"The reason I came back this time is to completely solve the problem inside you."
Seeing that Harry and Ron were already shaken to the core, Avada immediately pressed on while the iron was hot.
"You're carrying a fragment of Voldemort's soul inside you. And that means your very existence is helping keep Voldemort's life from vanishing completely. Before today, however, there was only one way to destroy a Horcrux—and that was to destroy the entire vessel along with the soul fragment inside it…"
Harry's body swayed.
"This problem troubled Dumbledore and me for a very long time—of course, no one was insane enough to plan on simply killing you directly. Otherwise, I wouldn't have waited until today to tell you this. Ever since you first showed the ability to speak Parseltongue two years ago, we had already more or less guessed the truth."
"So,"
Ron steadied the unsteady Harry with one hand, while using the other to point at the instruments beside Avada, his voice full of caution.
"You just said that before today there was only one way to destroy a Horcrux… So you found a new solution? One that won't endanger Harry's life?"
"Not only will it not endanger his life."
The moment the subject turned to that, Avada could not help sounding a little proud. He lightly patted the machine he had assembled himself.
"At this point, I can basically guarantee that he won't even lose a single hair—this is the result of several years of my work!"
"Basically?"
"Because it hasn't been tested yet."
Avada turned back and bent over again, continuing to adjust the ring, but he still answered Ron's question as he worked.
"But there's no need to worry. Harry doesn't need to personally take part in the experimental stage. And the theoretical calculations have already been run countless times…"
"That's good."
Only then did Ron look slightly more reassured, and some color also gradually returned to Harry's face.
In truth, after going through several major events together, Ron already trusted Avada quite a lot. It was only because what he had just said was far too shocking—and because it concerned Harry's safety—that Ron could not help asking a few extra questions.
But then another question occurred to him.
"But if that's the case… couldn't you have just called Harry over by himself? Why did you bring me here too?"
"…What do you think?"
Avada rolled his eyes.
"If Harry found out something this important, do you think he wouldn't tell you afterward? And if you noticed I took Harry away and neither of us came back for a long time, wouldn't you come looking for us yourself? So I figured I might as well bring both of you here from the start. And this is Christmas—we're lucky. On a normal day, we might even have had to drag Granger in too… That's about enough."
He suddenly straightened up again, went to the side, picked up the black crystal sphere, and walked to the center of the apparatus.
"Now we can begin the experiment. The process may take a while—about half an hour or so. You can stay and watch if you want. If you find it boring, you can leave first…"
"How could this possibly be boring?"
The two of them spoke in perfect unison.
What a joke—this was an experiment involving the mysteries of the soul, one that could completely end Voldemort's life! Most people would never get the chance to witness something like this even once in their entire lives, so what reason did they have not to stay?
"…All right, then."
Avada shrugged.
"In that case, stay quiet. Don't cast any spells, and don't touch anything here."
With that, he stopped paying attention to Harry and Ron's reactions. With a flick of his wand, he made the black crystal sphere float steadily into the very center of the nested-ring structure. Then he walked to the side, stood beside the groove holding the Resurrection Stone, placed his finger against it, and gave it a firm push…
To Harry and Ron's astonishment, a hazy yet bright radiance, like a thin mist, emerged from the ring. It gathered into a beam in midair, then slowly drifted toward the black crystal sphere, finally sinking completely into it.
"This is—"
"Shh."
Harry immediately jabbed Ron with an elbow, making him swallow the cry of shock before it could escape.
The truth was that Harry himself was even more stunned than Ron, because he had seen an almost identical scene before.
Three years ago, in the room at the end of the fourth-floor corridor, that black crystal sphere had absorbed half of Voldemort's soul in exactly the same way!
Next, he saw Avada approach the black crystal sphere—which had just fully absorbed that radiance—with his wand raised, and begin chanting a long and intricate spell. As the incantation continued, his wand started giving off an indescribable glow, layer after layer winding around the crystal sphere. It seemed as though the light was seeping into it, yet also as though it was merely being engraved onto its surface.
And perhaps it was just his imagination, but Harry felt as though that glow could shine directly into his heart, making every cell in his body feel warm and comfortable, so soothing that he wanted nothing more than to lie down and sleep at once…
And for some reason, it also stirred an overwhelming urge from deep inside him to burst into tears.
As the light continued to emerge, Avada's expression gradually worsened, and beads of sweat began to appear on his forehead. Maintaining this spell clearly seemed extremely taxing even for him.
That filled both Harry and Ron with worry, but neither of them dared speak rashly, afraid of disturbing his spellcasting by accident. Fortunately, that strained moment did not last too long. After less than five minutes or so, the light slowly dimmed, and Avada finally let out a long breath of relief and lowered his wand.
He had just used his own magical skill alone to recreate part of the protective charm left on Harry.
That spell truly deserved its reputation as a form of soul magic that could only be cast at the cost of one's life. Even though Avada had only simulated the spell's effect on the soul and had not perfectly reproduced the complete original effect, constructing it had still exhausted him badly.
And that was with him already having mastered quite a few of the mysteries of the soul. If it had been the version of him from before he entered this timeline, then he would not even have been qualified to cast it—unless he had intended to sacrifice his own life in order to protect that crystal sphere.
Still, this had been the hardest step.
Once this spell was complete, all that remained was a period of waiting and observation that was not especially long.
Just now, Avada had first used the Resurrection Stone to create a soul, then guided it into the black crystal sphere that already contained a fragment of Voldemort's soul, thereby simulating a state in which two souls coexisted. After that, he personally applied an incomplete version of the protective charm—one whose effect on the soul was exactly the same as the original—in order to reproduce Harry's soul condition as faithfully as possible and ensure that the experiment's results would be reliable.
One final check… good, no problems.
Then let the experiment begin!
Avada took a deep breath and brought his wand down sharply against the edge of the magical instrument.