Chapter 139

Frank Bryce was a veteran of World War I.

He was lucky to catch up with the tail of the final victory, which made him not forget his body on the battlefield like his father.

Before his mother died of excessive sadness, she hung her thin arm and told Frank that it was the most important to be safe all her life.

But when he was young and stubborn, he wanted to avenge his father.

But still that sentence, he is very lucky.

When he came back from the battlefield, the war brought him only a stiff leg and an extreme aversion to the crowd and noise.

Is father's revenge over?

Frank never found the answer to this question.

Since then, he decided to listen to his mother, find an ordinary job and live a good life.

At this time, in his hometown, the rich Riedel family was just looking for a gardener to hire.

This was perfect for him - he didn't have to be sharp, but he could stay away from the noisy crowd. He believes that this must be the most suitable job for him.

To tell you the truth, Mr. and Mrs. Riedel are a good match because they are equally annoying.

But it had nothing to do with Frank. He didn't care about the salary. All he wanted was to live a stable life - his mother's last wish.

But one day nearly five years later, the owner's family died at home for no reason. As the only living Frank living in Riedel's house, he was taken away by the police as a suspect.

The villagers immediately began to talk. After all, this topic will always become a pastime before and after tea.

Just when the situation was very serious for frank, the Riddell family's autopsy report came back, which suddenly turned the whole situation around.

The police said they had never seen a more bizarre autopsy report.

None of the Riddell family was hurt by poisons, sharp weapons, pistols, or suffocated or strangled.

In fact, the report was clearly written in a confused tone: all three of the Riddell family looked healthy - except for one thing, they were all out of breath.

The forensics seemed determined to find something wrong with the body.

"There was a look of horror on every face of the Riedel family."

But as the helpless police said - who has heard that three people were scared to death at the same time?

Since there was no evidence that the riddles were murdered, the police had to let Frank out.

To everyone's surprise and doubt, after the riddles were buried in the cemetery, Frank Bryce returned to his cabin in the courtyard of the riddles house.

Frank was not very interested in the gossip in the village. He remained his gardener and continued to work for the owner of the land.

This has been done for nearly half a century.

Now Frank is going to have his seventy seventh birthday.

He was very deaf and his bad leg was stiffer than before. But when the weather was fine, people could still see him working slowly in the flower bed. Although the weeds were creeping around him, he couldn't stop it if he wanted to.

Old Frank was not too confused. He knew he was just wasting his time.

Besides, Frank had to deal with more than weeds - the village boys always liked to throw stones at the windows of Riddle House.

As for Frank's hard work to maintain the flat grass, they ran over it by bike.

Once or twice, they even broke into the old house in order to bet on each other.

They knew that old Frank devoted himself to the care of the house and garden, almost to the degree of obsession. So they wanted to see him limp across the garden, waving crutches and yelling at them in a hoarse voice.

At this time, they feel very happy.

And old Frank?

He believed that the boys tortured him because they thought he was a murderer like their parents and grandparents.

But he has been working in this job for almost a lifetime, and he has no reason to interrupt it. This may be for his mother's last wish, but it is also for his own life.

So on that August night

Old Frank woke up from his sleep with the pain of his bad leg - now he's old and the pain is getting worse and worse. He got up from bed and limped downstairs into the kitchen, trying to fill the hot water bag to warm his stiff knees.

Standing by the pool, filling the kettle with water, he habitually looked up at Riddle House.

Then he saw a glimmer of light from the upstairs window.

"What new tricks have those little guys come up with to punish my old bone?" old Frank thought he had guessed what was going on.

The boys broke into the old house again. The glimmer in the window was flickering and uncertain. It could be seen that they had made a fire.

He quickly put down the kettle, dragged his bad leg and returned upstairs as soon as possible to get dressed. Soon he returned to the kitchen and took the rusty old key from the hook by the door.

Finally, he picked up the crutch against the wall and walked into the night with one foot deep and one foot shallow.

The front door of Riddle House showed no sign of forced entry, and the windows were intact.

Old Frank limped around the back of the house, stopped by a door almost completely covered by Parthenocissus, took out the old key and silently opened the door.

He hasn't come in for many years.

However, although it was dark everywhere, he still remembered where the door leading to the corridor was. He groped his way, and a smell of decay came to his nostrils.

Pricking up his ears, he caught every step or voice above his head.

When he came to the corridor, there was a little light because of the large grid windows on both sides of the front door.

He began to go upstairs, thinking that thanks to the thick dust on the stone steps, the sound of his footsteps and crutches was dull and difficult to detect.

On the landing, old Frank turned to the right and immediately saw where the intruder was - at the top of the corridor, a door was open, a flickering light came out of the door, and an orange shadow was thrown on the black floor.

Frank leaned over and approached carefully, clutching his crutch tightly in his hand.

A few steps away from the door, he could see something inside through the narrow opening of the door.

He saw now that the fire was made in the fireplace - to tell the truth, it surprised him.

He stopped, cocked up his ears, and heard a man's voice in the room. The voice was a little stiff and the tone was dry, which was very uncomfortable.

"... master, Lucius Malfoy is coming."

"Well..."

Another voice suddenly sounded. It sounded very young, soft and powerful. But somehow Frank felt his hair stand up, as if he had heard something he shouldn't have heard.

"What about Wormtail?" the voice asked softly. "How's he doing?"

"Dead."

"Well, that's expected," said the man calmly, "but what's the effect?"

"Auror killed one person, five civilians died and 22 injured."

"That's it?" the voice seemed to become heavier, but still calm and natural. "Is it because Dumbledore's old thing arrived soon?"

"No, it's a student, and it's him who killed Wormtail," the dry voice paused and continued. "He calls himself Marca McLean."

"McLean... A student..." the man seemed to think, "Oh, who else will there be besides that boy? Marca McLean... Have you ever fought with him?"

"Without the master's command, the servant dare not do it."

"... well, well, first feed Nagini the one at the door, and then report the details of the battle in detail."

Just then, old Frank felt that the door in front of him suddenly opened wide, and his vision became dark. His life ended without surprise.

At the same time, a figure, like Pettigrew Peter, was standing there with a strong black smell all over. He grabbed old Frank by the collar and dragged him into the hall of the old house.

As he threw old Frank forward, a huge snake with the same black gas rushed out of the darkness and swallowed old Frank's body.

Look at the huge figure that is still hidden in the shadow, which is obviously not much smaller than the snake monster.

"Hiss"

It hissed at the figure, and the light of wisdom flickered faintly in its provocative eyes.

……

Just when old Frank threw himself into the arms of death, in the cemetery behind the black stone fortress called "Azkaban", a boy was grinding several thin pieces of stone.

On the silent Island, the sound of stones rubbing seemed quite abrupt.

But no one here would disturb his work. He just polished it attentively, trying to make the edge of the stone sharper.

No one knows what he wants to do. Of course, no one will be interested here.

This boy, of course, is Maka who was locked up in Azkaban.

"Hoo!" he suddenly picked up the stone flakes, blew the stone chips on the surface of the stone flakes, looked over and over again, and then nodded with satisfaction.

The boy is Maka naturally - all he has to do before the time comes is wait.

But waiting here all the time was definitely not what he wanted, so he decided to use everything here to continue some of his research.

For Maka, time is very precious. We can't completely give up research and waste our time because of poor conditions.

"Well, not bad."

He picked up the stone and scratched a not too deep scratch on the trunk of a dead tree beside him.