Harry had a dream.
In that dream, he saw a bloody thing writhing madly.
It looked like a severed limb—either an arm or a leg—but it was thinner and smaller than anyone's arm or leg ought to be. Yet it did not seem to belong to a goblin or a house-elf either, as though its owner had simply been a deformed dwarf to begin with. And its surface was slick with blood, as if it had been skinned alive.
He saw that this limb had originally been tightly wrapped around him, gripping so hard it had nearly grown into his flesh. But for some reason, it was now trembling violently as it slowly peeled away, as though an invisible giant hand were forcibly prying it off Harry's body.
He could feel the slick, sticky touch of flesh clinging to his skin, rubbing back and forth against him with every shudder of the limb, filling him with fear and revulsion. He had no idea why such a hideous, disgusting thing was hanging off him. He wanted to tear it away with his own hands, but discovered that he seemed to have lost control of his body and could only helplessly watch as the limb continued to tremble.
Still, the only thing that gave him a shred of comfort was that it really did seem to be on the verge of leaving his body.
And yet, there was also a vague feeling in the back of his mind—
that he was supposed to know what this limb was.
Someone had clearly mentioned it to him before, but no matter how hard he tried, he simply could not remember.
All around him was a hollow silence. The limb's struggle was the only thing that reminded Harry that time was still passing. He himself could not move, but the limb was being pried away from him at a slow yet unwavering pace, peeled off bit by bit, and dragged farther and farther from his body…
At last, after an unknown amount of time had passed, Harry saw that the limb was finally torn completely away from him. Then, all at once, his whole body felt lighter. A sensation of incomparable freshness surged violently out from the area where the limb had just detached, spreading through every part of him.
He did not know how to describe it.
Was it like suddenly removing a heavy set of shackles?
Or like suddenly being able to fly freely?
As for that limb, the instant it separated from Harry, it seemed to have exhausted all its strength and abruptly stopped struggling. Then it was pulled farther and farther away at an increasing speed, rapidly shrinking in Harry's sight until it became nothing more than a tiny red dot…
Bang!
Suddenly, he faintly heard a muffled noise in the distance, and at the same time felt as though something had slammed hard into the inside of his head, as if something were trying to burst out of his skull…
"Ow!"
That sensation jolted Harry awake at once. He could feel control over his body again.
The memories from before he lost consciousness came flooding back like a tide, and he quickly understood what that dream had represented…
That bloody limb… was Voldemort's soul attached to me?
The thought made him feel sick.
I coexisted with that thing for fourteen whole years!
But Ken said I was supposed to stay unconscious during the procedure… so why am I awake again? Did something go wrong? Or—ah!
A cry of pain escaped him before he could stop it. He instinctively opened his eyes.
That feeling of something trying to drill its way out of his skull had struck again—and this time it was even stronger, so strong that he wanted to clamp a hand over his forehead in fear that the thing might really burst out on its own…
"Don't move!"
The moment he lifted his hand, a familiar voice rang out immediately, making his arm freeze in midair.
"This is the most critical moment! We're only one step away from finishing completely! Don't move under any circumstances! Hold on for just a few more seconds!"
But Harry had practically forgotten how to respond.
Because the instant he opened his eyes, what filled his vision was a mass of thick gray mist, within which floated the vague outline of a twisted, suffering face—almost exactly the same as the gray mist he had seen being dragged out of the crystal sphere before…
And now that same gray mist was pouring endlessly out of his forehead—or more precisely, out of his lightning-bolt scar—being forcibly dragged away and fed into the ornate locket mounted on the innermost ring nearest to him!
He finally understood why his forehead hurt so much.
At this distance, he could almost hear the faint sound coming from the face in the gray mist. And yet, the more closely he listened, the more it seemed like an indescribably shrill scream. It was probably still desperately struggling, trying to force its way back into his body.
But the pulling force was simply too powerful.
And so the gray mist could only be drawn out bit by bit, completely stripped from Harry's body…
At last, the final wisp of gray mist before Harry's eyes was absorbed into the locket, and the throbbing pain vanished with it.
He felt fresher than he ever had in his life, as though he had been born again.
"All right, you can come out now. So—what does it feel like to have the impurities stripped out of your soul?"
At some point, Avada's face had turned as pale as paper. He tapped the instrument with his wand, bringing it to a halt, then showed Harry a relaxed smile.
"My God… this feeling…"
Harry stood up in astonishment and moved his arms, then looked around.
He had never known before that controlling his own body and receiving information from the outside world could be such an easy, such a wonderful thing.
And not only that—
he could also feel the holly wand in his pocket practically rejoicing, constantly sending him that same warm sensation he had felt when he first picked it up.
How strange.
Ollivander had clearly said that the wand had chosen him because of his connection to Voldemort. But now that his final connection to Voldemort had been removed, why did the wand feel even closer to him instead?
Perhaps from the very beginning, what it had been drawn to was never the self that coexisted with Voldemort—
but this true, complete self he was now.
The moment that thought occurred to him, Harry could not help feeling even happier, and the corners of his mouth rose of their own accord…
"All right, stop grinning like an idiot. I think Hogwarts is a lot more suitable than the Room of Requirement for you to experience the new you."
Avada chuckled and urged Harry to hurry up and carry the chair back out. Then he glanced at Ron, who was still staring blankly at Harry in a daze, not having fully processed what had happened.
"We got lucky. If Harry had moved any more than that just now and left the central zone, you'd have had to pin him down."
"So… you really succeeded?"
Ron stared blankly at the locket on the innermost ring while recalling the scene of gray mist rushing out of Harry's forehead.
"That was Voldemort's soul? That thing had been living inside him for the last fourteen years?"
"And I never noticed it at all."
Harry said this with lingering fear. "It's impossible to imagine—if you and Dumbledore hadn't sealed Voldemort in time, then sooner or later he definitely would've come back. And as long as I was still alive, he wouldn't have been able to die either…"
"All right, if there's nothing else, the two of you can leave now."
Avada gulped down a bottle of potion before some color finally returned to his face.
"Next, I still need to deal with these Horcruxes and make Voldemort lose the thing his survival depends on completely—or are you two interested in staying to witness that as well?"