A second cage draped in black cloth had appeared in Snape's temporary potions room.

The sunlight was blocked out entirely, but it made no difference. The cage rattled at irregular intervals, punctuated by low, snarling growls, the small creature inside throwing itself against the bars again and again.

---

Deep in the Chamber of Secrets, the mysterious wizard listened patiently as the Diadem finished laying out its ingenious arrangement.

He played along with a knowing question: "So who was it that planted the idea in that Ravenclaw student's head — the idea of modifying a house-elf to create an entirely new creature?"

Across from him, the Ravenclaw lifted its head with pride. The blue gemstones gleamed brighter.

Both of them were stalling.

That was the part the Diadem found somewhat puzzling. It was waiting, absorbing more of the student's life force with every passing minute. It had previously parasitized a Slytherin student, but though that one was a pureblood, his magical reserves were pitifully thin, and his foolish mind could not hold Ravenclaw's knowledge. The Diadem had moved on to this backup, a Ravenclaw, not the first choice, not Slytherin's heir, but what exactly was the wizard standing before it waiting for?

The mysterious wizard had no particular desire to confide. He was, however, genuinely curious about the full sequence of events. That made him a perfectly adequate witness.

"Hearing you say it, I understand now. This year Slytherin's dormitories caught fire. The students were relocated to the eighth floor. Someone moving through those corridors awakened you. You had no way to possess a person out of thin air — you had to seduce that student first."

"He wanted a specific pocket watch, so you made him the suggestion. Then you discovered he didn't meet the conditions needed to resurrect you, and you switched targets."

The Diadem studied the figure before it with quiet approval. "My house ought to take in more students like you. Follow me — you know who I am. I will lead you to build something great."

Lucas felt a faint urge to laugh. He knew he would be facing Lord Voldemort's Horcruxes more than once before this was over.

If every single one of them delivered a pitch like this,

he might never be able to trust the word greatness again.

"I'm sorry, sir." The mysterious wizard declined without ceremony. "I work alone. I answer only to myself."

He said it with complete certainty: "A Horcrux is a concept that belongs to alchemy. Do you know why alchemists themselves so rarely use this method? If it truly worked, shouldn't it be as universally known as the Philosopher's Stone by now?"

The Diadem nodded. Having inherited Ravenclaw's wisdom, it had already worked out the Horcrux's greatest flaw. "Of course, murder alone will never deter the truly ambitious. But the vessel is far too fragile. That is, admittedly, quite fatal."

"However," the Diadem shifted, "once I succeed in my resurrection, I will find a way to solve that problem. Look around you. This is the Chamber of Secrets." It gestured toward the Basilisk behind it, which stood motionless and reverent as a carved statue, and declared with unmistakable pride: "This is Slytherin's Basilisk."

"And you are a Ravenclaw."

"Then there's nothing more to say." A solid shadow stepped free of the Ravenclaw student's body. The student crumpled to the ground.

Tom Riddle at his mid-twenties, elegant, striking, effortlessly commanding. Whatever came out of that face carried extraordinary persuasive weight.

But when Riddle turned to the Basilisk and ordered it to kill the wizard standing before him, the Basilisk moved.

It glided forward and swallowed the wizard whole, the one who had been holding forth so grandly just moments before, swift and clean and utterly unhurried.

All of it had been a little too easy. Tom Riddle's smile stiffened slightly.

He hadn't had time to step back before he found himself staring directly into a pair of golden-yellow eyes.

The air around him seemed to freeze solid.

---

At half past one, Lucas walked into the Hospital Wing carrying a bowl of sliced fruit.

The noise hit him like a wall. He stumbled back a step and paused to confirm he had actually come to the right place.

He stepped back in. Most of the beds were already full, and the students were a chorus of misery.

Madam Pomfrey wove between them with several rolls of bandages tucked under her arms, moving in quick, looping passes, very much like a cat tangled in a ball of yarn. Most of the students sat hunched on their beds, moaning and whimpering. Various limbs and body parts were wrapped in bandages. The worst case had their entire face swathed like a mummy, with only the nostrils left open, eyes and all, completely covered.

Professor Flitwick was a rare sight in the Hospital Wing. Right now, visibly frazzled, Flitwick was moving from bed to bed trying to calm students down.

Lucas threaded through the chaos. Snape's private potions room beyond was perfectly quiet.

He shut the door behind him and let out a long breath. "There are so many Ravenclaws out there," he said to the professor, bewildered.

Then the cauldrons stopped him cold.

That morning when he had left, there had been two. Now there were six, and among them sat one large cauldron, bubbling steadily with a low, rhythmic blorp. Professor Snape's hair had been completely plastered to his cheeks by the potion fumes.

"Do you really have to brew all of this yourself?" Lucas asked, incredulous. "For all those Ravenclaws out there? Is no one coming to help?"

Snape gave him an irritated look.

"Their wounds contain a specific toxin. A targeted antidote has to be prepared." As Snape spoke, the cage in the corner, still draped in black cloth, let out a loud clang.

"Is that what scratched them?" Lucas asked. "Can I take a look?"

Snape didn't say no. Lucas pulled the black cloth away.

The house-elf had mutated severely. Black viscous liquid seeped constantly from its body. Its fangs were dense and snow-white, its claws extremely sharp. It had three pairs of arms. Its wings were almost entirely membrane stretched over bone.

As Lucas drew closer, the creature went still for just a moment, then lunged at him with full force, slamming hard into the bars, trying to make him flinch.

Lucas didn't flinch. He was well accustomed to the products of this kind of experiment, and he'd come mentally prepared besides.

"This creature probably hasn't been out of its egg very long. Earlier I caught the smell of honey and milk on Alice, whoever had it was likely trying to feed it those things. But it's raced through its juvenile stage, and now it's clearly carnivorous."

Snape gave a cold snort.

Lucas shifted smoothly into work mode. "Do you need me to draw blood from it? I can run an analysis."

The truth was, he was extremely curious to watch Snape brew.

He cast a freshness charm on the fruit he'd brought, pulled a notebook from his pocket, and began carefully recording each step.

"You cannot simply observe my steps," Snape said. "Every toxin is different, and the treatment approach changes accordingly." He had never liked students who just sat there scribbling with their heads down, and now that Lucas was about to become his apprentice, he liked it even less.

He needed an apprentice who could think.

Lucas kept writing. At the same time, he rattled off his thinking without breaking pace: "That house-elf went from juvenile to adult in under a week. I'm a little concerned, texts have mentioned that many created creatures have extremely short life cycles. Which means the toxin on its claws might also be unstable?"

"I noticed you added bluebells to the cauldron. That material accelerates the flow of magical energy, making the finished antidote more adaptable. I was wondering, could the venom from a queen bee's stinger serve to promote coagulation?"

He finished and looked up at Snape, waiting.

➤ Next: Discovering a New Pleasure

Chapter 215 - Discovering a New Pleasure

These past few days, Snape had been watching Lucas work through Potions problems.

He noticed a pattern: whenever creative thinking was called for, Lucas gravitated toward toxic ingredients, finding his solutions in the delicate balance of things that could kill. His magical perception was genuinely strong, he could feel the shifts inside the cauldron as the potion changed, and that gave him a real edge.

His modification style was aggressive. Extremely so.

On the whole, the queen bee was a solid idea. Worth trying.

Snape gave a nod and pointed toward the house-elf's cage, indicating Lucas could go collect the blood.

And so, in that cramped little room, never mind whether the students outside were crying and screaming in agony, teacher and student found a comfortable rhythm and lost themselves entirely in the brewing.

About an hour in, the hourglass Snape had set on the table began to glow.

It carried a specific enchantment: once every four hours, it lit up to remind Snape to replenish the students' magical reserves. The task had originally been split between Snape and the Headmaster, but Professor Walter's hospitalization had claimed a share of Dumbledore's time.

Snape glanced at the hourglass and paused his work.

A knock at the door. Madam Pomfrey's voice came through, urgent: "Severus, come quickly — your student has woken up!"

Snape left Lucas with a few small tasks and followed Madam Pomfrey to check on the student.

The comatose seventh-year Slytherin was lying quietly in the hospital bed. Color had gradually returned to their face. Body temperature rising, limbs relaxed, they had drifted into a deep, restorative sleep.

Madam Pomfrey ran several diagnostic spells. The magical feedback came back perfectly normal.

Snape's eyes sharpened. "Did you let anyone in to visit?"

Madam Pomfrey assured him no one had come in at all. Given the severity of the student's condition, a Notice-Me-Not Charm had been placed around the bed to ensure visiting students wouldn't even notice it was there.

But symptoms this serious didn't reverse on their own. Snape was absolutely certain of it, dark magic that severe didn't fade because the caster had a sudden change of conscience.

He caught a passing Ravenclaw who had come to visit a classmate, told the student to carry a message to Dumbledore, and asked Dumbledore to come take a look.

It was the middle of the afternoon. The sudden appearance of the Potions professor gave the student quite a fright.

The Ravenclaw stared at Snape's haggard state, stammered, nodded vigorously, and bolted.

But whatever suspicions Snape might be forming, Lucas was back in the other room, rhythmically chopping dried grass roots. His alibi was airtight.

Time rewound to noon. The Chamber of Secrets.

Ravenclaw's Diadem and the Basilisk's eye met each other's gaze. The Basilisk's eye — capable of petrifying even ghosts — had brought the Horcrux under its control without difficulty.

At the last moment, Argos dissolved into a drifting mass of black mist, a single amber eye glowing from within the dark.

Then, before the frozen Horcrux, Argos split in two. Two identical figures materialized: hooded, robed, indistinguishable from each other.

This was the second ability he had evolved after devouring the Basilisk's eye. Within a certain range, he could divide himself into two separate identities.

It had appeared at exactly the right moment.

One mysterious wizard and a thousand-year-old Basilisk, both were Argos, and both were avatars of Lucas.

Activating the ability through their connection felt strange. Looking at a perfect duplicate of himself was disorienting, like staring into a kaleidoscope.

But the skill was remarkably useful.

He had even deceived Lord Voldemort with it.

And Tom Riddle was, after all, just a name. Petrified and stripped of strength, that soul fragment had grown so feeble that Argos had gained the power to manipulate it directly.

Now, Ravenclaw's Diadem still shone brilliantly.

The sliver of soul bound to it had been separated out and loaded into the ruby Lucas had taken from the old house in Knockturn Alley. The stone had been dull and faded before. It wasn't anymore.

Lucas looked down at the Ravenclaw lying on the floor. The Hospital Wing was already packed to capacity, but this student needed treatment too.

At half past three, someone in a corridor near the eighth floor found a Ravenclaw collapsed on one of the moving staircases. The students who first passed by assumed the older student had carelessly triggered a trap. It was only when they got closer that they realized the breathing was barely there.

The Hospital Wing gained another patient.

Professor Flitwick was starting to wonder if the curse had somehow landed on Flitwick personally. Nearly half of Ravenclaw seemed to have ended up in Madam Pomfrey's ward.

Madam Pomfrey confirmed it: this student's symptoms matched the Slytherin who had been brought in earlier. Life force drained, then returned. Emergency treatment had pulled them back from the edge.

"When they wake up, all of this will need a thorough investigation," Madam Pomfrey said. The voice had gone flat, the tone of someone who had said too many alarming things in too short a time.

"Of course, Poppy. If you need Veritaserum, I would be more than happy to provide it." Snape let out a small sigh. He still needed to add another cauldron.

Lucas had helped considerably. By five o'clock, Lucas had finally convinced Snape to sit down for a simple meal.

The sliced fruit Lucas had brought was finally arranged on a plate.

Snape watched Lucas sort through a dense stack of notes, numbering the pages in sequence, then filing them into a folder.

"Why are you writing all this down?" Snape speared a piece of apple that had been carved into the shape of a rabbit. The Hogwarts house-elves were truly getting more and more frivolous.

"I'm keeping a record so I can compile it later. If there are enough cases, it could be bound into a proper volume." Lucas swallowed a mouthful of food, voice eager.

"These are all sporadic conditions," Snape said, unimpressed. "In ordinary circumstances, you would never encounter the same magical creature modification twice, and having one's life force drained like this is exceedingly rare." He didn't see why any of it was worth compiling into a book. Lucas could certainly draw some problem-solving insights from the experience, but to claim anything more than that would be an exaggeration.

Lucas didn't argue.

Most of the books in the school library also dealt with situations far outside the ordinary, after all. If something had a perfect solution, failing to record it was a waste. That was simply how it was.

Like Snape himself, all that research, buried and lost to time.

Lucas rested his chin in his hand. The meal was over, and a pleasant drowsiness had settled in.

Across the table, Snape speared another rabbit-shaped apple slice and chewed.

Lucas had cut all the fruit himself. Over the summer, Lucas had discovered a new kind of pleasure: the pleasure of hand-feeding someone.

It was thrilling, too. Because under absolutely no circumstances could Snape be allowed to find out that Lucas was feeding him.

➤ Next: Memoirs