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Harry Potter and all of its characters belong to J.K. Rowling.
I own nothing but the original characters I make.
"Dialogue"
'Thoughts'
-Author notes-
Chapter 70: Hogwarts's Heart
In the deepest parts of Hogwarts, two levels beneath the Great Hall, was a large chamber completely inaccessible to anyone except for the Headmaster.
And the Reason why this room was located at the heart of the castle was that the most important object in all of Hogwarts was hidden here.
Without it, this would be just a completely normal castle, with no magic whatsoever.
Everything in Hogwarts was being empowered by this singular object, a massive arkstone that was over six feet tall and four feet wide.
The quartz-like crystal floated above a golden platform, emanating a powerful aura.
Dumbledore would rarely come in here because, unless something was malfunctioning, there was no reason to do so.
The arkstone array was completely autonomous and didn't require any supervision to function properly.
However, today, there was someone else in this room.
Sitting down just a few feet away from the crystal was Harry. He was holding his hat in his hands, allowing it to bathe in the magical aura that was being constantly produced by the artifact.
"Come on, V… say something." Harry had never seen his friend like this before.
During the fight with Voldemort, V had completely exhausted all of his magical reserves and gave them all to him.
Unfortunately, this didn't work both ways, and Harry was unable to feed the magic back to the hat. This one had to absorb it from the ambient magic over time.
"Why did you have to do that?" Harry didn't understand his friend's actions. To produce a spell of the caliber that he had used against the Dark Lord, a tremendous amount of energy was required.
But there was no need for V to completely exhaust himself like that. He could have kept just a bit of magic to continue functioning. That tiny amount of magic would have been enough to affect the sorcery.
If Harry didn't know any better, he would think that V had intended to self-destruct in the process of helping him.
"Why?…" Harry asked. "You know I need you," he added.
If V had actually succeeded in destroying itself, Harry would have lost his mental anchor.
Whatever would have happened after that, he wasn't very sure. But it was likely that he would lose his grip on reality and any control over his magic.
His worst fear was to end up killing the people he cared about because of this.
V knew this better than anyone else.
'He must have had a good reason… he wouldn't just leave me.' Harry closed his eyes for a moment and searched his memories of the previous night.
The moment Voldemort appeared, everything seemed to go wrong. V was very scared about something and didn't want the Dark Lord to get close to him.
"Get away… don't let him…" Those were his words.
V's fear and Voldemort's confidence during his last moments could only mean one thing.
"No." Harry already knew what the answer was, but he refused to accept it.
He opened his eyes and looked down at the hat. It had recovered its old aspect, and the leather appeared to be as good as new.
Harry could perceive how the magical reserves were quickly filling up.
There was a peculiar connection between V and Hogwarts' arkstone.
While it should be a unique artifact, Harry had used this same crystal inside the frozen world to create V, so in a way, there were now two.
"Mmmm…" The hat's mouth opened up and began to make noises.
"V!" Harry called for his friend.
"Uugg… did I fall asleep?" the hat asked. "Wait, where are we? It feels so warm."
"It's not really warmth. Your reserves are being filled." Harry sighed in relief. "Finally… what took you so long to wake up? I had to bring you to the core of Hogwarts to recover."
"The heart of… ahhh, this is the one." V stared at the magical crystal. "The one you used to create me."
"Yes, and now this one brought you back. It was close, you know? Your fragment barely held on to the artificial construct. If it didn't…"
"I would have died," said V. "I am aware of how my current body works."
"Then you know what I want to ask you," Harry said with a serious expression.
"Before that, can you tell me what happened to him?" V asked.
Harry stood silent for a moment. "I killed him."
"Not permanently," V pointed out.
"No… not permanently. I couldn't find the last Horcrux, and Bellatrix escaped before I could capture her."
"Then it all went according to his plan. He was making use of his unique situation to test you," V suggested. "This time, it won't take that long before he is brought back. I'm sure he had everything prepared for his return before setting foot inside the Weasley family's land."
"Testing me… maybe. But that is not all that he wanted. Right?" Harry asked.
"No, that is not all," V responded. "You can feel it as well, I'm sure of it. Our connection is growing we—"
"I'll fix it," Harry interrupted V. "I know what you are going to say, but that is not going to happen. I already severed the link between you two during your creation. I just have to do it again."
"Harry, that only worked because Voldemort didn't exist inside the frozen world. This time is different. I can feel it… the more time I spend in the real world, the more I become… part of him. You cannot allow that to happen. The repercussions would be catastrophic."
"I am aware of how bad that would be." Harry picked up V from the ground and placed him on his head. "We still have time. I'll figure something out."
"Harry…"
"If you have eaten your fill, we should get out of here before Dumbledore notices our presence," Harry said.
"Wait… you came here without telling the old man?"
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