Hearing the cold voice, Harry desperately wanted to turn around, but an unseen magical force propelled him through the door. Following him, Ethan and Atlas exchanged a quick nod and entered the room where the Mirror of Erised stood. Unlike the films, they didn't descend a long staircase; the room was right behind the door. It was unexpectedly spacious and well-lit, deviating from the dim portrayal in the movies. However, the iconic mirror and the encircling pillars remained unchanged. There was only one entrance, and Harry lay on the floor, struggling to regain his footing.
Behind the mirror, Severus Snape leaned against the wall, his face blank and his sleeves rolled up, revealing the Dark Mark on one arm and a deep, gruesome cut on the other, exposing bone.
Cedric Diggory lay nearby, staring blankly into the void. Atlas couldn't see any sign of breath. Cedric's outstretched hand was covered in a red, glowing dust that mirrored the flames from a large cauldron nestled between two pillars.
“The great Harry Potter finally honors us with his presence. For ten long years, I have waited for this day. Ten long years, I have suffered because your mudblood mother gave her life to save yours.” said the cold voice, and a man with a pitch black cloak, a handsome face, pale skin, scarlet eyes, black, kempt hair, and a pointy nose walked forth from behind the mirror. “Ten long years have gone by, and I, the greatest wizard of all time, would still be unable to kill you. You, a mediocre wizard whose fame is based on the fact that he survived. A fact that we will change tonight. Tomorrow at the same time, everyone in the world will know that I have returned and that no wizard is my equal.”
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“Dumbledore is the greatest wizard alive, and you will never be his equal!” protested Harry, pointing his wand at Voldemort but obviously scared.
“Hahaha, it seems that even after all he did and all he schemed, you still believe in him.” said Voldemort, and with a wave of his hand, Harries wand was thrown to the side, while Atlas and Ethan stood beside him, tensing as they fully expected Voldemort to kill them the next second.
Harry became anxious but didn’t try to get his wand back. “After all he did? What do you mean?”
"Oh, your friends, the people you trust so much, didn’t tell you?” said Voldemort, amused. “Mr. Brown did know from the very beginning that this year was meant to end here, and yet he didn’t tell you? It was that old senile’s plan from the beginning, Harry. You were meant to fight me here. Or, to be more accurate, to fight my loyal servant here to prevent me from getting the philosopher’s stone. A stone that has never been here in the first place, as I realized now. All for the sake of making you brave enough to sacrifice your life when the time is right. You were nothing more than a pawn on that senile’s chess board. A piece meant to be thrown away after it outlived its uses.”
“Harry, don’t listen to him; he is trying to drive a wedge between us,” said Ethan, but his voice was so filled with guilt that even Harry's doubts only increased.
“Is that so? Do you really believe someone who assisted me for a whole year? Who is the main reason that I have this body and not just a crappy homunculus form?” said Voldemort, enjoying the despair in Harry’s face.
“Harry, I didn’t… I didn’t know it was him. And I definitely didn’t help him get this body.”
“Oh, but you certainly did, Mr. Brown. As your teacher, I have to say that I’m certainly disappointed in you. How often did I tell you that you needed to understand what you were capable of to make the most use of your powers? And yet, I think I understand some of your abilities better than you.” Said Voldemort with schadenfreude as Ethan was silenced.
“And you? You are certainly not the loyal friend you pretend to be. Always doing things in secret, not even sharing your secrets with your friends, and even now I feel no anger or fear from you. I don’t even see surprise in your face. Certainly interesting,” said Voldemort to Atlas, who was looking more focused on finding Quirrell, who should still be around.
“You said it yourself; you can’t kill Harry, and all Harry needs to do is touch you.” Tried Atlas to change the topic.
“Oh, a smart one. If you wouldn’t die today, you would certainly have the potential to become a good death eater,” said Voldemort, with a grin that made his handsome face appear like a mask. “But I hope that isn’t the reason you are so confident, because even if I can’t kill the boy-“
Just when everyone was focused on Voldemort, Quirrell, who had hid behind a pillar in addition to using a disillusionment charm to become invisible, appeared in front of Harry and grabbed him by the neck with a silver hand and drilled a goblin-made dagger into Harry’s chest.
“I did it master! I did it!” exulted the pale and ill looking Quirrell.
“Nooo!” yelled Ethan, and blasted Quirrell away, which caused Harry to fall to the floor.
Instead of attacking them, Voldemort summoned a wall of fiend fire to block the entrance, immediately heating up the whole room.
“Was that your whole plan? Letting the boy touch me was what gave you the confidence to face me despite knowing I would be here. Despite already failing with this once? Did you really expect me to not have a plan to deal with the boy? A plan to deal with you all? Even if Dumbledore were here, your chances to escape would be slim.” Said Voldemort, and he fired a green bolt of lightning toward Ethan, who countered the death curse that was famous for penetrating all shields with a simple protego charm.
“So, it really is powerful enough to block the killing curse. The more I see what your system is capable off, the more unbelievable I think it is.” said Voldemort, dark energy began to ooze out of his body, slowly transforming into a menacing large Snake, that could eat an adult with a single bite.
Atlas, in the meantime, had checked on Harry, who had still been breathing despite the goblin made dagger in his chest and severe bruises on his neck. Harry had been fighting for every breath, but Atlas had seen in his eyes that he had known that he would die. He had even seen the defiance fade into acceptance. Atlas had known that Harry was guaranteed to die from the wound if he didn’t receive any phoenix tears or a miracle potion from Ethan. “I’m sorry Harry.” Despite his dislike for it, he hadn’t wanted to take any chances of that happening and accelerated Harry’s death by pulling the dagger out while twisting it so that it could deal as much damage as possible, causing Harry to die with the look of betrayal and resignation in his face.
“It seemed like I was still too late. Why couldn’t you kids just use the normal way to get here?” sounded a loud but old authoritarian voice from behind.
The flames that were summoned by Voldemort just seconds ago divided themselves, and Professor Ward entered with his red military uniform with honour badges on his chest, staring at the dead Harry in Atlas arms, Voldemort, who was fighting Ethan and Quirrell, Cedric, and Snape, who lay on the other side of the room.
Voldemort redirected his attacks from Ethan at this new arrival.
Professor Ward pointed his wand at the pitch black snake that was rushing towards him, and like the snake was cut with a sword, it was split in half and crashed into the walls, blocking the entrance with rubble, before the snake dissolved into black particles, leaving a corroded floor behind.
“So, you really managed to kill Slytherin’s pet and my followers and still arrived on time to stand in my way now?” asked Voldemort, ceasing his attacks for a moment.
“Well, it’s my duty as a professor of Hogwarts, isn’t it, Mr. Riddle?” said Professor Ward with a grim expression.
“So you are really willing to meddle with me. What has that old geezer given you to convince you? Didn’t you make it extremely clear that you want to live out your life while caring for your wife? Wasn’t I gracious enough to let you be in the past?” asked Voldemort in a calm voice, but a vein on his temples showed he was getting angry.
“The Elixir of Life, you should know its powers and know why it’s too attractive for me to decline. But it looks like you don’t need it anymore or never needed it in the first place. And I honestly thought I just had to fight that little twat, Quirinius,” answered Professor Ward.
“And now? Do you really think you can beat me?” asked Voldemort, full of confidence.
“No.” admitted Professor Ward. “But do I really need to beat you? Do we really need to fight it out? Why don’t you just leave? You already have what you want. Let the students and me go, and you can fight it out with Albus.”
Voldemort sent a cold laugh at him. “So now that you finally picked a side, you still ask me to spare you? No, you will die here. The two kids will die too, and Dumbledor will follow you soon.”
“Kids, go behind me. Like we trained in class. I will be the defender, and you will be the attacker. We have to endure till Albus arrives.” said Professor Ward and walked in between Ethan, Atlas, and Voldemort.
“You really think you are that capable?” asked Voldemort, and the first spell he sent wasn’t his signature killing curse, but a white cracking beam of electricity.”
“Dodge!” yelled Professor Ward, and the beam drilled through the wall behind him.
“So much for defending Professor. Don’t you just want to lay down and die painlessly? I will even do you the honor and send your wife personally to you.”
“Back to formation,” barked Professor Ward, and Ethan and Atlas were sending spell after spell at Voldemort to keep him from attacking.
Atlas was clenching his teeth at the unplanned situation. He didn’t expect Professor Ward to come and assist them, just when it looked like everything was working as planned.
He half-heatedly fired a few stunning spells at Voldemort while spectating Professor Ward and Ethan. He was thinking of sending a killing curse at Professor Ward and then helping Voldemort kill Ethan, but the old wizard was focusing on them as much as he was on Voldemort, with the aim of protecting them. It worried him that Professor Ward said they just had to endure till Dumbledore arrived, which might cause another unexpected turn, and he didn’t want to backstab Ward only to get killed by Dumbledore the next second.
Ethan, on the other hand, was sending spells at a speed that could only be seen at world-class dueling tournaments, and yet Voldemort easily deflected all incoming spells and still had time to fire his own back. Even Ethan’s attack, copying one of Atlas' tactics of summoning birds and then enlarging and multiplying them before sending them towards Voldemort, was rendered ineffective as the birds caught fire with a simple flick of Voldemort's wand. Unluckily, he was unable to shoot another spell that Professor Ward was unable to counter. Even the second lightning beam Voldemort sent was deflected into a pillar, cutting it in two.
After about ten seconds of stalemate, Voldemort raised his wand over his hand, and the rabbles on the floor, the cauldron, and even the mirror of erised started to levitate before they shot towards Professor Ward. Professor Ward ripped a medal of honor from his uniform and enlarged it to a giant shield, but before the rubble even hit Professor Ward’s shield, Voldemort's shot a spell at the celing which caused a big explosion. They were covered in a large amount of dust and smoke, and despite not being able to see it, they could already guess that the ceiling was crashing down on them.
Atlas didn’t know what happened, but a few seconds later, the dust was blown away by a large amount of dark energy that not only impaired Atlas' vision but also drained his physical strength, and negative thoughts appeared in his mind. He tried to fend them off with his occlumency, but he was still barely able to stand and see in this field of darkness.
“Enough!” yelled Professor Ward.
A blinding light filled the room and pushed the darkness away. Atlas could see that Professor Ward had a small wound on his head that was bleeding. The enlarged medal of honor laid there deformed and even penetrated. The large chunk from the ceiling was split in half, with one half lying barely a few centimeters from his feed. Ethan appeared, unfortunately, unharmed as well.
When the dazzling light faded, he saw that Professor Ward was wielding a whip made of warm yellow light that crashed multiple times against Voldemort’s shields. Each hit caused a deafening crack in the air but Voldemort’s defense remained unpenetratable. To get the initiative back, Voldemort breathed a large amount of fire that formed into a fiendfire basilisk that would make the one Atlas had to face in the forest look like a little cub. The barely formed basilisk head bit at the whip, which immediately started to crumble into small particles of light, before the basilisk completely formed and rushed at Professor Ward.
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As a reaction, Professor Ward transformed the two pieces of the ceiling into two large knights with shields that tried to stop the snake, but they were still slowly pushed backwards, their shields quickly starting to glow in a fiery red. They were pushed so far backward that they were nearing the entrance, which was still covered in rubble and flames.
“Take care of the rubble, and flee as soon as you can leave through the door,” ordered Professor Ward, who split his focus to extinguish the flames that had reformed since he entered, which seemed like a mistake as Voldemort used the opportunity to destroy one of the statues by slamming the broken pillar at one knight. The pillar pierced the large, heated shield and crushed the warrior behind it. With one knight down, Voldemort’s fiendfire basilisk managed to slip past the defenses and hit Professor Ward, costing him his left arm and his whole uniform caught fire.
Atlas could hear the painful yet familiar scream and smell the familiar smell of burned flesh. But instead of turning around, he focused on the rubble. He wanted to find a way of stopping them from escaping without looking like a traitor, as Ethan was sending depulso after depulso on the rubble, slowly pushing the rubble out into the next room.
Just as he had made up his mind and wanted to try to cast the killing curse at Ethan and battle it out if needed, the whole rubble was pulled out of the door and splashed into the water of the maze that was in the next room. In front of them stood Dumbledore, who quickly summoned some of the water past them at the basilisk.
Professor Ward had in the meantime extinguished the flames of his cloak, but was still heavily charred and obviously fighting to stay conscious.
“DUMBLEDORE!” echoed Voldemort's voice with schadenfreude through the steam. “YOUR PLAN HAS FAILED, YOU ARE TOO LATE. THE BOY IS DEAD!”
“Go, I will take over from here," said Dumbledore, looking at them, his voice heavy and his posture sceaming exhaustion.
“They will go nowhere!” said Voldemort, and the whole rubble that was still in the other room shot through the steam at Dumbledore and Professor Ward.
Dumbledore pointed his wand at the rubble, and everything pulverized as soon as it was half a meter from Dumbledore’s wand.
“Haven’t you done enough evil for today, Tom?” answered Dumbledore.
“Sir, we can help; we can-“ interrupted Ethan.
“No, you go. Today Hogwarts already lost three precious students, and I won’t risk a fourth or fifth.” stopped him, Dumbledore, causing Atlas to wonder if he knew about Ron’s death or if one more student had died.
Ethan was reluctant but seemed to acknowledge that he would be of little use against Voldemort.
“Stop. Ethan. You know that he can’t beat him. The only reason he escaped in the movies was because the aurors were coming, not because he was losing. If we leave now, he will win, for sure. If it weren’t for the Elder Wand, it wouldn’t even be a fight, especially now that he has returned in an even more complete form,” said Atlas in an attempt to stop Ethan from leaving.
Ethan looked at him questioningly and wanted to ask something, but Atlas spoke first: “Trust me, you haven’t read the books.”
Atlas hoped that Ethan did believe him, despite Atlas not knowing if what he said was even true because it wasn’t made clear in the books.
“What are you-?“tried Dumbledore to ask, but another barrage of attacks came from Voldemort. “Just leave!”
“We mustn’t, Ethan!” insisted Atlas, and Ethan nodded at him.
Voldemort pushed Dumbledore more and more back and was now standing at the door while Dumbledore was balancing himself on one of the maze's walls. Dumbledore attempted to wash Voldemort away by sending the water to Voldemort, who reacted by freezing the whole area with a single spell.
Professor Ward exploded the wave of frozen water and sent the shards towards Voldemort, but he stopped them midair by transforming them into snow, which then transfigured into thousands of small ice needles that were sent after Dumbledore, who blocked them by creating a small wall of ice that was sent after Voldemort like a wave made of water.
The wave was divided before hitting Voldemort and shattered at the walls.
Red and Green clashed multiple times, causing the whole room to shake, and even the ice they were standing on was starting to crack.
Voldemort was now fighting against Dumbledore, Ethan, and the wounded Professor Ward and was barely holding his own.
“Now or never,” thought Atlas as he saw three of them standing close to each other right before him.
“Acio Dust,” mumbled Atlas, and the dust from the room they came from was flying over to him.
“Stupor! Confringo!” said Atlas, and the large ball of dust that was flying towards him was pulled between Voldemort and his three enemies before it was shattered by the shock spell and then ignited by the red fireball. He had chosen this way of attacking because it was not only an unexpected attack but would also prevent Dumbledore and Ward from detecting that magic was aimed at them, because it technically wasn’t in this case.
The explosion shattered the ice they were standing on. Professor Ward was hit the hardest, was blasted past Atlas, and lay unconsciously in the shattered ice, blood oozing from his once cauterized flesh.
Dumbledore and Voldemort were also hit by surprise but were merely pushed back a little. Ethan, on the other hand, only struggled with the broken ice as he lost his footing.
“Avada Kedavra.” yelled Atlas and caught Dumbledore by surprise as the spell was pointed at him.
But even when taken by surprise, the headmaster reacted swiftly and intercepted the spell easily with his own spell.
“Are you controlling him, Tom? You really are behind redemption, aren’t you?” said Dumbledore looking conflicted.
Voldemort laughed loudly when he heard Dumbledore’s question.
“You are connected to him, aren’t you? You are connected to the immortal Chrom,” said Voldemort, ecstatic looking at Atlas, causing Dumbledore to frown in confusion.
Dumbledore didn’t wait for Atlas to answer and sent a disarming charm toward him.
A charm that Atlas tried to counter with a shocking charm. Not because he didn’t want to kill Dumbledore, but because it was the spell he had used the most often and was most familiar with.
Dumbledore looked at him in shock when he realized what Atlas' aim was. Instead of just blocking Dumbledore’s spell, he forced a clash of wills. When the two spells connected and the two red lightning-like beams were contending with each other, Atlas could feel how overwhelmingly powerful the headmaster really was. But that didn’t matter because he knew that Voldemort wouldn’t waste such an opportunity. No matter how much Ethan tried to stop Voldemort, no matter how fast Dumbledore tried to break up their connection, the dark lord would be able to hit Dumbledore.
Just when Atlas saw the green light flowing towards Dumbledore, his vision started to shift. Dumbledore, Voldemort, and even Ethan seemed to grow, and the whole room began to spin around. Everything seemed to have slowed down, but it was only when Dumbledore and the others were twice as large as he was that he realized that they weren’t growing, but he was shrinking. His vision dampened, and the last thing he saw were two big feet.
Then pain washed over him as he began to see again. Grey smoke was covering his vision, and the world appeared to be monochrome with small dots of color slowly returning. It felt as if his whole body was showered with hot oil, except his body was standing next to him. A fountain of blood spurted out of his neck. A bloody, sharp disc of ice was drilled into the wall behind his body. His head lay to his feed as his body collapsed. He had died. Or to be more precise, his body was destroyed and the Horcrux he created barely half an hour ago had saved his life.
In the reflection in the ice, he saw that he looked similar to how Voldemort looked when Quirrell died in the movies, but unlike Voldemort he was more than just a head. He had a neck and even arms, even thought he was sure he wouldn’t be able to grab anything physically.
Then the next thing he noticed was Dumbledore sacking together too, disbelief in his eyes, and Voldemort’s laughter filling the room.
Atlas tried to make sense of what happened, but the pain was eating up his sanity. He was barely a shadow of his former self—no corporal body, no magic—and even his form was jumping between humanoid and something else, making it even more difficult to concentrate. The pain always lessened in his different form and gave him enough focus to notice that he was in an abominational form of his bowtruckle transformation.
“So you are a monster too…” heard Atlas, a painful, distant whisper.
The words hit him hard, but he couldn’t deny them, not after what he had done, not after his soul was proof that he had given up on a part of his humanity.
It was Professor Ward that had whispered, lying between the ice, struggling to breathe as he was slowly dying. He even lost grip of his wand as he closed his eyes and died. After seeing him die, he realized that it must have been Professor Ward that sent the spell that had decapitated him while he was clashing with Dumbledore.
Not wanting to linger to long on his killers death, Atlas focused his attention back on Voldemort and Ethan, who had stopped their fight.
Voldemort scarlet eyes; his look of triumph opposed Ethan's look of despair.
“Do you want to struggle, or do you want to have a painless death?” asked Voldemort coldly and without mercy.
Ethan’s expression changed awkwardly, and Atlas almost thought Ethan would go down without a fight, but after taking two short breaths, Ethan began to chant. “Avada Kedavra”
Two green lights clashed with each other, but Ethan, before Voldemort could even push the spell halfway through to him, broke the connection and redirected the spells into the wall behind him, before dodging the rubble falling from the wall.
“Is that all?” asked Voldemort, enjoying Ethan's torment.
“Die!” yelled Ethan with as much hope as confidence, and to Voldemort’s surprise, the spell appeared far more powerful than the last. Another clash of wills, but this time it ended in a stalemate. Lightning bolts were shooting from the beams of light, destroying what was left in the room. One bolt even blasted Dumbledore’s dead body away.
“How can that be? How could you?” said Voldemort in disbelief, as he was unable to win the clash. He wasn’t losing either, but the fact that Ethan was able to compete with him from one moment to the next frightened him.
“Didn’t you boast that you know my system better than I do? Then you should be able to guess what I did.” Said Ethan gripped his wand with both hands.
The stalemate lasted for what seemed like an eternity but was, in truth, barely five seconds before Voldemort cut the connection off.
“Are you giving up? You should know quite well that the more often we do this, the more advantages I would have.” said Ethan with an empty smile.
“No. You will die here. If that is all you can do, you have lost.” answered Voldemort and stared at Ethan, who looked confused.
“Acio Elder Wand!” said Voldemort with a mad laugh, and Ethan’s face paled as the wand flew over from Dumbledore’s corpse.
After a moment of silence, their spells clashed again. This time, slowly but steadily, Ethan was losing. He cut off the connection multiple times, but with each cut, the spells hit nearer to Ethan and advanced even faster. He blocked some with shields, but that caused the next clash to be even more disadvantaged. Even with his fast movement speed, Voldemort was able to keep up. Atlas struggled to keep up, as he was as slow as a normal human jogger, when their battle moved through the whole trial area. Even the chess statues, which were able to repel almost any spell previously, were crushed to dust by their spell clashes.
Atlas could see that the dazzling green light of a spellclash was coming closer and closer to Ethan until his whole appearance was showered in green light. He could feel the power of the spells radiating from the clash even in his horcrux form as the epicenter almost hit Ethan’s wand.
And then, just when Ethan had cut off the spell one last time and was ready to cast again, struggling but still with the obvious hope his skill would level one more time to turn the situation around, a green bolt hit him in the chest, followed by a triumphant heartless laughter.
Atlas watched as Ethan fell backwards, his mouth still open, the hope not vanished from his face even in death. He looked at the corpse, almost expecting it to explode and annihilate the universe or something similar, but it seemed like nothing was happening. At least not according to what he could sense until he heard Voldemort screaming in panic.
“What is this? How is that possible? NOOO!!” yelled the dark lord in pain, and went to his knees. His body—the body he had created at most one or two hours ago—looked deathly pale and frail. His scarlet eyes were bloodshot before slowly turning hollow. Then, like a dementor was about to kiss him, a small silver spec came out of his mouth as he collapsed. The silvery glow flowed over to where Ethan's corpse lay. Before Atlas realized what was happening, two more white balls came flying over from where the battle had started.
With terror, Atlas realized that Hermione was the closest one alive, so he hurried over. He floated past the room with the keys, directly to where he had left the suitcase. He was unable to lift up the invisibility cloak, but that didn’t hinder him from directly flying through it, only causing it to flutter like a light breeze hit it.
There lay Hermione, her skin pale and her breathing rigid. In his incorporal form, his “soul” form, if one wanted to call it, he did the only thing that came to his mind. He flew into her mouth and entered her body like he would do if he wanted to possess her. As soon as he did that, his senses vanished and he became unable to see, hear, or smell anything. The only thing he could do was feel. Besides the pain he had felt just seconds ago which got greatly dimmed after entering Hermione’s body, he could also feel her soul. As soon as he touched her soul became the only thing visible in the darkness. It looked like a glowing small version of her body with the difference that it was a little transparent and glowing.
The glowing Hermione that appeared as if she were sleeping was shrinking faster with each second. Only the part that his other half of the soul, the part that made her his horcrux and that looked like someone had skinned him alive and only cauterized a few parts, latched to, appeared to be shrinking slower.
Seeing this, he too embraced the ever-shrinking Hermione.
When he embraced her, he realized that she wasn’t actually shrinking. Her soul was being compressed into a ball, like when a Dementor wanted to kiss you. But the problem wasn’t the compression, but the pull they felt. The pull that wanted to rip Hermione’s soul out of his embrace, out of her body.
He and his skinned twin were trying to cover her whole, which became easier the more compressed she was, and soon they were able to even cover her completely, which unluckily reversed the compression process while the pull still strengthened.
The endless repetition and the ever-increasing pull were straining his soul parts, but he was unwilling to let go of her for even a second. With how strong the pull was by now, he would expect her soul to fly away faster than the eye could see. But even when the pull increased to the point that he thought his own soul was being ripped apart by trying to hold her down, nothing was changing. No relief was in sight, even as he could see the muscles of his other half snapping and revealing its bones. He didn’t know if it was actual permanent damage to his soul or if a soul could really have something snapped muscles or the like, and what a soul's limit was, or if the damaged appearance would even affect it in any real way, but from the pain he was feeling, he was sure that it wasn’t healthy.But in the end he didn’t care. He was ready to gamble his life on this.
Just when he thought that Hermione and he would die there, he felt another pull. A pull so much more powerful and focused than anything he had felt before, but this time the pull was in another direction. He couldn’t even describe if the pull was up, down, left, or right, just that it was different, and this time the pull was affecting him and not Hermione.
As he didn’t want to let go of Hermione’s soul, his soul got even more damaged. He could only guess his own state by looking at his horcrux, who had cracks all over his body, which at this point was barely more than lose muscles and tendons connected to a cracking skeleton.
“Let her go!” echoed Adams' voice in his mind.