Chapter 211: A Silver Serpent Through the Long River
Bandon, Ireland, a remote, solitary island shrouded in banshee folklore.
The gale howled. The waves shook the isolated island violently, as if it were a ship about to sink at any moment. Giant swells crashed against the shore, sending towering plumes of spray into the air.
Above, the sun shone brightly, only serving to make the atmosphere more oppressive. Two massive beasts radiated a terrifying power, sending the island's wildlife scattering in terror.
Even the bugs burrowed in the rocks crawled out, scurrying away as if pursued by Death himself.
A colossal wolf, wreathed in a toxic, thick mist, and a grotesquely enormous basilisk monster attacked each other. It looked like a simple clash of brute force, but every single strike contained immense magical power.
At a certain level of mastery, a wand wasn't always necessary. Magic didn't need to follow a rigid formula; it could be expressed in a way that better suited one's own will.
Lockhart had intended to watch the show, but neither of the two monsters would let him. Wave after wave of attacks came relentlessly, giving him no chance to escape the battlefield.
He was like a fly darting between the two great beasts, constantly using Phantom Disapparition and Counter-Curses to weave in and out of the fight. He helped whoever was on the back foot, adopting a "the game has just started, don't stop now" attitude, becoming wilder with every passing moment.
The howling of the werewolf, the hissing of the basilisk, and Lockhart's maniacal laughter were accompanied by the tremendous, echoing booms of the surrounding environment being utterly destroyed.
It was a chaotic symphony.
Then, in a fleeting moment, the older and younger Voldemort reached a silent, perfect understanding. They joined forces, enduring Lockhart's attacks to pin down the troublesome fly.
BOOM!
The werewolf slammed its hands to the ground, howling at the sky. The clear, sunny day suddenly turned a deep, inky black, as if someone had yanked down the brightness on a phone screen. A full moon appeared, its light washing over the land. The earth began to steam.
Yes, to steam.
The entire island seemed to be shattering. Every corner fractured, and every broken piece was yanked skyward by an immense force. Falling up from the ground, the sheer feeling of plummeting into a bottomless abyss was enough to break a person's will.
Lockhart, losing control for a moment, began to fall towards the sky at an accelerating speed.
He desperately tried to use Phantom Disapparition to the ground, but no matter what he did, he couldn't seem to return to the dimension he was standing on just moments ago.
The world had been completely inverted. In a frenzy, he attacked Voldemort, only to find the older wizard wasn't giving up on his spell, stubbornly enduring Lockhart's magic. It was an opportunity. Lockhart's attacks came one after another, but it was his own overconfidence that became his undoing.
A colossal serpent shadow crashed down, slamming into his back. His body instantly shattered, unable to withstand the immense impact.
Pop!
Blood and flesh spattered everywhere.
For a moment, a hint of a smile appeared on both Voldemort and Tom's faces; they were certain they had finally killed the man.
Yet, in mid-air, the shattered flesh quickly coalesced into a thick, viscous substance, like an Obscurus. It expanded and contracted rapidly, and moments later, it reformed into Lockhart.
"Is being big supposed to be impressive?"
Lockhart yelled at them. Seeing them prepare to attack again, his body deliberately exploded. The viscous substance expanded and warped in the air with a strange, grating friction that scraped at their very souls. A massive serpent shadow appeared before the werewolf and the basilisk.
This serpent shadow was enormous.
It was even bigger than the wolf of toxic mist. Its long, silver body looked down on them, its head silhouetted against the now-clear sky.
"A Patronus!" the basilisk (Tom) shrieked in horror. "It's impossible! How could anyone cast a Patronus so real, so powerful?!"
Yes, how could anyone cast a Patronus that powerful?
Lockhart's serpent eyes were filled with a playful amusement. Tom, that's your Patronus. A perfectly pure and ultimate state of it.
"What is that—"
The werewolf (Voldemort) squinted at the giant serpent, finding it deeply unsettling. "Is that my Patronus? How could someone like me possibly have a Patronus?"
Tom froze for a moment, turning to Voldemort. "What are you talking about?"
Voldemort ignored him, his eyes fixed on the giant serpent. "Who are you, really?"
The serpent stretched its body, its silver scales shimmering with a strange, translucent luster in the sunlight, as if it were a mere phantom.
"Me?"
The serpent grinned. "Guess."
With that, the serpent lunged, its fangs baring down on the still-bewildered basilisk. A terrifying silver light erupted between its teeth—a strange magic born from a blend of the Killing Curse and the Obliviation Charm.
The serpent's fangs pierced the basilisk's skull with ease, tearing straight through its head as magical power surged forth.
Voldemort's expression grew serious.
Extremely serious.
Because this was a sight he knew all too well!
The Killing Curse created a murder, and in doing so, released an immense amount of magic. This was the very power he had used to create his Horcruxes. The scale of this magic was so vast that not even he or Dumbledore could conjure it. It was the final, unbridled cry of a life leaving the world.
Run!
Voldemort came to a decision in an instant. He didn't know why Lockhart would choose to kill his past self, whom he had worked so hard to find in the river of time, but since he had, he was certainly planning to use this massive magical energy for something! He was still weak, and he had no desire to clash with such a powerful magical force.
Voldemort took one last, long look at the basilisk, which was now undeniably dead. He watched it revert to its half-man, half-serpent form, then shrink back into a normal human, before he tore through the barrier of time and space and used a Flying Charm to escape back to his own timeline.
Strangely, he noticed that Lockhart wasn't pursuing him.
Could it be that Lockhart's goal wasn't to attack him, but to complete some kind of spell? If so, that made him even angrier. His pursuit had inadvertently turned him into Lockhart's accomplice.
Helping Lockhart kill himself!
Damn it!
Voldemort felt cheated!
But then he keenly sensed an opportunity, a chance to kill Lockhart. Maybe Lockhart wanted him to run away. What if he turned around now and caught the mysterious wizard by surprise?
Voldemort was a man of action who never hesitated or procrastinated.
The colossal werewolf body quickly collapsed into its original human form. A series of bandages wrapped around him, and a black aura swirled around his body, instantly becoming a wizard's robe. He gripped his wand and turned to fly back, ready to strike Lockhart with a Killing Curse at any moment.
Suddenly!
He felt a powerful magical force spreading from an unknown place. He could feel this energy; he even knew it was the power unleashed by the death of his past self, but he had no idea where the energy was coming from or what it was meant to do.
He finally understood the feeling of powerlessness Dumbledore must have felt when facing him.
Mysterious, ominous, incomprehensible.
It was like an itch you couldn't scratch, hidden deep beneath the skin, making you want to tear open your flesh just to get at it.
This must be a curse!
He quickly made a judgment, casting a barrage of spells to try and block the energy, constantly exploring the possible domains of the magic, while also casting detection spells in an attempt to find Lockhart.
But he was clearly wrong.
It wasn't a curse, even if it felt like one.
It was—
"GILDEROY LOCKHART!" Voldemort roared, furious, staring at the iridescent vortex of time and space. "You dare use my own magic against me?!"
It was a spell from the notebook he had traded with Lockhart, Everlasting Life Flame. A spell designed to use a person's soul as a blueprint to refresh the body and maintain peak physical vitality. It was a blessing, not a curse.
But in reality, it was a curse, because the spell had a terrifying side effect: it constantly purified the magical blood in a person's body. This was once Voldemort's ultimate goal—to strip away the impure Muggle blood from his father, Riddle, and to purify the pureblood lineage of his mother, Gaunt—but he had later abandoned this pursuit.
The purification of his magical blood would undoubtedly make him more purely connected to that bloodline, but it would also make him no longer himself. He had long given up chasing "pureblood" and had instead shifted his focus to chasing "pure self."
He should never have traded that book to Lockhart.
All his past acts of malice always seemed to come back around like a boomerang, hitting him square in the face. Fate was always so malicious and ironic!
Voldemort quickly cast spells to resist the immense magical power, but he was not at his full strength. He was merely a wraith, a spirit that had possessed the werewolf's body and was still bound by Dumbledore's spells, leaving him in an awkward, powerless limbo.
"NO!!!"
He couldn't resist the powerful magic.
Voldemort sped through the chaotic currents of time and space, trying to escape the pursuing magic. He ran, running with all his might, but he began to feel the magic corroding his body, little by little, like a flood chasing him, its waves lapping at his tiny yacht until it finally capsized and swallowed him whole.
Whoosh...
He felt as though he could hear the sound of a river. His pupils dilated as he saw a bloodline stretching deep into the folds of time and space. He saw his parents, and following the bloodline further back, he saw his grandfather, Marvolo Gaunt, and a chain of figures that extended all the way back to his ancestor, Salazar Slytherin, whom he had worshipped in his youth.
And then, a colossal silver serpent spanning the river of time appeared, following the trace of the magical bloodline, and lunged at him.
Voldemort had no way to escape.
Escape was a physical change of location, a displacement in time, a separation of contact. But from every angle, the concept of escape simply didn't apply to this situation. The magical bloodline before him was like a zipper, and the long serpent was the zipper's head. Lockhart was using some kind of power, perhaps from a Patronus born of his own essence, to travel along this bloodline and reach his end.
There was no avoiding it.
"NO!"
Voldemort roared, feeling a powerful surge of energy wash over him, rapidly changing his body.
Soon, the energy dissipated, and Lockhart was nowhere to be seen. Only Voldemort was left, still roaring in rage. He tremblingly raised his wand and waved it in front of him. A mirror appeared, reflecting his face.
A face he knew so well.
The crucial problem was—this wasn't his body!
It was the body of Fenrir Greyback, his werewolf servant!
"Lycanthropy—" Voldemort gasped, horrified, feeling the changes deep within his soul. "I'm infected with lycanthropy!"
"GILDEROY!!!!"
"I'll kill you!"
"I'LL KILL YOUUUU!!!!"
Just then, he suddenly felt the energy fluctuations in time and space again. His eyes narrowed, and he once more saw the gigantic silver serpent gliding towards him.
"!!!!" Voldemort's face contorted. In the end, he turned in fury and fled towards the end of time.
I'll be back!
I will come back!
Voldemort swore in his heart, roaring to himself.
......................
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