Deep within the dark crypt.
Helbo watched Harry's insincere "terrified" performance with interest, a dramatic grin on his lips.
Across the stone table, Harry's emerald green eyes appeared cold and distant under the pale blue light. The flow state he meticulously maintained prevented any rash judgments, yet it also acted like a sturdy shell of ice, isolating most of the boy's emotional fluctuations.
"Haha... fascinating."
Helbo's voice, in a girl's timbre, sounded particularly eerie, "In these two thousand years, my collection has never lacked stubborn souls, but ones like yours... hmm... 'calm' are rare. It seems that thief indeed taught you many interesting things."
His fingers gently tapped on the rough surface of the stone table, emitting dull "thud, thud" sounds, each knock seemingly hitting the stagnated air.
"Thief."
Harry repeated the word.
"It seems you don't know, your beloved teacher is just a despicable... well, it seems you don't adore him."
Yes, I think of him as my mom... male mom.
Harry remained silent, only slightly lowering his eyelids, as if examining the texture of the stone table before him. The collections Helbo mentioned lay behind him, the twisted black magic specimens casting grim shadows inside crystal jars, the ancient mummy coffins exuding an increasingly dense aura of deathly silence.
The crypt's atmosphere, mingled with soil, rotten wood, magical potions, and deep darkness, seemed to gain weight at this moment, heavily pressing on everyone's nerve endings—though at this moment, the so-called "everyone" was just Harry, the lone living spectator.
And Helbo seemed to enjoy this silence under his control, yet at the same time, this fellow, who had spent most of the past two thousand years in solitude, also wanted to speak. So he leisurely stood up and walked to a shelf filled with various strange skull specimens.
"Alright, let me think about what kind of little room I should prepare for the famous Savior of England? Hmm... it should be quiet, so we can... delve into a discussion about the art of the soul." He casually picked up an animal skull with three horns, lightly weighing it.
Just then.
"... Discussion? Perhaps speak with me first."
A voice suddenly sounded, calm, gentle, with a slight hoarseness due to being tormented by a long-distance apparition.
The voice seemed to possess penetrating power, instantly piercing through the sticky silence of the crypt and the atmosphere Helbo deliberately created.
"Finally..."
Harry took a deep breath, the magic sealing his emotions suddenly shattering.
"A bit late, I didn't expect this idiot would take you straight to Egypt—"
William's voice carried a hint of apology, capturing the spatial fluctuation from the Portkey then tracing the track by such a long-distance apparition was indeed beyond his anticipation.
Helbo's body abruptly froze. He didn't turn around immediately, just tightened his grip on the alien skull slightly, his knuckles whitening with effort, maintaining his position with his back to Harry and others, the light smile on the "girl's" face instantly rigidifying and disappearing, replaced with an expression mixed with vigilance, surprise, and... solemnity.
"Oh dear..."
Helbo's tone still held the Black Wizard's typical elongated tail note, but it completely lost the frivolous flippancy that made him appear carefree earlier, "I wondered why there's suddenly such a nauseating scent in my cave..."
"Who's pretending? You didn't even know I arrived, fool." William spoke gently, with a shallow smile.
"..."
Helbo eventually turned around, his movements slow yet carrying an invisible tension, like a snake raising its head—his gaze no longer playful like it was towards Harry, but sharp like a hawk, fixed firmly on the figure standing at the entrance of the cave, who had appeared without him noticing.
"How did you follow us?"
"Ha, stupid question, with your clumsy concealment methods, even Sirius could follow up."
"?"
Though he didn't know who Sirius was, Helbo instinctively sensed insult.
William stood at the edge of the entrance barely touched by light, no longer maintaining his Animagus form. He still held the redwood wand in his hand, the tip not raised but naturally hanging by his side.
The man appeared travel-worn, the edges of his gray cloak dusted with a bit of sand and some inexplicable sticky stains. His handsome face bore no expression, and his deep blue eyes, like a deep ancient well, calmly watched the Black Wizard by the stone table.
No angry roars, no outburst of rage, William's calmness was more oppressive than any emotion because his very presence had already declared that the "quiet hideout" Helbo spoke of was completely compromised.
"Let go of my student, Black Ghost."
After a moment of silence, William spoke. His voice was not loud, yet each word clearly echoed in the catacombs, "The game is over. This child's soul is not on your collection list—"
"Student?"
Helbo raised his eyebrows exaggeratedly as if he had heard an amusing joke, "Such a nostalgic term! In those days, mentors used their apprentice's blood and bones for sacrifices, and it was common for apprentices to suffer backlash from stealing their master's secrets. Your outdated protective instincts... tsk tsk, how nostalgic indeed."
"In my classroom, I am the rules. Take it up with my wand if you have any issues."
William took a step forward. The sound of his boots on the rough rock was particularly clear in the silence. This step brought him fully into the zone covered by the light source. Yet, even though he spoke such words, William did not immediately raise his wand. Instead, a very subtle, deep nebula-like purple halo flashed and vanished at the tip of the redwood wand.
"Last warning, get out of Harry's mind, now."
"Ha! A warning?"
Helbo sneered, but there was a deeper dread in his eyes. He could clearly feel the pure and vast magic power emanating from William, completely distinct from the surrounding decayed magic, as well as... that utterly unfathomable "Ancient Magic."
Damn, is that really the Ancient Magic those guys used?!
"It seems someone thinks they're omnipotent. My dear little one, do you know what it means to touch that 'door?' You understand nothing!"
Helbo's tone suddenly turned harsh, and the moment he finished speaking, he moved without any warning!
He didn't wave a wand but instead hurled the three-pronged grotesque skull he had been holding in his left hand!
The brown-black skull let out a sharp "woo woo" wail in the air, moving at an extraordinary speed—
Simultaneously, two ghostly green flames ignited in the eye sockets of the skull, and its mouth opened, spewing a large mass of boiling black mire—this mire, emitting a pungent sulfurous and rotten smell, began to expand instantly, enveloping William's figure, as if intending to drag him into that hellish place along with the skull.
"Reverso."
Yet William's response was evidently swifter. The moment the skull was thrown, the redwood wand was lifted high. With a clear and forceful incantation, the tip of the wand burst forth with a beam of deep blue light. Without any grand or dramatic explosions, the seething corrosive black mire began to seethe and bubble upon contact with the blue light—
Then, they began to compress, as if caught and kneaded by invisible large hands—followed by a swift flick of William's wrist, and in just half a second, the black mire, compressed to the extreme, returned like a projectile, along with the path of the skull—
For the first time, true astonishment flickered in Helbo's eyes—even though he had lived for so many years and mastered countless evil curses, never had he seen a wizard, or even a "Divine Spirit," so cleanly and swiftly "reject" the Dark Arts he unleashed using the secret magic beast bone!
He didn't even have time to fully recite a defense spell!
"Roar—"
A low, unhuman growl erupted from Helbo's throat, and clad in a girl's shell, he took a quick step sideways. Yet the black mire followed persistently like a leech, while the solid rock beneath his feet had already begun to soften like a swamp, swallowing him up to his waist in an instant.
Consequently, he began to move his hands, and a string of unintelligible syllables burst forth from his mouth.
The next moment, a pale circle of skeletal light appeared around him, forming a barrier seemingly constructed from the wails of countless resentful spirits. Skulls strained to reach out and pull Helbo out of the black mire, and the moment the skeletal light appeared, Harry's face also turned pale, and he began to sway unsteadily.
Realizing this, William raised his left hand, making a gentle gripping motion towards the opposing, disheveled figure.
The skeletal light shattered like it had been struck powerfully, creating a sound that set one's teeth on edge, while Helbo leveraged the force from this blow to skid back several meters until he collided with the shelf holding the mummy, finally stopping—"Cough, cough—" Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.
"Is it so hard to admit there'll always be a new wave pushing the old?"
Amid the dust and rubble, William's stance remained as solid as a rock. He even had the leisure to shield Harry with a spherical light of pale blue, which easily deflected all the flying debris and residual dark magical energy—
The wand in William's hand resumed its hanging posture, but the deep blue halo flickering between the wand grew more intense and threatening. He lifted his head again, smiling, "Old and immortal, are you?"