Startled by what Starlys had spoken aloud.
Snape raised his wand and fired a curse, attempting to intimidate Lys into silence!
But Lys casually deflected it, the spell exploding against the bookshelf and blasting off one of its legs.
She lowered her head in dejection: "It's useless, Severus. To avoid returning, I've sacrificed too much. Apart from the Dark Lord, I don't believe anyone can harm me. I was even arrogant enough once to think I could reclaim my freedom myself, hah..."
She ignored Snape's raised wand again, didn't even acknowledge Gabon's continuous angry hissing, merely replaying in her mind all the deadly things she'd accomplished.
Those werewolves who never returned. The dark wizards who vanished after being recommended—she'd eliminated them. Even now, many missing Muggle-borns were ones she'd transported out of the country.
But even after committing these lethal acts, repeatedly provoking under the Dark Lord's authority...
The most blurred yet clearest thought in her heart's depths—she still didn't dare voice it.
Though if this were revealed, the consequences would match everything she'd already done.
She wanted the Dark Lord...
To die!
To die!!
To die!!!
What she was truly avoiding was confronting her own desire directly.
The overly stark reality made her understand: she couldn't accomplish it, and this realization caused her immense anguish.
Lys kept her head bowed, her eyes darting frantically within their sockets: "I even hoped someone like Dumbledore would assist me—even if they disliked me—because I'd helped others."
"I don't like Dumbledore. His world was too vast, making my choices appear so shortsighted and selfish. But he genuinely refrained from punishing me when I nearly killed that stupid dog with dark magic, when my failed vicious curse nearly killed Potter—because I'd saved Madam Pince."
"Even knowing I'd killed someone at the Bones' residence, he overlooked it... considering my other actions, he didn't expose my identity during the trial."
"But what about now, Severus? Who will help me? Fred's identity is too complicated to resolve. This isn't something I can manage by standing behind Lucius anymore. Must I sacrifice my brother... Even if I truly abandoned everything now... I can't protect myself, protect my brother from that Cruciatus Curse... Hiss!"
A book had fallen before Lys's lowered head.
She leaped from the sofa, her eyes flashing with something beyond tears:
"The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore"...
Lys suddenly held the book before her eyes, stunned.
"...Lys, I absolutely discourage you from reading that book. Grindelwald and Dumbledore appear far too much like lovers..."
She stared at the book, eyes wide with realization. An absurd thought formed...
If she still couldn't accomplish it, couldn't resolve this.
If the people surrounding her still couldn't be trusted.
Then... what about that person?
"Gabon! Gabon! We should leave. I've thought of something—I must be insane, Ga... bon?"
While Lys had been muttering to herself, Gabon had petrified Snape...
And bitten him...
Now Lys was certain Gabon's intensified venom from magical enhancement was definitely attacking Snape's organs.
She'd been complaining and stunned for too long.
She immediately emptied her bag: "It's fine, it's fine. Mother brewed antidotes. Which bottle was it? Severus, help me identify it!"
But Snape could only gasp in shallow breaths, completely immobilized.
Lys quickly sniffed back the liquid flowing from her nostrils—tears she'd been holding back—first extracting a bottle of Mandrake root restorative and pouring it into Snape's mouth.
"Look quickly—is this bottle correct?" But Lys didn't give the now-trembling Snape opportunity to examine it, directly pouring a dusty potion into his mouth.
"Don't be frightened. I won't harm you. We're friends, Severus. I don't know your thoughts, but that's my perspective. Now I have another theory."
Lys knelt beside Snape, who was slumped on the ground as the petrification effect faded, sniffling as she raised her wand.
"So what I just told you doesn't count. While the venom disrupts your magic, Severus, I need to erase a portion of your memory regarding what I just did. I believe you won't object."
Lys spoke to herself, muttering something with a peculiar expression.
Snape watched in terror as Lys, pupils still trembling, pressed her wand tip against his forehead.
The following day, awakening beside his exploded cauldron, Snape profoundly doubted his memory's authenticity.
He'd actually been rendered unconscious by his own failed potion...
He cast diagnostic spells on his protective measures, astonished to discover them unusually robust regardless of when they'd been established. This prompted him to embrace his arms and contemplate.
Meanwhile, after extracting Gabon from Snape's waist, Lys cuddled affectionately with Gabon. She understood Snape must have attempted to curse her again, provoking Gabon's anger.
Gabon had behaved identically when confronting Barty Crouch Jr. and the Dark Lord.
Only Snape had actually been bitten and affected. He was genuinely unfortunate...
She held up the book, then retrieved a list from the items she'd spilled:
Ten Pieces of Evidence for GGAD's Existence!
This was what Fred had given her previously as proof of dormitory harmony and friendship.
Something she'd always considered amusing now offered her new hope.
While her mind remained chaotic, Lys returned to Germany at maximum speed.
The Dark Lord had observed her brother and begun utilizing Fred, bringing Fred before people, permitting his followers to shape Fred according to his preferences. Lys couldn't tolerate it—she wanted to act.
She could pretend to be a fool and await the conclusion.
Research the Dark Lord's immortality safeguards.
But allow her brother to stand intimately beside the Dark Lord as a Black representative, like Regulus once had, like Draco?!
Even contemplating it, Lys found it unacceptable.
These British nobles—their generational sacrifices and losses were crystal clear to Lys.
The deceased Malfoys, Thomases, St. Mungos, Crouches, and those Blacks.
Within extremely brief periods, they'd withered, vanished, collapsed.
She couldn't permit her brother to suffer the same fate.
She had to grip tightly what remained in her hands, because once lost, what returned wouldn't be the same...
Nurmengard before her appeared devoid of magical protection. Lys easily duplicated that list twice, used magic to slip past the elderly wizard below, and threw the copies through the window.
Observing no reaction from the tower above, Lys remembered to examine the book she'd taken from Snape's house.
She still didn't know this book's contents.
Then she discovered those passages carried ambiguous, unclear implications.
More frequently, the author employed rhetorical techniques suggesting perhaps Gellert Grindelwald and Dumbledore might have done something in that barn.
But actually?
Following that chapter was another sentence: A century has passed, and what truly occurred in that barn remains unknown to us...
Damn Rita Skeeter!
Writing such material for sensationalism!
Was it fabricated?
Was it genuinely false?
Lys stood beneath the dark tower, wilting to the ground in the wind that cooled with sunset.
If they weren't real...
Then what was this hope she'd just conceived...
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