"?!"
The two of them whipped around, only to see the ordinary Room of Requirement behind them. Nothing seemed out of place.
"I'm over here."
The voice gave a bitter laugh. "Come closer and look at your feet. That black Crystal Ball..."
Only then did the two of them realize that, in their panic, they'd been so focused on Professor Baker that they'd forgotten all about the Black Crystal Ball, which seemed to be a Dark Magic object!
And who else could the voice speaking to them now belong to, if not Professor Baker?
Avada and Baron drew their wands again, but didn't approach the Crystal Ball lying on the floor.
"Being wary of the unknown is a good habit," Professor Baker's voice sighed. "But I truly don't mean you any harm... You must have noticed how strangely that 'me' with a body was acting, right? That person was a fake. I'm the real Benjamin Baker."
"You're the real Professor Baker?!"
Avada and Baron exchanged bewildered looks. Even Avada, who knew Horcruxes existed, found it hard to believe—his soul fragment had remained in his body, while his main soul had gone into a Horcrux? What kind of arrangement was that?
Or was there something else going on with Professor Baker?
Full of doubts and confusion, Avada pulled Baron a few steps back and slowly edged toward the Room of Requirement's door. "Sorry, Professor Baker, but your situation is far too complicated. We're just two perfectly ordinary first-years. We can't figure out what's going on, and we can't do much to help you... We'll go find Professor Dumbledore and bring him here to help!"
"Please, don't!"
Professor Baker's voice grew urgent. At the same time, the space inside the Room of Requirement warped again, transforming into an invisible maze they couldn't escape.
"I absolutely can't let anyone else know about my current state!"
"I swear, I didn't end up like this because I wanted to hurt anyone or because I got what I deserved after doing something evil... But everyone has secrets they don't want others to know, right? Take you, K. You were so certain that this Crystal Ball was a Dark Magic object. What did you base that on? Would you be willing to tell anyone?"
Avada frowned deeply and stopped.
Beside him, Baron looked wary. "So this Crystal Ball really is a Dark Magic object?"
"That depends on what you mean by Dark Magic object."
Professor Baker gave a bitter laugh. "If you mean Dark Magic in the academic sense—that is, magic that can only be used at the cost of damaging your own mental strength—then this Crystal Ball does qualify as a Dark Magic object. In fact, it may be one of the darkest kinds..."
"But if, like those old-fashioned wizards, you believe only magic used to do evil counts as Dark Magic, then don't worry. This Crystal Ball has absolutely nothing to do with Dark Magic."
"Hm?"
A flicker of suspicion crossed Avada's eyes as he listened quietly. With the help of his Magic Sense, he'd noticed something remarkable.
But before he could ask about it, Baron frowned and spoke up again. "I'm a little confused... Professor Baker, what exactly is going on with you?"
"As a member of the Defense Against the Dark Arts League, why do you have one of the 'darkest' Dark Magic objects—and why did you bring it to school? What was it originally for?"
"Why was your body taken over by someone else? And why did you yourself end up inside the Crystal Ball?"
"And if you don't want anyone else to know, what would you have done if we hadn't come here?"
After hearing this barrage of questions, the Black Crystal Ball fell silent for a while.
"It seems that unless I put your doubts to rest, I'll have no hope of getting your help," Professor Baker said with a weary sigh. "All right, I'll give you a rough explanation."
Avada raised an eyebrow but said nothing. He wanted to hear what Professor Baker had to say. It wasn't as if he could escape right now, anyway.
"Put simply, the me inside the Crystal Ball and the person who just walked out while controlling my body are both me: Benjamin Baker."
"For some reason, my consciousness split during one of my adventures. This split severely affected my thoughts, my control over my body, and my ability to cast spells. To solve the problem, I spent years searching for a way. In the end, I found a solution that seemed good enough: make a specially designed vessel, draw the divided consciousness into it, and let my main consciousness take complete control of my body."
"And this Black Crystal Ball in front of you is the vessel I made to hold the fragment of my consciousness."
A trace of exhaustion colored Professor Baker's voice. "To make it, I had to gather knowledge and magical materials from all over. That was one of the reasons I decided to come to Hogwarts as a professor. Hogwarts has the largest library in the United Kingdom, a Restricted Section filled with hidden knowledge, and a secret place I'd learned about back when I was a student—this room. I thought it might help me reach my goal sooner..."
"As it turned out, I made the right decision. The library and the Restricted Section gave me a wealth of useful knowledge and information, and being a professor gave me an easier way to obtain hard-to-find materials... Just a few days ago, I finally finished making the vessel."
"So I came to the Room of Requirement, eager to carry out the split here in secret. I even enchanted the room to keep other students from barging in—that was the maze you encountered earlier."
"Oh, right. You probably don't know this, but when someone is already inside this room, no one outside can open the door unless they need the same thing as the person inside..."
"Wait, what?" Baron asked, puzzled. "But before we got here, we opened a lot of rooms!"
"Let me finish."
Professor Baker's voice turned bitter. "But when I began the ritual, something went wrong. The vessel I'd made was too effective, and I made a few mistakes while using it. As a result, my main consciousness was pulled into the vessel, while the fragment stayed in my body and gained control!"
For a moment, Avada didn't know what expression to make. So he really had put his main soul in a Horcrux!
What kind of hopeless Dark wizard could pull off such a jaw-dropping blunder... No, wait. How could a hopeless Dark wizard even make a Horcrux?!
"That's also why you were able to open the other rooms," Professor Baker said with a bitter laugh. "The Room of Requirement only recognizes a complete consciousness as a person. But my main consciousness had been locked inside the vessel, and the fragment wasn't enough to be recognized. So, according to the room, I'd gone from 'one person' to 'two objects.'"
Avada nodded to himself. That part was true enough. Voldemort's Horcrux had been in the Room of Requirement for ages, and it hadn't stopped other students from room-hopping, had it?
"The 'me' controlling the body will prove what I've said. You'll notice that his lessons grow more and more boring and rigid, and that his reactions are much slower than before..."
"But in that case,"
Baron cut in suspiciously, "after something like this happened to you, shouldn't you be asking someone else for help? Why trap us when we try to find Professor Dumbledore?"
"I told you," Professor Baker replied in a low voice. "This Crystal Ball is a cutting-edge creation of Dark Magic, even if it won't be used to do evil. If word got out, it would be enough to ruin my reputation, even if there were a good reason behind it."
"What's more, this Crystal Ball contains a great deal of my own techniques and a few trump cards. If it fell into someone else's hands, they might figure out how those techniques work. For an adventurer like me, who's made enemies of countless Dark wizards, that would be a deadly liability."
"I do need help, but I'd rather keep the number of people involved to an absolute minimum."
Before you continue