"All right, we've talked enough. It's time to begin purifying these Horcruxes…"
After introducing the last item, the Resurrection Stone ring, Avada patted the instrument and motioned for Harry and Ron to step back a little.
"Voldemort seems to have some kind of collector's obsession. He specifically chose relics of Hogwarts's founders to turn into Horcruxes, then went to great lengths to find a good hiding place and set up layers of protection around them… If it were me, I'd just grab a random rock, make it into a Horcrux, and toss it into the sea."
"Thank goodness you're not Voldemort."
Harry curled his lip. "In that case, he probably really would be impossible to kill, right? And this Horcrux technique probably wasn't invented by Voldemort, was it? So doesn't that mean that before him, there must already have been other Dark wizards who made Horcruxes and gained immortality?"
"And if some Dark wizard really did what you said—made a completely inconspicuous Horcrux and threw it into the ocean…"
"Perhaps there were."
Avada was actually quite pleased that Harry could infer from that alone just how deep and murky the magical world really was.
"Still, making a Horcrux is extremely difficult, and the technique was never widely spread. Most Dark wizards probably either never even knew such a thing existed, or couldn't make one even if they did. But since the technique has already existed for over a thousand years, it must indeed have produced quite a few long-lived Dark wizards…"
"Over a thousand years?!"
Harry and Ron both went pale.
"But you don't need to worry about that. They won't have any effect on magical society."
As he answered, Avada found himself thinking again of the great black book Professor Baker had once handed him.
When he had first opened that book and learned what it contained, the shock he felt had been far greater than what Harry and Ron were feeling now from hearing only a few fragments… Of course, for ordinary people, not knowing those things was probably a blessing.
And if they were ever able to enter Leach University in the future, they would likely come to understand such matters anyway. There was no need for him to explain them in detail now. Besides, he suspected Leach University would be more than happy to recruit a famous student who had defeated Voldemort.
"At least for now, there's one Dark wizard who made Horcruxes and is about to be completely defeated by us. Step back a little more, then stay quiet. The next step isn't especially difficult, but if it fails, it'll mean the efforts of the past several years were all for nothing."
Avada drew out his wand again. But unlike before, he did not merely stand to the side and tap the machine a few times. Instead, he walked directly into the center of the apparatus, the very spot where Harry had undergone treatment earlier, and pointed his wand at the nearest Horcrux—the Slytherin locket, which was now carrying three soul fragments.
As an almost incomprehensible incantation flowed from his mouth, the huge instrument began to turn slowly, bringing all the Horcruxes into a single straight line. They continued to move in neat succession, much more slowly than before.
Avada stood at one end of that line.
At the other end was the glass bottle set into the most complex ring of all—the one containing Voldemort's main soul.
Then suddenly, a white beam of light shot from Avada's wand onto Slytherin's locket. It passed through the locket and struck the Cup next, then the diadem, then the diary and the Resurrection Stone, and finally shone into the glass bottle.
Under the illumination of that light, strands of gray mist began to seep out of Slytherin's locket, accompanied by a faint hissing sound. Gradually, they followed the path of the light, drifting toward the next Horcrux—Hufflepuff's Cup…
This process continued for about five minutes before anything changed.
After the gray mist from the locket had flowed into the Cup for some time, the Cup too seemed to become full, and gray mist began to leak out of it as well, continuing along the light path toward Ravenclaw's diadem. About ten minutes later, the diadem also began to emit gray mist, which floated onward toward the diary behind it…
As time passed, the gray mist inside the original locket seemed to dry up. No matter how the light shone on it, not a trace of mist would emerge anymore. At that point, the ring holding it rotated automatically, moving the locket aside. The ring itself tilted slightly as well, allowing the light from Avada's wand to strike the Cup directly behind it.
After another stretch of time, the Cup too gradually stopped releasing gray mist, and was shifted aside by its ring. Then the diadem and the diary repeated the same process one after another…
By the time Harry and Ron had begun to feel their stomachs growling, the only Horcruxes still being illuminated were the Resurrection Stone and the glass bottle.
And they also noticed in amazement that the gray mist inside the glass bottle had become far more solid than before. The face floating within it was no longer that hideous, noseless, flattened visage. It was gradually becoming the face of a normal person—one that even possessed faintly handsome features.
So that's what Voldemort originally looked like?
Harry did not dare make a sound and disturb Avada, so he could only compare that face in his mind to the image of Tom Riddle the diary had once projected. Sure enough, he found a certain resemblance—and the face inside the bottle was becoming more and more like the Riddle Harry remembered.
That was probably because the soul was gradually being made whole.
…
At last, the very last strand of gray mist inside the Resurrection Stone was completely driven into the glass bottle Dumbledore had made. Avada, who had long since sunk to the floor and was now using his knee to support the arm holding his wand, finally let out a long breath. Then, without the slightest concern for appearances, he flopped flat onto his back in a starfish sprawl, too exhausted even to put his wand away.
"…Is it over?"
Harry asked cautiously, looking at the instrument that had now come to a complete stop.
"It's over."
Avada answered weakly. "Now if that glass bottle is shattered, Voldemort is finished. He has neither a body nor any Horcruxes left. His main soul is only lingering on by forcibly existing in a Horcrux-like state."
"So once its vessel is destroyed, his soul will immediately dissipate… But I'm not planning to do that just yet."
"Because you want to destroy him publicly?"
"That's right."
Avada gave Ron an approving look, then with the last of his strength lifted his wrist slightly, making the glass bottle—now containing Voldemort's complete soul—float into his hand before stuffing it into his pocket.
"His death will become a symbol—a symbol of the old order being destroyed, and a new order beginning to emerge…"
"And for something like that, the more people who know about it, the better."