Fred and George stood frozen, exchanging a glance before turning to look at Kyle.
For a mont, they couldn't quite process what they'd just heard. Did Kyle really an what they thought he did?
"Horcruxes..."
"You can make them for soone else?"
They spoke in unison.
It was like imagining the Wand-Lighting Charm working on soone else’s wand—sothing not only unheard of but completely unimaginable.
"Why do you think I’ve been collecting so many books?" Kyle gestured to the thick stack of Dark Arts tos on the floor.
"But... how is that even possible?" Fred still couldn’t believe it.
"Nothing’s impossible," Kyle said. "I asked Nicolas Flal, and I asked Rowena Ravenclaw. They both think it can be done—you just have to find the right thod."
"But why would you want to do that?" George asked, clearly puzzled.
That was the part he found hardest to understand.
Most spells cast on others had a clear purpose.
The Imperius Curse was for controlling people, the Killing Curse for killing them.
But what was a Horcrux spell supposed to do?
Make soone unable to die—live forever?
If that was the case, then Kyle, the one developing the spell, might actually be a genius.
"Didn't I tell you?" Kyle looked back at them and explained,
"The first ti I saw Neville’s parents at St. Mungo’s, I started thinking about it... Only a Horcrux can restore a shattered soul—make it whole again, in a different way.”
"And once that happens, they should be able to return to normal."
"Neville’s parents..." Fred thought for a mont. "Right, they were tortured into insanity by the Cruciatus Curse."
"Now that you ntion it, I do kind of rember sothing like that," George added.
He vaguely recalled Kyle ntioning wanting to make a Horcrux at so point.
But back then, everyone—including Cedric—had assud Kyle was joking. No one had taken it seriously.
And who could bla them?
Dumbledore had still been alive at the ti. No one would dare openly research Horcruxes under his nose.
Kyle had said it so directly, without even trying to hide it. Of course no one had believed him.
Not just the two of them—even Dumbledore himself had probably dismissed it.
"You were serious..." Fred muttered.
"Do I look like I’m joking?" Kyle opened a book, flipped through a few pages, then tossed it aside.
As he did, Fred and George’s eyes drifted to the bottle lying on the ground.
"What’s that..."
"A Boggart," Kyle said.
"I know it’s a Boggart," George said after a pause. "I an, how did you manage to catch it in a bottle?"
"And another thing," Fred chid in, "didn't it explode just now?"
"The bottle’s a little invention of mine. It blocks the Boggart’s line of sight. Right now, it’s basically in the sa state as if it were trapped in a wardrobe."
At that point, Kyle's voice grew noticeably more animated.
He’d stumbled upon this Boggart by accident and imdiately captured it as a research assistant.
This magical creature was unique. If you knew how, you could defeat—or even kill—it with a single spell.
And it was genuinely easy—sothing even third-years at Hogwarts could manage.
But on the flip side, Boggarts were also one of the few creatures that weren’t afraid of the Killing Curse... or more precisely, under special conditions, they had the unique ability to be immune to it.
Kyle didn’t keep that to himself. He explained it all to Fred and George.
"Special conditions..." Fred raised an eyebrow. "I rember when it saw you earlier—it turned into a Dentor."
"But I know you're not afraid of Dentors!" George said firmly.
He knew Kyle could cast a Patronus—flawlessly, in fact—and he’d heard Cedric talk about how the two of them had gone around Britain hunting Dentors.
He was sure Kyle had taken down more than a few.
So if the Boggart had really seen a Dentor, logically, it should have turned into Kyle—not the other way around...
"Just a little trick," Kyle replied.
Boggarts transford based on fear, but if you mastered Occluncy and mory charms, you could manipulate what the Boggart saw—make it take any form you wanted.
The Dentor was just one possibility... probably the simplest, actually.
Kyle chose the Dentor form because it made the spell’s effect much easier to observe.
Dentors had no souls, and Boggarts were essentially a special type of soul.
When these two magical entities intersected, strange things happened.
Just like earlier—when a spell that was supposed to split a soul instead split the body. Everything beca much more visually apparent.
That had been a completely accidental discovery on Kyle’s part.
Originally, he’d only made the Boggart take the form of a Dentor because it made the duel easier.
After all, when you’re facing down a Dentor, it’s hard to feel guilty no matter what spell you use.
“Do you two still want to be involved?” Kyle set down the second book in his hands and looked up. “I don’t have much solid information yet, and this isn’t sothing that can be done in just a few days. It could take a long ti—and if it does, you won’t be able to go back to the shop.”
Fred and George exchanged a glance, falling silent.
To be honest, as magic item shop owners, they were extrely curious about Horcruxes—this strange fusion of alchemy and dark magic.
But what Kyle was working on now hardly seed like alchemy anymore. It was more like spellcraft.
And soul-splitting, however you looked at it, was a dangerous form of magic.
Only an object that contained a fragnt of soul could be called a Horcrux. But what if you only split the soul—skipping all the steps that ca afterward?
After all, Kyle was the one holding the wand, and he was the one casting the spell. Whether the fragnt got placed into a vessel or not was entirely up to him.
If he wanted to crush the soul fragnt the mont it split off, he absolutely could.
“We…”
“We're in!”
They gritted their teeth and spoke with determined expressions, eyes sharp as if they'd made a life-altering decision.
“Maybe soon, there’ll be four Unforgivable Curses,” Fred muttered, half-joking.
“If Dad finds out, he’ll kill us.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of you both,” Kyle said, patting his shoulder.
“So what, you’ll take the fall for everything?” George’s eyes lit up hopefully.
“I knew it, Kyle—we’re best friends!”
“No.” Kyle swatted his hand away. “I ant I’ll throw you the most extravagant funeral imaginable. I’ll invite every famous wizard I know. Sound dignified enough?”
“Ugh…”
“Knew we shouldn’t have trusted you…”
The two of them pulled forced grins.
Still, Fred and George had fully committed themselves. This was the first real chance they’d ever had to co into contact with Horcruxes—and possibly their only one. Even if it was just the spell-based version, that hardly mattered anymore.
Besides, they genuinely wanted to help Kyle.
Reworking the concept of Horcruxes was far easier said than done. Just looking at the massive pile of Dark Arts tos proved that. If they stuck around, maybe they could at least help him save so ti.
And there was one more thing…
If Kyle actually succeeded, it would an a counter-curse to the Cruciatus existed—sothing that would shake the entire wizarding world.
And if they helped—even just fetching a book or handing over a drink—it’d be like free advertising for Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes.
Totally worth it.
“Alright, tell us what we need to do,” Fred said, stepping forward with an uncharacteristically serious expression.
George stepped up too.
“Whatever you need—rune arrangent research, digging through books for anything related to Horcruxes—you na it.”
“No need for that,” Kyle replied.
Truthfully, he didn’t have any clear direction yet. The reason he borrowed all these books from Sirius was simply to see if anything inside might provide valuable clues.
Beyond that, he’d also copied a number of banned texts from the Hogwarts library and had been studying those too.
They were eye-opening, to say the least—but whether they’d actually be useful still needed testing.
Fred and George didn’t know how to make Horcruxes, and they didn’t understand the principles behind them. That made it hard for them to contribute aningfully.
Which was precisely why Kyle hadn’t planned on bringing them in from the start.
Any task he could delegate was trivial enough for him to handle alone—or with help from the house-elves. There was no need to involve Fred and George.
“But we’ve already decided to help. We can’t just stand around doing nothing,” Fred said, frowning slightly, unaware of Kyle’s thoughts.
“Exactly,” George agreed. “We can start learning about Horcruxes now. Don’t worry—we’ll keep our mouths shut.”
“Of course. I trust you both,” Kyle said, walking over to a table. He picked up a book and tossed it to them.
George caught it and instinctively glanced down at the cover.
Secrets of the Darkest Art
“The thod for making a Horcrux is in there—but you might not be able to make sense of it…”
Before Kyle could finish his sentence, he turned and realized they were already gone.
He didn’t mind.
It was obvious Fred and George had a strong—perhaps unhealthy—curiosity about Horcruxes, and Kyle had no problem lending them Secrets of the Darkest Art.
Besides, they were known for their unconventional ideas. Things like Skiving Snackboxes, Extendable Ears, and Exploding Quills had all taken Hogwarts by storm.
Maybe once they grasped the principles behind Horcruxes, they could actually offer so helpful insight.
But for now...
Kyle picked up the bottle and gave it a hard shake.
The familiar Dentor erged once more into the attic.
“Avada…”
...
The unusual blue Killing Curse had saved Kyle a lot of trouble. Even if the Weasleys or other wizards happened to see it, none of them would ever suspect that soone up in the attic was using the Killing Curse.
Over ti, Kyle had managed to drag the smaller version of the Dentor a fair distance away.
It still exploded, yes—but now he had much more room to work with. He wasn’t as helpless as he had been in the beginning.
A few days later, Fred and George showed up again—but sothing was clearly off about them.
Their hair was a ss and noticeably dull, their faces pale and sickly, with heavy, dark circles under their eyes.
It looked like they were wearing the sa clothes as last ti, and the mont they pushed open the attic door, Kyle caught a whiff of sothing distinctly unpleasant.
He wasn’t surprised. Any wizard who’d spent ti with Dark magic books ended up like this. In fact, in Secrets of the Darkest Art, the page right before the section on Horcruxes featured a spell tied to nightmares, along with a peculiar magical rune designed to help users experience the effects of the spell more intensely.
Fred and George had clearly seen it—hence the nonstop yawning.
Still...
“Why didn’t you two just take so Dreamless Sleep Potion?” Kyle asked, eyeing their sorry state. “Don’t tell it didn’t occur to you that it could fix this.”
“Oh, it occurred to us.”
“But we wanted to try it for ourselves first,” Fred said, rubbing his eyes. “A new idea—‘Sleepyti Fairy Tales.’ It’s bound to be better than Zonkos’ Nightmare Glasses.”
“Of course, we can’t use the original spell. Needs so tweaking,” George added with a yawn. “The original version was way too strong. I thought I was going to split open.”
“Why don’t you two get so rest first?” Kyle suggested, carefully guiding a small puff of ‘Dentor’ into a cup.
“No need.”
“We’re planning to wait till tonight... then take the Dreamless Sleep Potion...”
“Besides, we’ve already gone through most of the Horcrux-related stuff.”
“If there’s anything you need help with, just say the—”
Bang!
Fred’s sentence was cut short by a loud explosion.
The Boggart had blown up again.
None of them so much as flinched.
Kyle was used to it by now.
Fred and George didn’t even register it. After so many sleepless nights, the noise in their own heads was far louder than the blast.
“We... can help you...” George repeated, like a soulless recording on loop.
Honestly, Kyle did want to make them drink the Dreamless Sleep Potion and just pass out already. But they were clearly set on waiting until nightfall—and had no intention of leaving.
“Alright then...” Kyle thought for a mont. “There is sothing you could help with.”
“Just say the word…”
“Help cheer up the Boggart.” Kyle pointed to the bottle on the floor. For more chapters visit novel[f]ire
“Cheer up... the Boggart?”
Fred’s fogged-up brain took a mont to register what that even ant.
“It’s been blowing up a bit too often lately. Not really in the mood to help anymore,” Kyle muttered, scratching his head. “Takes a lot of convincing to get it to co out now.”
“You don’t have to do much. Just look at the Boggart and act scared—give it a little ego boost.”
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