Chapter 120: Hello, Dark Lord
This is a question for which no one can give an answer.
If such an observer truly exists, it would be terrifying, equivalent to everyone being controlled by an unseen hand. If one cannot break free from this hand, one will never see the truth.
Vaughn, of course, could not provide an answer either; he merely corrected, “Not ‘used to be.’ He might exist in the past, he might exist in the present, and he might even exist in the future. For someone who can manipulate time, the distinction between past, present, and future is meaningless. He could exist in any time and space.”
“Like Aether?”
“Yes, like Aether!”
“That is truly frightening…” Dumbledore said the word “frightening” with a smile, “This concept is a bit like the higher-dimensional beings you mentioned before. You said then that the ultimate form of a wizard might be ascension to a higher dimension? Is it possible that this observer is a future wizard?”
Of course, that is a possibility.
Vaughn nodded, “Perhaps it’s a future me or you, or perhaps Harry, Hermione? Who knows!”
Before one can escape the reality of the world, discussing the identity of the observer is meaningless, as it changes nothing.
Compared to the ethereal, illusory observer, Vaughn was more concerned with the experiment currently underway. He took out his notebook and, using the smoke screen as cover, carefully observed the movements of the vortex of destiny and the various assumptions about the past of this “world” under alterable conditions.
Dumbledore accompanied him, observing and recording in silence.
Then, at a certain moment, he suddenly said, “Tom is trying to invade this world.”
“Huh? He knows alchemy too?”
“Of course. Although he has no notable achievements, Tom is indeed an alchemist. Horcruxes are both Dark Arts and a branch of alchemy, a branch that originated with the despicable Herpo, using life and soul as raw materials for alchemy.”
Upon hearing this, Vaughn regretfully stopped writing. “Alright, related research can be conducted later. Now, it’s my turn to appear, isn’t it?”
“Ha, if Granger can truly understand… yes, to be precise, it’s the past you…”
“But in this world, what’s the difference from the present me? By the way, if time were to rewind to the very beginning of ‘creation,’ what would happen to Harry, Hermione, and Ron?”
“They would still remain here. After all, they are not creations of this world. Time here cannot truly send them back over two months ago!”
“Time is synchronized yet independent, so their material states cannot be shared?”
“…Child, could you please summarize it next time in a way an old man can understand?”
…
“Time-Turner…”
Voldemort tilted his head, looking at the fire dragon flying in the sky and unwilling to come down, merely spitting flames from afar. A flicker of deep thought crossed his ugly face.
And confusion.
He was no stranger to Time-Turners. Although he couldn’t apply for that alchemical marvel due to Dumbledore’s prejudice in his student days, after graduation, while working at Borgin and Burkes, he had once double-crossed someone and obtained a Time-Turner stolen by a Mouthless One.
However, not long after, he lost interest in researching it. The past couldn’t be changed, and merely having more time held no appeal for him.
Moreover, the spell system also contained some time-related magic, such as the Mending Charm, which in a sense, works by rewinding an object’s time to before it was damaged.
There was also the Backstep Charm, often used by wandmakers to rewind the casting history of a wand. This spell could even pull the historical projection of a person who died by the wand back from the river of time.
But whether it was the Time-Turner or various time-related spells, none had ever exhibited the ability to reverse everything around them back a few minutes.
“Is it because of this space?”
His eyes faintly lit up with a greyish-white light, and tiny stars emerged from the surfaces of all things, instantly revealing the true nature of the space before him.
It did not take Voldemort long to go from contemplating the anomaly of the Time-Turner to using magic, observing the truth of the “little world,” and attempting to invade.
Harry and Hermione only saw Voldemort ponder for a moment, and then his eyes suddenly lit up with a faint, eerie glow.
Then he extended his hand, and instantly, the “world” began to tremble!
Harry stumbled, supporting Hermione, and looked around in alarm. He didn’t know what caused the tremor or what was happening.
But his intuition told him that the anomaly of the “world” was related to Voldemort.
The most direct proof was that the fire dragon in the sky, which had been recovering from its injuries through time reversal and had not dared to come down since, suddenly became agitated after the tremor occurred.
It let out a mournful roar, flapping its wide, membranous wings. After a few seconds of hesitation, it suddenly descended like a resolute black lightning bolt, its thick hind claws reaching for Voldemort.
Even a weakling like Harry, after the previous battles, could tell that the fire dragon was no match for Voldemort and was completely outmatched.
As expected.
The fire dragon’s fierce pounce was intercepted ten meters from Voldemort. An air barrier, set up at some unknown time, clung to the dragon’s claws like a mire.
The fire dragon roared and struggled. Its body began to swell again, and a fiery red color flowed and gathered beneath its skin.
“Noisy little lizard!”
His eyes emitted a faint light, and Voldemort, gazing at the sky, sensed the breath the fire dragon was brewing. He was like someone busy with work who was slightly annoyed by an ant, reluctantly diverting some of his attention from his “work” to glance at the fire dragon.
The tip of his wand deflected, and he casually pointed it.
Pfft—
The fire dragon was sent flying backward. Its gaunt, massive body suddenly split open with wounds, and a large amount of viscous blood sprayed out.
The fire dragon let out a huge scream.
The violent sound waves echoed through the gallery, making Harry dizzy. What confused him even more was that he couldn’t see what Voldemort had just done.
He only saw the opponent point his wand, and the fire dragon was heavily injured!
He clenched his wand, and nervous sweat poured from his forehead and back. People always had an instinctive fear of the unknown.
Harry was no exception. Voldemort’s magic was unknown to him.
He couldn’t understand it, nor could he think of a way to counter it!
But he also understood that the situation couldn’t continue like this; Voldemort had to be stopped, someone had to stand up!
Who else could it be?
In this place, apart from the fire dragon that had been sent flying backward, covered in wounds and groaning, the only ones who could confront Voldemort were him and Hermione!
He wiped the sweat from his forehead, his hands trembling slightly from nervousness and fear. His mind desperately recalled the spells Professor Flitwick had taught him and the spells Vaughn had taught him.
He was like a drowning person, anxiously and despairingly searching for a means to save the current situation, even if it was just a straw!
“Harry…”
Hermione took his arm.
Harry knew Hermione didn’t want him to be reckless. The two of them and the dragon present were as small and fragile as ants before Voldemort.
Acting rashly would be no different from suicide.
However, some things had to be done!
He took a deep breath, looked at Hermione, and said with a choked voice, “Don’t stop me, Hermione. Like the centaur’s prophecy, stopping Voldemort is my destiny. One of us must die for this to end. It seems today is the end of my destiny. I will hold him off with all my might, and you should take this chance to run. You…”
He choked up at this point and couldn’t continue.
He was only a 12-year-old child; how could he not be afraid of death?
Seeing him weeping uncontrollably, Hermione blinked and said, “Harry… I mean, I know how to stop Voldemort!”
“?”
Harry’s crying stopped abruptly. He stared blankly at Hermione, a snot streak still on his lip.
“…What do you mean?”
Hermione glanced into the distance at Voldemort, who was waving his wand and causing the “world” to tremble with each passing moment. She said in a low voice, “Did you notice the alchemical item the fire dragon used just now? It can reverse time!”
Harry’s mind was a muddle, “So?”
“Idiot!” Hermione scolded, “Time reversal, don’t you understand? We can use that alchemical item to turn back time here to a long time ago, back to when its owner was still alive… Dumbledore! This world was created by Dumbledore. We can go back to the past and have the past Dumbledore help us defeat Voldemort!”
Harry’s confused brain finally understood Hermione’s words. His eyes widened, and the fear and sadness lingering on his face quickly twisted into ecstatic joy!
“Hermione, you…”
“Shh—Quiet!”
Harry covered his mouth, nodded repeatedly, and urged, “Then start quickly!”
“How do we start? Do we walk up to the fire dragon in front of Voldemort, take its necklace, and openly manipulate that hourglass-like pendant?” Hermione rolled her eyes. “We need a plan, we need something to distract Voldemort!”
“Uh…” Harry, finding this logical and something he had never considered, gave up thinking. “Then what’s your plan?”
Hermione hesitated for a moment. “The Philosopher’s Stone! Voldemort’s objective is the Philosopher’s Stone. As long as we find it and use it as bait…”
Voldemort would definitely fall for it!
Harry immediately understood Hermione’s intention and gave a wry smile. “Hermione, we don’t have the Philosopher’s Stone. Your plan…”
“No, I know where the Philosopher’s Stone is!”
“Ah?”
Hermione opened her satchel and gently took out the “Wish Brush” obtained from the first trial.
A dialogue box with a distinctly oil-painting style slowly unfolded before their eyes, containing the familiar description of the item:
【 Wish Brush: A magical paintbrush applied to the Painted World. When you make a wish with sincere faith, it can paint the item you desire! 】
【 Uses: 1/3】
The description was unremarkable. Before, in Harry’s mind, with its limited uses, it was just a fun, somewhat practical toy, and he hadn’t paid much attention to it.
But at this moment, after hearing Hermione’s words and looking at this description, Harry suddenly felt utterly stupid.
“Hermione, you… when did you think of this?”
He still held a sliver of hope.
Hermione glanced at him, sensing his thoughts, and said mercilessly, “From the moment I got it, I thought of it.”
“…”
Deeply struck by the intellectual disparity, Harry awkwardly tried to shift the blame. “Then why didn’t you say anything? We wasted two uses; otherwise, we could have painted three Philosopher’s Stones!”
“Idiot! Did you even listen in Professor Flitwick’s and Professor McGonagall’s classes? Magic cannot create something from nothing. Any magic that appears to be related to creation is actually transferring an existing object from elsewhere!”
Harry sullenly fell silent.
Hermione was not lying. From the moment she obtained the “Wish Brush,” she knew its true purpose.
Others, including Quirrell, or rather Voldemort, had not truly taken the first trial and its rewards seriously. Because, by normal logic, such a vast mechanism and such an important item as the Philosopher’s Stone would surely be heavily guarded and definitely not placed in the first trial.
But in reality, the Muggle logic puzzle of the first trial, finding the true guide, was not just a simple brain teaser; the problem itself was telling the trial-taker.
One must learn to break free from rigid thinking frameworks.
In the distance, the fire dragon, which had struggled to get up, was wounded again. It cried out, and a large amount of magma-like blood gushed out, yet it dared not turn the pendant.
This was because Voldemort was interfering with this space, and also because it needed to use the pendant’s function to be immune to possible Dark Arts!
Voldemort also noticed this.
The Time-Turner was not an insurmountable difficulty for him. What truly rendered him helpless against time reversal was the special nature of this space!
As long as the space itself was cracked and its symbolic structure destroyed, a little lizard like that would be a trivial problem he could handle with a flick of his hand.
Withdrawing the wand that had cut the fire dragon, Voldemort once again used his magic-infused eyes to observe the space filled with symbols.
In his 60-plus years of life （ Voldemort was born in 1926, making him 66 years old at this time ）, his soul had absorbed an immense amount of knowledge.
Alchemy occupied a negligible portion of his total knowledge, but the problem with alchemy was that as long as one had talent, one could see and learn it!
Moreover, creating something is difficult, like building blocks, but if one wants to destroy it, it usually only takes a gentle push!
He dedicated most of his energy to searching for the weak points in the symbolic structure of this space, not even bothering to pay attention to Harry and Hermione.
What could two first-year young wizards do?
No… first-year young wizards were not all the same.
Voldemort suddenly remembered Vaughn Weasley. He hadn’t told Harry the truth; in fact, he had a deep impression of Vaughn.
In his long life, Voldemort had seen many geniuses, and he himself was a genius among geniuses.
But among all the people he had ever met, no one in their first year had ever pushed him into such a sorry state as Vaughn had during Halloween last year, forcing him to use the Killing Curse despite his own weakness.
After that night, he had been trying to understand Vaughn Weasley. Hermione’s name was also remembered by him because of its connection to Vaughn.
The Dark Lord naturally could not admit that he was obsessed with a first-year student, so when he mentioned Vaughn and Hermione earlier, he had made Quirrell take the blame.
Quirrell’s final value was limited to this.
Voldemort impatiently felt waves of weakness emanating from deep within his body. Stupid waste, incapable of achieving anything and only capable of causing trouble, his body was too fragile to withstand his magic!
The wand in his hand also trembled slightly.
It was trying to resist his control!
Voldemort knew he didn’t have much time. He had to speed up his plan, dismantle this space as quickly as possible, and then capture that fire-breathing lizard to force it to hand over the Philosopher’s Stone!
Just then, he heard Harry shout, “Voldemort! Look here!”
A boring, rude, annoying little boy!
Voldemort felt that perhaps his attitude had been too lenient, making dear Harry a bit too presumptuous. While maintaining the magic on his eyes, he turned his wand, preparing to teach Harry a lesson.
Then, he saw Harry raise his hands high.
Granger stood beside him, holding a paintbrush and lightly tapping it on Harry’s palm.
As she closed her eyes and chanted silently, the paintbrush gradually disappeared. At the same time, a stone appeared in Harry’s palm.
The stone was only about the size of a fist, crimson all over, as red as blood, yet as transparent as a gemstone!
So beautiful, as if containing an unspeakable mystery!
“The Philosopher’s Stone…”
The shaking of the space had stopped at some point. The greyish-white spectral glow in Voldemort’s hood extinguished. His ultimate goal had appeared, and there was no longer any need to invade the space.
Feeling the cessation of the space’s vibrations, Harry’s heart rejoiced, but he still didn’t dare to relax. He knew Voldemort was watching him, watching the Philosopher’s Stone in his hand.
Because Voldemort had removed his hood, revealing the face he had been concealing—a face that made Harry gasp in horror. It was a human face, wrinkled and embedded on the back of Quirrell’s head.
The skin color was chalky grey-white, with bloodshot, crimson eyes reflecting the sky’s light, like blades of ice that pierced the bone.
What horrified Harry even more was that beneath those eyes, where a nose should have been, there were only two long, narrow slits.
At first glance, it looked like a human face spliced with a snake’s!
Harry stumbled back a few steps.
“Scared, Harry?” Voldemort was unfazed by Harry’s fear. He never thought his appearance was problematic; it was an outward manifestation of his noble bloodline. Only the ignorant would be swayed by superficial likes and dislikes and ignore the profoundness of his magical attainments reflected in his appearance.
Of course, he wouldn’t explain anything. Harry Potter, after all, was just a commoner!
Voldemort extended his hand and said softly, “Boy, give me the Philosopher’s Stone!”
Hearing his voice, Harry snapped out of his terror and stumbled back a few more steps, retreating to the edge of the gallery. “Don’t come closer, or I’ll throw it down!”
Voldemort, who had taken two steps forward, stopped. It wasn’t just Harry’s threat, but also because he saw Granger, who had been standing beside Harry, suddenly run towards the fire dragon.
Voldemort’s blood-red eyes blinked. “Children, what trick are you playing?”
He raised his wand.
Seeing his action, Harry immediately turned around and shouted at the top of his lungs.
With all his might, he threw the Philosopher’s Stone over the cliff outside the gallery.
This action was undoubtedly beyond Voldemort’s expectations.
He had to retract the wand he was about to use to cast a spell on Granger and follow the crimson stone as it arced through the air and plunged towards the cliff.
In the next moment, with a *thump*, his figure twisted and squeezed into the air. In an instant, he teleported outside the gallery. As he fell, he struggled to reach out and catch the Philosopher’s Stone.
Even at this moment, Voldemort remained composed. Foolish Harry Potter, did he think throwing the Philosopher’s Stone towards the cliff would stop him?
To die at the hands of such an ignorant fool would truly be the greatest shame of his life!
Then, he caught the Philosopher’s Stone.
Voldemort breathed a sigh of relief and used Apparition to distort space again, only then bothering to focus on Granger. He saw that Hermione had already run to the fire dragon.
The viscous blood flowing beneath the fire dragon made her stumble and appear disheveled, but she still ran desperately to the front of the fire dragon, pointed at him, and shouted something loudly at it.
Then, Voldemort saw the fire dragon tilt its head, and then extend its claw and forcefully, unequivocally, turn the pendant.
Whoosh—
Everything in his vision stretched and distorted the moment the pendant turned!
Voldemort felt himself flying, retreating rapidly. The scenery on both sides of his vision elongated, quickly becoming blurred outlines that shifted forward.
Gradually, they turned into blurry patches of color and cloud-like objects in his eyes, twisting and flickering. At this terrifying speed that surpassed the limits of mortal imagination, they plunged into a constantly receding path, a tunnel formed of light.
Under the constraints of this special spacetime, Voldemort was unable to move. He could only barely cover his eyes with magic to observe what was happening.
He saw that this “world” was disintegrating…
Or rather, it was returning to its original state. The sky, the land, the forest, the river… all the scenery seemed to be erased by an eraser, shrinking, fading, and disappearing!
The forest was gone, the mountains were gone, and the gradually emptying world was left with light everywhere.
At a certain moment, the light also vanished!
In the pitch-black space, Voldemort saw himself, Granger, and Harry, as if specimens sealed in ice, hurtling backward through an seemingly infinite void.
Voldemort, with his profound magical attainments, understood almost immediately that they did not originally belong to the spacetime of this “little world.” Therefore, even though time was flowing backward, they did not disappear along with the mountains and land.
The only one affected was the fire dragon.
Although it also did not belong here, it had grown up in the little world. Voldemort saw its size rapidly shrink under the power of time.
From a nearly adult fire dragon, it transformed into a hatchling that had just emerged from its egg!
Then, a pair of hands appeared in the misty haze of time reversal. The hands did not look large, with long, slender, fair fingers, and their owner—a young man wearing a Slytherin robe with a composed demeanor!
In the rapid reversal of time, he appeared before them, disappeared, and reappeared.
Then he froze!
The tunnel of time disappeared.
Voldemort, Harry, and Hermione suddenly felt solid ground beneath their feet again, and their vision refocused. They found themselves standing in a hall.
The hall was empty, without any decorations. Their gazes did not wander to observe the hall, but instead focused on the young man as he bent down and picked up the fire dragon, which had become a hatchling.
“Vaughn!”
Harry and Hermione cried out in surprise and joy.
The joy was naturally from seeing Vaughn, while the surprise was that they had initially expected Dumbledore to appear!
“Harry, Hermione, hello.”
Holding Nobeta, listening to this ill-tempered little fire dragon let out aggrieved whimpers, Vaughn ignored it and smiled as he greeted Harry and Hermione.
Then, he looked at Voldemort, his gaze sweeping past the snake-like slits of his nose. “Hello to you too, Dark Lord. We meet again.”
“…Heh, Vaughn Weasley…”
Voldemort let out a hoarse chuckle. His blood-red eyes stared intently at Vaughn and asked indifferently, “You also want to stop me?”
“Yes.” Vaughn nodded. He pointed at the crimson stone clutched in Voldemort’s hand. “You cannot take the Philosopher’s Stone!”
“Uh…”
Harry, who had thought that the “past” Vaughn might not know what had happened and might need an explanation from him or Hermione, was stunned upon hearing their conversation.
Glancing at Harry, Voldemort chuckled sinisterly. “Harry, poor child, you and Granger don’t understand time magic, so you don’t realize that the time in the ‘Painted World’ is independent of the outside world. Simply put, time reversal in the ‘Painted World’ does not affect reality. Therefore, theoretically, no matter how much you reverse time, Vaughn Weasley, who is not in the Painted World, could not possibly appear before you.”
Harry was still a little confused.
But Hermione had already understood. She explained softly:
“Voldemort means that when we were doing the trial, Vaughn was always…”
“…”
Harry didn’t know what expression to put on. He recalled the struggles and pain of the past few hours, and thought of Ron, who had sacrificed himself in Chessboard Town…
“Harry!” Hermione noticed his expression and immediately reminded him, “Voldemort is doing this intentionally. He is deliberately making you fall into anger and suspicion. Don’t fall for his trick. Vaughn… Vaughn not appearing must have his own reasons!”
Harry stood there stunned, momentarily unsure who to believe.
His dilemma clearly did not affect Vaughn and Voldemort.
Voldemort, having casually sown seeds of doubt in the Savior, looked at Vaughn curiously. “Vaughn Weasley, are you the past you, or the present you at this moment?”
Vaughn himself didn’t know the answer to this question. He was currently in a very special state. At this moment, he was both his past self and his “present” self.
His thoughts contained both the ideas he had two months ago when he arrived in this space and placed Nobeta, and the understanding of everything that had already happened from his “present” self.
Moreover, the way these distinctly different thoughts existed was also strange; they were not split but superimposed.
It was as if he from two different times and spaces were thinking simultaneously.
Vaughn secretly noted this state. He did not immediately answer Voldemort’s question, as he had always maintained the utmost vigilance towards Voldemort.
Perhaps at this moment, the former Dark Lord was barely surviving and extremely weak, but Vaughn would not underestimate a Legendary Wizard.
He gazed at Voldemort for a moment, then suddenly drew his wand and cast a Disarming Charm!
With a *whoosh*.
A thick red light imbued with immense magical power shot forward, its speed far exceeding that of a normal Disarming Charm. Even with Voldemort’s reaction ability, he hastily conjured a Shield Charm just as the red light was about to hit him.
A transparent barrier appeared before him, blocking the red light.
But the power of a max-level spell exceeded Voldemort’s expectations. Not only was the power of the spell itself extremely strong, nearly causing the barrier formed by the Shield Charm to shatter.
It also split!
The thick red light, upon being blocked by the Shield Charm, divided into dozens of thin red snakes that slithered and traversed the surface of the barrier like arcs of electricity.
In the blink of an eye, they bypassed the front barrier and shot towards Voldemort behind it.
Voldemort’s expression was surprised, but with decades of combat experience, he was extremely skilled and immediately changed his strategy, his entire body twisting and transforming into smoke—
Apparition!
Quirrell’s body limited Voldemort.
Voldemort understood this, and Vaughn understood it too!
This battle was not a spontaneous decision for Vaughn. He had long considered finding the currently weakened version of Voldemort to gauge his own strength.
In the world, no dark wizard was more suitable as his practice target than a combat-damaged Voldemort!
As a former Dark Lord, Voldemort had fought his entire life and possessed extremely rich combat experience, with both theoretical and practical knowledge being solid.
But at the same time, he had lost his own body and wand, and could only perform three-tenths of his magic at best, let alone use any powerful spells or undergo a burst of power, the possibility of which was infinitely close to zero.
Therefore, in Vaughn’s eyes, Voldemort was an excellent target with a very high floor, reaching a level unattainable by many dark wizards, but a very low ceiling!
Of course, Vaughn would not underestimate the Dark Lord.
He deeply knew his own weakness when facing Voldemort—Dark Magic!
Voldemort’s specialty was Dark Magic, not just the three Unforgivable Curses, but also various poison curses and curses. The sheer variety was so great that even Dumbledore, who had taught Voldemort, didn’t know how many he knew.
Fighting a legendary wizard who was over 60 years old and could almost be called a “walking book of Dark Magic,” Vaughn would, of course, not foolishly engage in long-range spell duels with him.
Perhaps relying on his max-level Disarming Charm and Shield Charm, he could gain a temporary advantage.
But monotonous attack methods could easily be deciphered by Voldemort and countered.
At the very least, excessive distance would give Voldemort ample opportunity to secretly cast curses.
Vaughn’s strategy for fighting Voldemort was simple: force him out of his comfort zone and engage in a battle that a legendary wizard rarely encountered after achieving fame!
For example, rapid, mobile combat!
The moment Voldemort twisted into smoke, Vaughn also Apparated.
【 Apparition Lv3 （ 2/24 ） 】
As a particularly dangerous spell that could split if one lost focus even slightly, few people in the wizarding world were willing to spend a lot of time researching Apparition.
After all, there were more convenient options like Floo Powder and Portkeys!
Only Vaughn, who could increase spell levels through points, was willing to invest in such an “unpopular” spell and use it as a combat method!
The Lv3 level already represented a considerable depth and professionalism among spells, indicating that one was no longer limited to the spell itself but had begun to learn broadly.
This manifested in Apparition （ spatial ） perception!
Vaughn, entering the teleportation state, no longer felt dizzy and disoriented like before. The space distorted by the spell was clearly reflected in his mind, allowing him to discern its every flicker and movement.
