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Chapter 538: The History of Horcruxes
Chapter 538: The History of Horcruxes (Please subscribe, favorite, and vote!)
"Albus, how could you let Liam read such a dangerous Dark Magic book? You know he hasn't even come of age yet", Professor Mcgonagall's angry voice echoed through the Headmaster's Office. After Dumbledore decided to make an Unbreakable Vow, he chose Professor Mcgonagall as the witness. However, once she learned the content of the vow, she immediately voiced her discontent.
"Minerva, this involves the lives of many innocent people", Dumbledore explained earnestly to Professor Mcgonagall. "I know this knowledge is very dangerous, but this is the safest course of action."
"The safest course of action? Albus, I don't know when we decided to put such a young child at the forefront?" Professor Mcgonagall countered angrily after listening to Dumbledore's explanation.
"I don't want to do this either, but I believe Liam is no longer an ordinary child. He has the will and strength to solve this problem, and right now, he is the only one who can address the issues we face."
"Headmaster is right, Professor", Liam chimed in, nodding. "This is all voluntary. Please help me!"
After Liam and Dumbledore's repeated persuasion, Professor Mcgonagall finally agreed to be the witness. She nodded, and Dumbledore stood up from his chair, walking around the desk to take Liam's right hand with his own. Professor Mcgonagall then took out her wand and touched the tip to their clasped hands.
"Liam, do you swear to never use Horcrux Dark Magic?" Dumbledore asked.
"I swear", Liam replied. As soon as he spoke, a thin, brilliant flame shot from Professor Mcgonagall's wand, like a red-hot metal wire, wrapping around their clasped hands.
"Do you swear to do your utmost to keep these secrets and prevent this evil knowledge from spreading through you?"
"I swear", Liam said. Another flame shot from the wand, intertwining with the first to form a thin, red-glowing chain. It looked like a rope, a snake of fire.
"Then, the vow is binding", Professor Mcgonagall declared. The fiery chain that had wrapped around Liam and Headmaster Dumbledore's hands instantly disappeared, signifying the vow's completion.
"Alright, you can read the book now", Dumbledore said after Professor Mcgonagall left the office. He pulled a black book bound in copper from a locked drawer and handed it to Liam, continuing, "However, for safety reasons, you can only read it in my office. You cannot take it out."
"I understand. I should be able to finish it quickly", Liam said, taking the book with both hands. However, he noticed the book was quite thin and the texture was definitely not parchment.
"This is—skinbound?" Liam asked, feeling the cover. He recognized the material from his time in the Radiation World, where he had seen more than a few human skins while clearing out mutant raiders.
"Yes", Dumbledore nodded. "The author dug up over a dozen graves to obtain the human skin. In the past, people believed that books related to the soul were best recorded on human skin. A few decades ago, this book was kept in Hogwarts' Restricted Section, but after Voldemort created a Horcrux, I took it into my custody."
"It doesn't sound too terrible", Liam shrugged. It was much better than the mutants in the Radiation World who would flay people alive, and he understood Dumbledore's decision to keep the book. It was like how, for safety reasons, detailed instructions for making certain weapons or dangerous drugs wouldn't be found in a typical university library.
So Liam didn't think it was necessary to be paranoid and assume that the Headmaster kept certain books to suppress the younger generation. The real suppressors were the Pureblood Families who hoarded their books, preferring to let them rot at home rather than share them.
After sorting through these miscellaneous matters, Liam began to carefully examine the book. It was then that he noticed the cover had once been adorned with gilded letters, but time had eroded them all away.
“Path to Immortality,” Liam pieced together the Latin title by the light of the Headmaster's Office. Although the title seemed boastful, he had to admit that the concept of a Horcrux was indeed a brilliant idea. However, the flaws of this form of immortality were significant.
Opening the book, Liam discovered it was a handwritten manuscript. The scribe had used a mixture of dragon's blood and mandrake juice as the magic ink to ensure the book would last for a long time. Besides the main content and some illustrations, the insights and comments from various readers, scribbled in the margins, gave Liam a clear understanding of the historical development of Horcrux creation.
The earliest form of Horcrux originated from ancient Egyptian mummies, where Ancient Egyptian wizards used magic to sever a part of their body and cultivate it into another form, allowing them to resurrect in this spare body if their original body was irreparably damaged. This magic later became known to Muggles, but they did not understand the specifics, and as a result, the practice of mummification developed, giving rise to the legend that mummies could come back to life. <|im_end|>
As this magic spread, some wizards who sought immortality improved upon it. The improved version no longer required the cultivation of a spare body into a human form; instead, the magic could be contained in a small, magically treated box, greatly increasing its concealment. The most significant difference from the earlier methods was that, along with a part of the body, a portion of the soul was also severed using complex magic.
This way, the effects of time on the protected part of the body and soul were minimized. The connection between the soul fragment and the main soul would also feed back to the main body, granting it a long life. As long as the container was not discovered, the wizard could not be killed. However, each resurrection would cause irreversible damage to the mind, limiting the number of times one could come back.
By the modern era, this magic was further refined. Instead of the complex soul-severing magic, it now used killing to achieve the same effect, and there was no longer a need to remove a part of the body; only the soul needed to be severed. This is how the true method of Horcrux creation was born.
While this greatly lowered the threshold for creating a Horcrux and simplified the process, it also had severe consequences. On one hand, it transformed what was once a neutral magic into an evil Dark Magic, making the user more vulnerable to spells like Thunder Art or Holy Light. On the other hand, after the original body was destroyed, the wizard could no longer resurrect directly as in the previous methods; instead, they needed to use other means to create a new body.
Even this simplified method of Horcrux creation far exceeded the knowledge of a typical wizard. Liam had only understood these concepts by gathering information from multiple worlds. Voldemort, as an orphan, had managed to grasp these ideas in just six years of living in the wizarding world at Hogwarts, truly marking him as a genius.
Not to mention, achieving a high level of Latin proficiency in such a short time was impressive in itself. Liam felt that he would not have been able to do this without his Golden Finger.
It took Liam a full five hours to put down the Path to Immortality. Thanks to the recent upgrade in his abilities, his memory and comprehension had significantly improved, allowing him to read through the book in a short time.
“I think I have a lead,” Liam said, nodding at Headmaster Dumbledore, who was looking at him with concern. “But I need more time.”
“This is already very promising,” Headmaster Dumbledore put the book away. “Remember not to rush. We have enough time to wait. If the price of saving one innocent life is another innocent life, then such a rescue is meaningless.”
(End of Chapter)
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