Chapter 27 Merlin's Secret

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"This was left by my father... It used to be his possession."

Harry felt the invisibility cloak slip through his fingers like flowing water. It was even more delicate and light than silk, almost weightless.

"Use it well," that's what the note said.

Unable to resist, he slid off the bed and draped the weightless cloak over himself. As he looked down, all he could see was the faint moonlight falling on the floor in the darkness.

"Use it well?" Harry couldn't help but think again.

Yes, that's right! Suddenly, Harry's mind became clear. Wearing it, Hogwarts would be completely open to him!

He stood in the darkness, surrounded by silence, and suddenly felt a burst of excitement in his heart.

With this cloak, he could go anywhere, absolutely anywhere! Filch would never be able to find him.

Ron, sleeping on the nearby bed, mumbled something in his sleep. Harry turned to look at him. Should he wake him up? No, this was the invisibility cloak his father left him—he felt that at least for this first time, he should use it alone.

He wanted to experience it, to see if his father had ever ventured through the vast Hogwarts castle wearing this cloak, all on his own.

Thinking of this, Harry couldn't help but reach out and put the hood of the invisibility cloak on. He quietly left the dormitory, walked down the stairs, passed through the common room, and climbed through the portrait hole.

"Who's there?" the fat lady in the painting asked, half-asleep.

Harry didn't make a sound. He walked quickly through the corridors, trying not to make any noise.

Hogwarts at night was completely different from daytime, deep and filled with a unique sense of mystery. It made Harry, who grew up in the Muggle world, feel like he had stepped into a magical storybook castle.

As he thought about it, he couldn't help but smile. Wasn't this a magical castle? Although he had walked through the Hogwarts corridors at night before, wearing the invisibility cloak was a completely different experience.

He could calmly observe every visible detail without worrying about being discovered by the night patrols.

"Where should I go and take a look?" He stopped, thinking, his heart pounding.

Suddenly, he remembered—the Restricted Section of the library! He could read there to his heart's content until he figured out who Flamel really was.

Harry wrapped the invisibility cloak tightly around himself again and proceeded forward.

The library was pitch-black, and he could hardly see anything inside. It was even more gloomy and terrifying than during the day.

Harry had to step back outside to make sure Filch wasn't around before lighting a lamp and carrying it through rows of bookshelves. The lamp appeared to be floating in mid-air, even though Harry could feel himself holding it. The sight still sent shivers down his spine.

The Restricted Section was at the deepest part of the library. Harry carefully crossed the barrier rope hanging at waist level and held up the lamp to check the book titles.

However, he couldn't make sense of anything from the titles.

The faded, peeling gold letters spelled out words that Harry couldn't understand. And some books didn't even have titles.

One book had a dark stain on it. It looked like blood, which made Harry feel very scared.

Standing between the bookshelves, the hairs on the back of Harry's neck stood up. He felt as if the books were whispering faintly, as if they knew someone who shouldn't be there was secretly looking at them.

It might be his imagination, but it didn't seem like it.

Harry felt he had to start somewhere; he couldn't just stand there dumbly.

So, he carefully placed the lamp on the floor and leaned down to look along the bottom of the bookshelves, searching for a book that seemed interesting.

Suddenly, he saw it. Next to a large book with a dark green spine, there was a striking silver-gray book tightly sandwiched. The book wasn't heavy, and Harry held it and opened the cover.

Suddenly, a faint glow of blue and green light flashed across the pages, and they flipped on their own.

Harry quickly held them down, trying to prevent any further noise. But in the next moment, he saw several lines of writing on the edges of the pages. He was familiar with this handwriting—it was almost identical to the style of the notes Maca had given him in the book "The Mind Enclosing Charm."

This was Maca's handwriting! He had been here and had written some notes.

This was the Restricted Section! How did Maca get in? Did he also have a way of becoming invisible? Thinking from his own perspective, Harry almost instantly guessed the correct answer, which seemed too coincidental.

He tried to understand through the notes left by Maca what Maca came here for.

Unfortunately, Harry found that when these lines were separated into individual words, he recognized them all, but when they were put together into sentences, they became completely unfamiliar to him.

He flipped through a few more pages back and forth, but eventually had to disappointingly put it back on the shelf.

Suddenly, he accidentally bumped into the large, thick, dark green book next to it—it looked too big and was only kept in place by the books on the side.

Seeing the book about to fall, Harry was startled. If it fell to the ground, it would surely break the surrounding silence completely!

He hurriedly reached out, trying to catch the heavy book in his hands—

"Uh." Harry couldn't help but murmur.

Fortunately, although his hand scraped against the hard floor and caused a dull pain on the back of his hand, at least it didn't make any noticeable noise.

After calming down a little, Harry looked at the large book in his hand. It had a rough, dark green cover and was surprisingly heavy. This aroused his intense curiosity.

He carefully opened the cover and discovered that every page of the book was made of a compact and delicate bark!

The edges of the pages were slightly yellowed, but it was clear that they were originally off-white. Some parts about experimental records were relatively straightforward, even Harry could understand what they were talking about.

"Bloodline modification? Bloodline of various magical creatures?"

Harry was frightened by the grotesque illustrations of deformed human bodies inside. He stumbled back a few steps and hastily closed the large book that revealed bizarre magic.

On the dark green cover, the name was faintly depicted—The Book of Druids. In the lower right corner of the cover, the words "Merlin" were written.

While Harry might not remember the name Nicolas Flamel at the moment, the name "Merlin" was a well-known wizard even among ordinary Muggles!

He had appeared in the Muggle world, established the legendary King of the Celts—King Arthur, guided him to obtain the world-famous Sword in the Lake, and unified the turbulent England.

The Order of Merlin in the magical world was established by Merlin himself, and every wizard would be excited to receive the medal issued by him. Albus Dumbledore had a First Class Order of Merlin.

Such a great wizard, what was he doing writing such a terrifying magic book? With unease in his heart, Harry opened the pages again, wanting to continue reading further.

At that moment, he heard a rhythmic sound of footsteps coming from outside the library. Was it Filch?

He quickly extinguished the lamp on the ground and carefully placed the book back in its original position, making sure it wouldn't fall again.

There were no gains so far, but he knew he had to leave.

As Filch walked by not far from him, dragging his heavy steps, Harry even felt his heart was about to jump out. He realized that Filch might have seen the light or for some other reason, as he furrowed his brow and looked around.

When Filch slowly walked inside, Harry quietly left the library. Before leaving, he glanced at the Restricted Section—he would come back again.

"You should have woken me up," Ron said angrily.

"You can come tonight, and I still want to take a look at that book," Harry said. "It's a big secret about Merlin, and I still haven't figured out who Nicolas Flamel is!"

"Sounds interesting, all that talk about bloodline modification? Maybe we can become as strong as giants!" Ron suggested.

"You should eat some bacon or something, why aren't you eating anything?" Harry felt a little loss of appetite. He never expected there would be so many secrets hidden in the Restricted Section!

What did Maca write in that book? Was Merlin really as respected as the rumors said? And who exactly was Nicolas Flamel? What was the large dog guarding? Why did Snape steal it?

More and more puzzling questions arose, making him feel anxious.

Using the Invisibility Cloak for the second time was inconvenient with Ron also inside it, and they moved much slower.

"It's so cold on a winter night!" Ron complained softly. "Shouldn't we give up and go back?"

"No!" Harry said in a deep voice. "We must find out as soon as possible who Nicolas Flamel really is. Snape definitely didn't have good intentions!"

Before long, they arrived at the Restricted Section of the library again. Ignoring the book about Merlin for now, they began searching for any traces of Nicolas Flamel.

A while passed, and among those strange and dangerous forbidden books, they discovered many horrifying contents. Demons and temptations, souls and death...

There were many dark magics mentioned here, but not a single word related to Nicolas Flamel could be found.

"It seems there's nothing even in the Restricted Section!" Ron shivered as he spoke, feeling like his feet were freezing.

Helpless, Harry once again opened the large, dark green book—he wanted to at least clarify this question before anything else.

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