As Uther acted, Eugene and Klon also turned to look at Bernard. Clearly, more than one sharp-eyed observer had noticed the key detail amid the chaos.
"Bernard, just now..."
"That's right. It was the Cruciatus Curse."
Bernard admitted it calmly and looked at his roommates.
"Are you going to report me to the Ministry of Magic?"
From their earlier explanations, he already knew that casting an Unforgivable Curse meant being sent to the wizarding prison, Azkaban.
"..."
Everyone fell silent.
"Those who cast Unforgivable Curses are unforgivable..."
Adam, who had already put away the Tree Card, suddenly spoke.
"But Bernard cast the Cruciatus Curse just now to protect us."
Wizarding law had no provisions for emergency self-defense or anything of the sort, but such legal principles existed because people needed them and, by common moral standards, believed such actions should not be punished.
Clearly, none of them could bring themselves to report Bernard for using an Unforgivable Curse to protect them.
After a stretch of silence, Adam was the first to speak.
"How about we head back first? We're deep in the Forbidden Forest, but the commotion we caused was still pretty big."
"Agreed."
"I'm in favor."
"Can I ask why you chose to cast an Unforgivable Curse in front of us?"
That evening, Adam deliberately delayed his shower, and Bernard tacitly made the same choice. At that moment, the bathroom contained only the two of them.
Of course, since the subject was somewhat sensitive, Adam also used the Silence Card to seal away their voices, ensuring that their words could not reach a third person—not even a portrait, ghost, or Peeves.
"It was a life-or-death moment. Of course I used whatever I knew."
Bernard stood sideways to Adam, lathering himself with soap.
"At the time, Eugene and Uther both said they had ways to deal with it. The situation was nowhere near as dangerous as you claimed."
Adam did not let him brush it off.
"Even if you knew Unforgivable Curses, as long as you practiced them secretly and carefully, you could have kept it hidden. Why did you deliberately expose yourself?"
"...Then why did you cover for me before?"
Bernard turned around, his gaze meeting Adam's.
"Those who cast Unforgivable Curses are unforgivable. You said that yourself... This wasn't the first time you saw me cast one, was it?"
"The last time I cast the Cruciatus Curse wasn't for self-defense. So why did you turn a blind eye to what I did then... Adam?"
Adam closed his eyes for a moment.
The last time he had seen Bernard cast the Cruciatus Curse... It had been in an abandoned classroom. Adam kept several pots of Mandrakes in an unused classroom at the end of the corridor, where the sunlight was good enough.
But as he passed one classroom, he sensed a fluctuation of magic. Before he even pushed the door open, he heard the words, "Crucio."
It was a familiar voice.
Without opening the door, Adam stood there for a while before continuing on his way. He had not expected Bernard to know, so...
"You did it on purpose after all."
"I did do it on purpose. If you paid close attention, your usual movements weren't hard to predict."
Bernard shrugged and tilted his head back, letting the hot water flow over him, across his eyes, mouth, and nose.
"What exactly are you trying to do? Don't you know this is dangerous?"
"What danger?"
The moment Bernard opened his mouth, hot water rushed in, making his words somewhat muffled.
Adam finished lathering up, set the soap aside, and faced Bernard directly.
"Whether it's me or Eugene and the others, if any one of us reported you to the Ministry of Magic, one Flashback Charm would have you spending the rest of your life in Azkaban with Dementors as your neighbors. Are you counting on your parents to sue the Wizengamot and the Ministry of Magic?"
"Dementors, Wizengamot... I learned some new words."
"Bernard!"
"..."
He wiped his face with one hand, from chin upward, then looked at Adam.
"See? I'm fine now, aren't I?"
"...You think this is funny?"
Adam looked utterly unable to understand.
"No. I just wanted to see whether the friendship between us was really that solid."
Now, Adam's gaze held not only incomprehension, but also a few traces of concern.
Maybe you should go see a psychiatrist.
"Do you know what it feels like to be the child of lawyers—two lawyers, at that?"
Bernard's eyes went blank, as if he had sunk into his memories.
"Marriage, debt, finance... My parents didn't actually allow me to read their documents, but children... the more they're forbidden from doing something, the more interesting they find it."
"So while other children listened to fairy tales, I encountered far more real stories in my life. Other children watched princesses and princes live happily ever after, while I read about a woman betrayed in love who chopped up a scumbag and stored the pieces in a freezer..."
Adam swallowed.
"So I've always wondered: are emotions between people really that strong? Do people truly have feelings that are so sincere, so pure, so beautiful? Or does everyone wear a standardized mask of false beauty, using words like love and friendship to dress up tangled interests? That curiosity has always stayed with me. Honestly, I'm quite grateful to Hogwarts for giving me this opportunity. Otherwise, I think I might have done something not very good in the future."
Adam could not help asking.
"Is your parents' relationship really that bad?"
"I never noticed anything wrong with their relationship. They had friction, but it was all just normal little disagreements in daily life. But perhaps I simply never noticed the real problem—I couldn't exactly test their feelings for each other, and there wasn't any way to try."
"So you used your own future to test the feelings between us?"
Adam opened his mouth.
"We've only been roommates for one year!"
"But you have to admit that although our personalities are vastly different, we get along surprisingly well, don't we?"
Bernard spread his hands.
"There are so many dormitories around us, but no other group of five has a relationship as good as ours. We've had some friction too, but it was all resolved well—our roommate relationship is practically as perfect as my parents' marriage."
"...I still can't understand."
"That's fine. One person can never completely understand another person's thoughts. Seeking common ground while accepting differences is good too, just like we've done this past year."
In terms of habits, personalities, and all sorts of other things, they could not have been more different, yet they still lived together well, respecting and accepting one another's differences.
"So, back to that question..."
Bernard looked at Adam again.
"When you first discovered me casting an Unforgivable Curse, why didn't you report me?"
"...Because I saw it."
"What?"
"I saw the target of your Unforgivable Curse..."
Bernard's eyes widened slightly.
"How did you do that... the Clow Cards?"
"The Return Card's magic can retrace scenes from the past. After that, I went back to the classroom where you were."
Adam looked at Bernard as he spoke.
"I saw it... You were casting Crucio at a rock."
Before you continue