Harry Potter and the Secret Treasures - H.P.S.T Chapter 1649: Gaze

The Green Fluorescence gradually faded, and ultimately nothing happened.

However, the red ink on the blueprint stood out starkly. Harry wondered why he hadn’t seen it before!

The red characters twisted and turned; they didn’t look like ink at all, but like they had been written in fresh blood.

This was particularly unsettling, and Harry tried not to dwell on that thought.

He read it again silently, and came to a conclusion: the passage was incomplete.

If death was not the end, then what waited beyond death?

Dumbledore had once said that death was the beginning of a great adventure. Harry had also inquired with ghosts about the feeling of death; it was nothing like he had imagined — not a blank nothingness the moment one closed one’s eyes. After death, the soul went on to another world.

Gryffindor’s House ghost, Nearly Headless Nick, had said only the truly courageous would keep going forward.

Those souls who feared death and lacked the courage to continue remained, becoming the ghosts people could see.

“The afterlife,” Harry murmured.

This blueprint was shrouded in mystery. From the undamaged Archway of Death, the indescribable monster on the veil, the blood-red writing on the drawing, to the afterlife itself, everything puzzled Harry. Everything pointed toward something enormous, a secret beyond comprehension.

Yet amid all the things he could not understand, one thing was absolutely clear: Even this fragment of text on the blueprint possessed a special kind of magic.

When Harry had read it aloud, he had a strong feeling of being watched.

He felt as if he were being observed by something terrifying, yet he was definitely alone in the hall. Moreover, this feeling was different from being watched by another person. Harry knew the presence behind that gaze was a pair of eyes in the darkness, eyes that were not human, radiating an evil aura.

Just reading the text on the blueprint was enough to evoke that dreadful sensation of being observed by some evil being. It made his skin crawl.

Harry had a bad feeling; something terrible was about to happen.

Even if the real Archway of Death wasn’t here, even if all that was in front of him was a blueprint depicting it, the feeling remained.

Harry hadn’t felt this way in a long time. He’d had a similar reaction when Voldemort was close, but that reaction was mostly focused on his scar and instinctive revulsion. This time, however, his entire being — body, mind, and soul — trembled.

Whatever the writing on the blueprint, whatever secrets the Archway of Death concealed, it was all utterly evil.

But this blueprint had to be important; it contained crucial information about the evil god, and he needed to bring it back.

“Reducio,” Harry said, tapping the blueprint with his wand.

To his delight, the enormous blueprint shrank rapidly.

In the blink of an eye, it was the size of a palm.

“Evan will definitely be interested in it,” Harry thought, quickly putting away the shrunken blueprint. Now wasn’t the time for research; he needed to find Ron and rescue him before he was discovered. He went to the glass cabinet next to the fireplace Dobby had mentioned, carefully examining it, searching for the peacock symbol Dobby had spoken of.

This wasn’t easy. The cabinet held an overwhelming number of items, much like the dusty cabinet crammed with various collectibles that Harry had seen years ago when he first visited the Black family home. But unlike the Blacks’ neglected hoard, everything in this cabinet was well-maintained. Someone clearly took regular care of the collection; the items were in far better condition than the Blacks’ treasures.

On the lowest shelf, Harry spotted an ornate longsword bearing the Malfoy family crest.   

The top two shelves neatly displayed three First Class Order of Merlin and a varying number of Second and Third Class medals.

Harry had never heard of Malfoy or his father receiving the Order of Merlin for any outstanding contributions; these were likely awarded to the Malfoy family’s ancestors. However, based on his understanding of the Ministry of Magic, obtaining the Order of Merlin as a reward wouldn’t be difficult with enough gold.

The Malfoy family wasn’t short of gold, but these medals still demonstrated their prominence from another perspective.

After all, even if you were throwing gold at the Ministry, securing this many medals was an impressive feat.

In other words, converting these medals back into gold would represent a fortune many wizards wouldn’t even dare to dream of.

Besides these, the shelves also held many gems, animal claws and bones, and some exotic decorations.

These decorations appeared to be from Egypt, if Harry wasn’t mistaken.

Lucius Malfoy, the current head of the Malfoy family, seemed to have a particular fondness for collecting these items.

Despite the clutter, nothing in the glass cabinet resembled the dark objects Harry had seen in Grimmauld Place. In fact, the entire hall lacked anything that even hinted at Dark Magic. It was hard to believe this was the headquarters of the Death Eaters.

However, based on Harry’s understanding of the Malfoys, they were far more cunning than other wizards.

The Malfoys had definitely hidden all the forbidden items, even in these circumstances.

Who knew, maybe there were a large number of evil Dark Magic items hidden under the floorboards of the hall or in the secret room he was about to enter!

“Peacock… peacock — blast it, where is it?”

Dobby hadn’t given him clear directions. Harry had assumed finding the peacock symbol would be easy. Now it seemed anything but.

He stood dumbfounded in front of the cabinet, looking up at the items, carefully examining their surfaces, searching for any peacock patterns that might appear, but he found nothing.

Although Harry knew the mechanism, he couldn’t find the way in.

If a Death Eater were to come by right now, what he was doing would look unbelievably foolish!

Harry Potter, having slipped into Malfoy Manor, standing dazed in front of a glass cabinet only to be caught — no actor could stage something so silly.

Time passed, and Harry grew increasingly anxious. He moved to the right side of the cabinet, trying to get a clearer look at what was inside.

Just then, he noticed something strange: the surface of the glass was reflecting peculiar patterns in the glow of the fire.

“Huh … what’s this?” Harry pressed closer to the glass and examined it carefully. Only then did he see it — the entire pane was covered with milky-white carvings of animals. They were arranged in a precise sequence, and there were well over a thousand of them on that great sheet of glass.

Harry hadn’t looked closely earlier, initially mistaking it for some sort of decorative pattern.

But now it was clear: this was where Dobby’s “peacock” was hidden. All he had to do was find it, and he could unlock the mechanism.

Translating_Wizard

The novel is officially complete!! 🥳🥳 Thank you for being part of this journey—it really means a lot. You can binge the full story now on Patreon (50% off!) + unlock 200+ extra chapters 👀

•