Draco bypassed the unconscious Frank and slowly walked into Riddle Manor. Although it had fallen into some disrepair due to the lack of an owner, thanks to Frank's efforts, the lawn to the side remained level, with almost no weeds to be seen.
Draco walked straight toward the largest room, guessing it must be the living room. He hoped to find some clues about Lord Voldemort, but the power of time was too great, and he could not find a trace of magic anywhere.
He casually shook the wooden square table and stools, hoping for a discovery, but shook his head in disappointment.
Afterwards, Draco went around to the back of the house and stopped at a door almost completely covered by ivy.
"Alohomora." With a creak, the door made a heavy sound and slowly opened.
It was as dark as a cave inside. If not for some kitchenware still scattered about, it would be hard to believe this was a kitchen, but there was nothing else special about it, and he remained without a clue.
Finally, he came to the hallway. Some light filtered through the large mullioned windows on both sides of the front door, allowing him to slowly grope his way upstairs, where the stone steps were covered with a thick layer of dust.
On the landing, he turned right and walked straight toward the end of the corridor, where a door was slightly ajar.
"It seems there are no clues here, but that was to be expected," Draco consoled himself.
"However, I can still manage to disgust someone one day in the future." He then stepped into the room and seemed to cast a few spells.
Soon, he returned to the entrance of the manor.
"Old fellow, let you have a sleep and save your life once more." Draco looked at Frank, cast a Muggle-Repelling Charm on the place, and then quickly left.
"Oh, Maria is still waiting for me." Frank, who had just woken up, had a splitting headache, but he seemed to suddenly remember his first love. The flame of love burned in his fading life. He stumbled out of Riddle Manor and ran toward the place in his memory, while Riddle Manor, which had accompanied him for decades, had long been left behind.
"Innocent old man, it's better to stay away from all this." Watching Frank's receding figure, Draco sighed.
"What just happened was optional, but now it's different." Draco straightened himself.
The view from Riddle Manor was very open. Relying on his memory of the terrain, Draco came to an overgrown graveyard, where he could see the black outline of a small church behind a tall yew tree on the right. To the left was a hill, and on the hillside stood an exquisite old house, which was naturally the place Draco had just visited.
The area around the graveyard was gloomy, with the occasional bone-chilling caw of a crow, which only emphasised a terrifying silence.
Draco came to a stop in front of a tall marble tombstone.
Tom Marvolo Riddle
A strong wind whistled, and he could not help but shiver.
"It seems I'm really going to play the role of a tomb raider today." Clearly, the gloomy atmosphere did not affect Draco; he was still in the mood to mock himself.
He opened the black pouch and placed a few cow bones on the ground.
"Reducto!" Draco raised his wand, tapped the bones lightly, and they turned into a pile of dust.
Draco tapped his wand again, and the tombstone slowly moved aside. He removed the original mixture of soil and bone ash from under the grave, leaving about a third behind, and then replaced it with the pile of debris he had just created.
"Reparo!" The tombstone slowly closed again. "Job done." Draco could not help but clap his hands, revealing a faint smile.
After another hurried journey, Draco headed toward Little Hangleton.
Nothing else could be seen around him, only high hedges on both sides. Then he turned right off the path and walked toward a gap in the hedge.
This was a long, narrow dirt road, and the hedges on both sides were taller and denser than the ones they had passed earlier. The dirt road was winding, bumpy, and full of loose stones, sloping steeply downward like the previous path, seemingly leading to a small, pitch-black wood below.
The ancient trees overhead cast a chilly, dark, and dense shadow. A house, half-hidden in the gnarled thickets, appeared before Draco's eyes. The trees blocked all the light, as well as the valley below. The walls were covered in moss, and many tiles on the roof had fallen off, revealing the rafters inside here and there. Dense nettles grew around the house, reaching the windows, which were very small and covered in thick, accumulated grime.
As for the door, a dead snake was nailed to it.
The whole house exuded a smell of decay and a powerful aura of Dark Magic.
"Iron Will!" Facing the first Horcrux he was about to encounter, Draco dared not be careless and cast a spell to strengthen his willpower.
"Why are the spells I create always just for support?" Thinking of this, Draco always felt somewhat helpless, but he still pulled himself together.
This Horcrux was the very thing that killed Dumbledore.
Draco gently pushed open the door. Marvolo's black-stone gold ring lay quietly on the floor, as if picking it up would be effortless.
"Come, put me on, my master." Draco seemed to hear the ring speaking to him in a bewitching tone. "Do you not have departed loved ones? Or friends?" The cursed magic set by the Dark Lord and the Resurrection Stone itself seemed to have triggered some strange reaction. "As long as you put me on, you can see them."
"Come, put me on; I am one of the three Deathly Hallows."
"Put me on, and you will be omnipotent! Master of souls!"
Whether it was the Slytherin locket or the Riddle diary, both had the power to bewitch the heart. This Horcrux was clearly no exception; it always evoked one's deepest desires.
Draco felt a wave of dizziness. The voice was ethereal and whispering, making one subconsciously lower their guard with a pleasant sense of intimacy. Even without the desires it spoke of, Draco still wanted to pick it up and put it on.
Just as Draco bent down and was about to touch the ring, his body suddenly trembled violently. He curled up on the floor as his subconscious and conscious mind began to struggle. Beads of sweat the size of peas rolled down his forehead.
The demonic voice kept echoing in his ears: "Come, put me on, and you will be the King of the World."
"But I don't care about that damned King of the World!" He fought desperately against the ring.
With his mind as the battlefield and his will as the elite troops, he fought desperately against the ever-present pressure and temptation.
He did not know how much time had passed because, for someone enduring pain, a second felt like a century.
Suddenly, Draco stopped trembling. The outcome was decided, and his clear eyes revealed the result of the battle.
"It's truly terrifying. Even though I have no loved ones who have passed away, it still has such a powerful bewitching ability. No wonder Dumbledore fell for it." Draco felt his back, drenched in cold sweat. Better safe than sorry; besides his own willpower, the spell he had just cast might have been the most important weight on the scales.
"But one cannot remain immersed in illusory happiness forever." Draco seemed to have made a decision.
He cautiously, very cautiously, chanted an obscure spell, very softly and slowly.
A spark suddenly appeared in the air; it was a black flame full of eeriness.
"I originally wanted to take it back and give it to someone to study, but that's obviously not going to work," Draco thought. "Given Dumbledore's obsession with his sister, I suspect that before I could even explain, he'd cast an Accio, and then it would really be over."
"So, let me just finish you off here."
Draco tried his best to control the black flame as it flew toward the ring. He had to be careful; he did not want to end up like one of his followers, burned to death by fire.
"Sizzle." When the black flame touched the ring, Draco felt it begin to vibrate violently. A blood-like, pitch-black sticky substance seemed to seep out, and an extremely faint, distant scream came from within it.
"Boom." As if fed with fuel, the black flame suddenly flared up. It rose nearly two metres high, lunging viciously at everything around it that could burn.
"This is not fun at all." Faced with such a sudden change, he had only one choice—run.
"A Horcrux and a Philosopher's Stone—this will give it plenty to burn." It must be said that Draco's reaction was quite fast; he escaped the house before the fire spread.
Draco was panting heavily, as if he had just been through a great battle.
Looking at the wooden house being swallowed by flames, with sparks even catching the ancient trees and making a crackling sound, the towering fire left Draco momentarily dazed.
Because he suddenly remembered a saying: starting a fire could leave consequences that last a lifetime.
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