Chapter 138 Frank's Life

Frank Bryce was a World War I veteran.

Fortunately, he only caught up with the tail of the final victory, which made him not forget his remnant body on the battlefield like his father did.

Before his mother passed away due to excessive grief, she told Frank with her drooping and skinny arms that the most important thing was to be safe and secure in life.

But he was young and stubborn, but he hoped to avenge his father.

But again, he was lucky.

When he came back from the war, the war had brought him nothing but a stiff leg and an extreme distaste for crowds and noise.

Has the father's revenge been paid off?

Frank never found an answer to this question.

Since then, he decided to listen to his mother's advice, find an ordinary job, and live his life in peace and stability.

At this time, in his hometown, the wealthy Riddle family just happened to be looking for a gardener to hire.

This couldn't be better for him - he doesn't need so quick legs and feet, and he can stay away from the noisy crowd. He believes that this must be the best job for him.

Truth be told, the Riddles are a good match, because they're both equally obnoxious.

But this has nothing to do with Frank, he doesn't care about the salary. All he wanted was to live his own stable life—this was his mother's last wish.

But one day nearly five years later, the host family all died at home inexplicably. As the only Frank who lived in Riddle's house and was still alive, he was taken away by the police as a suspect.

The villagers immediately started talking about it. After all, this kind of topic will always become a pastime talk before and after tea and dinner.

Just when the situation was extremely serious for Frank, the autopsy report of the Riddle family came back, which turned the whole situation around at once.

Police said they had never seen a more outlandish autopsy report.

No one in the Riddle family was injured by poison, sharp weapon, pistol, smothered or strangled.

In fact, the report was clearly written in a tone of bewilderment: all three of the Riddle family appeared healthy—except for one thing, they were all dead.

The medical examiners seemed determined to find something wrong with the body.

"Everyone in the Riddle family had a look of horror on their faces."

But as the helpless policeman said—who ever heard of three people being frightened 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 misgiving, after the Riddles had been buried in the cemetery, Frank Bryce returned to his little log cabin in the grounds of the Riddle House.

Frank was not too interested in the gossip in the village, he continued to work as his gardener, and continued to work for the owner of the land.

This has been done for nearly half a century.

Now Frank was approaching his seventy-seventh birthday.

He was terribly deaf, and his bad leg was stiffer than ever. But when the weather is good, people can still see him dawdling in the flower garden, although the weeds are creeping towards him, and he can't stop them.

Old Frank is actually not too confused. He knows that he is just wasting his efforts.

And it wasn't just weeds that Frank had to deal with—the village boys were always throwing rocks at the windows of the Riddle House.

As for the flat grass that Frank had worked so hard to maintain, they rode their bicycles and trampled on it.

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

They knew old Frank was devoted to the care of the house and grounds,

Almost to the point of obsession. So they liked to see him limping across the garden, brandishing his cane, and yelling at them in a hoarse voice.

Whenever this happens, they feel very happy.

And old Frank?

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

But he has been doing this job almost all his life, and he has no reason to stop 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 again from his sleep with the pain in his bad leg--and it was getting worse now that he was getting older. He got up from the bed and limped downstairs into the kitchen, trying to fill the hot water bottle to warm his stiff knees.

He stood by the sink, and while filling the kettle with water, he habitually looked up at the Riddle House.

At this moment, he saw the windows above were flickering.

"Those little guys, what new tricks have they come up with to punish my old bones?" Old Frank thought he had guessed what was going on.

The boys had broken into the old house again, and the dim lights in the windows flickered and flickered, and you could tell they had started a fire.

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

Finally, he picked up the crutches leaning against the wall, and walked into the night with one deep step and one shallow step.

The front door of the Riddle House showed no signs of being forced into, and the windows were intact.

Old Frank limped around the back of the house, stopped at a door that was almost completely hidden by creepers, took out his old key, and opened it silently.

He hasn't been in for many years.

But, despite the darkness, he still remembered where the door to the corridor was. He groped and walked over, a rotten smell came to his nostrils.

With his ears pricked up, he caught every footstep or voice above his head.

When he came to the corridor, there was some light here because of the large grilled windows on either side 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 muffled and hardly noticed.

On the landing, old Frank turned to the right, and at once saw where the intruder was--right at the top of the corridor, a door was ajar, and a flickering gleam of light shone through it. Cast an orange-yellow light and shadow on the dark floor.

Frank leaned sideways and approached cautiously, clutching his cane tightly in his hand.

A few steps away from the door, he could get a glimpse of what was going on inside through the narrow opening of the door.

He saw now that the fire had been lit in the grate--to tell the truth, it surprised him.

He stopped in his tracks and pricked up his ears, only to hear a man's voice coming from the room. The voice seemed a little stiff, and the tone was dry, which made people very uncomfortable.

"...Master, Lucius Malfoy is coming soon."

"Um……"

Another voice suddenly sounded, it sounded very young, and its tone was soft and full of strength. But for some reason, Frank felt that the hairs all over his body stood on end, as if he heard something that he shouldn't have heard.

"Wormtail, then?" asked the voice softly. "How is he doing?"

"died."

"Well, this is also expected," the man said calmly, "but what about the effect?"

"One Auror died, five civilians died, and twenty-two were injured."

"That's all?" The voice seemed to be a little heavier, but it was still calm and natural, "Is it because that old thing Dumbledore arrived soon?"

"No, it was because of a student, and he was the one who killed Wormtail," the dry voice paused, before continuing, "He called himself Maca McClain."

"McLean... a student..." The man seemed to think for a while, "Oh, who else is there besides that kid? Maca McClain... have you ever fought against him?"

"Without the master's order, the servants dare not do anything."

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

At this moment, Old Frank felt that the door in front of him suddenly opened wide, and then his field of vision became completely dark. His life ended so uneventfully.

At the same time, like Peter Pettigrew, a figure surrounded by thick black air stood there. He grabbed old Frank by the collar and dragged him into the hall of the old house.

As he threw Old Frank forward, a giant snake that also had black energy looming swiftly rushed out from the darkness, swallowing Old Frank's body in one gulp.

Look at the huge figure that is still more than half hidden in the shadows, it is obviously not much smaller than the basilisk.

"hiss"

It hissed towards the figure, and the light of wisdom shone faintly in the provocative eyes.

...

Just as old Frank threw himself into the arms of the god of death, in the cemetery behind the black stone fortress known as "Azkaban", a young man was polishing a few thin stone flakes vigorously.

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

But here, no one would disturb his work, he just concentrated on polishing, trying to make the edge of the stone flakes sharper.

No one knew what he wanted to do, and of course, here, no one would be interested.

This boy was naturally Maca who was imprisoned in Azkaban.

"Huh!" He suddenly picked up the stone flake, blew on the stone chips on the surface of the flake, looked it over again, and then nodded in satisfaction.

This boy is naturally Maca——before the time comes, all he has to do is wait.

But waiting here is definitely not what he wants, so he decided to use everything here to continue some of his research.

For Maca, time is very precious, and one cannot completely give up research to waste time just because the conditions are poor.

"Well, not bad."

He picked up the flake of stone and made a not-so-deep scratch on the trunk of a dead tree beside him.