Harry Potter: I am the Legend

"The Four Founders wanted to destroy all these forbidden spells, believing it would end the conflicts between humans—a naive thought. In truth, conflict is the eternal melody of humanity."

A calm voice sounded from behind.

Hoffa and Olsivia were startled, quickly turning around.

Under the dim moonlight illuminating the gray, stone-paved ground, Hoffa saw an old, tattered wheelchair slowly emerge from behind a pile of books. Sitting on it was a man wrapped in a gray cloth.

Hoffa involuntarily took a step back when he saw the wheelchair.

The man had gray hair and gray eyes, draped in a woolen blanket. He looked both familiar and terrifying.

The boy in the wheelchair slowly raised his head, revealing the pale face of a faded porcelain doll. He tilted his head slightly and smiled at Hoffa. "Long time no see, little brother. I thought you wouldn't come."

A shiver ran down Hoffa's spine, a sense of disorientation clouding his mind. He swallowed hard. "Sylby???"

"It's me."

"But you're dead!" Hoffa's throat tightened as if his worldview had shattered.

"I buried you with my own hands by the shore in Barcelona!"

"Dead?" Sylby touched his chin. "Do you mean physical death?" He chuckled softly. "That happened long ago."

"Over a thousand years ago, I died under Salazar Slytherin's curse. He cursed me for the Forbidden Library, making me forever unable to use magic."

He gestured to a nearby white tomb and said, "That was supposed to be my grave, but I never got to use it. Such a waste, don't you think?"

Hoffa's mind seemed to short-circuit. This guy was torn to shreds before his eyes, buried by Hoffa himself. Yet here he was, speaking in a tone filled with a strange sense of age and detachment.

"Care to chat for a bit? I've been sitting here for six months, and I'm quite numb—even though I don't really have a body to feel numb with," Sylby joked with a smile.

Cold sweat started forming on Hoffa's forehead. He exchanged a glance with Olsivia, and both saw the shock mirrored in the other's eyes.

The wheelchair rolled slowly to the side of the white tomb. Sylby tilted his head back, looking up at the pale tomb and the white statues surrounding it. With a nostalgic expression, he murmured, "I built this school alongside them. Every Hogwarts Headmaster has died on duty, except me."

"Because of my knowledge, my choices, and the frailty and conservatism of human nature, they banished me from the school, leaving me to die humiliated outside its grounds. Even my coffin was discarded."

"Who... exactly are you?"

Hoffa's voice trembled as cold sweat ran down his back. He even began to doubt whether his memories had been tampered with.

"I don't quite remember my original name—it's been too long. But I've had many nicknames, too many to count. I can share a few with you," Sylby said calmly.

"I am the Half-Blood King, the greatest mechanical master skilled in Muggle technology.

"I am the Forbidden Library, the first to master all forbidden arts and the object of ambition for every seeker of power.

"I am the first Headmaster of Hogwarts, cursed by Salazar Slytherin, a master of magic."

Hoffa was dumbfounded. Only now did he realize that Sylby's paralysis wasn't due to a physical condition. "You killed yourself?"

"To be honest, it didn't feel like much. I've died over a thousand times," Sylby replied lightly.

"How is that possible?" Olsivia murmured.

"Among these countless forbidden spells, there are plenty of ways to cheat death. It's just a matter of whether you're willing to use them." Sylby pointed to the pile of books beside him. "To survive, I've tried everything, even methods that would make one's stomach turn. But they worked. A thousand years have passed, and the Founders are long gone, yet I remain. I cling to life in the form of a soul, fighting Slytherin's curse with pure vitality through my descendants' bloodline."

"Why?" Hoffa asked.

Sylby smiled faintly, speaking with warmth. "Don't look at me like that. I want to die—desperately, in fact. But my goal, my ideal, has remained unfulfilled for over a thousand years. So, I won't die. Not until I accomplish it. Even if it means enduring pain a hundred times worse than death, I will live."

Olsivia's voice was hoarse and trembling. "So, you don't even care about the library?"

"It's not that. These are the efforts of old friends, after all," Sylby said warmly, sitting motionless in his wheelchair. Despite his small frame, his shadow loomed enormous, blocking out the light.

Olsivia took a step forward, trembling. "You had Hoffa bring the key into the school. You've been murdering like crazy all year, framing Headmaster Dippet to create chaos so you could steal the school's treasures?"

"Steal? Such an ugly word," Sylby said calmly. "Dippet and his cronies wanted to exploit my techniques for their own gain. They brought it upon themselves. For that, I must thank you both for your assistance."

"Assistance? We... never helped you," Olsivia stammered.

"Didn't you?" Sylby grinned. "You freed me from surveillance and paralysis. You uncovered the hidden messages I left behind. You exposed Dippet's unauthorized human experiments.

"The destruction of this school? At least fifty percent of the credit goes to you. Are you sure we weren't partners?"

"Misleading information, behavioral manipulation—it was all your trap," Hoffa retorted.

"And do you think anyone will believe you?" Sylby let out a soft laugh. "Believe that a man erased from history a thousand years ago still lives? I don't exist. I'm absent from all records. No one in the world knows about me. Even my family's last descendant died over the summer. No one will believe you. They'll just think you're mad."

His calm voice left Hoffa pale-faced, frozen in place. He stared at Sylby, feeling like a moth ensnared in a vast web of conspiracy. The more he struggled, the tighter he was bound.

The wheelchair rolled a little closer, and Sylbie looked up at Hoffa, saying:

"If you had agreed to be my secretary earlier, we wouldn't have needed to go through such a complicated process. Unfortunately, you're much harder to deal with than I imagined, Hoffa. Saving me is your destiny; you can't escape it."

Hoffa's gaze shifted to what Sylbie was holding and noticed a transparent orb in his hands. It was none other than the Hogwarts House Orb that had vanished from the school hall. However, its glow was dimmer than ever.

At that moment, Hoffa recalled what Aglaia had told him: Slytherin's curse was unsolvable unless someone replaced it or destroyed the source of its magic.

Although Salazar Slytherin was long dead, he had left his magic sealed within the Hogwarts Orb.

Hoffa finally understood: from the beginning, Sylbie's goal had never been the library but rather the orb containing Slytherin's power.

Everyone had been played by him.

Hoffa looked into Sylbie's gray eyes and murmured, "Are you this much of a bastard?"

Sylbie chuckled and shook his head.

"Hoffa, I warned you—true strength requires no sympathy. Even if all I had left was a brain, I would still be strong."

With that, Sylbie slowly unwrapped the blanket from his body and shakily stood up from the wheelchair. His first attempt to stand ended in an unceremonious faceplant on the ground due to having been immobile for so long.

The Hogwarts Orb rolled across the ground.

Despite the ridiculousness of the scene, Hoffa felt no urge to laugh. Instead, he felt only a chilling dread.

He watched as Sylbie struggled to his feet, leaning heavily on the wheelchair.

"What do you think, little brother? My new body?"

Once upright, Sylbie patted his chest with a smile, producing a resonant metallic clang.

"Though cursed, the curse can't extend to inanimate objects. This is my latest invention from the past century—a crude way to experience life as the living do."

Hoffa's face was slick with cold sweat. Sylbie's body, from the neck down, was revealed to be entirely made of steel, glowing faintly with ominous violet pulses.

Sylbie gestured behind him and said, "These are my family—my kin. By the way, I should thank you for returning my physical remains to their burial site."

As Hoffa looked at the silent, kneeling figures surrounding the lake, his stomach churned with nausea. He whispered, "Are these all people you've possessed? Did you use your own family, your descendants, as shields against Slytherin's curse?"

Sylbie nodded. "As repayment, I granted them immortality and boundless strength.

Once I break Slytherin's curse, reconstructing their physical forms will be a trivial matter. It's nothing more than a simple investment—minimal cost, maximum profit. Anyone with half a brain can see that."

Ossivia was utterly speechless.

Hoffa shook his head and rasped, "Are you a devil?"

"In the eyes of mortals, how are wizards any different from devils? They fear what they don't understand, and they tremble before what they cannot control."

Ossivia, startled, clenched her teeth and stepped forward. "I'm not afraid of you."

"Because you think you have nothing to lose?" Sylbie sneered. "But have you considered your old butler? Or this Bach gentleman standing beside you, who seems to care deeply about you?"

With lightning speed, Sylbie extended two mechanical fingers, halting them just a millimeter from Hoffa's eye.

His movements were so swift that neither Hoffa nor Ossivia had time to react—Hoffa didn't even have a chance to blink.

Ossivia finally snapped out of it, shouting, "What are you doing?!"

Sylbie disdainfully withdrew his hand and clasped them behind his back. "Life in this world is filled with too many attachments. Did you really think that after your family was shot, you would understand the darkness of this world? Ha! You still don't get it."

He leaned closer to Ossivia, tilting his head slightly, and said in a low voice, "You don't understand. You've never truly experienced despair. You're Ossivia Romanov, the last bloodline of the Romanov family. A genius of the Soviet Union. The youngest Transfiguration Master—famous and renowned. There's always been someone to help you, someone to act on your behalf."

Sylbie turned and clasped his hands behind his back. "But don't bring your anger here, trying to prove something. This world will always remain beyond your understanding."

Ossivia's face turned pale, her breathing rapid, leaving her unable to utter a word.

Sylbie slightly tilted his head and waved dismissively. "Enough. Take away that Slytherin artifact; leave Ravenclaw behind."

In an instant, all the kneeling constructs on the ground stood up in unison. Their piercing red eyes glowed as they surrounded the alabaster island in a flash.

Ravenclaw…

Ossivia glanced at the orb, a flicker of realization flashing in her eyes. She abruptly turned and shoved Hoffa.

"Run. His target is you."

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