Chapter 151: The Dark Invitation
The Hospital Wing.
Madam Pomfrey stopped her hand as she cut open Cedric's robes.
Four broken ribs. A slight dislocation of the third vertebrae. A crack in the right shoulder blade. Subcutaneous bruising at the back of the head had spread to the size of an adult's fist.
"What was he hit by?" Pomfrey looked up, her face ashen. "A second-year's Expelliarmus?"
Finch-Fletchley, who had brought him in, stood at the foot of the bed, his face whiter than the sheets.
His hands had been tugging at his tie—the Hufflepuffyellow and black stripes were crumpled from his pulling.
"I don't know what it was, Madam. I really don't know."
Pomfrey didn't ask again. She waved her wand to begin mending the bones, purple spell-light traveling back and forth over Cedric's chest.
Cedric's eyelids fluttered. His lips moved, and he muttered a word indistinctly. Pomfrey leaned in close to hear it—
"...The shield... shattered..."
Even in his coma, he was still thinking about his Shield Charm. The Shield Charm he had practiced all summer. Shattered.
Pomfrey poured another vial of Skele-Gro. As she placed the bottle back on the tray, her hand paused.
She smelled something.
An odor emanating from Cedric's robes. Cold. Decaying. Setting one's teeth on edge.
It was completely different from ordinary spell residue.
That was the characteristic scent left only by tissue that had come into contact with the Dark Arts.
Pomfrey had smelled it when she was an intern on the front lines at St. Mungos during the last Wizarding War.
Too many times.
She was twenty-three then, standing on her feet from six in the morning until two past midnight every day.
Patients tortured by the Crucio curse all carried this scent.
She had thought she would never have to smell it again in her life.
Her hand steadied. She made no sound.
But she wrote an extra line on the medical chart.
"Suggest the Principal personally re-examine."
The Principal's Office.
When Snape pushed the door open, Dumbledore was standing before the row of silver instruments on the top shelf of the bookcase.
The device on the far right, shaped like a miniature solar system—the orbits of the asteroids were all shifted. They crossed and collided with each other, emitting discordant screeches.
On the silver triangular instrument beside it, the base was covered with a thin, dried dark-red film. Left over from that moonlit night.
It was still undulating. Steadier than last time. More powerful.
"Dumbledore," Snape stood at the doorway.
"I know."
Dumbledore did not turn around. His right hand hovered over the exhaust port of the triangular instrument. A thin, thread-like black smoke was rising from it.
"You felt it too?"
"More than felt it." Snape strode to the desk, leaning both hands on the surface. "Potter, in my class, used a deformed Expelliarmus to break four of a fifth-year prefect's ribs."
Dumbledore withdrew his hand.
"The pillar of magic was black," Snape's voice was very low. "The cross-section of the stone pillar has residual burn marks from the Dark Arts. I've touched them. They are identical to those in the ruins of Godric's Hollow."
Dumbledore turned around.
He glanced at the solar system instrument. The asteroids were still running on wrong orbits, colliding and making small metallic sounds.
Then he looked at Snape.
"The fragment did not awaken passively."
The corner of Snape's mouth twitched.
"You mean—"
"It was invited."
The office was silent for a long time. The flames in the fireplace flickered, casting swaying light onto both their faces.
Snape leaned back into his chair and closed his eyes.
"The boy opened the door himself."
There was something complex in his voice. Not entirely anger. Not entirely disgust. Beneath those two emotions, there was a deeper layer of something he would never admit.
The boy had a pair of green eyes exactly like Lily Evans'. Now, something red was starting to grow in those eyes.
Snape did not open his eyes.
On its perch, Fawkes let out a low, mournful cry and buried its beak into its wings.
Dumbledore walked back to the desk and sat down. His left hand rested on the armrest, and his right fingertips tapped three times lightly on the base of the triangular instrument.
It stopped.
The dark-red blood scab on the base rose and fell slowly in the firelight. A new crack had opened in the base. A bit deeper than last time.
"The worst thing," Dumbledore said, "is accelerating."
Snape opened his eyes.
"What do you plan to do?"
Dumbledore did not answer the question. He pulled open the drawer on his right and took out a neatly folded piece of parchment from the bottom layer.
The reply to the letter sent out on that last moonlit night. It had just arrived this morning.
There was only one line on the paper, written in a vigorous, scrawling hand:
"Albus, I need to see the boy with my own eyes. —R.J.L."
Dumbledore folded the letter and put it back in the drawer.
He looked up at the portraits of past Principals on the wall. The portraits were all pretending to sleep.
"It seems," he said, "I'll have to arrange a new Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor for the third year ahead of schedule."
Snape's spine stiffened slightly.
R.J.L..
He recognized those initials.
He stood up, said nothing, and turned toward the door. The hem of his robes swept across the floor behind him.
The door closed behind him.
Dumbledore sat alone in the office. Another new crack opened on the base of the silver triangular instrument, and black smoke emerged from the fissure, circled twice, and dissipated.
—
Slytherin Common Room.
Outside the underwater windows, the dark water flowed silently.
Cassius sat on a stone bench, flipping through an ancient tome on ancient soul circuits. He hadn't absorbed much. Not because the content was difficult—but because the theories in the book didn't match his observations today.
The book said that the growth of a soul parasitic circuitrequired the host to be in a state of extreme negative emotion for a long time to be maintained. But Harry Potter's expression on the stage today was not pain.
It was satisfaction.
A thing fed by pain had been activated by a sense of satisfaction.
This was not in his model.
Cassius turned a page, then turned it back.
Draco walked over from the opposite side, carrying two cups of pumpkin juice, placing one by Cassius's hand.
"I've been thinking all afternoon." Draco sat down opposite him, his voice kept very low. "The thing in Potter's scar, it was left by the Dark Lord, right?"
Cassius didn't look up.
"Go on."
"That black magic wasn't Potter's own. That thing acted for him." Draco went over the information from today in his head again. "But you said he 'opened the door'—it was Potter who actively touched that thing."
Cassius's index finger paused at the edge of the page.
"Correct."
Those two words made Draco's spine straighten a bit.
"So I want to ask—" Draco stared at the surface of the pumpkin juice, "if Potter continues to use that power, will it affect us?"
Cassius closed the book.
"You are asking the right question."
Draco waited.
"In the short term, no." Cassius took a sip of the pumpkin juice. "A twelve-year-old child, even if he drains all the power of the soul fragment, his upper limit is only at the level of an ordinary Death Eater. A fifth-year equivalent. It won't hit me, and it won't hit you."
Draco breathed a half-sigh of relief.
Because he heard the words'short term'.
"And the long term?"
Chapter 152: Bone-Breaking Refinement and Mortal Ambition
Cassius set down his glass.
"Long-term—that's not Potter's problem. It's a problem with the thing living inside Potter."
His gaze drifted through the window at the bottom of the lake, looking out at the black water.
"But that's for Dumbledore to worry about."
Cassius withdrew his gaze.
"Have you done your water compression training?"
Draco's expression changed.
"I did. But I can't maintain a coin-sized water orb for more than three seconds—"
"Then keep compressing it. If you can't reach five seconds by tomorrow, you know the consequences."
Cassius stood up, tucked his book under his arm, and took two steps toward the dormitory. He stopped. He didn't look back.
"Draco."
"Hmm?"
"Regarding Potter, just watch. Don't get involved."
"...I understand."
Cassius pushed open the dormitory door and walked in. The door closed.
Draco sat alone in the Common Room, staring at the untouched glass of pumpkin juice in front of him.
Outside the window, a strand of seaweed drifted by, caught in an undercurrent; it brushed against the glass before vanishing into the darkness.
He picked up the glass, took a swig, and set it down. Drawing his wand, he condensed a fist-sized orb of water from the air and began to compress it.
Three seconds. The water orb burst. Droplets splashed all over his face.
He wiped his eyes with his sleeve and condensed another orb.
Two and a half seconds. It burst again.
Draco stared at his dripping hands and gritted his teeth.
A third water orb formed at his fingertips, a circle smaller than the previous two. He slowed his breathing, and the gap between his thumb and forefinger narrowed bit by bit.
The water orb trembled. Ripples formed on its surface.
Three seconds.
Three and a half seconds.
Four—
It burst.
But this time, the droplets flew further than the previous two.
Draco didn't wipe the water from his face. He stared at his empty fingertips and raised his wand again.
Late that night. The lowest level of the Slytherin dungeon.
Draco knelt on the ground, gasping for air.
His white shirt was soaked with sweat, clinging to his ribs.
On the stone slab before him, a high-pressure water droplet the size of a pigeon's egg refracted a cold, hard blue light—two hours ago, it had been a fist-sized orb.
"Continue."
Cassius leaned against the opposite wall, a blue particle of magic light held between his left index and middle fingers, its brightness rising and falling with his breath.
"I've reached my limit," Draco squeezed the words through his teeth. "If I compress it any more, my magic circuits will burn out—"
"Your limit is not my standard."
"But—"
Cassius lifted his eyelids.
The rest of Draco's sentence caught in his throat.
Cassius released his fingers, and the blue light dissipated. He walked over, squatted down, and looked Draco in the eye.
"What did you see in class today?"
"Potter, he—"
"He used a mutated Expelliarmus to slam a fifth-year prefect into a wall," Cassius finished for him. "Diggory's Shield Charm blocked a barrage of Stupefy spells from a seventh-year during the inter-school tournament, yet Potter pierced it with a single shot."
Draco fell silent.
"From the start of the cast to the hit: 0.4 seconds." Cassius's tone was as if he were reciting a boring list of numbers. "Do you know what you can do in 0.4 seconds?"
"Nothing."
"You can't beat him."
Those five words struck Draco's head harder than any spell.
Humiliation, anger, resentment—all flashed across Draco's face before being suppressed, turning into a crushed silence.
"But Potter is on a dead-end path." Cassius stood up. "His power is borrowed; yours is earned. The difference is—"
He raised his right foot.
Without warning.
He kicked Draco in the chest.
Draco flew backward, his back slamming into the stone wall.
He coughed up a mouthful of blood-streaked saliva. His left shoulder hit the ground first, followed by the back of his head with a dull thud.
A patch of skin was scraped off the bridge of his nose, and tiny beads of blood seeped out.
"—you're earning it too slowly."
Cassius withdrew his foot.
That kick hadn't been infused with magic. He had controlled the force with such precision that Draco was in too much pain to move, yet his internal organs remained intact.
"Get up."
Draco lay at the base of the wall for two seconds, then rolled over, propped himself against the wall, and stood up shakily.
Cassius walked to the center of the training ground and flipped his right hand.
Ghostly blue magic split into four thin lines, piercing the four corners of the floor.
The stone slabs vibrated.
Four seven-foot-tall steel puppets rose from the ground, their bodies a silvery-grey with brass rivets embedded in their joints, creaking as the metal rubbed together.
Each held a three-foot blunt sword in its right hand, the blades covered in anti-shock runes.
There were no eyes in the sockets, only black holes embedded with dark red gems that glowed like ghost fire in the dim cellar.
Cassius retreated to the wall and pressed his index finger against Draco's chest.
A chilling surge of magic poured in from the point of contact, spreading along the meridians and freezing every magic channel one by one.
The warm flow of magic vanished, replaced by a hollow sensation of weakness, as if his bones had been removed.
Draco shuddered.
"From now on, no wands, no spells, no wandless magic. Your magic circuits are sealed." Cassius withdrew his hand and took three steps back.
"What do I use?"
"Fists, knees, teeth. Whatever you want."
"You're crazy—" Draco's voice rose half a pitch. "I'm not you! I don't have your—"
"Do you think I was born able to shatter a Troll's knee?" Cassius interrupted. "I've been training since I was eight. Every day, I'd crack my own bones and mend them with Potions. Repeatedly."
He raised his right hand and clenched it into a fist. There was a layer of scarring on the knuckles, a shade whiter than the surrounding skin.
"A young master of Malfoy Family can lose to anyone. But he cannot lose to his own weakness."
He lowered his fist.
"Take off your shirt."
"What?"
"The seams of the shirt have uneven hardness; if the blade brushes against them, it'll cut your skin and hinder your movement. Take it off."
Draco stared at him for two seconds.
Then he tore off his shirt and threw it on the ground.
His pale, thin torso was exposed in the dim light.
The bruise on his chest from the kick had already spread to the size of a palm, a purple-black mark that rose and fell with his breath.
He clenched his fists.
Cassius flicked his finger.
The four golems turned toward Draco simultaneously.
"Begin."
---
The first one charged from the front, its blunt sword sweeping horizontally, aimed at his waist.
Draco instinctively dodged backward, his right foot tripping over his left.
The blade brushed against his ribs—not a cut, but a blunt strike—like an iron rod swung with full force against his body.
Draco let out a short scream and was sent flying sideways.
His seventh rib on the left side snapped, the jagged tip of the bone poking into the subcutaneous tissue as a metallic taste flooded his mouth.
"One."
Cassius counted from the wall, his tone as if he were counting pebbles.
The second golem circled to the left, its blade hacking down from the side. Draco didn't have time to turn and could only arch his back to take the hit with his shoulder.
The blunt sword struck his shoulder blade; half his body slumped down, and his knee slammed against the stone slab.
The third golem's sword fell from overhead.
Draco rolled, barely avoiding it, sliding two meters across the floor on his back.
Before he could steady himself, the fourth golem's knee slammed into his chest.
A second crack came from his ribs.
Draco's mouth hung wide open, but no sound came out.
The air was knocked out of his lungs by that knee, and his chest was filled with a sharp, knife-like pain.
He collapsed on the ground, curled into a ball.
Chapter 153: Blood-Colored Remolding in Purgatory
"Two."
"Get up."
Draco lay prone on the cold stone slabs.
The location of his broken ribs sent jolts of electricity with every breath.
His eyes were full of tears—physiological ones—but he didn't make a sound.
His fingers clawed into the gaps between the stone slabs.
He tried to prop up his upper body. His arms were shaking.
His abdominal muscles had completely gone on strike; for the first time, he failed to push himself up, and his face slammed directly back into the ground.
He lay there like that for about four seconds.
During those four seconds, he didn't think of anything grand.
He just stared at a dried-up black insect in the crack of the stone slab, his mind a complete blank, even the pain becoming numb.
Then he tried a second time.
Half-kneeling. Leaning against the wall. Standing straight.
The broken ribs ground against soft tissue inside his chest cavity; every movement exacerbated the damage.
Cassius pulled a bottle of skele-gro from his pocket and tossed it across the room.
Draco reached out and caught it, staggering a step before steadying himself.
"Drink it."
Draco brought the mouth of the bottle to his lips.
The thick liquid poured down his throat, bitter and fishy. The potion took effect within five seconds; the shattered bones snapped back together inside his body, and he could clearly hear the gaps closing as the periosteum was repaired.
Mending bones was more painful than breaking them. The fragments regrew, aligned, and hardened within his muscles, gnawing at every inch of the bone membrane.
Ten seconds later, the pain subsided.
Draco glanced down at his chest, then looked up.
The four puppets realigned their formation.
"Continue."
---
The second round lasted three seconds longer than the first. The result was the same.
By the third round, he had learned to slide past the outer edge of the first puppet's sweeping blade and use his shoulder to knock aside the second one's angle of attack.
But he still didn't dodge the fourth one's knee strike.
Another two ribs.
Fourth round. Fifth round. Sixth round.
The stone floor was covered in bloodstains and sweat marks.
Draco didn't have an inch of intact skin; blood flowed from his nostrils, the corners of his mouth, and a gash on his forehead, pooling into a small puddle on the stone.
The sound of his breathing echoed in the cellar—heavy and hurried.
Every time he fell, he would get back up. Every time he got up, it was a little faster than the last.
Cassius leaned against the wall, not moving an inch.
He tossed over another bottle of potion.
"Continue."
---
Round eleven.
Before the first puppet's sweep arrived, Draco dodged sideways half a step early and used his fist to strike the puppet's wrist joint.
Clang.
His fist collided with refined steel, the flesh split open, and two bones in his pinky and ring finger shattered.
The puppet didn't budge.
But its right hand jolted. The blunt sword veered off course—by three centimeters.
Draco's body dove under the blade, his left elbow striking the second puppet's breastplate. Borrowing the momentum, he shifted two steps laterally, dodging the third puppet's slash and bracing against the fourth's knee strike with his shoulder.
His feet were pinned firmly to the ground.
He didn't fall.
One second. Two seconds. Three seconds.
He didn't fall.
Three seconds later, he was swatted down from behind by the first puppet's sword, a bloody gash opening on the back of his head.
But for those three seconds, he hadn't fallen.
Draco fell to the ground, face against the stone, covered in blood, his breath as thin as a thread.
His right hand reached toward the fallen blunt sword two meters away. His fingers crawled forward inch by inch across the floor.
Cassius watched that hand crawling forward.
He watched for three seconds.
Then he extended his foot and kicked the blunt sword next to Draco's fingertips.
Only the sound of Draco's breathing remained in the training grounds.
Draco's fingertips touched the hilt and gripped it.
Using the blunt sword to prop himself up, he pushed his upper body off the ground inch by inch. His knees trembled; he tried to stand three times, slipped twice, and on the third attempt, he barely maintained his balance by leaning against the wall.
His collarbone was broken. His left arm was dislocated. Two bones in his right hand were fractured. His ribs were cracked again.
Leaning against the wall, he used his one movable hand to grab the sword-arm of the second puppet.
Then he opened his mouth and bit down on the puppet's wrist joint with his teeth.
His gums were cut by the steel, and the taste of blood and metal mingled in his mouth.
He bit down hard and wouldn't let go.
Cassius raised his hand.
The four puppets stopped.
The training grounds fell silent.
Cassius walked over, crouched down, and looked levelly at Draco, who was still biting the puppet's arm.
He looked at Draco, something flickering in his eyes, but he said nothing.
"Let go."
Draco's jaw relaxed.
He slid down to sit on the floor, the back of his head resting against the wall, his chest heaving violently.
A blood-tinged smile hung at the corner of his mouth.
"What score?" he asked. His voice was so raspy it was almost inaudible.
Cassius pulled the last bottle of potion from his pocket, unscrewed it, and held it to his lips.
"Thirty-seven points. The passing mark is sixty."
"So that's a fail?"
"A fail."
Draco closed his eyes, took the potion bottle, tilted his head back, and downed it.
The scalding medicinal liquid flowed through his throat and seeped into his bones.
As the broken bones began to regrow, his body convulsed uncontrollably a few times.
But he didn't make a peep.
"Brother."
"Speak."
"Can that kind of power Potter has... be beaten just by taking a beating?"
Cassius stood up and looked down at Draco sitting in the pool of blood, not answering immediately.
"Potter's power isn't his own."
He turned around and walked toward the door. After three steps, he stopped.
"But I won't allow you to gamble your life on the hope that someone else will fall."
His voice echoed in the empty cellar.
"You have to stand up yourself."
"Same time tomorrow. We'll swap four puppets for six."
He took another two steps and stopped again, without turning back.
"Wear a mouthguard. Next time you bite, don't damage your front teeth. Narcissa would be heartbroken."
The sound of footsteps faded into the corridor.
---
Draco leaned against the wall alone.
He didn't know where his shirt had been thrown.
The bruising on his chest had already spread to the entire left side of his body.
He looked down at his battered hands—his right pinky was crooked and deformed, slowly resetting under the potion's effect; the skin on his left index and middle fingers was gone, revealing pink, raw flesh.
He turned his hands over, then back again.
He watched them for a long time.
Then he pushed open the door and walked into the corridor.
His steps were limping, and the newly regrown ribs on his left side throbbed with every step.
As he passed the bronze mirror on the corridor wall, he stopped.
The person in the mirror had a face covered in blood, hair in a complete mess, and school robes hanging in tatters, revealing skin mottled with blue and purple bruises.
The Young Master Malfoy from a year ago, with his slicked-back hair and arrogant stride, was nowhere to be found.
Draco stared into the mirror and grinned, revealing a row of blood-stained teeth.
He pushed open the door and walked into the corridor.
His footprints left a trail of faint red marks on the stone slabs, stretching from the training room door all the way to his dormitory door.
---
At the other end of the corridor.
Cassius stood at the corner, leaning his back against the stone wall.
He hadn't gone far.
Draco's limping footsteps echoed in the silent cellar for a long time before disappearing.
Cassius kept his eyes closed.
The perception network of the Dual-Soul Furnace operated silently.
Draco's magic signal: stable, slowly recovering.
Harry Potter's magic signal: abnormal, the erosion area of the Black Parasitic Circuit had expanded by three percent compared to six hours ago.
Hermione Granger's signal: active, in the direction of the Room of Requirement on the seventh floor, performing some high-risk experiment with another unstable magic source.
He opened his eyes.
His right hand pulled a coin from his pocket, spun it twice between his knuckles, and stopped.
It was an ordinary old Wizarding Galleon, its edges worn white.
He had used it during his first year of practicing Water Compression to find the right amount of pressure—after he succeeded, he hadn't thrown it away, keeping it in his pocket ever since.
He didn't think about why he hadn't thrown it away.
The coin stopped between his fingers.
He stuffed it back into his pocket, straightened up from the wall, and walked toward his dormitory.
Even, cold, and hard.
In the distance, some large creature at the bottom of the lake let out a low wail, the sound of water passing through the thick stone walls and leaving a faint echo deep in the cellar.
On the stone floor of the training room, Draco's bloodstains had not yet fully dried.
Chapter 154: Legilimency and the blood-red mist
A fire was burning in the fireplace of the Principal's office.
It offered little warmth. The orange-red light flickered against the walls, failing to illuminate the corners.
Dumbledore sat behind his desk, a plate of lemon sherbetby his hand, and next to the plate sat a silver detection instrument the size of a fist. The needle had been stuck in the red zone for three days now. Two tiny cracks had appeared in the center of the dial a week ago.
Fawkes perched on his stand, feathers tucked tight, head withdrawn into his wings. Occasionally, he let out a low whimper.
The rest of the silver instruments on the shelves were spinning gently, their faint humming sounding like a swarm of restless insects.
There were three knocks at the door.
"Come in, Harry."
The door pushed open.
Harry walked in. He wore a much-washed Gryffindorsweater, the threads at the cuffs curled up, and the neckline hung loosely near his collarbone. There was an old, indelible smudge on his glasses. His hair was as messy as ever.
He had grown thinner. His cheekbones protruded half a point more than they had when school started in September, and the shadows in his eye sockets had deepened. But his school robes were buttoned to the very top, and his posture was upright.
A textbook example of a good student.
"Principal, you wanted to see me?"
Dumbledore raised a hand, gesturing for him to sit.
Harry pulled out a chair and sat down. His hands rested on his knees, his body leaning slightly forward—the kind of angle that suggested he was trying to appear attentive yet slightly nervous.
"lemon sherbet?"
"No, thank you."
Dumbledore pushed the plate forward a bit but didn't insist. He took off his half-moon spectacles, wiped them with the corner of his robes, and put them back on. The movement was very slow—slow enough to allow the person opposite him to lower their guard.
His gaze drifted over the top of his lenses and settled on Harry's face.
Then, he noticed the index finger of Harry's right hand.
There was a tiny wound on the fingertip, already scabbed over. But the color of the scab was wrong—it wasn't the reddish-brown of an ordinary cut, but a deep gray, close to dried ink.
"Harry, I heard about what happened in the Dueling Class."
"It was my fault."
Harry lowered his head. His voice carried a perfectly measured amount of guilt.
"I shouldn't have used so much force. Cedric's Shield Charm was originally very strong, but I was too impatient, wanting to prove myself, and ended up losing control."
His left hand unconsciously rubbed the patch of new skin on the back of his right hand, where a layer had peeled off after a burn. The movement was small, but just noticeable enough under the light.
Dumbledore looked at that hand.
"Madam Pomfrey says Cedric is recovering well and should be out of the hospital wing in two days. You don't need to blame yourself too much."
"But I did hurt him."
Harry looked up, his eyes slightly red and his lips pursed, as if he were holding back some emotion.
"Professor, I just don't want to be that person who can't do anything anymore."
His voice trembled slightly as he spoke the last few words.
"Last year in the Chamber of Secrets, when Cassius tore the Basilisk in half, I could only stand by and watch."
A pause.
"That feeling... it was worse than being strangled by Lord Voldemort."
Dumbledore didn't respond.
"Malfoy—Draco beat everyone into submission in class." Harry's voice dropped. "I didn't want to be left behind. I was too impulsive."
This was said perfectly. There was self-reproach, the competitive spirit of a young boy, and even a hint of forgivable grievance.
Dumbledore waited.
"Professor," Harry's voice grew even lower. "Sometimes... I can feel my scar hurting. Especially in the middle of the night."
He reached up and touched the lightning-bolt scar on his forehead, his movement hesitant.
"I don't know what it means."
A layer of moisture welled up in those green eyes at just the right moment.
"I'm very scared."
Dumbledore looked at that shimmer of tears.
He didn't want to do this.
But he had to be sure.
His fingers moved slightly beneath the desk. His mental power, like a thread of the finest silk, extended forward soundlessly. It crossed the three meters of air between them.
Legilimency.
It wasn't an aggressive intrusion. It was the gentlest of probes. Like dropping a leaf onto the surface of a lake to see if there were any undercurrents.
The thread touched the surface of Harry's consciousness.
The first layer.
Dumbledore saw a dimly lit classroom. Seamus's cauldron was emitting black smoke, while Hermione frowned as she wrote out formulas nearby. Then, in front of the fireplace in Gryffindor Tower, Ron was playing Wizard's chess while Harry sat beside him flipping through a textbook. Then, the lawn by the Black Lake, where Hedwig flew over with a letter in her beak.
All fragments. All daily life. Everything that should be in a twelve-year-old boy's mind.
The thread continued deeper.
The second layer. It began to blur. Dumbledore saw the crowded streets of Diagon Alley, Ginny blushing and hiding behind Molly, and Draco sneering at the entrance of Flourish and Blotts.
The arrangement of these memories was flawless, the timeline clear, and the details logical.
The thread went deeper still.
The third layer.
Goosebumps rose on Dumbledore's skin.
Not because of any horrific images he saw.
But because he had encountered something.
A dark red, thick, slowly churning mist. It didn't flow or disperse; it just sat there, like a dam of sludge filling the entire riverbed.
That mist was alive.
It had its own pulse, its own rhythm of breathing. Just as Dumbledore's mental thread touched the edge of the mist—it contracted, like a startled sea anemone.
Then it rapidly expanded.
Enveloping Dumbledore's perception.
In the second he was enveloped, what did Dumbledoresee?
He saw Harry sitting by the fireplace in the Gryffindorcommon room, holding a Christmas gift from Hermioneand smiling happily.
He saw Harry catching the Golden Snitch on the Quidditch Pitch, with Ron whistling below.
He saw Harry standing before the mirror of erised, watching the figures of his parents in the mirror as tears silently fell.
All warm. All real. All normal memories that a twelve-year-old boy should have.
He was all too familiar with that scent.
He had smelled it fifty years ago in the orphanage. He had smelled it in the Chamber of Secrets at Hogwarts. He had smelled it every night during the years of war.
Tom Riddle.
Dumbledore withdrew his mental thread.
The blood-red mist returned to its calm the moment he withdrew, as if it had never been touched.
The entire process took less than two seconds.
Harry sat opposite him, hands on his knees. A single, unshed tear hung at the corner of his eye. His expression hadn't changed at all.
"Principal? Is something wrong?"
"That feeling..." Dumbledore paused, picked up his teacup, and took a sip of the tea that had already gone cold. "What did you dream about?"
"I dreamed about what happened in the Chamber of Secrets." Harry's finger touched the scar on his forehead again, the movement natural. "I dreamed about that snake."
"I dreamed about Cassius tearing it apart."
His voice grew a bit lower.
"And then I woke up."
"If the nightmares persist, you can ask Madam Pomfrey for some Dreamless Sleep Potion. If the scar acts up again, she also has special ointments for that."
"Alright."
"One more thing." Dumbledore set down the teacup. "In future Dueling training sessions, if you feel your magic showing signs of being out of control, please stop immediately and tell Professor Snape or any other teacher."
"You don't need to prove anything to anyone."
"I understand."
Harry stood up.
"Thank you, Professor."
He turned and walked toward the door. After three steps, he stopped and looked back.
A faint, bitter smile played on his lips.
"Professor."
"Yes?"
"I won't become Lord Voldemort."
It took Dumbledore a long time to answer that.
"I have never thought that, Harry."
Harry nodded slightly.
"Thank you for caring about me."
The door closed.
The sound of footsteps grew distant on the spiral staircase.
Fawkes poked his head out from his wings and let out a low cry.
It wasn't his usual warm trill. It was an uneasy, warning-like short shriek.
Dumbledore sat alone behind his desk, hands folded on the tabletop.
He had used Legilimency for sixty years. With this technique, he had seen through Grindelwald's schemes and unmasked the flawless facade of a sixteen-year-old Tom Riddle.
He had never failed.
That layer of blood-red mist just now—it hadn't resisted his intrusion.
It had fed him a set of memories.
A set of carefully selected, incredibly warm memories that perfectly matched his expectations.
Like a hunter throwing a piece of fresh meat into a trap.
"Fawkes."
The Phoenix cried again.
"He's laughing at me."
Dumbledore's voice echoed in the empty office.
He turned his gaze to the silver instrument in the corner. The needle was vibrating even more violently in the red zone, and thin cracks were spreading outward from the center of the dial.
"Legilimency cannot reach the third layer," he said slowly. "It's not Harry who's blocking me. It's that fragment blocking it for him."
He stood up, walked to the shelf, and picked up an exquisite silver instrument.
Chapter 155: The Impostor's Curtain Call and the Blood-Stained Staircase
It was a miniature rotating instrument, with seven silver beads orbiting a central track, representing the real-time status of seven key magic anchors within Hogwarts.
The third silver bead—corresponding to the direction of Gryffindor Tower—was vibrating with an incredibly tiny amplitude.
The frequency of the vibration was exactly the same as the heartbeat Harry had just had when he left.
Dumbledore reached out a finger and gently touched the silver bead.
It was ice cold.
He withdrew his hand.
"If it is passive defense, and the fragment is protecting the host, then the problem is still within a controllable range."
He raised his right hand and tapped his index finger on the tabletop three times.
"But if Harry knows that the fragment is shielding him and has tacitly allowed this to happen—"
He did not continue.
He was not sure how much of the boy who had just said "Thank you for caring about me" was still Harry Potter.
The only thing he was sure of was that the pulse frequency of that blood mist was the same beat as the diary Horcruxthat Cassius had crushed into pieces.
Dumbledore walked to his desk and took a piece of parchment from the drawer. He picked up a quill.
He wrote three words.
Remus.
He folded the parchment and stuffed it into an envelope. He walked over to Fawkes.
"Go find Remus Lupin. Tell him Hogwarts needs him."
"Come early. Don't wait for Christmas. As soon as possible."
The Phoenix took the envelope in its beak, spread its wings, flew out the window, and disappeared into the dark blue night sky.
Dumbledore stood by the window. His gaze drifted past the Black Lake, past the canopy of the Forbidden Forest, and landed on an unseen place in the distance.
Outside the window, the Forbidden Forest crouched in darkness. The treetops swayed in the wind, like the breathing of some massive creature.
"Two monsters," he whispered.
"One is in the dungeon practicing bone-crushing."
"One is devouring itself right under my nose."
He took off his glasses and pressed his fingers against the red marks on the bridge of his nose.
In the corner, another crack had appeared on the dial of the silver instrument.
---
Below the spiral staircase.
Harry leaned against the stone wall of the corridor, his eyes closed.
His hands were in his trouser pockets. The burn on the back of his right hand was still faintly itching.
His expression changed.
Not a smile, not bitterness, not tension.
It was relaxation.
The kind of relaxation an actor feels when they step off the stage and drop their persona. Every expression in the Principal's office just now, every word, every movement—that perfectly timed hesitation, that carefully calculated look of guilt, that little habit of touching his scar, that slightly trembling voice—
Everything had been rehearsed in his mind beforehand.
It wasn't something he had rehearsed himself.
It was what that voice had taught him.
Before going up the stairs, the thing living in his forehead had given him a complete set of response plans in an extremely cold tone.
How many degrees to tilt his sitting posture forward. To what extent to lower his voice when mentioning the Chamber of Secrets. When to look into the old man's eyes, and when to look away. When to touch the scar, and when to make his eyes turn red.
And the most crucial rule.
"He will come to touch your mind. Let him enter the second layer. I will block the third layer."
Harry did as he was told.
When the old man's mental power touched the second layer, he felt a faint stinging sensation.
And then, nothing.
That dark red mist blocked everything. No, not blocked—it wrapped around him. It fed him several carefully selected images. Christmas gifts, the Golden Snitch, the mirror of erised.
All of them were sweet.
Dumbledore swallowed it whole. He saw nothing.
Harry opened his eyes and walked toward Gryffindor Tower.
There was no one in the corridor. The torches cast his shadow, dragging it long against the stone wall. He walked very slowly, with no expression on his face.
The aggrieved boy, the self-reproachful boy, the stubborn boy who had existed in the Principal's office—they all vanished the moment the door closed.
He raised his right hand and glanced at the deep gray scab on his index finger.
Something was pulsing beneath the wound.
Very subtly. But with every pulse, it made him feel like he was one step closer to something.
Something what?
He couldn't say. He only knew that it was very warm on that side.
When he reached the corner of the third floor, he passed an old copper mirror.
The mirror reflected his face.
His eyes were green.
But in the deepest part of the green, there were extremely fine red lines. Like cracks in a glass marble; if you didn't look closely, you wouldn't notice them at all.
Harry stared at the mirror for two seconds.
Then he continued walking.
He did not return to the dormitory.
He turned a corner and headed toward the Restricted Section.
That black remnant was still hidden in the secret compartment under his pillow. Tonight, he needed to finish reading Chapter 7.
The title of Chapter 7 was—
"Blood Contract and the Staircase of Souls".
---
At the other end of the corridor.
Deeper underground.
In the corridor outside the Slytherin common room, Cassiusleaned against the stone wall, eyes closed.
The perception network of the Dual-Soul Furnace was running silently.
Draco's magic signal: stable, slowly recovering. The effect of the Bone-Mending Potion still had four hours left.
Then he pushed his focus upward.
Toward Gryffindor Tower.
Harry Potter's magic signal.
Abnormal.
The erosion area of the black parasitic circuit had expanded compared to six hours ago. It was no longer three percent. It was five percent.
The route he took returning from the end of the corridor was wrong.
It wasn't toward Gryffindor Tower.
It was toward the library.
Two in the morning, going to the library.
Cassius dragged the signal further up.
Seventh floor. Toward the Room of Requirement. Hermione Granger's signal was still there, active, conducting some kind of high-frequency output experiment with another unstable magic source—Seamus Finnigan. The intervals were getting shorter and shorter.
He opened his eyes.
His right hand fished out that old Galleon with worn-white edges from his pocket and spun it twice between his knuckles. Then stopped.
Three lines.
Draco was climbing up with his fists and teeth.
Harry was falling down using someone else's soul.
Granger was walking a path no one had ever walked before using her brain.
He put the coin back in his pocket, straightened up from the stone wall, and walked toward the dormitory.
His footsteps were steady and cold.
In the distance, some large creature at the bottom of the lake let out a low whimper. The sound of water passed through the thick stone walls, leaving a faint echo deep in the dungeon.
On the stone floor of the training room, Draco's blood had not yet dried.
He didn't care about Potter's life or death.
But he cared about the progress of the thing inside Potter.
The erosion area jumped from three percent to five percent in just six hours. At this speed—
Cassius pushed open the dormitory door.
It was dark inside. Draco was lying on the opposite bed, his breathing rising and falling evenly, the potion repairing the shattered bones in his body. Occasionally he groaned in his sleep, his right fingers curling unconsciously, as if still gripping that blunt sword.
Cassius watched him for three seconds.
Then he walked to the window and sat down.
Outside the window was the bottom of the lake. Dark green seaweed leaned to the same side in an invisible undercurrent.
He closed his eyes.
The Dual-Soul Furnace ran at low frequency. The perception network's coverage narrowed to the core area of the Castle.
Harry's signal stopped in a dark corner near the Restricted Section of the library on the fourth floor. It stopped. It didn't move.
Reading something.
Cassius did not probe the content of that book. There was no need.
He knew what kind of thing it was.
Half a year ago, he had found similar stuff in the Malfoyvault. Faded human skin covers, ink made from reptile blood; every page exuded a weak but persistent mental corruption.
If you read too much of that kind of thing, the boundary between the reader and the writer becomes blurred.
First, borrowing power. Then, symbiosis. Then, replacement.
In the end, nothing is left.
He opened his eyes.
"None of my business."
The voice was very light, but clear enough in the quiet dormitory.
Draco rolled over on the bed opposite, muttering something unintelligible. It was unclear; he was probably cursing someone.
The corner of Cassius's mouth twitched.
A fleeting arc.
He withdrew his gaze from the window and leaned back in his chair.
Between his right index and middle fingers, a ghostly blue particle of magic light brightened in the gap between his fingers, then extinguished.
Principal's office.
Dumbledore stood alone by the window.
In the distance outside the window, the Forbidden Forestwas like a mass of solidified black mist in the night wind, pressing down on the horizon. The fire in the fireplace had already gone out, and the room was filled only with the buzzing sound of rotating silver instruments.
The needle of the detection instrument in the corner was stuck at the highest mark in the red zone, no longer moving.
But the cracks on the dial were still spreading.
Another one appeared.
Dumbledore stared at the new crack for a few seconds, turned around, and let his gaze fall on the plate of lemon sherbet on the desk that no one had touched.
Fawkes had already flown away. The letter had been sent.
He pulled out the chair and sat down, placing his hands on the desk.
He hadn't spoken for a long time.
Then he pushed the plate of lemon sherbet aside and took a blank teaching contract out of another drawer.
He filled in next Monday in the date column.
Position: Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor.
He put down the pen.
In the quiet office, he closed his eyes.