The Strange Locket

The underground Kitchen, which had been vacant for many years until recently being cleaned, had a fireplace where the firewood released negligible light and heat. The lights were fairly bright, and the room was old but clean. Meanwhile, in front of Loren and his companions, a long table was shrouded in a cold, ominous black mist, as thick as ink, that spread and swallowed the light.

Three figures slowly emerged from the black mist. Unlike the lifeless magical portraits or the illusory and transparent ghosts, these three figures were lifelike, with intricate textures on every inch of their skin. They were vivid and lively, and apart from the wisps of black smoke floating around them, they were no different from real people.

They are even more exquisite and handsome, so beautiful that they seem unreal.

The man on the right looked exactly like Headmaster Dumbledore, with silver hair and beard, but he was more robust, with a high, straight nose instead of a crooked one, and bright, piercing blue eyes. He wore a rough robe and a linen apron stained with various dirt around his neck, a stark contrast to the headmaster's usual gentle and amiable demeanor.

In the middle is a slender girl wearing a light blue silk dress. Her blonde hair is slightly dry, and her face looks a little sickly, but her eyes are very lively and endearing.

On the left is a thin, skeletal body with sparse, falling hair. He may have been very handsome when he was young, but now he is just an old and frail man with almost no teeth and cloudy eyes sunken in their sockets.

The faces of the three people gave Loren a strange feeling. He knew that the figures of these three people were excavated from the depths of Dumbledore's mind by the Horcrux, and this feeling became clearer. He had a vague idea of the identities of the three people.

"It's been so many years since I last saw you..."

The frail old man, reduced to a skeleton, spoke softly, raising his head with a smile, his gaze seemingly piercing through countless barriers of space. "Albus, look at you, still so beautiful, just like when you were young. And look at me, this body has aged beyond recognition, so ugly that I loathe myself. No wonder you won't look at me more..."

Despite the seemingly casual conversation, Loren and Hermione felt a little awkward. They sensed a chilling aura emanating from the old man's smile and voice, and they shrank back to look at Dumbledore.

"You are atoning for your sins, Gellert, for the blood stained the tip of your wand, for the countless sins you have committed..." Dumbledore's deep blue eyes were exceptionally profound, and his voice was like a gentle breeze, unhurried and slow as he spoke.

"So you imprisoned me in Nurmengard..."

The frail old man nodded gently. "Having endured countless torments and humiliations, with wind and rain constantly battering the tower, and the cold and hunger always causing every bone in this body to groan unbearably, I often wondered in the dead of night who had endorsed my unrealistic fantasies in my youth, encouraging me to do anything for a higher good... Was it you, Albus?"

Dumbledore listened quietly to the words of the figure in the black mist. He slowly closed his eyes and then opened them again, without any other intense reaction, as if his heart had been calmed down forever. "I think so, but after I came to my senses I tried to change your mind... but it was too late then, so I am willing to atone for it."

"Heh..." The frail old man chuckled softly, seemingly unconvinced.

"Did my death make you realize something, brother?"

The girl in the blue dress in the middle read aloud, tilting her head, blinking her bright eyes, and looking at him with wet eyes, like a wounded cub, pitiful and vulnerable. "Ariana wants to travel with you. You promised me you'd take me with you, to the places you planned to go, to the places you didn't go on your graduation trip, to give those clever speeches you gave. Have you forgotten? Ariana was your first follower."

Dumbledore's eyes reddened slightly, his nostrils trembled gently, and his breathing became labored. His once upright posture seemed to hunch over.

It was clear that the old headmaster was heartbroken. Loren and Hermione were trying their best to minimize their presence, yet they were also worried about him.

Although Hermione didn't know the whole story, she guessed part of it and whispered a reminder: "Headmaster, this is fake. It's all an illusion created by the Horcrux."

Dumbledore blinked hard, slowly exhaled, and said bitterly, "I know, I know..."

It just didn't say what he knew—whether he knew these were all illusions created by Horcrux, or whether he knew what Ariana had said...

Loren quietly tightened his grip on his wand. Dumbledore's current state was somewhat off. He had been able to remain calm and unmoved when facing Gellert Grindelwald's illusion earlier, but now he was being disturbed by Ariana's illusion, affecting his emotions and reason.

"There's only one thing I want to say."

The man on the right, dressed in a rough robe, spoke in a deep voice. His face, which bore a striking resemblance to Dumbledore, was contorted with a vicious expression, and his azure eyes burned with a flame of hatred that seemed to want to incinerate everything in sight. "That night, I witnessed your spell strike Ariana with my own eyes, with my own eyes!"

"Whoever the curse was, I am willing to take the blame," Dumbledore said softly. "I have always held this thought in my heart..."

"Hypocrisy, a self-comforting excuse!" Grindelwald sneered, his body swaying in the black mist, his eyes glowing red. "You retain the memory of that day; your Pensieve can clearly show the true events of that day. Why did you see it with your own eyes! You know that you killed your own sister, killed that burden that dragged you down, killed the sick cat that trapped your brilliant talents in Godric's Hollow!"

"It was your spell that struck me, brother. I'm in so much pain, my body is in so much pain, my heart is in so much pain..." Ariana's voice became hoarse and sinister. Her hair spun and danced like flames, and her sharp gaze seemed to pierce into the man's chest.

"I saw it with my own eyes, it was you, it was you! That's why I don't want to see you. For so many years, I haven't even sent you a single Christmas card..." Aberforth roared in a deep voice.

The three voices blended together, weaving into a venomous trio, like the howling of Banshee, or the sound of a snake violently exhaling, its throat vibrating.

The vibrations caused people's eardrums to constrict and their hearts to pound erratically.

Loren and Hermione's hearts leaped into their throats. The black mist expanded wildly with the sound, spreading a cold and ominous aura, as if it wanted to devour the old headmaster in front of them, using his immense Magic Power to nourish the remnant soul within him, turning it into nourishment for his rebirth.

A fleeting glint of tears flashed in Dumbledore's eyes. The next moment, a blazing red light flickered, and a painful roar suddenly came from the source of the black mist. The figures of the three gradually Transfiguration in the firelight, their forms stretched, twisted, and torn apart, turning into specks of black mist.

With a crisp cracking sound, the black mist suddenly dissipated, the locket jingled on the table, and the two tightly closed windows drooped helplessly to the sides.

Hermione, who had been tense all day, finally breathed a sigh of relief when the underground Kitchen was lit again. The words she had just heard were still vivid in her mind, each one exceptionally clear. Combined with what she knew about the headmaster's past, she easily pieced together the whole story.

She looked at Dumbledore with some concern. "Just now... those... Headmaster, are you alright?"

"It's nothing, I just delayed things a bit by observing Slytherin's magic..."

"What?"

Dumbledore spoke softly, his voice weak and weary, "Salazar Slytherin once left his researched magic in his locket, seemingly to observe someone through it, perhaps to test a successor or something. In any case, the magic in the locket could directly touch the deepest, most fundamental part of the soul..."

Loren glanced at the old headmaster and figured he didn't want to talk too much about the three figures and their words, so he changed the subject.

"What do you mean?" Hermione didn't quite understand.

"Currently existing magic concerning the brain and soul is very crude, such as the Imperius Curse, Legilimency, Memory Charm, False Memory Charm, and Occlumency..."

Dumbledore stepped forward, casually flipping open the locket to examine it. The two eyeballs that had been there were now burned to ashes. "In essence, they only superficially touched the soul. The Memory Charm and the False Memory Charm can be broken by wizards with high Magic Power power, and the Imperius Curse can be broken by willpower alone..."

"The magic left behind by Slytherin can directly reach the depths of the soul, but unfortunately Tom doesn't know how to use this power at all. He can only crudely use it to react to the target's fear, attempting to extract power by relying on fear."

Dumbledore removed his two eyeballs and carefully examined the Rune on the inner wall of the locket's small window. "This is the locket's small window, and also the window to the human heart. It allows one to look directly into one's own heart and discover love, courage, wisdom, kindness, or dreams that one cannot perceive in oneself... In short, it can exert infinite power."

"Like the Sorting Hat?"

Hermione's words stirred something in Loren's heart, and some bizarre speculations flashed through his mind.

"Countless times more powerful than the Sorting Hat..." Dumbledore shook his head and sighed regretfully, "What a pity..."

Loren looked down at the locket. In the very center of the inner wall of the small window, a black scorch mark had appeared, revealing a tiny crack. Light and shadow flickered in the crack, as if the Magic Power contained in the Rune and materials was rapidly dissipating. The emeralds inlaid on the serpent pattern had long since become dull and lifeless. The mysterious and noble aura on it had vanished without a trace, leaving only antiquity and age.

Just as Loren was feeling regretful, the emerald at the eye of the snake pattern suddenly flickered, as if reflecting the candlelight hanging high on the ceiling. However, Loren's shadow completely covered the locket, so there was no possibility of reflection. He clearly saw the snake wink at him.

Loren immediately looked at Hermione and Dumbledore to his left and right, only to find them still looking down at the locket, seemingly unaware of anything amiss. Hermione turned her head slightly, looking at him with a hint of confusion:

"Did you find anything?"

Loren paused for a moment, shook his head without saying anything, and turned his gaze back to the damaged Slytherin's Locket. He stared at the dull gem snake pattern for a few seconds, and after confirming that there was nothing else wrong with the snake's eyes, he looked at the Rune that were still legible on the inner wall of the small window.

The locket wasn't very large, and there weren't many engraved Rune. A quick glance revealed most of them to be lost Rune with no discernible meaning, interspersed with a few clear, currently used Rune. It was impossible to deduce or reproduce the locket's crafting process.

Perhaps by spending a lot of time studying the Rune, there is a sliver of hope.

"Headmaster, can I keep this destroyed Horcrux? I want to study the Rune on it." Loren asked softly as the light from the crack gradually dimmed.

Dumbledore glanced at him and nodded slightly. "Of course, the only valuable thing on this tattered locket are these Rune."

Loren grinned, narrowed his eyes, and asked, "The locket is destroyed, the Diary is long gone... Headmaster Dumbledore, should we destroy the rest of our Horcrux now?"

"This child seems a bit greedy," Dumbledore helpless smile. "Destroying the Horcrux also means destroying these items passed down from the Founders Hogwarts. It's not the end yet..."

"Can we confirm exactly how many Horcrux Voldemort made?" Hermione asked in a low voice.

"The members of the Order of the Phoenix and I are investigating this matter from multiple angles, but we only have clues at the moment and cannot confirm the situation yet..." Dumbledore blue eyes saw the familiar face of an old friend, and he silently moved up his plan to visit him slightly.

"Oh right, I still haven't given you your birthday present that's been delayed for so long..."

The doors and windows were tightly shut. The old man with snow-white hair was hanging upside down in the air. His bushy beard drooped backward due to gravity, swaying and obscuring his face, which was flushed red from blood stasis. His arms were tightly bound behind his back.

Countless wands were neatly arranged on the wooden shelves in the room. As one of the three great wandmakers in Europe, Grigovich knew the characteristics of each wand very well: Blackthorn wood were powerful and suitable for duels; cedar wands were perceptive and could detect danger before it arrived; dogwood wands were playful and mischievous, but could perform exceptionally well in dangerous situations and were suitable for escaping from desperate situations...

But now the most suitable thing for him is the despised cypress wand, because the owner of the cypress wand always dies gloriously.

Not far ahead, a woman with a long, slender, silver-white metal hand held a magic wand. The wand was exquisitely crafted and made of high-quality materials. Grigovich easily recognized that it came from another master who was as famous as him.

Ollivander, you've ruined my life...

Grigovich cried out in terror, "I don't have it, I don't have it! It was stolen many years ago! It's really not with me..."

"Don't lie to me, Grigovich..."

"I can hand over my memories; you can tell the truth from the falsehood with just one look!"