The next day at work, Sherlock took Amy and Apparated directly to the office.
Even if employees in normal departments had Apparition privileges, they wouldn't usually use this method to get to the Ministry of Magic, because Apparating directly into an office was truly a bit impolite.
But in the Department of Mysteries, there were no such concerns; every office was like one's own private space within the Ministry of Magic, with no need to worry about disturbing others.
Amy was very interested in the paper planes used to transmit information within the Ministry of Magic.
These were actually folded from special magical paper. When Sherlock first arrived yesterday, he had gone to the Logistics Department to collect a large stack.
He didn't usually contact many people and basically had no use for them, so he let Amy squander them as she pleased.
In the office, Amy chased after the paper planes circling beneath the ceiling, while Sherlock finished reading another set of magical records from the Hall of Prophecy.
So far, he still hadn't gained anything.
Everything in the Hall of Prophecy, in the end, was just a Wizard's prediction of future time, not a journey to the future.
The entire Wizarding World seemed to have never conducted research on travelling to the future; or rather, time that has already left its mark is easy to ponder, but no one knows how to discover time that hasn't happened yet and that no one has experienced.
The deeper his understanding of time became, the more Sherlock felt the hope of returning to the correct point in time was slim.
It seemed that Wizards from ancient times to the present had never touched upon this field, and Sherlock himself had no way to begin.
Sherlock thought for a moment. Seeing that Amy was no longer chasing the planes but was sitting on the carpet, throwing a plane out and letting it fly back on its own, he stood up from his chair and helped Amy tidy her somewhat messy hair.
"Can you do me a favour, Amy?"
Amy blinked her bright eyes.
"What does John need Amy to do?"
Sherlock led her out of the office, then left the Time Room and arrived in that large black hall.
As soon as they walked out, the twelve black doors began to rotate along the circular wall. Two or three seconds later, the movement stopped.
"Which of these rooms do you think would be helpful to me?" Sherlock asked.
Amy tilted her head, looking at the surrounding black doors, not answering his question immediately.
She took small steps, walking hesitantly around the wall, then stopped in front of a black door.
"Amy thinks this place should be helpful to John." A conflicted expression appeared on her delicate face. "But Amy is also a bit unsure."
Sherlock walked over and patted her head.
"I trust Amy's intuition."
Saying this, he reached out and gently pushed open that black door.
This was a room Sherlock had been to before.
The room was dimly lit, square-shaped, with a sunken centre forming a huge stone pit, about half the size of a football field.
In the centre of the stone pit stood an ancient, dilapidated Archway. The Archway had no walls supporting it, and a tattered Black Veil hung from it.
When Sophie first brought him to the Department of Mysteries, he had seen the scene inside once.
Now that he was an employee of the Department of Mysteries, he naturally knew the name of this room.
The Death Chamber.
A room specifically used for the study of death.
Sherlock frowned slightly. He didn't know why Amy felt this room would be helpful to him, but he still walked into it.
There was clearly no wind inside, yet it inexplicably made one feel a burst of cold air constantly swirling in this space.
The stone steps were built very steeply. Sherlock had to be careful with every step down, and Amy needed his help to descend.
Soon they arrived in front of the raised stone platform in the very centre.
On that ancient Archway, the tattered Black Veil moved without wind. As he approached the stone platform, Sherlock suddenly heard the faint sound of people talking!
Those voices were chaotic yet subtle, originating from behind that Black Veil, sounding like people conversing, or perhaps arguing.
Sherlock's brow furrowed tighter.
He didn't rashly step onto the stone platform but instead walked around, looking at the veil from every angle, yet he didn't find any figures.
"Did you hear the sound of someone talking, Amy?" he asked.
Amy shook her head in a bit of confusion.
"Amy didn't hear anything."
Sherlock silently stared at the gently floating veil, finding that whether he walked to the front or the back of it, he could hear that the sound was coming from behind it.
Goosebumps rose on his arms, and a creepy feeling welled up in his heart.
So where exactly were those voices coming from?
At that moment, Amy suddenly tugged on his arm.
"Here, John. There's something behind this door."
Sherlock looked in the direction she was pointing and found that on the lowest tier of steps, across from the stone platform, there were several other black doors leading to other rooms.
He didn't think any more about the voices coming from behind the veil and followed Amy's guidance to the door she mentioned.
The doors in the Death Chamber were no different from the doors in the black hall outside; they had no decorations, not even a door handle.
Sherlock placed his hand on the door and pushed slightly, and the door was opened a crack by him.
A warm yellow, gentle light leaked through the crack. He opened the door fully, and a small study was revealed before him.
The environment in the study was the complete opposite of the style of the Death Chamber.
Inside, there was a light that wasn't particularly bright but felt warm, and instead of dark, cold stones, there were simple, old bookshelves full of the traces of time.
On the bookshelves, there were various books, not many, but about dozens of them.
Sherlock and Amy walked in together. This didn't look like a place people visited often, but although the decorations were ancient, there wasn't a speck of dust.
It was very clean, as if someone came to clean it every day.
Sherlock walked to the bookshelf, picked up a book at random, and saw the title on the cover.
An Inquiry into the Elixir of Life of the Philosopher's Stone
Seeing the title, he was first stunned, then picked up other books.
The Secret of Eternal Life, On Eternity, How to Evade Death, The Living Live Forever... every one of these dozens of books was about methods for longevity and immortality; this study was entirely about research on immortality!
Seeing these things, Sherlock didn't show any ecstatic expression, and he clearly felt something was wrong.
Wizards were also human. As long as they were human, few did not fear death. Not everyone was like Dumbledore, treating death as the beginning of another journey; even someone like Lord Voldemort was no exception.
If these books about immortality were truly useful, they wouldn't be thrown into a side room of the Death Chamber without even any protection.
He opened several of the books and skimmed through them, and the contents completely confirmed his suspicion.
The titles of these books were each more intimidating than the last, but in reality, not a single instance of the research on immortality within them was successful.
Most could only extend a Wizard's lifespan a bit, and even then, the side effects were significant.
Sherlock read a few briefly and lost interest in these books. Although he wasn't as open-minded as Dumbledore, he wasn't that obsessed with immortality or anything.
Moreover, these books were basically useless.
Just as he was wondering if Amy's intuition was wrong and that nothing here could help him, he suddenly discovered another magical book at the bottom of the bookshelf that seemed to have fallen on the floor, with only a corner showing from underneath.
Sherlock only noticed it by accidentally looking down. After seeing this book, he picked it up directly and saw the title on the cover clearly.
Advanced Dark Magic: Revelation
The title of this book was vastly different from the others on the shelf, and Sherlock clearly felt its unusual nature.
However, he didn't rashly open the book right there; he could still see the glaring words "Dark Arts" in the title.
Magic books were a medium for many Dark Wizards to transmit curses. Before checking the contents of this book, he naturally had to make full preparations.
He had already flipped through the other books on the shelf. Some of the ideas for longevity inside were unique, but Sherlock had no intention of studying them deeply. From any angle, these books were of no help to his current situation.
If Amy's intuition wasn't wrong, then the only book that could be of help to him was the one in his hand.
Putting Advanced Dark Magic: Revelation into his robe pocket, Sherlock left the Death Chamber with Amy.
Before closing the black door, he took one last deep look at that pitch-Black Veil, as if wanting to see through it, yet he saw nothing but the surface.
Returning to the Time Room, he didn't let Amy go into the office with him but instead let her stay in the Time Room outside for a while, waiting for him to finish testing this Dark Arts book before coming in.
Sherlock closed the office door, and Amy wandered around the Time Room.
She was first attracted by that conspicuous Hummingbird Biological Hourglass, staring at the bird that constantly changed between hatching and returning to its shell for a long time.
"Just like the sun and the moon."
She murmured softly, then turned her gaze to the time-turners in the display cases, tilting her head slightly.
"As pretty as lollipops but useless."
Finally, her attention was caught by the huge hourglass on the wall full of hourglasses, which was constantly turning from silver sand to gold sand.
Amy seemed incredibly amazed by the brilliant golden light particles inside the hourglass, which looked like sand but were entirely different upon closer inspection.
"As cool as the pinwheel John gave me!"
...
Sherlock treated this book, Advanced Dark Magic: Revelation, very seriously.
He tapped it with his wand with utmost seriousness, detecting the magical fluctuations on it.
But no matter what means he used, this Dark Arts book had no reaction, just like an ordinary book, completely mismatched with its name.
Finally, Sherlock gave up further testing.
He used Control Magic to make the book float from a distance. In the air near the ceiling, the pages flipped continuously with a rustling sound. After three cycles and confirming it indeed had no magic leaking out, he controlled it to fly back in front of him.
Spreading the book open on the desk, the pages were filled with dense small characters, recording various Dark Arts techniques.
Sherlock frowned, skipping over the spell-casting methods and magical effects that made one feel uncomfortable. Finally, after seeing a few words, his movement of flipping the book suddenly stopped.
"The method for creating a Horcrux..."
At the same time he saw this line of words, he held his breath.
A Horcrux—he naturally knew what that was!
In his first semester at Hogwarts, the diary that enticed Neville to open the Chamber of Secrets, release the Basilisk, and finally let him "eat" it as a supplement, was Lord Voldemort's Horcrux!
At the end of that school year, Dumbledore had confessed everything about Horcruxes to him.
The reason Lord Voldemort didn't die when he was hit by the Killing Curse that bounced back from Harry was because of the Horcruxes.
A Wizard who created Horcruxes would be immortal as long as the Horcruxes were not all destroyed. Lord Voldemort relied on this magic to finally achieve his goal of eternal life!
Sherlock's expression became calm.
He knew about Horcruxes entirely from what he had heard from Dumbledore.
He hadn't expected that at this time, he would be able to find a magic book containing the method for creating a Horcrux within the Ministry of Magic.
He hesitated for only a moment before deciding to read the section on Horcruxes in its entirety.
It wasn't long, and it wouldn't take much time to finish reading this content.
Sherlock finally let out a long breath.
Horcrux—it truly deserved its title as the most evil Dark Arts.
Splitting one's soul to achieve immortality in an alternative way.
Emotion was still the most important key to this magic.
To split the soul, one needed the most extreme malice to act as a knife, tearing the soul with powerful magic that most Wizards did not possess.
At the same time, to avoid the split soul having a bad impact on magical ability, a fresh life had to be sacrificed.
And the soul of this life had to be extracted to serve as a special energy to protect and replenish the caster's fragmented soul.
Splitting the soul wasn't for the sake of having multiple bolt-holes to avoid the death of the main body so that a split soul could be reborn.
A Horcrux formed by soul-splitting was more like a form of protection on the soul level.
As long as one Horcrux remained, the main body would never die!
Sherlock quietly looked at the Dark Arts book spread out on the table. His thoughts had already moved away from the evil of the Horcrux.
Instead, he was thinking: if this was what Amy felt he needed, what could it do for him?