"So stupid as to actually try to turn the Little Magic Fairy into a living Horcrux."
"Even without my help, you, with your spirit, can gradually digest it. I've just accelerated the process."
Hearing this, Harry's heart skipped a beat.
"What if... what if I didn't have fairies, or even if fairies didn't exist at all?"
"Such a strange question." Riddle frowned. "Even without elves, the White Magic of love within you has long since rendered it harmless to some extent. The only drawback is that you still retain your Horcrux identity. You rely on that part of me to remain immortal, and that part of me also wanders the mortal world because of your existence."
"Unless he kills you with his own hands, you will forever maintain this ambiguous relationship with that idiot."
(Some wizards who have played Muggle games will immediately understand that Harry's health bar, as a Horcrux, is shared with Voldemort and cannot be unilaterally reduced to zero.)
(Upon hearing this, the crowd in the Great Hall felt a little less hostile towards Dumbledore.)
(Dumbledore touched his nose, feeling a little guilty. Actually, he was just guessing. It turned out that Harry really could survive, and not according to his original plan.)
(To ensure his safety, he deliberately allowed the Fake Moody to enroll, Voldemort resurrected himself using Harry's blood. This way, Voldemort would be immune to the Love Charm flowing through Harry's veins, but it would also ensure that the charm would last forever and not disappear after Harry turned 17.)
(Their relationship is now closer, making it more likely that they can achieve a shared immortality, leaving Voldemort with no choice but to kill Harry himself.)
(Thus, Voldemort loses one Horcrux, and Harry saves his life, making it a win-win situation.)
"I see." Harry breathed a sigh of relief.
Dumbledore wasn't in a position to send him to commit suicide; he actually gave him a way out.
He was genuinely afraid that Dumbledore would not live up to the radiant image he held in his heart.
Phoebe and Krum were completely baffled by the interaction between the two.
They were only familiar with Voldemort; as for the Horcrux, they could only understand them from their contents.
Horcrux are most likely the magic that Voldemort relied on to achieve immortality in their world, and Harry was made into Horcrux.
Unexpectedly, even though it was from a different world, Voldemort in this world still recognized Harry and helped eliminate the potential threat.
The differences in the Afterlife do not affect the commonality of the soul.
They suddenly thought of Harry and Cedric in this world. Putting aside the advantages and disadvantages of this commonality, could they use this connection to find the only remaining Cedric who had not yet appeared?
They hadn't paid much attention to it before because Cedric had been tanking for three months.
If nothing unexpected happens, he should be slacking off in this world and enjoying his life in this other world.
The reason I haven't acknowledged them is because I don't want to be disturbed.
But they were still a little uneasy about leaving a variable unchecked.
"You're going to find Cedric?" Harry asked, somewhat surprised by their idea.
As class approached, the classroom was already packed with students sitting on mats with their legs spread apart, making a lot of noise.
He glanced at Riddle on the platform and continued reassuredly, "Do you think Cedric will come into contact with his own version of this world?"
"Yes." Krum nodded. "Because of his contact with Edward Cullen, we were going to find him anyway. Finding out if any other freshmen had contacted him, and figuring out Cedric's identity in this world, is just a side thing."
"It is undoubtedly foolish to leave a Champion out in the open and know nothing about his movements," Phoebe agreed.
(Dumbledore smiled. "Yes, that's it. Once you make contact, they'll become suspicious. And they'll get back to the main storyline.")
(The supporters of the other three Champion were incredibly excited at this moment; finally, they saw a glimmer of hope for victory.)
(Voldemort looked at the face he used to loathe, his heart churning with unprecedented emotions. Harry, Harry Potter, please, please don't agree!)
(He knew that even if Harry didn't agree, it wouldn't affect the outcome, but he couldn't suppress this feeling.)
"Okay. More people means more help." Harry nodded.
(Voldemort: "No!")
At the same time, the school bell rang.
The students began to retract their haphazardly stretched-out legs, sat cross-legged on the mats, and the noise abruptly ceased.
"I don't think I need to introduce myself."
"You should all be familiar with the professors, especially after you got the encyclopedia."
"Let's get straight to the topic itself."
Riddle paused here.
"Dark Magic is diverse, varied, ever-changing, and endless."
"Fighting them is like fighting a multi-headed monster. As soon as you cut off one head, a new one grows up, more ferocious and cunning than the first. You are facing something unpredictable and indestructible."
"To be precise, it is the embodiment of the dark side of our human nature."
"That's why, even though most of you here won't choose the Path of the Dark Magic Fairy, you still need to study alongside the Slytherin students."
"Understanding and delving into the evil in human nature is actually a form of defense."
"Beauty can only exist because of ugliness. Light can only exist because of darkness."
"Only by understanding Dark Magic will you know how to deal with it, restrain it, and avoid going down into the abyss."
"But unfortunately, that's not what I was going to teach you before."
"What I will teach you is the Magic Immortal Artifact —the creation of the Guna La Goddess of Darkness, the embodiment of your self, a derivative of your self and the source of magic."
"The first step is to teach you how to put it away, to incorporate it into your body like an elf."
Riddle raised his right hand. "However, I don't like talking about theoretical things. I prefer to show you things firsthand."
A ring adorned with a silver Ouroboros, its head and tail joined together, and eyes made of rubies, appears out of nowhere on the ring finger.
(Dumbledore examined the ring with interest. "Is this Tom's Magic Immortal Artifact in this world? As above and below, doing and doing nothing. Ouroboros, head is also tail, end is also beginning, infinity?")
(The power of this Magic Immortal Artifact is by no means simple. Infinity represents uncertainty—uncertainty about size, uncertainty about its nature, uncertainty about its exact form—yet it contains enormous energy. How it is used to determine its final state depends entirely on the magical fairy herself.)
[Spin, Infinity Serpent!]
There was no sound or light flashing.
The next second, everyone in the classroom lost consciousness and fell backward.
(Hermione stroked her chin. "Is this the purpose of these cushions? To catch students who fall? To experience it? To have class directly in a dream?")
(Ron said enviously, "This is amazing! You learned everything just by waking up?")
(Ginny glanced at her brother with disdain. "It's not that simple. See for yourself.")
The screen that had gone black lit up again.
The four figures appeared, all of them restored to their original appearance, and all of them had their eyes closed.
Phoebe lay among the flowers and green grass, surrounded by a misty haze.
Krum kept falling, skimming over books, chess pieces, Quaffle, kettles, mugs, benches, and other odds and ends suspended in mid-air, but he never stopped or landed, and there was no end in sight as he looked down.
Harry appeared in a baby cradle that fit his size, gently pushed by a blurry shadow, while footsteps approached from outside the door.
(Voldemort blinked. Hey, this place looks familiar.)
(Snape stared at the shadow, his body frozen in place.)
Cedric lay in an empty room, half brightly lit, half pitch black. He stood between the Light and Darkness, half in the light, half hidden in the shadows.
Cedric was the first to wake up.
He felt his eyelids were incredibly heavy and he couldn't lift them.
Half of my body felt as if it were bathed in the spring sunshine, while the other half felt as if it were in a cold winter night.
The sounds coming from his left ear were the voices of family and friends talking and playing, and Cho Chang's murmurs.
He heard faint rustling sounds in his right ear, accompanied by the roars of Beast.
This sense of contradiction almost tore him apart.
("Son!" Amos Diggory exclaimed.)
(And so did all the other viewers who noticed this scene.)
Because Cedric's feelings were not unfounded.
His body was truly torn apart.
However, there was no blood, but there were dissected organs.
Both bodies had perfectly smooth cross-sections, covered in black and white.
Black absorbed all the black, and the room on the right disappeared, replaced by boundless darkness.
White released its light, filling the other half of the room with an even stronger yet softer glow, leaving only pure light.
Darkness and light intertwine and collide.
Both bodies melted into it.
The screen suddenly disappeared.
A pair of eyes appeared in the picture, followed by a person.
It was Cedric; the darkness and light just now were merely their pupils and the whites of their eyes.
The image spread outwards from him as he looked.
This is an empty, undecorated little house with only an old wardrobe, a wooden chair, and an iron bed.
A boy sat on a gray blanket, his long legs stretched out in front of him, reading a book in his hand.
(Voldemort narrowed his eyes, his expression unreadable. "I really miss it.")
("Wools Orphanage!" Dumbledore gripped the armrest of his chair. This was how it all began—his first meeting with Tom Riddle, who was still a child.)
For a fleeting moment, the scene shifted to an open book, which contained not words but images of Cedric's journey into this world.
"You're finally awake, Cedric Diggory."
"It's you." Cedric seemed to snap out of a daze and looked at the boy opposite him.
He's practically a miniature version of Tom Riddle.
Without a doubt, he was his own Heroic Spirits — Tom Riddle.
"&*%￥#@￥&...!"
A voice with electronic noise came from Riddle's mouth.
([Plunder! Armor of Sin])
(To the audience, it was a Liberation Phrase.)
"What are you talking about?" Cedric frowned.
("What's wrong with him?" Ron hadn't quite grasped the situation yet.)
("It's obvious," Hermione said silently, "That he can't hear the Liberation Phrase like we can.")
"You really can't hear me. Looks like it's too early. See you next time."
The black-haired boy closed the book.
The next second, Cedric opened his eyes again.
He propped himself up and looked around.
He had returned to the classroom, where the other students were lying undignifiedly on the cushions, and Professor Riddle was looking at him with a surprised expression on the podium.
"You succeeded so quickly."
"What succeeded?"
"You can take a look at where you kept the Magic Immortal Artifact."
"What?" Cedric reached into his pocket, but the dagger that had been pressed against his thigh was gone.
But as soon as the thought flashed through his mind, it appeared directly in his hand.
"The Magic Immortal Artifact has been reunited with you. You can make it appear and disappear with just a thought," Riddle explained.
"Disappear?" Cedric followed Riddle's instructions, and sure enough, the dagger turned into a visible black mist and disappeared into his hand in the next second.
"What just happened to me?" Cedric asked.
"Just now? It didn't tell you?" Riddle was somewhat surprised. Normally, a spirit would have a lot to say to its master, although it would mostly be sarcastic and disdainful, but it wouldn't be that it would say nothing at all.
"He only said one indistinct sentence, which I couldn't hear at all. Then he said something about it being too early, and I was back to reality."
"Is that so? That's really interesting. It's telling you the Liberation Phrase."
"Liberation Phrase? A spell to release the power of Magic Immortal Artifact? Like what you just said, '[Spin, Infinity Serpent]'?"
"Yes, that's it. There's actually such a proactive Magic Immortal Artifact. It's as if it wants to give you its power." Riddle's eyes were practically overflowing with curiosity. "Generally speaking, Magic Immortal Artifact consider themselves to be superior and look down on the other self that is entangled in fame, fortune, and worldly affairs and cannot fully recognize itself."
"I don't know either." Cedric lowered his head instinctively.
He believed he knew the reason; his spirit was Heroic Spirits who had contracted with him to participate in the competition, and it was normal for him to want to make him stronger so that he could have an advantage in the competition.
If Harry knew what Cedric was thinking, he'd probably want to curse.
Harry is now the second of the four Champion to wake up.
He fell from the cradle, frantically flashing Killing Curse from his other red-haired self.
The green plasma beam could actually bounce around the room, like a locked missile constantly chasing his direction.
And each time it is hit, it has to wake up from the cradle again.
It was as if time had been rewound, returning to the moment I first opened my eyes.
"I've had enough! This lunatic!"
Harry only dared to think this to himself.
If he makes a noise, the person making the footsteps approaching the door will quicken their pace and push the door open.
He merged with the shadow of his mother beside the cradle, transforming once again into the dark version of himself who was frantically unleashing Killing Curse.
"What should I do? What should I do?"
Harry was thinking.
"Voldemort + my mother = the red-haired serial killer?"
"What the hell is this combination?!"
Thinking this, he looked at that gentle figure again, and in a daze, he reached out his hand to her, "Mom, save me."