"No need to be surprised, child. As headmaster, the castle tells me everything that happens within it."
Dumbledore answered Avery softly.
Yet as he looked at Dawn lying on the ground, his heart was far less certain than his calm words suggested.
He had been monitoring every corner of the school all along, so how had Dawn entered without his knowledge?
Even if it were Apparition, he should have sensed it.
But the truth was that he only discovered the situation here when the two began their duel inside the Room of Requirement.
He had come in secret and seized the moment, casting a Stunning Spell at the instant Dawn relaxed.
Dumbledore was puzzled by Dawn's method of entering the castle, but he knew this was not the most important issue right now.
"Can you hand him over to me, child?"
Dumbledore looked at Avery. "I believe we should take him to the Ministry of Magic to stand trial."
To the Ministry?
Avery fell silent, not agreeing at once.
He stared at his father's corpse on the floor and asked in a low voice, "Why not kill him?"
The headmaster paused for a moment, then replied solemnly, "If the law sentences him to death."
Dumbledore was merciful, but never indulgent.
Just as he had once raised his wand against his closest friend for the sake of peace, personally defeating Grindelwald and imprisoning him in Nurmengard—
Now that Dawn had taken a life, the headmaster would not attempt to excuse him simply because he was a student.
But Avery let out a short laugh.
"Death sentence, huh…"
So many Death Eaters were rotting in Azkaban despite their crimes. Would Dawn really be sentenced to death?
Avery doubted it.
Then again, unlike most Death Eaters, who were pure-bloods, Dawn was a Muggle-born wizard.
If he, as the heir of the Avery family, took a firm public stance, Fudge would likely give him that courtesy and condemn Dawn to death.
And even if that failed, letting Dementors drain Dawn of happiness day after day seemed equally satisfying.
With that thought, Avery stopped arguing.
He had only one final question.
"Headmaster, Dawn Richter seems to have a way to ignore the Anti-Apparition wards. How can you guarantee he won't escape once he wakes up?"
"Dawn's Apparition is indeed unusual," Dumbledore frowned.
But he had already considered this.
"Before taking him to the Ministry, I will bring him to see Newt Scamander and Nicolas Flamel, to see if there is a way to restrain him."
Dumbledore suspected Dawn's Apparition was connected to phoenix magic.
But in truth, despite his long companionship with Fawkes, his understanding of phoenixes was far inferior to Scamander's.
And as for the alchemist who had lived over six hundred years—who knew what strange creations he possessed? Perhaps there would be an answer there.
"Newt Scamander and Nicolas Flamel…"
Avery murmured.
He didn't understand why Dumbledore wanted to take Dawn to a magizoologist, but he trusted Flamel's reputation.
So he agreed.
Even though he desperately wanted to tear Dawn apart with his own hands, he knew that was impossible in front of Dumbledore.
He shot an unwilling glance at Dawn's unconscious body.
Then—
Avery suddenly felt a jolt of terror.
The Dawn who should have been unconscious had his eyes open, grinning at him from a blind spot where Dumbledore couldn't see.
Boom!
A roar exploded in Avery's mind, like a hammer slamming down.
His knees buckled as he clutched his head.
Amid the blurring colors, unfamiliar scenes churned violently through his thoughts, like a flickering slideshow.
In his haze, he saw the banquet, the fork driven into his father's eye, blood spilling out.
He saw his father, trying to protect him, leading dark wizards from the underworld to Skye Island to hunt Dawn—only for all of them to be slaughtered.
He saw his father fleeing to the Quidditch pitch, hoping to escape among the crowd, only to be caught by Dawn before he could even cry for help.
And finally—
Beneath the giant broom sculpture, Avery saw himself raise his wand and speak unfamiliar syllables.
No—no!
He stared at the despair on his father's face, his pupils shrinking.
But within that unchangeable memory, he could only follow Dawn's actions, sharing the sensation as he cast the Killing Curse himself, personally murdering his own father on the Quidditch pitch.
"Child, what's wrong with you?"
Dumbledore frowned as he noticed Avery's expression suddenly turn strange.
Legilimency.
The headmaster narrowed his eyes, recognizing the spell instantly.
He turned sharply—
Only to see Dawn half-sitting up, grinning at him. "Headmaster, it's all over now."
Boom!
Brilliant flames erupted and surged through the room, greedily devouring everything they touched.
Fiendfyre?
Dumbledore's gaze sharpened.
He had no time to question why Dawn was conscious. Seeing Avery frozen in place and about to be consumed by the flames, Dumbledore reacted instantly.
Gripping the gnarled Elder Wand, he pronounced the complex incantation with solemn clarity. °Finite°
In an instant, magic so immense it seemed almost tangible surged through Dumbledore's body.
A spell that normally required multiple casters was released effortlessly by the old wizard.
The newborn flames were crushed and extinguished almost immediately.
Yet Dumbledore felt no relief.
He knew that in the instant he cast the General Counterspell, Dawn had already had enough time to Apparate away.
Dumbledore's ability to track Apparition relied on detecting magical traces.
But in a room just ravaged by Fiendfyre, he could no longer precisely identify those traces.
Had Dawn escaped again?
Dumbledore narrowed his eyes and called to Fawkes in his heart, hoping the phoenix's keen senses could catch Dawn's trail.
Then—
Unexpectedly—
Just as Dumbledore finished the final syllable of the spell, before he could even react, a strange yet familiar green light flashed past the corner of his eye and struck Dawn's fading form directly.
Bang!
In the sudden silence, it felt as though everyone heard the heavy impact.
Dawn clearly hadn't anticipated this.
His expression went blank as the color drained from his eyes. The powerful force hurled him into the air, just like the "old Avery" flung away in the photograph.
"Child, you—!"
Dumbledore turned in shock.
Avery was gasping for breath, his eyes bloodshot, filled with despair and pain.
And also satisfaction.
Using the Killing Curse he had learned from Dawn's own memories, he had killed Dawn.
"Slughorn, do you know?" Dawn said softly. "Legilimency is a very interesting spell. It reads memories, yes—but when repelled, it shares the caster's memories with the target."
In a hidden refuge within the Vatican, Dawn was reading books taken from the Avery ancestral house as he spoke.
Slughorn, brewing potions nearby with a look of suffering etched on his face, raised his head. "Uh… what are you trying to say?"
"I'm saying, why don't you hurry up and come over here so I can try turning shared memories into a regular technique using Legilimency?"
Slughorn's mouth twitched. He was utterly speechless.
He desperately wanted to shout at Dawn to value him more.
Unwilling to become an experimental subject, he dragged his feet. "But the potion you asked for is at a critical stage."
"Still not finished?"
Dawn snorted, casting him a disdainful glance. "So slow. It's just a basic Awakening Potion. If it were Snape, he'd need at most an hour. Are you really a Potions Master?"
Slughorn's eyelid twitched.
Being a Potions Master was his greatest pride. Even terrified, he couldn't help muttering back:
"A normal Awakening Potion wouldn't take this long, but you want one that grants resistance to stunning magic after waking.
That's an entirely different, advanced potion."
"Figures. The less capable someone is, the better they are at making excuses."
Dawn laughed lightly and asked, "How long?"
"T-two— No! One day!"
Slughorn took a deep breath, staring at the calendar on the wall marked January 19, staking his pride on it. "Before January 21 arrives, I'll finish it."
"Fine."
Dawn sighed and decided to let him off for now. He planned to go find a Muggle later to test his theory.
He bit down on the straw and took a sip of his cold drink.
Slughorn turned his head away, unable to bear the sight.
Dawn looked far too strange now—two hands holding a book, two more clutching a cup to his chest, resembling a grotesque spider.
The Potions Master shuddered.
But Dawn felt unexpectedly good.
He found the newly grown arms nearly identical to his original ones, easy to control. After overcoming the initial discomfort, he was actually starting to enjoy it.
There was only one small disappointment.
Although the Flesh-Cloning Spell had grown him a new head, his vision had not expanded into a front-and-back perspective as he'd half-expected.
That was mildly disappointing.
Gurgle—
The cauldron beside him bubbled.
Dawn refocused his attention, returning to his plans.
Create false memories with Occlumency, then share them through Legilimency.
It wasn't simple—but it wasn't impossible either.
Dawn believed that before Slughorn finished brewing the potion, he would be able to pull it off.
___________
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