From Hogwarts to Strixhaven.

Chapter 599 Death Dialogue
Watching his conversations with the Hogwarts professors from a different perspective again, Ivy always felt a comical sense of unreality.

However, he didn't let the feeling bother him for long. The next stop on this journey was London, England, and Ivy no longer needed to let the phantoms of the past haunt him.

Ivy furnished Cassandra Worre's home in 1991 by buying Worre Manor in the suburbs and then enchanting it with magic that banished Muggles and protected it from harm.

With dark circles under her eyes, the ever-present Bobby Zizi bowed to Ivy, beginning her seven-year-long clandestine service. Ivy, leaving behind a cassela with a fragmented soul, walked lightly towards Diagon Alley.

He wanted to store the silver linden wand that Voldemort had brought back from 2008 with Ollivander beforehand. As for the voucher for retrieving the wand, he naturally had one from Ivy in the past. After all, he had only recently placed an order with Ollivander, and silver linden wood suitable for wands was indeed difficult to obtain; otherwise, there wouldn't be so many counterfeit versions on the market.

Having secured the wand, Ivy had completed all his past missions. Now, all he needed to do was pull the souls of the Worleys back from the spirit world, and he could return to Strelhaven to be reborn as a golden dragon.

No longer needing to force his soul to resist the allure of the world of the dead, Ivy breathed a sigh of relief, as if a heavy burden had been lifted.

Whether the Grim Reaper in the Harry Potter world is merely the Grim Reaper of wizards or the Grim Reaper of all humanity, He showed goodwill towards Ivy.

After all, when Harry Voldemort died, Ivy witnessed Him reaching out to snatch him away. He died on His territory, and the fact that He didn't personally intervene, allowing Ivy to travel back and forth between the two timelines using only His divine soul, already demonstrated sufficient restraint.

If this Grim Reaper is someone I can communicate with, then Ivy wouldn't mind paying some price for the Worleys. It's better to resolve conflicts than to let them fester. The HP world is, after all, his own territory, and he doesn't want his backyard to be in turmoil.

His spirit drifted over London, easily dispelling the lingering clouds and ending London's continuous September rains. Listening to passersby praising the sun, Ivy began to feel a genuine sense of annoyance.

If he truly intends to become the sun god who nurtures all things, then the constant nagging of believers and lay followers will likely accompany him for the rest of his life. He must find a way to avoid this.

"Death is an ending that countless people have talked about with fear throughout history. I'm sure I've faced such scenarios quite often. I must have a lot of experience with it. Why don't I ask it for some advice?" Ivy was being pulled forward by the power of the afterlife, but in his mind he was thinking about how to communicate with death.

However, he was still unsure what type of deity the other party was, and could only tentatively outline a few general directions for the conversation. If he relied entirely on improvisation, there would always be times when he couldn't react in time.

Suddenly, Ivy found himself standing on the ground again. Looking around, he realized it was a place he knew very well.

King's Cross Station in London.

However, the train station, which is usually bustling with pedestrians and passengers, was completely deserted at this time, with only one train parked on the platform.

Ivy was, after all, someone who had read all the original Harry Potter novels; otherwise, he wouldn't have bought a canned game aimed at fans. Seeing this scene, he immediately recognized that it was almost identical to Harry's confrontation with Voldemort's Killing Curse in *The Deathly Hallows*.

However, the Worleys died in August 2008, and Ivy returned to this ravaged timeline. So Dumbledore, who was originally here, had been dead for eleven years, and even Harry Potter himself was killed by Ivy not long ago.

If Death intends to meet with Ivy, then the images of both of them seem to be within the range of choices.

However, Ivy paused briefly on platform nine and three-quarters and did not see the next passenger on the train, so it seemed that it was indeed a special train for him alone.

Ivy had barely settled into the leather seat in his compartment when the long whistle of a train sounded outside the window. It seemed he wasn't on the final leg of his journey, but rather en route to Hogwarts for the new school term.

The carriage was quiet, with only the regular "clanging" sound of the wheels rolling over the rail joints. When the rhythmic sound continued, human consciousness would forget about it and stop paying attention to it.

The train leaving the station did not travel through the city of London, but instead entered a vast open field shrouded in a thin mist.

There are trees here, but no leaves or tender branches; the desolate rocks and withered branches are the norm in the view outside the window.

Only when the fog condensed into tiny droplets on the smooth glass surface did Ivy turn her gaze away from the window.

The Hogwarts Express's leather goods, which had been well maintained by the magic of life, were now in a state of disrepair. Spiderweb-like cracks covered the leather upholstery of the seats, and even the soft padding under Ivy's bottom had turned into hard, non-resilient sponge.

A figure that Ivy knew all too well appeared opposite him; it was his own cold and sluggish reflection, with a cold, merciless smile.

Ivy looked at the reflection in the car window. Her own reflection, radiating golden light from her soul, appeared clear and transparent, while the shadow of the person sitting opposite her was not visible in the car window.

"Who are you?" Ivy exhaled a breath of hot air through the car window and wrote a few words with her finger.

"The end." The mirror image spoke in the exact same voice as Ivy, but it seemed to come through a thick layer of ice, carrying a hollow and bone-chilling echo, "The end of life, the end of the journey, the end of meaning, even the end of the end."

"The end?" Ivy turned her head, looking at her reflection with interest. "The end is part of the journey, and it is also included in the meaning of the journey. Without an end, a journey has no meaning; it is just wandering, drifting. Just like death, it is also included in the meaning of life."

“It’s meaningless, it’s all just nothingness.” The mirrored face rippled like the calm surface of a lake being broken by a heavy rain, and then it changed. An old man with a white beard sat opposite Ivy, a composite image of several wise men that Ivy was most familiar with.

Albus Dumbledore, the greatest white wizard of the twentieth century; Gandalf the Maiar of Middle-earth; the chosen ones of the goddess of magic; Elminster, the wise man of Shadow Valley; and even Nicolas Flamel, who generously gifted the Philosopher's Stone.

Ivy could find commonalities in many faces on that wise man's face. "Your lives weave a dream with fleeting flames, using so-called meaning to fight against eternal cold. I am the end, utter silence. All the clamor, love, and hate you have created will eventually return to eternal tranquility and utter nothingness in my embrace." The white-haired wise man pointed out the window. The accompaniment of the Hogwarts Express had stopped, but the train continued to move, and biting winds blew from the cracks in the dilapidated carriages, whipping Ivy's flowing hair.

Looking outwards following the wise man's finger, the desolate wilderness had vanished, but the fog that shrouded everything had grown thicker and thicker; it was a pure, dirty gray, surging and flowing past the window.

"Everything will eventually be erased, leaving no trace. What you call meaning is nothing but self-deceiving ramblings, like dust in the wind before me."

Ivy shook his head with a smile; he didn't believe that at all. "If it really is meaningless, then why are you in such a hurry to collect the souls of the dead? Even if I resurrect them, they will eventually meet their end. You just need a little patience. It's not difficult for you, is it?"

The wise man with white hair and beard fell silent. The train compartment was no longer drafty. Except for the glass window where Ivy had written questions with his breath, the two of them were almost sitting in complete darkness.

The only source of light was Ivy's soul, and the golden light did not change in any way due to the change in environment; it simply flickered calmly.

After a long silence, the wise man sighed: "I am merely fulfilling my duty. To let you see the truth of the world sooner—an eternal and silent nothingness."

“Duty.” Ivy clapped her hands. “A very responsible word. It’s like the word humans use to survive in the social structures they build themselves. They clearly divide the work, but they use the grand reason of ‘duty’ to put their minds at ease.”

“Look, even the end and nothingness themselves are using the meaning created by humans, and are participating in the process of creating meaning.” A burning light flashed in Ivy’s eyes, almost piercing the sage’s dark pupils. “Thank you. It is because of you as the end that this journey has been given such a profound and real meaning.”

"No!" The image of the wise man blurred again. Death, sitting opposite Ivy, no longer took on a human form, but instead appeared as a solid mass of darkness, a ferocious giant dog, baring its fangs at the man who radiated golden light like the sun.

"I'm just annoyed by your sophistry and rambling!" the giant dog roared, growling, "I will extinguish all light! End all heat! Let all things enter eternity in silence!"

"I just wanted to have a chat!" Ivy was still making a last-ditch effort, after all, no one knew what abilities the Grim Reaper in front of him possessed. However, according to Ivy's estimation, a Grim Reaper born on a planet couldn't possibly extinguish the star at the center of a galaxy, right? So even if a fight broke out, Ivy could at least ensure his own survival.

“Verbal exchanges can deepen our understanding of ourselves!” Ivy shouted. “If, as you say, everything will come to an end, then what does it matter whether it’s now or in the future? From the moment you gained consciousness, you could never be nothingness, merely an end!”

There was no reply, only an angry bark. The giant black dog opened its mouth and tore at the object, even biting off a large gash in the golden light emanating from Ivy's soul.

"I thought it was an ominous sign, how did it turn into an image of a celestial dog swallowing the sun?" Ivy was startled. The Destruction Codex, connected to his soul, immediately appeared. In this space belonging to death, only the artifact that distorted spacetime could still function normally.

A brilliant golden light shone from the heavens, leaving many shimmering holes on the body of the Sun-Devouring Heavenly Dog.

Death did not roar because of the injury; the black mist that flowed from the wound returned to normal after only a swirl. However, with Ivy's eyesight, he could still see a faint golden light beneath the blackness.

"If you're familiar with duty, you should know that the humans who created this word did more than just work diligently!" Ivy dodged the giant dog's fangs and shouted, "Rest and slacking off are equally important! Work is never finished! Even if you end all life on this planet, as long as the sun doesn't explode, new miracles will always be born on Earth! Similar processes have been repeated countless times. Destruction never means the end, but rather another beginning!"

For any working person, rest and taking a break are incredibly appealing, but for death, which has been relentlessly reaping lives since it gained willpower, such options simply don't exist.

The vicious black dog howled relentlessly, giving Ivy no chance to speak.

“We’re wasting our time!” A burst of intense golden light erupted from Ivy’s soul, stinging the black hound’s eyes. Death had never faced such an opponent before. Even against wizards, He could easily achieve final victory. In all this time, only Voldemort, who consumed his soul to become an information meme, had escaped. Although his fate was even more tragic, it still made Death quite unhappy.

"What people fear least is wasting time. As long as it's not spent on work, anything can make humans happy! But for the dutiful dead, this is a dereliction of duty! Guess how many wizards' souls have become ghosts that can neither move forward nor backward in the meantime?"

"Get out!" The dedicated Death hesitated for a moment, then roared a threat to Ivy, "Never let me see you again!"

"I have two more souls to take with me!" Ivy pressed on, "You know who I'm talking about!"

"Absolutely impossible!" the vicious dog retorted, "You stole a soul from me a hundred years ago! He was long too late in returning to my kingdom!"

Ah. Ivy nodded in realization. It was Professor Figo… If she hadn’t resurrected him in this timeline, perhaps she could have successfully resurrected the Worleys…

Ivy hesitated, wondering what words to use to persuade Death, who had transformed into a vicious dog, when Death let out a low growl. In the thick darkness, the two divine beings, who were beyond the mortal realm, maintained an eerie silence for a moment.

Just as Ivy began browsing the Grimoire of Destruction, intending to prepare a powerful spell, a fluorescent glow that shouldn't have appeared became the second bright spot in the darkness.

"What are you up to now?" Death asked angrily.

“It wasn’t me…” Ivy watched as the fluorescent light transformed into an old skeleton dressed in a tattered robe. The golden patterns and long scrolls adorning the skull clearly identified Him as Jego the Registrar.

"Please, both of you, cease your dispute and listen to what we have to say." The old bones stood calmly in the endless darkness, between Ivy's golden soul and the vicious dog that was the embodiment of death.

(End of this chapter)