Chapter 146: The Room of Requirement
Late that night, after the fireplace in the GryffindorCommon Room had completely died down, Hermionequietly walked to the entrance of the boys' dormitory.
She didn't knock, but tapped the heavy wooden door three times with her wand.
The door opened a crack, and Seamus Finnigan poked his head out, his face full of freckles, his eyes still heavy with sleep.
"Granger? What's wrong, it's so late?"
Hermione reached out and grabbed his pajama collar, pulling him out of the doorway.
"Come with me." Her voice was cold and hard. "Tutoring your homework."
Seamus stumbled, his face bewildered. "Tutoring homework? But there's no Potion Class tomorrow."
He struggled to pull his arm free, protesting in a low voice, "I've already blown up my third cauldron this semester, and Snape looks at me like I'm a dead man. If you cause any more trouble, he'll definitely make me scrub all the toilets in the dungeons for a whole year!"
Hermione turned to look at him, her eyes behind her goggles like two cold flames in the darkness.
"You can choose to leave now." She pressured him with a tone devoid of emotion, purely stating a fact. "But I guarantee, at the breakfast table tomorrow morning, the whole school will know about your foolish mistake of spreading slug slime on your toast, thinking it was butter."
Seamus's face instantly turned a liverish purple.
He stood rooted to the spot, ultimately not taking the step to leave.
Hermione completely ignored his protests, dragging him all the way to the seventh floor corridor, where the tapestry of Barnaby the Barmy Bashing the Troll hung.
She stopped in front of the wall opposite the tapestry, closed her eyes, and mumbled to herself.
"I need an absolutely safe training ground that can withstand high-intensity magic explosions."
She repeated it three times.
On the opposite wall, a heavy obsidian door carved with complex runes slowly materialized.
"This is... the Room of Requirement." Seamus's mouth hung open in shock. "The books say only those with strong enough needs can find it. What are you doing here?"
Hermione pushed open the heavy door, and a blast of hot air, mixed with a burnt smell and metallic scent, rushed out.
Behind the door was an extremely vast, empty space, like an underground aircraft hangar. The surrounding walls were tightly covered with thick, grey-white blast-proof panels, and the floor beneath their feet was covered with a layer of extremely viscous and elastic shock-absorbing gel. Huge, blue-gel-filled shock-absorbing bags hung from the ceiling.
In the center of the room stood a strange measuring instrument cobbled together from various discarded copper pipes and gears, its dial's needle still gently swaying.
"Come in." Hermione pushed Seamus into the room, and the heavy door slammed shut behind her.
She pulled out a pair of goggles, crafted from Dragon Hideand polished crystal, from her pocket and put them on. Then she pulled out a thick notebook from her robes and slammed it onto the metal table in front of Seamus.
"This is the data record of all one hundred and seven uncontrolled explosions you've caused in Potion Class and Charms Class since last semester." Hermione pointed to the densely packed charts in the notebook, her tone icy. "I've calculated that your magic, when you're emotionally stressed, produces a special resonance frequency, leading to extreme instability in its energy structure."
Seamus looked at the curves and formulas he couldn't understand at all, and his legs began to tremble uncontrollably.
"Granger, what exactly do you want to do? This is insane!"
Hermione looked up, her eyes behind the goggles gleaming with fervent light.
"I want you to turn this 'mistake' into a normal state." She cut off his retreat with an extremely forceful tone. "From now on, forget all theories of precise spellcasting. Concentrate, recall your most nervous and frightened moments, and then, facing that wall, cast the simplest Lumos charm."
She pointed to a blast-proof wall at the end of the room, reinforced with three extra layers of steel plates.
"You don't get to decide this, Seamus."
Seamus nervously raised his wand, his hand trembling like leaves in the autumn wind.
He looked at Hermione's face, which clearly read "you're dead if you don't comply," his mind blank, and stammered, "Lu... Lumos..."
A blinding orange-red fireball erupted directly from his wand tip.
The fireball underwent an extremely violent collapse the moment it touched the blast-proof wall.
Accompanied by a deafening roar, the fireball exploded indiscriminately.
The enormous shockwave instantly tore apart half of the blast-proof wall, which was made of high-density material. Countless shattered rocks and steel fragments whistled past their heads. The needle of the central instrument wildly hit its maximum value, let out a wail of overload, and was directly shattered to pieces.
Hermione's Shield Charm barrier, cast in advance, was instantly shattered. She and Seamus were thrown to the ground by the air current, hitting the shock-absorbing gel hard and rolling over ten meters away.
"I don't want to do this anymore!" Seamus scrambled to his feet, snot and tears streaming down his face, crying as he ran towards the door. "This will kill someone! I'm going back to sleep!"
But Hermione, amidst the swirling smoke, let out a maniacal laugh.
She grabbed Seamus by the collar, pressing him firmly to the ground, her eyes behind the goggles glowing terrifyingly bright.
"Go back?" she declared, word by word, in a tone both extremely cold and filled with endless excitement. "Do you want to return to that past where you were only mocked as an 'explosion maniac'?"
She leaned into Seamus's ear, her voice like a devil's whisper.
"We're not performing those ridiculous tricks, Seamus."
"We're creating 'bombs' that defy any magical laws."
"And you, your unreasonable, chaotic output, is that unique igniter! It's our only weapon to tear open the gap in strength!"
...
The moment that violent explosion sounded.
Far away in the deepest part of the Castle, in the SlytherinCommon Room, Cassius was sitting in an armchair carved with a silver serpent totem, flipping through a thick ancient Alchemy tome.
His Dual-Soul Furnace had been maintaining a very low-frequency standby scanning state.
Although most of the explosion on the seventh floor was blocked by the Room of Requirement's shielding spell, the crude vibration still traveled through the earth's veins to his nervous system.
That wasn't a magical fluctuation, but a pure release of physical pressure.
In the corner of the Common Room, Draco was drenched in sweat. He was intently staring at a fist-sized ball of water suspended in front of him, clenching his jaw, trying to compress it further.
"Brother, are those Gryffindor idiots making a racket again?" Draco stopped his movements, complaining as he looked at the ceiling, from which a little dust had fallen.
Cassius closed the book in his hand and casually tossed it onto the square table beside him.
"It seems that finally, someone in Hogwarts understands how to use their brain to compensate for a lack of magic."
He leaned back in his chair, giving his assessment in an extremely calm tone.
"Ignore those boring commotions, continue your compression training." Cassius coldly cut off Draco's curiosity. "If your water droplet can't cut through this steel plate tomorrow, you can go back to Malfoy Manor to sweep the floor."
Draco's face stiffened, and he immediately re-immersed himself in the rigorous training.
Cassius turned his head, his gaze seemingly piercing through the thick walls, looking towards the seventh floor.
"Interesting."
A smile of intrigued, somewhat cruel amusement played on his lips.
"Finally, little mice are learning to gnaw on their own."
This boring school 'playing house' game was finally starting to get a little interesting.
Chapter 147: Ritual in the Forbidden Forest and Afterglow of Power
Gryffindor Tower.
Ron pulled the quilt over his head, muttering something.
Harry listened for a few seconds—"Don't touch my sandwich"—repeated three times, his voice getting softer until it turned into snores.
Harry lay in the darkness, eyes open.
He reached under the pillow and felt the Snake-scale wand.
The wand's temperature was significantly higher than body heat; the dark red gemstone pressed against his palm, pulsing rhythmically.
It didn't feel like a wand. It felt like another heart.
He sat up. Bare feet stepped onto the stone floor, a cold sensation racing up his calves, but the heat inside his body didn't dissipate.
The burning sensation beneath the lightning scar had started at nightfall and had been burning for four hours now.
The Marauders Map was spread across his knees. Filchpaced back and forth on the fourth floor's east side, while Snape's name was pinned in the dungeon office, motionless.
Harry folded the map.
When he pulled the black-cloth-wrapped Fragmented Scroll from under the bed, his hand paused.
He glanced at Ron. The silhouette under the quilt rose and fell steadily; his left foot was exposed, wearing one sock, while the other had been kicked who-knows-where.
Harry withdrew his gaze and tucked the Fragmented Scroll into the lining of his robes.
The dormitory window pushed open, and the cold November wind rushed in.
He didn't shiver.
The drainpipe was iron, freezing his fingers stiff.
He gripped the pipe's mounting bolt with one hand, toes wedged into the brick gaps, sliding down the outer wall of the tower.
A bolt in the middle was loose; his body dropped half a meter, nails scraping the iron with a sharp screech, his heart skipping two beats.
He steadied himself, silent.
When he landed, his knees nearly hit the frozen turf.
He stood straight and ran toward the Forbidden Forest.
Five minutes later, the Castle's lights were left behind.
The silhouette of the black pines at the edge of the Forbidden Forest cut across the skyline under the moonlight.
He stopped in the shadow of the third pine and crouched down.
The Fragmented Scroll was spread out. Moonlight illuminated the magic circle drawn in dark red ink on the parchment—three concentric circles overlapping, with a twisted rune carved at the center.
He didn't dare stare at that rune. Last time he looked too long, a blood vessel in his right eye burst after he returned, remaining bloodshot for two days; he told Ron he'd hit the bedpost.
He pulled a small knife from his pocket.
Something scavenged from the junk piles in the Room of Requirement, its blade stained with dark marks of unknown age.
This was already the third time this week.
Left hand spread open.
There were old wounds on his palm—the cuts from the first two times hadn't healed, fresh pink granulation tissue and dry blood scabs intermingling.
The first time, only a few drops of blood seeped out, and nothing happened.
The second time, he saw a gray wilderness and distant lightning, lasting less than ten seconds before he was ejected.
This time he brought one more thing—two drops of Snake Venom Essence stolen from the Potion Class waste cabinet, applied to the blade.
He didn't know the principle behind doing this.
It wasn't written on the Fragmented Scroll. He just felt he should do it.
The thought itself made him uneasy.
The knife lay across the base of his palm. The blade pressed down, the skin first indenting into a white mark.
He pulled hard.
Warm blood welled up, turning black in the moonlight. The Snake Venom Essence mixed into the wound; a stinging itch came from his palm, like insects crawling under his skin.
Harry dipped his right index finger in the blood, raised his hand, and pressed it onto the lightning scar on his forehead.
The moment of contact.
The wind stopped. The insect chirps cut off. The sound of waves from the Black Lake vanished.
His heart skipped a beat.
Then the pain came.
Not ordinary pain—something was pushing out from under the scar, like a red-hot iron nail drilling outward inch by inch from the inside of his skull.
The scar split open—not a physical tearing of flesh, but something deeper ripping apart—black, scalding matter squeezed out from the crack, carrying a foul, sweet stench of decay.
Harry hunched over, his forehead slamming into the dirt.
Ten fingers clawed into the ground, nails splitting, bringing up clumps of mud and gravel.
The magic circle on the Fragmented Scroll lit up. Dark red light rose from the parchment, wrapping around his left hand and climbing up along the veins.
Harry's green pupils dilated rapidly.
Deep within his pupils, a mass of crimson was churning.
His consciousness was seized by that red mass and dragged inside.
—
A grayish-white sky.
A British countryside. A few dead chickens were scattered on the ridges between fields, their necks twisted at impossible angles.
A brick house in the distance was on fire. Flames spewed from the windows, painting the night sky orange-red.
Harry stood on the dirt road at the village entrance.
No—he had no body.
He was just a pair of eyes. Eyes looking out from someone else's sockets.
A Yew wand was held between pale, slender fingers.
The wand tip pointed at a middle-aged man kneeling on the ground.
The man's pants were soaked through; he held a girl no older than five in his arms, using his body to shield her.
"Please... I beg you..."
The fingers moved.
"Avada Kedavra."
The voice was very light. A tone like reciting a bedtime nursery rhyme.
Green light.
The two corpses didn't change position as they fell. The father still held his daughter. The girl's rag doll fell to the ground, rolled twice, and stopped in a puddle of chicken blood.
Harry wanted to scream.
Wanted to close these eyes. Wanted to tear himself out of this body.
He couldn't.
Those hands rose again.
The wand tip turned toward the burning brick house. The door blasted open soundlessly. From inside came a woman's screams and an infant's cries.
The owner of the hands walked in. Feet crunched on broken wooden boards. A shoe stepped on an overturned milk bottle; the white liquid spread in the firelight and was quickly baked dry.
Green light.
One.
Two.
Three.
The crying stopped.
Harry was forced to watch it all.
Every frame was clear enough to make his stomach cramp—the faces of the dead, their expressions before death, the speed at which the blood spread across the floor, the way the fire consumed the wooden beams inch by inch.
After the seventh green light faded, those hands rose gently.
Fair, slender fingers rubbed against the wand.
Just like that.
Like wiping mud off a shoe. Like wiping the corner of one's mouth with a napkin after a meal. A completely unconscious, habitual movement.
No pleasure. No hatred. No emotional fluctuation whatsoever.
Seven lives.
A rub of the wand. Gone.
Harry's stomach churned.
But—
In a corner of his heart he didn't dare look down into, something wasn't churning.
That thing was very quiet. Very warm.
Like the feeling of sitting in front of a fireplace for too long in winter, the body heating up from the bones outward.
It was control.
Control over seven lives.
Control over the entire village.
Control over "who lives and who dies" without needing a reason or permission.
Harry Potter, in the seventh minute of that dark world, felt an emotion he had never experienced before.
Not fear. Not anger.
It was envy.
Then a voice came from the distance. Not a whisper, not a temptation—it was a statement, spoken in the same flat tone as when reciting the Killing Curse:
"Of course you aren't me, Harry. You are a far cry from the eleven-year-old me."
Chapter 148: The Invited Abyss
"No—!"
Harry sprang up from the mud.
On all fours, he retched violently.
His stomach was in turmoil, but he couldn't throw anything up; only bitter bile surged into his throat, mouthful after mouthful. He wiped his mouth with a dirty sleeve, his wrist trembling.
The blood on his forehead had already dried, forming a dark brown crust.
The lightning scar was throbbing, feeling heavy.
"I am not him."
Harry crouched on the ground, his voice hoarse.
"I am not him. I don't—"
That voice came again, from deep within his eardrums:
"But you are learning."
Harry covered his ears with both hands.
Deep in the Forbidden Forest, a bird was startled into flight, fluttering away and disappearing into the canopy.
He crouched there for a long time.
The mud on his knees dried, turning into a grayish-white powder. The wound in his left palm had mostly stopped bleeding; the essence of snake venom caused a faint purple ring to bloom around the edges of the cut.
He slowly stood up.
He wiped the mud off his face. He folded the remnant scroll neatly and tucked it into his lining. He checked the bloodstains on his robes—they weren't very visible on the black fabric.
"It's not enough."
He heard himself say those three words. His voice was dry and raspy, but steady.
He repeated it again.
"It's not enough."
Then he threw on his invisibility cloak and walked toward the Castle.
The wound on his left hand was still seeping blood.
He didn't bandage it. After walking a few steps, he fished a piece of toffee out of his pocket—Ron had stuffed it into his hand that afternoon—unwrapped it, and popped it into his mouth.
The sweetness mixed with the residual bile in his mouth, turning into an indescribable flavor.
He didn't spit it out.
—
The Principal's Office.
A metallic shriek jolted Dumbledore awake from a light sleep.
On the top shelf of the bookcase, two things happened simultaneously to that row of silver precision instruments.
In a device shaped like a miniature solar system, the orbits of all the asteroids shifted, intersecting and colliding with each other, emitting an extremely discordant screech.
Another silver triangular instrument was spewing thick black smoke from the vents at its top, while its base was covered by a dark red membrane. The surface of the membrane was bulging with dense blisters, expanding outward.
Dumbledore sat up in bed.
He didn't move immediately.
He stared at the two instruments for three seconds—then looked down at his right hand. That hand was shaking.
Slightly. But it was shaking.
He placed his left hand over it, pressing it down.
Then he stood up, walked to the desk, and extended his right hand, cupping it over the silver triangular instrument. His aged fingers hovered in the black mist, and the instrument's tremors slowly subsided under the suppression of his palm.
But the dark red membrane did not recede.
It solidified on the surface of the instrument, drying into a dark blood scab that covered the entire base.
Dumbledore withdrew his hand. He stared at the black residue staining his fingertips.
Cold. Decayed.
He recognized this smell.
Twelve years ago. Godric's Hollow. In that blown-up house, on the broken wood of the crib, on the skin of that baby boy with the bleeding forehead.
Identical.
He opened a drawer and took out a blank piece of parchment and an eagle feather quill.
The quill hovered over the paper.
He paused for five seconds.
He put the quill down, then picked it up again.
This time he wrote. Two lines. The moment he finished, the handwriting sank into the paper and disappeared. The parchment folded itself and flew out the window.
Dumbledore sat down in his chair.
The dying embers in the fireplace reflected off that dark red blood scab; there was a slight fluctuation on the surface of the scab. Rhythmic. Continuous.
As if something were hidden inside, breathing.
"Fawkes."
On the perch, the Phoenix raised its head. Its gold and red feathers flashed dimly in the darkness.
It let out a low, mournful cry, then buried its beak under its wing.
Dumbledore stared out the window. The moon hung over the Forbidden Forest, pale and indifferent.
"That fragment," his voice was very soft, "did not wake up passively."
He paused for a moment.
"It was invited."
His right hand began to shake again. This time, he didn't press it down.
The dark red blood scab on the silver instrument rose and fell in the moonlight, becoming more and more steady, more and more powerful.
A tiny crack opened at the base of the instrument.
"The worst thing," he said to the empty office, "has already begun."
He looked down at his shaking hand, and after a long time, he reached out and gently closed the drawer. The corner of a photograph was still sticking out of the drawer—a baby with black hair and green eyes, smiling at the camera.
The drawer closed.
The photo was caught in the gap, not fully tucked inside.
—
At the same time.
The Slytherin Common Room.
Outside the windows at the bottom of the lake, the dark water flowed silently.
Cassius sat on the stone bench carved with the silver snake totem, pinching a shelled pumpkin seed in his hand and tossing it into his mouth. He had a habit when chewing—first grinding it with his left teeth, then using his tongue to push the fragments to the right before swallowing.
The Dual-Soul Furnace was running on standby at minimum power. All magical fluctuations within a three-hundred-meter radius would pass through his perception net for a rough screening.
Chewing the pumpkin seed, he shifted his gaze away from the lake water outside the window.
North of the Castle. Toward the Forbidden Forest.
Three seconds ago, an extremely weak fluctuation of Dark Arts swept past the boundary of his perception. It came quickly and left just as fast.
Cassius twirled the pumpkin seed shell between his fingertips.
This kind of Dark Arts residue was of the same origin as the remnant soul of Lord Voldemort he had sensed inside Quirrell; the characteristics matched.
But the concentration was two orders of magnitude lower.
It wasn't an external intrusion. It was something that already existed within someone's body, actively activated.
Harry Potter. That scar.
Cassius flicked the pumpkin seed shell away. It crossed the window gap and fell into the lake, without even making a splash.
He fished out another pumpkin seed, his motion of shelling it pausing for a moment.
Pinching the pumpkin seed between his thumb and index finger, he twirled it twice.
"Interesting."
He tossed the pumpkin seed into his mouth, shut down the northern sector of his perception net, and retracted the scanning range to the boundaries of the Slytherindungeon.
He rolled over and closed his eyes.
The pumpkin seed shell slowly sank to the bottom of the lake, getting caught by a passing piece of seaweed, never to move again.
Thursday afternoon.
The Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom.
Snape walked in, lifting the hem of his black robes, and kicked the door shut with his foot.
The door frame shook off a layer of white dust, which drifted into Parvati's ink bottle in the first row.
She pushed the bottle two inches away in disgust.
It was already the third week of Snape substituting for Lockhart. Every class was practical combat. In his own words—
"That semi-illiterate Lockhart wasted two whole months of your time. I have no obligation to wipe the sewage from the toilet for him, but I can at least teach you how not to trip over your own wands."
Today's combat list was posted on the blackboard. White chalk, messy handwriting, carrying Snape's characteristic indifference.
Group Four: Harry Potter vs Cedric Diggory (Hufflepuff, Fifth-Year Prefect).
Ron saw the names first. His face turned from red to white within three seconds.
"A fifth-year prefect? Is Snape crazy? Diggory took third place in the inter-school dueling competition last year!"
As he spoke, he unconsciously touched the tip of his wand—there was a ring of cracks wrapped in tape there, which had burst from his own spell rebounding last semester.
It still hadn't been fixed, and he couldn't afford a new one.
Hermione looked up from behind her notebook and glanced in Harry's direction.
Harry didn't say anything.
He sat in the last row of the long table, leaning against the stone wall.
The snake-scale wand was tucked into his sleeve, the dark red crystal at the end of the handle pulsing with a rhythmic beat through the fabric.
He didn't look well.
His lips were chapped, and there were deep dark circles under his eyes.
But his eyes were unnaturally bright.
Hermione noticed.
"Did you not sleep again last night?"
"I did."
"Liar. Your dark circles haven't faded since Tuesday." Hermione lowered her voice, her pen tip poking the tabletop, "Harry, if you're still reading that—"
"Threw it away," Harry interrupted her, "don't worry about it."
Hermione pursed her lips. Her left hand rummaged through her bag under the table—inside was a copy of 'Soul Marks and Parasitic Magic' borrowed from the library's Restricted Section.
She had originally planned to return it today.
Now she didn't plan to.
Chapter 149: The Shattered Shield and the Pitch-Black Nail
But Snape had already stepped onto the podium.
"Fourth group." Snape lifted his chin, his black eyes sweeping across the classroom, "Potter, Diggory, come up."
Cedric Diggory stood up from the back row.
Tall and handsome, his movement of unbuttoning his robes carried a smoothness practiced countless times.
His sleeves were rolled to his elbows, revealing a faint white old scar on the inside of his forearm—left from last year's inter-school duelling tournament semifinals.
He hadn't won that match, so he only took third place. This caused him to practice the Shield Charm for two extra hours every day throughout the summer break.
His wand was held in his right hand, the tip pointing down.
His steps onto the duelling platform were steady, his center of gravity kept low.
A few Hufflepuff girls in the classroom lowered their voices and let out small cries.
Twelve inches of elm, dragon heartstring core, an offensive configuration.
He stood on the stage, square chin slightly tucked, shoulders open, his gaze falling on the opponent.
A second-year student half a head shorter and a size thinner than himself.
Cedric looked at Harry for two seconds.
He recalled the rumors he'd heard in the corridors last week—Potter hadn't been quite right lately, often sitting alone on the steps of the Astronomy Tower, staring blankly until the early hours of the morning.
He hadn't paid it any mind at the time.
Now, seeing the dark circles under those green eyes, he cared a little.
"Mr. Potter," Cedric raised his wand, tip pointing to the sky, performing a standard duelling salute, "I look forward to your guidance."
His tone was sincere. Cedric Diggory was sincere in everything he did.
This was his strength, and sometimes, his problem.
Harry stood up from his seat.
His movement walking onto the stage was very slow.
Not because of nervousness.
It was a deliberate control of rhythm.
His left hand was in his pocket, his right hand hanging at his side, half an inch of the snake-scale wand's tip peeking out from his sleeve.
He did not salute.
Standing on the stage, his right thumb slowly rubbed the scale patterns on the wand's handle, his green eyes staring straight at the center of Cedric's chest.
Cedric glanced sideways at Snape.
Snape wrinkled his nose.
"Begin."
Cedric moved.
His body turned forty-five degrees to reduce the target area. His wand drew an arc from bottom to top, his footsteps steady and firm, center of gravity sinking. He had practiced this opening sequence four hundred times in front of a mirror.
"Stupefy!"
An orange-red Stupefy shot from the wand tip, extremely fast and at a tricky angle, heading straight for Harry's left shoulder.
A textbook-level opening attack.
When the spell's light was halfway there, Harry spoke.
He didn't recite the full incantation. His lips moved slightly, squeezing an indistinct syllable from deep within his throat.
It didn't belong to any known spell.
It was more like the dry friction sound made by a snake flicking its tongue. Extremely short. Extremely fast.
The dark red crystal on the snake-scale wand lit up entirely.
A surge of magic poured out from the wand tip.
It wasn't the standard red of Expelliarmus. It wasn't white.
It was black.
A pitch-black pillar of magic with dark purple edges, thick and churning, more than three times thicker than Harry's arm. The moment it erupted from the wand tip, it let out a low hum.
Everyone's eardrums in the classroom stung simultaneously. The air was torn apart, leaving a white line.
Cedric's Stupefy collided with that black magic pillar.
The orange-red light sizzled and evaporated completely.
The black magic pillar did not slow down.
Cedric's reaction saved his life—at least partially.
An instant before seeing the black light pillar, he crossed his hands and shouted the Shield Charm.
A silver-white shield-shaped barrier expanded in front of him, its surface floating with dense runic patterns.
A high-level defense taught only in the fifth year. Something he had practiced all summer.
The black magic pillar slammed into the Shield Charm.
Cobweb-like cracks appeared on the silver-white barrier starting from the point of contact. The speed at which the cracks spread was faster than the eye could follow.
Cedric felt the shield between his hands trembling.
His arms were going numb. A summer's worth of practice was crushed into scrap paper in this single second.
Then the entire Shield Charm shattered.
Silver fragments flew in all directions.
Cedric's wand flew from his hand, flipping seven or eight times in the air before pinning itself into the wooden beam of the ceiling.
The residual force of the shockwave lifted Cedric's entire body off the ground.
He flew back.
His back hit the stone pillar on the left side of the duelling platform first. The stone pillar snapped in the middle.
Then he crashed into the wall along with the debris, leaving a human-shaped indentation in the Castle's stone wall.
Gravel and dust clattered down.
Cedric hung in the indentation, a line of blood trickling from the corner of his mouth, his head slumped to one side, the whites of his eyes showing.
His right hand still held the posture of gripping a wand, fingers curled, palm empty.
There was no sound in the classroom.
The echo of the hum still vibrated within the stone walls.
Dust floated in the sunlight.
Everyone was looking at Harry.
Harry stood on the duelling platform.
His right hand held the snake-scale wand, a wisp of dark purple smoke rising from the tip.
His breathing was rapid, his nostrils flaring.
There was a blackened burn mark on the inside of his palm holding the wand, emitting thin white smoke.
The lightning scar on his forehead was two shades redder than the surrounding skin.
A red light swirled in his green eyes, flickering like dying embers fanned by the wind.
At the back of the classroom.
Ron slid off his stool, his bottom hitting the stone floor.
His face wasn't white—it was grayish-green. His lips trembled, unable to say a word.
He looked at the person on the stage.
Wearing the same Gryffindor school robes as him, the same red and gold striped tie, hair just as messy as his.
But that wasn't Harry.
That wasn't the Harry he knew.
The Harry he knew had written him letters during the summer, the parchment stained with grease from the Dursleys' kitchen, handwriting crooked, asking how he was doing.
The Harry he knew wouldn't use magic of this color.
Ron's right hand reached out again to touch the tape around the tip of his wand.
His fingers rubbed back and forth over that crack twice.
Seamus's mouth hung open, one hand gripping the edge of the table, his finger bones nearly poking out from under his skin.
Neville buried his face in his hands, his shoulders shaking. His toad jumped off the table, fell to the floor, and let out a croak, but no one cared.
Hermione's quill slipped from her fingers, the nib stabbing into the tabletop, ink splashing into a black flower.
She stared at Harry on the duelling platform.
She saw it.
The color of that magic pillar. Its structure. Its method of destruction.
The core magical architecture of Expelliarmus was "separation"—to strip the target from their possession.
Standard output was a red beam, loose in structure, wide in dispersion, and low in lethality.
But the thing Harry released wasn't separation.
It was crushing.
The structure of the magic was violently distorted.
The originally loose and dispersed energy flow was forcibly compressed into a high-density linear piercing projectile.
That method of compression wasn't in any textbook.
Hermione had read a similar description in the seventh chapter of that book in the Restricted Section.
Using pain and hatred as fuel, twisting magic into a nail.
The compression logic of the Dark Arts.
Her back went cold.
Not because of fear.
Because she had suspected it long ago, but had been telling herself "it won't be."
Now "it won't be" had become "it already is."
Chapter 150: The Host's Invitation, The Price of Eroding the Core
And she did nothing.
Five seconds later, the red light in Harry's eyes slowly faded. His green pupils returned to their normal color.
He looked down at his right hand. His fingers were trembling.
He tucked his wand into his sleeve, his movements very slow, his fingertips lingering for a moment longer on the scale-like pattern of the handle. It was as if he were reluctant to let go of something.
"I won."
His voice was very soft.
There was no emotion.
But the corner of his mouth held an extremely slight curve.
It wasn't a smile.
It was more like someone who had been starving for a long time finally swallowing their first bite of food.
"Potter."
Snape's voice fell from above the podium. He stood where he was, not moving a step. The hem of his black robes was perfectly still. But his right hand gripped his wand, the tip pointed toward Harry, the veins on the back of his hand bulging.
He was waiting.
He waited for five seconds. He confirmed the red light had receded. He confirmed that only green remained in those green eyes.
"That was not Expelliarmus," Snape said, his voice kept very low. "What was that?"
Harry blinked.
"Expelliarmus," he replied. "His wand was indeed disarmed."
Snape stared at him.
Three seconds. Five seconds. Seven seconds.
Harry looked back. He did not flinch.
Snape was the first to look away.
He waved his wand, peeling the unconscious Cedric from the wall and levitating him in mid-air.
Cedric's right hand still maintained the posture of gripping a wand, but his empty palm held nothing.
"Finch-Fletchley, take Diggory to the Hospital Wing."
Snape returned behind the podium and opened a textbook. He flipped a page, then flipped back. His finger rested on the paper for two seconds; he hadn't processed a single word.
"Class dismissed. Everyone leave."
The students surged toward the door. Their footsteps were hurried and chaotic.
No one passed by Harry. They all bypassed his seat, preferring to crowd into a jam at the doorway.
Harry stepped down from the dueling platform. When he passed by Ron—
Ron shrank back slightly.
The movement was small. But Harry saw it.
He didn't stop.
Returning to his seat, he lowered his head to inspect the burn on his palm.
The heat from the dark red crystal had faded, but the skin on his palm was blackened and shriveled, as if seared by a branding iron.
It hurt.
But beneath that pain, there was something deeper.
Warm. Satiated. Full.
Like seeing the light of a fireplace downstairs through a narrow crack in the attic during winter.
You know that's not your fireplace, but that ball of light truly shines upon you.
He clenched his fist, hiding the burn within his fingers.
Hermione paused for a step when she reached the door. She looked back at Harry.
Harry was looking down, not at her.
Hermione's right hand clenched into a fist beneath the table.
Her nails dug into her palm.
She wanted to speak. A dozen sentences were stuck in her throat.
She didn't say a single one.
She quickly left the classroom.
The classroom emptied within two minutes.
Snape stood alone behind the podium.
He walked toward the broken stone pillar that Cedric had hit.
There were charred burn marks on the fractured surface.
He reached out and touched it. His fingertip felt heat. Cold. Decay. Two contradictory temperatures existed simultaneously.
He withdrew his hand and wiped his fingertip on his robes.
"Dark Arts."
Snape spoke those two words.
He stood for three seconds, then turned, his robes trailing a black arc behind him as he strode toward the door.
He was going to find Dumbledore.
—
The last row of the classroom.
In the corner by the wall.
Cassius had been sitting there the whole time.
He hadn't moved throughout the entire process.
Leaning against the back of his chair, his legs were crossed and propped up on the desk in front of him.
His left hand supported his chin, while the index finger of his right hand tapped rhythmically on the desk.
The rhythm of the tapping was irregular. Sometimes three quick taps, sometimes a two-second pause before another. This was his habit when performing high-frequency calculations—his index finger replaced pen and paper.
Draco sat next to him, staring at the small pool of blood left on the floor after Cedric was carried away. His Adam's apple bobbed. Then it bobbed again.
"The output of Potter's strike was at least fifth-year level," Draco's voice was dry. "What was that thing? When did Potter—"
"Quiet."
Cassius interrupted him. His index finger stopped on the desk.
He was sensing the flow of magic within Harry.
The Dual-Soul Furnace's low-frequency scan mode provided a reading.
It wasn't perfectly clear—the distance was too great, with over a dozen stone walls in between—but the outline could be seen.
Harry's core magic, that standard golden warm current belonging to the Lily Potter bloodline, was being entwined by a dark circuit.
The source of the circuit was directly beneath the lightning scar on his forehead.
A Soul Fragment.
But its state was completely different from what it was in the first year.
It was no longer passively dormant.
That dark circuit was writhing, expanding, and devouring the golden warm current as nourishment.
More importantly—the connection port carried the host's own magical signature.
It wasn't an intrusion. It was an invitation.
This twelve-year-old child had opened the door himself.
Cassius withdrew his perception.
The scan's resolution wasn't high enough; there were several blurred areas in the details that he couldn't judge.
For instance, the growth rate of that dark circuit—he could give a rough range, but precise numbers required closer sampling.
He didn't intend to sample from a closer distance.
Cassius stood up. The chair legs made a short screech against the stone floor.
"Let's go." He patted Draco's shoulder.
Draco quickly followed. As they passed the broken stone pillar, Cassius paused for a step, glancing down at the charred marks on the pillar's surface.
"Stupid."
He gave a one-word evaluation. Then he stepped over the rubble and walked out of the classroom.
In the corridor, footsteps echoed. The rhythm was steady.
Draco hurried a few steps to catch up, lowering his voice.
"Brother, how did Potter do it? His magic reserves aren't nearly enough—"
"He didn't do it," Cassius said.
"What do you mean?"
"That wasn't his power." Cassius turned a corner. "He opened a door that shouldn't be opened. The thing behind the door acted for him."
Draco's brow furrowed.
His mind was racing—Potter's scar, black magic, active activation. These fragments pieced together in his head, forming a shape he didn't quite want to face.
"That kind of power... what's the price?"
Cassius glanced at him.
"That thing is eating him," Cassius's speaking speed didn't change. "Every time he uses it, a piece of his core magic is gnawed away. It won't last many uses."
Draco was quiet for a few steps.
He suddenly remembered something.
At the end of last year, after Potter returned from the third-floor corridor, he was eating in the Great Hall.
From three tables away, he had seen Potter stuff four steaks and two bowls of pudding into his mouth.
Weasley was laughing beside him, saying, 'You're eating more than Hagrid.'
Potter had laughed too.
It was a very ordinary laugh of an eleven-year-old child.
The person on the platform today also had a curve at the corner of his mouth.
But it wasn't a smile.
Draco didn't know how to describe that expression; he only knew it made his back go cold.
"Then should we do something about it?"
Cassius stopped walking. He tilted his head and looked at Draco.
"His name is Potter, not Malfoy."
Draco opened his mouth, then swallowed his next words. His hand unconsciously touched his left wrist—there was a faint red mark from a light explosion when practicing the Water Compression Charm the day before yesterday.
The torches at the end of the corridor dimmed slightly as Cassius passed, then regained their brightness.
The footsteps of the two disappeared deep around the corner.