【Zhou Jia】self-punisher.

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"What are you looking at?" Karna poked his head out from behind him, but Arjuna blocked it with his arm.His face was quite ugly, as if he had just seen something terrible.He took a step back to block Karna's view, and let go of his wand.

"A boring prank." Arjuna's figure flashed across the mirror.He moved his injured right hand, and the white mist rising from the gap of the scar wrapped around his forearm and fogged his vision.When it spread out again, the skin on the right hand recovered as before, but there was still a seven or eight centimeter long scar on the side of the tiger's mouth, which stubbornly resisted the effect of the healing technique.It is the proof of a deep curse, the afterimage left by the god of death that may not fade away in his life.

What was reflected in the mirror was not reality. He had been mentally prepared for this, but he couldn't quite understand why the image of Karna would be projected—a body covered with bruises and bruises tightly wrapped in silkworm cocoons. It is not clear whether he is alive or has turned into a dead thing.The last autumn leaf withered on the branch, and the silk thread that was tightly strangling his neck shone with a sharp silver light, and the top was entwined between the fingers of someone who had disappeared into the void.

Is this an existence that can transform inner fears into entities like Boggarts?Bits of chill penetrated from his back to every inch of his muscles, and he stared blankly at his palm, as if the cocoon thread leading to hell was really hanging on his fingertips.He has been having nightmares with no possibility of reality projection since a long time ago, and every time he gets stuck in the quagmire and suffocates, he can feel the cold, empty arms embracing him from the depths of the ground, trying to drag him into an invisible end endless abyss.Just like this moment... Arjuna suddenly turned his attention, he clearly felt the strange warmth pouring towards him continuously.

"……Hey."

The fingers that covered his eyes did not let go, he subconsciously grabbed the other's wrist, and slowly lowered his hand.The body temperature from his fingertips did not repel him in the slightest, but an almost turbulent emotion that he had never experienced in his life. The world trapped by these hands is so small, like a drop of the purest glaciers after melting. crystallization.The warm breath lingered in his ears from far to near, and he could even clearly feel the chest gently leaning against his back——Karna's worried voice came over.

"Arjuna, is the light too dark to see the shadow in the mirror?"

The straightforward words and the unintentional offense made Ah Zhou burst out laughing.The quagmire lingering around his body receded like a tide, and he felt a strange sense of relief as if he had escaped from an absurd drama.He held Karna's hand and put it down, turned around and looked at the young man who seemed to be trying to help him out of his troubles although he was not good at words, his light lips were slightly moist under the moonlight.

"Need to open..."

Arjuna raised his lower jaw with two fingers, covering the soft lips that kept opening and closing.Karna didn't seem to be aware of what happened for a moment, and once tried to finish the line he wanted to express, the arm around his waist forced him into the opponent's arms.Arjuna didn't intend to give him a chance to say no, and pressed the back of his head to sweep away all the remaining oxygen in his lungs.With his fingertips lingering on his neck, he heard Arjuna's voice whispering in his ear. "what's on your mind."

"I'm wondering when it will end." Karna replied honestly, with shapeless tooth marks and slight redness remaining at the corners of his mouth.When he noticed that Arjuna's face turned dark, he added sincerely. "Arjuna's physical fitness is really excellent, and he can maintain such a steady breathing."

"..." Arjuna's fingertips left him, as if he was suppressing some turbulent emotions, and finally said each word, "Eat less sweets in the future." After finishing speaking, he walked away in a huff. , Unlocked the door lock of the room and walked towards the direction of the Slytherin Tower.The whole room fell silent, and just as Karna was about to follow him out, he heard rustling sounds from the corner.The diminutive professor of herbal medicine was standing in the shadows, awkwardly holding the glass bottle in his hand.

"Sorry, professor, I didn't realize you were here just now." Karna didn't feel the embarrassment of being knocked over. He bent down and looked at the same height as the professor, and asked in a natural tone, "You have been here since we came in. here?"

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In the nearly 60 years of herbal medicine professor's life, there has never been a second occasion that made him want to apparate so much.As an excellent student, of course Karna has always been safely on his white list, and they have always maintained a pleasant teacher-student relationship.Of course, the kid was a little natural, quite similar to the plants he worked with every day.When faced with this question that made him difficult to make a choice, he felt that the creed he had adhered to for many years was precariously shaken.

"I've been here...uh, looking for some experimental materials." He added awkwardly, "In order not to disturb you, I used a little magic..."

Oh stupid.The professor of herbal medicine was very annoyed by his self-deprecating rhetoric. Fortunately, Karna did not delve into it, and even showed a relaxed expression of sudden realization.In order to break the embarrassment that suffocated him, he changed the subject insincerely, "I think you have noticed Eris..."

Everyone who faces the mirror will show an expression of fascination, or at least joy.The professor thought to himself, it was the first time he had seen a child with such a terrible face in front of the mirror, which made him a little curious about what Arjuna saw.But no matter what, he wouldn't ask the child... He looked at Karna, and the other's expression seemed to indicate that he didn't understand what a great existence he was Eris.He stroked his sparse black mustache, which he had deliberately grown long, and walked to the mirror waddlingly.

It's still the same scene day after day.The professor sighed, turned his head and looked at Karna standing behind him, "It hides in a very hidden place, and it needs to be combined with special timing to appear probabilistically. It is most suitable to be placed with these dangerous experimental materials. Don't you want to see it? It's a magical treasure that reflects what the person in the mirror most desires."

He never thought that this frail young man shook his head, showing no signs of longing. "No, sir, I have no wish."

"Ha, I kind of understand why this mirror chose to appear in front of you." The professor let out a pleasant laugh, and finally left the predicament just behind him, "There are countless people in this world who spend their whole lives looking for Eris. They hope that they can spend the rest of their lives with it, whether it is money or fame, they can be completely satisfied, it is a fairyland of Taoyuan that forgets the cruelty of reality."

"Come and see." The professor grabbed his arm, staggered the boy who was a head taller than him to the sunglasses, and said intoxicatedly and proudly, "You will fall in love with it."

Karna remembered Chisha Ram's frowning comment to his colleague. "He is indeed a little crazy, Karna. This is also a common problem of many smart people. Their enthusiasm for knowledge makes them a little unreasonable. Or, it is very dangerous." Karna thought, no matter what it reflects, it will not Beyond imagination... He stood facing the mirror and raised his eyes to look at the scene in the mirror.

"How?" asked the professor eagerly, "What did you see?"

"I'm not sure... if there's something wrong with it." Karna raised his finger to touch the silver-coated mirror.The boy in the mirror pointed out his fingertips in the same gesture.

There was nothing in the mirror but himself.

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"Oh, damn, these boring guys are looking for me again." Hearing the noisy voice outside the door, the professor scratched his hairless head and turned around twice in agitation, "What a moment No idle time. Oh what does it matter to me that some thugs have attacked the school with black magic? But I'll have to go out and see, those guys are as ignorant as the thugs, and they'll crush the fresh vines in the garden. "

The professor disappeared in front of him like a gust of wind. Fortunately, the noisy voice made him forget to ask, otherwise it would be quite difficult to explain.Karna waited until the outside subsided before leaving the room, and the deep corridor had returned to its original silence at this moment.He walked along the road to the lighted tower of Gryffindor, and after a long distance, an unextinguished light illuminated a few meters away.Only then did he notice that this room was the corridor where Merlin had been bumped into, where he saw the portrait of Indra for the first time——

The moving image wearing the top hat noticed him, and after taking off the hat, he winked his right eye playfully, which was something Arjuna would never have done anyway.At this time, he discovered a detail that he had overlooked before, the two thin snake tattoos hidden on the back of his hand.Of course...he already knew the true identity of the man who was hiding in the dark, and there was a high probability that he was the one who attacked the school tonight.Finally he was drawn to something else, the serpentine ring worn on Indra's hand, which perfectly matched one of the Horcruxes pointed to in the book.

Just as he was about to see it more clearly, the whole school vibrated violently as if it had been struck by lightning.The mirror frame in front of him shook violently and wobbled, while other things on the wall were not spared, and all fell to the ground one after another.

"Oh my god!" He heard the professor of herbal medicine curse angrily not far away, "You have destroyed all my vines! Who are you??" Then the professor let out a terrifying curse as if he had been choked Panting, Karna walked over quickly, and saw the professor hanging in the air as if being strangled by an invisible hand, kicking his legs desperately, before he approached, he died and fell heavily on the ground. on the ground.

He didn't have time to run to the professor's side, and he couldn't move as if he was frozen.He heard a cold and familiar voice, exactly the same as what he heard in the cemetery that night, and it echoed low and deep throughout the entire Hogwarts grounds.

"This is just a warning, you worthless ants... Oh no... Dear old friends, please return the things I left here to me, otherwise disaster will come before dawn."

Amidst the rumbling thunder, crackling raindrops hit the window lattice, and the faint light illuminated the distorted and stiff expression of the herbal medicine professor, as if he had seen some ghost.Before the lingering sound disappeared, Karna saw Indra in the portrait and blinked at him without haze again.

-TBC-