Days at Hogwarts

Chapter 699 Avada Kedavra

Night fell, and the fog thickened.

Perhaps it's because the air quality in London is so bad. One moment I was in Hogwarts, and the night sky over the remote mountains was a bright and clear view of stars and moon. The next moment I arrived at an abandoned amusement park in the suburbs of London, and the sky there was gray and gloomy, with clouds and haze mixed together, like a thick and thin dome covering the earth, sometimes obscuring the stars and moon, and sometimes letting through a faint light.

A cold wind stirred up the fog, and the wildly growing grassland, undisturbed year-round, welcomed a visitor in the dead of night. Night dew soaked his trouser legs, and grass blades rubbed against the soles of his shoes, making a faint sound of footsteps.

Harry followed behind the professor in his black robes, his skin breaking out in goosebumps from the cold and his complicated emotions. Countless questions swirled in his mind, rising to his lips, yet he didn't know where to begin.

The footsteps ahead stopped, and Harry looked in the dim moonlight to see that Snape had taken out a stone cauldron. It was completely black, seemed brand new, and showed no signs of use. It was larger than any other cauldron in the cauldron shop.

The last time Harry saw a cauldron like that was on the night Voldemort was resurrected.

On the soft grass lay piles of stones, charcoal, and a few strange pieces of firewood—a magical material that had appeared in the fourth-year textbook, though Harry couldn't recall it.

The crucible rested on top, making a faint sound.

Then came Snape's cold, emotionless voice: "You start the fire, and do your utmost to keep it burning brightly."

Harry quietly stepped forward, took out his wand, lit the charcoal, and kept the fire burning as instructed.

The blazing firelight emitted a cold mist, while a warm breeze wafted towards Harry, making his face flush red. The reflection of the flames blurred his vision as they shone through his glasses and eyes. Snape poured various ingredients into the cauldron, the sides clanging irregularly as they fell: fresh rue, dried sedge, unicorn horns…

Harry couldn't recognize the materials at the end, so he gave up trying to identify the herbs and his thoughts started to wander.

What materials are needed for a resurrection ceremony?

Is it necessary to use his blood, or even offer up his limbs like the Death Eaters?

Anyway, Dumbledore can definitely regrow hands and feet, and he's willing to sacrifice limbs if it means resurrecting his parents.

"..."

Harry suddenly looked up at the busy Potions professor and realized something was wrong.

Snape seems to have only mentioned resurrecting his mother, without mentioning his father.

Harry recalled the scenes from those dreams, or rather, the scenes from Snape's memories, and in a daze, he felt that he understood many things. His eyebrows furrowed, and he found it hard to accept, even impossible to face.

"Keep the fire burning." Snape's cold voice interrupted his thoughts.

Harry quickly lowered his head and activated his magic to make the flames surge.

As a clear, transparent liquid is poured into the crucible and heated continuously, a soft silver light fills the container. When it boils slightly, silver light overflows, flowing like water and dripping down the outer wall of the crucible into the flames, creating a steam-like white mist.

Snape swung his wand at the liquid in the cauldron, seemingly stirring it. The liquid in the cauldron boiled over, bubbling and churning, splashing out sparkling silver droplets that looked like they were studded with diamonds.

"Throw that textbook in."

"Huh?" Harry was a little surprised, then he was glanced at by those eyes, but he still hurriedly did as he was told.

With a splash, the already tattered textbook was thrown into the boiling crucible. As soon as the bubbles rolled in, the pages that were barely held together disintegrated and melted away, leaving only a few dark blue ink stains. Those ink stains were quickly diluted and disappeared without a trace.

The silvery liquid splashed out of the crucible, fell into the flames, and rose up in large swirls of steam. The steam grew thicker and thicker, gradually turning into a mist that enveloped the surroundings, blurring the view completely. The stars and moon dimmed their light, and the distant chimneys and nearby bushes were reduced to simplified outlines, like silhouettes in a monochromatic oil painting.

The silhouette continued to fade, becoming paler and more transparent until it disappeared. The fog completely obscured the environment, even the grass underfoot was gone, replaced by something pale, flat, formless yet real—a void.

At this moment, some invisible boundary has become blurred.

A different scene unfolded in the bushes further away from the cauldron. Bright mist enveloped the cauldron and the two people nearby, obscuring their figures and even their magical vision, as if they had been dragged into another dimension.

"This is..." Dumbledore gazed calmly at the scene, his azure eyes revealing a look of admiration, "The gap between life and death."

Loren was somewhat surprised: "A dreamlike illusion?"

"The Enchanted Realm..." Dumbledore repeated, savoring the meaning of the word. "What a fitting name. The space between life and death, the boundary where two worlds intersect—who can tell if it's an illusion or not?"

Loren stared at the white mist, vaguely understanding the principle of the ritual, and whispered, "Lily Potter didn't have a Horcrux. Her soul left after death. To complete the resurrection ritual, her soul must return to the world of the living. The illusion is the transit point between life and death."

A bright white mist floated in Dumbledore's eyes as he slowly added, "The breaking of a Horcrux is a death. He uses the Horcrux to open a door to another world, to welcome the souls of the dead... It's truly beyond imagination."

Deep within the white mist, Snape, facing the cauldron shimmering with silver light, raised his wand and spoke to the void: "The remnants of humanity will become new vessels."

A wisp of dust drifted from his sleeve and gently landed in the crucible. The silvery liquid surface immediately calmed down, the bubbling bubbles slowed down, and the liquid became viscous, as if it were nurturing something strange.

Harry stared at the cauldron, his throat tightening.

The strained voice pierced through the white mist, becoming ethereal and distant, its content indistinct. The two people in the bushes could see nothing but the mist and could only stare longingly.

"..."

Then came another almost chanting voice, which even Harry, who was right in front of him, couldn't hear clearly this time. He only saw Snape finish chanting, take a small glass bottle from his pocket, pour a wisp of silvery memory into the cauldron, and then Snape walked towards him.

Harry felt uneasy and almost dared not look Snape in the eye. As Snape drew closer, he finally gritted his teeth, rolled up his sleeves, and extended his right hand.

"..."

Snape glanced at him indifferently, pressed his wand against his temple, drew out a wisp of silver memory, and then turned and tossed the memory into the cauldron.

So all it was was to memorize.

Harry silently withdrew his arm, feeling a bit embarrassed, but then he thought, the school hadn't taught about the resurrection ritual, how would he know that it didn't necessarily require blood, flesh, bones or anything like that? It was all Snape's fault for not explaining it clearly.

Two strands of memory were thrown into the crucible, and an even more dazzling silver light burst forth. This time, it was not limited to the liquid inside the crucible; the white mist covering this area also shimmered with silver light. The mist surged and intertwined in gusts and strands, and the faint images emerged in the hazy mist.

It's Petunia Evans' memories of her sister, it's Harry Potter's memories of his mother...

It also contains a portion of Snape's memories, which he instilled into Harry's mind through dreams and then extracted, containing a magic that is difficult to describe in words.

Loren could only see the white mist suddenly change, unable to see what was happening inside, and asked Dumbledore, "What are those?"

"Who knows..." Dumbledore said softly, "It is the memory of loved ones, the longing of sons, the guilt of friends; it is the lighthouse and signpost that guides the dead back to the world. In short, it is love with extraordinary magic."

Loren didn't quite understand. He only vaguely felt that the love had nothing to do with romantic love. It was more like a seed planted many years ago, nourished by guilt, which sprouted and grew over the long years into something that transcended life.

The clouds in the sky moved silently, the crescent moon, which was not very bright, dimmed and then shone again, and the clouds on the ground surged and floated, their silvery light shining out, even more dazzling than the moonlight.

Then, the wind picked up.

The white mist surrounding the crucible quietly dissipated, but the shimmering silver light remained. Grass blades were bent and swayed by the wind, and robes fluttered in the breeze. Snape looked up at the remaining silver light, his lips trembling slightly, and uttered a faint call.

Under everyone's gaze, the scattered silver light suddenly gathered and transformed into the transparent figure of a young woman with slightly curly red hair draped over her shoulders and a pair of clear, bright green eyes, exactly like Harry's.

She blinked, her eyes slightly bewildered, as if she had no idea what was happening. But when she saw those eyes that were just like her own, she froze on the spot.

Harry's eyes welled up with tears, his lips moved, and he couldn't help but choke out a cry.

Lily tried to respond to his call, but no sound came out. The mother and son could only stare at each other.

Snape simply stood there, staring intently at the ghostly figure. He said nothing, then looked away and continued casting his spell.

The tip of the wand plunged into the boiling liquid. As a wisp of crystalline red powder was added to the crucible, the silvery liquid became even more viscous, and a more powerful magical fluctuation brewed within it. However, the silver light quickly subsided, and everyone could clearly sense a faint life force pulsating within the crucible.

Suddenly, a suction force burst forth from the crucible, enveloping the transparent soul figure and dragging her into the crucible.

As the soul of the deceased approached the cauldron, another cold, damp magical force flowed towards Snape. This force seemed to contain the power of decaying flesh and blood, causing the flesh and blood of the middle-aged man to become old and withered, his taut skin to become loose, and visible wrinkles to spread upwards along Snape's arms. Even his hair began to fade and become mottled.

Lily finally realized what he was doing, her eyes widening in shock as she tried to break free from the pull, but could only watch in vain as she drew closer and closer to the cauldron. She opened her mouth to shout at him, but the ghostly figure couldn't make a sound, and could only shake its head helplessly at him.

The weakness of withered flesh gradually enveloped his entire body from the inside out. This exceptionally talented potion master was not surprised. He quietly felt the feedback from all his senses. Breathing, which he had never paid attention to before, began to become difficult. Wearing a long robe, he felt a chill in the late March night. Even straightening his back became difficult.

His body grew heavier and heavier, but Snape's expression remained calm and undisturbed.

This was planned years ago; it's an equivalent exchange, an unchanging law of alchemy, even Nicolas Flamel's Philosopher's Stone is no exception.

Some people want to be reborn from death, while others have to bear the burden of that death.

From estrangement from Lily due to a misunderstanding during their student days, to the loss of the Potters after graduation due to his leaked prophecy, he could no longer distinguish whether his feelings for Lily were admiration or guilt. The two emotions were intertwined and became a nightmare he did not want to recall.

If it can lessen one's sins, death is but a negligible price to pay.

Lily's ghostly form had arrived beside Snape and was about to fall completely into the cauldron. He stared intently at those green eyes, waiting with a certain expectation for the ritual to be completed, but his expression suddenly froze.

A bright red light streaked across the sky and landed directly on the crucible filled with the medicine, shattering it with a crash.

The viscous liquid immediately overflowed, extinguishing the raging flames. The powerful magic stirred up a shockwave that swept across the grass, causing the bushes to rustle.

The resurrection ritual was completely interrupted. The transparent ghost breathed a sigh of relief. Before it could say anything, it glanced hastily at the bushes not far away, smiled at Snape, and quietly disappeared from the spot.

Snape stared blankly at the mess, his body regaining its flesh and blood, his wrinkles gradually disappearing, leaving only his gray and mottled hair to cover his downcast face.

A group of figures wearing cloaks and hoods filed out: Bellatrix, the Lestrange brothers, Lucius Malfoy, Lukewood, old Nott, old Goyle... all the familiar Death Eater faces were there, surrounding the pale-faced, snake-faced, vertical-eyed figure in the center, gradually encircling the two.

The eerie green light of skulls and snakes appeared in the sky, and the black demon mark covered the sky and the moon, pressing heavily on this abandoned amusement park.

Harry quietly gripped his wand tightly, his palm turning white, his arm trembling slightly from excessive tension.

He didn't suspect Snape; he was just thinking about how to escape tonight.

"Bringing the dead back to life, incredible, what a brilliant idea..."

Voldemort paced slowly around the broken cauldron, hissing in admiration. As he passed Harry, he even leaned close to his neck, flicked his forked tongue, and took a deep breath, his hoarse voice filled with pleasure.

"Inviting dear Harry from the heavily guarded Hogwarts to our late-night gathering is yet another great achievement. Severus, my most loyal servant, your life belongs to the great Dark Lord, how could you presume to abandon it for that woman?"

"This is really a headache. Let me think about how I should reward you for your contributions, and how I should punish you for wasting my life?"

Snape calmly gripped his wand, looked up at Voldemort, his surging emotions concealed within, his expression one of indifference.

His mind was rational and clear; he understood that the wisest choice now was to agree to Voldemort's demands, abandon his dignity as usual, seek an opportunity to protect Harry, and lie low to continue gathering intelligence for the Order of the Phoenix...

Snape took a deep breath and said calmly:

"Avada Kedavra"

(End of this chapter)