Obscurus? Harry Potter

I wonder if anyone had ever kept a fox.

Those who had probably knew that a fox's biggest problem wasn't just that it wasn't friendly—it also loved digging holes.

The second and even third floors were exactly like that, riddled with caves and secret passages. Ryan finally saw some actual magic—the "not quite proper" parts Kate had mentioned.

Without magic, a castle that had been altered like this and packed with so many hidden passages would have collapsed long ago. It simply didn't conform to architectural principles.

Almost every spot contained what looked like Muggle-triggered mechanisms.

During non-game hours, the bats and spiders hid here. Strangely, there was no smell, so magic had probably been used there too. If an ordinary wizard without a wand accidentally fell into one of these passages or traps, they would be in for quite a ride. They probably would not find their way out even after a whole day. Terror Trips truly lived up to its name.

Kate excitedly ran through every secret passage connecting the second and third floors. Though Ryan's body was still brimming with energy, his mind could not help growing a little weary.

Especially when it came to magic. He had not cast any for nearly an entire morning, and he felt a strange, stifling pressure.

With nothing better to do, Ryan began letting his mind wander again.

Magic power constantly replenished itself. Ryan, whose reserves were nearly infinite and had even been called an Ouroboros by Smith's alchemical wall, had never noticed something: Ryan could sense the accumulation of magic power far more keenly than ordinary wizards.

"Accumulation?"

"Obscurus?"

An Obscurus was produced when a young wizard excessively suppressed their magical power due to external factors. A young wizard possessed by that accumulation of magic power was also called an Obscurial.

Perhaps because the failure to use magic usually stemmed from fearing that one was different, or from family and friends rejecting unscientific phenomena, causing one to actively or passively refuse to use magic. And since magic itself was a product of the mind, the Obscurus, an accumulation born from negative emotions, was a kind of "dark" power with the ability to "parasitize and consume."

This energy deliberately manifested as an independent entity. It could erupt suddenly and was immensely destructive.

Young wizards who were parasitized usually did not live past ten. Sometimes an Obscurus was invisible; at other times, it appeared as a black, intangible entity or a black, oily substance, flying or raging through the air like liquid or clouds. It could sometimes have a red core. Some described it as "a gust of black wind," "a pitch-black mass," with "shimmering white eyes." An Obscurus sometimes even displayed the Obscurial's face.

The Death Eaters' ability in the films to fly as black smoke probably came from this setting. But in this world, the only known people capable of it were Voldemort and Snape during Harry's seventh year. It was not some simple technique.

This power forced out through oppression could also be considered another way of breaking free from wizarding conventions.

An Obscurus and its Obscurial were two sides of the same coin. An Obscurial could even be called another kind of magical creature. The size and power of an Obscurus depended on the inner strength of its host:

The stronger the Obscurial's magical power, the stronger their Obscurus.

The size and power of an Obscurus were also related to the degree of its host's negative emotions and mental state at the time.

Under such circumstances, an Obscurus was tremendously destructive to its surroundings. It could make objects float or shatter without touching them. An Obscurus could also gradually calm down upon encountering someone worthy of trust, slowly returning to the Obscurial's original state. Emotional changes could cause the Obscurial and Obscurus to shift back and forth.

When an Obscurial died, the Obscurus usually vanished with them.

"No! Newt Scamander once separated the Obscurus after Credence Barebone 'died' and preserved it within a magical energy field." Ryan suddenly remembered this.

"Then what about Harry Potter? How could Dumbledore possibly not understand Obscuruses? Harry had grown up under Dumbledore's watchful eye all along!" Ryan abruptly realized.

Ryan let his mind loose. One part of his thoughts became Ryan, an ordinary young wizard adventurer, and played through the castle with Kate, while the deeper part of his mind began to "think" by connecting everything with the original story.

Harry's aunt and uncle were the kind of people who hated magic. It was not that they had no feelings for Harry; they simply wanted to drive magic out of him through every form of cold violence.

When Harry received the letters, his uncle Vernon showed that determination to keep Harry away from magic with unprecedented force. He refused the letters, even when the mailbox burst, even when owls surrounded the entire house, making everything seem utterly abnormal.

He even sought out a remote island and went there in stormy weather. He even snapped at Dudley because of it. Dudley was the little tyrant of the family, after all. Vernon and his wife had always doted on him, never daring to show even the slightest dissatisfaction.

Yet even after eleven years of constant oppression, no Obscurus had formed, and Harry had not become an Obscurial.

Perhaps it was because of the protective spell born from Harry's mother Lily Evans's love. A negative Obscurus could not take shape, but that accumulated magic power would not simply vanish into thin air. It had probably greatly enhanced Harry's magical potential, allowing him to clash with Voldemort time and again later on. Though his magical skill was vastly inferior, he had never truly been at a disadvantage.

And Newt was Dumbledore's prized student, someone who had even made Grindelwald jealous. How could Dumbledore not have studied the preserved Obscurus? Its host, Credence Barebone, was suspected of being related to Dumbledore by blood.

Furthermore, Harry's neighbor, Mrs. Figg, was a Squib and Dumbledore's spy.

So Dumbledore had not failed to give Harry power after all. This kind of trial, which would normally cultivate an Obscurus, brought tremendous improvement not only to the mind but even to one's potential.

Harry's ability to summon a corporeal Patronus in his third year was proof enough.

Come to think of it, Ryan had only discovered after crossing over that Dumbledore meant "bumblebee" in Old English, on top of his love for sweets.

The more Ryan learned about that old bee, that wily old man, the more he realized how deeply calculating Dumbledore was. How could the witless Voldemort possibly not lose? In terms of sheer power alone, Voldemort was actually no match for Dumbledore. Voldemort merely had a higher tolerance for mistakes; with Horcruxes, he could not be killed.

If Dumbledore had been younger, or if he had made a Horcrux himself, Voldemort would never have had a chance.

Or perhaps, with so many people deserving death in Azkaban, making a Horcrux had itself been Dumbledore's contingency plan for when he could see no hope of victory.

Voldemort was like a rat on a chopping board. If Dumbledore were willing to abandon his principles, then even without knowing where Voldemort's Horcruxes were, once Voldemort returned in Harry's fourth year, Dumbledore could probably have reduced him to something worse than a ghost in less than a year.

In the original story, Dumbledore had gone generously to his death. There was a strong chance that he had already seen no hope of Voldemort winning.

The Greatest White Wizard was far from that simple.