"This was my father's... It was my father's."
Harry felt the Invisibility Cloak flow through his fingers like water. It was finer and lighter than silk, with almost no discernible weight.
"Use it well," the note had said.
He couldn't resist sliding out of bed and draping the weightless cloak over himself. When he looked down, he could only see the patches of moonlight falling on the dark floor.
"Use it well?" Harry thought again.
Yes, that was it! Suddenly, Harry's mind was crystal clear. Wearing this, the entirety of Hogwarts was completely open to him!
He stood there in the darkness, surrounded by silence, and his heart suddenly began to pound with excitement.
Wearing this cloak, he could go anywhere. Anywhere! Filch would never be able to find him.
In the next bed, Ron muttered something in his sleep. Harry turned to look at him. Should he wake him? No, this was his father's Invisibility Cloak. He felt that, at least for this first time, he should use it alone.
He wanted to experience what his father might have felt, wrapping himself in this same cloak and exploring the vast Hogwarts castle.
With that thought, Harry reached up and pulled the cloak's hood over his head. He tiptoed out of the dormitory, down the stairs, through the common room, and climbed out of the portrait hole.
"Who's there?" the Fat Lady in the portrait asked drowsily.
Harry didn't make a sound. He walked quickly and silently down the corridor.
Hogwarts at night was completely different from the daytime. It was deep and filled with a unique sense of mystery. For Harry, who had grown up in the Muggle world, it felt as if he had walked into a castle from a fairy tale.
He almost laughed at the thought. Wasn't this a magical castle? Although it wasn't his first time walking the Hogwarts corridors at night, wearing the Invisibility Cloak was a completely different experience.
He could calmly observe every detail within his line of sight, without any fear of being discovered by the patrolling Filch.
"Where should I go?" he paused to think, his heart thumping.
Suddenly, he remembered—the Restricted Section of the library! He could read to his heart's content there until he figured out just who this Flamel was.
Harry wrapped the cloak tightly around himself again and walked on.
The library was pitch black. Looking inside, he could see almost nothing. It was even more gloomy and terrifying than during the day.
Harry had to retreat to make sure Filch wasn't outside before lighting a lamp. He carried it as he walked between the rows of bookshelves. The lamp looked as if it were floating in mid-air. Even though Harry could feel himself holding it, the sight still sent a chill down his spine.
The Restricted Section was in the deepest part of the library. Harry carefully stepped over the rope that cordoned it off and held up his lamp to read the titles.
However, the titles told him nothing.
The peeling, faded gold letters spelled out words Harry couldn't understand. Some books didn't even have titles.
One book was stained with a dark patch. It looked horribly like blood, which terrified Harry.
Standing between the bookshelves, Harry felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He felt a faint, indistinct whisper coming from the books, as if they knew someone who shouldn't be there was secretly watching them.
It might have been his imagination, or it might not have been.
Harry felt he had to start somewhere; he couldn't just stand there.
So, he carefully placed the lamp on the floor and looked along the bottom of the shelves, hoping to find a book that looked interesting.
He suddenly saw, next to a large, dark green-spined book, a conspicuous silver-gray book wedged tightly beside it. The book wasn't very heavy. Harry took it out and opened the cover.
Suddenly, a bluish-green light flashed from the pages, and they began to rustle and turn on their own.
Harry quickly pressed them down to stop the noise. The next moment, he saw several lines of text written in the margins. He was very familiar with this handwriting—it was almost identical to the writing in the Occlumency notebook Marcel had given him.
It was Marcel's handwriting! He had been here too, and he had even written some notes.
This was the Restricted Section! How did Marcel get in? Did he have a way to become invisible too? Judging others by his own standards, Harry almost coincidentally guessed the correct answer in an instant.
He tried to understand what Marcel had been doing here by reading his notes.
Unfortunately, Harry found that while he recognized every individual word Marcel had written, they made no sense when combined into sentences.
He flipped through a few more pages, but ultimately had to slide the book back onto the shelf with a look of disappointment.
Suddenly, he accidentally brushed against the large, thick, dark-green book next to it. The book was so huge it had only been held in place by being wedged against the others.
Seeing that the book was about to fall, Harry was startled. If it hit the floor, the sound would surely shatter the silence.
He scrambled forward and tried to catch the heavy tome in his hands—
"Ugh," Harry let out a low grunt.
Thankfully, although his hand throbbed with a dull pain from hitting the hard floor, at least he hadn't made any attention-grabbing noise.
After calming down a little, Harry looked at the large book in his hands. It had a rough, dark-green cover and was surprisingly heavy. This made Harry extremely curious about it.
He carefully opened the cover and discovered that every page of this book was made of a dense and delicate tree bark.
The edges of the pages were slightly yellowed, but he could tell they had originally been an off-white color. Some of the experimental records inside were so simple and direct that even Harry could understand what they were talking about.
"Modifying human bloodlines? The bloodlines of various magical creatures?"
Harry was frightened by the illustrations of deformed human bodies inside. He stumbled back a few steps and hastily slammed the great book of strange magic shut.
On its dark green cover, its title was faintly inscribed: The Book of Druids, and in the bottom right corner, the word "Merlin" was clearly written.
Harry might not have immediately remembered Nicolas Flamel, but the name "Merlin" was a famous wizard known even to ordinary Muggles.
He had appeared in the Muggle world, supported the legendary King Arthur of Celtic lore, guided him to the world-famous Sword in the Lake, and unified a turbulent England.
The Order of Merlin in the wizarding world today was founded by Merlin himself. Every wizard would be thrilled to receive a medal from it. Dumbledore himself had an Order of Merlin, First Class.
Why would such a great wizard write such a terrifying book of magic? Pushing down his unease, Harry opened the book again, wanting to see more.
Just then, he heard the sound of steady footsteps from outside the library. Was it Filch?
He hastily extinguished the lamp on the floor, then carefully slid the book back into its original position, making sure it wouldn't fall again.
He had found nothing yet, but he knew he had to go.
As Filch's heavy footsteps passed by not far from him, Harry felt as if his heart would leap out of his chest. He realized Filch must have seen the light or something else, as he was frowning and looking around.
As Filch slowly walked further in, Harry quietly left the library. As he left, he glanced back at the Restricted Section. He would be back.
"You should have woken me up," Ron said angrily.
"You can come tonight. I want to go back and look at that book," Harry said. "This is a big secret about Merlin. And besides, I still haven't found out who Nicolas Flamel is!"
"About that big secret," Ron said, "it sounds really interesting. Bloodline modification? Maybe we can become as strong as giants!"
"Have some bacon or something, why aren't you eating?"
Harry found he had little appetite. He hadn't expected the Restricted Section to hold so many secrets.
What had Marcel written in that book? Was Merlin really as respectable as the legends said? Who was Nicolas Flamel? What was the big dog guarding? And why was Snape trying to steal it?
The number of things that puzzled him was growing, and it made him feel anxious.
The second time he used the Invisibility Cloak, it was much more awkward with Ron under it as well, and they moved much more slowly.
"It's really cold on a winter's night," Ron complained softly. "Maybe we should just go back instead of looking?"
"No!" Harry said in a low, firm voice. "We have to find out who Nicolas Flamel is as soon as possible. Snape is definitely up to no good!"
Before long, they were back in the Restricted Section of the library. This time, they ignored Merlin's work and began to search for any trace of Nicolas Flamel.
After a good while, they had found a lot of terrifying things in the strange and dangerous forbidden books. For example, demons and temptation, or souls and death...
Many spells that sounded evil were common here, but they couldn't find a single word related to Nicolas Flamel.
"Looks like he's not even in the Restricted Section," Ron said, shivering. He felt like his feet were about to freeze.
Helpless, Harry opened the large, dark-green book again. He wanted to at least solve this mystery before leaving.