No matter how many times he experienced it, Harry could never get used to the feeling of Apparition. It was like squeezing through a thick rubber tube, every inch of his body constricted tightly, making it nearly impossible to breathe—like a thin membrane had been pressed against his face. Just when he thought he couldn't endure it any longer, the sensation suddenly vanished, and he found himself standing atop a massive rock formation by the sea. The cold, fresh night air, heavy with the scent of salt, howled against his face.
Below, the waves crashed violently against the rocky cliffs, roaring like thunder. As far as the eye could see, the vast ocean churned beneath the pale glow of the moon, its silvery light illuminating the endless expanse of water. Overhead, a breathtaking stretch of the Milky Way, unseen from Godric's Hollow, spanned the entire sky, a tapestry of countless twinkling stars.
"Kreacher, where is the cave you mentioned? Why didn't you take us directly inside?" Sirius surveyed the jagged coastline with a frown.
The house-elf lowered his head, his bulbous nose almost touching the ground. "Forgive Kreacher, Master Sirius. Kreacher is not strong enough. The magic inside the cave prevents anyone from entering by any means other than the hidden door..."
"I remember... this place... that village in the distance..." Dumbledore gazed at the scattered lights of a small settlement in the hills beyond. "This is where I first met Tom... in that orphanage."
"Tom... you mean Voldemort?" Harry, who had just cast a Lumos spell on himself, widened his eyes in shock, staring at the distant village. At the mention of Voldemort's name, Sirius, Lupin, and Kreacher all turned their heads in surprise toward the settlement.
"The Dark Lord... grew up in a Muggle orphanage?" Kreacher stared in disbelief at the ordinary, somewhat dilapidated village. "Master Regulus always said the Dark Lord was the heir of the great Salazar Slytherin... but... this is the great Dumbledore speaking, and Dumbledore has no reason to deceive Kreacher... but still..."
Ever since Harry had destroyed the locket, Kreacher had seemed much more normal—at least, he no longer muttered curses loud enough for others to hear. Though his deep-rooted beliefs from being raised in a pure-blood household remained unchanged.
Guided by Kreacher and the light from Harry's wand, they made their way down a precariously narrow, uneven path along the rocky shore. After a grueling descent, they stopped atop a large rock near the edge of a cliff.
Dumbledore raised a hand to stop Harry, who was about to cast a Flight Charm on himself.
"Harry, I can sense numerous trigger-based traps and defensive enchantments here. Recklessly using magic could complicate things further."
"But we can't just swim across, can we? It's December!" Harry dipped his hand into the icy seawater, yanking it back within seconds as the numbing cold bit into his skin.
Dumbledore chuckled. "Which is why I always bring Fawkes with me when I travel."
He placed his middle and index fingers in his mouth and let out a sharp whistle. Moments later, a distant cry answered from above. A magnificent crimson bird descended gracefully, perching on Dumbledore's shoulder.
And so, one by one, Fawkes carried them through the massive crevice in the rock wall.
After climbing a sloping stone passage for fifteen minutes, they emerged into a vast cavern. Just as Kreacher was about to cut his own finger to offer blood, Sirius pushed the house-elf aside and used his wand to slice open his own palm instead.
A silvery-white arc shimmered across the rock wall. The bloodstained stone gradually faded away until it vanished completely, revealing a dark, gaping entrance.
Dumbledore, however, frowned deeply throughout the entire process.
"How primitive," he muttered, clicking his tongue with evident disdain, as if watching a university student use a calculator for basic arithmetic. "Forcing your enemies to weaken themselves just to enter... Voldemort still doesn't understand—there are things in this world far more terrifying than physical wounds."
Stepping through the entrance, they followed the tunnel deeper into the cave. After about a hundred meters, the space suddenly opened up, revealing a vast, pitch-black underground lake. The surrounding rock walls stretched upward into an abyss beyond the reach of their light. The water was eerily still, unnaturally so, and in the distant haze, a faint green glow flickered at what appeared to be the lake's center.
"Lumos isn't reaching as far," Harry quickly noticed the anomaly.
"Is it some kind of Dark Magic?" He instinctively wanted to cast a Daylight Spell, but remembering Dumbledore's warning, he forced himself to suppress the urge to pierce the darkness with sunlight.
They followed the lake's edge for an uncertain amount of time until Kreacher finally stopped.
"Kreacher remembers... it was here. The Dark Lord reached into the air and pulled out a green chain. Then, from the water... he pulled up a boat... But Kreacher can't find the chain anymore..."
The house-elf looked on the verge of tears, frantically clawing at the air near the water's edge—grasping nothing but empty space.
In the end, it was Dumbledore who reached out and found the thick, copper-green chain, hidden in the void. As he took hold of it, he lightly tapped it with his wand. The chain slithered like a serpent in his grasp, the sound of clinking metal echoing through the cavern as it coiled upon itself. As more of the chain emerged, something beneath the black water stirred.
A dark shape slowly rose from the depths.
Then, a small wooden boat surfaced—barely large enough to hold three adults standing side by side. The boat was coated in an eerie green luminescence, its arrival sending only the slightest ripple across the lake's glassy surface.
"Yes! That's the boat!" Kreacher cried out in a mixture of fear and recognition. "The Dark Lord took Kreacher across the lake in this very boat!"
"This boat... seems too small," Harry observed. "Forget all of us—I'm not even sure it could hold two people."
"Why worry?" Sirius grinned. "We have Fawkes. We can just fly across."
"Coo! Coo-coo! Coo!"
At that moment, Fawkes, who had been quietly preening her feathers on Harry's shoulder since they entered the cave, suddenly flapped her wings and called out to him.
"Huh?" Harry looked at her in surprise.
"Everyone, I have bad news," he announced. "Fawkes just told me... for some reason, she can't fly in here."
Sirius's face fell instantly.
Meanwhile, Dumbledore, who had been studying the boat, stood up and dusted off his robes. "Voldemort doesn't care how much weight crosses this lake. He is far too arrogant. In his mind, only magical strength matters. So, the boat's capacity is likely determined by the total magical power of those aboard. As for my magic..."
He stepped onto the boat. Instantly, it sank sharply, leaving only about two-fifths of its hull above water.
"Roughly the same as Voldemort's," Dumbledore mused. "By my estimate, the boat can carry about three more wizards."
Sirius was the first to step onto the small wooden boat. The hull dipped slightly.
Lupin followed, and the boat sank a little more.
Then, Harry leaped onto the boat with Fawkes—right onto Sirius and Lupin.
The boat sank.
In a panic, Harry no longer cared about the Ministry's restriction on underage magic. He cast Stone Wall directly beneath them. Instantly, a stone platform, seventy feet long and sixty feet wide, materialized beneath their feet.
A split second later, a series of loud impacts erupted from below the stone slab.
"Back to shore! Hurry!" Harry shouted, realizing that the stone platform beneath them was fracturing at an alarming rate. He urged Sirius and Lupin to carry Professor Dumbledore back to solid ground.
Just as they reached the shore, the stone slab they had stood on shattered into countless fragments. Amidst the flying debris, pale figures shot out from the water, hurling themselves toward Harry and the others.
"Fireba—!"
Harry raised his left hand, surging magic crackling at his fingertips, but before he could unleash the spell, Dumbledore's voice rang out beside him.
"Harry! Don't forget—Regulus' body is among them!"
The old wizard swung his wand in a broad, sweeping motion. Instantly, the approaching mass of pale figures froze in midair, as if someone had pressed the pause button.
"Lupin, help us hold them back! Sirius, Kreacher—find Regulus' body among these inferi!"
"Impedimenta! Incarcerous! Petrificus Totalus! Flipendo!"
Lupin flicked his wand swiftly, his spells striking each incoming inferius with precision, halting or repelling them.
Meanwhile, Harry wielded Cloud of Daggers, slicing apart any inferius that was not Regulus.
In no time, a mound of hacked-apart inferi—pale, dismembered corpses—piled up near them, mostly on Harry's side.
"Damn it! Where the hell did Voldemort get so many of these things?! It's like they never end!"
Even while maintaining five rings of Cloud of Daggers and covering for Lupin and Dumbledore, Harry felt exhaustion creeping in. Despite his growing strength, the relentless onslaught was taking its toll.
"Inferi are corpses reanimated by a Dark wizard's curse," Lupin explained between spell casts. "They become mindless puppets, cannon fodder for their master. The most obvious way to identify an inferius is its pale, clouded eyes. Their bodies are preserved through Dark Magic, and the only surefire way to destroy them is with fire—no known spell can make dead flesh immune to burning. That's why inferi are often enchanted to avoid flames."
Lupin blasted another inferius away and added grimly, "But to create this many… just how many people has Voldemort killed?"
"Wait, you're saying these things are afraid of fire?" Harry shouted.
"Not just fire—intense light can repel them, too!" Lupin called back.
"If it's that simple, why didn't you say so earlier, Uncle Lupin?!"
Without hesitation, Harry cast Daylight on himself.
At once, a blinding sphere of light with a sixty-foot radius erupted from his body, expanding outward and illuminating everything within 120 feet.
The inferi recoiled under the intense radiance. Their attacks slowed significantly, and the pressure on Dumbledore, Lupin, and Harry was drastically reduced.
Finally, after cutting down what must have been hundreds—if not thousands—of inferi, Kreacher let out a wail.
"Master Regulus!"
The house-elf nearly flung himself at a clawing, shrieking inferius, but Sirius acted fast, grabbing him before he could make things worse. The last thing they needed was another enemy to fight.
With Regulus' body found, Harry and Dumbledore stopped holding back.
Fireball! Wall of Fire! Fireball! Wall of Fire!
Harry hurled devastating fire spells one after another, incinerating inferi in droves, burning through them like they were mere fuel for his unrelenting onslaught.
Once Harry's mana was depleted, Dumbledore took over. Fiendfyre raged through the battlefield, monstrous flames tearing through the lake, moving like predatory beasts hunting their prey. Inferi screeched as they were consumed, their bodies turning to ash in the face of unrelenting magical fire.
Meanwhile, Harry sat cross-legged, meditating to restore his magical energy as quickly as possible.
In the end, despite all the effort Voldemort had put into raising this undead army, the inferi ended up as nothing more than Harry's latest XP farm.
The lake's water level visibly dropped from the sheer heat of the fire spells. Eventually, the scorched, damp ground at the lakebed was exposed.
And Harry?
He smoothly leveled up to Level 11.
As for the remaining inferi, he casually incinerated them with a few more fireballs—leaving behind nothing but charred remains.
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