What About The Next Day?

"Yes, oh, Merlin's baggy Y-fronts..." Hagrid was still sighing to himself. "Even after all this time, people are still shaken by it. That man was evil beyond words. His name was..."

But when he got that far, he swallowed hard and could not say another word.

"How about... we write the name down?" Harry asked considerately.

"No, I can't spell his name. Better let me tell you—his name was Voldemort." Hagrid shuddered. "Anyway, this Dark Wizard was extremely, extremely powerful. Most wizards didn't dare mention his name directly and could only use that title instead."

"Then where is he now?" Harry drew a deep breath.

A wrong had its culprit, and a debt had its debtor. As their son, he had to avenge his parents' deaths!

Yet Harry saw Hagrid's expression turn strange in an instant.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Er, the Dark Lord is already dead." Hagrid reached out again and rubbed Harry's head. "On that night ten years ago, he wanted to kill you, but then you somehow... well, I don't know what happened either. Anyway, he couldn't kill you, and then he just... poof."

As he said this, Hagrid spread his hands wide and mimed fireworks going off.

Harry's expression became equally strange upon hearing that answer.

Such a powerful Dark Wizard had been solo-killed by a baby?

He had already worked himself up, ready to find that Dark Wizard and take revenge—only to discover that the score had been settled sixteen years ago... no, ten years ago?

And by his own hand...

The feeling was like throwing a fully charged punch, only for it to land in cotton.

"So, is he dead?" Harry asked.

"Everyone thinks he's dead. After all, someone as evil as him hadn't come out to do evil for ten whole years, so he had to be dead." Hagrid clenched his hand into a fist and thumped his thigh twice. "But I don't think so. How could someone as evil as him die so easily? He must be hiding somewhere nobody knows, waiting for the right moment to come out and do evil again."

Harry nodded in understanding, then asked, "Then, Hagrid, just how powerful was this Dark Wizard you mentioned?"

"How powerful?" Hagrid looked at Harry as though he were an alien. "Ha, how powerful... Back when he was alive, he gathered a huge number of followers around him. Some wanted to become stronger, while others were simply afraid. Anyway—that was a truly dreadful time. You never knew who you could trust. He slaughtered wizards throughout the Magical World, leaving everyone terrified. But there was one place he didn't dare enter carelessly: Hogwarts—"

"Why?" Harry asked.

"Why?" Hagrid repeated, and then his expression immediately turned proud. "Because Albus Dumbledore is the greatest wizard in the world. No matter how rampant the Dark Lord was, he wouldn't dare provoke him!"

Harry nodded knowingly. It seemed this headmaster... was not as unpleasant as Phineas Black.

"Then this Vol—" Seeing Hagrid tense up again at the first syllable, Harry hurriedly changed his wording. "Sorry, I mean the Dark Lord. During the time the Dark Lord was running rampant, did he kill many wizards?"

"Yes, those were truly dark days." Hagrid shivered. "Several hundred wizards died by his hand."

Hearing that number, Harry frowned slightly and nodded noncommittally.

"Mm. What about the next day?"

Hagrid said, "Huh?"

Realizing he seemed to have said something wrong, Harry quickly corrected himself. "No, I mean, why didn't Headmaster Dumbledore step in and stop the Dark Lord?"

"Dumbledore also formed an organization to fight the Dark Lord and his followers—"

By then, the train had already come to a stop.

Hagrid cut himself off, packed away the tent, and said to Harry, "I think we should get off first. After all, the train has arrived in London."

As they got off, Harry heard Hagrid complaining that the ticket gates at the London platform were far too narrow, then complaining that the train was far too slow.

Harry agreed with that as well. After all, the Hogwarts Express was much faster than this antique-level underground train.

Hagrid, tall and broad, led Harry through the crowd and out of the station, then headed toward their destination on foot.

It was also Harry's first time in London—more precisely, London in 1991. He had been to Victorian London with his classmates before.

Skyscrapers stood in close ranks, and traffic streamed along the roads. Everything was completely different from the Victorian era a century earlier.

Harry found it all novel. As Hagrid held his hand and led him onward, he kept looking around, trying to take in every bit of the cityscape.

It all felt rather surreal. Just last month, he had come to London with his classmates.

For Harry, only a month had passed; but for the city of London, an entire century had gone by.

"All right, here we are."

Hagrid interrupted Harry's reflections and pointed at the filthy, cramped pub before them. "The Leaky Cauldron. It's a very famous place."

At the same time, several fashionably dressed young people passed behind them. They chatted excitedly about something, yet paid no attention at all to either Hagrid or the pub.

Normally, someone as large as Hagrid could not possibly fail to draw attention, especially from Muggles.

Yet these people gave Hagrid no notice whatsoever, which was completely unreasonable.

A Muggle Repelling Charm, Harry thought.

Then Hagrid pushed him into the pub.

The Leaky Cauldron—Harry had been here many times before. The pub had been founded around 1500 by Daisy Dodderidge, who had also become its first owner.

She had turned it into a passage connecting the non-magical world and Diagon Alley. It not only had a bar where people could drink, but rooms upstairs available for rent as well.

The last time Harry had come here, he had heard that the Muggle government was planning to build Charing Cross Road. Under the original plans, this pub was to be razed to the ground.

At the time, Minister for Magic Faris Spavin believed this was simply the Leaky Cauldron's inevitable fate and took no measures to save it.

A few days before he returned to 1991, he had still heard his classmates spreading the word around school. They wanted to unite the families behind them and pressure the Ministry of Magic into preserving the pub.

Ominis had privately told him that doing so was entirely pointless, but Harry had still signed the joint petition.

Now, it seemed the pub had been saved.