"Looks like there's no talking you out of it."
Borgin gave a helpless chuckle, watching the determined look on Cassian Drayke's face.
"No," Cassian replied bluntly. "But I should tell you—most of my gold was confiscated. I've only got about six hundred Galleons left."
"Heh." Borgin leaned forward over the dusty counter, the flickering lantern light throwing shadows across his lined face. "That book… I couldn't sell it to anyone else anyway. And honestly, it's no use to me gathering dust. You and I have done business for years, Cassian. Consider this a gamble. If you die, then fine—I lost my investment. But if you crack the curse on that book... I expect you won't forget your old friend Borgin."
With that, he bent down and retrieved a large iron box from beneath the counter. It radiated an oppressive, cursed energy the moment it appeared, as if the very air grew colder around it.
"This," Borgin said gravely, "is the most dangerous item in my entire store. According to the dark wizard who sold it to me, it's cursed to kill anyone who so much as touches it. Others who merely opened its cover have lost their minds—or worse, turned their wands on companions. Five out of six of his colleagues died from it."
He lifted the lid with his wand, careful not to make direct contact. Inside lay a book with a blackened violet cover, bound in some kind of cracked leather that pulsed faintly with cursed magic.
Cassian's eyes lit up the moment he saw it. "This is brilliant."
Borgin blinked, stunned. "You sound thrilled."
"I am," Cassian replied, leaning forward, his voice lowered with fascination. "I can feel it… there are at least three curses layered on the cover alone. One weakens bodily organs on contact. Another unravels the magical core of the reader. The last disrupts one's mental stability. It's perfect."
"You're insane."
"Maybe," Cassian said with a smirk. "But this is exactly what I've been looking for."
The cursed book was clearly the work of a powerful dark wizard—possibly Godelot himself, the rumored author, who once wielded the Elder Wand. This was no ordinary artifact. For Cassian, it was a treasure trove. If he could unravel the magic embedded in its pages, he would be one step closer to understanding the deepest principles of dark magic—and more importantly, how to counter them.
"I'll need guinea pigs," Cassian said absently, still inspecting the book from a distance. "To test the curses. I'll develop counter-wards and inscribe them on living subjects to verify effectiveness."
"You really think you can block the Killing Curse?" Borgin asked, his voice somewhere between awe and disbelief.
"I've done it before."
"But a defensive artifact? You're saying you can create one?"
Cassian looked up. "Yes. I'll need a magical focus with high durability and a strong enchantment base. Something that can hold complex spellwork."
Borgin hesitated, then took off the pendant he wore around his neck. "This has a reinforced Iron Armor Charm and a powerful Stop Charm. Will it work?"
Cassian examined the pendant, nodded once. "It should do. I'll need time to inscribe the counter-curse."
"I'll stay in the shop," Borgin said quickly. "Just in case."
"Good. I'll need you to gather materials for me. These are a hundred Galleons." Cassian dropped a money pouch onto the counter. "Buy me two hundred guinea pigs and a portable breeding box. Food and water, too. I'll be back before the Hogwarts Express departs."
"Got it. And... good luck, Cassian."
Cassian nodded, carefully levitating the iron box into the enchanted pocket inside his robes. With a crack, he Disapparated.
Back at home, Cassian cleared his workspace and placed the pendant Borgin had given him onto a rune-inscribed table. Crafting a counter-curse wasn't a matter of simply casting protection charms—it required an understanding of the fundamental mechanisms of how magic interacted with intent and life force.
The Killing Curse, Avada Kedavra, was one of the most ancient and feared Unforgivable Curses. It didn't injure or wound; it simply ended life. The curse functioned by focusing all the caster's magical energy into a single point, overwhelming the target's life essence and extinguishing it instantly.
But Cassian understood something most didn't.
Magic, like any force, followed principles. And curses, no matter how powerful, had triggers—symbols, incantations, magical constructs that made them work. If you could disassemble those constructs, you could render them inert.
The Killing Curse was like a bullet fired from a gun, and most magical defenses were like armor—thick, heavy, and requiring immense power to be effective. That's how wizards like Dumbledore survived curses—they didn't stop the spell, they simply had enough magical might to absorb it.
But Cassian's approach was different. He didn't intend to withstand the curse. He intended to disarm it before it could even fire.
It began with energy.
The defensive artifact he would create had to be able to absorb magical energy, store it, and activate the counter-curse the moment the Killing Curse was detected. For that, he first carved a Storage Rune Circle into the pendant's interior surface. This would act as the magical "battery."
Next came the Energy Conversion Circle, which would slowly draw ambient magic from the wearer and feed it into the storage circle, keeping the defense system charged.
Finally, he began inscribing the Deconstruction Array—a set of runes designed specifically to identify and interrupt the signature magical wavelength of the Killing Curse.
It took hours of meticulous engraving, his wand tip glowing as he etched with surgical precision. Occasionally he paused, drawing diagrams on parchment, testing spell theories against the curse's known properties.
And then, when the initial carvings were complete, he began the tests.
He set up a guinea pig with a containment charm, attached a replica of the enchanted pendant to its cage, and used a controlled magical projection to simulate the effects of the Killing Curse. The guinea pig survived the first trial, though barely.
Cassian adjusted the array, refining the energy transfer rate and increasing the reaction sensitivity. Over and over, he tested—each time noting the results, calculating spell integrity, modifying the ward configurations.
It wasn't perfect. Not yet.
But by nightfall, he had created something that had never before existed: a functional defense mechanism that could, under the right conditions, neutralize the Killing Curse.
He sat back in his chair, exhausted but satisfied.
To others, his experiments might seem insane—gruesome even. But to Cassian Drayke, they were necessary. Knowledge had always come at a price. If he could unlock the secrets of death magic, he would be more than just resistant—he would be untouchable.
As he stared at the cursed book resting inside its iron box, he knew this was just the beginning.
Tomorrow, he would go to Hogwarts.
But tonight, he would rewrite the laws of magic.
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