Chapter 376: The Concept of a Horcrux
"Wizards have defeated so many enemies that magic has become, in many ways, a lost art. Ignorance, young wizard, is not the obstacle to the progress of magical civilization—arrogance is."
The Owl Gentleman spoke with an air of ancient, weary gravity.
"So," Sean asked, looking up at the portrait. "I take it you won't be using a Confundus Charm on me again?"
"Simple-minded young wizard," the owl hooted, giving a dismissive flap of its wings.
In an instant, the portrait vanished from the wall. Across the corridor, on the tapestry where Barnaby the Barmy was still attempting to teach ballet to trolls, the painted figures went still, watching the space where the owl had been. Once the silence stretched long enough, the trolls returned to their task of enthusiastically clubbing the ballet master into the ground.
Sean turned back to the wall. A smooth, polished wooden door had manifested in the stone. He grasped the brass handle, pulled it open, and stepped inside.
The room was vast and filled with the flickering light of torches, reminiscent of the subterranean classrooms in the dungeons. Rows of towering wooden shelves lined the walls. There were no chairs, but large, satin-covered cushions were scattered across the floor. At the far end of the room, hundreds of shelves were cluttered with various magical instruments: Sneakoscopes, Secrecy Sensors, and strange brass armillary spheres.
The most conspicuous sight, however, was a table set with several steaming bowls. Sean walked over, curious, only to find them entirely empty.
He understood the logic immediately. The Room of Requirement relied on basic Summoning and Transfiguration; it was bound by Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration.
Principle: Magic cannot create food out of thin air.
If you knew where food was, you could summon it; if you already had some, you could transfigure it or multiply it. But the room could not manifest a meal that didn't exist elsewhere. This was why his desired pumpkin juice had failed to appear.
Sean raised his wand and moved toward the massive stacks of shelving on the left. High, narrow windows cast pillars of light into the gloom, revealing the "Room of Hidden Things" to be a city of junk. It was a sprawling labyrinth built from the discarded belongings of a thousand years of Hogwarts students and staff.
He walked past alleys of rickety, broken furniture—clutter from other rooms that the castle had gathered here to maintain its dignified appearance. Perhaps, as the Owl Gentleman suggested, the house-elves used this place as a dumping ground for anything they didn't know how to fix.
Deeper into the stacks, he found thousands of books: restricted volumes, vandalized texts, and stolen library books. There were Winged Slingshots and Fanged Frisbees, some of which were still hovering feebly over the mountains of contraband. He saw cracked phials of congealed potions, old hats, jewelry, tattered cloaks, and what looked like the calcified shells of dragon eggs.
In a few jars, malevolent lights still flickered behind the glass. He passed rusted swords and a heavy, blood-stained executioner's axe.
Amidst the sea of forgotten objects, Sean's eyes locked onto a tarnished, blackened tiara.
—Ravenclaw's Diadem.
He instinctively took several steps back. Inside his Wizard's Tome, the Basilisk fang he had harvested began to float, hovering at his side like a lethal sentinel.
He didn't move to destroy the artifact immediately. Instead, he turned his gaze toward the door. A silhouette was shimmering into existence as a Disillusionment Charm faded away.
"Welcome back, Sean," Justin said with a grin.
"Scent again?" Sean sighed, giving his friend a resigned look.
"So... is this something I'm allowed to know about?"
Justin's smile faded as his gaze drifted to the blackened diadem. He had many things he wanted to say, many questions he wanted to ask, but in his mind, every personal curiosity took a back seat to the gravity of the moment.
"Mmm. The Restricted Section... have you been there lately?" Sean asked slowly.
"You mean Magick Moste Evile?" Justin countered.
"There is a creation of the deepest darkness, one that requires a truly depraved act to manifest," Sean explained softly. "Voldemort—the name itself means 'Flight from Death'."
"I saw that shade fly away back then," Justin whispered, a spark of realization hitting him. "Is that why Dumbledore couldn't kill him? Is that the secret?"
"How did he do it? Sean, do you know—" Justin stopped mid-sentence. He looked at Sean and felt his words fail him.
There was no wind in the Room of Requirement, yet Justin felt a sudden, bone-deep chill. He looked into Sean's green eyes and finally understood why they always seemed so still—like a calm lake that hid a fathomless depth. Those eyes held a weariness and a resolve that seemed far too heavy for a twelve-year-old.
Everything was starting to make sense.
"Whether he returns or not... we're going to win this," Justin said, forcing a smile. He remembered facing Voldemort's shade in the forest; he remembered standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Sean, planning a battle they were destined to lose.
Sean hadn't said much back then. He never did. He simply acted. He fought, and he kept fighting.
Justin felt a tightness in his chest. He realized the entire Wizarding World was standing on a precipice. Voldemort possessed Dark Arts beyond anyone's imagination. He hadn't died; he was merely waiting.
And Hogwarts was safe not just because of Dumbledore. It was safe because one boy was standing as a shield between them and the terror. Justin realized that Sean was far more isolated than any of them had imagined.
"A Horcrux," Justin finally breathed, using the term he had seen in the forbidden text.
[Regarding even darker paths—the Horcrux, that most depraved of inventions—we shall not speak, nor shall we guide.]
Justin now knew the truth. This magic allowed evil to "fly from death" through a level of cruelty that defied description.
"So... is that what this is? How do we destroy it? A Basilisk fang?" Justin asked, his eyes burning with a sudden, fierce determination.
"No. You need to stay back," Sean commanded.
Justin's face fell, but he instinctively obeyed, retreating several paces.
Sean moved back as well. He wasn't taking any chances. If Tom Riddle's diary could possess a soul and dominate a mind, he wouldn't underestimate the Diadem for a second.
He raised his wand. The walls of the Room of Requirement began to groan and shift.
A massive stone statue, nearly ten feet tall, detached itself from the masonry and stepped forward. With a mechanical, grinding motion, it reached out and took the Basilisk fang from Sean. Like a silent gladiator, the statue turned and began to march toward the wooden shelf where the Diadem lay.
[End of Chapter 376]
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