Days at Hogwarts

Chapter 736 True Memories

In the dimly lit underground chamber, the black-haired, green-eyed boy in the mirror was pale, undergoing some subtle and hidden change. When this change exceeded a certain threshold, his scarred face suddenly became unfamiliar.

The gloomy and indifferent man in the mirror was also staring at Harry outside the mirror, a faint smile playing on his lips. It was a gentle and polite smile, but it made people feel very uncomfortable and sinister.

Harry stood in front of the mirror, listening to his heart pounding. The sound of his heartbeat made the Chamber of Secrets even quieter. He subtly twitched his little finger with his right hand, which hung by his side—a test.

The person in the mirror didn't move a finger, but instead stared at Harry outside the mirror with an intrigued look. His green eyes narrowed slightly, turning into vertical pupils, like a venomous snake spotting its prey.

Harry saw his lips move slightly, uttering a very soft word: "Idiot."

The mirror, of course, didn't make a sound, but Harry heard it anyway. This wasn't the first time he'd heard it; he'd heard it before, more often than he'd ever expected.

Memories surged like a tidal wave, suppressing all irrelevant sounds until only the sound I had just heard remained, a sound exactly the same as one in my memory:

When he uses Parsleyan to talk to snakes, he is actually whispering.

When the first-graders charged at the giant on Halloween, it was he who reminded them;

The day he learned Occlumency to peer into Professor Snape's memories was the day Snape helped him control Legilimency;

And when he came into contact with black magic, when he stood on the stage lecturing to DA...

The sound, which he had never paid attention to before, suddenly became deafening, but it didn't bother Harry. He had heard it many times before and was used to it. In a daze, he even thought it was his own voice, coming from the inside out, not passing through the eardrums via air, but heard before he even spoke it.

The inscription on the top of the Mirror of Eris gleamed with a dark metallic luster, and the words reflecting the desire in one's heart seemed to be recited aloud, like a faint whisper in one's ear.

"This is not my face, but my deepest desire." Harry murmured, unable to distinguish whether it was Voldemort's voice or his own, before silently chanting a spell in his mind.

"Capturing thoughts and ideas."

The magic of prying into memories did not emerge. As the person in the mirror took off his glasses, the familiar face in the mirror became somewhat blurry. His gaze began to wander and become difficult to focus, and the image in the mirror became blurred.

In a daze, he saw himself standing in the old Gaunt house. The house was not completely abandoned at this time, and the earthenware jars on the shelves were still in use. He looked at these clean earthenware jars and remembered the witch who died on New Year's Eve in 1926, named Merop Gaunt.

In the next room lay a coma, Morfin Gaunt, who had been implanted with memories that weren't his own—memories of the murder of the Riddle family.

Who did it?

"It looks like...me?"

This answer seemed wrong. Before he could think about it carefully, the scene in the mirror changed again.

"Knock knock knock..."

"Knock knock knock..."

The night was deep, and before him stood an imposing manor. Someone was knocking on the door, the voice urgent and tinged with impatience. Beside him stood a dark-skinned witch, her wand clutched tightly, waiting for the middle-aged man to open the door. Instantly, the wand emitted a red glow…

That was... Barty Crouch from the Ministry of Magic?

Who murdered him?

They were two Death Eaters.

A jumble of thoughts flashed through my mind, and my vision became blurry again.

When he regained consciousness, he found himself in the study of an old house deep in Spider's End Alley. The light was not dim, but he still couldn't make out the face of the other wizard in the room. He was explaining the principles of Horcruxes, knowledge that was readily available in his mind and he spoke of it casually.

"The process of creating a Horcrux involves murder to split the soul, and then taking a part of the soul from the body and placing it into an object outside the body. This object is the Horcrux. Even if the physical body is attacked or destroyed, the fragments of the soul remain intact in the world."

"Believe me, the feeling of physical destruction is not pleasant, Severus..."

He squinted and looked closely, finally recognizing the face in front of him as his servant, Severus Snape.

……

"When creating a Horcrux, the wizard must first intentionally commit murder."

"Killing in self-defense or to protect others is not enough; one must commit murder intentionally and deliberately without remorse. This is the most evil act, one that can tear the soul apart of the murderer."

"Wizards who wish to create Horcruxes utilize this destruction to seal the fragments of the soul into a specific object using a spell."

Harry muttered something under his breath in front of the mirror.

Loren and Hermione stood to the right of the Mirror of Erised. When they looked up, they saw a bizarre and terrifying scene. The reflection in the mirror was no longer the pale-faced Harry. Instead, the face with vertical pupils, no nose, and no blood was clearly Voldemort after his resurrection.

These are the reflections of several objects in the Mirror of Erised.

What is Harry doing? Trying to Legilimency on Voldemort's shadow?

Harry seems to be acting very strangely right now?

Loren cautiously took a few steps forward, approaching the Magic Mirror and coming to Harry's side. He gently shook Harry's right hand, and Voldemort in the mirror shook his hand on the same side as well, shifting his gaze to stare at himself outside the mirror.

Harry remained standing silently, his eyes unfocused and pupils vacant, muttering about how to make Horcruxes, occasionally calling out Severus's name. Voldemort's soul and memories were too heavy; even fragments weighed heavily on Harry, making it hard for him to breathe, almost causing him to lose himself.

This figure was not a figment of Eris's imagination, but a reflection of some kind of reality.

"Loren..." Hermione said in a low voice, staring intently and cautiously at the mirror, glancing back at the three nervous-looking people behind her, "What should we do now?"

After a moment's thought, Loren realized that if the latter half of today's journey was about finding traces of Voldemort, but the first stop was Little Huigkin on Privet Drive, it was about finding traces of Harry Potter. He had a vague idea of ​​what was going on and glanced at Harry in the mirror without making a sound.

No one was better at this kind of magic than him, which involved projecting memory-based illusions through mirrors.

……

"Harry..."

"Harry..."

Someone is calling out softly in my hazy memory, and I don't know who they're calling for, which is infuriating.

The hoarse voice that was going through puberty belonged to Dudley Dursley, and after a closer look, he suddenly wondered why he knew the name.

The shouts grew closer, as if they would burst through the door at any moment.

He instinctively reached for his wand, wanting to use the Killing Curse to kill this annoying guy, even if he couldn't continue making Horcruxes, at least he could vent his anger.

"Avada..." he murmured the incantation, suddenly realizing that he was standing in a warm and tidy living room. All the furniture and furnishings were familiar, including the tiles on the walls and the carpet under his feet.

An obese young man stood before me, a shy look on his face: "Harry, thank you for saving my life."

"..."

He remained silent and did not answer.

"By the way, Harry, happy birthday."

Harry was stunned for a moment, his own memories flooding back, the sound of glass shattering crisp and melodious, the cracks gradually spreading.