Chapter 219. Yes, That's Exactly the Look!
"Harry, are you ready?"
Duncan stood by the doorway where black flames were roaring, and asked.
Harry took several deep breaths, calmed his nerves, set his face, and nodded firmly without speaking.
Duncan instructed, "Good, then you go in first.
Be careful.
I'll be right behind you, and no matter what you see, don't panic."
"Got it.
I'm going in first."
Harry finished, grabbed the smallest bottle, took a few steps forward, and faced the black fire.
Then he tilted his head back and downed the potion in one go.
His eyes widened involuntarily, and his body shuddered a few times.
"Hermione was right.
It does feel a bit cold..." Harry said through chattering teeth, the potion he had drunk sweeping through him like ice.
After waiting a few seconds, Harry stared at the black flames before him, mustered his courage, slowly lifted one leg, and stepped in with his whole body.
Not a sound came.
It was as if Harry had stepped into another world.
"I wonder if these two rooms are connected..."
Duncan muttered, smeared the Invisibility Potion over himself, then pulled his school robes tight so they wrapped every part of his body.
Prepared, Duncan stepped into the black flames.
Like dry kindling meeting a blaze, the fire eagerly licked at his body.
But he felt no pain, only the warm, hearth-side sensation of baking by a fire.
His clothes protected him perfectly from the flames.
At once his body kept moving forward, and in that split second he could see nothing, only the black fire before his eyes.
When his vision returned, he had smoothly reached the other side and entered the final room.
"Harry Potter, you've finally come!"
A voice identical in timbre to Snape's, but deeper and hoarser, came from not far away.
Duncan slipped to the far side of a thick stone pillar, cautiously poked out half his head, and carefully looked down.
His line of sight followed the flight of stone steps to the bottom, where wavering torches lit the space in the middle.
Two people stood before a tall mirror.
One was Harry, standing a little farther from the glass.
The other had an appearance identical to Severus Snape's.
He smoothed his hair before the mirror, then turned to face Harry.
He was no longer as seedy as when Fred and George had run into him earlier.
His back was ramrod straight, his chin tilted slightly up, and he looked down his nose at Harry with pride.
"You'd think you would have got here sooner.
Didn't expect you to take this long.
Harry, I'm a bit disappointed in you!"
Harry frowned in puzzlement.
From "Snape's" tone, they didn't sound like enemies, but like old acquaintances catching up.
"Could it be someone I used to know?" Harry thought in silence, faces he had seen flashing through his mind one after another.
All the wizards he knew who could use magic were at Hogwarts, which made them easy to rule out.
He ran through everyone and didn't find a single person whose bearing matched this "Snape."
He was certain he didn't know him.
"You're not Snape!
Who are you really?
Why have you taken his form?"
Harry asked sternly, gripping his wand in his sweat-slick hand, and watched "Snape" warily.
"Of course I'm not him!"
"Snape" touched the greasy hair on his head in disgust.
"As a professor, he's this unkempt, and he even drags me down with him.
Oh, the stench is truly foul.
Every time I get back, it takes ages before I can quell the urge to retch!"
Harry's head bobbed on reflex.
He felt that not a word was wrong—this man had voiced his innermost thoughts.
If not for this person wanting to steal the Philosopher's Stone, he believed they would definitely have become very good friends.
"As for who I am?"
"Snape's" tone changed.
He shuffled two steps closer, stopping nearer to Harry, bent down, stared hard at him, and the corner of his mouth curled.
"We met only a few months ago.
Have you already forgotten your friend?"
"I don't know you!" Harry shouted, retreated a few steps, and raised his wand.
"Who are you?"
"Looks like this face of mine is what's confusing you.
No need to fret.
In a bit, when the potion wears off, I'll turn back."
"But before that, I can show you something.
It might jog your memory."
"Snape" smiled as he spoke.
He straightened, rummaged inside the front of his wizard's robes, took something out, and held it out one-handed before Harry.
From behind the pillar, Duncan's eyes flew wide.
He stared in astonishment at the thing in "Snape's" hand.
It was a mask he knew all too well, with a rough-drawn emblem of a knight chess piece on the left.
"It's that organisation again.
They've even infiltrated the school.
Why are they stealing the Stone?"
"Is it to aid Lord Voldemort, or do they have another use for the Stone—so that's why they sold him those mushrooms at the start?"
"And what does what he said to Harry mean?"
Duncan's thoughts churned, and he suddenly remembered something he had nearly forgotten.
Harry had been kidnapped once at the start of term—it seemed it had been done by that mysterious organisation.
What exactly had they done to Harry then?
Although Dumbledore later had Harry examined multiple times and confirmed he was fine, now it didn't seem quite right.
Meanwhile, Harry stood as if petrified, stock-still, his eyes blank as he stared at the mask.
From the first instant he saw the mask, it was as if countless people were speaking at his ear—innumerable whispers, maddening to recall.
And his head felt like a balloon being over-inflated, with someone still trying to blow more air into it, as if it would burst in the next second.
Broken, blurry images rose like bubbles from the lakebed—one after another welling up from the deep layers of memory.
Harry strained to see the scenes in those images clearly, but he never could, as if a fine mesh of gauze veiled them.
Yet as more and more images piled up in his mind, Harry gradually felt a tide of sorrow, pain, and anger.
It was like a dearly loving relative had died, or a dearest friend had betrayed him...
Harry's face slowly contorted, his eyes bulged, his expression twisted, and each breath came rougher than the last.
He wanted to clutch his head and sob, and at the same time a towering fury in his heart demanded release.
He glared at the man before him and felt a surge of desire to kill him.
"Yes, that's exactly the look.
Remember that feeling in your heart, Harry.
Hold on to it, and when the time comes, you'll make the right choice!"
"Snape" watched Harry's twisted face in relish, clapped lightly as if encouraging him, and raised his wand to cast a Dark curse.
Duncan watched the scene with an ugly expression, a bad premonition rising in his heart, as though something terrible would happen if this continued.
His wand snapped up at once, meaning to stop it—but before he could act, a hoarse, grating voice rang out, roaring in anger, "Enough!"
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