Dawn opened his eyes.
The deafening roar of an engine filled his ears.
Specks of color flickered across his vision like scattered snow, gradually connecting into a complete and vivid world.
He found himself standing in a narrow aisle. Rows of seats lined both sides, filled with people of all kinds.
Where was this?
Dawn felt a moment of confusion and raised a hand to his head.
But the clarity came quickly.
His gaze sharpened as he looked around. Through a round window on the wall, clouds rushed past at high speed.
An airplane.
He was in the sky.
Dawn frowned, then suddenly realized something. His eyes swept across the passengers one by one, finally stopping on a man wearing an eye mask, a man named Cindy.
As expected.
Dawn took a slow breath.
This was the same flight he had taken when leaving Egypt, heading toward New Zealand to study the Phoenix trait pattern.
After the initial surprise faded, he quickly calmed down and formed a conclusion.
He had been captured by Dumbledore and thrown into the Veil. Yet he had opened his eyes here. There was only one explanation.
Someone had connected to his mind.
Dawn recalled his previous experiences and reached that conclusion with ease. He showed no panic and instead examined his current state.
He was a shadow.
There was no need for testing. His faint, translucent appearance made it obvious.
After a moment of thought, he coughed lightly and waved his hand in front of a nearby passenger.
Watching the lack of reaction, he confirmed that he could not be touched. At the same time, he was neither seen nor heard.
A strange state.
Could it be that when he had once connected to the minds of the dead, they had observed him in the same way?
Dawn frowned slightly.
Then he turned his attention back to the cabin.
It was filled with people. They flipped through magazines, chatted with one another, or ate and drank.
This scene was unexpected.
When he had previously fallen into dreams caused by the Resurrection Stone powder, he had tested something at Hogwarts. That place could only show the dead who existed in reality.
So what was happening here?
Were all these people already dead a year later?
Dawn narrowed his eyes. That was impossible.
Which meant there had to be some special factor at work.
His thoughts naturally drifted to the Resurrection Stone, now ground into powder and completely consumed.
He had no concrete proof, but he felt that whether the stone remained intact or was completely destroyed led to entirely different outcomes.
Still, that was not the most important issue.
Dawn shook his head.
What mattered now was how to return to reality, just as Avery had taken over Lee Jordan's body before.
First, he needed to find the person connected to him.
That part was not difficult.
If connecting minds meant replacing someone and stepping into their experience, then he only needed to go to the place where he had once been.
Dawn acted immediately. He walked down the aisle toward the rear of the cabin. Back then, he had been standing there under a Disillusionment Charm.
Soon, he reached the cold metal wall at the back. He studied the seemingly empty space with interest.
He could not see the exact position of the other person, but he was not worried.
If he remembered correctly, what came next would be—
Fred felt that his experiences today could fill an entire book.
First, he had been knocked out in the Forbidden Forest. Then he dreamed of the Burrow. After tripping in the garden, he had somehow ended up in a completely unfamiliar place.
None of it made sense.
It felt less like magic and more like some child's bizarre fantasy story.
He stared around in confusion.
A metal shell.
A low humming noise.
A trembling floor.
And a crowd of obvious Muggles.
"A dream within a dream?"
Fred muttered, eyes wide. For the first time, he truly felt that something was wrong, yet he had no explanation.
He examined his surroundings and guessed that this was some kind of Muggle transport, similar in concept to a flying broom.
But why would he dream of this place?
Fred was completely lost.
He pressed himself against the wall and looked at the passengers ahead. After a moment of hesitation, he decided to approach them and ask for information.
But before he could take a step—
A sudden, overwhelming sense of danger seized him.
It felt as if a beast had clamped its jaws around his throat. Cold sweat poured from his body.
What was happening?
His hair stood on end. He tried to turn his head, but to his horror, he found that he could not move at all.
A sharp pain erupted in his chest and spread through his body, numbing his limbs.
Then—
Blood burst out.
A spray of warm liquid surged from his throat, splattering across the floor. His vision turned red.
He felt as though something had been taken from him. His body went weak. A cold wind seemed to blow through him, producing a hollow, whistling sound.
At the same time, an old, obscure voice echoed faintly in his ears.
"Oh my..."
"It's Fred."
Dawn narrowed his eyes as he watched the red-haired boy appear out of thin air, a gaping hole torn through his chest.
He recognized him instantly.
So his suspicion had been correct. There was something wrong with the Weasley twins.
Dawn observed Fred lying on the ground and considered his next move.
At that moment, a strange pull began to emanate from Fred's body. Dawn's gaze wavered.
The feeling was difficult to describe.
Like seeing the warm glow of a fireplace in the middle of a frozen wasteland.
Dawn stepped forward instinctively.
After two steps, he regained control and broke free from the pull. But he did not stop moving.
Now he understood.
As Fred's life faded and the pull grew stronger, the answer became clear.
If Fred died here, Dawn could attach his mind to him and return to reality in a different form.
Simple.
A faint smile curved on Dawn's lips.
In the past, he had survived this process by spreading a curse.
But Fred was not him.
This dream was terrible.
At the rear of the cabin, Fred lay half-collapsed on the floor. His pupils were unfocused. Blood mixed with clots spilled from his mouth.
He stared at the blood-soaked object lying before him.
Ah...
That was a heart, right?
It had to be a heart.
Wait...
Was it his heart?
Fred stared at the lump of flesh that still seemed to twitch faintly.
For some reason, his thoughts drifted back to the first lesson Professor Hickman had given them, along with the strange object he had shown.
You shouldn't leave something like this on the ground. It could be worth a lot of money. Maybe it could fund a joke shop.
Fred felt a sudden sense of regret.
Perhaps because he was dying, his thoughts became wildly active, jumping from one absurd idea to another.
At one point, he even wanted to reach out and touch his own heart.
But—
It hurt.
The pain was overwhelming, crushing what little consciousness he had left.
It felt as though a giant python was wrapping around him, squeezing the life out of him before swallowing him whole.
Damn it...
Wasn't this supposed to be a dream?
Why did it hurt so much?
Fred grumbled weakly in his mind. His breathing grew faint. Darkness crept into his vision.
He just wanted to wake up.
Then, in a haze—
A hoarse, sharp voice suddenly hissed in his mind, like a snake striking.
"Idiot! Check what you're carrying!"
Dawn stopped in his tracks.
___________
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