Amidst the roaring waves, time settled, and the night sky glittered with stars. They immersed themselves in the vast expanse of the universe. The Milky Way stretched across the sky, and distant stars emitted a quiet and gentle light, a magnificent sight originating from ancient cosmic light. It was grand and magnificent, allowing one to sense the infinite depth and mystery of the universe.
Harry was equally awestruck by the sea of stars before him. The stars revolved silently around the celestial North Pole, unchanged for millions of years. Even the trilobites from the Cambrian period had witnessed the same starry sky.
"This is true eternity," Lord Voldemort stood beneath the stars, gazing at the night sky. "You can even see the light from the birth of the universe."
That was more than ten billion years ago. Harry couldn't fathom how long a billion years truly was. But he thought of his father's eternity. Nothing could kill his father now; he had achieved true immortality. Perhaps he could live until the heat death of the universe.
"Compared to real eternity, individuals, humanity, and Earth are so insignificant. As soon as humans are born, death hangs over everyone's head like the sword of Damocles," the Dark Lord stood amidst the sea of stars, as if it were his true companion. "Humans always die, and all things have an end. I despise this kind of fate. So, I asked myself, is it inevitable? Is death and destruction insurmountable? Then, I drew my wand and initiated a duel against the fate of all things."
"And then, I won," Lord Voldemort faced the stars, solemnly announcing his victory.
The boy looked up beneath the starlit sky. "Others might think you're just afraid of death, but who afraid of death would risk their life conducting dangerous experiments in dark magic? I always knew that what you fanatically pursue is an abstract concept."
Voldemort's heart stirred. He continued Harry's words, "Beyond the traditional values of humanity, so I am not understood by the world."
"Yes, I understand," Harry said.
Voldemort turned to the boy beside him, took his hand, and said earnestly, "And you, Harry, this is something we accomplished together. You deserve to share this glory with me." Then he embraced Harry, and the two of them stood side by side, facing the endless and brilliant starry sky.
Even Voldemort himself admitted that there was some sincerity in his words. He always felt that Harry was an essential component in the tableau of his achievements, a part of eternity, a part of destiny. He would preserve Harry well, making him the most important exhibit in his museum of achievements—if he ever decided to build one.
"Do you see these stars... Fate is written by the stars, and fate brought you to me," Voldemort said softly in Harry's ear. He believed in magic, in prophecies, in the power of fate. He thought he was the chosen one, executing a cosmic mission. Yet he was also the most rebellious against fate. He had mocked the Fates themselves with his eternal defiance. No one could sever his lifeline anymore. So why should he succumb to the scripts written by the other two? Why should he obediently follow the arrangements of fate?
Voldemort pondered the prophecy: the child and the Dark Lord could not coexist. In a rebellious tone, he spoke to Harry, "Not only do I not want you to die, but I also want to grant you eternity. It only requires a few more sacrifices. With the same ritual, you too can step into immortality, shining alongside me. You and I, together with the stars."
"No need..." Harry was embraced by the man. The night breeze was slightly chilly, and he cherished the warmth in his father's embrace. However, Harry sighed. Forget about eternity; for someone like him, perhaps death was his liberation.
"Harry, don't always reject me. Don't you believe? I am sincere." Voldemort looked at Harry earnestly, his tone surprisingly gentle. "The final step of that eternal magic ritual was completed by you, giving your existence a special meaning. You are an integral part of this great and sacred cause. Indivisible. You are important, do you understand? At that moment, I decided that you would have a place in my future plans. If one day I become the ruler of the world, you will be by my side."
"Your eternal experiment is indeed a grand exploration but also the key to the gateway of doomsday." Harry shook his head in Voldemort's embrace, his cool voice reiterating his refusal. "I don't want immortality. I just hope the war can end soon, and innocent people don't continue to suffer. We've harmed too many people already... and your great dream has already been realized, so spare them."
Harry disliked sacrificing innocent lives, and their differences had always been there.
"Heh, harming others..." Voldemort sneered. He placed a hand on Harry's shoulder, slightly pulling away, scrutinizing Harry's green eyes. "I always want to ask those moral guardians, is what you know as morality always correct? Human morality is never constant. Ancient Rome considered slavery correct, the medieval era considered witch hunting correct, a hundred years ago, oppressing women was considered correct. And these erstwhile correct beliefs have now become errors. So how do you know that in the future, the set of morality you blindly follow won't become another discarded relic of the times?"
"Is Father suggesting that nothing is truly correct?"
"Harry, so-called correctness can be reassessed and redefined. What you now know as right and wrong is merely the result of exercising power, the indoctrination of societal culture, implanting ideas into people's minds, making those poor souls mistakenly think they have thoughts and take pride in it. So, who indoctrinated you with these beliefs? Dumbledore?" Voldemort's tone carried some resentment at this point. "There are plenty of conformists in this world who live their lives in a daze, adhering to the standards and perspectives imposed on them by others, never truly living. Harry, why not be more genuine? Ask yourself what you truly want."
Harry could feel his father's emotions, but he still refused to evade the topic. "It has nothing to do with Dumbledore. I've only heard you talk before... You're the authority I've encountered, right? But I'm not influenced by someone else's moral views... I just, from the bottom of my heart, genuinely care about those innocent victims..."
"From your heart? Is this what you want?"
"Yes, from the heart. Just like how you want eternity, I have things I want too."
Voldemort snorted, choosing not to continue this topic, instead turning Harry back into his embrace. They stood together beneath the vast starry sky.
"Do you like the stars, Harry?"
"Yes."
"Then I'll accompany you to watch for a while."
They returned to the beach in the deep night. It was high tide, and the sea flooded the shore. The fortifications built by the other children during the day were washed away, leaving only the sandcastle Harry had protected with the magic standing knee-deep in the seawater.
Harry used magic to fix and shrink his sandcastle, pulling it up by the roots and taking it back home. After all, it was a work his father and he had created together, and Harry liked it very much.
On this night, they still slept together.
Voldemort, having lived for decades, had never liked such things nor had he ever considered being intimate with anyone. He didn't like physical contact with others. Surprisingly, now, he didn't mind the close contact with Harry at all, and he even found joy in it. Perhaps it was because of Harry's exceptional skills.
Afterward, Harry nestled in his embrace, sweetly saying, "I've always liked Father the most."
Voldemort teased, "How much do you like me?" He caressed Harry's chest, the touch not hard with muscles but rather soft. He quite liked this sensation.
"Like... it's as if my entire life is devoted to loving you." After saying this, the bright green eyes blinked, as if realizing what he had just said, and then blushed. The boy nuzzled his fluffy head into Voldemort's embrace. The Dark Lord was tempted to indulge in another round.
However, Harry wasn't a sound sleeper at night; he tossed and turned, shivered, and woke up in the middle of the night.
"What's wrong?" Voldemort also woke up.
"I'm fine. I'm sorry if I disturbed your rest... Should I go to the next room to sleep?" Harry felt very guilty. He often had nightmares and woke up in the middle of the night. He was used to such things, but he didn't want to disturb his father's sleep.
Voldemort, however, pulled Harry closer, saying, "Go back to sleep. Tomorrow, I'll bring some potion to help you sleep."
Harry still resisted his plans. Their conversation again failed to reach an agreement, but Voldemort didn't care. Regardless of how Harry struggled, it wouldn't affect his grand plan. If the prophecy stated that the child and the Dark Lord couldn't coexist, then with the Dark Lord's assurance of immortality, the only possibility was for him to kill Harry, right? Besides, it wouldn't pose any threat to the Dark Lord.
Moreover, if he really wanted to kill Harry, it would be effortless. He glanced at the scar on Harry's forehead. Many years ago, during their first encounter, he had embedded a curse deep into Harry's scar—a curse reaching into the soul. He deliberately buried the curse deeply, making it challenging for Harry, even with his proficiency in dark magic, to unravel. This curse was connected to the Dark Lord's consciousness. With a single thought, he could take Harry's life, no matter how far apart they were or whatever protective spells were in between.
So, for now, he could continue to indulge this boy. The harmonious atmosphere would aid the Dark Lord in furthering his plans—whether it be attempting brainwashing, attempting control, or plotting to acquire the mysterious power within Harry. Oh, that prophecy, claiming this boy possessed a power the Dark Lord didn't understand, and that this power was the key to the final step of eternal magic—it was downright insolent. A genius like him, was there any power he couldn't comprehend? He would obtain it.
The sand on the beach was piled into castles, only to be destroyed by the waves.
But, in reality, the sand was just individual grains. What turned the sand into castles? When we say the waves destroyed the castle, what exactly did the waves destroy? The sand itself wasn't damaged, right?
The next day, during the school's physics class, they happened to discuss the second law of thermodynamics—the law of entropy increase. Entropy increases: things become more chaotic.
Harry then thought, the sand became more chaotic, losing its original order, leading to the destruction of the castle. This seemed to answer Harry's question well, but he still felt there was something not fully understood hidden behind this explanation.
He had some questions that bothered him and wanted to ask his physics teacher.
During lunch, Claire was present, and Harry chatted with the couple.
Oh, did I forget to mention that Mr. Cotton's wife, Claire Bryan, is a physics professor at Oxford University? The couple, both physics graduates, became schoolmates and pursued their careers, with Mr. Cotton becoming a high school teacher while Claire advanced to the forefront of academia. After marriage, Claire didn't change her last name (equality, Mr. Cotton appreciated this fact), and they didn't have children. However, their relationship remained strong. They continued to have regular dates and discussed various science fiction ideas during those dates.
Harry threw out his sand castle question and concluded, "I thought in class just now that maybe this question can be explained using the law of entropy increase."
"A good perspective. And... do you know about information theory, Harry?" Claire blinked, "Claude Shannon said that information is negative entropy. The increase in entropy leads to the loss of information."
"Information..." Harry found the term fitting. He thought of the scene where the waves surged, the well-shaped castle destroyed, turning into a pile of disordered sand. An answer formed in his mind, "So, if I want to preserve the sandcastle forever, I should preserve the information of the castle, the position of each grain of sand."
"You are indeed very clever, getting it right away." Claire smiled. She had always liked Harry; she remembered how they had called him from a roadside diner to study, and later, how he ended up in the ICU and nearly died.
"So... can the vitality of a person be considered a form of negative entropy?" Harry suddenly asked.
"Vitality? Well, how do you define vitality?" Claire took a sip of her coffee.
Harry explained the magical world's description of vitality: "Vitality is highest when a person is just born and then begins to slowly deplete. When it's entirely exhausted, death occurs."
Mr. Cotton thought for a moment, picked up the mineral water bottle on the table, and said, "Interesting analogy. It sounds like this bottle, filled with water—water being vitality. But there's a small hole at the bottom, and the water in the bottle will drip away drop by drop until it's depleted, and the person dies."
Harry nodded, "Exactly."
Claire said, "So it can also be compared in this way. Human aging and death can be understood as a process of entropy increase. Or rather, the consumption of negative entropy—similar to what you described about the depletion of vitality."
Claire thought for a moment, then smiled, "It can even be said that the essence of life is information, is negative entropy."
Mr. Cotton continued, "Indeed, some science fiction writers call life 'low-entropy bodies.'"
Harry followed his train of thought, "So... assuming there's magic that can fix one's information, could a person achieve immortality? Could they even resurrect after death?" Harry was attempting to explain his father's eternal magic from a physics perspective.
Magic and physics faced the same world, so they must have some connection. They just used different language systems to explain this world. Harry thought that asking from a physics angle might provide a new perspective.
Although Claire was a physicist, she wasn't a rigid person and accepted magical settings quite well. After all, they were just brainstorming, "If it's magic... maybe. But how do you fix the information specifically? Entropy increase naturally happens."
"Assuming... like this: collect the negative entropy released when others die, use it to counteract one's own entropy increase." Harry offered a new perspective on his father's magic of eternal life.
"Absorb someone else's vitality? Are you saying take the vitality from someone else's bottle and pour it into your own?" Mr. Cotton understood.
"This brainstorm is interesting, much like what Schrodinger said in book 'What is Life?' We obtain negative entropy from food to sustain life. This is the concept of entropy flow in physics." Claire explained.
Harry couldn't help but think of his father again, the man who indeed believed the law of the jungle.
"But achieving immortality through killing... that's truly cruel..." Mr. Cotton sighed, "Fortunately, it's just a brainstorm."
Harry remained silent for three seconds, then said softly, "Yes, it is indeed cruel. This magic will cause many, many people to lose their lives."
Claire wisely pointed out, "And it requires a constant stream of killing. Without more negative entropy intake, he will start aging and dying."
Harry blinked, thinking about the past decades before the completion of the ritual, where his father indeed had to constantly create deaths to sustain his eternal youth.
But not anymore... the last step of the ritual had been completed, and he no longer needed any additional deaths or negative entropy. He didn't have to kill anymore, yet he could maintain his eternity, and no one could kill him.
So, how to explain that last step? Harry lowered his head, thought for a moment, and continued, "If this magic can achieve it— if he has completely fixed his information, then he doesn't need to kill anymore, doesn't need to maintain the magic, doesn't need to do anything. He just lets the negative entropy from the entire world automatically flow towards him. Is there any possible explanation for this in physics..."
"The negative entropy flowing towards him from the entire universe? This description sounds like an entropy-absorbing black hole." Mr. Cotton pointed out with interest.
Harry blinked, "That's true. He's like digging a hole in the universe. He's the lowest point in the universe, and the negative entropy in the universe will continuously flow towards him—just like water flowing to a low point."
Harry rubbed his forehead, trying to find a way to describe his father's current state. As one of the authors of the magical ritual, he naturally understood the principles behind it. However, expressing it from a physics perspective was quite challenging. He continued, "And then... the shape of this hole is his template, so after the negative entropy flows in, it will restore his appearance. He can automatically resurrect."
Claire scooped up some spaghetti with her fork and said with a smile, "I didn't know information could form a black hole. This is indeed magic; it turns a person into a cosmic structure."
"Ah..." Harry, as one of the authors of the magical ritual, felt that Claire's description was indeed correct. The Dark Lord had engraved his information, his template, into the universe. He had almost turned himself into a cosmic structure, so the universe would automatically restore him. Or one could say it had become a new law of the universe. This was how he achieved eternity.
"Once this person becomes a cosmic structure, this matter is already irreversible, and the structure is indestructible... Can this person be completely unkillable?" Harry asked.
"Why can't it be destroyed?" Claire replied, "If you can write information into the universe, you should be able to delete it."
"Well... there's no specific reason. Just brainstorming, consider it a fundamental setting." Harry sighed. He knew very well that the design of their magical ritual was so exquisite that it was now impossible to reverse. There were magical reasons—essentially, they had found a loophole in the universe. Trying to destroy it would be going against the entire universe.
"Oh, if that's the case, then no one can kill him." Claire was very sharp, "Perhaps until the universe's negative entropy is used up, and this sea of negative entropy dries up, the hole he dug will dry up. This person might be able to live until the heat death of the universe."
"That's truly a terrifying eternity." Mr. Cotton mused.
Harry knew that heat death was the extremely distant future, the end of the entire universe.
"That's very possible." Harry sighed softly. He thought that the Dark Lord was indeed a genius. Now, no one could kill him. If Harry wanted to end the war, persuading him was the only way. Fortunately, his father's current attitude gave Harry hope for the end of the war.
A/N:
Happy birthday to Lord Voldemort!