"Demons and monsters, begone. Demons and monsters, begone..."
Kasenhis pulled out the compass and continued chanting.
Before long, the needle pointed in a single direction.
The two of them looked over.
Bellatrix Lestrange's private vault.
"This should be it."
Dumbledore quietly pulled out his wand, preparing to use a high-powered spell to melt through the vault door.
Kasenhis, meanwhile, simply took out his diamond pickaxe and went duang, duang twice, brutally peeling the vault door open.
"Why are you just standing there? Get in."
Kasenhis glanced at the somewhat frozen Dumbledore, then crawled inside.
Dumbledore could only lower his wand helplessly and follow him in.
"Looks like Tom truly trusted Bellatrix. He even entrusted something as precious as a Horcrux to her," Dumbledore said.
"And did that help him?" Kasenhis asked, turning to look at Dumbledore.
Dumbledore merely looked back at him.
The two smiled at the same time.
"Clearly not," they said together.
The compass needle spun rapidly before finally locking onto a direction.
The two began weaving through the densely packed shelves.
"Bellatrix really is loaded. Just her personal assets alone fill an entire vault. You can imagine how much those pure-blood families must have," Kasenhis said faintly.
"Which is why this is an opportunity. Pure-blood families shouldn't keep occupying the latrine without taking a shit, hoarding so much wealth and so many valuable records while constantly reversing the course of history and obstructing progress in the magical world," Dumbledore said.
"An opportunity?"
Kasenhis frowned, then quickly realised what he meant.
"You mean taking advantage of this chance so that after the war, every pure-blood family with even the slightest positive connection to Voldemort gets... chopped?"
Dumbledore hurriedly waved his hands.
"Of course not, of course not. I'm not some kind of demon. We'd merely confiscate all their property."
The two continued chatting idly as they walked.
Eventually, both they and the compass in their hands stopped in front of the same shelf.
"This is it? A golden cup? Pretty fancy."
Pixelated flames ignited in Kasenhis's hand as he prepared to burn the thing to nothing.
Dumbledore immediately stopped him.
"What?" Kasenhis asked.
"That is Hufflepuff's Cup. It has extremely high cultural, magical, and collectible value," Dumbledore explained.
"But it's a Horcrux now. If we don't burn it, what are we keeping it for? So you can drink wine out of it?" Kasenhis asked.
"More or less. Hufflepuff's Cup can continuously generate fine wine from within itself," Dumbledore explained dryly, doing absolutely nothing else, as though that single sentence alone would be enough to make Kasenhis stop.
Reality, however, did not disappoint Dumbledore.
"You're right. We really shouldn't use such violent methods on a precious work of art."
Kasenhis naturally replaced the flames in his hand with a bucket of milk, then reached out to take the golden cup down.
Dumbledore hurriedly stopped him again.
"There's magic on it."
As he spoke, he pulled out his wand and lightly waved it twice in front of the golden cup.
"Now it's safe."
Kasenhis reached out, took the cup down, and submerged it in the bucket of milk.
Wisps of black aura immediately seeped out from it, only to be instantly annihilated by Dumbledore, who had already been waiting for exactly that.
"Done."
Kasenhis took the golden cup back out of the milk.
With a mere thought, clear whisky began pouring out from inside it.
"Mm. Good stuff."
After taking a sip, Kasenhis very naturally drained the cup, then slipped it into his own pocket.
Dumbledore: "..."
...
Back at Black's old house, Hagrid was constantly running around.
But if anyone had bothered to map out all of Hagrid's movements, they would have discovered that every single route shared one point of intersection.
A three-metre-by-three-metre obsidian platform in the corner of the ground-floor sitting room.
Sitting on top of it was a dragon egg, constantly giving off heat and tiny motes of void light.
Kasenhis, meanwhile, sat quietly beside the egg wearing a dragon-head mask.
He hadn't moved from the spot for three days and three nights.
When he got hungry, he ate pixel steak.
When he got thirsty, he drank whisky produced by Hufflepuff's Cup.
All of it was for one purpose.
The moment the dragon broke out of its shell and opened its eyes for the first time, he wanted it to see him and recognise him as its father.
As for why not its mother...
Because no male mothers.
And in order to accomplish this great undertaking of making the dragon recognise its dad, Kasenhis had become somewhat obsessive.
If one of the young wizards came too close, at most they received a homework warning.
But eighteen years old seemed to form a perfectly clear dividing line.
Any adult wizard who had graduated from Hogwarts, whether it was Dumbledore, Cedric who had only recently graduated, or the Weasley twins, would be dealt with the moment they dared come too close.
At best, they were simply thrown out.
At worst, an anvil came down on them, granting them a baby-like sleep before they were thrown out.
The one who could take the most punishment was Hagrid.
No one knew how many times he had already been thrown away, yet he still cheerfully came back every time.
Even though he was thrown out again and again, he always returned carrying all sorts of things that books claimed baby dragons liked.
That evening...
Crack...
Kasenhis, who had been eating meat and drinking whisky, instantly became alert.
Steak swallowed.
Wineglass put down.
Dragon-head mask on.
Then he stared intently at the trembling dragon egg in front of him.
But the expected sound of the shell breaking never came.
Instead, a palm-sized little black dragon suddenly flew straight out of the eggshell, flapping its wings amid countless purple motes of light.
Then it flew directly toward Kasenhis, as if it had already recognised him from inside the egg.
However, the little dragon that landed on Kasenhis's dragon mask didn't make any affectionate gesture.
Instead, it immediately hissed at him.
A stream of purple dragon breath pierced straight through the dragon mask and blasted Kasenhis directly in the face.
After getting hissed at, Kasenhis quickly realised where he had gone wrong.
He never should have worn the dragon mask in the first place.
Just imagine it.
A newborn human baby opens its eyes and sees a four-legged monster wearing the skin of another human on its face.
Would that baby really feel normal and reassured?
Just as Kasenhis was wondering what to do, Hagrid, who had heard the commotion, called out to him.
"Kasenhis, did the dragon recognise you as its dad?"
Kasenhis instinctively shook his head.
"Not yet, Hagrid. But..."
Halfway through speaking, Kasenhis suddenly pulled out an Ender Pearl.
The power of "I reckon this should work" kicked in.
He had another truly brilliant idea.
"Come over here!"
"Oh!"
...
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