"From Fleur?"
Leonard opened the envelope and read the letter. By the time he finished, a smile had spread across his face.
"Never would've guessed she'd be the one to send this."
Chuckling, Leonard undid the package.
A vine as tall as a grown man, bound by silver metal rings, appeared before him.
A mutated Living Wood vine. A Living Wood vine already over a man's height without any reinforcement at all.
With this, Leonard finally had a body he could send back into the past.
This mutated Living Wood vine was Fleur's prize from the competition this time.
It was that potions competition held within the potions community. Giggs had once wanted Leonard to take part, but Leonard had turned it down and recommended Fleur instead.
And this Living Wood vine was the champion's prize.
The letter itself was nothing more than Fleur thanking him. She thanked Leonard for the copy of Advanced Potion-Making filled with his notes, and said that book had been the key to her victory.
This potions competition was not some world-famous event. It was mainly known within the profession. Outsiders had barely heard of it, but for people in the field, it carried real prestige.
Winning first place there meant Fleur's future prospects were limitless.
But that did not matter.
Leonard casually stuffed the letter into a cabinet, then picked up the mutated Living Wood vine, summoned a raven, and left Hogwarts at once.
He still needed to figure out how to create a body capable of carrying his consciousness back into the past.
...
A lonely island sat between the sea and the storm clouds.
From time to time, lightning flashed through the pitch-black clouds, only to vanish again into the gloom.
A terrifying aura hung over the island, oppressive, gloomy, and thick with death.
A few petrels flew overhead, but the moment they passed above the island, they lost their lives and dropped straight down onto it.
Bird carcasses and fish washed ashore by the sea lay scattered all over the island.
At this point, the island had clearly become a forbidden zone for life. Anything that came too close died immediately.
But the island was not completely empty.
Several figures wandered across it. Their clothes were ragged, and they roamed without purpose. Every now and then, they bent down, picked up a dead seabird or fish from the ground, and began gnawing on it.
Raw.
The whole scene felt uncannily like something out of a zombie apocalypse.
But these were not the products of any plague. They were Inferi, an extremely evil kind of magical monster. They were notoriously hard to deal with, and apart from fearing light and fire, they had almost no weaknesses.
Then suddenly, the island trembled, and a pillar of blazing fire erupted from the cave at its center.
The flames shot into the sky, and the intense heat and light made the Inferi nearby let out agonized howls.
But very soon, that pillar of flame, which had been radiating light and heat, suddenly took on a gray, deathly cast. In the blink of an eye, the scorching fire turned into a cold, sinister flame.
Rhythmic tremors came from deep within the cave. Inside the pillar of fire, a massive figure slowly emerged, wrapped in those strange flames and exuding a terrifying presence.
It was a monstrous giant, covered all over in cold fire and flowing magma, with only its face exposed.
That face was pale.
It was Cappadocia's face.
He advanced slowly, and each step made the island shake. The sounds rocking the island were nothing less than his footsteps.
The pillar of fire slowly faded away. The giant stood there blankly, like a puppet with no will of its own.
"At last, success. That bastard's soul really was stubborn."
Voldemort's figure slowly materialized. Looking at the puppet-like Cappadocia, his face was full of delight.
Now Voldemort's aura was growing closer and closer to that of Death, and even his appearance was beginning to resemble the Grim Reaper of legend. Only the robe on his body and the scythe in his hand were still insubstantial shadows.
"With this giant, Dumbledore won't stand a chance against me. Even against an Eternal Wizard, I'm confident I could retreat unscathed."
Voldemort sounded thoroughly pleased with himself.
This giant form of Cappadocia was a puppet Voldemort had created by combining the methods of making Inferi with part of Death's knowledge, binding Cappadocia's soul back into his own body.
A puppet like this was even stronger than Cappadocia himself. It had abandoned all defense in exchange for a total release of power and magical force, coming infinitely close to the level of an Eternal Wizard from legend.
Its only weakness was probably endurance. What made an Eternal Wizard truly terrifying was eternity itself. Eternal life and eternal power. This puppet, by contrast, could only display strength capable of contending with an Eternal Wizard for a limited time.
But dealing with Dumbledore would be no problem at all.
"It's time to take the Elder Wand and the Invisibility Cloak."
Voldemort laughed freely, and all the bitterness that had built up in his chest over the past dozen years finally dispersed.
Once he had the Elder Wand, he would become a true Eternal Wizard.
But before that, Voldemort felt there was still something he needed to do.
A figure staggered toward him.
Its body was thin and withered, swaying as it moved.
Its face was gaunt and dried out, too ruined to make out clearly, though its clothing showed it had once come from a well-off family.
Voldemort's eyes flashed coldly as he stared at the Inferius.
Regulus Black.
The subordinate he had once thought would become his right-hand man.
He had trusted him so much that when he tested the magic in that cave, he had even used the Black family's house-elf.
And in the end, that man had betrayed his trust.
Without a word, he had stolen Voldemort's Horcrux and even left behind a note to mock him.
True, he had paid for it with his life, becoming an Inferius, his soul never to know release. But that still did nothing to lessen the hatred in Voldemort's heart.
"Laughable, shameful, pathetic!"
Voldemort glared at Regulus Black's corpse as he cursed him.
"You were nothing but a traitor. Don't flatter yourself into thinking you were some kind of hero."
Voldemort had never shown mercy to traitors, not even after their deaths.
"Did you think death was the end? Your soul never left. You still haven't escaped my control."
He raised a hand, and Death's magic seeped into the corpse, penetrating every part of it and reawakening the soul trapped inside.
"I'm going to let you feel real despair. I'll make you watch with your own eyes just how unforgettable a tragedy your stupidity will bring you."
Death's power remade the corpse. The body swelled again, filled with vast amounts of magic that erased its weaknesses and enhanced its strength.
Voldemort grinned savagely as he watched Regulus Black's corpse grow stronger and more fearsome, while light returned to its eyes.
But very soon, that light was swallowed by bloodlust. The creature dropped to the ground and roared.
No, it was no longer an Inferius.
It had become a far more terrifying killing machine, a nightmare for wizards, something that could ignore most magic.
"Go. Kill the only family you have left in this world with your own hands, and bring my Horcrux back to me."
Voldemort's voice bored into the monster's ears. Lightning tore across the sky, yet even that could not drown out the creature's anguished howl.