Chapter Summaries

Pomona reflected on mental magic, human potential, and the dangers of the Unforgivable Curses before giving Barnaby a Crup for Christmas. She left Barnaby responsible for Dexter and returned to the staff table, hoping to sleep well on the final night of the holiday.

• The chapter described how Severus had used Legilimency on a Goblin and how Paul controlled Trolls like marionettes with spells and memory-altering helmets.
• Pomona considered the differences between Fenrir Greyback's deliberate attacks and Remus Lupin's actions when he had lost control, while worrying about Barnaby's association with Paul.
• Pomona gave Barnaby a two-tailed Crup named Dexter, though Barnaby objected to being given a pet.
• Pomona told Ben to follow Paul's instructions to study wand woods, then left Dexter in the children's care.
• Pomona sat beside Snape at the staff table and resolved to get a good night's sleep before the holiday ended.

Pomona and Grubbly-Plank explained Hugr to Leeds and asked her to use an animal’s eyes to watch over Barnaby and prevent him from being drawn into Paul’s plans. Leeds struggled with the prospect of facing further bloodshed, and the chapter left her considering whether to accept the responsibility.

• Cecil recalled the Blackbacks’ planned attack on Hogwarts and rented a house in Hogsmeade after two years pursuing werewolves.
• Pomona and Grubbly-Plank welcomed Leeds to Grubbly-Plank’s office in the Forbidden Forest and gave her ginger Butterbeer.
• Pomona and Grubbly-Plank explained that Hugr could help Leeds use an animal’s eyes to keep watch on Barnaby.
• Pomona warned that Barnaby could be harmed if Paul persuaded him to use an Unforgivable Curse on Leeds or Ben, and asked Leeds to stop Barnaby from sending Dexter away.
• Leeds said she disliked blood and asked whether there was another way, while Pomona and Grubbly-Plank left her to decide whether to help.

Pomona viewed a Goblin memory of Blackstone using strange defensive magic to create a shifting manor and a nightmare-like corridor. Back in Dumbledore’s office, Dumbledore explained that the corridor was a liminal space and suggested Blackstone had created the dungeons beneath Aindale Castle and possibly North Ford Bog.

• Barnaby gave Charlie a Nimbus broom and Bill a four-leaf-clover Portkey pendant, while Tonks explored Hogwarts’s secret passages with Peeves’s encouragement.
• Pomona visited Dumbledore, who asked her to use Occlumency before entering a Goblin memory Severus had found.
• In the memory, Blackstone refused to act as a spy but demonstrated magic that made a manor shift and produced an endless corridor.
• Dumbledore pulled Pomona out of the memory, and Severus joined them in the headmaster’s office.
• Dumbledore identified the corridor as a liminal space and agreed with Severus that Blackstone’s magic could have created the dungeons beneath Aindale Castle and North Ford Bog.

On Severus's birthday, Pomona tried to draw him out of his gloom by bringing him to the Mirror of Erised and reminding him to live in the present. She returned with him to celebrate, and he said he wanted to enjoy his birthday.

• Pomona reflected on Barnaby's kindness to Leeds and the Weasleys, while Bill moved on from Émilie and worried about Percy starting Hogwarts.
• Pomona learned that Severus had gone to North Ford Bog, where he fought poachers and found no dungeon beneath the castle.
• Pomona brought food to Severus's office, found a photograph of him with the Malfoys, and hugged him when he asked.
• Pomona led Severus to the Mirror of Erised and explained how it could trap people in impossible dreams; she told him to live in the present.
• Barnaby encouraged Pomona to give Severus the scarf she had knitted, and explained that he did not celebrate his birthday because it nearly became Pitts's death anniversary.
• Severus left the classroom and told Pomona that he wanted to celebrate his birthday, so she went with him to the Potions classroom.

Pomona reflected on the mirror’s illusions and the painful memories tied to Voldemort while the school recovered from the winter’s troubles. Leeds told her that Barnaby planned to leave Hogwarts with Paul after seeing the mirror, and Pomona agreed to speak with him next week.

• Charlie faced hostility from other students during Quidditch practice but kept pursuing his goal of becoming a Seeker.
• Vera recovered after drinking Skele-Gro for a week, and Kettleburn found her a cave in the forest.
• The Ministry of Magic sent Severus a letter commending him for acting against the poachers in North Ford Bog.
• Pomona planted bindweed, hoping its instinct to seek light would help guide her through a dark maze.
• Leeds told Pomona that Barnaby wanted to leave Hogwarts and take Paul away after seeing the mirror in the empty classroom.
• Pomona agreed to talk to Barnaby next week and realized that access to the mirror needed to be restricted.

Pomona explained how Filius had broken Phoebe’s curse by recognizing that she was trapped in a mirror-like, non-orientable space. As she reflected on Barnaby’s isolation and Severus’s anger over Lockhart’s latest award, she decided to have Peeves disrupt the Celestial Ball’s route to Ravenclaw Tower.

• Pomona described how Filius realized that Phoebe’s curse involved a mirror world where left and right were reversed, and how moving a portrait led him to break it.
• Pomona considered Barnaby’s losses and isolation, and questioned whether Paul might influence him despite his resistance to Dark magic.
• Severus’s good mood ended when the Daily Prophet celebrated Lockhart’s award and heroic claims, increasing Severus’s magical pressure.
• Pomona decided to find Peeves and have him pelt the Celestial Ball invitees on their way to Ravenclaw Tower with colored water balloons.

Pomona and the others investigated Paul de Lamerie and the missing child, then examined evidence linking Paul to Troll armor and possible students. Dumbledore organized a plan to keep Barnaby Lee at Hogwarts, while Pomona suspected Ben Cooper might also be connected to Paul’s search for a playmate.

• Pomona reviewed Paul de Lamerie’s history and wondered whether he had found the Blackwood Manor in Stonehaven.
• Dumbledore said no one had found the other child, and Pomona suggested Paul was leaving clues because he wanted a playmate.
• Flitwick and Carter arrived with blueprints showing a gold lion emblem and silver lime wood lining on later generations of Troll armor.
• Dumbledore identified Barnaby Lee and Ben Cooper as Paul’s likely playmates and said Paul planned to leave Hogwarts if Barnaby withdrew.
• Flitwick, Severus, and Pomona agreed to help keep Barnaby at school, while Pomona recalled that Ben had been reading about wand woods.

Pomona found Barnaby hiding in an empty classroom with his Crup and urged him not to leave Hogwarts, while trying to understand Paul’s intentions. Barnaby admitted he still grieved his father and questioned his own past actions, but did not say whether he would stay.

• Bill revealed that Fred and George had agreed to join the Magic Yo-Yo Club in three years, prompting Pomona to call him a devil; Charlie was hospitalized after Vera rammed him.
• Pomona realized the Mirror of Erised commotion had exposed the danger of keeping Venomous Tentacula in the greenhouse, then searched the school for Barnaby.
• Pomona found Barnaby stroking his two-tailed Crup in an empty fifth-floor classroom and learned that Pitts had arranged a place for him to stay.
• Barnaby told Pomona he wanted to leave Hogwarts with Paul, but Pomona urged him to stay and offered an Invisibility Cloak to protect his friends.
• Barnaby asked what Pomona had seen in the Mirror of Erised and questioned whether Paul was a liar; Pomona said she needed time to understand Paul’s true intentions.
• Barnaby admitted he still felt sad about his father’s death and had partly wanted to fight at the Three Broomsticks, and Pomona advised him not to provoke chaos unless he could control it.

Severus and Pomona discovered that Paul's puppet was actually a walnut wand, then returned it before Barnaby finished training, after which Paul resumed control and Barnaby was found badly injured. Pomona later found Snape's birthday gift of potions that could revive dead plants and cried over the lost first Puffapod.

• Severus took Paul’s puppet and Ben to Ollivander, where Ollivander identified it as a walnut wand with a Troll-beard core.
• Paul returned to the puppet’s body, and Barnaby was found beaten in an empty classroom; he refused to name a culprit without considering the consequences.
• Rumors spread through the school about Barnaby’s attack, while Pomona realized Paul had deliberately used Barnaby’s training to manipulate events.
• Pomona returned to the greenhouse and found that the first Puffapod she had planted had died, despite the others spreading everywhere.
• Pomona found Snape’s birthday present: Revival Potion and Greening Potion, which could restore dead plants, and cried as her eyes turned red.

Mina and the narrator encountered Alvin and howling wolves during an evening at a castle, while Pomona uncovered Professor Carter’s interest in potion formulas and Goblin treasure. Pomona suspected the summer-solstice Full Moon could open a door to another world and agreed to accompany Severus to an abandoned fortress at North Ford Bog.

• Mina warned Alvin to leave after he shoved the narrator, and later explained that he admired her like a sister.
• Wolves chased the carriage after the concert, but did not attack, and none had the red eyes the narrator had seen before.
• Severus advised Barnaby to stay silent about who had hurt him, warning that Ben might otherwise be made into a puppet.
• Pomona learned from Madam Pince that Carter had borrowed Toots’s records to find the Greening Potion and Revival Potion formulas and might be seeking Goblin treasure.
• Pomona told Severus about the treasure, then agreed to join him at an abandoned fortress in North Ford Bog on the summer solstice.
• Pomona feared that Severus had died during a strange vision, then reflected on self-love and Albus’s words as she prepared for bed.

Pomona rescued Tonks and Tupri from Filch after they went to the Whomping Willow, then learned that Dumbledore was planning a Graphorn Release Program involving Leeds Thugut. The chapter ended with Pomona and Snape discovering that Cole and other students had kidnapped Ben to force Barnaby to come forward, and Snape set off toward the Shrieking Shack.

• Pomona found Tonks and Tupri in Filch's office after they had risked approaching the Whomping Willow, and assigned them detention in her greenhouse.
• Pomona arrived late to a staff meeting, where she overheard professors discussing Carter's chances of surviving a curse.
• Snape told Pomona that Dumbledore planned a Graphorn Release Program and asked whether Leeds Thugut was suitable to take part.
• Charlie told Pomona that Cole and other students had kidnapped Ben and were holding him at the Shrieking Shack to draw out Barnaby.
• Snape urged Pomona to notify Lee's guardian and headed toward the school gates.

The search for the missing child continued as Van Helsing led the narrator along a perilous cliff path, while at Hogwarts Minerva and Pomona handled the fallout from Donald Cole’s kidnapping of Ben. As exams approached, Severus learned more about goblin silver and Hogwarts’s ancient defenses, and Pomona left the school for the rare summer solstice full moon.

• The hunters searched the heather for the gray animal, and Van Helsing reminded the narrator to fulfill his own duty.
• Van Helsing led the narrator along a dark, narrow path beside a deep valley as storm clouds gathered overhead.
• Minerva and Pomona told Mr. Cole that Donald would go home to calm down and be allowed to sit his exams after kidnapping Ben.
• Pomona visited Ben in the Hospital Wing, then left Hogwarts for the summer solstice full moon.
• Severus learned from Professor Carter about goblin-made silver, the Black family’s goblets, and the legends surrounding Hogwarts’s ancient magic.

Van Helsing explained how the fuzzy grass affected the dogs and entered Rice Castle with the narrator after warning him about vampires. At Bakar Tower, Pomona joined the Werewolf capture team and shared a meal with Snape, while the chapter recounted the resolution of Cole’s accusation and reflected on pain, malice, and the choices people made.

• Van Helsing deduced that ground bees had carried nectar from the fuzzy grass to the dogs, then prepared food to question the wolves.
• The narrator cut his hands on broken glass atop the wall, and he and Van Helsing found a collapsed section and entered Rice Castle.
• Pomona arrived at Bakar Tower, where Barnaby, Cecil, and Snape studied a map after reports of Blackbacks in the northeastern bog.
• Pomona brought lunch, and Snape ate with her before returning to the map without touching her milk wine jelly.
• Dumbledore admitted Cole had not hurt Barnaby, and Cooper’s testimony left Cole facing at most an internal school warning.
• Pomona reflected on maleficium, the danger of pursuing a perfect world, and how pain could restrain harmful choices.

The narrator and Van Helsing found Jason, a bloodied patient of Doctor Self, in the fog-shrouded ruins and brought him back to the checkpoint. At camp, Pomona warned Barnaby that Paul was trying to turn him toward darkness and told him to collect one hundred Dugbog tongues before joining the mission.

• The narrator and Van Helsing explored a ruined chapel and heard an animal feeding in the fog.
• A starving man attacked the narrator and drank his blood, but Van Helsing restrained him and identified him as Jason, Doctor Self's patient.
• Van Helsing led Jason back to the checkpoint, where the others welcomed them and the narrator asked for his hand to be bandaged.
• Pomona found Barnaby eating little and learned he planned to join the operation after Cole had called him a coward.
• Pomona showed Barnaby how to defeat a Dugbog and ordered him to collect one hundred tongues before joining the mission.
• Pomona told Barnaby that Paul wanted to turn him from the light toward darkness, then left him to begin collecting tongues.

Pomona and Cecil’s team captured the Werewolves at the fortress using Devil’s Snare and Mandrakes. After leaving the cleanup to Cecil, Pomona took Barnaby to another location, planning to speak with Flitwick once the operation was finished.

• Pomona and the Werewolf Capture Unit prepared to lure the Werewolves out of the fortress while avoiding the use of Unforgivable Curses.
• Pomona planted a seed with Toots’s Greening Potion, then flew to an abandoned dwelling and discovered a dry well containing a bronze frog statue.
• Cecil’s team lured the wolf-form Werewolves into Devil’s Snare, then used a Mandrake to knock out the pack.
• Cecil’s colleagues handcuffed the unconscious Werewolves, and Barnaby returned carrying Dugbog tongues.
• Pomona left the fortress in Cecil’s hands and told Barnaby to come with her to another location.

The chapter connected Lucy’s supernatural condition and Jason’s unexplained state to Van Helsing’s investigation, while Pomona, Barnaby, and Severus explored a hidden passage in the fortress. They discovered a sealed door bearing a three-faced underworld guardian and left without opening it, deciding to secure the fortress first.

• Van Helsing explained that Lucy was trapped in a waking-dream-like state in which vampires could feed on her without resistance, and said no one knew why Jason had changed.
• Pomona, Barnaby, and Severus entered the fortress cautiously, and Barnaby found a hidden entrance behind a lion-head relief.
• The three followed an old passage to a black marble door decorated with a three-faced goddess holding a dagger, goblet, and key.
• Pomona reasoned that lighting the torches might trigger a trap and noted that they had alternatives to using the Unforgivable Curses.
• Pomona identified the relief as the guardian of the underworld’s gates, and the group left the passage to make sure the fortress was safe.

After the black relief left Pomona shaken and lost in self-doubt, Severus gave her an Invigoration Potion and told her to rest while he and the others continued the investigation. In her dreams, she rejected the idea of sacrificing Barnaby’s dog to open the hidden door and saw Godric Gryffindor make his sword disappear, then pull a rabbit Patronus from his hat.

• Pomona recovered from the relief’s influence and wondered what secrets lay behind the sealed door, while Severus and Barnaby said they had felt nothing.
• Severus sent Barnaby to catch dragonflies, and Barnaby disappeared before Pomona could confront him.
• Pomona spiraled into doubts about her talent and Hufflepuff, then drank an Invigoration Potion and leaned against Severus as he agreed to continue the investigation.
• Pomona dreamed of choosing a longer route to uncover the hidden key rather than sacrificing Barnaby’s dog, and imagined playing Gobstones with Paul.
• Pomona dreamed that Godric Gryffindor explained how his sword could absorb things that strengthened it, then made the sword vanish and produced a rabbit Patronus from his hat.

Pomona investigated the summer-solstice mirror and learned that her sensitivity to infidelity explained her unusual reaction. After a runaway doll led her to Snape, they spoke with the doll, which seemed to be Paul, before Snape burned it and led Pomona away.

• Pomona found no unusual change in the corridor mirror and learned that the 1752 summer solstice had not coincided with a full moon.
• Albus explained that Pomona’s anger at infidelity had triggered her reaction, while she assigned Barnaby, Ben, and Liz to help Grubbly-Plank train the Trolls and settle their boundary dispute with the Centaurs.
• Pomona followed a runaway doll toward Hagrid, but Snape stopped it with the Full Body-Bind Curse and confiscated it from the Magical Instruments Club.
• Snape addressed the doll as Paul and told it that its playmates had gone to the Forbidden Forest and that other dangers surrounded them.
• After the doll asked how it could earn Snape’s trust, Snape burned it to ashes and led Pomona away by the hand.

Carter and Severus investigated Barnaby’s discoveries and Apulia Moore’s lost Unspeakable key while Pomona and Severus spent time together discussing the summer holiday. The chapter ended with Pomona returning to the cellar after noticing Filch’s cat seemed normal again.

• Severus gave Filch a quill that jabbed anyone trying to steal confiscated belongings, earning Filch’s loyalty and patrol reports.
• Carter grew impatient for news from Barnaby, prompting Ben Cooper to stop doing homework in Carter’s office.
• Severus told Pomona that Albus wanted them to wait for Barnaby to act, and explained Apulia Moore’s lost skeleton key and her ancestor’s Daedalian Keys.
• Pomona and Severus discussed summer plans, and she asked him to help catch dragonflies for her potion research.
• Severus reminded Pomona to use the Two-Way Mirror, and she agreed on the condition that he not stay up brewing Potions.
• Pomona encountered Filch’s cat staring into midair and was relieved that it seemed normal again.

Pomona considered the school’s projects, potions, and Sirius Black’s betrayal while Snape contacted her after exams. The chapter ended with Snape asking her to wait for him at the school gate and insisting it was not a date.

• Leeds chose to study rewilding Graphorns for her internship, and Pomona gave her a velvet pouch in return for the altered crossbody bag.
• Snape and Herbert Spring treated students poisoned by Wit-Sharpening Potion, and Snape threatened Oggs after his second hospitalization that month.
• Pomona reflected on Snape’s differences from Zygmunt Budge’s Shrinking Solution recipe and on Lucius Malfoy’s profitable investments.
• Pomona recalled the villager’s encounter with a Werewolf and questioned whether Sirius Black had betrayed the Potters.
• Snape contacted Pomona through the Two-Way Mirror, asked her to wait at the school gate, and said it was not a date.