[HP] Butterfly Effect

Winter comes earlier on Greylock Peak than anywhere else in Massachusetts.It was only late autumn, and Ilvermorny had already fallen two snowfalls early, covering almost all the blue at the top of the castle. From a distance, it seemed to be swallowed by heavy snow, a piece of flawless white.

Taking advantage of being on the top of the mountain, the little wizards of Ilvermorny have a unique seasonal sport in winter, which is skiing.This is almost the most popular activity in winter except for Quidditch.

Aurora heard many interesting stories about skiing from Elias and Cecil Hockley. When the girl from France talked about these happy moments, she seemed very enthusiastic.She graciously invited Elias to partner with her next time, because there was a co-ed ski race next week.

Elias declined very cleverly, and the other party didn't say much except for being slightly disappointed. He got up and left the table to get some thick soup and grilled salmon in tin foil, and asked the other two if they wanted it.

"Then I'll have a salmon too, thank you."

"You're welcome."

Watching Cecil walk away, Aurora lowered her head and rolled up the pasta on the plate with the silver fork in her hand: "I thought you liked skiing." Elias paused when he drank the soup, and looked at She: "I really like skiing, and that feeling is very good."

"What do you feel?"

"Well...probably, free and unscrupulous." When Elias said this, his eyes suddenly became very distant, the blue on the irises was very bright, and the light filaments of the restaurant lights gathered in his eyes. Under the eyes, tenderness formed a brilliant ripple.

Aurora has seen many people with blue eyes. For example, the blue in Principal Dumbledore's eyes is always deep and unfathomable, like sea water.Bill Weasley's eyes were also bright blue, and he always smiled brightly, reminding her of those blue flowers.

But Elias is different, the blue in his eyes is unbelievably clear, lofty and gentle.

Like the spring sky at Ilvermorny.

"Then you should go with Hockley, the weather is so nice." Aurora took a bite of the fried egg in front of her.She didn't understand why the other party rejected the charming girl just now when he liked skiing and the weather conditions were extremely suitable.

"Maybe. But...the Quidditch match will be played the day after tomorrow, so I still won't go." He lowered his eyes, and then asked, "Your eyes...can't come during the Quidditch match?"

"It's okay." Aurora smiled, "Is the final the day after tomorrow? I think I will go."

The young man in front of him was delighted for a moment, but then he became worried again: "But you..."

"It's okay, I'll drink some potions then."

It wasn't that she had to watch the Quidditch match, it was that she had to keep pace with the others at the appropriate time.She excused her absence from the previous two Quidditch matches because she was going to look for Slytherin's wand. She was an exchange student from a foreign school who couldn't justify her absence from group activities every day, so this time no matter what I have no choice but to go.

After hearing Aurora's words, Elias laughed heartily, with soft black hair obediently sweeping over a pair of delicate eyebrows and eyes, "Actually, the day after tomorrow happens to be my 17th birthday, so it's great that you can come .”

"Really?" Aurora looked at him in surprise, "That's such a coincidence! Work hard, there is nothing more suitable as a gift for a coming-of-age ceremony than a Quidditch champion."

"Maybe," he said.Cecil walked briskly from the dining area of ​​the restaurant with two grilled salmon in tin foil, and brushed the curly reddish-brown hair hanging on his chest behind his shoulders: "What else can I say?"

"I'm talking about the Quidditch match the day after tomorrow." Aurora smiled and said thank you. "Ah, that." Cecil quickly cut open the tender fish with a knife, and said proudly, "You should come to Beauxbatons, and you will meet the best Quidditch school team!"

"Oh, about this, I'm afraid I can't agree." Elias replied pretending to be serious, "Ilvermorny's Quidditch school team is no worse than other schools." Speaking of this, he looked at To Aurora, "Where's Hogwarts?"

"They are all fine." Aurora chose the most moderate answer.

"Well, I have to admit, maybe you are the best Seeker I've ever seen, but that's you. You must come to Beauxbatons if you have a chance, and you will change your mind." Cecil persist in.

"I think it's going to be hard, Miss Hockley." Elias raised an eyebrow.In all fairness, his expression and movements are very similar to the iconic expression that Slytherins often hang on their faces, but it is not so sharp and aggressive.

After eating, Aurora groped into the forest alone.She was wearing eye veils, everything in front of her was covered with a grid-like gray-black, and the stone ladder and fence only had a rough outline, and she walked carefully with every step.After finally reaching the forest, she found the Thestrals guarding the dividing line, and followed them to a place that was almost completely silent except for the sound of the wind.

There are relatively fewer food sources in winter, and magical creatures need to spend a longer time hunting.Aurora sat on the root of the tree that had been cleaned up with a spell, and reached into her satchel to feel Salazar's diary, but she didn't expect to also touch the eye disease potion sent from England yesterday.

She took out the two items, put the diary on her lap, and held the potion in both hands.She didn't know how Snape knew it was snowing in Ilvermorny, the potion came so timely, it almost fell from the sky with the snowflakes, and it was always just after the last dose had been taken , the next one will arrive.Although they had been communicating, Aurora hadn't told Snape clearly about the weather changes here.

So how on earth did he know?

The cold potion bottle was held in the palm of her hand for a long time, and Aurora felt the faint temperature of her palm warming up the potion in the bottle little by little.

She suddenly missed him very much, without any reason or sign, very much.

In fact, she thought about many people and things.I thought about Hogwarts, I thought about Plymouth, I thought about Diagon Alley and the Forbidden Forest.I thought about the brilliant flowers in spring in England, the warm sun and emerald mist in summer, the bleak frost in autumn, and the deep snow and freezing rain in winter.

Also thought of Sirius, Remus, Beverly, Vox, Bill, etc.

Yet there was no such thing as missing Snape.She is clearly in another continent, but she always thinks about what the other party is doing now from time to time.For this reason, she didn't even adjust her pocket watch to the time in West District [-] of the United States, allowing it to still follow the rhythm of the UK tick-tock, stubbornly keeping the five-hour time difference.That way she would have an approximate answer every time she looked down at the hands of the watch, as if she could see Snape on the other side of the Atlantic.

So, what are you doing now?she thinks.

"Aurora?" A familiar voice suddenly came from behind, interrupting Aurora's thoughts.She turned her head following the sound, and chose a vague direction with some hesitation: "Gideon?"

"Why did you come here alone without waiting for me?" His voice sounded a little anxious, "You can't see now, it's very dangerous to come out like this."

He was worried about whether Aurora got lost here just now, and he searched for a long time in the forest, until he caught a glimpse of the other party sitting on a lying redwood covered with snow from a distance, with the iconic pale hair on one end. The long golden hair is so conspicuous even under the dark blue light in the snowy forest.

"It's okay, I think Mr. Lopez should have something to explain to you just now, so I thought it would be nice to save you trouble, and it's okay to come here and let them hunt." Racha's diary was still on his lap, so he quickly picked it up and let the wide sleeves hang down to cover it.

"They haven't come back yet?" he said, sitting next to Aurora.

"You should have to wait a little longer. Actually, you don't need to come here specially. It's too much trouble for you."

"I was going to come over too, Alan is going to hibernate soon, I'll take a look at it again."

"Is it still awake?" It was already snowing.

"After all, winter hasn't really arrived yet, but it's coming soon. It has been lazy and doesn't like to talk to people very much recently."

As he said that, Allen had already swam out of the half-frozen lake, followed the familiar human scent in the cold air, and put his head on Elias' lap.Elias teased it with snake language, Aurora looked at her side blankly and vigilantly, and stood up reflexively, surrounded by moss-like fuzzy black and green shadows, it was hard to tell where it was. Where the tree shadows are exposed rocks.

"It's here?"

"Don't be afraid." Elias reassured her, reaching out to touch her hand.The young man's fingers were slender, clean and cool, and his knuckles were hard. When he clasped her, the delicate touch on his palm reminded her of the feeling of being caressed by soft and cold flowers covered with light white frost on her skin in the early spring night.

"It's not malicious, and it's very well behaved." Elias said, gently leading her towards Ellen.Aurora withdrew her hand and shook her head again and again: "Forget it, I don't think I can overcome this fear. Go ahead."

"I promise you it won't hurt you, Aurora."

"I know, I believe you. It's just... I think I'd better stay away from it, or it and I will have nightmares at night."

"Okay." Elias shrugged helplessly.

Allen on the side tilted his head to look at the two people, and then focused on the diary that Aurora held in his hand.It swam to her hand silently, stretched out the letter and tested the thing.Aurora was taken aback by the sudden approach of the water snake, and threw Salazar's diary at it without thinking.

The diary hit Allen on the head and fell open in the snow, empty.

Aurora's face turned pale, and she hurriedly wanted to pick it up, but Elias picked it up first and patted off the snow particles, then closed it and handed it to her, looking down at the sharp silver letters on the cover: "S. This is your diary?"

"Uh..." Aurora took it and hugged it in her arms, "Yeah, I just bought it, and I haven't decided what to write yet. Maybe I will record some interesting things here."

"Oh...it looks old."

"...This is a recent fashion, it is deliberately old-fashioned, and it looks old."

Alan was not angry when he was hit, but continued to move towards Aurora curiously, wanting to lick the diary.Elias stopped it with his hand, and said in surprise: "It seems to like the book in your hand."

"Hahaha... Maybe it is." It should be said that it is indeed a Horcrux of Slytherin, so does it have a snake-absorbing physique?

"Having said that, I remember you said last time that you didn't raise Alan here, so why did the school keep a water snake near here?"

"When Ilvermorny was first established, there was a water snake here. When I first came here to go to school, Allen was still a young snake that had just hatched." Elias stretched out his hand and gently scratched its jaw Scales, "Although this statement may sound strange, but we did grow up together."

"It's not strange at all." Aurora nodded empathetically, "I also grew up with coffee beans and tea rolls."

"It's really easier to talk to you." Elias sighed, and then explained, "As for the source of the water snake you just asked, they said that when Aesop Searle founded the school, He released a water snake he raised here, also to drive away and scare away the Muggles who tried to approach. In order to mark the location of the water snake, Aesop Searle later planted a snake tree next to its habitat."

snake wood.

The word was uttered lightly from Elias, and lightning flashed across Aurora's mind, making her instantly recall the details of her repeated dreams.She also often dreamed that she was circling a snake tree, buried deeply by the falling feathery leaves, and drowned in a dark green mire.

She gasped in fits and starts.

"What's wrong with you? Are you cold?" Elias noticed her strangeness. "It's nothing, it's just that I just remembered, it seems that I didn't see any snake wood next to the lake where Allen often appears last time?" Aurora shook her head, she was glad that the veil covered her eyes, and the whitewashed eyes were a She has never been very good at technical work.

Elias was silent for a while, and then said in a nonchalant indifference, "It's been destroyed."

"Destroyed? Why?" Aurora asked in surprise, while her heart sank suddenly.

"It was ruined by a student who went to school in Ilvermorny, it must have happened decades ago." After finishing speaking, he looked up at Aurora with a half-smile, "Why are you interested in this ?”

"Ah, nothing, just curious."

While the two were talking, the light in the forest suddenly became weaker, and the heavy darkness collapsed from the sky, crushing all the already dying threads of light.Fresh pale snowflakes swayed down one by one, wet their hair and hats through the thin layer of leaves overhead, and the hunted magical creatures finally returned to Aurora's satchel.

Elias and Allen said their final goodbyes this year, turned around and shot at Aurora, and white snow particles bloomed on his fingertips: "Let's go, I'll take you out."

"Thank you."

"Are British girls so fond of saying thank you?"

"Eh?"

"Isn't it normal for friends to do each other a favor? You keep saying thank you."

"That's right...I mean it's normal for friends to help each other, but I don't seem to have helped you anything."

"It's just that you don't know it. I've always been happy to meet you and have a friend who doesn't have to hide any secrets. Thank you for choosing Ilvermorny to exchange."

Although she knew that Americans were always straightforward in expressing her thoughts, Aurora still felt a little ashamed, after all, she came here only to find Slytherin's wand.And now it seems that that wand is still inextricably linked with Elias.

However, if the snake tree that has been appearing in my dreams has been destroyed decades ago, where will the wand go after that?

She thought silently, in the world filtered by eye veil, those snowballs all over the sky are as pure white and beautiful as spirits in fairy tales.They fell on the ground one after another, one after another on the dead tree branches that had lost their leaves and were covered in gray brown by frost, and on the grass that was full of crushed ice.As the cold wind blew, the entire Ilvermorny Castle was shrouded in boundless pine flower-shaped snowflakes, and the frost color was like a dream.

Elias took her arm, adjusted his pace to the same frequency as Aurora, and walked slowly with her in the snowstorm.In the entire pale world, only the two of them are the only existences with color and vitality.

Salazar, who had transformed from the Horcrux at some point, stood in the shadow of the edge of the forest, staring at the two people walking away not far away with lowered eyelids, crystal clear snowflakes fell on his hair and eyelashes superior.

He remembered that many, many years ago, he also held the hand of a girl with bad eyesight in winter, and led her across the vast snow field in front of him.She would grab her own hand, interlock her fingers with him, lean close to him, close her eyes trustingly and let him lead her forward, not asking where she was going or how long it would be until she arrived.

"I promised you that as long as you don't give up on me first, no matter where you go, I will always be with you, so it's fine if only you are here, I don't need to ask at all. Because I believe in you with all my heart, Sal .”

The girl's pale golden curly hair was fluttering in the wind. Sara looked at her, as if she saw the soft sunshine coming through the sky in the snowy winter day.

He closed his eyes and let out a sigh that was not noticed by anyone in the wind and snow.

……

In the next two months, Aurora learned about the progress of the Order of the Phoenix's external investigation of the wand's whereabouts from Newt and Snape's correspondence.They have been able to determine that Aesop Thur, who was born in 1603, is indeed a descendant of the Slytherin family.

When Aesop was five years old, her biological parents were burned alive by her aunt, Graeme Gunter, and she was adopted by Graeme Gunter.It stands to reason that Aesop, who grew up in such an environment, should be an extreme pure-blood advocate like other members of the Gunter family.But she didn't accept the thoughts instilled in her by this almost crazy aunt, and even when Graeme belittled Hogwarts, she developed a strong interest and love for this school.In those dark years, Hogwarts was as beautiful as a paradise to her.

Her greatest wish is to be able to enter Hogwarts' Ravenclaw House.

In 1620, when she was 17 years old, Aesop disguised herself as a boy, stole the wand of her aunt Graeme Gunter, and came to America on the Mayflower ship.Here, she began her legendary journey as the founder of Ilvermorny.

And the wand that Aesop stole was the wand of Salazar Slytherin.

"And then?" Aurora hugged the dodo in her arms, making it obedient and not move when Newt gave it medicine, "What happened to that wand then? And Gideon is Descendants of Aesop Sir, am I right?"

Newt carefully sprinkled the powder on the dodo's wound, then wrapped it with a bandage made of unicorn hair, and wiped his sweat with his hand: "That's it. And, the reason we traced these is because, Aesop Searle also used the name 'Elias' when he disguised himself as a Muggle boy and escaped."

"Elias..." Aurora repeated in a murmur, and suddenly felt that something became clear, but at the same time, more mysteries emerged.So she asked again: "Anything about the whereabouts of the wand?"

"Not yet. Just like your friend Elias said, there was a student in Ilvermorny decades ago, who belonged to the family Elias belonged to, and each generation of their family has only one child He destroyed the Snakewood, which was said to be indestructible no matter what, and took the wand that Slytherin left behind."

"You know that not all people with Slytherin blood can perfectly inherit the ability of Parseltongue, just like Aesop Sir, she can only understand Parseltongue, but cannot speak it. So in Graeme When Gaunt later found her and retaliated against her by hypnotizing the wand with Parseltongue, she was helpless and nearly killed."

"However, although he took away the wand, the wand does not recognize it, so in the past few decades, no Parseltongue has been able to awaken it." Aurora understood, "But Helga's wand has already I'm about to wake up, so the descendant of Slytherin who can be recognized by the wand has appeared."

"Who do you think it is?" Newt asked, looking at her.Aurora was stunned for a moment: "Me? Why did you ask me all of a sudden?"

"It's nothing, I just thought you might know." Newt smiled nonchalantly, "I've been talking to Dumbledore about it recently. Although we both thought that the awakening of the Slytherin wand was related to the Dark Lord , but it may not look like this now. It may be that a descendant of Aesop Sir who lives here will wake it up, and we are a little too nervous."

"Is that so?" Aurora said blankly.Her eyes wandered to the surrounding landscape, past the curtains of wisteria, across the meadows of silverleaf and tulips, lost in the distant pink-orange skyline.

"Dumbledore has relieved a lot. He has been worried that you will be in danger here because of the wand, and he can probably rest assured now." Newt picked up the lead bucket and prepared to feed the moon monsters, but he noticed Aurora The look on his face, asking, "What's wrong with you?"

"I don't know... I always have a very clear feeling that this matter is not so simple and coincidental." Aurora frowned delicately, "Mr. Slytherin's wand... must have something to do with it. It's just that I haven't figured out what the relationship is at the moment."

Newt looked at her for a while, stretched out his hand to scrape the bridge of his nose, and said quite sincerely what he had been thinking all along: "I can understand how you feel, sometimes we do have a kind of intuition that is different from ordinary people. But I do I don't think there's a more incredible relationship than the symbiotic relationship between Slytherin and Hufflepuff's wand."

Aurora let out an eh, then came to her senses, couldn't help but smile and said, "That's right."

So you see, when you talk about the past of Slytherin and Hufflepuff to future generations after a thousand years, everyone reacts in the same way.

Lies don’t make up more beautifully, more reliably,

Who will believe it?

……

At the end of the month, Christmas comes.

Snow and mistletoe garlands are always the most anticipated combination.

However, Snape has never felt much about it. Anyway, there are very few people who have ritual holidays with him, and the only person worth caring about is far away on the other side of the ocean. There is a five-hour time difference with him, more than 6000 people km distance.

So there was nothing to interest him this Christmas.

Early in the morning, Snape finished grading the student papers handed in two days ago, left the castle and came to the Forbidden Forest to collect some needed potion materials.He is still not very used to such a primitive and common method - to confirm the materials that need to be found, to find out what kind of magical creatures will be encountered, and to find ways to lure these magical creatures away.

When Aurora was here in the past, he didn't have to worry about these at all.Although Snape had always been very confident in his ability to adapt, it was undeniable that he hadn't been able to adjust to this state until now.

Before this, Snape never thought that the other party's temporary departure would have such an unbearable impact on him, even if he had already prepared himself mentally, he thought that he would not get used to it for a short period of time at most. .After all, when Aurora was at school, they didn't have much time to see each other. Compared with other things in the day, the proportion of this time together is really small, not worth mentioning.

However, Snape overlooked one thing, that is, the factor that determines whether a period of time is important or not is never its length, but the meaning it represents.

Aurora's letters had been coming in frequently, and Snape had seen every one, and there were many photographs.Perhaps because Ilvermorny is on the top of the mountain, the autumn colors in the photo are much richer and more bleak than that of England at the same time. It looks like it will snow at any time, and the hoarfrost is spreading on the buildings and vegetation, and the frost A thick layer, like a layer of translucent icing.

Snape simply estimated the time according to the scene in the photo, and sent the first eye disease potion to the other party.

Gradually, Snape discovered that the time when Aurora's letters arrived was always very subtle, and it was always at lunch, a point where many owls would come and go to deliver letters and packages, never in the middle of the night or early in the morning Disturbing him, it was as if she was still at school, sharing the same rhythm of time as him.

All her letters were put away by Snape, neatly placed in a box at the bottom of the cabinet.Originally, he planned to burn them every time he finished reading them, not for anything else, just because he didn't want to leave any traces around him that might trace Aurora.

Even if Dumbledore told him that maybe Ilvermorny's wand incident didn't seem to have much to do with the Dark Lord at the moment, he didn't want to let his guard down.Aurora has said several times in her letter that she has always believed that going to Ilvermorny is really just a misunderstanding and useless effort. She always believes that the upcoming awakening of this wand is related to the Dark Lord, but at present this connection is still unknown. Not obvious.

She is so persistent, all because of those dreams.

If it was in the past, Snape would not hesitate to ridicule the stupidity of the other party's behavior, just because some absurd dreams can be so obsessed.However, many things have shown that Aurora's dreams are definitely not her delusions and hallucinations.She has passed the stage where she would be troubled by this kind of dream, and some of the decisions she made are relatively trustworthy.

Perhaps this is to some extent considered the inductive effect between the natural animal trainer and the Parseltongue, just like Newt also relied on his extraordinary keen intuition to miraculously escape from the suppression of the Dark Lord to America.

Natural Beastmasters and Parseltongues...

Snape couldn't help but sneer when he thought of Elias Gideon, who had been quite a topic in the Order of the Phoenix recently.Although Aurora didn't mention this person much in his letters, it is clear that the relationship between these two people is very friendly.

"This may be the special connection between two people who also have absolute control over magical creatures." Cynthia said happily, "It's really predestined and romantic when you think about it, right Severus ?”

Ever since Sirius resigned and left the school while Cynthia continued to stay, the stargazer of the Sidney family has been trying to make their relationship less rigid. After all, we are all colleagues and work in the Order of the Phoenix. , being able to get along happily is a little bit.

It's a pity that Snape didn't appreciate it. Regarding Cynthia's remarks, he still retorted coldly: "Forgive me for not agreeing with you, Professor Sidney. Romance is obviously a terrible word in this situation. But if you say romance means wasting time and doing futile work, and disgusting the poor innocent passers-by by the way, then I can't agree more. As for fate, I think Mr. Scamander can't bear to hear the word Don’t cry. Know that sometimes it’s not always a partner, but an enemy worth hating.”

Cynthia was stunned by his rhetorical, long and harsh words, dropped the fork in her hand, and looked at him with a pair of ice blue eyes in disbelief: "But... Parseltongue is not Slytherin pride?"

Snape sat on the stool unmoved, his expression and voice were as cold as a piece of ice: "I will take your Parseltongue as a kind of ability, not a certain person."

Cynthia understood that she would never be able to speak out against the head of Slytherin in her life, as long as she was not brainwashed by him in reverse.

Not long into the Forbidden Forest, Snape noticed that there were other people here.At this moment, the other party was squatting on the ground to feed several poisonous porcupines with the raw meat in his hand.

"I thought the principal made it clear enough at the opening banquet that no student is allowed in the Forbidden Forest."

Snape saw that the other party trembled violently after hearing his voice, and then slowly turned around. A pair of brown eyes swept across the person in front of him in a panic, and immediately lowered his head, not daring to look again. A strand of golden hair hung down.

Blonde-haired and tawny-eyed, the new Ravenclaw first-year looked inexplicably like the one he'd been away for nearly four months.

Snape thought, dazed for a moment.

"I'm sorry, Professor..."

The dejected kitty stood in front of Snape with his head shrugged, ready to accept the penalty of points.However, to her surprise, after being silent for a while, Snape just said in a very bad tone: "You are still standing here, are you planning to spend the night here?"

The blond-haired eagle looked up at the other party in surprise, and then quickly jumped up: "Thank you professor, I will go back right away and I swear I will never dare again!"

After speaking, he ran away without a trace.

Snape gritted his teeth, somewhat hating his decision just now.

He packed the collected materials together and prepared to take them back to his residence in Spider's End Lane and brew them into potions.Tomorrow is Christmas, and he will basically go back to his residence, in order to avoid those little monsters who stay in the school rampant and temporarily lose their discipline.

However, what he didn't expect was that he would meet someone here.

It was an indescribable feeling.

Snape stood in front of the doorstep of his own residence, with the dark night above his head, pale street lamps and snowflakes all around him, the whole world was only black and white, monotonous to barren, lifeless, with a bleak halo, just like he had always been Inner world.

She just appeared on the other side of the road, like a sun-colored miracle.

While shouting his name cheerfully, he untied the black veil covering his eyes.

Step by step across the white snow, across the empty and lonely streets, across all things that shouldn't be done, across the time difference, across the distance of [-] kilometers, and ran to him and hugged him tightly.

Light and gentle as a butterfly in the arms of a flower.

Frost and the faint scent of her hair broke into Snape's sense of smell, and she buried her face in his scarf, the hot breath of her breath hanging in the air like a hallucination.

"Catch up, the Christmas that hasn't started yet!" Aurora raised her head from his arms, with a bright smile on her face, and galactic inversions in her warm brown eyes.

"You..." Snape looked at her blankly, as if he didn't recognize her, "Why do you..."

"I came back in a hurry. Ilvermorny just finished class. The international teleportation station was packed to death today. I was almost queued until tomorrow."

"But it's okay, we caught up."

As she said that, Aurora rubbed her red eyes with the back of her hand, and said with a smile.

After the shock faded from Snape's eyes, he looked at her in a near-empty state, without speaking, expression, or anger.The air was so quiet that for a moment you could even hear snowflakes fall.

"Professor? Are you angry?"

As soon as the words fell, Aurora felt herself being pressed into his arms by the other party's hand.