The Avery ancestral residence.
This was not the grand manor where the banquet had been held, but the Avery family's original home—built deep in the wilderness and concealed from the Muggle world by magic.
Dawn reached out and pushed the door open.
He had obtained this location from old Avery under the effects of Veritaserum.
The house had clearly been unoccupied for a long time. Dust had once buried nearly everything, but after Slughorn's cleanup, it was at least barely livable.
"I really didn't expect him to come alone," Slughorn said, staring at the body that had been brought back, his expression complicated.
"Didn't Dumbledore keep an eye on him?"
Looking at the dead man's unseeing face, he sighed softly in his heart. Sorry… but I couldn't save you.
"All right. It's just a corpse. How long are you planning to stare at it?"
Dawn had already gone up to the second-floor study.
When he came back down, he looked distinctly displeased at Slughorn's habit of zoning out while staring at the body.
"Where's the potion I asked for?"
"Oh—here."
Slughorn snapped back to attention and hurriedly pulled out eight vials of red potion from inside his robes, lining them up neatly on the table.
Dawn examined the color. It was far better than what he'd bought from Jiggs, which was only to be expected.
He tilted his head back and downed two vials in one go. Feeling the state of the magic within his body, he opened a third and drank it as well.
Dawn frowned.
The effects of the Rage Potion were getting weaker.
He wasn't sure whether he had developed resistance, or whether the natural magic seeping deeper into his body was diluting its impact.
He let out a short breath through his nose.
Still, it was acceptable.
Given the quality of Slughorn's brewing, it would be enough to last until he completed the ritual.
His gaze shifted to the corpse laid out on the floor. Dawn knew that what he needed to do had already succeeded halfway.
But before proceeding to the next step, there was something he had to test in advance.
He took a deep breath.
Dawn's pupils sharpened abruptly as he spoke softly.
°Avada Kedavra°
"What—?!"
The moment he heard the curse, Slughorn screamed and leapt away like a startled frog. Losing his balance, he landed hard on the floor with a thud.
"Why are you trying to kill me?!"
Clutching the ground with trembling fingers, Slughorn shouted in despair.
He truly believed he had worked himself to the bone these past days, yet this was how it was going to end?
A moment later— Slughorn awkwardly realized that nothing seemed to have happened to him at all.
He coughed, turned his head, and finally noticed that Dawn's wand was pointed at Dawn himself.
"…Are you fucking insane?"
The words burst out before Slughorn could stop them.
This was not something a normal person would do.
His eyes flicked toward the three now-empty crystal vials, and he briefly wondered if something had gone wrong with his brewing.
But Dawn knew exactly what he was doing.
From what was known, without true killing intent, even a successful Killing Curse would at most cause something like a nosebleed.
Dawn wanted to test whether, in his current phoenix-overlapped state, he possessed resistance to the Killing Curse.
Green light quickly enveloped his body.
Dawn let out a muffled groan as intense pain and biting cold surged up from the depths of his soul.
He narrowed his eyes and looked at the mirror in front of him. Within the silvery mist, part of the special patterns had instantly become riddled with cracks.
Because Dawn had once observed the growth of William's body, he could easily tell that every damaged pattern was related to the soul.
"So the Killing Curse instantly destroys all soul-related traits?"
Dawn inhaled sharply, fully acknowledging the spell's terrifying power.
He focused inward.
Soon, amid the flickering patterns, he felt a warm current flowing with his blood, completely driving away the icy chill left behind by the curse.
The cracks in the patterns began to heal.
A phoenix truly did have some form of suppression against the Killing Curse.
Dawn grinned.
For the first time, he felt a deep sense of security.
He didn't know whether, if struck by a Killing Curse fueled by true murderous intent, he would be reborn like a phoenix or simply ignore it entirely.
But he was now seventy percent certain that he could survive it.
"My plan can succeed."
The light in Dawn's eyes grew brighter.
Without hesitation, he cast a second spell on himself.
"Flesh Cloning."
The Blood-and-Flesh Division spell.
Under the influence of magic, the special patterns began to replicate and split.
Dawn's face paled.
"It really does hurt."
He let out a low laugh, recalling William's reaction when he had cast the spell on him before. The boy had endured more than Dawn had expected.
Slowly, a large bulge rose from Dawn's back, stretching his clothes outward.
If he paid close attention, he could feel his magic strengthening slightly.
"…Too slow."
Thinking of the time required for the split body to grow, Dawn took a deep breath, gritted his teeth, and cast the spell again.
That book, Mad Magic: Blood and Taboo, had mentioned that repeated use of the spell could accelerate the division.
The bulge on his back began to grow at a visible rate.
But when he thought about the total magic cost required to end the spell, Dawn felt a twinge of pain in his heart.
"Hopefully the Fountain of Fair Fortune can deal with that side effect."
He murmured to himself.
Then he turned his attention to the dark magic book he had just taken from the study.
The Avery family truly lived up to their status as an old pure-blood house. Their collection of magical texts was extensive.
Among them was the spell Dawn had long desired.
°Fiendfyre…°
He whispered the incantation written in the book.
A dark magic with an extremely high ceiling and terrifying power, capable of summoning flames that devoured everything.
It could be shaped and controlled—and was even capable of destroying Horcruxes.
Dawn had wanted this spell for a long time. If he'd had it back in the Egyptian pyramid, those disgusting insects would have been nothing at all.
"But speaking of Egypt… I really didn't expect Harris to still be alive."
Dawn glanced at his wrist.
As one party bound by an Unbreakable Vow, he could faintly sense the signer's condition.
Harris's body had already been turned into a nest by necrotic insects, riddled with holes—yet he still hadn't died?
Dawn now understood even more clearly just how powerful the life-giving light in that tomb had been.
"I really want it…"
He pressed a hand to his violently pounding heart, remembering how cautious he'd been back then because of the world's strange self-correction, and couldn't help feeling deep regret.
He should have been bolder.
With a sigh, his thoughts drifted back to Egypt, and inevitably to Anubis, who had haunted him for so long.
Dawn looked up at the mirror.
The cracks that had once appeared in the special patterns when Anubis pierced his heart were now completely gone.
That was normal enough. He now possessed the phoenix's trait of rebirth through fire.
And yet— A sudden sense of confusion arose.
Dawn touched his chest. After reading Fountain of Fair Fortune, he realized that it had been a long time since he'd seen that wolf-headed humanoid apparition.
He wasn't a masochist who needed to be stabbed to feel alive, but the curse stopping so abruptly felt deeply wrong.
Back on the plane, it had felt imminent. Even if he had spread the curse, it should have flared up again by now.
Something felt off.
The sensation was exactly the same as the discord he'd felt the day Skeeter told him the date.
"What is going on?"
Dawn rubbed his temples.
He knew something was wrong, but no matter how he thought about it, he couldn't find the source of the problem.
The vague unease gnawed at him.
"Forget it. Once I deal with the issues in my body, I'll go back to Egypt and take another look."
He made the decision silently.
For now, though, he needed to focus on the ritual.
"Slughorn."
Dawn called out.
Slughorn swallowed and shakily raised a hand. "I—I'm here."
He stared in horror at the child whose body was deforming, who swung wildly between excitement and sudden gloom, and shrank into a corner, desperate not to attract attention.
Unfortunately, fate had other plans.
"Slughorn, pack up all the books here. We're leaving."
Dawn gave the order.
Feeling how long the split body would need to grow, he added, "And prepare at least five days' worth of food. I won't be going out during that time."
Slughorn nodded obediently.
After a moment's thought, Dawn took out a sheet of parchment, wrote several lines on it, and handed it over.
"One more thing. No matter how you do it, send this anonymously to Murphy Avery tomorrow."
"Okay."
Slughorn agreed without hesitation—but froze as he took the letter.
"W-Wait. You said send it to who?"
Murphy Avery?
Didn't you kill him yesterday on Skye Island? The corpse had been right here on the floor!
Slughorn looked blankly at the dead wizard lying nearby.
Dawn didn't bother explaining. He waved a hand dismissively. "Don't worry about it. Just send the letter."
___________
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