The Headmaster's office was on the eighth floor of the castle, high above everything, with an exceptionally wide view.
The sudden eruption of noise outside was, naturally, noticed by Dumbledore at once.
At this moment, he stood quietly before the floor-to-ceiling window, posture straight, gaze steady as he looked down at the battle below.
He watched Harry with curiosity, studying the magic Harry was using.
Most of those spells were things even he had never seen before.
The discovery made surprise flicker across his face.
After all, those spells were extremely powerful—some of them even made him feel threatened.
Could it be the influence of the Chosen One's destiny? Was that destiny really so strong, boosting a first-year's strength to such a level?
Soon, Dumbledore shook his head.
No. He could not simply use the title "Chosen One" to cover up Harry's effort and talent entirely.
What was truly powerful wasn't the label "Chosen One," but Harry Potter himself.
Even without the fate of the Chosen One, Harry would still be an outstanding wizard.
Dumbledore's gaze left Harry. More often than not, his attention remained on Voldemort.
Unlike the curiosity in his eyes when he looked at Harry, when he looked at Voldemort, Dumbledore's kindly face turned solemn. His eyes were like bottomless cold lakes, dark currents stirring in their depths.
Voldemort, like Harry, had once been his student.
Long ago, Dumbledore had sensed it—deep inside Voldemort's heart, a heavy darkness lay hidden.
And Voldemort craved power and strength to an extreme, very likely to fall into becoming a Dark wizard in the future.
However, it was still only a suspicion, not yet an established fact.
Dumbledore himself had made mistakes too, yet he had awakened in time, becoming the respected White Dark Lord and saving the wizarding world.
So of course he had given Voldemort a chance, hoping he might return to the right path.
But fate was cruel, and things went against his wishes.
That handsome boy who once sat in the classroom had fallen step by step, transforming into a Dark Lord whose name struck terror wherever it was heard.
It left Dumbledore disappointed and regretful. In quieter moments, he often sighed to himself—so it really was a naturally wicked little devil.
If the heavens gave him another chance to do it all over again, he would, without hesitation, look Voldemort deep in the eyes with great feeling, and say those two words with absolute sincerity:
Go die.
Phineas Nigellus Black stepped into a portrait by the window. Under the original subject's look of open disgust, he stared out through the glass, then—after a moment—his face twisted with anger.
"Dumbledore! You should rush down there at once and fight alongside Harry, kill Voldemort for good, instead of standing here doing absolutely nothing!"
In the past, no matter what Black said, Dilys would always retort.
Today was no exception.
It wasn't just that they'd been bickering for ages in the portrait world, piling up old grudges. More importantly, their views were always completely opposed.
Dilys's eyes brimmed with disdain as she sneered, "Hmph. What do you think this is, children playing at house, charging in without weighing anything?
Dumbledore has his considerations. This Headmaster won't be like you—getting hot-headed and knowing only how to blunder forward.
Truly worthy of being the most detestable Headmaster in Hogwarts history. Not only narrow-minded, but also painfully shortsighted!"
"What did you say?" Black roared, hitting a sore spot.
"Am I wrong?" Dilys didn't flinch at his bluster. She rolled her eyes and kept mocking him.
"We all know the Philosopher's Stone placed in the room at the end of the corridor is not the real one, but a fake—so Voldemort's plan was doomed from the start.
Since that's the case, why not use this chance to evaluate the little Chosen One's abilities and temper him?
The future belongs to the young, not to an old fossil like you—simple-minded and only capable of shouting!"
"You—!" Black was furious again, face flushing red, veins bulging. The portrait even began puffing steam outward.
Seeing the argument between the two former Heads about to escalate yet again, Dumbledore, as usual, chose the right moment to interrupt—settling the matter with a final word.
"Headmistress Dilys is right. I only need to ensure Harry's safety. As for this clash, let the young handle it themselves."
Black's expression darkened. "Dumbledore, you'll regret this!"
Dumbledore remained calm. He shook his head lightly, voice gentle but unyielding. "Black, I am the Headmaster now."
Bang!
Black stormed back into his own portrait, roughly slamming it shut, unwilling to keep looking at Dumbledore and Dilys's hateful faces.
In his heart, he cursed, Damn it. The younger generation is getting less and less respectful by the day!
…
As the chase continued, Voldemort's route became more and more obvious.
Sure enough, his target was the sealed chamber deep in the right-side corridor on the fourth floor!
Harry tried to intercept him before Voldemort arrived, using spells to cut him off, but every time he struck, Voldemort deftly dissolved the attempt.
The wizarding world's mind-over-matter magic was terrifyingly powerful. Even the same spell, cast by different wizards, could erupt into entirely different effects.
Fighting Voldemort, Harry learned that lesson deeply.
He was shocked to discover that even the Killing Curse, aimed at obliterating the soul, could carry tremendous physical impact rather than being limited to a purely spiritual strike.
Soon, Voldemort used Transfiguration to open a huge hole in the castle's outer wall and slipped inside. To slow Harry down, he restored the hole afterward.
That, of course, didn't stop Harry. He used Transfiguration as well, opening his own hole and chasing straight in.
One after the other, they arrived at the end of the right-side corridor on the fourth floor—the forbidden place Dumbledore had mentioned after the Sorting Ceremony.
At the corridor's end stood an ancient, old-fashioned wooden door.
When Voldemort blasted through it, a deafening roar exploded from within.
Before Harry even reached the doorway, a flash of green light shot out, painting the dim corridor a glossy, eerie green.
Then, the thunderous roar abruptly turned into weak, whimpering groans.
Clearly, the magical creature guarding the door had been defeated by Voldemort with ease.
When Harry stepped inside, what met his eyes was a massive three-headed dog.
It lay sprawled on the floor, powerless, letting out painful, low whines.
From the noses of all three heads, blood poured steadily, the crimson spreading across the ground and filling the room with a sharp, metallic stench.
It was obvious Voldemort had used the Killing Curse on it.
But because the creature was enormous—well over ten meters long—its vitality far exceeded that of ordinary animals. And because Voldemort was in a hurry and hadn't fully driven the Killing Curse, it survived—though gravely wounded.
Harry suddenly remembered something from a past chat with Hagrid: Hagrid had mentioned he kept a three-headed dog named Fluffy.
If Harry had it right, that was the one in front of him.
With a helpless sigh, Harry reached into his pocket-dimension space and pulled out a bottle of Life Potion he had prepared in advance.
He gently lifted one of Fluffy's heads and fed it the potion. When Fluffy's breathing gradually steadied and its condition stabilized, Harry finally let out a breath, turned, and continued forward.
After a quick look around, he saw an open trapdoor in the very center of the room.
Harry didn't hesitate. He took a deep breath, leapt, and dropped into the bottomless-looking passage.
Below the trapdoor, scorch marks from flames were clearly visible, and fragments of blackened plant matter lay scattered all around.
Harry narrowed his eyes and recognized the remains as Devil's Snare.
Clearly, this had been the second line of defense Dumbledore left to protect the Philosopher's Stone.
But now Voldemort had already used Fiendfyre to char huge swaths of Devil's Snare. It lay limp on the ground, completely unable to attack.
Stepping over the remnants of the Devil's Snare, Harry kept moving.
After passing through another dark, claustrophobic chamber, his vision suddenly brightened. The space opened up into a wide hall.
Ahead was a wizard's chessboard in utter disarray, packed with pieces taller than grown wizards.
But now those pieces had been burned and melted out of shape, collapsed all over the board.
Across the floor and walls, there were blackened scars left behind by rampaging Fiendfyre, and a choking stench hung in the air.
Harry didn't linger. He pressed on, and at the far end of the hall, he found a tunnel.
The tunnel sloped steadily downward. When Harry finally reached its end, he at last saw Voldemort again.
He swept his gaze around.
This room lay dozens of meters underground. The circular walls were carved with dense, intricate reliefs, and at the center of the chamber stood a lavish mirror.
Harry sensed a peculiar magical fluctuation from that mirror—unlike any modern magical artifact. Instead, it resembled the magical resonance emitted by Hogwarts itself.
Harry quickly reached a conclusion.
This mirror was an ancient magical creation.
And from its appearance alone, Harry also identified what it truly was. He had seen records of it in books before.
It was the legendary Mirror of Erised.
It possessed a unique function: revealing the strongest desire buried in a person's heart.
At this moment, Voldemort was reaching his palm into the Mirror of Erised as if dipping it into the surface of a still lake. Ripples spread outward from his hand.
He slowly drew his palm back out, and in the center of it, Harry saw a gemstone glowing with a crimson magical radiance.
The gem released an overwhelming magical fluctuation. It was composed entirely of the purest chaos magic.
The quality of that power might not match the magic within Harry's body, but the sheer quantity was terrifying—dozens of times greater than the amount of magic Harry could control.
Without question, such an immense mass of chaos magic had condensed together to form the stone in front of him.
If one could find the correct way to use it, then with the wizarding world's strange, mind-over-matter power, it could grant the vast majority of wishes in the world—including, of course, restoring Voldemort's body.
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