Chapter 38. Eternal Light
"Harry is truly a good boy... Later on, he managed to pay back the ICU fees to me and Claire on his own initiative. We didn't plan on having him repay, but he insisted."
"When did this happen?" Voldemort's voice betrayed no emotions.
"It was around the end of April, right after he transferred to our school," Mr. Cotton replied.
"Ah, I see. Thank you for informing me; we'll handle it later," Voldemort maintained impeccable courtesy.
Harry finally understood why his classmates were so worried about parent-teacher conferences.
On the way back home, Harry sat in the passenger seat, head bowed, hesitant to speak, resembling every child returning home with their parents after a parent-teacher conference.
Upon reaching home, Harry couldn't contain himself any longer. "Father, I..."
"We agreed on neutrality, which includes not only causing trouble for my subordinates but also saving their lives? You seem quite biased, Harry. Sometimes, I wonder if I'm being overly self-sentimental," Voldemort's tone was subtly disappointed, making Harry uneasy.
"No, it's not like that! I've always loved you, Father. I just didn't want any of them to die because of me. I didn't want to owe them anything. I'm sorry..."
"But everything comes with a price, and now you've broken the agreement first," Voldemort said calmly.
"I'm sorry! I was wrong—" Harry started to panic.
"I should teach you to be a person of your word, Harry."
In the following days, Harry lived in constant anxiety until, on the third morning, Jess's news update revealed the consequences of his actions.
"Something big happened yesterday! I thought peace would last longer, but the Death Eaters attacked several Muggle villages, and a witch's house was attacked, causing casualties."
Harry took a sharp breath; he knew this was his fault. Voldemort had only taken this action because Harry didn't listen, breaking the peace that had lasted for weeks.
In the next class, Harry's mind was in turmoil, unable to focus. During the lesson, his thoughts revolved around his recent interactions with his father. Everything seemed to be getting better, and now it had turned into this...
No, he had to do something. Harry decided to apologize to his father and find a way to stop this.
The well-behaved student Harry once again skipped classes, rushing back to the rented house, only to find Voldemort wasn't there. Perhaps, angry, he went back to the castle?
Harry opened the Portkey, returning to the castle. Talis, the house-elf, greeted him joyfully, expressing his eagerness to see Harry again.
Upon inquiry, Harry learned that Voldemort returned to the castle during the daytime while he was at school.
It was not what Harry expected, but leaving Voldemort alone in that empty house during the day wasn't reasonable.
Anyway, he had to quickly rectify his mistake. Harry ran to his father's study, cautiously knocked on the door, heard a response, and pushed the door open.
"Father, I'm sorry..." Harry sincerely apologized.
"Do you know what you did wrong? Have you realized your mistake, or are you just afraid of punishment?" Beneath the calm tone, who knew how many unfathomable emotions were concealed.
"I know it's my fault. We agreed on neutrality, and I shouldn't have saved members of the Order of the Phoenix... Father, please forgive me. I beg you..." Harry added a bit of a pleading tone.
"My lovely Harry, I can forgive all of your actions. In fact, I've never been angry with you. I just wanted to teach you a lesson: actions have consequences."
"I won't do it again..." Harry promised obediently. "So... can we go back to how we were a few days ago?"
"As long as you behave, I wouldn't bear to hurt your feelings," Voldemort seemed reasonable. "By the way, aren't you supposed to be in school at this time? Skipping class is not what a good child should do."
"I'll go back now." Harry promptly replied.
Returning to class after skipping one period again, Harry heard Jess updating his news during break, talking about the tragic deaths and injuries caused by Death Eaters and the Dark Lord.
Harry got the answer he wanted from his father, but he still felt low. Those deaths were on his conscience.
Harry felt increasingly ashamed to face his classmates standing in the sunlight, as if he were an evil creature only fit to hide in the shadows. Well, wasn't he, according to the public opinion of the wizarding world?
While Harry was feeling low, Voldemort was in a good mood today. He didn't want to show his excitement, but Harry knew him too well. He could faintly sense that his father was happy, like the excitement Voldemort showed when they made significant progress in the Eternal Rituals, which used to be the sole purpose and meaning of young Harry's life. But now, it made Harry somewhat uneasy.
At night, during their casual chat, Harry tried to ask. He casually threw out a question, "I'm curious, Father, what do you do in the castle during the day?"
"Just reading some books to pass the time when I'm bored. Oh, Harry, I'm tired. Let's sleep," Voldemort lazily said while still holding him close.
"Huh? Okay..." Mischievous Harry had a gut feeling that he might need to figure this out.
In the classroom the next day, Harry still pondered over his father's actions. He began recalling their recent experiences together, trying to find some clues. He remembered going to the amusement park with his father, their kiss on the Ferris wheel, playing at the beach together, cooking for each other at home, the intimate moments at night... and Tom Riddle's tombstone. Then Harry's thoughts became a jumble, and he randomly thought about Tom V. Riddle, was "Voldemort" hiding in the middle of that name? At that time, his father even allowed him to call the common name Tom.
Another common pseudonym jumped into Harry's mind: Tord Miveld.
Suddenly, Harry felt something odd. These two names seemed a bit... alike?
He uncapped his pen and wrote down these two names on a scrap of paper.
TOM V RIDDLE
TORD MIVELD
Then Harry realized, the letters used were exactly the same, only the order was different. Harry stared at those two strings of letters. Could this be a coincidence?
Of course not. It must be another puzzle. Harry always knew that the name Lord Voldemort was itself a puzzle, derived by rearranging the letters of his original name, Tom Marvolo Riddle.
So, he wrote down Tom Marvolo Riddle and noticed the difference between the two pseudonyms: A, L, M, O, O, R – these six letters.
Where did these six letters go?
Then Harry recognized it, and it wasn't difficult for him. After all, he had read too many books about immortality since childhood, many of which were Hebrew Kabbalah texts. So Harry was very familiar with related terms.
OR OLAM, transliterated from Hebrew, "Eternal Light."
This term was used in the Bible, Isaiah 60:19, "The sun will no more be your light by day, nor will the brightness of the moon shine on you, for the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory."
"Eternal Light," this was God's self-appellation, becoming the ruler and belief in the world, overshadowing the sun and the moon.
The answer to this puzzle seemed to be OR OLAM TOM V RIDDLE, right?
He wanted to become the eternal god, and he even hid this title.
Harry began to have a ominous premonition.
Harry had the urge to secretly sneak into the Slytherin Castle to see what his father was up to. However, he quickly dismissed the idea because his father, as the castle's first master, could sense the opening of the portal. When Harry returned, he needed to open the portal, and if his father was in the castle, he would definitely sense it. So, peeking successfully was out of the question.
What to do then?
Harry found a secluded place and, in his capacity as the master, quietly summoned the house-elf Talis.
Castle house-elves had the permission to enter and exit the castle at any time because they often needed to go outside for shopping. This wouldn't attract his father's attention.
"Good afternoon, Talis," Harry greeted friendly and then began to inquire what Voldemort was doing in the castle during the day.
Upon hearing the question, Talis made a few grumbling sounds, covered his mouth, and started struggling, looking like he wanted to vomit but couldn't. His ears drooped.
"Eh? What's wrong... Don't punish yourself," Harry quickly stopped him, guessing, "Voldemort forbids you from telling me?"
The house-elf still couldn't speak, just nodded, and then started banging his head against the wall.
"Stop, no self-punishment. That's an order!" Harry hurriedly intervened.
Talis stopped, then cried, "Talis is a bad elf. Talis didn't answer Prince's question. Talis should answer, but... sob, sob, sob..."
"It's okay; Just pretend I didn't ask. Don't blame yourself for this," Harry comforted him. "Thank you, Talis. This is over; you can go back to the castle."
Now, Harry felt even more certain that his father was hiding something from him. He needed to find another breakthrough.
So, Harry went to see Jess again, asking if there were any other inconspicuous strange things in the recent issues of the Prophet. However, Jess shook his head, indicating that everything had been peaceful recently, except for the sudden events yesterday.
During their lunch break, they used Apparition to sneak into Jess's house and searched through the recent newspapers. (Jess: So, this is how Apparition feels; it's so uncomfortable, I won't try it again!)
Jess said, "Why do you suddenly want to read the newspaper? Did Lily and James tell you something? Can you tell me? I won't tell anyone—"
"It has nothing to do with the Potters."
"Sigh... I thought there might be some inside information to dig out. Right, you said you didn't know the Potters well, grew up in a foster family..."
Harry nodded and then flipped through the seemingly peaceful news in the newspaper: new Ministry policies, new shops in Diagon Alley, Gringotts running smoothly without goblins, new Hogwarts rules, Aurors catching dark wizards again... It seemed like there was nothing unusual to be concerned about.
"What does your foster father do?" Jess asked again.
Harry rolled his eyes, "Commit innumerable murders."
"Hahaha, don't joke. I'm really curious about him..."
"What are you curious about?" Harry noticed that Jess seemed quite concerned about that person; it wasn't the first time he had brought it up.
"After thinking for a long time, I still can't remember which celebrity he looks like. I always feel like I've seen him somewhere but can't recall." Jess contemplated.
"Have seen him...?" Harry remembered; Jess mentioned this when he toured the school with his father. Suddenly, Harry felt like he had been hit by something uncomfortable, and an unpleasant speculation emerged in his mind. He asked Jess, "Can I use a few detection spells on you?"
"What? What are you going to do? Is it dark magic?" Jess nervously asked.
"Don't worry; it won't harm you. Maybe it can answer your questions and see if you've really seen him," Harry assured.
Obtained consent, Harry started detecting magical traces on Jess's body. Then he discovered a surveillance spell, allowing someone to see the actions of those around him through Jess's eyes. Harry felt a chill down his spine; he didn't like this discovery at all.
He followed the magical traces to find the source, then found a sealed memory, sealed by dark magic. Harry tried to unseal it, and Jess began to scream with a headache. Harry had to stop.
But Harry felt... he didn't need to unseal it anymore. It was evident who did it. The only uncertainty was when this surveillance spell was left?
"In your memory, when did you last see him? Recently? Or half a year ago?" Harry asked seriously.
"I don't remember..."
"Just make a wild guess based on your feelings?"
Jess scratched his head, "Based on feelings, it shouldn't be recent, nor a long time ago, probably... similar to when I met you?"
Harry fell silent. It turned out his father had been monitoring him, seeing through the eyes of his classmates. So, everything that happened in the last half year, Voldemort knew it all.
Harry began to carefully review many recent events.
His father was usually controlling, so he had been monitoring him since he let him go.
His father had always known about the stage play, so when he chatted with Jess at that time, he went straight to the point, even mentioning that song... What was he trying to do?
His father had always known that he didn't have any involvement with the Order of the Phoenix, so at that time, he said, "Forgive Harry."
Did his father also always know that Harry had been in the ICU?
Harry recalled the parent-teacher meeting, and now he began to feel that the topics at that time seemed to be subtly guided by his father. He led Mr. Cotton talk about the ICU, and then... intentionally picking on Harry? If he had always known that Harry had been in the ICU, considering the time, he must have guessed that Harry had saved James. Why pretend to be angry at this time?
Harry remembered the experience of being hospitalized in the ICU. When he started to doubt, he found suspicious points everywhere. Could Muggle medicine heal injuries to the magic core? His recovery seemed faster than he expected; it was supposed to be his fancy suicide, and he thought he would die. But he didn't die; he recovered well.
Closing his eyes, Harry pointed his wand at his temple and began using magic to flip through his memories. He flipped out that memory, searching for any clues he might have overlooked.
Then he reached that dream... He was unconscious at the time, vaguely like a dream, and he thought it was a dream—he dreamed that his father came to save him.
It turns out it wasn't a dream at all...
Harry felt very complicated. On one hand, he was deceived by his father, on the other hand, he was worried about what his father was planning, and on the third hand, he realized that his father had saved him again. He buried his face in his hands, trying to sort out the chaotic emotions and clues.
Yes... the most suspicious thing was that his father had been monitoring him, clearly knowing that he had saved James long ago, but at this time, he pretended to "discover" it during the parent-teacher meeting and then pretended to be "angry," using punishing Harry as an excuse to launch an attack.
It indicated that Voldemort was up to something, needed this attack, but didn't want Harry to be suspicious.
His father had been lying to him all along...
So what was Voldemort planning?
He should have thought... He should have realized that these recent days of happiness didn't feel quite real, like a dream. He already knew that person, his father... He should have thought of it.