"The Slytherin locket. What a beautiful creation… No matter how many times I look at it, I can't help but be fascinated by it…"
No.1 murmured softly, speaking as he gently caressed the intricate patterns engraved on the golden locket and the emerald-green snake-shaped S symbol in the center.
Unfortunately, that look of intoxicated admiration only lingered on No.1 's face for a brief moment before his expression darkened, and his stroking of the locket turned rough and violent.
"No, no, no! This is a fake! We've been tricked…"
His movements seemed to have triggered some hidden mechanism, the locket, which had been tightly shut, suddenly snapped open, revealing a folded note inside.
On it, the words were written clearly.
[To the Dark Lord]
[I know that by the time you read this, I will already be dead. But I want you to know, it was I who discovered your secret. I have taken the real Horcrux and will destroy it as soon as possible.]
[I sacrifice myself so that when you meet your match, you will be nothing more than mortal flesh.]
[R.A.B.]
No.1 's pupils widened sharply, and a violent surge of magical power almost burst out of him.
The fully armored Death Eater standing beside him as a guard grew visibly uneasy.
He could clearly feel that in the surrounding darkness, something thicker, stickier, and more terrifying than the dark itself, was beginning to writhe slowly.
Just as those dreadful things were about to touch him, No.1 , standing before the stone basin, suddenly broke into wild laughter.
"Hahahaha! Betrayed again! That bastard R.A.B. is truly something! He actually fooled Number Four? That's hilarious! I must bring this back to him, I can't wait to see the look on his face when he finds out! Ha ha ha!"
As his laughter echoed, the black, viscous masses around them dissolved and vanished as though terrified by his mirth.
The armored Death Eater let out a breath of relief, only to see No.1 thrust the locket toward him and say,
"Ha! Take care of this immediately! Not just Number Four, show it to Number Two and Number Three as well. And tell them to speed up their operations in France!"
"Yes, my lord!"
The armored wizard accepted the locket on one knee as though pardoned from death itself, then twisted his body and disappeared.
Only No.1 remained in the pitch-black cavern, still laughing wildly.
———
The events that took place in that cavern that night were, of course, unknown to outsiders. But news of Dumbledore and the Order of the Phoenix's failure to seize the Horcrux was no secret, and by the third morning after, it had already reached Link through Snape.
After delivering the news, Snape stood silently, his expression dark and brooding. Link couldn't help but want to laugh.
He tapped the desk lightly and said,
"I told you, you really ought to thank me. I dragged you out of the muck. If it weren't for me, you'd have had to play that thankless villain again, wouldn't you?"
"You expect me to thank you?" Snape said coolly. "Do you know? They all think I'm a deserter now."
"Oh, come on, Professor Snape. I know you don't care about that."
"Of course I don't care what they call me!" Snape suddenly stood up.
"What I care about is that those fools, Dumbledore and his lot, actually failed to get the Horcrux! That damn thing is probably back in Voldemort's hands now! Do you realize how impossible it'll be to get it back?!"
Link only smiled and shook his head.
He wasn't surprised that Voldemort would think to retrieve his Horcruxes, not with that mysterious force behind him. It was entirely reasonable.
What did shock Link a little, though, was that Dumbledore and the Order had lost.
That meant the mysterious power supporting Voldemort had become unimaginably strong.
As for Snape's worries, Link wasn't bothered at all.
After all, he knew perfectly well that the Horcrux in that cave had been a fake from the start.
With that in mind, Link smiled faintly and said, "All right, Professor Snape, let's not dwell on that. Right now, what's urgent is that you come with me to Durmstrang."
Saying this, Link rose and walked toward the door.
Even with Occlumency suppressing his emotions, Snape's face was still grim.
But in the end, he followed closely behind, after all, his mission in Germany was, above all, to protect Link.
Beneath Beckman Castle, a ghostly ship with a fearsome design was already moored at the lake's edge.
Gathered nearby were nearly a hundred fully armed hunters, elite troops that Link had urgently transferred from Britain after signing the Unbreakable Vow with Beckman. Their numbers were small, but every one of them was top-tier.
They were clearly fascinated by the ghost ship before them, and the Durmstrang students responsible for it were enthusiastically explaining its workings.
But when Link and Snape appeared, the excited hunters immediately fell silent and stood at attention.
"Link! Hurry up, we've been waiting for you!"
Emily, dressed in a lady's gown, waved excitedly from within the crowd.
She had absolute confidence in Link's decisions, to her, this trip to Durmstrang was nothing more than a fun journey.
Not so for Krell and Beckman, who both looked deadly serious, well aware of how deep Link's strategies ran.
When Link and Emily boarded the ship, hand in hand, welcomed by Krum, the hunters followed into the cargo hold.
Then, with a monstrous roar, the ghost ship slowly sank beneath the lake's surface and disappeared.
"Link," Krum explained, "we're aboard one of Durmstrang's two remaining ghost ships, the Black Pearl. Our ancestors cast countless enchantments upon it. The most incredible is the massive Apparition Array!"
"Once the entire ship is submerged, the array activates, and it can instantly transport us to almost any lake or sea in the world that isn't warded against Apparition!"
Running his hand over the wooden interior, Link marveled, "Remarkable alchemical craftsmanship! Wait, did you say you still have two ships like this?"
"Of course. The other one's the Flying Dutchman, the one that took us to Hogwarts for the Triwizard Tournament. But it's under repair, so we had to bring this one."
"The… Flying Dutchman?"
Link's expression froze, the Black Pearl had already been a funny coincidence, but now hearing that name from Krum's mouth nearly made him laugh.
Just then, the Black Pearl began to shudder violently.
Emily, who had been admiring the décor, stumbled, but Link caught her just in time.
"Don't worry," Krum said, hanging casually from a ceiling beam.
"That's just the Black Pearl's old problem, it always shakes during Apparition. The others didn't, but we used to have five ships total. Too bad we ran out of money for upkeep, and now they're all scrapped."
He grinned. "Anyway, we've probably arrived. Let's go!"
Before Link or Emily could complain, Krum herded them up to the deck.
Outside, the world had turned into a landscape of black mountains and white snow, the stark, wintry realm of Durmstrang.
The Durmstrang Institute of Magic stood before them, surrounded by peaks, overlooking the frozen lake.
Compared with Hogwarts, another of Europe's three great magical schools, Durmstrang looked rather poor. Its main complex wasn't so much a castle as a cluster of low stone fortresses, four stories high at most, unless magically expanded.
But while the buildings were humble, the students were anything but.
As the ship docked, countless Durmstrang students, wearing only shirts despite the cold, flew toward them on broomsticks from all directions.
They greeted Link and his party cheerfully, some even performing daring acrobatics using the ship and nearby cliffs as props.
Their rosy faces and gleeful grins made one thing clear, they weren't doing this out of duty, but for sheer joy.
"What a bunch of lunatics…" Emily couldn't help but mutter as one girl shot through a narrow mountain pass.
"Don't be surprised," Krum laughed. "In summer, we love flying everywhere. Winters are too harsh, we're stuck indoors for months. So when it's warmer, we make up for it."
"Warmer…?" Emily said blankly.
She was beginning to doubt the Durmstrang students' sense of temperature, it was so cold that several of the hunters were sniffling, and they called this warm?
Emily tugged gently at Link's sleeve, but he didn't respond, his attention was fixed on the other ghost ships moored nearby.
Just as Krum said, there were indeed five in total, all battered and decaying.
The Black Pearl and the Flying Dutchman were mid-sized; the other three, one large, two small, lay stranded on the black sand shore, clearly long defunct.
Link's eyes gleamed with interest as he studied them.
He couldn't deny the spark of excitement in him, if those wrecked ships could be restored, maybe as a school governor he could claim one for himself?
Practical or not didn't matter, it would just be cool.
"Link, we should disembark now."
Krum's voice snapped him out of his thoughts. "Sorry, Link, Headmaster Dugg isn't here to greet us. It's the deputy headmaster instead. Dugg's too old; he really can't handle this weather."
That made Link pause. He glanced at the approaching group and lowered his voice, "Of course I understand Professor Dugg's condition. But tell me… this deputy headmaster of yours, whose side is he on?"
"He's with us, without question."
Link nodded, put on a bright smile, and led the group forward.
But as they drew closer, he was startled to find that the person standing at the very front of the welcoming party was none other than Madame Maxime.
Gone was her warm, friendly air from Hogwarts. Now her expression was cold, her towering frame, over three meters tall, radiating a hard, intimidating strength that few women possessed, even with giant's blood.
Behind her, the supposed deputy headmaster looked hesitant and nervous, standing along with the other professors and students firmly under her control.
But Link, flanked by over a hundred armed hunters, wasn't about to be intimidated.
Smiling faintly, he raised a hand in greeting.
"Good morning, Madame Maxime. It's a pleasure to meet you here again. Oh, and I should pass along Hagrid's message. He misses you dearly and would love to embrace you once more."
That last line made several people who knew the story burst out laughing.
Even Maxime flushed, her stern demeanor faltering as the aura of intimidation melted away.
But she recovered quickly, her face hardening again as she took a deep breath and said, "Link, we've known each other for some time. Must you really get involved in this?"
"How can you call it 'getting involved'?" Link replied lightly. "I'm just here at Krum's invitation, to make a donation to Durmstrang, that's all. You know me, I'm such a kind person."
At that, Maxime's facial muscles twitched.
She honestly couldn't fathom how Link had the nerve to call himself kind.
Still, she could sense the steel behind his words.
Her expression darkened. "In that case, we'll see each other at the negotiation table."
With that, she turned sharply, leading the Beauxbatons students, clad in violet-blue coats, back toward the fortress.
Only then did Link notice Fleur standing behind her.
She hadn't left with the others, instead, she gave Link a soft, bittersweet smile and waved.
Her smile looked strained, especially when her gaze fell on Link and Emily's joined hands, and the matching wedding rings on their fingers.
Even so, she walked slowly toward him.
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