Harry remembered the name of that bastard Lord Voldemort, but he seemed utterly indifferent to his deeds.
It sounded like just an ordinary ambitious British wizard, fantasizing about ruling the British wizarding world.
Unpopular, with no feasible strategy, relying only on simple threats and inducements.
I wonder what his charm was like?
His methods were crude, and his power wasn't enough to overthrow the established order—he couldn't beat Dumbledore, so he had no way to truly seize control of the regime. If he'd had an official headquarters and tried to govern openly, Dumbledore would have taken it down personally.
He was probably a failure anyway, since Hagrid referred to him in the past tense, which meant he was no longer a threat now.
Harry was more worried that the guy was already dead, and he'd have to figure out a way to track down his spirit and kill it all over again...
No, he couldn't just kill him—Harry wanted to torture his soul, forever.
If he had to set a time limit, then make it ten thousand years.
Finding a person's soul... Could the power of the Cold God manage that?
If not, it had to be because the power wasn't strong enough yet!
If he got more golden attribute points, Harry would still dump them into divine power!
For attributes other than strength, reaching five points would probably trigger some kind of transformation.
"By the way, how many people has he killed?"
Hagrid shivered again. "I don't know—no one's ever counted. A lot... Maybe hundreds!"
"?"
Harry felt a flicker of confusion.
Only hundreds?
This was the source of that unspeakable fear? The mysterious person whose name couldn't even be uttered?
Sometimes Harry had chopped off more heads in a single day than that.
Harry couldn't help but wonder if this was Lord Voldemort's problem or his own.
"Now, let's talk about your parents. They were the most excellent young wizards I ever knew. Back at Hogwarts, they even served as the heads of the boys' and girls' student councils!"
"Maybe he thought he could win them over... Or maybe he just wanted to get rid of them. Everyone knows that on Halloween Eve ten years ago, he came to the village where you lived—you were only one year old at the time. He showed up at your house and—just—just—"
Hagrid suddenly pulled out a spotted, filthy handkerchief and blew his nose loudly.
"Sorry," he said. "This is unfortunate news. I knew your parents—couldn't find better people than them, no matter what. Anyway—
"The mysterious person killed them. He wanted to kill you too, probably to wipe out the whole line.
But what's baffling is that he didn't succeed.
A lot of people guess it has something to do with that scar on your forehead—it's not an ordinary scar. It was left by a very powerful curse. That curse killed your parents and destroyed your home, but when it hit you, it didn't work."
"What curse was it?" Harry asked, touching his forehead and interrupting for a moment.
"Well, it was the Avada Kedavra curse. If your magic power is low or you lack killing intent, chanting the spell won't work—it won't cause death. But a truly successful Avada Kedavra has no counter-curse; it's a spell that means certain death for anyone it hits. It's one of the Unforgivable Curses, and you're the only survivor."
"Dumbledore and the Ministry of Magic checked it out—your forehead was directly struck by a genuine Avada Kedavra cast by Lord Voldemort himself."
"I was even worried that the curse might have damaged your brain. Seeing how smart you are today, I'm really happy about that."
Harry was a bit puzzled. Before his transmigration, he hadn't had the system—he was just an ordinary guy. Even if he'd had magic, he wouldn't have known how to use it. Before adding points with the system, he'd been on the brink of death multiple times without any sudden power burst.
If Avada Kedavra was as dangerous as Hagrid described, his measly two points of magic power definitely wouldn't have blocked it. So how had his one-year-old self survived?
"Kid, all these years, you had no idea—you've become famous.
Anyone he set his sights on killing, not a single one escaped—except you, who survived the ordeal.
He took out some of the best wizards of the time, like the McKinnons, the Boneses, the Prewett brothers.
You're the only one who didn't die, the one who lived."
Some very distant scenes flashed through Harry's mind.
As Hagrid's story neared its end, that dazzling green light suddenly appeared, clearer than it had ever been in his memory.
Harry remembered other things too—for the first time in his life, he heard a loud, cold, vicious laugh.
Was this a childhood memory? Was that Avada Kedavra? Was that Lord Voldemort?
Hagrid looked at him sadly.
"On Dumbledore's orders, I personally carried you out of that ruined house and brought you to these folks here...
Harry had so many questions—hundreds, thousands of them.
"So, Vol—I mean, what happened to the mysterious person after that? Is he dead or not? If he's alive, where does he live? If he's dead, does he have a grave?"
"Er... Harry. He vanished. Disappeared. Right on the night he tried to kill you. That made your fame even bigger. And that's the part that's most baffling, you see... His magic was getting stronger and stronger—why would he just leave?
"Some say he's dead. I used to think that was pure nonsense. He probably doesn't have much humanity left in him, so he couldn't really die.
"We used to figure he was still out there in some corner, but he'd lost his magic, weakened to the point where he couldn't do any harm. Because some power inside you destroyed him, Harry.
Something happened that night that he hadn't anticipated—I don't know what it was, nobody does—but some power in you thwarted him, that's all there is to it."
Hagrid gazed at Harry with eager, reverent eyes, but Harry didn't feel happy or proud.
If it had truly been his own achievement, his own battle merit, he would have been proud, naturally. But Harry wasn't the type to claim credit for someone else's work. In that regard, his integrity stood out in the army—he was a model for the ages.
Maybe it was because having enough power gave him confidence; he knew that if he wanted glory, he could seize it with his own hands.
But Hagrid was getting more and more excited. The giant who had once rescued baby Harry from the ruins of the house and, on orders, delivered him to the Dursleys—thinking at the time that Harry was no different from any other child—seemed to have finally unraveled the mystery that had puzzled him for ten years:
"...Now I get it, Harry. You might have been born extraordinary—probably defeated the mysterious person head-on when you were just one year old.
That punch you threw earlier—you held back, I bet, but to me, it was like a god descending to earth, with storms as your weapons. It's no wonder the mysterious person ended up paralyzed by you, stripped of all his magic.
It's like in the myths: the infant Hercules in his cradle. Queen Hera sent two terrible venomous snakes to kill the child, to strangle him right there in the cradle. But unexpectedly, the baby Hercules strangled those monstrous snakes to death.
You might be in a situation just like that.
If you keep growing stronger like this, one day you could truly become a Hercules from the myths. Maybe the mysterious person's greatest claim to fame will be that he once tried to harm you, leaving a scar on your forehead with his death curse—and in the end, he met his defeat under your iron fist."
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