Lys slipped the willow wand hidden on her arm into her left hand, cautiously conjuring a small orb of light above her head to look around.
Her right hand's wand remained steadily pointed at that unidentified corpse.
But when the light spread to that corner, illuminating the suspected body, the darkness that had been driven away was instead crammed full into Lys's fear.
It was Senna... She looked terrible, covered in blood, with numerous bite wounds and claw marks, wearing a black cloak and clutching a brown paper bag to her chest.
Her amber eyes moved away from Lys, then weakly said, "I don't want you anymore... If you hadn't pried into the Dark Lord... If Noah hadn't chosen to protect you..." She turned her head away, and that hand that had once reached toward Lys so impatiently yet persistently simply dropped down.
Lys uncontrollably rushed forward several steps. The moment Senna opened her mouth to speak, she'd already rushed to her side and crouched down, rapidly casting healing spells and various emergency magic.
Even when the spells had no effect, she put down both wands and rummaged through her lizard-skin pouch for life-saving potions she'd collected from Snape, trying to pour them into Senna's mouth.
Lys's hands shook terribly—for a moment she was completely flustered, taking three tries to remove the potion bottle cap, and her excessive movements knocked over the brown paper bag beside Senna.
But the food that spilled out began changing—sometimes becoming ginger root, sometimes potion ingredients. This scene confused Lys's mind and also pulled her out of her panic.
The more chaotic Lys's heart became, the more things on the ground changed. Originally only the bag's contents were changing, but later the paper bag itself transformed into a cauldron, and even Senna's hairstyle and clothing changed with Lys's uncertainty.
Lys held the potion bottle cap in one hand and the bottle in the other, standing there dumbfounded.
A wave of immense relief made Lys suddenly collapse to the ground.
She was truly afraid—she was afraid. Those memories dragged up by the Pensieve, which she'd never dared let blur over all these years, surged into Lys's heart.
She lay on that uneven ground and found a wand she'd thrown aside.
A magical creature randomly born in dark corners where magic had lingered for long periods... Boggart...
Damn Boggart...
"Riddikulus"
Under her powerless incantation, that Boggart trying hard to play Senna was blasted into a wisp of black smoke by her magic.
Holding her head, Lys knew her current state was wrong, but she couldn't stop. She seemed to have triggered some of the Dark Lord's defensive mechanisms.
The dark stone corridor gradually twisted, bringing Lys back to that unfortunate starting point.
In the big house on the mountaintop, the little dumpling who particularly loved red clothes was happily rolling on the room's gray carpet, riding on her father's shoulders in a charging pose.
Noah, being sat on by the little dumpling, was very cooperative too, raising his voice to make charging roars along with her.
This delighted the little dumpling so much she laughed "gaga" continuously, her lotus-root-like legs kicking happily. Noah, being kicked by his daughter, didn't mind at all—he just made another charging pose, earning another wave of "gaga gaga gaga" laughter.
A woman in shining clothes walked in from outside, looking at Noah and beginning to complain: "The Ministry of Magic people are so inefficient! A shop inheritance procedure has dragged on for so long! That person even hinted that nobles inheriting their family properties now have to pay nearly half the total inheritance in taxes!"
She kicked off her shoes and collapsed on the sofa without any grace, sighing as she looked at the stable home she'd finally managed to have.
Noah put down the little dumpling and went to the table to pick up a stack of data reports. Senna disgustedly looked away—she hated these trivial matters. Only potions could make her energetic enough to face them.
She acted coquettishly toward Noah: "Why don't you go instead! You go~ No matter which shop we end up with—whether it's the corner one or the one next to Flourish and Blotts—I'm fine with it! I believe my potion skills will make that shop explode with popularity! I simply can't believe you British don't have any Potions Masters!"
Holding the reports, Noah listened to Senna's demands on the left while tucking his running daughter under his right arm, agreeing with a face full of smiles, unconditionally tolerating Senna's complaints.
"I said we shouldn't have children so early! But this little thing just had to come so early—otherwise I could have participated in the previous Potions Master level assessment! Why would I need to inherit that little shop your father left... cough... left for you! I could have supported you!"
Senna stood up and walked tap-tap-tap to the dining table: "Our great chef Noah, what are we eating today?"
Lying on the cold stone of the corridor, Lys twitched once, and Senna by the dining table melted like wax and flowed to the ground without a trace.
When Lys's convulsions became more severe, those things flowing in the darkness gradually condensed again.
Noah sat in the parlor, pale-faced but stubbornly refusing to leave. Before him was that werewolf Fenrir Greyback, notorious for his fondness for biting children!
Taking a deep breath, Noah was negotiating conditions with it.
He couldn't leave—even though this house hadn't had time to set up standard anti-Apparition wards due to his and Senna's poor spell skills, he still couldn't leave. His daughter was still sleeping in the bedroom.
Facing the staring werewolf, he didn't know how to get the house-elf to take Little Star away.
But after Noah offered everything he could currently promise, it was still unsatisfied. Noah already knew the answer: it just hoped to get more benefits after completing the business of killing him. His compromises were useless.
Just when he was feeling somewhat disheartened, the house-elf came out holding that red little dumpling...
Lys's convulsions on the ground became more severe, and the wand pressed against the ground began to bend from Lys's gradually tightening grip.
Don't touch my dad! Look at me! End me from the beginning! They can escape smoothly, and I won't have to suffer for long...
The blackthorn wand produced a mournful sound, like teeth chewing wood, entering Lys's ears. Struggling Lys finally managed to lift her head slightly, but was thrown back into terrifying memories by a domineering magical force.
If she hadn't demanded Coco take her to find dad, would mom have had time to do something?
That night, probably the only thing she did right was forcibly feeding the potion into dad's mouth.
"I don't want you anymore... If you hadn't pried into the Dark Lord... If Noah hadn't chosen to save you first..." Lys's forehead pressed against the uneven rocky ground again, with alarming force.
The increasingly burning wand pulled its master back and forth between consciousness and being gripped by fear.
The Fiendfyre serpent on it seemed to have lost some restraints, trying to break free and slither to the ground but unable to succeed.
Scattered silver sparks fell beside Lys, and the invisible entangling things seemed to retreat a bit. Those scenes that made Lys fall into the abyss began melting again.
"Hey! What are you doing?!"
Lys heard someone questioning her in those wax-like melting scenes.
She looked back—there was a black shadow, standing far away under that little fruit tree, waving fists and roaring at Lys—
"You already killed it!"
"What are you afraid of?"
"That's fake! She won't abandon you—don't you know?!"
"What are you doing?!"
"What am I doing? I'm..." Lys took a deep breath and slammed her left hand toward the ground—once! Twice! The protective gear cracked, the broken bone position jabbed hard into the solid ground. Pain brought Lys back a thread of rationality.
Damn mental magic! Lys hated these spells!
Violently releasing her magic, Lys climbed up and bombarded the surroundings indiscriminately, completely lacking the caution she'd had when first stepping here.
She didn't know where those magical forces and spells hit, but Lys felt the chaotic scenes entangling her disappear before sitting down hard on the ground.
She covered her left arm, criticizing herself for capsizing in the gutter.
First easily falling for the Boggart's trick, then being suppressed by mental magic when mentally confused—this really wasn't calm enough.
But she had to say the Dark Lord's magic truly deserved his own praise.
And such powerful magic—just stored in dead objects without replenishment—could strongly suppress her. Just how strong was the Dark Lord...
She regretted again—where did her confidence come from to think she must come here?
An uncontrollable desire to know the unknown and control the future?
But when Lys returned to that small boat, it remained motionless.
She stood there waiting for more than half a day, but the boat showed no intention of moving.
Avoiding those Inferi who had begun extending their arms trying to grab her, Lys stood in that stone corridor again. Seeing the mess everywhere, she waved her wand trying to restore this place's original appearance, but she couldn't restore that mental magic.
However, that magic was wandering here—Lys could feel it.
She gripped the blackthorn wand in her hand.
She used her wand to heal her scrapes, used Transfiguration to create a simple brace to fix her left arm, binding it around her neck.
She'd been too harsh before—now her left hand could do nothing but hurt, not even hook a finger.
She leaned against that stone wall thinking about what Regulus meant by "can't get in"—wasn't this the end? And how did he get back? Why did he know this wasn't the end?
When the outside light gradually weakened, Lys sensed a different kind of magic—a forceful demand emanating from the stone wall behind her.
It seemed windy outside. The sound of waves outside the stone corridor grew louder and louder, and the temperature got colder and colder. Lys pulled her windbreaker tighter and took out a sunlight-storing torch, inserting it in her left arm's crook.
By the magical torch's light, she inch by inch felt along that stone wall with her fingers. The wall's demanding intention became stronger and more domineering.
Lys raised her wand and spent a long time barely managing to decipher some clues: weakening, sacrifice, and offering?
Lys was completely confused—offering what?
Never having felt her brain was particularly good, Lys suddenly slapped that stone wall. Why make it so complicated? The Dark Lord was so strong—if he wanted to hide something, wouldn't carrying it with him be safer?
Who would have thought the blood Lys had gotten on her hand from wiping her forehead earlier reacted when smeared on that stone wall: "Not enough."
"Not enough?" Lys frowned, looking at her palm where nearly dried bloodstains met her eyes.
Weaken herself, sacrifice blood and flesh to offer to this stone wall?
So harsh? You should know that wizards' magic permeates their whole body, with blood having the highest content. If you lose a lot of blood without replenishment, you'll become very weak.
And there was mental attack before—this Dark Lord was trying to simultaneously weaken anyone entering this place from two aspects.
The more cautious the Dark Lord's methods, the more Lys regretted getting involved. But wanting to take the boat back, it wouldn't move. The restrictions here pressed down on her, preventing her from going up to the sky or into the sea—she could only go forward.
When Lys tried to create a wound on herself, she embarrassingly discovered there was nowhere to draw blood.
Her left hand was numb with pain and had a mark on it. Once magic actively swept over it... Lys wasn't sure if it would trigger summoning the Dark Lord...
The places her right hand could reach for major bleeding were only her neck and thigh, but... she couldn't exactly take off her pants in this place, right? But if she didn't take them off, she'd have to take them off later for treatment too...
Lys turned in a circle on the ground, observing where on herself she could draw blood.
Finally, Lys took off her dragon-hide boots and drew some blood from the blood vessel at her ankle, using Transfiguration to create a stone bowl to collect the blood and splash it on the stone wall.
"Still not enough!" Lys was shocked to find the stone wall's "not enough" response becoming stronger and stronger.
Lys scratched her hair—the mental attack's aftereffects were severe, and she couldn't concentrate now.
She drew another bowl of blood and splashed it on. Only then did the stone wall rumble and crack into pieces, opening a path wide enough for one person.
The opening height was just right for Lys to pass without ducking.
Poking her head in, Lys looked left and right. It was a cramped stone cave with a sizable hole above that let her see outside—the moon had risen, and the hollow environment made the outside wave sounds increasingly noisy.
Continuing inward, Lys saw a stone platform at the cave's edge, two steps away from another place adjoining seawater.
Lys recalled the scene she'd seen when landing and laboriously constructed the spatial relationships in her mind.
She deduced there was magic here confusing the senses of those coming ashore, because when she landed, she hadn't seen anything close to this cave at all.
Otherwise, she definitely would have chosen to examine the entire environment first, rather than forcing entry through the stone wall and being compelled to weaken her mind and body.
Lys twitched her mouth—this was probably the final place hiding things. And that conspicuous stone platform was practically telling everyone who came here in bright, obvious terms:
—
Look at me! I'm that secret that will cost you your life once you know it~
I'm exactly that secret you thought you knew beforehand—one that could let you guess about the future and make choices...
~~~~❃❃~~~~~~~~❃❃~~~~
The story isn't over...
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