Early the next morning, Snape hadn't even finished breakfast before he headed straight for Harry as he emerged from the stairwell, slowly extending a hand toward him.
Kasenhis stared at the sight in bewilderment.
Snape looked exactly like he was about to bundle Harry up and throw him into a washing machine.
It was honestly rather terrifying.
Before long, Snape returned with an even darker expression, while the gemstones representing Gryffindor's points in the House hourglass suffered yet another sharp decrease.
Seeing this, no one at the entire table wanted to provoke him.
Kasenhis didn't react much either.
Snape and Potter, after all.
Every few days, the two of them would passionately clash with each other.
Perfectly normal.
For Snape, this sort of thing happened a few days every month.
Kasenhis called it his that Harry-time of the month.
...
By the end of term, whether Snape had ultimately found the book Harry had hidden...
Kasenhis had no idea.
He was busy packing his luggage to go home.
Well, not exactly home.
More accurately, he was returning to Black's old house.
Black's old house had now become something like a communal camp, while Sirius was its chieftain.
After swaying around on the train for an entire day, Kasenhis finally climbed the steps of Grimmauld Place on slightly unsteady legs.
He casually handed his luggage to the black slave...
Harry.
Then he found a bench in Grimmauld Place and sat down.
Grindelwald was sitting beside him, currently reading a Muggle newspaper.
"Look at this. The Muggles make progress so quickly every single year, while wizards..." Grindelwald instinctively started preparing to bitterly criticise the increasingly rigid hierarchy and thinking of wizarding society.
Then he suddenly remembered something and turned to look at Kasenhis.
"Fortunately, wizards aren't doing too badly now either. Just not too badly."
Grindelwald's tone was like an old man downstairs drinking heavily while playing chess, gentle yet somehow angry.
"Mm-hm. I've been really tired lately."
Kasenhis leaned back against the bench and stretched hard.
"You look pretty relaxed to me," Grindelwald replied.
"It's not that kind of tired. It's more... mentally exhausted. I don't know why."
As Kasenhis spoke, he stood up again.
It was as though stretching on the bench and complaining to Grindelwald had already shaken all the frustration and exhaustion out of him.
"Get a good night's sleep," Grindelwald said.
"I sleep well every night."
Watching Kasenhis suddenly disappear, Grindelwald also stood up and walked toward the invisible Black family home.
The people staying at home had prepared all kinds of food early, waiting for them to return for dinner.
Kasenhis sat down, with Dumbledore conveniently seated across from him.
"Anything you want to say?" Dumbledore asked with a raised eyebrow.
"I've got an idea. After dinner," Kasenhis said with a nod.
Perhaps because Kasenhis was clearly in low spirits, the atmosphere throughout dinner was...
You thought it was going to be gloomy?
Actually, no.
With Sirius around, a man so full of energy that even Kasenhis felt jealous enough to want to refine him into some kind of ultimate tonic potion, there was no way the atmosphere at the table could stay dull.
Just as dinner was gradually coming to an end, the flames in the fireplace flickered.
Snape stepped out, then brushed the ash from his clothes.
Seeing this, Dumbledore signalled for Kasenhis to start sending the young wizards away.
Kasenhis shook his head.
He didn't even have the energy to say one extra word right now.
In the end, the unpleasant task fell to Grindelwald.
The pressure of a former Dark Lord was still more than enough.
Every young wizard who had yet to graduate from Hogwarts was driven upstairs by him.
In fact, if Dumbledore hadn't stopped him, Grindelwald would have sent the Weasley twins and Cedric upstairs too.
"The Dark Lord has relocated," Snape said concisely.
"What do you mean?" Kasenhis finally found the energy to speak.
"The Dark Lord created three clones. Counting himself, there are now four Voldemorts, and they've appeared in locations I know absolutely nothing about," Snape explained.
"Why four?" Sirius asked a question that didn't quite fit the atmosphere but very much matched what he was thinking.
Snape clearly had no desire to answer him, but in the end he still raised a hand and pointed at Kasenhis, Dumbledore, and Grindelwald.
"The Dark Lord believes that only Kasenhis, Dumbledore, and Grindelwald are capable of killing him. Anyone else, no matter how many there are, would be unable to inflict any meaningful damage on him," Lupin translated for Sirius.
"What I mean is, why did he have to make exactly four? Couldn't he make eighty or a hundred clones? We'd run ourselves ragged just trying to find him, and he could even look for chances to counterattack while we were busy hunting them down," Sirius complained.
"Could you stop giving Voldemort ideas?" Kasenhis said, amused.
"No, something like that should probably be impossible. But now that I think about it, excluding that one, Voldemort should have exactly three Horcruxes left with other functions," Dumbledore suddenly said.
Most of the people holding this dinner-table meeting had no idea what kind of bizarre riddle Dumbledore was talking about.
A few people who knew Harry's true situation, however, understood immediately.
"You're saying these fake Voldemorts were created by his Horcruxes?" Kasenhis asked.
"Barring any surprises, yes," Dumbledore said with a nod.
"In that case... the Voldemort clone I killed on Downing Street last time, the one who was weaker than Voldemort but only slightly weaker, might have been created or controlled by one of Voldemort's Horcruxes. Because when I killed that Voldemort, he didn't drop any loot."
After saying that, Kasenhis curled his lip and muttered quietly, "Next time I should add Looting. Maybe I can just snatch Voldemort's Horcrux straight out of the void."
"What?" Lupin asked, having failed to hear him clearly.
"Nothing. Just a magical experiment," Kasenhis replied with a raised eyebrow.
...
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