Snape, the Sunshine of Hogwarts.

Chapter 154 [The Banshee's Teacup]

After putting away the autographed book, Severus took the initiative to ask Nicole a question.

"How do you plan to explain this to the French Ministry of Magic?"

Nico sat on the recliner. The Lemaître house was quiet. The house-elves were still at the Ministry of Magic and hadn't returned yet. His wife had been quite frightened these past two days and had gone back to her bedroom on the second floor to rest.

Right now, only Severus and Nico are here.

“Even if I told the truth, the Aurors of France would never believe that those people did these things.”

Nico said casually, looking out the window. The location of the monastery was not close, but even so, he could faintly see a green light spreading outward in the dark night sky.

“Veda’s group has a firm grasp on the French Ministry of Magic’s past fear of the Sorcerers. Just like when you find evidence within the Ministry of Magic that has a direct connection to Nurmengard, they will try to convince themselves with various reasons that it is all a coincidence, and then fall into the ‘truth’ they want to believe.”

Severus also saw the night sky illuminated by a thin layer of green light.

"They used the captured Shafik and others to pin the blame on the Death Eaters?"

“An enemy far away in Britain is always easier to accept than a nightmare right in front of you.” Nico shook his head, as if he were sighing about something. “No matter how wise or brave a person may have been, once they are involved in politics, they will be like someone caught in a spider’s web, and eventually they will lose control of their own destiny.”

"After Perena has rested, I need your help, Professor Snape."

Nico turned to look at Severus.

Severus remained noncommittal, simply looking at Nico and listening as he continued.

“I will go with her to the French Ministry of Magic to tell the Auror what happened after we were kidnapped by a group of strangers, but we don’t know who they are until you rescued us.”

Clearly, if Nico were to keep his promise to Grindelwald and not reveal Vida and his companion's true identities to the French Ministry of Magic, then he would need to find a reason why the couple had been able to return safely.

Severus is the most suitable.

While he was investigating the Auror case, he had discovered several important clues that the Ministry of Magic had failed to find.

He was one step ahead of the old Marauders, returning to Hogwarts to find Dumbledore first, then coming to Nurmengard to wait for the murderer to come with Nico, and finally bringing Nico back to Paris.

Even to be honest, Severus was indeed the one who rescued them from the Marco Polo Bridge Party.

Severus thought about it for a few seconds and then agreed without hesitation.

The French Ministry of Magic must have known about his departure and disappearance this afternoon, so it makes perfect sense for them to use that time to rescue the Flamels.

The reason Severus took a few seconds to think was because he was thinking about Black's escape.

Previously, when the French Ministry of Magic needed his help, he refused their offer to send a letter to the British Ministry of Magic explaining the matter, precisely because he didn't want Black to find out about it so quickly.

But now that Nico has been found and his spellcasting problem has been initially resolved, he is about to leave Paris.

Therefore, there was no longer any need to keep the news of him taking Lupin and Harry to France a secret.

However, since the couple suddenly returned safely, they would need to come up with some other excuse if they didn't say that Vida and his men were behind it.

So, before going to the Ministry of Magic, Severus and Nicole rehearsed their statements and decided how to recount their experiences reasonably after meeting the Aurors.

After discussing all these matters, Severus, seeing that Nico was still full of energy and showed no signs of fatigue that one would expect at his age, took the opportunity to bring up another matter.

"Mr. Lemaître, do you know what happens to a person's soul when their body dies but their soul remains immortal due to certain magic?"

Severus's question piqued Nico's interest.

"The body dies, but the soul lives on? You mean a ghost?"

However, he then shook his head, denying the speculation about ghosts.

"No, ghosts are dead in the strict sense, both in body and soul. However, they still have an extremely strong attachment to this world. Their souls undergo other changes after death due to magic. What you are referring to is not this kind."

Severus nodded.

"It's definitely not a ghost. A dead ghost has no chance of being resurrected. But the state I'm talking about is different. Because only the physical body perishes, the surviving soul finds a way to reshape the body, so it can achieve a resurrection in a real sense."

These words reminded Nico of something; he frowned noticeably, then looked at Severus thoughtfully.

"Ordinary magic can't achieve this level of effect. What do you want to ask?"

Severus spoke calmly. "That damned, undead soul state can attach itself to the bodies of some creatures. I was wondering, Mr. Lemaître, do you have any similar research that can control such a soul state, or rather..."

"Don't let him possess a living being, but instead seal him inside a fixed object!"

Nico opened his mouth without realizing it. He stared blankly for a moment, his old and somewhat sluggish mind clearly thinking.

Although he didn't understand what Severus wanted to do, he had a strange premonition that the Slytherin headmaster who had left Hogwarts was preparing to carry out some big plan!

"Mr. Lemaître? Mr. Lemaître?"

Severus's two soft calls brought Nico back to his senses.

He took a deep breath and looked closely at the wizard who hadn't previously impressed him much, except that his soul and magic were somewhat special, but his abilities were quite remarkable.

"I've never seen the kind of soul state you're describing."

Nicole shook her head.

Although this result disappointed Severus somewhat, he didn't take it too seriously.

Originally, he only intended to take this opportunity to test the alchemist. If he could gain something, that would be even better; if not, he could simply go to Albania as planned.

At that moment, Nico suddenly spoke again.

"But even if that soul state is different from a ghost, in essence, as a mass of intangible matter where the body has died but the spirit and will still exist, it should be closer to the form of a ghost."

"I'm not sure if I have what you're talking about—something that can capture living souls—but I do have something that can trap ghosts."

His words made Severus's eyes light up again.

Nico had already gotten up from the recliner and was rummaging through his safe when he finally found an old teacup!
It was a small bone china teacup, with a small chip on the rim that looked like it had been knocked off.

In Severus's opinion, it was very similar to the teaching aids that Trelawney, the Hogwarts Divination professor, would use in her tea dregs divination lessons.

After receiving the cup from Nico, Severus could clearly sense its difference.

There were still some tea leaves left at the bottom of the teacup that hadn't been cleaned off; it certainly looked like a prop left over from tea divination.

But the tea dregs seemed to have become one with the cup itself. They appeared to be soaked in a thin layer of water at the bottom of the cup, but even when Severus turned the entire cup upside down, not a single drop of water or a single tea dreg fell out.

When he picked up the cup again and looked at the bottom, he discovered that the tea dregs, which had originally been faintly triangular, had changed shape at some point and become a six-pointed star.

“This used to be a banshee’s possession,” Nico explained to Severus. “I found it in the Pyrenees. The banshee was dead, but the ghost she became was trapped in this cup and couldn’t get out. So I brought the cup back and studied its workings.”

"It turned out that the cup must have belonged to a powerful sorcerer long ago. The banshee stole his divination collection, so he cursed the cup, so that the banshee could not escape from it until her death and had to stay inside it forever."

“I was very interested in this curse and this cup. I forget exactly when, but later I helped the banshee release her soul, and then used alchemy to solidify the curse and the cup together. Finally, I kept it as one of my collections.”

Severus listened to Nico's story while holding the "Banshee's Teacup," and then looked up with a strange expression on his face.

"Aren't you afraid that the cursed wizard will come after you?"

Nico laughed.

"How many people in this world are eternal? The wizard who cast the curse is long dead, but the effects of his curse have never dissipated, and in the end, I left them completely on this cup."

Severus shrugged, his gaze fixed on the cup, which began to gleam.

Have you tried anything else with it before to see its effects?

“I’ve tried it with the ghost of Beauxbatons, and also with some special spirits, like the poltergeist and some spirits classified as dark magic creatures, and it works on them all.”

"I'm thinking," Nico said.

"As for whether the kind of soul state you described works, you'll have to try it yourself."

Severus squinted and nodded.

Getting something that might be useful was already a pleasant surprise for him; as for whether it would actually come in handy later on, that remains to be seen.

That depends on how he prepares.

(End of this chapter)