Harry returns from Hogwarts Legacy

Chapter 172 Horcruxes, and Dark Magic Curses (12000 words)
Upon hearing the news, Harry stood up suddenly.

"What did you say?! Sebastian is in Azkaban?!"

He really didn't expect that Sebastian would be imprisoned in Azkaban?
Morfin took two quick breaths and panted, "Yes, he is in the cell on the right, across the room from us. He should... still be alive."

"Professor." Harry glanced at Dumbledore and turned away.

As soon as he walked out of the cell, the Dementors came close to him.

Harry snapped his fingers, and a circle of blue flames ignited around him.

The Dementors seemed to have seen something terrible and retreated quickly, and it seemed as if they had seen the Dementors.

"Harry, you shouldn't do this."

Dumbledore's words came from the cell.

Without turning around, Harry said, "I'm just trying to reason with them."

With that, Harry found the cell that Morfin had mentioned.

Through the bars of the cell, Harry could see a skinny old man huddled inside.

"Sebastian?"

He whispered his old friend's name.

The old man raised his head suddenly and looked outside in disbelief.

"Harry? Is that you, Harry?"

Harry flicked his wand, dissolving the bars, and quickly walked into the cell.

"Sebastian, is it really you?" He stood in front of the old man, squatted down and asked.

"It's me! It's me."

Sebastian lowered his head, covered his face with one hand and said, "I can't believe that Miss Malfoy's prediction turned out to be correct. You really went back a hundred years..."

"Cassandra's prophecy?"

Harry asked in surprise.

Sebastian thought for a moment and said to Harry:

"Yes, after you disappeared, Miss Grindelwald was very worried. She wanted to know what happened and whether Lanlock died with you... But Miss Malfoy brought the prophecy ball from home. According to her, she didn't want to make your friends who cared about you sad. The scene in the prophecy ball was something we had never seen before... Later, Miss Malfoy said that you actually came from 1991, so we guessed that you returned to the time when you came here."

"Later, Miss Grindelwald found a time magic and planned to use it to go to 1991. We helped her reinforce Slytherin's study... After that, Pappy also disappeared, and then Miss Malfoy... But Miss Malfoy seemed to have gone to the home of the prophet Trelawney to learn prophecies. Later, I don't know why she came back, and then she disappeared. Mr. Malfoy was very angry and ordered her to be removed from the family."

"I guess she must have come to find you... but not long after, probably a few years later. Perhaps because Miss Grindelwald was sealed in Slytherin's study, my uncle Solomon - as you know, he was rescued by Miss Grindelwald at that time."

At this point, Sebastian sighed.

"For some reason, Solomon recovered his memory. He recalled that I used the Killing Curse on him, so... he reported me to the Ministry of Magic. They checked my wand and found that I had used all the Unforgivable Curses more than once. So, as you can see, I came here... Before leaving, I entrusted Annie to Omnis, hoping that he could help me take good care of Annie..."

"By the way, Anne..." Sebastian suddenly didn't bother to cover his face, raised his head and asked: "How is Anne? Harry? Have you seen Anne..."

"I'm sorry, Sebastian." Harry sighed and said, "I came here to find Omnius... He left me a letter somewhere in the Trial of Merlin, and I also met the Sphinx - I used the gaze of the basilisk to kill the Sphinx, but it was only after that that I realized that the Sphinx would not strangle me to death just because I couldn't answer the riddle."

"Bassilisk? Kill the Sphinx?"

Sebastian's expression turned strange. "Harry, don't you know that the Sphinx is immune to the gaze of the basilisk..."

Harry's heart skipped a beat when he heard this.

He quickly took out his wallet, opened it and looked inside.

Alfonso, the basilisk, was crawling on the ground like a maggot, begging for mercy in Parseltongue; the Sphinx... At this time, the Sphinx transformed into another image with an eagle head and a lion body, and kept pecking at Alfonso's tail.

It seems that the Sphinx has no intention of eating Alfonso, but may just want to take revenge on him for glaring at it.

"Gryffindor boy!"

The Sphinx noticed Harry opening his wallet and yelled, "You actually tried to kill the symbol of Gryffindor..."

"You're just a sphinx, not a lion." Harry tried to defend himself: "Besides, it's not my fault. After all, the legendary Sphinx will always strangle people to death when they can't answer questions..."

"Oh." The Sphinx said, "Your basilisk - I really don't know why a Gryffindor would keep a basilisk, but don't worry, it's not dead. I'm just playing with it."

"How can you play like this!" Alfonso shouted unwillingly, "Besides, the great master is Slytherin, not Gryffindor!"

"Only a Gryffindor would be so reckless. You have been fooled by him, Basilisk." The Sphinx hissed in Parseltongue.

"He's definitely Slytherin!" Alfonso replied.

"We'll talk about your business later." Harry had a headache. "Also, you two should be gentler. I have something important to do."

After saying that, he closed his wallet.

"So you have a basilisk and a sphinx in your wallet?" Sebastian blew a half-formed dry whistle. "You are much cooler now than I was back then, Harry. It's worth it that I taught you so many interesting spells."

"Yes, and then you were put in Azkaban," Harry sighed. "How do you feel now? I'll take you out in a moment - wait until I ask Morfin Gaunt where the portrait of Omnius is."

"Yes, you just mentioned Omenis. What did his letter say?" Sebastian asked with concern.

"Omnius said that he used time magic to seal Annie in a cave somewhere, hoping that a hundred years from now there will be a way to lift the dark magic curse," Harry replied.

Sebastian seemed stunned at what Harry said.

His cloudy eyes stared at Harry blankly, as if he couldn't believe what Harry had just said.

"What's wrong with you?" Harry asked concernedly.

Unexpectedly, Sebastian held his head in pain, grabbed his remaining hair, and whispered: "Merlin... Omnis... Omnis..."

He sobbed quietly and didn't recover for a long time.

Harry sat with him until he spoke again.

"This magic... I know that this magic requires the caster to sacrifice his life." Sebastian said painfully: "Those who fool time will eventually pay a price in one way or another... Omnis..."

Harry looked at Sebastian in shock, he never imagined that freezing Anne in time would require such a huge price.

"I shouldn't have entrusted Annie to Omenis. I knew it, I knew it..."

Sebastian hit his head in self-blame. It was true that he loved his sister, but he didn't want to sacrifice his best friend for her.

Seeing him so sad, Harry comforted him: "Maybe things are not that bad, you know, Omnis always has a way."

Seeing that he was still indifferent and just sad on his own, Harry spoke again to comfort him: "Maybe you should come out with me, and we can go find Omnius together and rescue Annie."

"It's no use, Harry," Sebastian said softly. "I'm a wanted criminal by the Ministry of Magic. They won't let me go easily."

"I'll go find Dumbledore," Harry said to Sebastian, "Dumbledore is the president of the International Confederation of Wizards. If he shows up, I believe you'll be able to get out soon."

Sebastian looked up.

"If you just let me go, it wouldn't be a difficult task." Sebastian said softly: "Actually-"

After saying that, he stood up.

Harry was horrified to find that Sebastian's old body seemed to shed its skin and fell down, and a transparent ghost stood up.

He still looked like he was seventeen years old, as if time had been frozen in his memory.

"This is a dark magic item I stole from the Omines' house. It allows me to disguise myself and escape the Dementors' search - in fact, I died decades ago."

Harry couldn't accept it.

"But you just clearly..."

Sebastian smiled nonchalantly: "I told you, that's dark magic. Don't ask too much about dark magic. Don't worry, Harry, I won't teach you this magic. I'm really afraid that Grindelwald and Malfoy will come after me and completely destroy my ghost body."

"They won't." Harry said quickly. He looked up and down at Sebastian's ghost body and asked curiously, "Then how can I get you out? If the Dementors see you, I'm afraid they will cling to you and try to suck you to death."

"Open your wallet and I'll jump in for now," Sebastian said. "And let me out when you get back to Hogwarts - God, do you know how much I miss Hogwarts?"

Sebastian's voice was relaxed, as if it wasn't him who turned into a ghost.

Harry did as he was told. He opened his wallet and Sebastian's ghost jumped in with a whoosh.

He put away his wallet, took one last look at Sebastian's body, then turned and left the cell.

Just as he walked out, Dumbledore also walked out of Morfin's cell. After seeing Harry, he stretched out his hand and waved at him.

"I see you have finished your conversation with Mr. Saru?" Dumbledore said. "How was your meeting with an old friend?"

"We'll talk about it when we get back," Harry said to Dumbledore.

Dumbledore suddenly asked seriously, "Did you put him in your wallet? I need to remind you that although the Dementors cannot find him in your pocket under the Traceless Extension Charm, they will check the original cell."

Harry understood what Professor Dumbledore meant.

What he understood was: If you want to take him out, I think you can put him in the pocket of your invisible extension charm and find a suitable replacement, otherwise the Dementors will keep pestering you.

"There was a small problem. He turned into a ghost." Harry whispered, "He said he died a long time ago. It was only because of some small dark magic items in the Gaunt family that he was kept in a state that could not be discovered by the Dementors. If the Dementors found that he had turned into a ghost, I am afraid his end would be miserable."

"So that's it..."

Dumbledore nodded slightly, and the two took a few steps forward when they found that a large number of Dementors rushed up to the seventh floor and surrounded them.

The leader was a guy who was stronger than the other Dementors. The robe he wore was also colorful black, which made him look very oppressive.

He walked forward, raised his head and asked Dumbledore: "I heard from my people that your people went to other cells privately?"

Although this Dementor can speak, his voice is unclear and almost indistinguishable if you don't listen carefully.

"Oh, that's true, ENIAC." Dumbledore had no intention of denying it. He looked down at Harry and said, "Harry, what's going on?"

"This is what happened, Mr. ENIAC." Harry tried to smile kindly, "I just wanted to go to the bathroom, and I saw that the room was empty. When I finished using the bathroom, I found a dead person lying inside."

"Dead people?" ENIAC looked at Harry with a frown.

He waved at the two Dementors behind him.

The two Dementors floated towards Sebastian's cell, and soon floated back.

The two of them whispered to ENIAC for a while, and ENIAC looked up and said, "The man in the cell - Sebastian Salu, he is dead. This young man, it can't be you..."

Before he could finish his words, he was interrupted by Dumbledore.

"ENIAC, my student is only thirteen years old. You don't think he killed Mr. Saru, do you?"

Dumbledore's blue eyes seemed to flicker with anger.

Eniak and Dumbledore looked at each other for a moment and explained, "Oh, that's not the case. It's just a coincidence. Well, since there's nothing else to do, I think you should leave Azkaban."

After saying that, ENIAC led the Dementors to make way for Harry and Dumbledore to pass.

The two of them walked among the Dementors, and it seemed that Dumbledore had no fear of the Dementors at all.

Harry always felt that these Dementors seemed to be looking at him with ill intentions, but he didn't care much.

Are they going to rush to Hogwarts and attack me?
Haha, how is that possible.

After walking out of the castle of Azkaban, Dumbledore turned around and asked Harry: "Let's go back to school first. It's not an easy thing to get out of Azkaban. I think you should eat something first, then take a bath, and then we can look at Morfin Gaunt's memory, the memory of Tom."

"Okay, Professor," Harry nodded.

After returning to school, Harry did not go back to the dormitory immediately, but went to Newt's tent.

Newt had just answered a question for his Hufflepuff classmates, and he looked somewhat reluctant.

In fact, what Newt resisted most was going to work. Before this, he had repeatedly rejected Dumbledore's invitation to teach at Hogwarts. If it weren't for Pappy, he would never have become the professor of Care of Magical Creatures at Hogwarts.

Seeing Harry coming into the tent, Newt looked very awkward.

His social phobia told him that he should not welcome Harry enthusiastically, but his desire to find out the secret of the Basilisk made him want to get close to it and take the Basilisk out of Harry's wallet to study it thoroughly.

"Professor Scamander." Harry greeted him, then looked at the student holding a notebook next to Newt and said to him, "I'll go into the tent first and wait for you to sign for the students."

In fact, the students had no such plan at first, but after hearing what Harry said, everyone's eyes sparkled and they handed the notebooks in their arms to Newt.

Helpless, Newt could only take the notebook, sign the words "Newt Scamander" on it one by one, and then escaped back to the tent.

When Newt came in, Harry said mysteriously, "Professor, you will never imagine what kind of magical creature I encountered."

Newt originally wanted to ask about the basilisk, but when he heard Harry say "magical creatures", he immediately forgot about the basilisk.

In his opinion, the magical animals that Harry could find must be rare species, the kind that are hard to see in normal times.

"What is it?" he asked curiously.

Harry smiled at Newt and took out his wallet mysteriously.

"I encountered a legendary magical creature in Merlin's Chamber of Secrets. Can you guess, Professor Scamander, what kind of magical creature would make people guess riddles?"

"Guess a riddle?"

Newt was stunned for a moment, and then a look of shock appeared on his face.

"No, it can't be? That kind of... isn't that a magical animal that only exists in legends?"

"Yes, it really is." Harry nodded with a smile.

“Oh my god, Harry,” Newt came forward at lightning speed and looked at Harry’s wallet with envy. “You really have connections. Not only can you get the legendary basilisk raised by Slytherin, but you can even get the Sphinx raised by Merlin—Is it raised by Merlin?”

"I didn't ask him. At the time, I thought it would strangle me if I couldn't guess the riddle, so I opened my wallet and let him and the basilisk look at each other." Harry said with a shrug.

"How could you do this!" Newt looked at Harry in shock. "It's a sphinx - a kind of lion, and you... you are a Gryffindor, how could you treat it like this?"

"But a basilisk's gaze can't kill the Sphinx." Harry shrugged and said, "The last time I opened my wallet, it was still chasing the basilisk and pecking its tail for fun... but it has a bad temper."

"If someone used a basilisk against me for no reason, I might not be in a good mood." Newt looked up at Harry and said, "You really fit my stereotype of Gryffindor, impulsive!"

"What else can I say?" Harry opened his wallet and shook it twice.

However, when he shook it, the gray ghost of Sebastian fell out, but it did not fall to the ground. Instead, it was suspended in the air, looking stiff.

Harry was about to say something when the hissing of the basilisk came next.

"I'm sorry - little master, I forgot that your friend couldn't look me in the eye. But don't worry, the ghost won't die. Just pour some of the antidote made with mandrake on him and he will be back to normal."

"You are really capable of causing trouble, where is the Sphinx?" he asked.

"Here," the Sphinx replied, and then jumped out of the wallet.

He was quite large in body, and when he jumped out, his head almost hit the top of the tent.

"Oh my god, it's so beautiful..."

Newt looked up at the Sphinx as if in pilgrimage, muttering to himself.

"I think he should be a variant of the Sphinx, the Hierocosphinx."

"No, I am the Sphinx." The Sphinx shook his head, as if shaking off something stuck on the eagle's feathers: "Before the little wizard in front of you attacked me, I did have a lion's head."

"I'm sorry, Sphinx." Harry apologized fluently, "But this is not my fault. After all, the legends I know about the Sphinx are that the people who were asked could not answer the riddles, and then they were strangled to death by the Sphinx - I thought you would strangle me to death too."

"I forgive you, but I don't want to accept this excuse because I don't have the habit of being cruel." The Sphinx said unhappily, "Hera, if I knew who said that to me, I would strangle him to death!"

"Hera?" Newt asked curiously, "Is Hera your faith?"

"I just happen to know Hera, young man."

The Sphinx's eagle head showed a human smile: "But that was a long time ago. She asked me to embarrass Oedipus, but Oedipus was smart and guessed my riddle, so I flew away." "Didn't you jump off the cliff?" Newt asked tentatively, "I remember that's what was recorded in Greece."

The Sphinx flapped the wings on its back - the meaning was obvious, do you think these two wings are just for decoration?

"Oh, so Hera really exists?" Harry suddenly asked. "I mean - Hera, the Queen of Heaven, and Zeus, and the gods of Olympus?"

"Guess?" A playful smile appeared on the Sphinx's face.

"They may be some powerful wizards, Harry." Newt explained to Harry: "In fact, many so-called 'gods' in mythology are powerful wizards, such as the despicable Herpo, who is a very powerful wizard."

The Sphinx's smile became mysterious, neither confirming nor denying.

"So the Sphinx is a tribe? Or... is it really one of the daughters of the giant Typhon and the basilisk Echidna as Greek mythology says?" Newt suddenly asked.

"There are three siblings." The Sphinx said concisely, "I have two brothers and sisters. The brother in Persia is a winged bull with a human face, a beard, and a crown. The brother in Egypt has a goat's head and a lion's body. The one in Greece is me. I am the youngest sister, and my deeds are quite different from the myths you have heard."

“So you’ve been alive until now? Since BC?” Newt asked incredulously.

"Of course," the Sphinx replied.

"Then why did you enter Merlin's Chamber of Secrets?" Harry asked again: "Do you know Merlin?"

"Of course I know Merlin. In fact, I have been providing him with a lot of help during his growth." The Sphinx smiled humanely. "The last person who broke into the Chamber of Secrets was Omnis Gaunt, the blind guy. I told him that I would do him a favor as long as he could answer my questions... Then he asked me to wait for you here, but he didn't expect that you would be such a reckless man."

"After all, I am a Gryffindor represented by the lion."

Harry spread his hands and said.

The Sphinx shook its head and turned back into a sphinx.

Her human-like appearance showed that she was not a good person. At least Newt understood in an instant why Harry released the basilisk to target her in the first place.

Yes, it's her.

"You should change back into an eagle head, Sphinx." Harry pouted and said, "You really look like a very strict female teacher..."

"How are you going to place me?" The Sphinx ignored Harry's words, "I have been dormant in Merlin's Chamber of Secrets... You brought me out of there, so you must be responsible for it, black-haired boy."

"Why don't you stay in Hogwarts?" Harry said to the Sphinx, then turned to look at Newt: "I think Professor Scamander wouldn't mind having another you in the tent."

At this, Newt nodded his head like a bird eager to be fed.

"I refuse." The Sphinx yawned. "Is there any other job? I heard that Merlin is a Slytherin student, so I also want to stay in Hogwarts and do some work or something."

Hearing what the Sphinx said, Newt was extremely shocked.

"Merlin? Is Merlin really a student of Slytherin?" Newt asked in shock, "But wasn't Merlin a person from around the fifth century? How could he be a student of Slytherin? Oh my God..."

"Because Merlin also traveled through time, it's that simple." The Sphinx waved its lion paw and said indifferently.

Newt looked down and mouthed "whoa".

He really didn't expect that Merlin was actually a student of Slytherin - he always thought that this was just a statement made by some people in Slytherin to flatter themselves.

It turns out this is all true!
it is true!
"Hey!" Harry held up a finger. He really thought of a new job suitable for the Sphinx. "How about you replace the Fat Lady and watch the Gryffindor gate - this will also make Hogwarts safer."

Of course, he wasn't just imagining things. After all, when it came to guarding the gate, the Sphinx should be better than the Fat Lady.

Of course, there was nothing wrong with the Fat Lady, it's just that she was a little too much of a show-off, and sometimes she was so busy with her own things that she would easily forget to open the door - for example, a few days ago she was practicing soprano, and she didn't open the door until she annoyed the waiting students.

"Guard the gate?" The Sphinx was a little interested.

She didn't think there was anything wrong with guarding the gate. In fact, what Hera asked her to do was not much different from guarding the gate.

"Yeah, just like the door knocker of Ravenclaw College." Newt also said on the side: "Only after answering the questions asked by the door knocker correctly will students be allowed to enter the common room... I think Gryffindor should also promote it, at least it can make you lions less reckless."

The Sphinx's frowning brows suddenly became firm after hearing "make you lions less reckless".

Yes, as a lion, how can I sit back and watch lions with the same attributes as me being labeled as "reckless"?

"I think this suggestion is very good." Sphinx said in a relaxed tone: "The next problem we face is how to convince the principal of this school."

"Principal Dumbledore is a very easy-going person." Harry said with a smile, "But the problem we are facing now is not just this, there is also... Sebastian."

Then he reached out and patted Sebastian's petrified soul.

He was shocked to find that the petrified Sebastian's soul had become physical, and the touch of his hand on it felt like touching stone.

"Perhaps you can carry him up. Anyway, I think you should give your little snake a good beating to prevent him from petrifying someone again next time." The Sphinx said gloatingly, "I hope you can find enough Mandrake potion."

"There's still stock." Harry said, carrying Sebastian and walking towards Madam Pomfrey's hospital ward.

In the school hospital, Madam Pomfrey was applying medicine to a classmate who had fallen. She did not stop moving her hands when she saw Harry coming in carrying a gray ghost.

"Oh my god, Mr. Potter, has Slytherin's Chamber of Secrets been opened again?"

"No, it was just an accident." Harry said to Madam Pomfrey, "Excuse me, do you have any remaining anti-petrification potion? My ghost friend has been petrified..."

"There are still some left. Just leave him here." Madam Pomfrey said, "Remember to come and take him away at this time tomorrow. It takes time to remove the petrification."

"Yes, ma'am." Harry bowed politely to Madam Pomfrey and placed Sebastian's ghost on the bed.

He reached out and patted Sebastian's shoulder, whispering, "I'll see you tomorrow, buddy."

After that, he left the school hospital and went to the principal's office.

In the headmaster's office, Dumbledore was resting with his eyes closed. When he heard Harry come in, he didn't even open his eyes and asked softly, "Harry?"

"It's me, Professor." Harry waved to Phineas who was standing beside him.

Phineas also waved at him, looking like a good brother.

Dumbledore rubbed his eyes, looking tired.

"What's wrong with you, Professor?" Harry asked concernedly.

Dumbledore sighed.

"Newt has just been here. He said he wants the Sphinx you brought back to be the gatekeeper of Gryffindor."

Harry:?
No, how did you get here so fast?!

It can be seen that Professor Scamander really wants to keep the Sphinx.

"So what do you think?" Harry asked uncertainly.

"I have no objection, but we can't let the Fat Lady lose her job. After all, she has been guarding the door in front of the Gryffindor common room for hundreds of years." Dumbledore said with a smile.

He added: "But you can ask the Fat Lady for her opinion. Maybe she doesn't want to be the doorkeeper anymore?"

"I doubt whether the Gryffindor students can still enter the dormitory if the Sphinx is guarding the door..." Harry said, holding his forehead.

"I think what Newt said is very good. It can train the Gryffindors' thinking ability and make you no longer reckless." Dumbledore said leisurely: "In addition, there are smart children in Gryffindor. If I remember correctly, Hermione is a very smart witch. I believe that the Sphinx can't stump her."

"Okay." Harry didn't care. The Sphinx wouldn't stop him out anyway.

He sat in front of Dumbledore and drank two glasses of sugar-free lemonade. Then Dumbledore stood up and invited him to come to the Pensieve.

"Come, Harry," said Dumbledore. "I have poured Morfin's memories into this Pensieve, and we can look at them together."

"Can we watch the Pensieve together?" It was the first time Harry heard of this.

"Of course." Dumbledore smiled at him.

Harry walked over to the basin and bent over it before Dumbledore did, until his face sank beneath the liquid of memory.

He felt the familiar sensation of falling into nothingness, just like the memory of seeing his mother, and then stepped on a dirty stone floor, and it was almost pitch black around him.

Not long after, Dumbledore joined him.

Magic is amazing. The memories in the meditation basin can be watched by multiple people together, creating a similar online effect.

It should be said that the Gaunt house in Morfin's memory was uglier than the one Harry had seen a few days ago.

The ceiling was covered with a thick layer of cobwebs, the floor was covered with dirt, and moldy and rotten food was stuffed into a pile of messy old jars on the table, which looked like it hadn't been cleaned up in more than a year.

The only light came from a single candle placed at the feet of the younger version of Morfin. His hair and beard were so long, apparently untended, that Harry could not see his eyes or mouth.

He was huddled in an arm-chair by the fire, and lay quite motionless, apparently dead.

Not long after, there was a loud knock on the door, and the man immediately woke up. He raised a wand in his right hand and a dagger in his left hand.

The door creaked open and a boy came in holding an old-fashioned lantern.

The boy was tall, pale, black-haired, and handsome. It was the teenage Tom Riddle.

Tom's eyes slowly scanned the cabin and then stopped on Morfin.

The two of them stared at each other for a few seconds, then Morfin stood up straight, and the many empty bottles at his feet fell to the ground with a clatter and rolled across the floor.

"You!" he roared. "You!"

He rushed towards Tom drunkenly, holding his wand and knife high.

"stop."

Tom hissed something in what Harry knew was Parseltongue.

Morfin stopped abruptly at the table, knocking the moldy jars to the floor.

He stared at Tom intently, as if he had discovered something unbelievable.

It can be seen that his mind is struggling with both inner and outer conflicts and is running at an overclocked speed.

"You said...you said that?" Mo Finn looked at the familiar face in front of him hesitantly: "That?"

"Yes, I did," said Tom casually, closing the door behind him and moving closer to Morfin.

Looking at the extremely slovenly relative from his mother's side in front of him, Tom frowned in disgust.

"So... who are you?"

"I am Morfin Gaunt," Morfin answered.

"Marvolo Gaunt's son?" asked Tom.

"I am, then..."

Morfin pushed the hair away from his dirty face to get a better look at Tom, and the ring on his right hand caught Harry's attention - at the same time, Harry also noticed that Dumbledore beside him was also staring at the ring.

"I thought you were that Muggle," Morfin whispered. "You look an awful lot like that Muggle."

"Which Muggle?" Tom asked eagerly.

"That Muggle my sister had a crush on, the Muggle who lived in the big house over there," said Morfin, and unexpectedly he slapped the floor between them. "You look so much like him, Tom Riddle, but he's old now. Older than you are. Let me see..."

Morfin looked a little dizzy and shaky, still holding on to the edge of the table for support.

"He's back," he added.

Tom stared at Morfin, as if trying to sort out the information he wanted to know in his mind. Then he leaned closer and asked, "You mean - that Riddle is back?"

"Ah, he left her and took his lawful bride, and married that filthy creature!" said Morfin, slapping the floor again indignantly. "Before she ran off and robbed us, where's the box? Er, where's Slytherin's locket?"

Tom did not answer. Morfin himself was again seized with a rage, and as if in a hysterical frenzy, he brandished his knife at Tom and shouted, "She has done this to us, the little whore! What the hell are you doing asking questions about, you bastard bitch? It's all over... it's all over..."

Morfin seemed to have used up all his strength and sat back on the chair somewhat weakly. Tom took the opportunity to step forward.

At this moment, Harry felt himself falling into darkness, then he felt someone grabbing his arm, and then his head quickly lifted up, escaping from the darkness of this blank memory.

"So, that's all the information?" Harry asked uncertainly. "What about the portrait of Omnius? Any news?"

"No, Harry," said Dumbledore, "because Morfin Gaunt didn't remember what happened afterwards. He only remembered that when he woke up the next morning, he was lying on the floor. At the same time, the ring belonging to Marvolo Gaunt on his hand disappeared, as well as the portrait of Omnis Gaunt. No one knew where Voldemort had taken him."

"At the same time, the old Riddle family died in Little Hangleton," said Dumbledore. "Killed by the Killing Curse."

"Did Tom do it?" Harry immediately thought of a possibility.

"Muggles didn't know what had happened, but the Ministry of Magic knew it was caused by the Killing Curse - and they also knew that not far from Little Hangleton, there was a family that hated Muggles extremely, and that this family had attacked the old Riddle family, so they went to the Gaunt family as soon as possible."

Dumbledore touched his white beard when he said this. "The Ministry of Magic didn't waste much effort at all. Morfin thought he had killed the old Riddle family and even felt extremely honored for it. So he was imprisoned in Azkaban without even going through any procedures."

"He was very scared about losing the ring, and he kept telling people that old Marvolo would kill him - but he also confessed to me what he had done. Perhaps the long years in Azkaban did torture his conscience."

"It may not be repentance, maybe just not wanting to die." Harry didn't think the dark wizard would change his evil ways. "Even if Tom hadn't framed him, Morfin Gaunt would still be a scum of the wizarding world in the future - so what about the ring?"

"I have every reason to suspect that the ring was stolen by Voldemort and used to do something evil," said Dumbledore.

"Evil things?" Harry suddenly remembered what happened before: "Professor, I remember that a diary of Voldemort once appeared in Slytherin. The Voldemort in the diary was a young Tom; and the notebook Pansy was holding was the one that was attached to the back of Quirrell's head... Maybe Voldemort split his soul..."

At this point, the two looked at each other and said in unison: "Horcruxes have been made!"

"That notebook should be the Horcrux made by Voldemort when he was young." Harry said after a moment's silence: "The Voldemort in the notebook is Tom Riddle when he was young. He disguised himself as a girl and deceived Slytherin."

"As far as I know, the process of making a Horcrux is to split the wizard's soul through murder and other acts, and then take part of the soul out of the body and put it into an object outside the body. This object is the Horcrux."

Dumbledore paused, then reached out and pulled out an orange candy.

"In this way, even if the wizard's body is attacked or destroyed, he will not die, because a part of his soul fragments will be preserved intact in the world, undamaged."

"If I remember correctly, at that age he had just opened the Chamber of Secrets and used the Basilisk's gaze to kill Moaning Myrtle." Harry tapped the table and said, "He split his soul in this way and made a Horcrux...which is his notebook."

"But this doesn't make sense, Harry." Dumbledore frowned and said, "Last year in Slytherin's Chamber of Secrets, the notebook that Miss Parkinson held contained the soul of Voldemort who was stuck to the back of Quirrell's head last school year... Why is that?"

"Perhaps for some reason we don't know," Harry said to Dumbledore, "at least I have destroyed that part of Voldemort's soul."

"No, Harry." Dumbledore sighed and said, "If you have a Horcrux, you will be immortal. Even if you use some powerful spells, you can't kill his soul. This is the Horcrux."

"This makes sense. Once the soul is split, it becomes extremely unstable. This is why Voldemort became more and more irritable in the end, as if he had lost his mind and became crazy and irritable." Dumbledore said with emotion: "It is also for this reason that a large number of dark wizards are unwilling to make Horcruxes even if they have the ability. They would rather die happily than split their souls."

"Can only one Horcrux be made?" Harry asked curiously.

He knew about Horcruxes from Sebastian. At that time, he wanted to save Anne like crazy and even studied such evil things as Horcruxes to try to free Anne from the influence of the black magic curse and prolong her life.

But he only had a brief understanding of it and didn't know the specific details.

"Not sure." Dumbledore said, "Theoretically, the soul can be split infinitely, but no one has ever experienced this... Ordinary wizards cannot bear this kind of pain, Harry."

"But Voldemort is not an ordinary wizard. He is a wizard who has a morbid pursuit of escaping death and achieving immortality," said Harry.

Dumbledore agreed with Harry's statement, and he added: "In order to verify our guess, the most urgent task now is to find the ring and verify whether it is a Horcrux."

"I don't think Voldemort will let you find the ring easily, Professor Dumbledore." Harry sneered and said, "For someone who values ​​life as much as he does, I'm more inclined to believe that he hid the ring somewhere that's hard to find... If I were him, I would hide the Horcrux in the vault of Gringotts... Maybe he also put the portrait of Omnius in the vault."

"It's not impossible." Dumbledore nodded, "But the question is, among all the vaults in Gringotts, where would he hide the Horcrux?"

"We are not in a hurry to find all these Horcruxes." Harry yawned and said, "This is a long-term battle, Professor Dumbledore. I think we should conduct a careful analysis and investigation to finally determine which vault it is..."

"That's all we can do," said Professor Dumbledore.

After leaving the principal's office, Harry came to the auditorium.

Today is the last day of the semester. The winner of the college cup will be announced in the auditorium tomorrow, and the day after that will be the official holiday.

Harry plans to continue searching for information about Merlin's ruins during the holidays. He wants to rescue Cassandra as soon as possible.

In addition, we must also look for traces of Omenis.

(Ask for monthly ticket)

(End of this chapter)