What Did Powerful Magic Need Most?

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

Hermione Granger had already rushed to Caesar's side.

She dropped to her knees on the cold floor, her trembling hands lifting Caesar's nearly shattered body.

The warmth was rapidly leaving Caesar's body.

Blood poured from the wounds on his wrists and the corners of his mouth, even from the deep blue cracks splitting beneath his skin. It soaked her sleeves, burning hot as lava, scorching her skin and her soul.

The pain was beyond words. Worse than the Cruciatus Curse, more hopeless than losing everything.

Images from the past five years flashed wildly through her mind.

His calm eyes when they first met at the station.

His faint smile as he stayed up late tutoring her in the office.

His silent encouragement from the Quidditch stands.

And the warmth that had lasted through the years, carried by those words: "We're family."

And now, reflected in his fading eyes, was her own face, streaked with tears and stricken with terror.

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

Hermione's voice broke into an incoherent cry. She tried in vain to press her hands over his bleeding wounds, but blood kept gushing through her fingers.

Caesar's lips moved faintly, as if he wanted to say something, but all he could manage was to spit up more blood.

He struggled to focus on Hermione's face. There was no fear of death in his eyes, only a deep, almost tender regret—and a trace of relief.

The word exploded like thunder in her utterly confused, collapsing world.

What did powerful magic need most?

Talent? Willpower? Or, as Dumbledore had once hinted, that oldest and most powerful force, so often mocked in fairy tales?

Love.

Her feelings for Caesar had long since grown beyond admiration, dependence, or even an innocent crush.

They were a habit woven into her very bones, a pull that resonated through her soul, a resolve to stand against the whole world to keep him safe, and a shared agony that made seeing him suffer more painful than dying herself.

At that moment, her feelings—wrapped in deception, betrayal, despair, and the terror of imminent death—

had never once gone out. Instead, they had burned all the more fiercely, like a dormant volcano finally erupting!

The One-Winged Bird Necklace against her chest—the gray-white jade pendant, long since dim and withered like a dead leaf in late autumn—suddenly grew scorching hot!

No, it wasn't merely hot.

It was as if a heart of molten lava had been breathed back into it, as if a contract that had slept for a thousand years had been violently and utterly awakened by the most primal, overwhelming force of emotion!

Cracks burst through the pendant's ashen surface from within.

It wasn't breaking apart. It was blossoming anew!

From every crack poured golden-red light so brilliant it was impossible to look at.

This wasn't the cold light of some wondrous magical creation. It carried the warmth of Hermione's blood, the rhythm of her heartbeat, the cry of her soul!

"Ah—!!!"

Her scream pierced the stone chamber, yet seemed to echo in another dimension as well. Centered on Hermione and Caesar, space itself began to tremble and twist.

This wasn't the orderly compression and leap of Apparition. It was closer to... the veil of reality being torn open by a raging flood of pure emotion!

Blazing white light burst from every pore in Hermione's body and from the golden-red streaks of light erupting from the necklace.

They were no longer just light. They were liquid fire, solidified conviction, the gaseous form of an all-consuming will to protect!

The flames gently enveloped Caesar's body, growing cold and crumbling, like the toughest silk and the arms of a mother cradling her child.

Wherever the light passed, the terrible bleeding from the wound on Caesar's wrist miraculously stopped. The shattered bones were temporarily "welded" in place by the flames.

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The dark blue cracks beneath his skin, pulsing and spreading wildly, seemed to have met their natural enemy. They hissed faintly.

Driven back and suppressed by the blazing white flames, they were sealed beneath the surface, no longer able to eat into his organs or magical core.

At the heart of this blazing white cocoon, where destruction and rebirth intertwined, Caesar's unfocused eyes reflected a clear golden-red light.

In them, he saw Hermione's tear-streaked face, ablaze with fierce resolve.

His remaining consciousness seemed to be drawn back for an instant by the light, too dazzling and too warm.

So warm.

Warmer than the strongest fire in Hogwarts' fireplace.

Warmer than the soothing Longmu Bath, which seeped into his very bones.

Warmer than anything he could remember.

The warmth came from the girl holding him tight, from her clever, stubborn heart, burning without restraint for his sake.

His lips moved again. This time, the faintest breath escaped with the blood.

It barely formed a few broken syllables, light as a sigh, yet they etched themselves clearly into Hermione's soul:

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

As the last syllable faded, he used up the last of his strength. With his still-intact left hand, he managed, with great difficulty and a tremor, to lift it.

His fingertips, stained with his own blood and her tears, lightly touched Hermione's pale lower lip as it quivered violently.

It wasn't a kiss.

Yet it felt more like a brand than any kiss, more like a farewell, like every unfinished word, unfulfilled promise, and unresolved bond—along with all the warmth and regret he had left—were being carved into her life.

Then his fingertips slipped away helplessly, and his arm fell. The last strength keeping him conscious drained away completely.

His heavy head came to rest on her slender shoulder. His breathing grew so faint it was almost imperceptible, the candle of his life flickering in the gale, its flame dwindling to a pinprick.

And yet, miraculously, stubbornly, it did not go out. The blazing white light and the surging love clung to the last thread of life within him.

"No—! You can't leave! I won't let you!"

Hermione's scream tore through her. She clutched him even tighter, as if she could press him into her very bones.

The light from the necklace at her chest blazed brighter. Its golden-red patterns fused completely with the white flames, unleashing an even mightier, blinding force!

This power no longer merely protected and healed.

It began to actively repel! The light cocoon became a boundary, and the very rules of space within the stone chamber seemed to be crudely rewritten.

Voldemort's dark magic, infused with the power of the Philosopher's Stone and surging toward them while it still had the chance, struck the outer edge of the cocoon.

Like snow meeting a red-hot iron, it hissed sharply and evaporated in an instant.

The newborn, monstrous body was driven back in terror. His scarlet eyes filled with shock and ravenous madness.

Dumbledore's silver web of spells, cast to stabilize space and investigate what was happening, was likewise swallowed or repelled without a sound upon touching the domain of fused flames. It couldn't penetrate even a fraction of the way.

The shock in the old wizard's blue eyes finally gave way to a deep realization, almost reverence.

He stopped casting spells to no avail and simply gripped his wand tightly, watching a miracle that surpassed his understanding of magic by far.

Professor McGonagall could no longer speak. She pressed a hand tightly over her mouth, tears blurring her glasses.

She watched her most brilliant student, holding the traitor she had condemned, unleash power enough to shake the darkness—a force even Dumbledore was powerless against.

The figure within that light looked so desperate, and yet so... holy.

"Go. We'll go together!"

Hermione whispered hoarsely. It was no longer a question, but a command—to herself and to the dying Caesar in her arms.

And to the power she had awakened, born from the deepest reaches of her soul and their contract!

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

It swallowed Hermione and Caesar completely.