Chapter 315: Chapter 315
The boat reached the shore.
Kreacher was the first to jump off. As soon as his toes touched the deck, he scurried to the stern, gripping the gunwale tightly with both hands, his eyes fixed intently on the faint luminescence in the center of the lake.
Sirius followed closely behind, stepping onto the boat with one long stride. The vessel rocked slightly as he found his footing, then he turned back to wait for Lupin.
Lupin glanced at the boat and stepped aboard as well.
His movements were steadier than the first two, though his steps still carried a hint of urgency.
As the three of them stood on the boat, it sank a fair amount, the waterline nearly reaching the gunwale.
Lynn didn’t move.
He stood on the shore, looking down at the small boat.
With two adult men and a House-elf on board, there was only a palm-sized patch of space left on the deck—forget standing, even placing a foot would be a struggle.
He looked up at the three people on the boat with a look that was no different from how one looks at fools.
The three of them felt bewildered by his gaze. Sirius scratched the back of his head, Lupin checked his clothes left and right, and Kreacher shrank his neck, none of them understanding what was wrong.
"Gentlemen," Lynn spoke, his voice echoing in the hollow cavern with a sense of confusion that suggested ’Is there something wrong with your heads?’, "What is our purpose for coming here?"
"To bring my brother home, of course," Sirius answered without a second thought.
"Then why the hell are you getting on a boat?" Lynn jerked his chin toward the small vessel. "Isn’t it the same to start looking from right here?"
The air went silent for a moment.
They naturally stepped off the boat and returned to the shore. Their movements were fluid, their expressions controlled, and the slight heat in their faces was quickly dissipated by the night wind.
It was as if nothing had happened just now, as if they had intended to do this from the very beginning.
Only Kreacher remained huddled at the stern, blinking his eyes, not understanding why they had gotten off as soon as they had gotten on.
Sirius stood on the shore, staring at the calm surface of the lake for a few seconds, his brow furrowing. "Do we need to touch the lake water to lure the monsters out?"
Lynn retracted his ’looking at fools’ gaze and walked to the edge of the lake to crouch down.
The lake water was right at his feet, dark and motionless, like a pool of solidified ink. He reached out his hand, fingers probing toward the surface.
"Let’s find out, shall we?"
The moment his fingertips touched the lake water, an icy chill crawled up his finger like a living thing.
As soon as his finger dipped below the surface, the entire lake came alive.
Ghastly white arms reached out from the water, dense and numerous, like a forest of withered trees growing from the bottom of the lake. Those arms were soaking wet, their skin bloated white, most of their fingernails gone, leaving only bare fingertips.
They reached toward Lynn’s hand, fingers splayed, intending to drag him into the water.
Zzz—Boom!
Blue-white electric arcs exploded from Lynn’s fingertips.
The moment the Inferi’s arms were struck by the current, the entire limb went rigid, the joints emitting crisp cracking sounds before—exploding.
It wasn’t just one; it was a swarm.
The current spread through the lake water, diffusing among those pale white arms.
A web of blue-white light exploded across the water’s surface, the crackling sounds echoing through the cavern, shaking dust from the stone walls.
Several Inferi were blasted directly out of the water by the current, flying into the air before landing with a thud on the stone slabs of the shore.
Sirius rushed forward, wand in hand.
He knelt down, prying open the jaw of the first Inferius to look at its face—not him. He pushed it aside and looked at the second—not him either. The third, the fourth, the fifth—
"Lynn, go easy on the blasting," Sirius shouted without looking up. "They’re getting hard to recognize."
Lynn gave a brief acknowledgment, and the lightning in his hands subsided slightly.
Precise arcs of electricity specifically targeted the Inferi that had already crawled to the surface.
Every time one was blasted up, Sirius would rush over to identify it, while Lupin and Kreacher also moved in to help.
Kreacher stood on the shore, his eyes wide. Occasionally, he would suddenly point in a direction and shout "That one!", and Lynn would look where he pointed, sending a precise arc of electricity to blast that Inferius out of the water.
Sirius would rush to identify it while Lupin waited nearby.
Once confirmed it wasn’t him, Lupin would flick his wand, knocking the Inferius back into the water or simply resolving it on the spot with a Fire-Making Spell.
The group had a clear division of labor, and their efficiency was high.
However, after blasting for a long time, Lupin’s wand arm was nearly exhausted, yet they still hadn’t found any sign of Regulus.
"Could it be he’s not in there?" Lynn muttered, the electric arcs in his hand pausing for a moment.
"It’s Master Regulus!"
Kreacher’s voice was so shrill it almost pierced their eardrums.
Lynn looked in the direction Kreacher was pointing. At the edge of the lake, near the shore, a body was slowly floating up from the water.
It was a very young man. All color had long since drained from his face, leaving it pale and withered, the skin clinging tightly to the bone, cheekbones protruding, and eye sockets sunken.
His clothes were so soaked their original color was indistinguishable, clinging to his body in wrinkles, with a faint, blurry emblem visible at the collar.
But that face—
Everyone, including Lynn, recognized it at a single glance.
For no other reason than he looked almost exactly like Sirius when he had first come out of Azkaban.
Sirius froze for a moment, then moved to jump into the lake to retrieve him, but fortunately, he was held back by Lupin in time.
Lynn glanced at him but didn’t speak.
He waved his wand, and a rope flew from the tip, accurately wrapping around the corpse’s waist, then he gave it a gentle tug.
The body was dragged onto the shore, lying dripping wet on the stone slabs.
Sirius knelt beside it, reaching out a trembling hand to gently touch that pale, ghastly face.
When his fingers touched the cold, wet skin, his entire body jolted as if struck by something.
Then he laughed, and as he laughed, tears began to fall.
"It’s Regulus... it is... this is Regulus..." His voice was broken, rising and falling, "Hahaha... I found him... I found you..."
He picked up Regulus’s body and held it in his arms, clutching it very tightly.
Kreacher crouched nearby, sobbing so hard his whole body shook, his hands clutching the hem of Regulus’s robes, refusing to let go.
Lynn stood on the shore and looked back at the lake surface.
Those pale white arms were still reaching out, still crawling toward the shore. Because he had stopped just now, a large number of them had taken the opportunity to crawl up, the nearest being less than three feet from his heels.
He also smiled.
His lips curled back, revealing bright white teeth.
"Damn it, I’ve put up with you lot for long enough!"
His voice exploded in the cavern, echoing and rippling across the lake’s surface in waves.
The Inferi’s movements faltered for a second, as if startled by the sound, then they began to crawl even faster.
Lynn raised his wand.
Streams of fire instantly surged from the wand’s tip.
Golden-red flames erupted from the tip like a volcanic explosion, like flowing lava.
The pitch-black cavern was completely illuminated.
The stone walls that had been hidden in darkness for countless years were clearly shown for the first time.
As the light hit the Inferi on the lake, they all tried to retreat at once.
Golden-red flames churned around Lynn, circling him like Dragons.
He stood in the center of the flames, the hem of his robes flapping loudly in the heat waves, his hair whipped up and down by the air currents. Inside the originally frigid cave, the temperature was soaring at a visible rate.
Lynn swept his wand forward.
A massive tsunami of fire erupted from in front of him, surging forward and covering everything in its path.
The moment the first wave of fire hit the lake, the entire lake seemed to scream.
The black water that had sat stagnant for countless years boiled the instant it was licked by the flames.
The lake level receded at a visible rate as the Inferi struggled within the flames.
Lupin stood back, forced to retreat several steps by the heat waves.
He raised his arm to shield his face, peering through his fingers—the entire lake was burning, golden-red flames filling the entire cavern, incinerating every inch of darkness.
Heat waves surged over in one wave after another, making the skin on his face sting and his eyelashes curl.
The lake was shrinking.
That expanse of black water that once seemed boundless was disappearing before their eyes.
Water turned into steam, steam was incinerated, the lakebed rocks were exposed, the moisture on the rocks was baked dry, and on the parched stone slabs, there was nothing—only ash, thick, white ash covering the entire lakebed.
Lynn put away his wand and brushed the dust off his hands.
Lupin stood nearby, looking at him with a complex gaze.
"What is it?" Lynn asked.
"Nothing," he said.
Lynn nodded and didn’t press further. He walked over to Sirius and looked down at Regulus in his arms.
"Let’s go," he said. "It’s time to go home."
...
12 Grimmauld Place.
The group had just returned to the storage room on the third floor. Before they could even steady themselves, they saw Harry pacing anxiously, holding a feather.
He had clearly been pacing in this room filled with Dark Arts items for a long time.
The moment he heard the commotion, he spun around. The expression on his face shifted from alertness to joy, from joy to relief, and from relief to—confusion?
His gaze moved from Lupin to Sirius, from Sirius to Lynn, and then from Lynn to the thing Sirius was holding in his arms—at first, he thought it was an object, and it took a few seconds for him to realize it was a person.
"Uh... Harry, we’re back."
Harry’s mouth opened, but before he could say a word—
A burst of red fire suddenly flared up in the center of the storage room.
The fire subsided.
Fawkes’s silhouette appeared from the flames, his talons still clutching a person’s collar.
He released his grip, landing gracefully on top of a cabinet, tilting his head to observe the people in the room.
"Oh, Harry—" Dumbledore’s voice came from the firelight that hadn’t yet fully dissipated, carrying a hint of the daze of someone who had just been yanked out of sleep, "Why did you suddenly summon Fawkes?"
When he saw the situation in the room, he was even more bewildered.
"Regulus? What’s the situation?"
While the others were considering where to start the story, Lynn pulled the Locket from his pocket and handed it to Dumbledore.
Dumbledore took the Locket and looked at it for a moment, then suddenly raised an eyebrow and looked at Lynn.
Lynn gave him a cheeky grin and nodded.
Dumbledore: ⊙△⊙
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