Chapter 106: 106- You can't wake someone who's pretending to be asleep
"So? Do you have anything to explain?" Professor McGonagall crossed her arms. "Potter nearly died down there!"
"But he didn't, did he?"
"..."
Professor McGonagall seemed at a loss for words. What Dumbledore said made perfect sense, yet she felt that something was off.
"Harry has the magical protection left by his mother. With that magic's blessing, Quirrell wouldn't have been able to harm a single hair on his head before he comes of age."
"But that magic is specifically against You-Know-Who."
"Quirrell was possessed by Voldemort. I'm sorry I hadn't told you that before."
"Possessed by Him...!?" Professor McGonagall's breathing grew heavier, clearly shaken by this revelation.
Listening to Dumbledore and McGonagall's conversation, Rhys suddenly understood the source of Dumbledore's confidence: Harry had the magical protection of his mother's love, and the Voldemort-possessed Quirrell wouldn't have been able to harm him.
'The magic of love has such astonishing effects, it's truly unbelievable!' Rhys couldn't help but marvel at the magic cast by Harry's mother after hearing Dumbledore's explanation.
Though he hadn't witnessed this magic firsthand, Rhys could understand its principles.
The key to casting this kind of magic isn't a wizard's power but pure love—the kind of love willing to sacrifice everything. With the strength of such emotions, even a weak wizard can cast a spell with terrifying effects—one strong enough to destroy a Dark Lord of unparalleled power and keep its protective effects on a child until they come of age.
However, this spell isn't as miraculous as it seems. Its effectiveness was largely due to the Dark Lord's arrogance and lack of clarity, which led to his downfall. If he had chosen mercy and spared Harry, he wouldn't have ended up in his current state.
Putting himself in that situation, Rhys believed he wouldn't have harmed little Harry—at least not personally. But the Dark Lord was different; he cruelly refused a mother's last request and wouldn't even spare a baby in swaddling clothes, ultimately suffering the consequences.
Rhys also gained a crucial piece of information: the extremely evil entity possessing Quirrell was none other than the infamous Voldemort. The name of this Dark Lord was legendary to Rhys, mentioned in every contemporary magical history book he had browsed since waking up—not even by his true name, but through terms like "Dark Lord," "You-Know-Who," and "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named."
This piqued Rhys's curiosity. He was eager to understand what kind of person could achieve such notoriety that people feared to even utter his name. He had never encountered such a figure before.
And yet...
Is that it?
The one I just fought, or rather the one I beat up single-handedly, is the Dark Lord whose name wizards dare not speak?
Isn't this a bit of dark humor? But judging by the reactions of the other wizards, their fear of him seems genuine, which is puzzling.
Could it be that he's lost all his power, forcing him to possess others, and that's why he didn't show his full strength in the fight with me?
Professor McGonagall and Dumbledore remained silent for a long time, before she finally spoke in a low voice, "Albus, you must be mad! You—Merlin's beard! You let someone possessed by You-Know-Who into Hogwarts, and he taught the children Defense Against the Dark Arts for an entire year! You let the Dark Lord teach Defense Against the Dark Arts!"
She had always placed unconditional trust in Dumbledore, but given the current situation, she needed an explanation from him.
"His condition was poor; he spent most of his time in a state of dormancy," Dumbledore replied calmly. "I only confirmed later that the thing possessing Quirrell was Voldemort. He's coming back."
Professor McGonagall's breathing was heavy, like a bellows.
Seizing the moment, Dumbledore continued, "The children need experience. Kids raised in a greenhouse won't be able to handle Voldemort, Minerva. I'm almost one hundred and ten years old!"
Even in the midst of her intense emotions, Professor McGonagall had to admit that Dumbledore was right.
Voldemort wouldn't even need to do anything; he could simply wait a few decades to make a comeback, outliving Dumbledore easily.
By that time, she would be elderly and frail. If the younger generation couldn't shoulder the burden, who would stand against You-Know-Who? Snape?
Perhaps Dumbledore could ask his friend Nicolas Flamel to make the Elixir of Life for him to extend his life, but since Dumbledore hadn't taken the elixir himself, it indicated he had his own reasons and considerations.
She couldn't use the excuse of Voldemort to force him into taking it—Dumbledore had already made enough sacrifices.
However, she suddenly remembered another matter.
"What about the Greengrass girl? She doesn't have any kind of love magic protecting her. In the end, it was she who fought Quirrell and that other person. If it weren't for her luck, she'd have died underground!"
"..."
This time, it was Dumbledore's turn to fall silent.
"I miscalculated; there were too many unexpected variables in the plan," he admitted frankly. It was beyond his expectation that Daphne had carried a fireproof potion with her.
What was even more critical was that he hadn't been able to accompany them the entire time.
"Alright, Albus, you have your reasons—but why couldn't you have followed those kids secretly? What they were doing was incredibly dangerous. Even if it's supposed to be a learning experience, there should be some kind of safety net, right?"
"Because there was a real emergency," Dumbledore explained, recounting to Professor McGonagall the entire incident where the seal had been broken and the creature had escaped to wreak havoc.
Rhys, who was pretending to sleep in his hospital bed, was shocked.
He hadn't expected that the young wizards of the future would be capable of causing such chaos!
The sealing magic they had set up, even after a thousand years of weathering, shouldn't have been so easily broken.
As soon as he heard this, Rhys understood that those curse breakers had mistaken the seal they left to handle the corpse of the Norse false god for a treasure site.
While it's true that a processed divine corpse could indeed be made into powerful magical artifacts, they simply didn't have the capability to process it!
He really didn't know how to evaluate these curse breakers. If you called them incompetent, they managed to break the seal he and his friends had set up together. But if you called them sharp and capable, they somehow mistook such a seal for an ancient relic...
Rhys sensed something unusual. He wasn't sure whether the current magical world even had the ability to break the kind of seal they had left behind in their time—especially since they didn't even know how to manage the flow of mana anymore!
He decided this was something he needed to investigate.
After listening to Dumbledore's explanation, Professor McGonagall reluctantly accepted his reasoning, and the two of them left the infirmary together.
No sooner had they left than Daphne slipped in.
"Hey, Rhys, wake up!"
She nudged Rhys, who was lying in bed, hoping to wake him up; she suspected Rhys was only pretending to sleep.
But clearly, she hadn't heard the saying: You can never wake someone who is pretending to sleep.
Rhys lay in the hospital bed, looking exactly the same as Harry and Ron, who were actually unconscious beside him.
After a brief moment of thought, Daphne decided to take a more daring approach.
Just as she was about to put her bold plan into action, Madam Pomfrey appeared just in time and promptly pulled her out.
"Out! Don't disturb the patients!"
"Please wait a moment—"
"No way!"
Rhys silently praised Madam Pomfrey's sense of duty.
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