Chapter Summaries

Pomona reflected on Qin law, punishment, history, and the value of merchants and cultural understanding while dancing with a wizard dressed in black. She wondered whether Slytherin understood water’s virtues and what the core of Eastern thought really was.

• Pomona compared Qin’s strict laws and punishments with later Han leniency, weighing deterrence against the costs of imprisonment and lost labor.
• Pomona considered how merchants improved city life and how inequality and jealousy could drive people toward violence.
• Pomona contrasted legal traditions such as Qin Legalism, Han adjudication, and the Western Good Samaritan law, and worried that Chinese Muggles knew little about their own legal heritage.
• Pomona thought about the danger to Chinatown residents if the British Ministry of Magic failed to protect them from Werewolves.
• Pomona remembered a girl in white at the British Museum and reflected on Qin’s reverence for water as she danced with a wizard in black.
• Pomona wondered whether Slytherin understood Laozi’s ideal of water and whether Eastern culture’s core was something other than money.

Pomona and Severus argued over her fear that he would abandon her and over how she had shaped Cedric and the Hufflepuff boys. Severus reassured her that he wanted to spend his life with her, proposed again, and Pomona accepted, leaving them together without legal marriage or binding vows.

• Severus warned Pomona that Cedric’s rigid devotion to honor could lead him to extremes, and criticized her for pushing Hufflepuff boys toward a more masculine ideal.
• Pomona admitted she feared Severus would tire of her or leave her for a younger woman, and Severus told her he wanted no other woman in their lives.
• Severus said Pomona had helped him rebuild his shattered life and that he wanted her to live comfortably, while Pomona reflected on women’s vulnerability and the dangers of loveless or unequal marriages.
• Severus knelt and proposed to Pomona again, saying he wanted to be with her whenever she needed him.
• Pomona accepted Severus’s proposal and kissed him, though they made no Unbreakable Vow and had no legal marriage.

Pomona reflected on Chinese wizarding history, violence, and resistance while discussing current conflicts with Severus over lunch. Severus explained his plans for the surviving werewolves, and their conversation ended with disagreement over the origins of the Black Death.

• Pomona considered how Chinese wizards stayed apart from international affairs and how different moral traditions shaped resistance and violence.
• Pomona said Iris wanted to ruin Blaise Zabini by sending him to Moldova, and Severus implied he had asked her to bring it up.
• Pomona told Severus that he could speak to her directly and took his hand affectionately.
• Severus said the werewolves who survived execution would be held at a sanatorium until they learned how to behave humanely, and that Belby and Osbott could compete over the land.
• Severus described power as the basis for exchange or plunder, and said he believed Chinese claims that the Black Death had not been plague.

Pomona and Hermione discussed using a political figure’s apparent visit to London Chinatown as cover to investigate a possible Accionite attack on a nuclear power plant. Pomona left hoping the danger and the suspected connection to Slytherin would lead to no further suffering.

• Pomona explained that an Auror could use Polyjuice Potion to impersonate a political figure and provide cover for agents entering Chinatown.
• Hermione urged Pomona to share the Accionite intelligence with Kingsley, but Pomona refused to meet him and told Hermione to claim an anonymous source.
• Pomona warned Hermione that Muggle soldiers would be poorly equipped to face wizards and reflected on how conflict could lead to wider disasters.
• Hermione asked whether Arthur’s assassination attempt was connected to Slytherin, and Pomona said she did not know but doubted it involved the Slytherin she knew.
• Pomona returned to Muggle London, joked to two women that Aurors had mistaken Soviet agents for people seeking a flying lizard, and disappeared into the crowd.

Pomona and Severus discussed a kidnapped boy, Ma Youjiang’s evasions, and rumors of people vanishing into a hidden place beneath London. Their conversation ended with them reaffirming their love, while Pomona wondered why she had thought of Wang Mang.

• Pomona reflected on Chinese communities in Britain, underground money networks, and the kidnappings targeting wealthy Chinese students.
• Severus told Pomona that a boy had been kidnapped and that the boy’s parents had asked Ma Youjiang for help.
• Pomona urged Severus to consider Liverpool as a possible target and to use false intelligence against the Werewolf rather than repeat Voldemort’s mistakes.
• Severus described rumors of Kamikakushi and a homeless man who had returned from a seemingly paradisiacal underground place.
• Pomona said she would go wherever Severus went once matters were settled, and Severus kissed her.
• Pomona thought that Wang Mang was not such a terrible person, then wondered why he had come to mind.

Pomona visited Zhang Tao to discuss protecting Liverpool’s Chinatown from a possible werewolf attack during the Lantern Festival. Zhang Tao revealed that Qingchen was Ma Youjiang’s younger sister, whom he had adopted, and worried about who would carry on their traditions.

• Pomona followed Zhang Tao’s business card to his studio near Kew Gardens and was admitted by Qingchen.
• Pomona asked Zhang Tao how he had recognized her despite her disguise, and he said he remembered her voice and spoke of fate.
• Pomona began explaining her plan to defend Liverpool’s Chinatown from werewolves during the Lantern Festival.
• Zhang Tao interrupted to reveal that Qingchen was Ma Youjiang’s younger sister and that he had adopted her.
• Zhang Tao explained that he had not adopted Ma Youjiang because he was too untamed to heed advice, then worried about who would inherit their traditions.

Pomona and Zhang Tao discussed freedom, compassion, social decline, and the need for opposing forces to sustain life. Their conversation ended with Zhang Tao comparing their relationship to Pi and the tiger, leaving them to wonder which of them was the human and which was the beast.

• The chapter described Zhang Xueliang’s famous use of money to make an insulting white man apologize, then traced how personal motives and chance events shaped Chinese history.
• Pomona considered a plan to lure Liverpool’s werewolves onto boats during the Lantern Festival, trap them with Devil’s Snare, and burn them, but the Chinese community first had to cooperate.
• Ma Qingchen served tea before Zhang Tao dismissed her, and Pomona saw her lack of freedom as a kind of imprisonment.
• Pomona told Zhang Tao that Dumbledore had taught her to believe in love and pity those who lived without it, while Zhang Tao argued that compassion and mutual care were lacking in Western civilization.
• Pomona and Zhang Tao discussed Japan’s declining population and Mouse Utopia, which they connected to the danger of a society without struggle or instinctive drive.
• Zhang Tao said people needed to stand opposed to each other, comparing their relationship to Pi and the tiger; Pomona asked which of them was the human and which was the beast.

Pomona reflected on love, women’s freedom, and the compromises people made for survival while holding the jade pendant Zhang Tao had given her. She set it aside and decided to make desserts for him as repayment.

• Pomona admired the jade pendant from Zhang Tao and hoped he would find someone who could give him freedom.
• Pomona considered how women’s lives and choices were shaped by love, marriage, money, and unequal laws.
• Pomona recalled Lily’s influence on James and Harry and regretted that Severus had sent Harry to die.
• Pomona thought of Rose leaving Carl for Jack, who offered her happiness and a chance to face hardship together.
• Pomona placed the pendant on the table and decided to send Zhang Tao desserts by owl.

Pomona reflected on how unchecked freedom, crowd behavior, and fear could shape people, then considered how China might attract talent and how elites prepared their children for power. She finished baking a cheesecake but realized she had no owl to deliver it.

• Pomona watched the crowd react to Marina’s experiment and drew the curtains, disturbed by their excitement over violence.
• Pomona considered spreading warnings about Yellowstone’s possible eruption to unsettle Americans and encourage migration to China.
• Pomona reflected on elite education, parental responsibility, and international students who became attached to life abroad.
• Pomona finished packing a baked cheesecake and complained that she had no owl to deliver it.

Pomona reflected on freedom, catastrophe, and the Tang dynasty’s defeat and resettlement of the Turks while discussing history with Severus. Kreacher arrived with news that Mr. Zhang enjoyed her cake, and Pomona offered to reveal the island where Raffles was being held so they could plan a rescue.

• Pomona considered how despair and disaster created ideal conditions for Dementors and discussed the dangers of pursuing freedom without restraint.
• Pomona recounted how Li Jing and Su Dingfang surprised the Eastern Turks at Yinshan, defeating them and enabling the Tang to resettle and feed the displaced people.
• Pomona described the Tang Lantern Festival and compared Eastern and Western attitudes toward warfare, harm, and vigilance.
• Kreacher reported that Mr. Zhang liked Pomona’s cake.
• Pomona told Kreacher she was ready to discuss rescuing Raffles and could reveal the location of the island.

Pomona greeted her neighbors, transformed an Easter sculpture into a panda, and returned to find Severus angry and discouraged. As piano music filled the apartment, she and Severus kissed, and he feared she was only a fantasy.

• Pomona delivered a cheesecake to her neighbors and asked the pianist to surprise her with a new song.
• Pomona changed the enormous Easter sculpture into a panda and returned home to find Severus in a foul mood.
• Pomona and Severus argued about the panda's name before he chased her around their apartment.
• The neighbors played “What a Wonderful World,” and Pomona stopped running so Severus could catch her and kiss her.
• Severus called Pomona his rose and asked God to tell him she was not a fantasy, while she held him and assured him she was there.

Pomona and Severus discussed Marina’s experiment and how fear, crowds, and scapegoating could unleash human cruelty, then turned to a conspiracy stoking anti-Chinese violence in London. The chapter ended with Pomona reflecting on public judgment, celebrity accusations, and how people rejected truths that challenged their assumptions.

• A man and a woman listened to Bach after he lit a Chinese cigarette with magic, while they reflected on Marina’s account of the audience’s violence during her experiment.
• Severus told Pomona that Ma Youjiang blamed Guangdong people for a plague and spread claims that foreigners had released it to target Chinese people.
• Severus warned that London’s Chinatown residents might possess weapons and explosives, and Pomona considered trusting them to defend their homeland.
• Severus objected that Britain’s land was being claimed and complained that Chinese immigrants wanted to restore the custom of burning paper money for ancestors.
• Pomona dismissed reporters’ fixation on Michael Jackson and reflected that people accepted rumors as truth when those rumors matched what they wanted to believe.

Pomona reflected on epidemics, collective panic, survival, and the way women were blamed for human suffering, connecting those ideas to her own world and to Severus's past. After Severus finished bathing, he asked about her book, and Pomona handed it to him, intending to ask which interpretation he preferred.

• Pomona compared historical plagues with the epidemic in Guangzhou and considered how fear, scapegoating, and collective behavior shaped people's responses.
• Pomona connected Hufflepuff's competitive education to Cedric's death and considered competing interpretations of the story of Pi Patel and the Bengal tiger.
• Pomona reflected on women's survival, love, and the way society blamed women, then sighed and put down the book.
• Pomona thought about Severus's Unbreakable Vow to Narcissa Malfoy and recalled Draco saying Bella cursing her was not his fault.
• Severus came out of the bath and asked Pomona whether the book was interesting, so she handed it to him.

Severus read to Pomona while reflecting on cruelty, gambling, consumerism, and the traps people entered through desire and denial. When he admitted that Death Eaters and Albus forced him to kill, Pomona comforted him with a gentler version of a survival story, leaving his nightmares unanswered but easing his distress.

• Severus read aloud to Pomona and considered how people treated death, power, and nature.
• Pomona reflected on Mrs Zabini's victims and the gambler's mentality that led men to believe they could tame her.
• Severus thought about Voldemort's cruelty, Regulus's knowledge of the cave, and the innocent boy buried within a monster.
• Pomona kissed Severus and asked whether he still had nightmares, and he admitted that both the Death Eaters and Albus made him kill.
• Pomona took the book and told Severus a softened version of Pi's shipwreck story, leaving out its darkest horrors.

Pomona reflected on consumerism, Protestant work ethics, the subprime mortgage crisis, and how unchecked neglect could spread, connecting those ideas to London Chinatown’s resistance to redevelopment. She ended her morning with her husband, still weighing the choices that could make the world better or worse.

• Pomona considered how consumerism and the American Dream encouraged people to pursue status and pleasure rather than meaningful work.
• Pomona explained how irresponsible lending and rising property prices had fueled America’s subprime mortgage crisis.
• Pomona warned that rent hikes in London Chinatown could spread, raise business costs, and cause layoffs, like damage left unrepaired under the broken windows theory.
• Pomona compared society’s moral decline to the Aurors’ cruelty and wondered whether Gawain Robards had become a beast.
• Pomona told her husband good morning and offered him coffee, and he kissed her after complaining that it was too sweet.

Pomona reflected on Zhang Tao’s ideas about yin and yang, health, and public responsibility while discussing Severus’s behavior and Ma Youjiang’s family with him. The chapter ended with Pomona and Severus considering whether Ma Youjiang’s sister could help control him.

• Pomona recalled Zhang Tao’s explanation of yin and yang and considered how it applied to Severus, Dumbledore, and others.
• Severus caught Pomona daydreaming, and Pomona teased him before leaving in mock anger over their forgotten anniversary.
• Severus invited Pomona to have tea with him because she was good at negotiating with people.
• Pomona told Severus that Ma Youjiang had a younger sister in Zhang Tao’s hands, though she was unsure whether Zhang Tao was telling the truth.
• Pomona explained that Ma Youjiang valued power more than women and that his sister might be his last resort.

Pomona and Zhang Tao discussed Chinese history, consumerism, hardship, and the spirit of resistance while visiting a cinema and museum in Chinatown. Inspired by Zhang Tao’s account of paper transformation and Chinese myths, Pomona rejected obedience to God and chose to live by her own will.

• Pomona reflected on the Pathé Cinema’s history and on love, death, and the way history often understood unconventional people only after their deaths.
• Pomona considered how consumerism manipulated people and how scarcity could drive even civilized people toward desperation.
• Zhang Tao told Pomona that he wanted to buy back the Six Steeds of the Zhao Mausoleum, and he wept as he recalled the history behind them.
• Zhang Tao transformed a folded paper frog and explained that objects could possess human-created spirits, unlike Voldemort’s Horcruxes.
• Pomona admired the Chinese exhibits and concluded that she would not obey God’s will, choosing instead to live as a witch on her own terms.

Pomona met Ma Youjiang in a Chinatown cinema, where they discussed undercover agents, loyalty, and his place in London. She invited him to join her and friends during the Lantern Festival, then settled in to watch Infernal Affairs from the beginning.

• Pomona found Ma Youjiang guarded by Hongmen members in an old cinema and watched Infernal Affairs with him.
• Ma Youjiang compared the film’s undercover agents to Severus Snape and warned Pomona against becoming a chess piece.
• Pomona asked whether Ma Youjiang wanted to return to China, but he said Hongmen was his home and angrily defended his brothers.
• Pomona asked Ma Youjiang about Werewolves and proposed walking through Chinatown with friends during the Lantern Festival.
• As the film played Wong Sir’s funeral, Pomona wondered whether Severus had watched Albus Dumbledore’s funeral like Ah Ren watched Wong Sir’s.
• Pomona sat apart from Ma Youjiang and suggested they watch the film from the beginning.

Pomona analyzed Ah Ming’s psychological collapse and the false identities and loyalties in Infernal Affairs while watching the film with Ma Youjiang. She left Ma stunned by her prediction that Ah Ming would go mad, then reflected on Ah Ren’s loneliness and poetic nature.

• Pomona explained how Ah Ming’s undercover identity and constant pressure could lead to a split personality, while Chan Wing-yan expressed stress more openly.
• Pomona discussed psychological disorders, violence as an outlet for pressure, and the characters’ opportunistic beliefs and relationships.
• Pomona said that a madman who held too many secrets would drag everyone down with him, and Ma Youjiang reacted with surprise.
• Pomona predicted that Ah Ming would go mad, leaving Ma Youjiang wanting peace and quiet.
• Pomona learned that Ah Ren had watched an arthouse film and said that a poet lived inside him, though no one understood his loneliness.

After reflecting on Ah Ming, Ah Ren, and the moral compromises of people caught between good and evil, Pomona returned from Baidai Building to Chinatown, where Severus was waiting. Their conversation turned to whether people could choose to be good or bad, and Severus’s claim that the world needed a villain faltered when Pomona reminded him of his jealousy of James and Harry.

• Pomona reflected on Ah Ming’s inner turmoil, Ah Ren’s conviction, and the ways violence and social pressures shaped people’s choices.
• Pomona returned to Chinatown after leaving Baidai Building and found Severus waiting at the entrance.
• Pomona told Severus that the authorities had agreed to let Aurors come to Chinatown, while Severus rejected further discussion of Buddhism and Chinese people.
• Pomona asked Severus whether he wanted to be good or bad, and he argued that people judged morality by their own interests.
• Severus claimed the world needed a villain to unite good people, but Pomona challenged him by recalling his jealousy of James and Harry.