The flames inside the Room of Requirement died away.
Bang!
The body suspended in midair crashed to the ground, dust billowing up.
Dumbledore stared at the boy whose crimson pupils had gone dull, whose body showed no sign of life, and for a moment felt dazed.
Dawn was dead?
Just like that?
Even though Avery's Killing Curse landing true was unexpected enough, the headmaster still found it hard to believe.
He did not even have time to ask Avery what had just happened, why he had suddenly used the Killing Curse. Instead, he frowned and immediately crouched down, examining the body carefully.
No transfiguration.
No disguise.
Completely flesh and blood.
The appearance was genuine.
And—
With all of Dumbledore's experience, the state of Dawn's body truly was identical to that of a corpse freshly struck by the Killing Curse.
The magic within the body was rapidly dissipating along with the departed soul.
Every detail told Dumbledore the same thing.
Dawn Richter was truly dead.
And yet, the headmaster could not stop himself from doubting it.
It all felt far too strange.
Why would Dawn risk killing Murphy Avery inside the castle? Was he truly that confident he could escape unscathed?
And then there were the murder announcement, and the killing on Skye Island—things Dumbledore had never fully understood.
After doing so many baffling things, would Dawn really die so carelessly?
Dumbledore did not think so.
"The Fountain of Fair Fortune…"
He murmured in his heart, recalling the prophecy Trelawney had carved into his desk.
He had a strong feeling that this matter was far from over.
But if he wanted to glimpse Dawn's true purpose through these fragments, he first had to understand what that prophecy truly meant.
The problem was—
Two days had already passed, and Dumbledore still could not see how that story connected to everything that had happened.
Creak.
Suddenly, someone stepped on the scorched, broken floorboards.
Avery finally moved from where he had been standing rigidly. He sank down onto the ground, breathing heavily, as if all his strength had drained away.
The sound pulled Dumbledore back from his thoughts. He turned his gaze to Avery.
"Mr. Avery, what exactly happened to you just now?"
The headmaster felt that Avery's earlier reaction had been more than simply having his memories read.
And during the duel, Avery had not used the Killing Curse—so why had he suddenly cast it afterward?
It was precisely because Dumbledore had not anticipated this that he had reacted a moment too slowly to stop it.
"…Nothing, Headmaster. Nothing."
Murphy spoke softly, still lingering in the aftertaste of those memories, not fully recovered.
He did not want to tell Dumbledore about the horrific scenes he had seen of his father.
Besides, Dawn was already dead. None of that mattered anymore.
So Avery did not dwell on why he had seen Dawn's memories either. Perhaps it was simply a failure in Dawn's spell.
After a brief silence, Avery stood up, walked to the side, and lifted his father's body.
Old Avery's body was already completely stiff. The joints no longer bent, and holding him felt like holding a withered tree trunk.
Only then did Avery begin to feel truly sad.
When the skin he held would not warm no matter how tightly he grasped it, he finally understood—his father was truly dead.
Avery turned back. "Headmaster, if you intend to have the Ministry arrest me, I understand. But I hope you can at least give me time to hold a funeral."
Dumbledore looked at the reddened eyes and sighed softly.
The headmaster did despise killing.
But what he despised were people like Tom Riddle and Dawn Richter—those who slaughtered life without cause.
He did not categorically reject every act of killing.
Dumbledore, who had lived through two wizarding wars, did not possess an overabundance of saintly mercy. When the Order of the Phoenix fought Death Eaters, Killing Curses had been used there as well.
That much was evident from the fact that when Dumbledore found Dawn in Iceland, he had asked whether Dawn had a justifiable reason for killing.
The headmaster had hoped Dawn would face trial because he did not want Avery, still so young, to be scarred by killing.
But now that Avery had truly done it, Dumbledore would not stand on a moral high ground and condemn a boy who had avenged his father.
"You will be fine, Mr. Avery," Dumbledore said softly.
It was not favoritism.
Dumbledore simply understood—
As the heir of a pure-blood family, and having killed a notorious wanted criminal, Murphy Avery was not someone Fudge would dare to punish.
And reality proved Dumbledore largely correct.
When Fudge arrived with his people, he praised Avery's bravery and decisiveness throughout, showing no intention of pursuing the matter of the Killing Curse at all.
The Ministry even handed over the full bounty from the wanted notice to Avery.
January 19th.
Ten thirty in the morning.
The Ministry finally completed its procedures and prepared to take Dawn's body away.
Perhaps tomorrow's Daily Prophet would carry a headline like, [Under the wise leadership of the Minister, wanted criminal brought to justice].
Avery's thoughts drifted.
Dumbledore suddenly asked softly, "Child, when do you plan to leave the castle to hold the funeral?"
Because of his doubts about Dawn's death, the headmaster worried about Avery's safety and planned to follow him once he left the castle.
"Now."
The words slipped out instinctively.
But then Avery hesitated, a sudden image flashing through his mind. He paused and corrected himself.
"No, tomorrow. I want to rest today. I don't want to face the crowds so soon."
Dumbledore nodded in understanding. He knew that once old Avery's death became public, there would be no shortage of visitors.
"Headmaster, may I stay in that room on the eighth floor for a day? With my father's body, it wouldn't be easy to return to the Slytherin dormitory."
"Of course," Dumbledore agreed.
After leaving the headmaster's office, Avery's expression changed abruptly.
The reason he had changed his answer earlier was that he had suddenly remembered something from the memories he had seen not long ago.
He recalled a scene from when Dawn first entered that miraculous room.
He did not know what Dawn had requested in his heart at the time, but from the space that appeared, it was a room filled with various alchemical items.
And—
From Dawn's perspective, Avery had glimpsed something on one of the shelves: an hourglass attached to a golden chain, flashing past in an instant.
A Time-Turner.
Avery suddenly felt he could not simply resign himself to fate.
He still had a chance to change everything.
With that thought, Avery quickened his pace and returned once more to the eighth-floor corridor.
"I need a room with a Time-Turner. I need a room with a—"
He paced back and forth three times, repeating the thought in his mind, and pulled open the handle that appeared in the wall.
In truth, he was not anxious about what lay beyond the door.
If he truly could not find one, using the Avery family's influence to demand a Time-Turner from the Ministry would not be difficult.
Just troublesome.
Click.
The sound of the door fitting into place.
Avery froze in surprise.
___________
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