Chapter Summaries

Pomona reflected on how heuristics, conformity, and personal principles shaped people’s judgments, connecting those ideas to law, war, and the value others assigned to people. She then walked with Severus, who chased students skipping class, while Pomona pushed him onward through the corridor.

• Pomona considered how people relied on quick judgments and social conformity, using the Trojan War floats, the emperor’s clothes, and the cave as examples.
• Pomona recalled that she had introduced Severus to the Centaurs because she believed he needed to act rather than remain buried in theory, and she explained why she thought Grindelwald could not be stopped.
• Severus shouted at students in the corridor, but they ran away faster instead of stopping.
• Pomona laughed as she remembered Odysseus and the Cyclopes, then shoved Severus onward and asked why he wore so many robes in summer.
• Severus ignored Pomona and hurried after the students who had skipped class, while she jogged to catch up.

Pomona connected Homeric stories of justice, war, and Poseidon’s earth-shaking power to the ancient passages beneath Hogwarts. She warned Severus that an earthquake could threaten the school, and he began moving students outside while Pomona hurried to decide what to do next.

• Pomona reflected on Achilles’ shield, Homeric law, and the Trojan War as she pursued students who had skipped class and heard what she thought might be the Mermaids’ song.
• Pomona realized that Poseidon had punished Odysseus for blinding the Cyclops and considered whether an earthquake could endanger Hogwarts’ old castle and its secret passages.
• Pomona grabbed Severus’ robe and warned him that the school’s many passages might make it vulnerable to an earthquake.
• Severus said Hogwarts was already a thousand years old and turned to move the students outside the castle.
• Pomona protested that her earthquake idea had no evidence, then hurried to find a solution before the situation worsened.

Pomona reflected on justice and the gods’ treatment of mortals before disguising herself as a Hufflepuff student to join a group searching Hogwarts for a missing girl. The chapter ended with Pomona, calling herself Nox, setting off with Tonks, Cooper, Barnaby, and Dexter.

• Thetis asked Zeus to honor Achilles by giving the Trojans strength, and the chapter contrasted Homeric customs of justice with the behavior of Odysseus, his hosts, and the gods.
• Pomona disguised herself as a student, intending to use the truants’ rule-breaking to make them accomplices, but Filch rushed past muttering about locking people up.
• Pomona took a secret passage to Boathouse Square and found Tonks, Ben Cooper, Barnaby Lee, and Dexter searching for a missing girl while some of their companions were absent.
• Pomona warned the group that Filch was coming and said she wanted to protect Hogwarts, then asked whether they were looking for the missing girl.
• Barnaby invited Pomona to join the search, and she introduced herself as Nox.

The chapter recounted the aftermath of the Trojan War and Athena’s visit to Telemachus, then followed Pomona and the students searching Hogwarts for Kelly Walton. Pomona left the group to follow Dexter, who seemed to be tracking an invisible trail.

• The chapter described the dead being buried, Troy’s eventual fall, and the Achaean leaders’ journeys home after the war.
• Athena visited Odysseus’s house in disguise, and Telemachus welcomed her and offered her wine during a sacrifice.
• Telemachus told Nestor why he had come to Pylos while the suitors plotted against him and Penelope at home.
• Pomona, Tonks, Cooper, and Barnaby encountered Hagrid while searching for Kelly Walton, and Hagrid said he had searched the floor without finding her.
• Peeves teased Tonks, and Pomona noticed Dexter following an invisible trail before she quietly went after him.

Pomona and her friends searched for a hidden passage near the History of Magic classroom while Snape contacted her through a Two-Way Mirror. Pomona suspected the entrance responded to sound and left to pursue another way to find it before the school evacuated that night.

• Sirius and Pomona discussed whether the Chamber of Secrets existed and why its entrance might have been hidden.
• Dexter led Pomona and her friends to a platform near the History of Magic classroom, where they investigated a solid wall for a hidden passage.
• Pomona spoke with Snape through the Two-Way Mirror and told him she suspected the passage might be connected to the castle's ancient magical power.
• Pomona tried saying “Lunars,” but the wall did not react in daylight, and Snape told her all students would evacuate that night.
• Pomona warned Snape that a whale's call might cause destructive vibrations and said there was another way to act before leaving the platform.

Pomona investigated the infected parts of Hogwarts and learned that the damage threatened the castle’s load-bearing structures, while the Moonstone Garden’s entrance remained unknown. After she and Severus discovered how the intruders had entered the hidden chamber, they searched for a way to get inside themselves.

• Pomona learned from Sen Bakar that a secret society called the Moonstone Garden existed, but nobody knew its entrance.
• Pomona studied the Hogwarts map and realized the infected spots covered important pillars and walls whose damage could bring down the castle.
• Severus found Pomona trembling, draped his cloak around her, and led her to look for Miss Walton.
• Pomona and Severus found Barnaby, Ben Cooper, Tonks, Thiago, and Leeds examining a blank wall and deduced that the Dark magic quill could draw the entrance into existence.
• Severus proposed blasting the entrance open as a last resort, while Pomona tried to think of a way to sneak inside.

Pomona and Severus rescued Tulip and Joy from Filch and helped the students escape. They then entered a hidden passage through the Slytherin wall and explored an abandoned underground fortress, where they discovered a waterway and a mysterious sound in the darkness.

• Pomona deduced that the serpent entrance could restore things broken down by the Vanishing Spell, then asked Severus about the Dark Lord’s method of dematerializing and restoring objects.
• Pomona stunned Mrs Norris and freed Tulip and Joy from Filch’s office, and they escaped with the other students after Peeves spotted them.
• Severus concealed Pomona from Filch, then used a spell to turn the wall into a passage and led her through it.
• Pomona and Severus explored an abandoned courtyard and fortress, finding a spiral passage that led to a waterway beneath a bridge.
• Severus decided they should return to the bridge after Pomona heard what might have been a hoarse sigh in the darkness.

Pomona and Severus discovered a hidden underground harbor beneath the ruins and followed it to a sunken plaza, where they found Kelly Walton being threatened by a tiny silver-white snake. They hid nearby and tried to determine how to rescue her without letting the snake escape or hurt her.

• Pomona and Severus cleared away debris, found a buried wooden door, and entered an underground passage leading to a harbor beneath a waterfall.
• Pomona recognized a Hogwarts boat and wondered how Kelly Walton had brought it there, while Severus explained that the harbor was the Dark Lord’s main entrance.
• Pomona took Severus’s hand and led him onward after they heard a girl crying.
• Pomona and Severus found Kelly Walton in a sunken plaza, where she refused to obey a tiny silver-white snake that threatened to turn her into bones.
• Severus urged Pomona to learn what the snake wanted before acting, while Pomona planned how to rescue Kelly without letting it escape.

Pomona and Severus realized that the silver snake was trying to make Miss Walton ring one of the Three Sisters' Bells with wind magic, and that it was gaining control. They prepared to stop it as the room’s air ran low, but Severus vanished with a Disillusionment Charm and left Pomona to carry out her plan alone.

• Pomona recalled the rivalry between Athens and Sparta while trying to stay focused on the crisis.
• Severus explained that the silver snake had placed the other two bells outside the castle and needed Miss Walton to ring the bell inside.
• Pomona realized Miss Walton was resisting the snake’s influence, but the snake seemed to be winning.
• Pomona warned that they needed to escape before the room ran out of oxygen, and Severus agreed before casting the Disillusionment Charm on himself.
• Severus told Pomona to follow her plan and stopped answering, so she descended toward the stage to make her entrance.

Pomona reflected on Athens’s history, Themistocles’s strategy, and how the city survived Persian invasion by relying on its navy, before he was eventually exiled. She then raised her wand and shouted, “Let her go!” as she considered destruction, creation, and what might remain after giving everything up.

• Pomona recalled how Attica’s terrain and maritime trade shaped Athens, and how Themistocles persuaded citizens to fund a powerful navy.
• Pomona recounted how Themistocles interpreted Delphi’s wooden-wall prophecy as a call to evacuate Athens and trust its fleet against the Persians.
• Themistocles threatened Athens’s withdrawal from the Greek alliance, forcing Sparta and its allies to defend the city-state rather than abandon it.
• After the victory at Salamis, the Athenians returned to rebuild their ruined city, then later ostracized Themistocles for his political conduct and perceived blasphemy.
• Pomona raised her wand and shouted, “Let her go!” before reflecting that destruction could also be a form of creation, even if nothing was gained.

Pomona distracted the silver snake controlling Kelly Walton long enough for Severus to capture it, and she led Kelly out of the sunken theater. The chapter then returned to Yusuf Kama’s erased memories and Sen Bakar’s horror at Grindelwald’s refined memory magic.

• Pomona challenged the silver snake on Kelly’s head while trying to keep its attention until help arrived.
• Severus struck the snake with an invisible force, trapped it in a cage, and covered the cage with his cloak.
• Kelly threw the snake away, ran to Pomona, and cried in her arms; Pomona took her out of the theater.
• Pomona paused at the top of the steps to look back at the empty theater before leaving with Kelly.
• Sen Bakar watched Grindelwald erase Yusuf Kama’s painful memory and was horrified by the result.

While Hogwarts students waited in tents for Flitwick to inspect the castle, Pomona worried that Severus’s confidence and the recent crisis might be swept up in forces beyond anyone’s control. Dumbledore invited her to join him and Severus, but she stayed outside and began selling mosquito-repellent potion to the campers.

• Pomona watched Dumbledore approach and asked whether Voldemort would return; he doubted it and told her that the Centaurs’ return was not what she assumed.
• Dumbledore said Severus had rendered a great service and invited Pomona to meet him, but she declined because there were too many people.
• Pomona reflected on Odysseus’s storm-tossed journey and compared his helplessness before fate with her own unease.
• After hearing someone complain about mosquitoes, Pomona entered the camp and offered mosquito-repellent potion for one Galleon a bottle.

Pomona reflected on Athenian democracy, the costs of empire, and her own willingness to face an unavoidable fight. Remembering Rita Lestrange and identifying with Calypso’s loneliness, she heard a French-speaking voice in the girls’ tent area and wondered who had entered.

• Pomona waited until midnight for the Council of Five Hundred to finish, then returned to the girls’ tents inside the Quidditch Pitch.
• Pomona reflected on how Athens’s citizen privileges and naval power depended on allied wealth, and how the Sicilian defeat triggered the empire’s collapse.
• Pomona decided she would not retreat if she ever faced a battle she could not avoid, even if her opponent seemed invincible.
• Pomona remembered Rita Lestrange as a hero who had stopped Grindelwald from destroying Paris, though her body had been reduced to ashes.
• Pomona wept while thinking of Calypso’s exile and loneliness, then wiped her tears and dismissed a voice she thought she had heard.
• Pomona wondered whether a boy who spoke French had slipped into the girls’ tents.

Pomona reflected on Greek and Roman history, citizenship, theater, and changing relationships before Severus visited her tent late at night. After he kissed her goodnight and left, she fell asleep dreaming that she and Severus were together at Hogwarts.

• Pomona considered how Athenian theater, sacred land disputes, and changing alliances shaped Greek society and its relationships.
• Pomona reflected on Roman traditions, Bacchanals, and how stories and social roles could be reversed.
• Pomona thought about Lily's personality and her friendship with Sirius Black.
• Severus entered Pomona's tent and asked to sleep beside her, but she told him to leave after she kissed his forehead.
• Severus kissed Pomona on the lips, wished her goodnight, and left her tent.
• Pomona fell asleep and dreamed that she ran to Severus in the Hogwarts Great Hall and kissed him to everyone's applause.

Pomona and Severus watched The Matrix and debated whether freeing humanity from the Matrix would truly save it, given the ruined world outside. Pomona explained that Morpheus’s faith in Neo would force Neo to choose between his own life and Morpheus’s, and she and Severus ended the screening reconciled.

• Pomona reflected on the Matrix, arguing that humans and machines depended on each other and that life outside the pods offered little hope.
• As the Oracle told Neo he would have to choose whether he or Morpheus died, Pomona explained to Severus that Morpheus believed Neo was the Salvator Mundi and would sacrifice himself for him.
• Severus remarked that the people in the film had wasted time, and Pomona compared their situation to Pharaoh preparing for famine by trusting Joseph.
• Severus passionately kissed Pomona, then smugly declared that the movie’s two and a half hours had not been wasted and watched the rest with his arm around her.

Pomona and Severus watched The Matrix, reflecting on machines, human survival, and the children born into a ruined world. After leaving the cinema, they kissed in a park and set off through London together without choosing a destination.

• Pomona and Severus discussed Agent Smith's desire to escape the Matrix and whether machines should do humans' work.
• Pomona lost interest in the film's fighting and questioned why people in the ruined world outside the Matrix had children.
• Pomona and Severus left the cinema, kissed in a small park, and walked away when a homeless man told them to leave.
• Pomona refused to go into a nearby hotel and persuaded Severus to wander through London with her instead.

Pomona and Severus discussed competition, the Matrix, and the limits of power while walking among Muggle students. Their conversation turned to Harry’s near-expulsion, and Pomona left Severus with a request to take her for a ride in an airship.

• Pomona compared the students’ hard work with the prisoner's dilemma, and Severus likened it to Hermione borrowing a Time-Turner.
• Pomona used The Matrix to suggest that systems might depend on preserving the people and threats they control, while Severus argued that the Matrix could not become humanity’s master because it understood its limits.
• Pomona bought ice cream in line behind elementary school students, and Severus mocked her for waiting instead of cutting in.
• Severus said he had not been talking about Harry and Ron when he criticized those who believed themselves omnipotent, and Pomona defended keeping Harry at Hogwarts rather than expelling him.
• Pomona pointed out an airship and asked Severus to take her up in it, so he rapped her on the head.

Severus and Pomona discussed Agent Smith’s attempt to preserve himself within the Matrix, then went shopping while Pomona worried about trusting Severus. When a masked robber threatened a shopkeeper, they left money in the till and escaped through the back door, hearing a gunshot as they hurried away.

• Severus explained to Pomona that Agent Smith might seek to become part of the Matrix to protect his existence.
• Pomona told Severus she did not want to be like Lydia from Pride and Prejudice, and her mood improved enough to shop.
• A masked young man entered the supermarket and threatened the elderly shop owner with an axe.
• Severus floated one hundred pounds into the cash register, then led Pomona out through the back door with the shopping basket.
• Pomona and Severus heard a gunshot from inside the supermarket and hurried away without investigating.

Pomona reflected on Harry’s powerful Patronus, the nature of life and emotion, and how ignorance and injustice shaped people’s choices. After Severus asked whether she wanted to keep exploring, Pomona shook her head, and he Apparated away with her.

• Muggles crowded the street after gunshots drew them toward the scene, while a Joker holding balloons watched in confusion.
• Pomona considered Neo’s potential to change the world and questioned whether the Matrix was alive and capable of fearing death.
• Pomona thought about Tank’s survival outside the Matrix and the role his strength played in stopping a traitor.
• Pomona recalled a monk’s explanation of Sun Wukong’s conflict with Tang Monk and reflected on emotion, compassion, and the loss of feeling caused by Dementors or Isidora’s magic.
• Severus asked Pomona if she wanted to keep looking around, and she shook her head before he Apparated away with her.

Pomona reflected on self-protection, human laws, and the dangers of using military force to maintain order before telling Severus she wanted to stay with him rather than watch the end of The Matrix. Their quiet moment ended with Severus drawing her close as a cold wind howled outside.

• Pomona compared Sun Wukong and Nezha's freedom from restraint with humanity's rules of compassion and self-protection.
• Pomona recounted how the British government used laws and military forces against the Luddites, and how troops killed protesters after the Corn Laws were passed.
• Pomona considered how humans had built self-preservation into the Three Laws of Robotics and how people might turn against one another in a war with machines.
• Severus asked Pomona what she was thinking about, and she said she wanted to be with him rather than finish watching The Matrix.
• Pomona and Severus discussed Helen, Paris, and Salazar Slytherin's parents before Severus covered her with his body as the wind howled outside.