Chapter 449: Idle Chat

“Walk with me?”

Dumbledore smiled.

Wizard Sean nodded; the house before him had been reduced to a blackened frame, radiating intense heat.

Professor Quirrell made a tiny motion with his wand, subtly burying a ring that had not been fully consumed by fire.

He cast a sidelong glance at Wizard Sean, and the young wizard lifted a finger, quietly stowing the tattered ring into the Wizard’s Book.

Next, Wizard Sean would have to find a way to break Voldemort’s curse.

“Professor, thank you.”

Wizard Sean said to Quirrell.

“Ah, ah… no, Mr. Green, I didn’t really help at all…”

Quirrell stammered.

“You faced Voldemort. You defeated him.”

Wizard Sean said.

“No, no… it was… it was yes, I destroyed part of him, only part…”

Quirrell’s knuckles whitened around his wand.

“The truth is, you did it, Professor.

Someone told me that what matters is to keep fighting, fighting, and fighting again—only then can evil be contained, though it can never be fully eradicated…”

Wizard Sean spoke slowly, his gaze fixed on the quiet night, on the ground where the ring had just been buried.

A bloodlike, black, viscous substance seeped from the earth.

It was a fragment of the ring, shattered into pieces.

When it cracked, all three of them heard that terrible, agonized scream—not just from the black mist, but from the broken object itself.

Quirrell stood frozen, staring at the eerie ground.

“Your will is Quirrell’s will.”

He finally said.

A short distance away, Dumbledore watched their exchange with a smile.

He was calm, unhurried, even intrigued.

Only after Quirrell Apparated away and Mr. Puckett entered the Wizard’s Book did Dumbledore tap his fingers lightly, igniting his wand.

“Come along, dear Mr. Green.”

Dumbledore raised his wand; his tall silhouette glowed with a soft radiance.

Little Hangleton had been battered by northwest winds for two days; even the barking of dogs was barely audible in the tiny village.

The sky was an endless expanse of leaden gray, save for a faint yellow haze along the eastern horizon, feeble yet stubborn, as if trying to slowly melt away the leaden canopy.

Seven or eight low cottages huddled on the ground, like beetles.

New stacks of straw resembled withered wild mushrooms; near them and farther along the riverbank, the scent of earth carried the breath of spring.

“You must know the tale of the three brothers—Peverell made it clear: the elder brother’s lost love was never truly revived.

She was sent by Death to lure the elder brother into its grasp, and so she was cold, distant, elusive, and maddening.”

Wizard Sean spoke slowly in the dim night, just before dawn.

“Do you think I should have realized that?”

Dumbledore said.

“I don’t know.”

Wizard Sean thought for a moment.

“I don’t know either, child. Those without hope can only endure life… you’ve done well.

I know some people’s promised futures are sweet lies, but look—I’m willing to be fooled again.”

Dumbledore’s gaze was deep; his robes stirred in the dawn breeze.

“The Elder Wand, the Resurrection Stone, the Invisibility Cloak.

They may be useful—I once seized them at the wrong time, for the wrong reasons.

Now I don’t know how much I’ve truly grown.

But I’ve understood one thing: I can never become Death’s true conqueror, because the true conqueror never tries to flee Death.

He accepts his mortal fate gladly, knowing that in the world of the living, there are far worse things than death.

Humans always choose what is most detrimental to them.

Even I, Albus Dumbledore, find the Invisibility Cloak the easiest to refuse. That only proves that even a clever man like me is just as foolish as anyone else.”

Dumbledore and Wizard Sean stepped over the haystack.

They also found a snake frozen solid before spring had arrived.

“You’re not a fool.”

Wizard Sean said.

“I’m glad you see it that way. But today, my dear student has treated me like a fool—keeping secrets from an old man.

It disappoints me that young voices won’t speak to aged ears.”

Dumbledore raised an eyebrow, feigning surprise.

Wizard Sean fell silent; Dumbledore’s bright smile turned toward him, revealing faint redness along his ears.

A light breeze stirred; dawn was coming.

The faint yellow haze on the horizon finally dissolved the leaden sky.

“I once thought this was life’s suffering, but look—this is what life is.

And even if life is suffering, that’s fine…”

Dumbledore spoke slowly, chatting idly.

“Why?”

Wizard Sean asked softly.

He couldn’t imagine how Headmaster Dumbledore had resisted the temptation of the Resurrection Stone.

The Resurrection Stone, no matter how heartbreakingly hollow its results, could indeed summon souls.

For Headmaster Dumbledore, this meant he would see Ariana, his mother, his father—tell them how deeply, how endlessly he regretted everything…

“Because… I set out again with my broken oar.”

Dumbledore smiled.

…

Hogwarts Castle had just heard its first rooster crow.

Few young wizards here woke at this hour.

In other words, only those who had been out after curfew or had stayed awake all night could hear it.

Wizard Sean heard it—he had just returned to Hogwarts Castle.

Using Phoenix Fawkes’s Apparition.

It was a curious thing: Wizard Sean felt himself become a flame, spreading with the wind to Hogwarts Castle.

Even more interesting, more delightful to Wizard Sean, was that Headmaster Dumbledore had let go of his obsession with the Resurrection Stone.

It meant Wizard Sean now had enough time to break the curse and test its efficacy in the soul realm.

Ravenclaw Tower was silent; Wizard Sean read books on the Resurrection Stone while observing a “little phoenix” that had appeared on his desk.

A few seconds later, the “little phoenix” slipped into a special photograph.

There, Dumbledore was smiling and winking—his first appearance in color.

Soon after, the “phoenix” flew out from his position and played with a squirrel that had emerged from Quirrell’s location.

Wizard Sean gazed out the window, his deep green eyes like a still Black Lake.

Meanwhile, in the Headmaster’s Office.

A rare owl flew out, its claws clutching letters that had not been sent in many years.

【…I write to you this Easter… perhaps I’ve met a lucky black cat.

Surprisingly, it does not promise us glory or joy, but it guards our hope…】