Time flew quickly into December, and Christmas was fast approaching.
The crow, Itachi, brought Kyle a letter from France. It was written by Grindelwald.
Grindelwald told him to come back to France to spend Christmas with him.
However, as early as last night, Dumbledore had sought him out, dropping all sorts of hints that he wanted Kyle to stay at Hogwarts and keep the old man company for Christmas.
To this, Kyle could only say that this couple really did have a telepathic connection.
Kyle could understand the feelings of these two stubborn old men, neither wanting to be the one to see the other first.
But understanding was one thing; it didn't mean he would support these two grumpy old men with his actions.
Why did he have to choose between Britain and France?
Only children make choices. Kyle decided he was going to drag Dumbledore back to France to spend Christmas together, and incidentally see if he could help the two old men repair their relationship.
Even if their combined ages equaled twenty times his own, that didn't mean they couldn't find a second spring, right?
"Dad, just come back to France with me."
Kyle rested his chin on Dumbledore's desk, looking pitifully at the old man in front of him.
"No," Dumbledore refused without even lifting his head, busy eating pudding.
Kyle glared with the eyes he had inherited from Grindelwald, staring———
"Let's go to France!" Kyle slapped his hands repeatedly on the desk. "Don't you want the whole family to be reunited for Christmas?"
Hearing Kyle speak of a family reunion, a look of temptation flickered across Dumbledore's face.
Sharp-eyed Kyle caught this flicker of interest, so he struck while the iron was hot.
"We can eat turkey with Dad Grindelwald! And decorate the Christmas tree together!"
Kyle rattled off a long description of happy scenes of the three of them gathering together.
"Alright, alright, I get it. We'll go back together for Christmas."
Faced with the beautiful picture Kyle painted, Dumbledore, who had wanted to continue playing hard to get, had no power to resist and could only accept his true feelings.
Kyle's eyes lit up instantly. "Then I'll go write back to Dad Grindelwald!"
Without waiting for Dumbledore's reply, he darted out like a wisp of smoke, rushed to the window, and leaped out. He deployed his glider in mid-air and flew toward the Owlery in the distance.
Watching Kyle exit via the window, the corner of Dumbledore's eye twitched.
His son... really didn't take the beaten path.
On the way back to the castle from the Owlery, Kyle ran into the Weasley family's two sources of parental grief outside the castle.
George and Fred seemed to want to investigate whether Professor Quirrell was hiding a big bald head under that turban.
So, they cast a spell on the snow on the ground, making it automatically form into snowballs and chase the back of Quirrell's head to smash into it.
Kyle's mouth twitched when he saw this. Not long ago, Dumbledore had told him that Voldemort was possessing Quirrell.
If he guessed correctly, Quirrell's turban was wrapped around his head to hide Voldemort's presence.
In other words, Voldemort was currently cowering under Quirrell's turban...
The twins were probably the first people to smash snowballs into the face of the second Dark Lord.
If he wasn't afraid of retaliation from "Socket-Man" later, Kyle would have liked to join the twins and wash Voldemort's face with snowballs.
[T/N: "Socket-Man" refers to a fan nickname regarding Voldemort's socket-like nose.]
Before he had enough strength to protect himself, he'd better just squat on the sidelines, eating melon seeds and watching the show.
However, the show was soon cut short, because a certain older "cat-lady" had appeared behind the twins at some point.
"For your rude behavior! Five points from each of you!" Professor McGonagall said sternly, her eyes filled with anger.
After Professor McGonagall left, Kyle's unbridled, gloating laughter immediately rang out in the snowy field.
Watching the gloating Kyle, George and Fred exchanged a glance and secretly pulled out their wands.
With a point of their wands, all the snow on the ground swallowed Kyle like a tsunami.
Struggling to poke his head out of the snow pile, Kyle refused to show weakness and launched a counterattack.
When the three of them returned to the castle, freezing like dogs, it was already half an hour later.
The three headed straight for the warmest place in all of Hogwarts—the kitchens.
"Are you staying at school or going home for Christmas?" Kyle asked, holding a steaming cup of ginger tea.
"We're all staying at Hogwarts because Mom and Dad are taking Ginny to Romania to visit Charlie," George replied without turning his head, squeezing near the fire to warm up.
Fred took a cup of hot tea from a house-elf and sat down in front of Kyle. "What about you? Going back to France?"
"Yeah," Kyle nodded. "Professor Dumbledore is coming back with me too."
"By the way, who exactly is that mysterious dad of yours?" Fred asked, remembering Kyle chatting about his summer holidays; being able to live in a castle was definitely not your average level of wealth.
George leaned in too. "Why haven't we ever heard of such a person in the Dumbledore family before?"
As the wizarding family that produced the greatest white wizard, the Dumbledore family had always been the center of attention in the magical world.
Yet for some reason, the outside world knew very little about the members of the Dumbledore family.
The only other Dumbledore family member George and Fred knew of was the owner of the Hog's Head Inn.
He was Albus Dumbledore's brother, Aberforth Dumbledore.
They had gone to the Hog's Head to buy alcohol before, only to be kicked out by a furious Aberforth.
Driven by curiosity, the brothers investigated a bit and found out about this fact.
However, neither of them had figured out until now why Aberforth had been so furious when he saw Kyle's eyes.
Kyle, on the other hand, knew exactly what had happened back then.
His two dads had gotten into a fight for some reason. Although both were emotional, neither had cast lethal spells at the other.
But Aberforth, the younger brother, had joined in wanting to fight to the death.
Then, in the three-way chaotic duel, a spell—no one knew whose—ricocheted.
As a result, this ricocheted spell killed Ariana Dumbledore, who was standing to the side.
She was the younger sister of Albus and Aberforth.
That was when Grindelwald and Dumbledore had broken up.
And Aberforth blamed the other two for Ariana's death.
When he saw Kyle's face, the fact that he could hold back the urge to hit Kyle with an Avada Kedavra was already treating Kyle pretty well.
Because Kyle hadn't publicly restored his original surname yet, and the twins didn't know about Grindelwald sneaking out of Nurmengard.
In fact, only a few summoned Acolytes knew about this matter so far.
So, naturally, the twins assumed Grindelwald was just some member of the Dumbledore family.
Actually, that way of putting it wasn't wrong.
Although the two grumpy old men, Grindelwald and Dumbledore, were living apart, it couldn't hide the essence that they were originally a loving family.
Sipping the ginger tea, Kyle set down his cup.
"It's probably because he's always lived in France and hasn't had much contact with the British side, which is why you haven't heard of him."
The surname Grindelwald couldn't be revealed to the wizarding public yet, not even to his friends.
So Kyle could only make up a random excuse to fool the brothers for now.
Anyway, these two weren't that interested in the matter; they were just casually gossiping.
————
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