Normally, a person's soul is stable, and only when it suffers damage on a spiritual level does it become unstable.
That made Rhys curious—how had Harry ended up in this condition?
After closing the classroom door, Harry sat down on a chair, looking uneasy, and told Rhys that the scar on his forehead had been burning painfully lately. He'd also been having a strange recurring dream at night. His instincts told him this wasn't a good sign.
"Oh?" Rhys raised an eyebrow. "What kind of dream?"
"I dreamed I was taking a bath…"
Rhys: ???
That was odd...?
Well.. strange dreams weren't unusual, constantly dreaming about bathing certainly was.....
"It's not an ordinary bath," Harry added after a pause, carefully choosing his words. "Someone keeps adding strange things into the water…"
Rhys narrowed his eyes slightly. Dreaming was normal, but for a wizard to have the same dream several nights in a row—that was definitely abnormal. Combining that with Harry's current state, Rhys had already guessed the cause of both the scar's pain and the strange dreams.
There was something wrong with Harry's soul—and it was undoubtedly connected to Voldemort. The most likely explanation was that Harry's soul had been "tainted" by Voldemort's own, turning him into a special kind of Horcrux. Because of that, a peculiar link had formed between them.
When Voldemort's condition improved, the fragment of his soul within Harry would become active as well—causing a situation not unlike a slipped disc pressing on a nerve. It triggered a pain in Harry's scar that came from the very depths of his soul. And when Harry fell asleep and his own soul's activity weakened, the active fragment of Voldemort's soul would instead send bits of information back into Harry's mind.
"I think you should talk to Professor Dumbledore," Rhys offered the most sensible advice. His intuition told him that Harry's problem was extremely troublesome, so he decided to hand the matter over to Dumbledore.
After all, Dumbledore was the headmaster—and the reason both Rhys and Helga had been so tolerant toward him was precisely because he carried the responsibilities that came with that position.
Harry: "…"
"Professor Dumbledore is so busy every day. Going to him with something like this would be ridiculous," Harry muttered. Just imagining how that conversation would go made him cringe—
"What is it, Harry?"
"Professor, my scar hurts."
"Here's some pain reliever. Take one and get some rest. Remember to sleep on time and don't stay up late. Anything else?"
"Professor, every night I dream of taking a bath—and someone keeps adding strange things into the water."
"…"
"Try not to bathe before bed. If there's nothing else, you may go."
-----
The imagined conversation immediately sank into the depths of Harry's mind, as though he were trying to drown it.
Rhys scratched his head. If Harry refused to see Dumbledore, that made things troublesome. He had no intention—nor obligation—to take on this kind of time-consuming, messy problem.
While he did have experience in removing soul contamination, the process was incredibly taxing, and he no longer had the necessary "medicine" for it. Unless Godric somehow returned to life, chose Harry as his heir, and personally brought the boy to him with enough sincerity and humility to beg for help—only then might Rhys consider arranging a treatment.
"How about this—I'll make you a sleeping potion. I guarantee you'll sleep like a log. As for the pain from your scar, I've got some pain-relief potion here. Want to take a sip?" Rhys decided, out of courtesy toward a fellow Hogwarts student, to treat Harry's symptoms instead of the cause—what people might call headache? treat the head; foot pain? treat the foot.
Harry fell silent. Though it didn't sound particularly reliable, Rhys's suggestion might actually work.
He couldn't find the root of the problem or fix it outright, but if he could at least cover it up temporarily, that was good enough for now.
After Harry nodded his agreement, Rhys quickly prepared the potions for him and handed over a dropper and a small measuring cup.
"The red potion is the sleeping draught. Drink it and you'll sleep deeper than a pig. Control the dose yourself—one milliliter equals one hour of sleep. Figure out how much you need. And if you oversleep and show up late for class tomorrow, don't blame me."
Overjoyed, Harry took the sleeping potion from Rhys's hands—he had absolutely no desire to see that giant bathtub in his dreams ever again.
"This one's for pain relief. Use it only when your scar starts hurting again. Each time, you can only take a single drop using the dropper I gave you—absolutely no more. The potion has side effects; it'll dull your emotions," Rhys explained as he handed over the second potion, which was far more potent than the first—though in truth, it wasn't really a painkiller.
Harry's pain originated from his soul—from the friction and collision between two souls. It was, in essence, a weakened version of the Cruciatus Curse. Ordinary painkillers were completely useless against that kind of suffering.
If a simple pain potion could relieve pain on a soul-deep level, then the Cruciatus Curse wouldn't be so feared.
What Rhys had given him was actually a type of "anesthetic" for the soul. It dulled the spirit itself, lessening the sensation of agony. But the side effects were serious—it would slow reactions and numb emotional expression and perception. Because of those risks, Rhys warned Harry to use it sparingly. He wasn't Peter Pettigrew, after all; he still had to care about the consequences.
"Oh, and if the sleeping potion doesn't work," Rhys added, pulling out another vial from his pocket, one that shimmered with iridescent light, "add this to it. Still the same dosage—one milliliter for one hour of effect."
It was a memory-erasing potion.
Rhys couldn't stop Harry from dreaming—but he could make him forget the dreams afterward.
"Brilliant! Thank you, Rhys!" Harry said cheerfully, leaving the classroom with all three potions in hand. Rhys, meanwhile, watched his departing figure with a complicated expression in his eyes.
To be honest, the three potions Rhys had given Harry couldn't solve the problem at its root. All he had really done was dig a hole and bury the issue for later.
"Sigh… The best solution is still to go to Dumbledore," Rhys murmured, unable to hold back a sigh. "Only he would help you with his whole heart."
Harry, of course, didn't know any of this. He returned to his dormitory in high spirits and, before going to bed that night, carefully measured out eight milliliters of the sleeping potion just as Rhys had instructed.
He slept soundly—but the strange dream still came. He saw himself lying in a large wooden tub while someone kept adding all sorts of strange substances into the bathwater.
"My power is returning…"
"Harry" said hoarsely.
"Yes. We will help you regain your full strength—and grant you even greater power. All you need to do is one thing… something you've always wanted to do," said the blurred figure, their face hidden by the mist.
All Harry knew was that "he" began to laugh madly upon hearing those words.
Then Harry woke up. He put on his glasses and glanced at the clock—he really had slept for a full eight hours straight.
_______
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