Chapter 316: Chapter 316
Dumbledore came and went quickly.
He arrived empty-handed, but when he left, he took not only the locket but also Regulus.
It was a classic case of helping oneself to everything.
At first, Sirius didn’t agree, but Dumbledore only said two sentences, and Sirius immediately relented.
"You don’t want Regulus to be buried like this, do you?"
That was the first sentence.
"I’ll go find Severus; he should be able to restore him to his original state."
Although Sirius didn’t get along with Snape, he still acknowledged Snape’s Potion skills. Gritting his teeth, he decided to take the risk.
Additionally—
Perhaps because Regulus had been found, Kreacher’s culinary skills also improved by leaps and bounds.
That evening, when the group sat in the dim dining room of the Black house facing the dinner spread, they were stunned for a long time.
Lynn picked up a piece of toast and took a bite; it was crispy on the outside, soft on the inside, and just the right temperature.
He then took a piece of salmon; it was perfectly seasoned and melted in his mouth. He glanced at Kreacher standing by the table—the elf was staring intently at Lynn’s chewing mouth with a nervous expression, as if fearing he might even frown slightly.
"Not bad," Lynn said.
Kreacher’s eyes lit up, then he quickly lowered his head, mumbled something, and shuffled back to the kitchen.
His back actually looked a bit joyful.
"It’s still a bit worse than yours," Harry said indistinctly from across the table, his mouth stuffed with a whole piece of toast.
Lynn wasn’t modest at all. "Naturally."
After dinner, Lynn originally intended to take his leave.
He had been at Grimmauld Place for a long time; he had seen what he needed to see, heard what he needed to hear, the locket had been handed to Dumbledore, and Regulus had been taken away.
Just as he stood up, before he could speak, Sirius pressed a hand firmly on his shoulder.
"Why are you leaving?" Sirius’s tone was unquestionable, and the strength in his hand was not small. "You’ve helped me so much, and you won’t even let me treat you to a proper meal?"
Lynn opened his mouth, wanting to say that dinner was quite good and could be considered the treat.
"Besides—" Sirius lowered his voice, "You can browse the Black family’s collection as you please. Just don’t damage anything."
Lynn closed his mouth and sat back down in his chair.
Sirius laughed and patted his shoulder with enough force to nearly knock him off the chair.
"That’s more like it!"
While Kreacher was tidying the kitchen, Sirius led Lynn toward the basement.
The basement of No. 12 Grimmauld Place was deeper than he had imagined.
The stairs were very narrow, allowing only one person to pass at a time. The walls on both sides were rough stone slabs, bare of any decorations, with only a few magic wall lamps embedded in the crevices emitting a dim yellow light.
Reaching the bottom floor, Sirius stopped in front of a fireplace.
The fireplace was made of iron, pitch black, and the hearth was empty.
He felt along the right side of the fireplace, pressing his finger on an invisible mechanism.
A moldy cabinet in the corner made a dull sound and then began to move.
A spacious passage appeared before them.
The passage was much wider than the stairs, enough for two people to walk side by side. It wasn’t long either; after about twenty steps, the space ahead opened up.
Lynn stood at the doorway and glanced inside.
It was a very large room.
Nearly a hundred bookshelves were arranged neatly, stretching from the floor to the ceiling. Every shelf was packed full, with spines facing out in various colors and varying states of age.
The gold-leaf titles on some spines were still bright, while others had faded until the words were illegible, but all were wiped clean and were dust-free.
The light in the room was also quite sufficient.
"Not bad, right?" Sirius stood at the door with his arms crossed. "Everything the Black family has accumulated over centuries is here. Though I haven’t read most of it."
Lynn had already walked inside.
His gaze swept from the first bookshelf to the last, and then back again.
He saw many familiar names on those spines—The Origins and Evolution of the Dark Arts, The Complete Guide to Ancient Runes, The Limits of Transfiguration, A Potion Master’s Private Notes...
There were also names he had only seen in the catalog of the Restricted Section; those books always had only an empty space on the Hogwarts shelves, with labels like "Missing" or "To be supplemented" next to them.
He suddenly remembered a rumor that had circulated for a long time.
It was said that during Phineas Black’s tenure as Hogwarts Principal, many precious books from the school library went missing.
Not the kind of missing where they were borrowed and not returned, but the kind where they vanished directly from the shelves and even their registration records were wiped clean.
It was highly likely they were taken by him and placed in the Black house.
Phineas himself, of course, never admitted it.
He had argued with every subsequent Principal from his portrait, his face turning red every time as he pointed at their noses and said, "This is slander," "This is defamation," "I, Phineas Black, am an upright man and never do such things."
Then the next Principal would take office, and he would start arguing again, repeating the same few sentences for over a hundred years without ever changing his story.
It was hard for Lynn not to believe those rumors were true.
The reason was simple—there were too many books in this room that had always been missing from the Hogwarts Restricted Section.
For example, this book, Secrets of the Wand.
Lynn pulled it from the shelf. The cover was dark brown and heavily worn at the corners. The gold-leaf title on the spine was blurred but the words could still be identified.
He remembered seeing the name of this book in a certain note on Alchemy—it said it recorded a magic spell that could eliminate the Prior Incantato effect.
He had searched the entire Hogwarts Restricted Section back then and simply couldn’t find it.
During that time, he had once doubted if this magic even existed or if it was just something an idle alchemist had made up in their notes.
Now, this book was lying in his hand.
He opened the title page; it was stamped with a faded Hogwarts library seal, and next to it was a line of small handwriting—"Donated by Phineas Black."
Lynn looked at that line of text and was silent for a long time.
Donated.
He took books from someone else’s library home, stuffed them into his own bookshelves, and then wrote "Donated" on the title page.
What was the difference between this and a thief putting stolen goods in their living room and writing "a gift from a friend" underneath?
He flipped through a few more pages and found that magic spell.
It wasn’t long, just a few paragraphs, and the incantation wasn’t complex. Lynn "learned" it after reading it once.
Then his gaze was drawn to another book.
Advanced Dark Magic Revealed.
He was all too familiar with this book.
In his first year, Professor Quirrell had given him a copy, calling it an "unabridged original."
Later, he discovered that the key pages regarding Horcruxes in that book had been torn out, which made him so angry he nearly burned it. Later, he stuffed that book into the bottom of his trunk and never looked at it again.
Now, this book was sitting right there on the shelf.
Lynn reached out and pulled it out. The cover was much newer than his; the corners weren’t worn, and the spine wasn’t cracked, looking as if it hadn’t been flipped through many times.
He turned to the table of contents and found the Chapter on Horcruxes.
To be honest, the creation of this thing wasn’t as difficult as he had imagined.
The steps were clear and the principles were straightforward, much simpler than when he studied Alchemy.
If he wanted to—he could just find any random Death Eater and turn this book into a Horcrux on the spot.
After satisfying his curiosity, Lynn took another turn in front of the bookshelves.
He picked out a few that looked interesting—The Connection Between Ancient Runes and Alchemy, Reverse Analysis of Curses, and Conservation of Matter in Transfiguration—carried them to a desk in the corner of the room, sat down, and began to flip through them slowly.
Sirius stood at the door and watched for a while.
Seeing that Lynn had no intention of resting anytime soon, he left a message to get some sleep early and turned to leave.
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