Harry emerged into the very heart of Godric's Hollow graveyard. The dampness of the tunnel made his clothes stick to his body, but the chill of the night was even more penetrating. The dragonbone lantern cast its eerie greenish light onto the ancient gravestones, creating dancing shadows that reminded him of candles at a funeral.
The cemetery was not a resting place, but an open-air trap.
The air buzzed with a subtle magical presence, the signature of Anti-Apparition Charms and Detection Charms . Harry moved crouching between the mausoleums and broken crosses, each step a gamble against Ministry surveillance. His parents' grave, with its neat stone, loomed in the distance, a silent reminder that Harry avoided looking at; he had no time for tears or grief, only rage.
The Sarcophagus and the Rune
The Library of Death wasn't a building, but a circular section of giant tombs, surrounded by a low wall of black stone. It housed mages who had died from causes the world didn't want to remember: tragedies, forgotten duels, and cursed secrets. In the center, just as Elias had described, stood a massive black marble sarcophagus, with no visible inscription.
Harry approached the sarcophagus, the lantern illuminating the engravings. There were no words, only ancient runes and mourning symbols. With his self-taught experience hunting for Horcruxes and Hallows, Harry knew that the way to activate it was Dumbledore's key.
He leaned forward, feeling the oppression of the place. The silence was so thick it was audible. He had to be quick.
He took a deep breath, straining his throat muscles. He hadn't used Parseltongue since the end of the war, fearing the connection it reminded him of Voldemort, but now, the echo of that ancient tongue returned, harsh and hissing.
"Where pain is a promise," he hissed, the English phrase translated into the phonemes of the snake tongue, echoing strangely under the moon.
The sarcophagus responded. A low hum emanated from the stone, and the marble lid slid sideways with a slow, heavy noise, revealing not a body, but a crystal pedestal in the center.
On the pedestal, there was a single piece: not the mirror itself, but an engraved obsidian plate.
Harry reached out, but before his fingers touched the glass...
Battle: The Auror Ambush
"Hold on right there, Muggle! Hands up!"
Four figures emerged from the shadows of the gravestones, moving with the speed of trained Aurors. Their robes were the dark gray of Voldemort's Ministry, and their faces were covered with tight-fitting hoods. Two of them pointed their wands at Harry, while a third pointed them at the sarcophagus.
"Back off! The desecration of this place is a crime against public order!" shouted the leader, a man with broad shoulders and an icy voice.
Harry knew he couldn't use magic. If he drew his wand, the tracking spells would alert the Death Eater leadership at the Ministry. His only weapons were his wits and his flashlight.
Harry, using his knowledge of the Dark Arts, threw the dragonbone lantern at the tombstone of a medieval witch. The dragonbone, upon impacting the stone, did not shatter; instead, the green light burst forth in a blinding pulse of raw magical energy .
The four Aurors screamed and covered their eyes. It was a pulse of magic without an owner, untraceable.
Harry ducked and launched himself at the opening of the sarcophagus. He grabbed the obsidian slab and launched himself into the open sarcophagus, rolling to the bottom to use the heavy marble lid as a partial shield.
"Bombarda Maxima!" shouted the lead Auror.
The blast spell struck the marble lid. Harry felt the impact against his teeth. The lid cracked, but it held. The sarcophagus, protected by runes, held.
Harry, entrenched in darkness, grabbed a handful of pulverized marble dust from the impact. Remembering a Muggle trick mixed with magical necessity, he threw the dust upward and shouted, "Glisseo!"
It wasn't a spell. It was a voice command. But the rune magic, activated by Parseltongue, was confused, and the marble dust turned into a cloud of thick, stinging smoke , covering the center of the cemetery.
"Damn it! He can't Apparate! Lock down the perimeter! Find the man!" the leader coughed.
Harry used the confusion. He slipped out of the sarcophagus, the obsidian plate firmly in his hand, and ran toward his parents' tomb, the most dangerous place for a Death Eater.
He crossed the lawn, reached the grave, and jumped over the back wall of the cemetery.
The Obsidian Track
Now in the relative darkness outside Godric's Hollow, Harry paused to examine the obsidian tablet. It was cold, polished, and burned with a faint protective magic.
The engraving was simple, a phrase in arcane Latin that Harry barely recognized from old potions texts:
"Ubi Poenitentia Semper Habitat " (Where Penance Always Dwells)
Beneath the phrase, a symbol: a stone tower with a snake coiled around its base. It wasn't the Hogwarts logo, but an older, more somber stone structure.
Harry had to sit on the damp grass and think. Where does penance always reside?
The answer hit him with the force of a Stupify . A place of shame and enforced confinement, a symbol of the "penance" Dumbledore never escaped: Azkaban . But the snake and the tower...
It wasn't Azkaban. It was Nurmengard Prison , the tower where the Dark Wizard Gellert Grindelwald was imprisoned , whose fall was Dumbledore's greatest triumph and greatest regret.
— Coherence Connection (Painful Memories) —
Harry felt the burden. The clue wasn't leading to some magical, joyful place, but to the heart of Dumbledore's sorrow . If the mirror was used to reverse Grindelwald's failure, Dumbledore would have wanted to hide the clue in the place that most reminded him of his own penance: the prison of his former lover and rival.
The initial fear was replaced by icy determination. Voldemort wouldn't expect someone to seek out such a dark and personal artifact to undo a failure.
Harry looked toward the horizon, to the east, where the prison was rumored to be. A high-risk journey, outside the known territory of Great Britain. A journey that now had to begin.