Chapter 487: Does the power of love really exist?

The castle was not very large. With three house-elves around, most of the daily work could already be handled easily.

“Understood. Toby will take care of it right away.”

With that, Toby disappeared on the spot.

Wade picked up a book and had only just sat down on the lounge chair on the balcony when he heard someone knock on the door.

With Toby away, the only people who could be knocking were Miravia or Nagini.

He put down the book and quickly went to open the door.

Nagini was standing outside.

“Have you eaten yet? We just finished making lunch…”

“Lunch…” Only then did Wade remember that he had not eaten anything.

Since he had sent Toby out on an errand, he had originally planned to wait until Toby returned and then have him prepare something.

“All right. Let’s go.”

Lunch was at Miravia’s new residence.

The dishes were relatively simple, probably made from the basic ingredients already stocked in the house.

Wade was not picky.

“Where were you two before this?”

He could not help asking during the meal.

“We went to the Department of Mysteries and became Unspeakables,” Nagini said.

“Hm? You… became Unspeakables?” Wade looked astonished. “How did you manage that?”

Although joining the Ministry now only required passing an examination, there was still a strict background check.

Not just anyone could sit the exam. Otherwise, if all sorts of dangerous dark wizards came to apply, the Ministry would quickly become a complete mess.

But neither Nagini nor Miravia currently had a proper legal identity. Their backgrounds would never survive an investigation.

“Is that difficult?” Miravia glanced at Wade.

Wade immediately understood.

Miravia had probably bewitched the entire Department of Mysteries.

“That would indeed be difficult for me,” Wade said with a sigh.

With his current mastery of nightmare magic, he still could not deceive an entire Department of Mysteries full of wizards.

And this was not some brief illusion.

It was long-term manipulation.

It had nothing to do with talent. Miravia’s nightmare magic had been refined over time, while Wade had only been learning it for a few years. Reaching his current level was already impressive.

“Why did you suddenly decide to become Unspeakables?” Wade asked curiously.

Hadn’t Miravia said before that she wanted to travel the world? Why had she suddenly joined the Ministry?

“There’s a locked door in the Department of Mysteries. Even when my consciousness wandered around before, I could never get through it. So I wanted to go inside and see what was there now that I had a physical body. But… even after entering the Department of Mysteries in person, I still couldn’t open it,” Miravia said gloomily.

“A locked door…” Wade recalled what he knew about the Department of Mysteries.

There did seem to be such a door.

“Mr. Hoffman said the power behind it is love, and that you have to fully understand what love is before you can open the door,” Nagini added from the side.

“So that’s it…” Wade finally remembered clearly.

There really was such a door in the Department of Mysteries. In the original history, Dumbledore had even mentioned it to Harry.

“I can’t open it…” Miravia sighed.

Then she looked at Wade.

“I heard you once taught one of your friends to understand the power of love and turned him from a bad child into a kind student… He even learned the Patronus Charm?”

Wade scratched his head awkwardly.

“That did happen…”

“Then you must understand what love is, right?” Miravia looked at him expectantly.

Wade could not help rubbing his nose in embarrassment.

Understand love?

Not a chance.

Everything he had said to Tom back then had been improvised nonsense. Who could have expected Tom to suddenly achieve some kind of enlightenment on his own?

“I don’t really understand love myself,” Wade said after thinking for a moment.

“How could that be? If you didn’t understand it, then how did your friend…”

“There are many kinds of love, Miravia. And everyone defines love differently. At the time, my friend happened to witness his father risk his life to save him. That was how he came to understand the love contained within family bonds. I only gave him a little guidance. As for me… I don’t understand it.”

Miravia sighed in disappointment.

“I thought you did. I was even planning to bring you into the Department of Mysteries and have you open the door…”

Wade suddenly shook his head.

“According to what this Mr. Hoffman told you, opening the door requires understanding the power of love, right?”

“Yes…” Miravia replied.

Wade said, “But if you truly understand what the power of love is, then you already possess everything that lies behind that door. At that point, does it really matter whether you open it or not?”

Miravia froze slightly, then slowly nodded.

“Now that you put it that way… you might be right.”

After a while, she asked again, “Wade… does the power of love really exist?”

“That depends on the person,” Wade said seriously. “For some people, love is the source of their strength. Because they love, they become stronger. But for others, they don’t even understand what love is. For those people, the power of love simply doesn’t exist.”

Of the two kinds of people Wade was describing, Dumbledore was the most obvious example of the first.

There were far more examples of the second.

Anyone who did not understand love, or who ignored it, could be counted among them.

Voldemort, who had never understood love, was one of those people.

And sometimes Wade felt that he belonged to that second group too.

What was love?

He did not know.

He had never felt it, or perhaps…

It had always existed around him, and he had simply ignored it.

Just like what he had once told Tom.

The Voldemort who did not understand love should no longer exist.

So now…

Had the person who did not understand love become him instead?

Seeing Miravia fall into thought, Wade said, “If you really want an answer to that question, you could write to Professor Dumbledore. Of everyone I’ve met in this world, he has the deepest understanding of the magic of love.”

“I’m not that desperate to open the door,” Miravia said softly. “I’m just curious. Curious about that kind of power.”

She paused.

“But that power probably does exist. Otherwise, the Department of Mysteries wouldn’t have dedicated an entire room to studying it.”