in the base of Wolfgang's wand emitted a wisp of blue smoke and shattered into pieces.
"Damn it! Damn it! DAMN IT! Failed again."
"Let's go, Wolfgang. It's not our fault. The stone the boss gave us just isn't strong enough."
Wolfgang sighed heavily. He opened his mouth to argue but couldn't find the words. After taking a few steps, he glanced back over his shoulder and spat viciously, "I'll be back."
Once the group had walked far enough away, Julien stepped out from hiding, clutching his stomach. He had almost burst out laughing just now.
It seemed he still had some time. He would have to search the school thoroughly once the term started. If worse came to worst, he could always just ask Dumbledore. This was a matter concerning the safety of the entire world, after all; Dumbledore couldn't possibly ignore it.