At Hogwarts, the story begins with deconstructing Avada Kedavra.

Chapter 85 The Blind Man and the Dark Marks in the Sunlight

On a June morning, sunlight spilled across the Hogwarts grounds like shattered gold leaf.

On the first morning after the exams, the air in the castle seemed lighter.

There was no longer Professor Binns' hypnotic buzzing, no longer Snape's death-like patrols around the cauldron, and no longer the mountains of star charts and transmutation papers.

For these eleven- or twelve-year-old boys, this should have been the best time of the year.

In the common room of Gryffindor, Fred and George Weasley were recklessly experimenting with their newly invented "fireworks pulling".

Colorful sparks flew wildly across the ceiling, eliciting gasps of surprise from the first-year students nearby.

"Hey! Watch out, don't burn my robe!"

Simo Finnigan grumbled as he clutched a handful of Goblin stones, preparing to go to the courtyard for a three-hundred-round battle with Dean Thomas.

"Relax, Seamus! The exam's over!" George laughed, tossing a fireball into the air. "Even if Professor McGonagall walks in now, it won't stop us from celebrating!"

"By the way, has anyone seen Ron? And Harry too?"

Dean, clutching a few chocolate frog picture cards, looked around. "They disappeared after their exams yesterday, and I haven't seen them in the dorms this morning either."

"He probably went to Hagrid's place, or maybe he's hiding in some corner catching up on sleep."

Fred shrugged casually. "Harry's been looking troubled lately, probably because he's too burdened by his 'Boy Who Lived' image."

They chatted and laughed easily, completely unaware that just a few hours earlier, their so-called brother and savior had experienced a life-or-death crisis dozens of feet underground.

At the same moment, Hermione Granger slowly awoke from the armchair in the corner of the common room.

The sunlight stung her eyes.

Looking at her classmates laughing and having fun, and listening to the Weasley twins' carefree laughter, she felt a strong wave of dizziness wash over her.

It was as if she had suddenly put on a pair of glasses that allowed her to see through the true nature of the world, while the people around her were still cheering in front of a false screen.

"Hermione, you look terrible."

Parvati Petil came down from the girls' dormitory, holding a bright pink headband. "You're not still worried about the last big question on History of Magic, are you? Come on, the exam's already over!"

"I—I'm fine." Hermione's voice was a little hoarse.

She subconsciously touched her pocket, where she had once kept a mint.

"Let's go have breakfast! I heard they have chilled pumpkin juice and raspberry jam today!"

Parvati warmly took Hermione's wrist.

Hermione was half-dragged, half-pulled out of the common room.

The corridors were filled with groups of students.

Having shed the burden of exams, they walked briskly, discussing the upcoming summer vacation, the Quidditch World Cup qualifiers, and which flavor of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans was the most disgusting.

Hermione walked mechanically, and the stone walls, portraits, and even the floating ghosts on both sides of the corridor all appeared to her as a huge web woven by Dumbledore.

Upon entering the auditorium, the ceiling was enchanted, displaying a cloudless, azure blue.

Hermione sat down at the Gryffindor table, her gaze involuntarily drifting towards the faculty dining table.

The atmosphere at the faculty dining table contrasted strangely with the noisy student crowd below.

Dumbledore sat in the center, his blue eyes, which always shone with wisdom, behind his half-moon spectacles were now bloodshot.

Although he was smiling at the students below, Hermione could tell that the smile was stiff, as if it were painted on.

Professor Snape, on the other hand, was even more somber. He stared intently at the empty plate in front of him, his eyes seeming to devour the pure silver knife and fork.

Most notably, Professor Quirrell's seat was empty.

"Hey, did you guys hear?" a Ravenclaw upperclassman whispered at the next table, but just loud enough for Hermione to hear. "There was a possible earthquake at the castle last night."

"Earthquake? Are you kidding me? Hogwarts is protected by magic, how could there be an earthquake?"

"It's true!" the Ravenclaw exclaimed confidently. "I got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and felt the stone slabs under my feet shaking violently, and—I think I heard monster roars and explosions coming from underground!"

"Don't be silly, it's definitely Peeves causing trouble, or it's those Weasley twins testing some new explosives again."

Q

The students quickly put the topic out of their minds and moved on to more "important" matters.

"Ignorance is the greatest shield."

A voice sounded behind Hermione.

Hermione turned around sharply and saw Lucian Ashford standing between the Ravenclaw and Gryffindor long tables, holding a cup of black tea.

He wasn't wearing his school uniform robe today, but instead wore a soft, dark blue shirt, making him look relaxed and casual.

"Lucian—" Hermione instinctively gripped the fork in her hand.

"Have some smoked meat, Granger."

Your complexion looks like you've been soaking at the bottom of a black lake all night.

Lucian smiled slightly.

"What did you do last night—" Hermione whispered, almost in a breath, "What did you do?"

"I just went for a walk and picked up a stone that its owner had abandoned."

Lucian spoke as casually as if he were discussing the weather, "However, I suggest you take a walk by the Black Lake later and check the direction of the Forbidden Forest while you're at it."

The scenery there is especially "unique" today.

After saying that, Lucien turned and walked to Ravenclaw's long table, sat down next to Padma, and even handed Padma a piece of buttered bread.

Hermione stared blankly at his retreating figure, her fear and awe surging within her once more.

He got it.

He took the legendary Philosopher's Stone right under the noses of Dumbledore, Snape, and possibly even Mystic.

And now, he is sitting in the auditorium eating breakfast, just like an ordinary twelve-year-old boy.

afternoon.

When the sun was at its warmest, a large number of students flocked to the shore of Black Lake.

A gentle breeze swept across the lake, and the giant squid lazily rested its tentacles on the water, basking in the sun.

-

Hermione walked alone on the grass by the lake. She hadn't brought any books with her because she felt nauseous even looking at "A History of Hogwarts".

Following Lucien's suggestion, she turned her gaze to the Forbidden Forest in the distance.

At first, she didn't notice anything unusual.

The Forbidden Forest remains a collection of towering, dark oak and pine trees.

But as she squinted and carefully examined a corner of the forbidden forest's edge, her breath caught in her throat.

In a wooded area near the base of the Astronomical Tower, there is a patch of land with a completely off-color.

It wasn't a withered yellow, nor a charred black.

Instead, it was a morbid, nauseating grayish-purple.

"Look over there! What's that?"

Finally, other students also noticed the strange phenomenon.

Several Hufflepuff students pointed in the direction of the Forbidden Forest and exclaimed loudly.

More and more people stopped playing their games and looked in the direction they were pointing.

In that grayish-purple area, the trees presented an eerie, twisted posture, the textures on the trunks looking as if they had been forcibly dissolved and then reassembled by something.

Even the air there was distorted and rippling.

Even more terrifying, no bird dared to fly over that sky.

As several lost ravens approached the purple patch of sky, they seemed to have hit an invisible wall, screeching and fleeing frantically. One of them even lost its balance and fell into the forest.

"My God—is that some kind of dark magic?" A senior Slytherin girl covered her mouth, fear flashing in her eyes.

"Where's Hagrid? Doesn't Hagrid usually patrol that area?"

Just then, Hagrid's massive figure came running breathlessly from the edge of the hunting grounds.

He didn't bring his hunting dog, Tooth, today. Instead, he held up several wooden signs with the words scrawled crookedly in bright red paint:

[Extremely dangerous! Do not approach!]

"Back off! All of you, back off!" Hagrid's voice was stern as he waved his massive arms, herding the students who tried to approach back towards the castle like ducks.

"Hagrid, what's going on over there? Did a fire dragon escape?" Seamus shouted.

"It's not a fire dragon! There's nothing to see! It's just some—some poisonous vixen excrement!"

Hagrid stammered as he lied.

He received a direct order from Dumbledore last night to completely seal off this area.

When Hagrid first approached the purple-stained land at dawn, he felt as if his soul was about to freeze.

That land "rejects" magic.

He witnessed a Bowtruckle that had wandered into the area turn into a puddle of powder without any magical fluctuations the moment it touched the purple soil.

Hermione stood at the edge of the crowd, and she suddenly understood what Lucien had said to her in her dream last night.

"You will find that the rules you revere and the authority you worship are nothing more than a playground used by those in power to tame you."

That purple spot is a scar left from last night's epic battle.

It lay naked on the grounds of Hogwarts, shattering the castle's centuries-old false peace.

"Are you shocked?"

Lucian had somehow gotten to Hermione's side.

He had his hands in his pockets, his gaze also fixed on the edge of the forbidden forest.

"Did you do that too?" Hermione's voice trembled slightly.

"No." Lucien shook his head. "These are traces of arcane magic."

Someone, with his tragic life, taught the great Headmaster Dumbledore a lesson entitled "Times Have Changed."

"Arcane?" Hermione keenly caught the unfamiliar word.

"An attempt to analyze the underlying rules of the world, rather than praying to nature for magic like traditional wizards."

Lucian turned to look at Hermione. "Albus tried his best to give Harry Potter a spiritual baptism last night, but he didn't expect that his fence would be burned through by another force."

He pointed to the students who were being chased away by Hagrid, yet were still excitedly whispering to each other and even making up all sorts of absurd stories.

"Look at them, Granger."

"They thought it was just an accident, and that the principal and professors would fix everything with a wave of their wands, as usual."

They base their sense of security on blind trust in authority.

Lucian's voice sounded particularly cold in the breeze.

"But you saw the real cracks."

You saw Neville's fabricated courage, Ron's tragic fate orchestrated, and now you see scars that even Dumbledore couldn't easily erase.

Hermione followed his gaze and saw the Weasley twins placing bets in the distance, betting on whether an adult venomous leopard was lurking in that purple woodland.

An unprecedented sense of loneliness enveloped her.

She could no longer discuss headbands with Parvati, nor argue with Simo about the rules of Gaubushi.

She has been thrown from that warm, fairytale-like cradle and landed on the real earth.

"What should I do?" Hermione murmured to herself, her eyes reddening.

"Knowledge."

Lucian turned away from the sunlight, his shadow enveloping Hermione.

"Strip away the textbooks that have been filtered through a moral lens, and seek the most primal form of magic."

Don't be a chess piece, and don't rush to be a player. First, be the one who can understand the flow of the game.

Do you remember Galon?

If one day you feel that the Hogwarts library can no longer satisfy your yearning for "reality," then grasp it.

Hermione's thoughts began to wander, and when she looked up again, Lucien had already blended into the crowd returning to the castle. He was talking to Padma with his head turned to the side, which made the Ravenclaw girl let out a light laugh.

He plays the role of an ordinary top student, yet he casually holds the world's greatest secret in his palm.

When Hermione entered the school hospital, she saw Harry leaning against a pillow, vividly describing the final moments to Ron.

"—The wall of fire suddenly went out, and I swear, I saw Quirrell's face screaming, and then Dumbledore appeared!"

Harry's eyes gleamed with the thrill of escaping death. "He said it was my mother's love that protected me; Voldemort couldn't withstand that power."

Ron, sitting on the hospital bed beside him with his mouth full of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, mumbled, "You're a hero, Harry! That's true chivalry!"

Hermione stood at the door of the ward, watching this heartwarming scene filled with the spirit of "justice will prevail," but her stomach was churning.

"Hey Hermione! What took you so long?" Harry waved. "Madam Pomfrey said I can be discharged tomorrow to attend the year-end party."

"I—I went for a walk by the lake," Hermione said softly.

She looked at Harry's broken round glasses and at the pure trust in the headmaster in his eyes.

In Harry's account, it is an adventure where good triumphs over evil;

But to Hermione, this seemed a little strange, because it sounded like a close call.

Why is there no mention of "arcane" at all?

"Harry," Hermione suddenly interrupted him, "do you really think—it's all over?"

"Of course, the mysterious man ran away, and the Philosopher's Stone was destroyed—the headmaster said that was the best course of action."

Harry paused, then asked, "What's wrong?"

"It's nothing," Hermione forced a smile and left the room.