Return

Hagrid was, of course, proven innocent.

Or rather, no one cared anymore whether he was innocent or not.

The document withdrawing the charges was completed quickly under Cyberlina's watchful gaze. She smiled in the center of the interrogation room, bowed to everyone, and politely expressed her thanks. Then she turned to leave, as if her only purpose in coming today had truly been to clear Hagrid's name.

"Ms. Sekerei, um... what about his split soul?" a member of the Wizengamot asked.

"I burned it, sir." Cyberlina turned and smiled at the middle-aged wizard who had asked the question. "Would you like to see that portion of the memory?"

"No, no need..."

Audibly, many people let out a sigh of relief.

Cyberlina gave no indication that she had noticed. She merely nodded at the middle-aged wizard as though an ordinary conversation had come to an end, then turned back, pushed open the door, and left the interrogation room.

She left behind a group of Wizengamot members staring at one another over the information she had given them about Voldemort.

Everyone understood that their acknowledgment did not mean the wizarding public would accept it. Voldemort had yet to return openly. Making the news public would bring nothing but boundless, groundless fear, along with the wizards' denial of and resistance to the Ministry of Magic—there was simply no benefit.

"She only said that we had to acknowledge it. She never said when we had to announce it." The old wizard who had interrupted Fudge in court—Kaspar Flint—spoke up. "We don't need to make it public now. We only need to know about it. We can announce it when the time is right."

"We also need to prepare the Ministry internally," Bostede added. "We can't let Voldemort's appearance catch our own people off guard when we already know it's coming."

The two old Slytherins' back-and-forth nearly settled the matter. In truth, it was also what most of the Wizengamot believed.

Fudge, who had been ignored, flushed red. When their discussion began to die down, he said, "At least we can rest easy for now. Professor Sekri won't stand with The Dark Lord. She promised to stand with the Ministry of Magic—in the Unbreakable Vow she made with me."

He was emphasizing his own role and presence. As long as he was there, Sekerei would not become the Ministry's enemy.

Flint looked at him, then slowly smiled and bluntly exposed his purpose. "Cornelius, you will of course remain Minister for Magic. You always will."

Fudge's expression turned strange and awkward.

Flint's words had practically laid bare before everyone that his position was controlled by the pure-blood families. Fudge was dimly aware that he was merely a puppet pushed to the front, but he could never deny the effort he had truly put into climbing the ladder in earlier years, or his genuine "achievements." So he had always avoided thinking about that fact.

Yet Flint, who had always been so skilled at maintaining appearances, had actually said it aloud. Fudge did not understand.

The kind-hearted Bostede answered his confusion.

"This is no longer about whether you can keep your position, Fudge. If Professor Sekri truly wants to do something to the Ministry, then you—the man who made an Unbreakable Vow with her..." Bostede's usually solemn face showed that she was enjoying the spectacle. "You'll be the first to suffer."

Fudge's face instantly turned deathly pale. "But... but that was an Unbreakable Vow."

"No one knows how powerful she really is." Flint struck Fudge again. "Just look at how young she is now. The death certificate Dumbledore provided back then was genuine."

"You can only be grateful that Professor Sekri is a good person and won't be as brutal as Voldemort."

Bostede said this proudly, but Flint did not agree with her this time.

"All right. I don't think there's any point in continuing this discussion." Gsilda Marchbanks, an elder of the Wizengamot, rose and straightened the wrinkles in her robe caused by sitting. The witch Cyberlina called her senior was clearly calmer than everyone else. "In truth, whatever decision the Ministry makes is unimportant. Cyberlina will certainly kill the Dark... Voldemort—no matter how many times he has split his soul. Many of you know the rumor. And with the Gaunt Family involved... he's finished."

Yes, that rumor—the absurd rumor that Cyberlina would appear whenever something major happened in the wizarding world.

Everyone knew Marchbanks was making fun of the matter, but her final words truly calmed the elderly wizards.

The white fire that had burned Gaunt Manor for nearly a month eighty-four years ago, and the piercing screams that had continued throughout that month, were things that still made them shudder whenever they thought of them.

Dumbledore believed that this was the fundamental reason Cyberlina had released those memories.

In the most direct yet most subtle way, she was reminding the older generation of wizards of her strength, allowing her power and untouchability to pass through their mouths into the ears of younger wizards—even much younger ones.

At the same time, she had put an end to the wizarding world's two months of speculation about her identity.

Cyberlina Sekerei, in the sixty-second year after her death had been confirmed, used her resurrected soul and youthful body at the Ministry of Magic to announce her return.

She had used the wizarding group with the highest authority and, with the restraint unique to Professor Sekri, chosen the method most suited to her gentle nature—forcefully announcing her return.

Two months were enough for people to remember someone, and to try to learn about someone whom many still recalled.

Two months were enough for a person to establish the image she wanted as the first impression in other people's minds.

—Professor Sekri, humble and gentle, indifferent to fame and wealth; Senior Cyberlina, learned and always willing to help others.

And now, she had added another spark to herself—Cyberlina Sekerei, decisive in action and occasionally ruthless.

Not only because of the major events remembered by those old wizards, but also because of the Dark wizards found dead in the wilderness with their limbs torn off, recorded in case files that only Aurors could access. The files never mentioned who had done it, but where they were stored made it clear to everyone who was responsible.

Two months were also enough for all kinds of rumors to fly.

Cyberlina had never stopped the rumors about herself, nor had she given anyone a direction in which to investigate. Everything that had once contained traces of her was dug up—including her vague statement at the start-of-term feast that she was "not in Britain."

As far as Dumbledore knew, the most numerous and complicated guesses now connected her with the Wiccan Party.

After all, she had indeed acted alongside them for a time, and had hardly hidden her traces.

—Her influence over people, decades of accumulated admiration, power enough to intimidate the wizarding world, and an external force that others suspected.

Cyberlina seemed to have gathered all those things.

And taken together, those things pointed toward...

Dumbledore realized that the "forceful return" he had worried about at the start-of-term feast seemed to be taking on a vague, concrete shape.

But would she?

Would Cyberlina place herself in a supreme position?

The answer was no—at least, that was how it seemed to Dumbledore.

Dumbledore stopped thinking, and stopped walking as well. Cyberlina, who had accompanied him—returning Hagrid to his hut and then walking with him toward the castle—turned to look at him. "What's wrong, Albus?"

Cyberlina stopped too, because she had seen the complicated expression in Dumbledore's eyes.

"What's wrong, Albus?" she asked again with a smile, her voice gentle.

Dumbledore, who had been turning his mind into a spinning top for decades, stopped those complicated and lengthy deductions. Like he had when he was young, he faced his young professor with the clearest thoughts and purest gaze, and asked that question once more—

"Will you establish a force of your own, Professor?"

"No, Albus."

—Exactly the same answer as many years ago.

"I won't, Albus. You know me." Cyberlina emphasized it firmly yet gently.

"Yes, I know you, Cyber." Dumbledore let out a sigh of relief.

Since Cyberlina had given him such a definite answer, it had to be true. What he feared was an ambiguous one.

Cyberlina was both amused and exasperated by his reaction. "Honestly... how did you end up suspecting me of that?"

At that, Dumbledore immediately shot her an annoyed look. "You knew I had been wildly overthinking everything this whole way?"

"You were the one who chose to overthink." Cyberlina shrugged shamelessly. The pleasure she took in watching him worry and rack his brains was written all over her face. "Don't worry, Albus. I have no grand ambition to establish a new order—not when I was young, and not now that I'm old."

Dumbledore: "...Did you really have to add the second half?"

Cyberlina chuckled softly and continued toward the castle.

"Albus, what I love most now is Hogwarts, where I met Omi." Cyberlina raised her head and narrowed her eyes slightly against the autumn wind as she looked at the distant castle. "I'm telling you this clearly. Can it put you a little at ease?"

Dumbledore froze, then quietly said, "Mm." "It can, Cyber." Then he pushed his luck. "In that case, can you clearly tell me what you're doing now?"

Cyberlina laughed softly at that. She turned around and looked at Dumbledore, who was half a step behind her. "What if I said I was experimenting?"

"Experimenting with what?"

Dumbledore looked at Cyberlina and asked in an even tone, clearly not surprised by that answer in the slightest.

Cyberlina realized that her evasive counter-question had confirmed Dumbledore's guess. The smile at the corners of her lips unconsciously widened.

A cool autumn wind swept over from the direction of the castle, lifting Cyberlina's loose hair and robes. The sunset stretched out behind her, and the hazy glow made her smiling face appear indistinct.

"You know, Albus."

The witch who had returned from death expressed the wish in her heart to the first person who had confirmed her death, and also the first person to know of her return.

"I've never known where I came from. In that confused, chaotic life that began in uncertainty, only Omi told me what life truly was. He showed me the beauty that belonged to life. He let me know that even a soul born in filthy blood could possess such dazzling luster. It truly—"

The witch tilted her head slightly. Her pale eyes reflected a faint warmth beneath the sunset, rich emotions flowing within them.

"His soul is so beautiful. What I want is to keep watching that soul—

"Forever."

Perhaps Hogwarts beneath the evening sky and the smiling witch both seemed too beautiful, because Dumbledore said nothing then. It was not until he returned to his office that he held his phoenix and let out a long sigh.

—She still hadn't answered him directly.

She had even deliberately put it that way. She knew that after she offered such a sincere expression of emotion, he could not bring himself to question her.

"Cunning Slytherin!" the slightly irritated old Gryffindor muttered.

The cunning Slytherin was proud as well. She would not allow herself to fail.

But she had failed, and at the same time, she had not reclaimed the treasure that should have been firmly in her grasp.

So her unwillingness and longing for the treasure would make her once again choose the road of searching for it—only by a different route.

"She wants to keep watching his soul..."

Dumbledore sighed softly, then placed Fawkes back on his perch.

All right. At least he knew that Cyberlina still had not abandoned the idea of resurrecting Ominis. It just seemed somewhat different from what he had previously thought—she appeared to be fixated only on his soul.

Dumbledore had never heard his professor speak of Ominis's past, but Ominis himself had briefly discussed it with him once—when they had talked about their families of origin.

Everyone knew that the Gaunt Family was obsessed with dark magic and somewhat insane, but before speaking with Ominis, Dumbledore truly had not imagined that they could go so far as to force a child to use Unforgivable Curses on Muggles.

At the time, the young Dumbledore did not understand. He only felt that the bitterly smiling Mr. Ominis must have had a childhood hundreds or thousands of times more tragic than his own.

Later, when he grew older, he felt that Mr. Ominis was truly remarkable for having survived such circumstances, while remaining gentle and kind and full of hope for the future.

But now, Dumbledore began to think seriously. Under the coercion of that twisted family, had Ominis perhaps never successfully used an Unforgivable Curse? And under such intense resistance and loathing, when he used those Unforgivable Curses—even if they had not included the Killing Curse—had they truly affected only those Muggles?

—There was something wrong with Ominis's soul.

Having learned that Cyberlina had begun studying souls long ago, and after hearing her openly express her fixation on Ominis's soul, Dumbledore reached this conclusion.

So it was impossible that Cyberlina would do anything to Ominis's perhaps-fragile soul after his death.

Dumbledore had begun to suspect the motive behind Cyberlina's soul experiments two days ago. Now, he had essentially confirmed it. Her records describing soul-splitting, and those experiments, had not been aimed at Ominis's soul.

Whose was it, then?

Dumbledore propped his elbows on the desk and pressed both hands to his forehead, his lips pursed tightly.

Her own.

She would not use a binding contract to deliberately bind Ominis, but neither would she be content with being separated from him.

She had tried to use that powerful contract of Ancient Magic to bind herself and Ominis together, using powerful Ancient Magic to preserve Ominis's soul. But the contract served the Guardian and the Heir—both holders of Ancient Magic.

So she had chosen to give part of her soul to Ominis.

That was why she had been so fixated on studying the souls of the living and the newly dead.

Dumbledore remained silent for a long while, propping up his head. Then he reached among the many documents on his desk and pulled out one. It had come from the Ministry of Magic, an official document addressed to him as Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot—an official notice that there had been unusual activity in the Department of Mysteries.

He had not suspected Cyberlina at first, but today she had seemed far too familiar with the Ministry of Magic, which she had not set foot in for sixty or seventy years. That gave him a bad feeling, so he had tested her with a question.

And Cyberlina had admitted it.

As for his promise during the probing to keep her secret, he had never intended to tell the Ministry in the first place, so it did no harm.

For the Department of Mysteries to have noticed something wrong, she had definitely visited more than once or twice.

Two months.

It had only been two months.

In those two months, Cyberlina had done far too much, both openly and in secret.

Dumbledore grew frustrated again, and there was a trace of a headache as well.

It was no longer merely that he did not know what Cyberlina was thinking. He had no idea how much she had done.

He did not believe Cyberlina would delay bringing Tom out because she was concerned about the state of Tom's soul. After all, with the move she had used to force Tom's soul fragment close to physical form, why would she need to take Tom into consideration? So she must have calculated the timing. Or perhaps Tom's timing in causing trouble had happened to coincide with her plans, allowing her to use his actions to capture him, while also using the incident's influence to weaken the impact of the Department of Mysteries being infiltrated.

She had calculated long ago when she might alert the Department of Mysteries, and had planned to make use of Tom long ago as well.

What a scheming Slytherin.