What Does Powerful Magic Require?

However, he never got the chance to cast a second Killing Curse.

Because Hermione Granger had already rushed to Caesar's side.

She knelt on the cold stone floor, trembling hands lifting Caesar's nearly broken body.

Caesar's body temperature was rapidly fading.

Blood gushed from the wound on his wrist, the corners of his mouth, and even the cracked, deep blue fissures beneath his skin, soaking through her robe sleeves. That blood was as scalding as magma, burning her skin and searing her soul.

An indescribable pain. Worse than the Cruciatus Curse, more despairing than losing everything.

Five years of memories flashed wildly through her mind.

The first meeting at the station, his calm eyes.

Late nights in the office, his faint smile as he tutored her.

On the Quidditch stands, his silent encouragement.

And those words, "We're family," bringing a warmth that spanned the years.

And now, in his slowly dilating pupils, she saw her own face reflected—tear-streaked, terrified, frantic.

"Caesar... Caesar! Look at me! Don't you dare sleep! You promised... you promised you wouldn't leave me..."

Hermione's voice shattered into incoherence as she futilely tried to cover his bleeding wounds with her hands, but blood still gushed through her fingers.

Caesar's lips moved faintly, as if he wanted to say something, but only more bloody froth came out.

His gaze struggled to focus on Hermione's face. In it, there was no fear of death, only a deep, almost gentle guilt, and a hint of relief.

That word exploded like a thunderclap in her utterly chaotic and collapsing world.

What does the most powerful magic need most?

Talent? Will? Or, as Dumbledore had once vaguely hinted, that most ancient and most powerful force, always mocked in fairy tales?

It was love.

Her feelings for Caesar had long surpassed admiration, dependence, or even a budding infatuation.

It was a habit fused into her bones, a pull of soul resonance, a resolve to stand against the world to protect him, a shared pain that hurt more than her own death when she saw him suffer.

At this moment, this feeling—wrapped in layers of deception, betrayal, despair, and the fear of imminent death—

Yet never extinguished, instead burning even more fiercely and intensely—erupted like a dormant volcano, finally exploding with a roar!

The One-Winged Bird Necklace on her chest, that long-dull, withered gray-white jade pendant like a dead leaf in late autumn, suddenly turned scorching hot in an instant!

No, not just hot.

It was as if a heart of molten lava had been reinjected into it, as if a contract dormant for a thousand years had been brutally and completely awakened by the most primal, most magnificent emotional force!

The gray, decayed jade cracked from within.

Not shattering, but blooming like rebirth!

From every crack surged a blazing, blinding golden-red light.

That light was not the cold glow of magical creation, but carried the temperature of Hermione's blood, the rhythm of her heartbeat, the cry of her soul!

"Ah—!!!"

A piercing shriek tore through the stone chamber, yet seemed to echo simultaneously in another dimension. With Hermione and Caesar at the center, space itself began to tremble and warp.

Not the orderly compression and leap of Apparition, but closer to... the curtain of reality being violently torn apart by a pure torrent of emotion!

Blazing white flames burst from every pore of Hermione's body, from the golden-red light trails exploding from the necklace.

They were no longer just light, but more like liquid fire, solid belief, gaseous guardian obsession!

These flames gently wrapped around Caesar's cooling, breaking body, like the toughest silk, or a mother's arms cradling her child.

Where the flames passed, the gruesome wound on Caesar's wrist miraculously stopped bleeding, and the shattered wrist bones were temporarily "welded" and fixed by the flames.

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The wildly pulsing, spreading deep blue cracks beneath his skin, as if meeting their natural enemy, emitted a faint "sizzling" sound.

They were forced back, suppressed, and firmly sealed beneath the surface by the blazing white flames, no longer eroding his internal organs and magical core.

At the core of this blazing white cocoon of destruction and rebirth, Caesar's dilating pupils were reflected in a clear, golden-red light.

Within them was reflected Hermione's face, drenched in tears yet burning with resolute fire.

His remaining consciousness seemed pulled back for a moment by this too-bright, too-warm light.

So warm.

Warmer than the hottest fire in the Hogwarts fireplace.

Warmer than the bone-penetrating comfort of the Longmu Bath.

Warmer than anything he could remember.

This warmth came from the girl holding him tightly, from her brilliant, stubborn heart that was burning recklessly for him.

His lips moved again. This time, an extremely faint current of air escaped with the bloody froth.

Yet it barely formed a few broken syllables, light as a sigh, but searing themselves into Hermione's soul with crystal clarity:

"...I'm... sorry..."

The instant the last syllable faded, he exhausted his final shred of strength. With his still-intact left hand, he raised it with immense difficulty, trembling.

His fingertip, stained with his own blood and her tears, gently brushed against Hermione's violently trembling, bloodless lower lip.

It was not a kiss.

Yet it was more like a brand than any kiss, more like a farewell, more like carving all the unspoken words, unfulfilled promises, unfinished fate—along with every last remnant of his warmth and guilt—into her life.

Then, that fingertip slid down weakly, his arm fell limp, and the last shred of strength that had kept him clinging to a sliver of clarity was utterly drained away.

His heavy head rested on her slender shoulder, his breathing so faint it was nearly imperceptible. The candle flame of his life flickered to its tiniest point in the raging wind.

Yet, miraculously, stubbornly, it did not go out. The blazing white light, the surging tide of love, forcibly held onto that final thread of life.

"No—! You're not allowed to leave! I won't allow it!"

Hermione's cries were heart-wrenching. She held him even tighter, as if to knead him into her own flesh and bones.

The necklace on her chest blazed even brighter. The gold-red patterns and the blazing white light completely merged, erupting with an even greater, blinding force!

This power was no longer merely protection and healing.

It began to actively "repel"! With the cocoon of light as its boundary, the spatial rules of the entire stone chamber seemed to be brutally rewritten.

Voldemort's dark magic, infused with the power of the Philosopher's Stone and about to strike, collided with the outer edge of the light cocoon.

Like snow meeting a red-hot iron, it let out a harsh "hissing" sound, instantly melting and evaporating a large swath.

Forcing the newborn, grotesque body to recoil in terror, its scarlet eyes filled with both shock and greedy madness.

The silver spell network Dumbledore had cast to stabilize the space and probe the situation—

Upon contacting this domain of fused light and flame, it vanished like a stone sinking into the sea, silently "absorbed" or "repelled," unable to penetrate even a fraction.

In the old wizard's blue eyes, shock finally transformed into a deep, almost reverent understanding.

He ceased his futile spellcasting, merely gripping his wand tightly, watching this miracle that far surpassed his understanding of magic.

Professor McGonagall was speechless, covering her mouth tightly with her hand, tears blurring her glasses.

She watched her finest student, holding the man she had deemed a traitor, erupt with a power that could shake the darkness and leave even Dumbledore helpless.

The figure within that light was so desperate, and yet so... sacred.

"Let's go. Together!"

Hermione's hoarse whisper was no longer a question, but a command—to herself, to the dying Caesar in her arms.

And even more so, a directive to this power awakened by her, born from the deepest depths of her soul and their bond!

The light cocoon suddenly contracted inward to its limit, like a star on the verge of a supernova, its brightness reaching its peak.

Completely swallowing the figures of Hermione and Caesar.