บท 23: Chapter 23

Andreas Beckenbauer is a magician who made many mistakes in his youth, and he considered the biggest of all his mistakes to be that he followed Grindelwald. At that time, Andreas was a believer in meritocracy, and he considered himself and his entourage worthy of government.

However, Gellert's defeat... And the subsequent persecution of his supporters showed Andreas the true colors of this world. The only reason Andreas was able to survive relatively painlessly was that the Beckenbauer family had a huge fortune. After the purge, most of this fortune was lost, but even what remained allowed Andreas and his family to live comfortably.

After all the troubles that had befallen Andreas, it was as if he had a chance at a normal life. The appearance of his wife and daughter brought the necessary colors to the aristocrat's life, and he thought that everything had returned to normal...

But as his wife said... There is no rest for the wicked, and pretty soon the whole world was crushed by the news of Gellert Grindelwald's escape. Andreas had already realized that Beckenbauer's quiet life was over. The numerous checks and surveillance of his family that followed only confirmed these thoughts.

Andreas would probably have come to terms with it because everything is better than Grindelwald. However, fate once again showed its ugly head, and the Dark Lord came to him in advance, destroying all the guards who checked the Beckenbauer house. Grindelwald was a very terrifying Legilimens and he showed again why he was so much feared.

The Dark Lord literally gutted the minds of the guards and made them obedient dolls unable to resist his orders. Seeing all this, Andreas' fear of Grindelwald returned with renewed vigor, and Lord Beckenbauer decided to follow all the orders of the monster.

Fortunately, Grindelwald did not ask for anything beyond the impossible, just to provide the necessary funds and complete a couple of assignments.

"Ursula, can you arrange for one orphanage to go to the Netherlands?"

The woman Andreas was addressing was one of those with whom he was doing shady business.

"Can I know more about it?"

After that, Andreas began to explain the details of Grindelwald's request.

"Does it mean that Muggles need to carry out some kind of 'program' to improve the education of children?" Ursula said thoughtfully. "It is necessary that all those involved are more sympathetic to this idea, which means that potions are needed, it is still more inconspicuous than spells."

"Do it as soon as possible."

"It will be quite expensive."

Andreas only smiled mirthlessly and said:

"Money is not a problem."

Ursula quickly realized that Andreas had some kind of problem since he was behaving like that.

"Well, what kind of area is it necessary to arrange a trip to?"

"To the village of Morea."

"It will be done."

After Ursula left, Andreas sighed heavily and said:

"I'm doing all this for Maria..."

The summer was going well, I spent most of my time honing my skills, being distracted only occasionally by errands from the matron. That's probably how it would have gone on if something interesting hadn't happened one day.

"You say we will go to the Netherlands in the summer?"

"Exactly," Mrs. Smith said, holding the envelope in her hands.

"Is that all?"

Mrs. Smith just nodded and said:

"Our shelter participated in a special program for children. And in the end, our shelter won a trip to the Netherlands."

All this sounded very strange to me personally, a trip to the Netherlands? What can you even see there?

They won't take us to Amsterdam, will they? The age of the bulk of our shelter is not the same. What could be there besides Amsterdam?

"Where exactly are we going?"

Mrs. Smith smiled and said:

"To the village of Moera."

To the village?!

"And what are we going to see there?"

"They say that the place is of great interest to archaeologists."

"I see..." all that remained was to tell me because I understood that I would hardly be able to refuse the trip.

And two weeks later we were already in the Netherlands, the climate, by the way, was quite similar to what it was in London. Although it was most similar to what it was at Hogwarts.

The children were generally happy with what they saw, after all, they rarely traveled so far from London.

"Our bus should be a little further away," Mrs. Smith said.

After a couple of minutes of searching, we found a bus that was supposed to take us to the village. In general, in terms of time, it was all a matter of three days, exactly how much you need to spend on the bus. Considering the company, the trip was not bad, it was worth saying, at least because I already remembered school trips outside the city.

Still, during my youth, we often went out of town, the location of the city played a big role in this matter. The nature that surrounded my city was of unearthly beauty, it's a pity that not all the potential of this nature was revealed... Later, when I became a student and traveled to many CIS countries, I learned that the picture is about the same in many other cities.

"Adam, what are you thinking about?" one of the children asked me.

"Well, how to say it..." I said, looking at the picture outside the window.

Upon arrival, we were greeted by a city that seemed to be built near a swamp. There were quite a lot of these swamps around Moera.

"Good afternoon," a woman and her daughter met us.

Mrs. Smith understood something:

"Oh, you must be Mrs. Raske."

"Yes, and are you Mrs. Smith?" After receiving an affirmative nod in response, the blonde continued. "You'd better just call me Elske, and this is my daughter Beatrice."

Next to her stood a blonde of 16-17 years old, who smiled and said:

"I will be glad to help you."

Beatrice, after examining us all, suddenly fixed her gaze on me, in her gaze I could see already quite familiar emotions in the semblance of surprise and curiosity. Meeting her gaze, I smiled slightly, receiving the same friendly smile in return.

"And you must be the children we've been looking forward to?" Beatrice's mother asked, looking at us.

There was something typical of mothers in her gaze, thoughtfulness, and gentleness. The children were quite savvy in the matter of the perception of emotions and very quickly opened up to this woman. At least in the views of the children, it was evident that they liked this person.

"I'm sure you'll like it here. Our settlement is known for its sights."

I listened to her stories mostly with half an ear, thinking about how best to allocate my time in these places.

"Is your hair naturally this color?" Beatrice's voice sounded.

The voiced question quickly pulled me out of my thoughts. Meeting the girl's gaze and seeing nothing but curiosity in her gaze:

"Yeah, can't believe it?"

Beatrice just smiled and shook her head:

"I believe, I believe, it's just an unusual color."

"Huh, I see. By the way, my name is Adam, nice to meet you."

"As you already know, my name is Beatrice, and it's nice to meet you too."

After a short time, we were able to get along pretty well, and I could already ask the following question:

"And what can you do here in general?"

Beatrice thought for a couple of seconds and said:

"A lot of things, but the most interesting thing for you will probably be the Hel festival, which will take place in the coming days."

"Hel's holiday?"

"Quite a long story, it would be better to wait for the moment when we come to our house."

"In that case, I'm waiting for an interesting story."

"Necessarily," Beatrice replied with a smile.

"I wanted to ask a question, and your house, as I understand it, is located near the marshes?"

"Yes, by the way, it is worth saying that this house has served as a home for numerous representatives of my family."

"But why the swamp?"

Beatrice only shrugged her shoulders in response, saying:

"Maybe it seemed convenient at the time. But to be honest, I don't know the exact reason, I've never really asked myself such a question."

"I see..."

Further conversations were already on more abstract topics, and under such conversations, we reached the house of the Beatrice family. By the way, it was worth saying that the house looked really good, it looked more like a mansion than a small house. And in addition to the swamp, there was also a forest around, at least trees with normal land were definitely available.

Near the entrance, we were met by a man of quite mature age, he looked like an ordinary man of 40-50 years old with a mustache in which gray hair was already breaking through. In addition to this mustache, another notable feature of the man was a beer belly.

"Hans!"

The man who had been busy with something before turned around:

"Oh! You came pretty quickly. And I made sausages here."

Kissing Elske on the cheek, he turned his attention to us and smiled and said:

"I hope you like it here."

After that, we were assigned to rooms, the benefit of these very rooms was in abundance. Having settled in, we had dinner with the Raske family, and went to bed. We spent the next day helping the Raske family and exploring the surrounding area.

On the first day, I fell into the front part, where there was a forest and a path to the center of this village. At the same time, the others were busy exploring the swamp, which was already behind the house.

For the first few days, Beatrice did not find time to tell what kind of holiday Hel would be held in the coming days. Her parents were pretty busy with things, and she simply didn't have time to talk.

However, the day Beatrice found time to tell the story was the day when most of the residents of the house went to the village. I decided not to go there because I had no particular desire. So Beatrice and I got enough time to talk. And ten minutes later, as our dialogue began, I asked her:

"So what's Hel's holiday?"

Beatrice thought about it and decided something, continued:

"This story originates from a long time ago. At that time, these lands were ruled by Count Geweld, and he was a very terrifying man. He had a wife, Lady Ymke, who was known for her terrifying temper. But the count was famous for the fact that he loved to master the maids. And there was one maid named Hel, who was known for her beauty throughout the neighborhood, they said that there was no one equal to her in beauty."

Beatrice paused slightly to drink the water and continued:

And the Count couldn't resist the temptation to take Hel... After a night with the Count, Hel became pregnant. Lady Ymke, who found out about this, became enraged, and imprisoned Hel in a dungeon. The maid imprisoned in the dungeon prayed to God day after day in search of salvation. But it was not the Biblical God who responded to Hel's pleas, but someone from more ancient times, Moloch responded to her. He agreed to help Hel, but on one condition... Every descendant of Hel will belong to Moloch. Hel agreed to this condition, and on the day she was supposed to be burned, she slit her throat. After that, Hel's soul entered Ymke's body and these lands finally found peace."

After a while, I decided to ask:

"I hope you don't tell this story to children?"

Beatrice's gaze spoke better than a thousand words.

"This is a normal story for a child... But I still don't understand. How is the Hel holiday going?"

"Oh, I didn't tell you. According to superstitions, the soul of Ymke remained somewhere here and in order for Ymke not to start brawling, a holiday was held. On this day, a Hel mannequin is made and this very mannequin is burned."

"You know how crazy that sounds, right?"

Beatrice only laughed and said:

"Well, it's just a fairy tale so that the children don't walk at night."