Chapter 19

After eating turkey sandwiches, roasted flatbreads, sponge cakes, and Christmas cake, everyone felt full and drowsy, slumping lazily in their seats as Percy chased after Fred and George, who had stolen his prefect badge.

That night, Harry couldn’t sleep; he couldn’t stop thinking about the Legend of the Deathly Hallows. The invisibility cloak was as smooth as water, yet incredibly resilient—steel needles couldn’t pierce it, and no powder or liquid could leave a mark. The more he tested it, the more he felt only Death himself could deserve such a miraculous cloak.

Eventually, he decided not to sleep just yet. If the library yielded no useful information, he could go to the Restricted Section—now that he had the cloak, he could sneak in and read forbidden knowledge undetected.

Harry got out of bed and draped the invisibility cloak over himself. Ron, stuffed with turkey and cake, was already fast asleep; besides, Ron never liked the library. Harry thought coldly: the Deathly Hallows should be mine alone, for I am the descendant of Ignotus Peverell. Then he immediately regretted the thought, reminding himself constantly not to lose himself in the ambition for power.

The library was pitch-black and eerie. Harry lit an oil lamp and moved between the shelves. Though he felt he held the lamp, since he was invisible, the lamp appeared to float and drift midair— a sight that sent chills down his spine.

Harry’s gaze swept across row after row of shelves. Some book titles were written in Latin; others were in languages similar to Latin but entirely unfamiliar to him. From the few words he recognized, they seemed tied to ancient Runes; one book, titled *Powerful Potions*, he passed over—he wasn’t here to study potions today; several books had no titles at all, their sinister black covers stained with spots like dried blood—these were surely Dark Magic, and Harry dared not even look at them.

Finally, he found an intriguing book: *On the Extinction of Pure-Blood Families: Blood Curses and Obscurials*.

It stated that magical ability and talent were inherited through bloodlines, but some families pursued blood purity to excess, often leading to dire consequences.

If a descendant’s magical power became too immense, they would become an Obscurial—an dark parasitic entity born from a wizard child suppressing their magic. Typically, Obscurials arose when medieval wizarding children, after awakening their magic, feared persecution by Muggles and suppressed their powers. But if a child’s magical power was so overwhelming that it awakened before infancy, before the brain had fully developed, they too would become an Obscurial. Unlike ordinary children, who rarely survived past age ten, such Obscurials could live longer, depending on their innate talent. Yet, in all cases, it was a tragedy.

When two highly talented wizards mated, their child was likely to inherit a Blood Curse. A Blood Curse was an expression of excessive talent, granting the child innate magical spells—but the child often could not control them, eventually falling into darkness. One common Blood Curse was the Blood Curse Beast: excessive Transfiguration talent turned the child into a natural Animagus, who could no longer distinguish between human and animal nature, ultimately becoming fully animalistic.

The extinction of many ancient powerful pure-blood families stemmed largely from descendants falling into one of these two fates. But with advances in healing magic, many once-incurable diseases—including Blood Curses—have found solutions. Today’s Divination talent and Metamorphmagi are classic examples of controlled Blood Curses; perhaps in the near future, Obscurials too can be controlled, allowing pure-blood families to freely optimize their bloodlines.

Harry had often wondered why the Peverell name vanished; now, suddenly, he had a theory. As the powerful wizards who created the Deathly Hallows, perhaps most Peverell descendants inherited Blood Curses or became Obscurials, leaving only one healthy child—Eolande Peverell, who married into the Potter family.

He began to speculate further: what was the purpose behind the three brothers creating the Deathly Hallows? Perhaps, upon seeing their children suffer from Obscurials, they crafted these three artifacts as tools to cure them? Thus, the legend that the three Hallows together could defeat Death might truly mean reclaiming their children from Death’s grasp.

Yet no matter how hard Harry racked his brain, he couldn’t see how the Elder Wand, the Resurrection Stone, and the Invisibility Cloak related to healing. He vaguely felt this theory might be wrong—and the true purpose behind the brothers’ creation of the Deathly Hallows became another mystery worth exploring.

After reading a book that might have offered some help, Harry found his confusion had not lessened—it had only grown. Every new piece of history he uncovered brought a flood of new “whys.” Harry felt weary. He quietly returned the book to the shelf and went back to his dormitory to sleep.

The next day, he arrived early at the library again, this time seeking the book *The Elder Wand: A Historical Study*. Harry realized that if the Elder Wand’s owner always met defeat, its true function could not be “invincible.” He hoped to find traces of its real nature in the deeds of its past masters.

As Harry struggled through discomfort, slowly piecing together commonalities among these figures, Cho Chang sat down beside him, arms full of textbooks.

“Oh no, you’re reading during Christmas break?” Cho said casually.

“Some interesting biographies. And you? Still carrying textbooks?” Harry shot back.

“Just putting on a show—I don’t want anyone thinking I’m slacking off in the library,” she said. “Actually, I came to find you. Ron said you were here early.”

“Find me to play? Got any good ideas?” Harry asked offhandedly.

“Haven’t you found anything interesting yet?” Cho probed. “Like abandoned classrooms? Magical mirrors?”

“No. Did your Divination predict something strange again?” Harry was used to her erratic prophecies. “I’ve been researching hidden history lately. As for mirrors, maybe one will turn up in a few days.”

“Hidden history?” Cho was deeply curious. “What kind?”

Harry hesitated. He didn’t know whether to tell her the story of the Deathly Hallows—her advice might help—but he didn’t want to admit outright that the Invisibility Cloak was in his possession.

“I’ve realized my ancestor, Linfred, might have been the owner of the Jumping Cauldron,” Harry used the cauldron as a cover. “So I’m wondering—could the tale of the three brothers be based on real people?”

“Isn’t that just a fairy tale?” Cho said, exasperated. “I thought you’d found something extraordinary.”

“No, no—Professor Binns told me he and Dumbledore studied *The Tales of Beedle the Bard*. Their conclusion was that Beedle based every story on real prototypes.” Harry explained.

“That’s still strange,” Cho said. “Who told Beedle the story of the three brothers? The eldest and middle brothers died. The youngest wasn’t the type to boast. If Beedle truly learned it from somewhere, where could he have heard it?”

“You’re right,” Harry murmured. “The eldest and middle brothers look like fools in the tale, while the youngest is portrayed as clever. It can’t be that the youngest was someone who belittled others to elevate himself, then went around boasting the story until it reached Beedle’s ears. No—I don’t think that’s how it happened. There must be another explanation.”

“Exactly,” Cho said. “If the youngest had been the type to boast, he wouldn’t have asked Death for the Invisibility Cloak—he’d have asked for a loudspeaker.” She mimed a megaphone. “So the story must be Beedle’s invention, meant to teach us a lesson.”

“Unless… unless…” clues began to connect in Harry’s mind: the three brothers created the three artifacts themselves—the Elder Wand’s true function was not invincibility—the Peverell family vanished—and the legend that the three Hallows together could defeat Death.

Harry had never felt so clear-headed. He stepped beyond the binary logic of true or false—he realized the story had been deliberately left behind by the brothers, meant to mislead future generations, to hide the true purpose of the three artifacts.

“The Elder Wand isn’t invincible,” Harry said calmly. “But the story says it is, to lure greedy people into fighting over it. Because the Elder Wand changes hands constantly, the three Hallows can never be gathered together—that’s the true purpose behind the brothers leaving this tale.”

Cho stared at him, puzzled.

“The Elder Wand must have another function. Its true purpose must remain hidden, because it’s the key to the three Hallows’ power against Death,” Harry mused. “Resurrection and invisibility are common magical concepts. Even if their true uses aren’t resurrection or invisibility, people won’t suspect. But the Elder Wand—its purpose is too obvious. People could instantly deduce the brothers’ research from it. So they proclaimed it invincible.”

“What research?” Cho felt completely lost.

“Dumbledore himself admitted that whoever gathers all three Hallows becomes Master of Death,” Harry tapped the table. “The original three brothers created these artifacts to become Master of Death. Maybe they failed. Maybe becoming Master of Death doesn’t mean immortality, but something else. But whatever it was, the brothers encountered something terrible—so terrible their bloodline vanished. They deliberately scattered the three Hallows and left this story behind, because any family that dares touch Death will never appear on earth again.”