Chapter 269

Harry was riding on Firenze's back, rushing out from a bush, and saw Tom lying on the ground.

He immediately climbed down from the centaur's back, while the latter held his bow and arrow and guarded for a while, finally saying: "He's gone. How is the boy?"

Tom looked miserable. He seemed to have fallen from a very high place, and his arm and a leg were twisted at a terrible angle, looking like they were broken.

But fortunately, Tom didn't seem to have been killed.

Firenze walked over, glanced at Tom's wound, grabbed a few leaves from the bag behind him, and handed them to Harry. "Straighten his limbs first, then chew them up and apply them to his wound."

The wound was terrible, but there wasn't much bleeding, and when Harry applied those herbs to Tom's wound, they didn't have a good effect.

Tom looked at the wound on his arm that was almost showing bone, and didn't feel particularly painful. That feeling was even closer to the association produced when seeing other people's wounds.

Sure enough...

"What to do, these leaves don't seem to work..." Harry said in a panic.

"This is Dittany leaf, it should be able to restore the wound..." Firenze looked a bit puzzled. "Perhaps it's because the enemy's spell is too powerful..."

No, it's not the leaves' reason.

The problem is my body.

Dittany leaves are used to treat living people and cannot repair my body.

Repair...

By the way, Reparo might work.

Last time he was attacked by a troll, Professor Murphy used Reparo to treat him, and the effect seemed good.

"Take me to Professor Murphy..." Tom said.

Harry tore a piece of cloth from his robe to temporarily wrap Tom's arm and leg, then lifted Tom onto the centaur's back, sitting behind him to support him, and Firenze took them back.

"Boy, did you see that person's face?"

Tom shook his head. "No, he was wrapped in a cloak."

"You had already guessed his name, yet you still rushed out. That was extremely reckless," the centaur said. "He could have killed you. You only suffered this little injury, consider yourself lucky."

"Tom, why did you chase Voldemort?" Harry asked.

Not long after Qiu Zhang fired the signal, Harry and Hagrid, Ron, and Hermione rushed to the place. They saw the unicorn's corpse, and then heard Qiu Zhang anxiously tell Hagrid that Tom had gone to chase the murderer who killed the unicorn, and that the murderer was likely Voldemort.

Harry didn't think much and rushed out immediately, just like rushing out when facing the threat of a troll. He felt he had to do something.

But unlike that time, this time his heart was also full of doubts.

"I just felt, maybe I could catch him," Tom said.

Harry was silent. He felt Tom was lying.

The tone he used to say this was just like when he told the professor that he was testing his own strength when facing the troll.

But Harry knew that Tom was not an impulsive person at all. He was always very calm. He couldn't have rushed out so recklessly knowing that the other party was much stronger than himself.

Then, was it for the Sorcerer's Stone?

For "living"?

They finally sent Tom to the school hospital, but Tom refused to let Madam Pomfrey treat him no matter what, only saying to invite Professor Murphy first.

So Murphy met his student in an independent ward.

"Fracto?" Murphy listened to Tom describe the magic and then looked at Tom's wound. "Not bad, a very terrible dark magic. If not treated in time, it might leave a permanent disability."

He didn't ask Tom why he didn't let Madam Pomfrey treat him, nor did he ask why he asked him to come over.

He first cleaned up the clothing fragments, blood, dirt, and other filth from Tom's wound, then rinsed it several times with wound-cleaning agent, finally straightened Tom's arm and leg to the appropriate position, and chanted the Reparo spell: "Reparo!"

Sure enough, the wound was twisted back by the Reparo spell like broken porcelain, the bones returned to their original position, the torn muscles were reconnected, and finally, the skin seemed to be stitched back together and covered it again.

"Professor, isn't this spell used to repair items?" Tom asked. "Why can you use it to treat me?"

"What's the big difference between items and the human body?" Murphy said. "In the eyes of Muggle anatomy, these external injuries can also be seen as a kind of mechanical damage."

"You can imagine the human body as a precision machine, imagine bones as some kind of stone, and tendons, muscles, blood vessels, nerves, etc., as some kind of rope or pipe. Just stick them back together if they are broken, and stitch them back if they are severed."

"That's how Muggle surgery is done."

"Other spells don't seem to have any effect on my wound..." Tom said. He almost asked that question, but hesitated when the words reached his lips.

He was a little afraid of what Murphy's reaction would be if he knew he was actually a living corpse.

"Reparo is different from other healing spells or potions," Murphy said. "Most healing spells are based on accelerating cell differentiation to repair tissues, while Reparo is more like restoring the damaged parts to their original state as much as possible."

"Your body's regenerative ability seems to be a bit worse, so the effect of other spells is not very good."

Murphy knew this because his own body couldn't withstand ordinary healing spells and potions either. The "surgical" treatment method using Reparo was originally developed by him to deal with his own injuries.

Murphy didn't seem to realize the true abnormality of his body.

This made Tom feel relieved while also feeling a bit bitter.

"Alright," Murphy checked Tom's arm and leg. "Come on, wave your hand, kick your feet."

Tom tried to wave his hand and move his feet, feeling that it was indeed no different from before.

Neither painful nor itchy...

This made him think of Voldemort's statement. Perhaps pain and other feelings were the result of some spells affecting the soul. He didn't actually have these feelings.

He was just like a repaired bicycle or clock, just running like a machine under the support of magic.

"Professor, are people and items really no different?" he asked.

Murphy looked at Tom and understood that this kid had fallen into an identity crisis again.

His operation of rushing out to face Voldemort directly was indeed beyond Murphy's expectation, but it was still within his overall plan. Even, this might not be an opportunity that could be utilized. Maybe he could get the recipe for the resurrection potion from Voldemort.

Now, what he had to do was to play the role of a "mentor" well according to the plan.

"Tom, what do you think is the most important trait of a person?"

Tom looked up at Murphy, lost. "I... I don't know, Professor."

"Hmm, different people have different answers to this question. But for me, this answer, perhaps is: choice," Murphy said.

"People are just a kind of animal, a kind of life, an object... We are similar to all things in many respects. Therefore, I can use spells that repair items to repair the human body. Humans also need to eat and reproduce like animals, and have instincts like animals to seek advantages and avoid disadvantages."

"But, we do have some unique things that make us human."

"This thing, in my opinion, is the ability to actively make choices."

"Animals can seek advantages and avoid disadvantages, can pick up fruit instead of stones to satisfy hunger, but this is not the choice I am talking about. When it makes this choice, it relies on its own instinct. What dominates it is the power of evolution over thousands of years. It neither knows that it is fruit, nor does it know that it is 'itself' that made the choice."

"This choice is unformed in concept, and it doesn't know that it has made a choice."

"But humans can."

"Humans can perceive their own behavior, can perceive the consequences of these behaviors, and on the basis of this cognition, make their own choices."

"In a person's life, there are many choices to face. To a certain extent, it is these choices that create every different person. A person who cannot make autonomous choices in the face of differences is just a walking corpse, a puppet manipulated by fate."

"But even a prisoner, a blind person, a dying person whose hands and feet can no longer move, as long as they can still control their will, they are free to a certain extent, they can get rid of the domination of fate and make themselves themselves."

"The certainty after making a choice is the root of being human."

"I see you don't have any big problems," Murphy patted him on the shoulder. "Rest for half a day, and you should be able to recover."

Before leaving the ward, Murphy seemed to remember something.

"By the way, if you have any problems, you can seek my help at any time."

(End of chapter)