02

In July 1980, the boy from the prophecy, Harry Potter, was born.

Sherlock Mephisto also gained a younger sister named Axinsha Mephisto. She was born at the end of July, the same age as Harry Potter.

Voldemort allowed his Death Eater follower Bellatrix to torture young Neville's parents, the Longbottoms, into insanity with the Cruciatus Curse, sending them to St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries.

Later, when Snape learned that Voldemort was about to target James and Lily Potter, he had no choice but to beg the greatest white wizard still fighting Voldemort—Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts—for help, in order to protect the woman he loved most.

This made Snape an important spy planted within the Death Eaters, an unexpected pawn Dumbledore had gained beside Voldemort.

In 1981, betrayed by Peter Pettigrew, who as Secret-Keeper revealed the Potters' location, James Potter was brutally murdered by Voldemort. Lily then used her own life as the price to cast an ancient spell upon her beloved son, Harry Potter.

From the age of one until he came of age, Harry Potter would be protected by that mysterious power.

In the end, when Voldemort cast the Killing Curse at Harry, the rebounding curse shattered his body, leaving only a wisp of spirit drifting between heaven and earth. With his body gone and his soul scattered, he could only flee in disgrace to the forests of Albania, possessing small animals—most notably reptiles, especially snakes.

He tried to evade the Ministry's Aurors, waiting for his loyal followers to come find and rescue him.

By chance, and through the protection born of Lily's maternal love, Harry Potter became the only boy to survive the Killing Curse.

The darkest decade of suffering and hardship Voldemort had brought upon the wizarding world came to an end because of Harry Potter, a child only one year old.

The jubilant people hailed him as the Savior and even wove him into stories for young wizards: the Boy Who Lived. Perhaps it reflected their affection for him, believing such a title could bring good fortune.

Meanwhile, when one-year-old Harry accomplished this feat, the young member of Mephisto Manor, Sherlock Mephisto, was already two years old. He had merely been born a year before Harry Potter.

With Voldemort's downfall, the remaining Death Eaters continued to resist stubbornly, but they knew the tide had turned. They faced the Ministry's frenzied suppression, along with wizards who harbored deep hatred for the Death Eaters.

The Death Eaters learned what it meant to settle old scores after the harvest.

Those cowardly opportunists began using every resource at their disposal to get themselves out of trouble, even admitting that they had obeyed Voldemort only because they had been placed under the Imperius Curse.

To the great pure-blood families, paying a heavy price to avoid a ticket to Azkaban was still worth it. Only by being driven to the brink could one survive anew. Clever people, like the Malfoy family, continued to thrive even after Voldemort fell.

But the Mephisto family did not seem to possess Malfoy's shrewdness.

After all, while Voldemort had still been in power, although members of the Mephisto family had never explicitly joined the Death Eaters, they had been closely associated with Voldemort.

Especially at the banquet held for Sherlock's birth—so many Death Eaters had attended, and Voldemort himself had been present. Those were undeniable facts.

Rumors even claimed that Yalikesa Mephisto had always been Voldemort's closest friend. After all, even villains understood friendship.

Because of this, Sherlock's grandfather, Yalikesa, was portrayed by outsiders as the strategist and adviser among the Death Eaters. Fearing that his two sons—Sherlock's father Fumengde and his uncle Laike'er—might be sent to Azkaban, Yalikesa made a decisive admission.

He claimed that his sons had drawn close to the Death Eaters only because of his influence, and that he himself was the greatest secret supporter behind them. After all, the large number of Death Eaters who had visited when Sherlock was born, and even Voldemort's eventual appearance, had been entirely due to the Mephisto family's honor and influence.

Most importantly, it had been out of respect for him personally.

The wizarding world was thrown into an uproar. After Voldemort's fall, Yalikesa had still brazenly and publicly admitted to being the power behind the Death Eaters. It was practically a death wish.

Even Voldemort's most loyal followers had hidden wherever they could after their master vanished, some even forced to conceal themselves under false names.

Perhaps it was because of the Mephisto family's pride and backbone.

Just as the Ministry was preparing to arrest Yalikesa, the seventy-year-old man chose to end his life in the manor's study.

Thanks to their elderly father's sacrifice, Fumengde and his younger brother Laike'er escaped the Ministry's pursuit.

But Laike'er was clearly dissatisfied with his father's self-sacrifice. He believed that the Ministry's relentless pressure had caused everything that followed.

Though the Mephisto family had indeed maintained close ties with the Death Eaters while Voldemort was still around in order to preserve themselves, they had never done anything to harm the wizarding world.

Therefore, their father's death had been an entirely needless sacrifice. Laike'er was still young and acted without considering the consequences. He even dared to openly attack Aurors who were arresting Death Eaters.

He was then wanted by the Ministry and forced to flee. Ironically, this moved the fleeing Death Eaters deeply. They had not expected that, after their master's downfall, someone would still have such backbone.

But in truth, Laike'er would never have done something so foolish for Voldemort.

Thus, with one man's downfall, only Fumengde, his wife, and their two-year-old son Sherlock remained at Mephisto Manor.

Faced with the turbulent chaos of the wizarding world, Fumengde and his wife decided to reduce the family's contact with the outside world for the time being. The wealth left behind by their ancestors was more than enough for them to live without worry for several generations.

Fumengde's thinking was simple. Whether it was the Ministry or the Dark Lord who might one day return to power, it would have little to do with the reclusive Mephisto family.

But that secluded family life lasted only two years. Then, when their son Sherlock was four, an accidental burst of magic revealed to Fumengde and his wife that this child was a genius of the Mephisto family.

Many geniuses had appeared throughout the Mephisto family's history, but never one whose magic erupted at the age of four.

Moreover, Sherlock had been exceptionally intelligent from an early age. Though his memory could not be called photographic, it was still astonishing.

At one year old, he could already pronounce simple words, far surpassing children who could only babble nonsense.

By the age of four, he had already learned the vocabulary expected of a secondary school student.

This allowed him to read most of the books in the study at Mephisto Manor without much difficulty. Even when he encountered unfamiliar words, he could remember them and ask his parents later.

As one of the wizarding world's oldest families, the Mephisto family's education had always allowed its younger generations to encounter the wonders of magic at an early age.

Even though their son's magic had erupted at four, Fumengde and his wife Aili merely believed that the child was highly gifted at learning magic. With his good memory and love of learning, they simply thought he was very intelligent.

But when Sherlock invented a spell of his own during Christmas at the age of four, the couple's jaws nearly dropped.

There was a legend in the wizarding world that one-fifth of all dark spells had supposedly been created by the Mephisto family.

Could it be that the child had inherited the talent of his ancestors?