Harry Potter and the Obscurus

Chapter 74 Inviting the Enemy into the Trap

"Foolish! You're rushing to play with fire just because you've learned some advanced magic that your peers don't understand? Let me remind you, Potter, the Dark Lord's power is far more terrifying than you imagine. Don't waste the life your mother gave for you!"

Snape's scolding gave Harry a sudden sense of déjà vu, as if he were back in the Potions classroom. But unlike usual, this time Snape's swearing was of a very low standard, so low that Harry wondered if the Potions professor in front of him had been replaced with Polyjuice Potion.

"Did you wash your hair?"

"what?"

"Uh, it's nothing..."

"..."

After a brief silence, Harry spoke again, offering his advice:

“I won’t go to Voldemort’s professor. The reason I’m saving Peter is that throwing him into the Death Eaters as a double agent is the best way to maximize his value. This way, your identity can be further protected, and secondly, given his meager abilities and cowardly nature, we’re also controlling the risk in reverse.”

Snape's face darkened considerably. He did have a selfish desire not to let Peter Pettigrew live, but as an adult who should be more sensible, Harry's words left him with no reason to refute them.

"I don't need anyone to help me cover up my identity, nor do I need anyone to risk changing history because of it."

At this point, he paused for a moment before continuing:

"But if you absolutely must contact a Death Eater, I suggest contacting the person who invited you to their family dinner last Christmas. At least that will guarantee your safety."

Harry's eyes lit up instantly at the mention of Christmas.

Lucius Malfoy! Right, isn't he a Death Eater? And the kind of guy who seems indecisive. No wonder he was so willing to be a vengeful child for the Lily Health Insurance before I transmigrated; I'd completely forgotten about that. Perhaps this is what Grindelwald meant by the importance of the ability to observe microscopic things.

Seeing that Harry, who had just returned from the Forbidden Forest, was about to leave again in a hurry, Snape subconsciously frowned and asked:

"Don't you have anything else to say to me?"

Harry stopped and turned around, saying:

"Huh? What?"

"The Forbidden Forest, and the Thunderbird eggs—what did you do with all of that?"

Before Harry could speak, Mo Ran's voice suddenly rang in his mind:

"No, don't say it yet. Some things are safer if fewer people know them. Just use time travel and what Grindelwald taught you to appease Professor Snape for now."

“It’s like this, Professor Snape. Regarding the journey through time after using the Time-Turner, many things are best controlled when they are unknown. It’s not that I don’t want to tell you, but every action we take will be like a pebble thrown into a lake. Ordinary people usually only see the ripples on the surface…”

Before Harry could finish speaking, Snape, who had originally wanted to tell him not to leave, instead urged him to hurry up.

"Then, get out of my sight."

……

"He shouldn't be angry, right?"

"It seems not, I didn't see his upper lip move at all."

As Harry and Morgen left Knockturn Alley, they discussed their Potions professor while glancing at Borgin-Burke's shop, the place that had once given them a hard time. Coincidentally, at that very moment, the white-bearded old man who had just played dumb in front of Borgin-Burke walked out of the shop.

"and many more!"

Suddenly sensing a strange sense of familiarity, Mo Ran interrupted his conversation with Harry. Then, in just half a second, he confirmed the other person's identity.

"Put your hood up and don't look directly at that white-bearded old man."

Harry, who had thought that Mo Ran might have remembered some important clue, covered his face with great vigilance upon hearing this. Then, like those outlaws who occasionally appeared in the alley, he leaned half of his body against the nearby wall and used his peripheral vision to examine the unfamiliar face not far away.

"What is he doing..."

"It's DB Cooper."

Mo Ran's voice was so calm and composed that Harry subconsciously wanted to stop asking why.

How did you determine that?

"It should be said that there's something wrong with the texture of the magic. Wizards using the Disguise Magus always feel a little awkward. I thought before that the ability to transform into other people's appearances at will couldn't be without any flaws. For example, Animagus has the limitation of soul fusion and cannot transform into other animals at will, and Polyjuice Potion can only maintain its effects for hours. From my observation, the way Disguise Magus is used is like Muggles deliberately distorting their facial muscles into an exaggerated expression."

"So... his magic will become... stiff because of this? Is that right?"

After trying to perceive it as Moran described without success, Harry said incredulously.

In fact, ever since he learned those profound spells from Professor Dumbledore, he had already gained a general understanding of the "texture of magic" that Mo Ran mentioned. However, even with magical power and skill far exceeding that of his peers, subjects that touched upon the essence of magic still felt very distant and vague to him.

Seeing that Mo Ran did not give him a definite answer, he asked again:

"Are you able to clearly perceive his magic? How did you do that? Why don't I have any similar feelings?"

Mo Ran, who had silently entered "enlightenment mode" several days ago, was suddenly startled after Harry's reminder. He pondered to himself:

"Huh? Yeah, I was clearly behind Harry in advanced magic before. I couldn't master spells that touch the soul, like the Grubbish or the Patronus Charm. Why am I in such a hot state these days? It's like... I'm really in my element."

Somewhat bewildered, yet excited and worried, Mo Ran was unaware that his current state of enlightenment was actually a realm that even Dumbledore had never entered.

Unlike all the wizards in the Harry Potter universe, Mo Ran is a genuine time traveler.

Through that unknown power that seemed to be an endless vortex, allowing eternity and the fleeting moment to coexist, he crossed the boundaries of life and death and planes, arriving from his own Earth in a fantastical, magical world.

The complex yet simple traces left by the intersection of time and space are like a combination of chance and inevitability, which finally shine with a strange brilliance after Mo Ran used the time converter.

The feeling was as if the originally dark night sky had been ignited by the magnificent aurora and countless stars.

"I'm not sure, but I've been feeling really good these past few days... Anyway, let's get down to business. Let's not talk about this anymore; catching up with DB Cooper is the priority."

As Mo Ran's voice faded, Harry started walking towards the street corner where DB Cooper had disappeared. Without much hesitation, he followed the white-bearded old man quietly, just like he had done when he was with Professor Snape in America.

After a series of turns, the two entered a shop called "Coffin Shop" one after the other.

Coffin Shop, as the name suggests, is a shop that mainly sells necromancy tools. Its signboard, door frame, and gate are all made of black wood, but compared to the abyss-like environment inside the coffin shop, its exterior decoration is quite bright.

"A Deathrattle pendant, a Soul Imprint Branding Iron, and eight ebony contract nails."

DB Cooper's words were astonishing; not only did Harry and Moran find them incomprehensible, but even the owner of the Coffin House was taken aback.

"I have nails and branding irons, but the Deathrattle pendant is... oh, Hand of Glory? Okay, that makes 13 Galleons plus 4 Sikor."

"Here are 14 for you, keep the change."

Whether it was due to superstition or the reasonable price charged by the coffin shop owner, D.B. Cooper displayed a completely different attitude than he had just shown at Borginborough. However, the moment he threw the money bag away, the shop owner, who had caught the money, suddenly turned his attention to Harry.

"Hiss... Where did this country bumpkin come from, insisting on pretending to be blind here? Get out, get out!"

Upon hearing this, DB Cooper, who was still standing in front of the counter, frowned and turned around. He raised the arm of the Glory Hand he was holding a little higher, as if trying to use the candlelight to illuminate Harry's face under his hood.

"Take that thing away from us."

Harry said in a low voice, sounding somewhat impatient.

"And you, if you want to talk to me about the Deathly Hallows business, hurry up and give the goods to that old man and make him leave."

......

The term "Deathly Hallows" might be unfamiliar to ordinary wizards, but how could the owner of a coffin shop selling necromancy items not know about the legendary artifacts forged by the Grim Reaper himself?

After quickly paying for the goods that DB Cooper had purchased, he, who had previously regarded Harry as a country bumpkin, immediately put on a fawning smile.

"Honorable guest, I misjudged you just now. Shall we move to the inner hall to have a chat?"

Harry, who had detected the two's location using Moran's magical senses, continued to pretend he could see them and nodded to the shopkeeper. Then, he took a very aggressive step past DB Cooper.

DB Cooper's lips twitched as he was repeatedly humiliated by European wizards. The little bit of confidence he had just gained from Borgin-Bock had barely improved his mood before it vanished again.

He pondered to himself:

"Am I just unlucky and always running into troublesome villains, or is the European wizarding world really so full of hidden talents? Could the gap between European and American wizards really be as vast as rumored? If that's the case, just how terrifying and unpredictable are Dumbledore and the Mystic, who stand at the pinnacle of all wizards and witches today...?"

Harry, already inside the inner hall, had no idea that his impromptu actions would plunge DB Cooper into such deep self-doubt. Surrounded by various magical artifacts gleaming with an eerie green light, he was trying to suppress a strange sense of familiarity as he struck up a conversation with the shopkeeper.

"That guy just now sounded like an American who was deliberately speaking with a British accent. I really didn't expect that. I thought none of the wizards over there knew how to use the Deathrattle Pendant."

Harry didn't actually know what the Deathrattle pendant was for; he hadn't even read about the Soul Imprinting Iron or the ebony contract nails in any books. But thanks to Grindelwald and Moran's guidance, he was now starting to pay more attention to the details of the people and things around him.

Remember when the shopkeeper answered DB Cooper's question, his first words were—"I have nails and soldering irons, but what about the Deathrattle Pendant?" It seems that compared to the other two items, this Deathrattle Pendant is much more difficult to use.

"An American? I really didn't recognize that. Hey, it's only in front of an expert like you that I seem so blind... But you're right, the skill of making necromancers with soul-marking irons, ebony nails, and deathrattle pendants is rare even here."

Mo Ran, who had been letting Harry do whatever he wanted, suddenly remembered something when he heard the words "necromantic puppet." He tried hard to recall his memories from his past life and reminded Harry:

“He might be testing you, Harry. You can take this opportunity to talk to him about the Infernal.”

"A corpse?"

"Yes, the Infernal is a low-level undead puppet created through the interaction of human corpses and dark magic. They have no life, no soul, and no thoughts. Apart from reacting to their instinctive fear of fire and light, they can only act according to their master's commands."