The atmosphere at dinner shifted subtly after the newspaper arrived.
The students were still whispering among themselves, but their voices were much lower than before, as if covered by frosted glass, making them hard to hear clearly.
In the corner, Sean gently set the newspaper down. The plate of roast beef in front of him had gone completely cold.
"You haven't eaten a single bite."
Hermione leaned over from across the table. Her own plate had barely been touched either.
Spread open in front of her was a copy of An Examination of Nordic Dark Magic Artifacts, which she had borrowed from the library before dinner. A few drops of pumpkin juice had stained the page, but right now she clearly had no time to care about being scolded by Madam Pince.
"Has it gone cold—?"
Sean said, spearing a piece and bringing it to his mouth.
It had indeed gone cold.
It looked like he would have to take it to the kitchens to warm it up.
"Honestly."
Hermione closed the book, pushed it aside, and glanced at Justin.
"You know, I do know a few simple household spells."
Justin gently took out his wand and tapped the tabletop. In the blink of an eye, steam rose from the steak.
"Sean, you're thinking about the Horcruxes?"
Hermione did not phrase it as a question.
Justin said nothing. He only looked at Sean with a calm, focused gaze.
Justin was the kind of person who made others feel listened to without needing many words.
"Mm. The last one."
Sean replied.
Hermione's brows immediately furrowed.
She sat up straight in her chair and gripped her book tightly.
"The diary, the cup, the diadem—these are either founders' relics or important objects connected to Voldemort's background. If he hid his Horcruxes in things like that, then the final one should follow the same pattern."
Hermione said seriously.
"Maybe not necessarily."
Justin said.
His voice was gentle but clear.
Hermione turned to him.
"What do you mean?"
"Hermione, I mean—everything is different now—"
Justin put down his fork and carefully organized his words.
"Sean, I want to say, you must know where Headmaster Dumbledore went, right? If—you know, if you're willing—"
"What?"
Hermione perked up her ears.
"Mm."
Sean nodded.
"You know?"
Hermione's eyes widened.
Then, as if she had suddenly figured it out, she said,
"So that's why the werewolves and giants—"
"Mm."
Sean had no intention of hiding it. This was not information that absolutely had to be kept secret.
What was there to keep secret?
That Headmaster Dumbledore had hunted Voldemort until he was fleeing like a beaten animal?
"Headmaster Dumbledore has hunted him down four times."
Sean said calmly.
"Merlin—"
Hermione stared blankly.
The whispering in the Great Hall continued without end. Sean easily explained that night to Hermione and Justin.
That night when Headmaster Dumbledore had carried a sword and advanced unstoppably.
"So, think about it, Hermione. If you were someone who had been hunted four times, if you knew the person hunting you was destroying all your Horcruxes one by one, would you hide your final Horcrux somewhere he could guess?"
Justin guided her.
Hermione opened her mouth, but did not immediately refute him.
Sean looked at her, knowing she was quickly rearranging all the information in her mind.
"Voldemort would not choose something meaningless."
Hermione finally said, though her speech was half a beat slower than usual.
"He has an obsessive fixation on 'greatness' and 'specialness.' You can see it from the Horcruxes he chose.
"The Gaunt ring, as Sean told us, was his way of proving his bloodline. And Slytherin's locket, Hufflepuff's cup, Ravenclaw's diadem—they were all relics of Hogwarts founders.
"He made the diary into a Horcrux because it was proof of the first time he proved himself the heir of Slytherin. So no matter what he chooses as a Horcrux, that object must have special meaning to him.
"But Justin is right too. Under Headmaster Dumbledore's relentless pressure, he may change his strategy.
"The process of creating a new Horcrux is: first murder, then split the soul, then seal it into a vessel. Before the fourth hunt, he tried to use a wizard's life to create a Horcrux. That Horcrux was not completed, but what was the vessel?"
Sean thought for a long time.
His gaze fell on An Examination of Nordic Dark Magic Artifacts in front of Hermione, but his eyes were not focused on the page. They were fixed somewhere much farther away.
"If I were Voldemort,"
Sean slowly said,
"and Headmaster Dumbledore had hunted me four times, and I had lost an arm, half a face, a snake, and a servant;
"if I knew Headmaster Dumbledore was searching for my final Horcrux, and I knew he had Gryffindor's sword—one of the few things capable of destroying a Horcrux;
"if the giant snake by my side had already died;
"if I were someone who had already lost six soul fragments and only had the last one left, where would I hide that final Horcrux?"
"A place you absolutely trust."
Hermione said.
"A place Headmaster Dumbledore would absolutely never think of."
Justin added.
Sean gently shook his head.
"There are too many places like that. But if we look at it from another angle—if we were Headmaster Dumbledore, and we currently did not know what the final Horcrux was, how would we search for it?"
Hermione sharply inhaled.
"If Voldemort changed his pattern, then Dumbledore should not search for where Voldemort would hide it. He should search for when Voldemort created it."
Sean nodded gently.
"A Horcrux can only be created during a murder. The diary was created when Moaning Myrtle died, the first time Voldemort opened the Chamber of Secrets. The ring was made after he killed his Muggle father and grandparents. The locket and cup were made during his time working at Borgin and Burkes, when he came into contact with Hepzibah Smith. She owned both objects, and after her death, both disappeared. The diadem was hidden when he returned to Hogwarts to apply for the teaching post. The murder for that should have happened shortly after he left the school."
"And the newest Horcrux—if it exists—whose death was used to make it?"
Justin asked.
The three of them fell silent at the same time.
The voices of the other students in the Great Hall surged like distant tides, separated from their table by an invisible distance.
Sean stared at the plate of cold roast beef in front of him. The mashed potatoes had congealed into a gray-white lump.
"Wormtail."
He finally said the name.
"What?"
Hermione said.
"On the night Voldemort was resurrected, he killed Wormtail."
Sean's voice was very soft, but every word was clear.
"He said to Wormtail, 'You still have one final use.' He killed Wormtail, tore his soul with a murder, and created his—one could say newest, by order—Horcrux."
Hermione's pupils widened slightly in the candlelight. She opened her mouth, but Sean continued.
"Hufflepuff's cup is the last known Horcrux.
"But if he created a new Horcrux after his resurrection—with Wormtail's death—then that Horcrux is not in any record.
"We don't know what the vessel is, nor do we know where it is hidden. But we know one thing: the process of creating a Horcrux is to first tear off a piece of soul, then seal it into a vessel. So the order is: the murder happens before the vessel is chosen."
Justin slowly set down his fork.
"So,"
he said,
"when Wormtail died, Voldemort's soul had already been torn open with a new crack. But at that time, he did not have the cup, the locket, or anything 'valuable' at hand—"
He stopped.
"Therefore, if he wanted to choose an object and make it into a Horcrux, it must have been something in the tavern."
Sean said.
The doubt that had troubled him for some time had now become a firm guess.
During the time Wormtail had been with Voldemort, had Voldemort wanted to murder anyone?
Of course he had. And more than once.
Old Frank and Ministry employee Bertha had both been chosen targets.
But Sean had let both of them escape.
If they had died, Wormtail would have known exactly what Horcrux Voldemort created. But Sean had not been willing to do that.
Only life could not be placed on the scales.
And so Wormtail completed his final mission.
Given Voldemort's obsession with seven, Sean did not think Voldemort would create an eighth Horcrux and split his soul into nine pieces.
What he wanted was seven parts of the soul.
Even though he had already destroyed that himself long ago.
Seven had a special meaning in mysticism.
If Voldemort had truly split his soul into seven parts, perhaps he really could have maintained a kind of stability.
But Harry's appearance had already broken that hidden balance.
So perhaps, in some unseen way, Voldemort's mental collapse had always been inevitable.
Then could Voldemort have created a Horcrux before meeting Peter?
Sean thought the possibility was low.
At that time, facing Peter with his hidden motives, how could Voldemort have had the strength to split his own soul and make himself weaker?
Thinking this, Sean slowly stood.
"We need to investigate that tavern."
After the discussion ended, Hermione and Justin returned to their dormitories.
Sean did not immediately leave the Great Hall.
He sat beside the long table, listening to the low cries of Thestrals drifting from the edge of the Forbidden Forest.
He took out two glass bottles. Inside them were silver threads of memory.
One was from Mr. Lupin and Mr. Sirius. It faithfully recorded the scene before Voldemort left for Albania.
The other was his own. It contained the scene of Wormtail facing Voldemort in the final moments before his death.
In this memory, the tavern was vivid and lifelike.
Sean had plenty of time to reason out what Voldemort had chosen as his Horcrux.
He guessed that even under those conditions, Voldemort would not choose a random piece of rubbish.
What would he choose?
The interior of the tavern was even more run-down than it looked from outside.
The stone walls were plastered with a layer of mortar that had not been replaced for who knew how many years. Cracks spread like spiderwebs from the chimney above the stove in every direction, climbing all the way to the low ceiling.
The ceiling was supported by heavy oak beams. After being smoked by years of oil and soot, those beams had turned almost black, a deep brown. A sticky layer of grease had condensed on their surfaces, gleaming dimly under candlelight.
There were only five tables in the tavern, all shabby and broken.
On the table by the window in the southwest corner lay several very unusual objects, as if someone had casually thrown them there.
But in such a remote old tavern, the appearance of these items did not seem that strange.
A battered book with a leather cover.
It had been placed at the edge. The cover was moldy, the spine cracked, exposing the parchment inside.
But when Sean focused on it, he was startled to discover the title written on it: Secrets of the Darkest Art. The only known copy of this book should have been at Hogwarts.
This could not be the original. Sean believed it was a handwritten copy Voldemort had made during his school years.
At the bottom-right corner of the title page was a faded ink signature: Tom Marvolo Riddle.
Beside the book was a goblet.
It was upside down on a dust-covered tray. On the wall of the cup was an embossed badger. The craftsmanship was extremely ancient. It looked as though gold had been pressed into foil-thin sheets, then embedded into the surface while the silver had not yet cooled, forming something between relief and inlay.
Around the rim was an almost invisible line of fine inscription in Old English, spelling an unreadable name.
The other objects on the table could not be clearly seen.
A wizard with a cold smile blocked them with his robe.
Sean barely managed to make out a locket.
On its lid was a Slytherin-style serpentine "S" pattern, but it was different from the true Slytherin locket. The real locket was made of gold and set with emeralds.
This one was made of brass, and the "emeralds" were stained glass. It was a replica, but its craftsmanship was extremely fine. If it had not been made from cheap materials, it could almost pass as the real thing.
Behind Voldemort,
the trapdoor leading to the cellar was half open.
There was no light in the cellar, but a strange smell drifted out from the crack in the trapdoor.
A large cauldron stood in the cellar, with eerie white bones beside it, along with all sorts of bottles and jars.
Wind blew past, and Sean pulled away from the memory.
The Great Hall had gradually emptied. The candles on the long tables were being extinguished one by one.
Sean was still thinking.
What had Voldemort chosen?
He would not have taken out those objects without reason.
He had hesitated.
A book, perhaps another relic connected to Hufflepuff, and a locket.
As for the cauldron, it could not be ruled out either. Nor could those bottles and jars necessarily escape suspicion.
Looking at it this way, Voldemort's choices remained broad.
He had known Wormtail's betrayal, yet still calmly placed many things in plain sight.
Because even if everything was fully exposed, it would still be difficult to guess his true intention.
At that moment, Sean missed Professor Snape a little. Rather than ponder Voldemort's choice, he would much rather give Voldemort no choice at all.
The image of Headmaster Dumbledore hunting Voldemort lingered in Sean's mind.
He knew Voldemort was searching for him.
He also knew that no matter when it happened, he always had one final plan.
Face Voldemort directly. Break him. From inside his mind—
Sean would know everything.