Chapter 454 Severus and Riddle's Secret (2 in 1)

In the barren mountains of the Northernmost part of Norway, even though it was already the month of June, the temperature here basically always remained below ten degrees, and the only living creatures that could be seen over the woods seemed to be the white-tailed eagles that were gliding on the wings in the sky.

In the dilapidated Ramo Hans' Abbey where Jon had once accompanied Grindelwald to come, Grindelwald, dressed in a black trench coat, was watching Eric retrieve the potion he had obtained from Snape.

"You have verified it?"

Hearing Grindelwald's question, Eric's eyes sparkled with excitement.

"Yes sir, I have verified it on some of the experimental subjects and the 'dry wood' within their bodies is indeed ignited, Severus Snape is without a doubt a genius in the field of potion research, I'm now a little curious as to what kind of potions he has been brewing for Voldemort all this time. "

Grindelwald said coldly.

"We don't need to worry about the situation in Britain, we need the conflict there to help us draw the attention away from our group. The only thing I care about right now is this potion. The 'dry wood' can be kindled, but I want to know if it can then be kept burning as life is kept active or if it is a consumable, if it is the latter then even if this potion helps us, it will be limited."

Emil said with a bow of his head.

"That is something I am still observing. The research samples are at the North Pole right now, and so far there is no sign of it abating for the time being."

"Then let's continue to watch and wait for a year's time; if it hasn't weakened halfway after a year, then we can carry out experiments that are a bit harsher, and that would mean that we've taken a big step towards success, and there's only the final kick in the door left to be taken."

Grindelwald said and tossed the vial of potion to Hans who had never said anything at the side.

"Follow and see if there's anything that can be improved in the potion itself according to this finished product, then increase the scope of the experiment and try to increase the rate of the finished product with the fastest speed."

Hans steadily took the potion in his hands, he looked a lot drier and thinner than when Jon had seen him before, but those cloudy eyes were surprisingly bright, looking at the potion in his hands as if he was looking at some rare treasure.

"And, sir." Eric continued, "That American wizard named Matthew Graves followed me to Britain, but he shouldn't have known that I had already left there."

Hearing this name uttered by Eric, a cold smile appeared at the corner of Grindelwald's mouth.

"Don't bother with him. The entire Magical Congress of the United States of America doesn't need to be bothered with, they are just a bunch of latecomers who don't know how to change, and if they really enjoy jumping up and down, then we will help them to remember again what they have actually experienced once."

With that said, he stood up from his chair and raised the wand in his hand.

"There's bound to be more violent unrest breaking out over in Britain next, Dumbledore wouldn't pass up a good opportunity like this, especially after he got what he wanted to get his hands on, so take this time to prepare all that we'll need."

At this time Hans finally averted his mesmerised gaze from the vial of potion, he looked at Grindelwald and asked hesitantly.

"My lord, there is something I don't know if I should ask, what if Dumbledore-"

"Then don't ask."

Grindelwald interrupted, and in the next moment, the entire group disappeared from the abbey.

***

Jon and Lily returned to France that same day.

Snape's death meant that their little trip to Britain had come to a complete end.

After returning to Lyon, Lily had left the matter of finding Dumbledore to Jon, and by now she certainly knew some things very clearly in her heart.

Snape was able to escape from France at the beginning, that matter must have something to do with Dumbledore.

She hadn't bothered to ask what other untold dealings there were between Jon and Snape though, she had never been interested in how it all went down.

Jon had naturally seen the gallows, which hadn't yet been dismantled when he returned to Lyon's temporary Hogwarts school.

It didn't even look like it would be torn down in the future, but would clearly be used as a symbol of sorts instead.

Even when Dumbledore returned to Britain with the Hogwarts students, the French Ministry of Magic would keep the gallows, where the first public trial (show trial) in the wizarding world had been held, as one of the symbols of the war for the future generations to see.

Jon, of course, felt little pity about this; he had actually wanted to attend what seemed to him to be a very meaningful public trial, and it was only this incident with Snape halfway through that had forced him to travel to Britain in the meantime.

But this public trial within Hogwarts about the students certainly wouldn't be the last one, it was just foreplay for the large public trial that would follow throughout the entire French wizarding community, and after this Jon would naturally still have the chance to be able to see a trial that would be followed with a much larger audience.

After arriving at Dumbledore's office, Jon directly sat opposite Dumbledore with a big smile on his face, picked up the teapot, poured himself a cup of black tea, and then drank it all in one go.

Those portraits of successive headmasters on the wall looked like they were all acquaintances with him, greeting him warmly one by one.

Fawkes, who had been perched on a golden branch, also spread his wings and glided to Jon's shoulder at the sight of him, affectionately rubbing his face with his pointed beak.

The Headmaster's office was noticeably enriched with a few more things than before, such as the tattered hat that had been placed on a separate wooden stand, and a black gemstone ring that had been kept in a cupboard, and also alongside the ring there was an Elderwood wand that had belonged to Dumbledore, but which he had never used very much.

Dumbledore still wore that same gentle smile and watched as Jon sat down so skilfully as if he were back in his own office.

"You are always so reassuring, Jon."

At his compliment, Jon simply shrugged.

"Is that the same reason you keep me as a gyroscope spinning non-stop all the time? Professor, this trip wasn't exactly an outing, and none of the people I met were nice to deal with."

"Because you're the one who's always trying to do too much, when in fact from the start you could have just done as I said and not bothered with anything, and it would have ended the same way."

Jon didn't say anything to that, he pulled out a vial of golden sand from his pocket that Snape had given him before he went to find Lily and kill himself, and put it in front of Dumbledore.

"Perhaps you are indeed right, this is what Snape asked me to give you, he got it from his former lord. Not the one that is going berserk in Britain right now, it looks more like the one I chased away from the castle earlier."

Dumbledore didn't reach for the vial of golden sand right away, he just said softly.

"From the very beginning in fact Severus has chosen his own end, as I told you before, I despised him when he came begging me to save Lily over a decade ago and stated that he had also begged Voldemort for this in exchange for Harry Potter's life. I thought he was a heartless man who had no love for newborns, and that even if he did it for Lily, it was only to satisfy his own selfish desires, and that he wanted to get her in a domineering way. But it was on that day when I asked him what he was willing to give up for Lily, and he answered me everything, that I truly learnt what kind of man he was."

Dumbledore looked at Jon and said with a lot of emotion in his voice.

"He was selfish, and wasn't a good person, but there's no denying that few people can love to the extent that he did, right?"

"You knew that he would die?"

The question wasn't answered directly by Dumbledore, he just looked at Jon and asked rhetorically.

"Do you think, after he was abandoned by Voldemort the night the Triwizard Tournament ended, that there was any possibility of him continuing to live?"

The answer to that was, of course, obvious.

With the crimes Snape had committed, the only thing he would end up with, even if he attended a public trial, would be hanging from the gallows.

"Of course, he knows this himself." Dumbledore said, "That's why he made one last deal with me, a deal that we could both trust each other enough to think we could both complete even without any binding."

Jon turned his gaze to the vial of golden sand.

"So, he wanted Professor Potter's safety, and he paid for it by getting this vial for you?"

Seeing that Jon was curious about the vial of sand, Dumbledore interlocked his fingers on his desk and assumed a posture of being ready to have a serious chat with Jon.

"Actually, have you ever been curious about something, Jon. When you were a first year, I talked to you about how once upon a time, Tom Riddle craved only two things above all else, one being supreme authority and the other being true immortality. With his strength as a base, great authority was certainly easy to obtain, but for immortality, he chose to make use of the Horcruxes. Only later on he apparently discovered the drawbacks of such an approach, and thus began to reclaim his split-off soul one by one, and it is possible that the sane Voldemort, as we have always suspected, was created in the process."

"But then, a question came to the surface, since he gave up using the Horcruxes method of gaining immortality and instead chose to keep his sanity to better wield his authority, so, what is he relying on, right now, to freeze his own time and be immortal?"

The question visibly froze Jon for a moment.

If Dumbledore hadn't asked it, he really wouldn't have thought about it in detail.

Voldemort was undoubtedly afraid of death, or else he wouldn't have made seven Horcruxes in a row in the original story, as if he wanted to add absolute security to the matter of being able to live all the time.

The matter of choosing to live forever was not something he decided on a whim in a moment of madness, but something he was determined to accomplish when he was already sane and still young.

And now, since he had retrieved the soul from his Horcrux, the immortality attribute that the Horcrux had brought him naturally ceased to exist.

So how was he able to keep himself young all the time now?

Jon had seen Voldemort many times with his own eyes, and he could be sure that Voldemort's appearance was obviously fixed in his youthful state, but he is now in his 70s. It was true that it wasn't all that difficult for wizards in the magical world to live past two hundred years or more without resorting to any means, but the appearance wouldn't have remained unchanged because of it.

He definitely didn't use the Philosopher's Stone, because that stone only fell into his hands three years ago, and his means of freezing his age is obviously not a recent development.

This also meant that Voldemort actually had another means of maintaining his eternal youth while he got his Horcruxes back.

Jon now redirected his gaze to the vial of golden sand.

"I've always actually wondered if it's possible that after Riddle retrieved all the Horcruxes, he made himself into a Horcrux, which is why there are two of him vying for one body at the same time."

Dumbledore said calmly.

"But that speculation was dismissed by Severus after he was brought back. He told me in no uncertain terms that the way Riddle still maintains immortality all the time now is well hidden, like the Horcruxes once were, and he didn't reveal it to anyone, but there was something that needed to be done by an outsider for him to do it, and Severus Snape, the man he had high hopes for, and the man who had brought him the prophecy regarding the Saviour to his attention, became the one he trusted."

"Except that we also all know that Riddle's trust is never absolute, and the only person he really dares to be completely at ease around is only himself, not even his other self. So the trust he had for Severus which he maintained was limited to only that part which he was willing to reveal. Severus told me that once, not long after he had killed Potter and his father and disappeared for a month and then returned to dominate the Ministry of Magic in Britain, there was a time when Riddle frequented the Department of Mysteries."

"The Department of Mysteries?" Jon repeated the department.

"Yes, there is a lot of magic in this world that is not still under the control of wizards, and the Department of Mysteries is a place that deals exclusively with certain mysterious and powerful magic that is not under the control of wizards."

Dumbledore picked up the vial of golden sand.

"Severus said that no one knew what Riddle was working on in there during that time and that he drove out all the Unspeakables working in the Department of Mysteries, leaving only himself there. Then it was only after a couple of weeks had passed that he had someone call Severus over and proceeded to pull out this golden sand that looked like it had been extracted from an hourglass and told Severus to use it as the core of a potion to create a potion that would be able to catalyse its effects."

"Riddle's limited trust is reflected in the fact that he didn't tell Severus what the sand in the vial actually did but simply said that he needed to create a vial of potion that catalysed its effect. It wasn't an easy thing to do, especially when there was a lack of access to the exact effects, which required finding out the catalytic substance needed, but Severus brought his talent to play eventually, and actually ended up fulfilling Riddle's request."

"That's why he's always been held in such high regard; these golden sands and the catalyst he developed have always been a secret that was kept between Severus and Riddle. And it's a secret that even Voldemort, who is now in control of Britain, doesn't know about."

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