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It circled Ariana slowly, deliberately. Its feathers shimmered like flowing fire, every beat of its wings resonating with the starlight that clung to her form.
Ariana's expression softened further. Smiling gently, she extended her hand, and the phoenix descended without hesitation, alighting upon the back of her hand as though it had always belonged there.
'Such extraordinary affinity with a phoenix… could that too be a sign of the purity of Dumbledore's bloodline? Was this yet another piece of impossible proof?' Ian's lips moved, but no sound emerged.
The wizard who had thought himself prepared for anything now found the bounds of his imagination woefully insufficient for the madness his world kept unveiling.
"Is… this phoenix yours?"
Ariana's gaze flicked between the bird and Leonard.
"Wait… don't tell me, you're an ancestor of the Dumbledore family!?"
Her eyes widened in dawning realization. And then, an even greater shock followed.
"No! No, Ancestor Ariana Dumbledore, you are the ancestor!" Leonard's voice rang with disbelief and awe, as though he had just stepped out of a dream into living reality. The woman he had only ever seen in a portrait now stood before him, breathing, speaking, alive.
'Was she a spirit?'
'Or something else entirely?'
Leonard's heart churned with a storm of questions.
"Eh?"
Ariana blinked in confusion. She felt as though Leonard had just stolen her line. Ian had told her this was the Middle Ages, so shouldn't she be the one crying out in reverence to an ancestor, not the other way around?
And besides… how on earth did he know her name?
Still lost in that dazed whirl of thoughts, Ariana almost missed Leonard's sudden movement. His eyes widened as if struck by realization, and with a sharp slap to the back of his head, he jolted upright, "I understand now!"
Leonard's eyes widened, staring at Ian with shock and awe.
"You… you must also be my ancestor! Ariana's husband!" He stumbled over the words, unsure how to address Ian, yet his wild leap of logic only grew more absurd by the second.
Of course, from Leonard's perspective, it wasn't entirely unreasonable. After all, stories of immortal husbands wandering with their wives' spirits were common in the old ballads. To him, this explanation seemed perfectly sound.
He truly believed he had uncovered the truth.
But--
"..."
Ian froze causing his neck to go stiff, every nerve in his body numbed by disbelief.
"What kind of nonsense is that?!" he couldn't stop himself from blurting out.
Ariana, too, looked utterly lost, unable to follow Leonard's reasoning. In truth, she hadn't even figured out why she had been mistaken for an ancestor in the first place, let alone why someone was suddenly pairing her off with Ian in the family tree.
"Ian? What's going on here?" Ariana turned to him, bewildered.
All Ian could do was shrug helplessly.
"I don't really know… It's probably tied to something very complicated. Once I get back, I'll have to ask Headmaster Dumbledore about it. Maybe then the whole mess will make more sense."
He swallowed hard, lowering his voice. "Of course, I'll leave out Leonard Dumbledore's… imaginative remarks. Otherwise the Headmaster will murder me."
The truth was, Ian had already begun piecing together a few troubling suspicions. Considering the Headmaster's recent secret endeavors, it wasn't unthinkable that Ariana might one day be resurrected.
Still, why it had led to such a paradox now was utterly beyond him. Time was a treacherous snarl of contradictions, and trying to untangle it always left the mind reeling.
"I think… this Dumbledore gentleman must have simply mistaken me for someone else," Ariana offered, her thoughts far simpler. She gave an embarrassed smile, settling on the most straightforward conclusion.
As a girl whose mind was still that of a teenager, she could hardly wrestle with the paradox of "which came first, the chicken or the egg." The idea of being someone's ancestor, let alone Ian's, was simply too strange, too uncomfortable. The more she thought about it, the more awkward it became.
"Exactly. He's mistaken," Ian agreed quickly.
He caught sight of Leonard opening his mouth as though to argue, and decided to end it before Ariana spiraled into confusion. With a sharp flick, he dismissed the Patronus charm.
"Give my regards to my Teacher and to Pandro," Ian said softly, bidding farewell before Ariana's light faded. Ever polite, she gave a final wave, not just to Ian, but to Leonard and Merlin as well.
Leonard instinctively lifted his hand and waved back.
Merlin, however, remained unmoved. It wasn't a lack of manners, though Ian would argue the old wizard lacked plenty of those. No, in that moment Merlin's silence came from something else entirely: he hadn't taken his eyes off Ian for even a second.
And when Ariana's glow finally dissipated and the sky cleared once more, Merlin at last broke the silence.
"That… was your Patronus? A human-shaped Patronus?"
His voice was low and rough, threaded with shock and disbelief. Even his hands, hanging at his sides, trembled faintly.
"Impressive, right? She can even help me cut people down if it comes to that."
Ian arched a brow, his tone light, almost playful. To him, being able to shock even the so-called King of Ancient Wizards was nothing short of entertaining.
"This isn't a matter of impressive or not…" Merlin's throat worked as he swallowed, his voice low and strained. "As far as I know, there are only two beings capable of pulling souls back from the underworld."
He had clearly seen Ariana for what she was, a heroic spirit.
"Only two? And now me? That many already?" Ian's focus landed on the strangest part, his casual remark oddly out of place. He noticed Merlin's shoulders trembling faintly.
"…Heh."
It sounded like Merlin was trying to smother his emotions.
"Yes. Two."
His gaze locked on Ian, unblinking, like a blade held to his throat.
"One of them must be Death itself, right?" Ian ventured cautiously.
But Merlin shook his head.
"No. Death never interferes in such things. In all of history, only two have done this. One was the Shadow Crow… and the other, the figure alchemists revere as legend, the True Creator."
His eyes gleamed sharply. "And now, there's a third. You… Medivh… or should I call you Ian? I hope that is your true name."
The suspicion in his stare was relentless, almost interrogative, and it made Ian's scalp prickle. He instinctively took a step back.
"Of course it's Ian," he said with an awkward laugh.
Leonard, standing to the side, studied him as well, though the Dumbledore heir's gaze lacked the cutting edge of Merlin's.
"This is… unreasonable. But if there's one revelation I've gained from this journey, it's that I may finally be glimpsing a truth buried deep beneath the dust of history."
Merlin's voice grew grim, almost solemn. "To summon the dead from the realm beyond… that is no mere skill. It is an authority. The mark of a sovereign."
Ian swallowed hard, throat tight.
"…And what exactly are you trying to say?"
His heart already whispered the answer.
As expected, "I just want to test a theory."
From nowhere, Merlin produced a pitch-black orb and held it out toward Ian, palm open.
"Perhaps the authority over life and death… has always belonged to the same one being in this world."
Seeing Ian hesitate, Merlin thrust the orb straight into his hands.
"What the hell is this?" Ian muttered, weighing the dense sphere curiously.
The answer came almost instantly.
The orb cracked, splitting apart to reveal something bizarre, a metallic, cybernetic eye glinting coldly in the light. Merlin's face shifted the moment he saw it, his expression saying just as I thought.
Ian barely had time to open his mouth, Before his vision filled with a massive fist, as large as a sandbag, driving straight at him.
"Bloody hell! You bastard!"
Among the blooming wildflowers, Ian's body proved firsthand the versatility of wizards.
Clearly, among them there were not only sword saints, But boxing champions as well.
(End of Chapter)