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"Mr. Potter, come here a moment," said Sargeras, turning his gaze back to Harry.
Harry blinked, confused, but followed obediently, heart fluttering with unease as the professor led him away from the others, toward the shadowed edge of the Forbidden Forest.
Sargeras stood still beneath the rustling trees, looking down at the boy the world called "the Chosen One." There was nothing particularly grand about the figure before him. He was just a slender, quiet boy with wild black hair and wide, brilliant green eyes, still shining with a trace of innocence the world had not yet managed to take from him.
For a brief moment, something stirred in Sargeras' chest. It was something complex and difficult to name.
He raised his wand slightly, and at once, a shimmer spread out like invisible water, forming a bubble around them. A "Silencing Field" fell into place. Within its boundaries, no sound could escape, and no sound could enter. From outside, the other young witches and wizards could only hear the gentle wailing of wind brushing against treetops.
Sargeras' voice, low and steady, broke the silence between them.
"Regarding the scar on your forehead, do you know its true nature?"
Harry instinctively raised a hand to his forehead and touched the lightning-shaped mark. "It was… from Voldemort, wasn't it, Professor?"
He hesitated, then added with a hint of uncertainty, "At least, that's what I've always been told… that's what everyone says."
Sargeras gave a faint nod, his eyes unreadable as they settled on Harry's. "Did you know," he said slowly, "that on the night twelve years ago when your fate was sealed, when Voldemort's power disintegrated upon you, a fragment of his soul was torn away… and quite by accident, it latched itself onto you."
He paused, seemingly choosing each word carefully before letting it go.
"In my opinion," he continued, "it was nothing more than a tragic coincidence. Not something he intended. Not even he could have foreseen it."
Harry froze. The words didn't quite make sense at first. Then they hit him all at once, like a wave crashing down.
He took an involuntary step back, eyes wide, green as emeralds and twice as stunned.
So that's what it was!
In that instant, broken fragments of half-remembered moments surged through his mind, like puzzle pieces snapping together in a storm. The stabbing, unbearable pain in his scar whenever Voldemort drew near. The Sorting Hat's voice whispering in his head, "You could be great, you know. Slytherin would help you on your way to greatness…"…the way he'd spoken Parseltongue without ever being taught…
All of it. Every strange, inexplicable thing had led to this.
He was carrying a piece of that monster inside him.
So that's what it was…
A chill sharp as ice shot up his spine, racing from the base of his neck all the way to the top of his head. A wave of bitter absurdity and overpowering self-disgust crashed over him in an instant, as if the ground beneath him had suddenly given way.
He stared blankly at Sargeras, eyes unfocused, voice rasping out from a dry throat. "Professor… you… you mean that I…"
"I don't mean anything more than what I've said," Sargeras cut him off gently, his tone still steady and quiet. "I'm simply telling you a truth that has already been confirmed."
"But… couldn't it be a mistake?"
Harry asked in a rush, a desperate tremble running through his voice, half a plea, half denial. "We're enemies! He murdered my parents! How could I possibly… how could I possibly…"
He couldn't go on. His stomach churned violently, a sickening tide rising from within.
"Both Dumbledore and I believe there's no mistake," Sargeras said, his voice as calm and unwavering as before. "And I have no doubt whatsoever about your hatred for him. As I told you — this is the cruel punchline of fate, nothing more than a tragic accident."
"Then… then is there a way to get it out?"
Harry raised his head abruptly. In his eyes, a faint flicker of hope began to stir. It was so weak that it was already collapsing under the weight of despair. He reached out and grabbed the sleeve of Sargeras' robe, his grip tight, his voice raw with revulsion.
"Just thinking about it makes me sick. That thing, his soul, the part of him that killed my parents… it's inside me. I can't live with that. I feel like I'm going to vomit."
"A way?"
For the first time, Sargeras let out a barely audible sigh. He lowered his gaze for a moment, then slowly lifted his eyes to meet Harry's face, a face still lit with that last fragile glimmer of hope.
"There is one way," he said at last, his words falling slowly, deliberately, as though the air around them had turned too heavy to carry sound. "But… it is not a kind one."
"What is it?!" Harry leaned forward, voice urgent, his whole body taut with expectation.
Sargeras didn't answer. He only looked at Harry, quietly and deeply. Those eyes, sharp and knowing, offered no comfort and no explanation. They held no answers, only a silence so dark and still it seemed to swallow every word before it could be spoken.
And it was in that silence that Harry understood.
He saw it in the professor's gaze, buried beneath the shadowed stillness and tinged with something like pity. It was an answer that hadn't been spoken aloud, yet it was colder and sharper than any blade.
The fragile flame of hope that had flickered within him was extinguished in an instant, snuffed out like a candle in a storm. All that remained was a numb, endless cold.
"It's to kill me, isn't it, Professor?" Harry asked quietly, his voice distant, as if spoken from somewhere far away. "The only way… is to kill me."
"Yes, Potter," Sargeras replied without evasion, nodding calmly. "As things currently stand, that is the only way to remove it completely."
But then, almost gently, he shifted course. A faint glimmer of possibility softened his tone.
"Still, that might not always be the case in the future. Magic is, after all, full of wonders. Perhaps, with time, we'll find a solution. One that doesn't demand such a price."
Yet Harry heard none of that.
His mind had latched onto only one thing, that clear, inescapable confirmation.
He stood frozen, as if his feet had rooted to the earth. His face had gone pale, paler than freshly painted stone, and his thoughts were spiraling into emptiness. Only one word echoed in his head, again and again, like the tolling of a bell: Death!
Then, as if seized by some fierce, desperate impulse, Harry jerked his head up. His emerald eyes were suddenly filled with a strange, unwavering calm. Behind that calm burned a quiet kind of resolve, young, naive, but utterly sincere.
"Then do it," he said, voice steady. "Kill me, Professor."
The words came out so suddenly, a childish declaration of readiness to die, that for the first time, Sargeras was truly caught off guard.
He turned sharply toward the boy, surprise flickering in his expression. His piercing gaze studied Harry carefully, as though he were seeing the twelve-year-old for the very first time. This scrawny boy, this child, stood before him with the kind of courage that had no regard for consequence.
It was the sort of raw, absolute bravery that could take your breath away… and yet, it carried with it an almost tragic absurdity.
"Your courage is admirable," Sargeras said softly, nodding once. "But killing you would solve nothing."
His composure returned at once, cool and steady. He locked eyes with Harry and spoke with his usual calm precision.
"Voldemort himself won't die just because this fragment does. And more importantly…"
He paused for a moment, then delivered the rest with quiet finality, "He cannot control you. This fragment of the soul… it's not a weapon. It's a prisoner. Helpless and bound inside your body. Forever locked away, unable to act, unable to speak, forced to witness everything you do, every choice you make that defies him, every step you take toward the future he fears most."
"That," Sargeras said quietly, "is its eternal prison."
Harry opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out. He couldn't even form a single word. Merlin knew how much courage it had taken to say those words out loud a moment ago.
In that moment, flashes of his parents filled his mind. The faint, loving smiles in the Mirror of Erised… and then, Voldemort's cold, merciless voice describing in chilling detail how he had murdered them. It all came rushing back, too vivid to ignore.
Just now, it had felt like something inside him had finally snapped. For one brief moment, a wave of searing anger had surged up from somewhere deep inside him. It had rushed through him like fire, scorching away his fear in an instant and nearly swallowing him whole.
But then, what Professor Greengrass described — his body, Harry Potter's own body, turned into a prison for a fragment of Voldemort's soul?
He, Harry Potter, not only could go on living, but might one day be the one to end Voldemort once and for all. And the piece of that monster trapped inside him would be forced to watch it all happen, powerless to stop it.
Wasn't that the sharpest, cruelest revenge of all?
Wasn't that, in itself, a kind of punishment? A punishment by living.
Yet no sooner had that thought surfaced than another, deeper fear struck him in its place.
"But Professor… what if I…" His voice faltered, thick with unease and self-doubt. "What if I end up becoming another Voldemort because of it?"
There was genuine fear trembling beneath the words, a worry that ran deeper than he wanted to admit. "I can speak Parseltongue… The Sorting Hat said I should've been in Slytherin… What if I really do turn out just like him?"
"But you're in Gryffindor now," Sargeras replied steadily, his voice calm, as if stating something simple and absolute.
"Yeah…" Harry's voice dropped lower, carrying with it a bitter helplessness. "But only because I begged the Hat not to put me in Slytherin…"
"That alone is enough, Mr. Potter." Sargeras gave a small, approving nod, his voice deep and sure. "What matters most is never how others define you, nor the labels they try to place on you. What matters is the choice you make for yourself. No one, not a soul and not even fate, can stop you from becoming the person you choose to be."
He paused for a second, then added with quiet certainty, "At most, all they can deprive from you is your life."
Harry was instantly stunned.
Deprive him of life…? But wasn't that exactly what he himself had just asked for?
That worst-case scenario, that dark and terrifying chasm he had feared beyond all else, wasn't so insurmountable after all. It was just another possibility. Nothing more.
And suddenly, something stirred inside his chest. A light.
He lifted his head, and in his emerald-green eyes there burned a bright, unwavering fire. His voice came out strong, charged with emotion that couldn't quite be put into words.
"I understand now, Professor. I'm going to live. I'm going to live well, because a soul fragment trapped inside me doesn't get to decide who I am."
Sargeras met his gaze in silence.
And in that silence, something flickered in the professor's eyes. The faintest trace of approval.
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[Chapter End's]
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