Strike!

This was Sean's first time visiting the Department of Mysteries floor. However, before Barty Jr. lost contact, Barty had already provided him with information about various departments of the Ministry of Magic on more than one occasion.

The Department of Mysteries is the highest-secret agency of the Ministry of Magic, and it contains many mysterious and unpredictable things that even the current Minister cannot know all about.

This time, Sean, Transfiguration into a middle-aged bald man, glanced back at the elevator, flicked his robe, and Dave spread his wings and flew out. Then, in mid-air, he transformed into a Thorn Sheath and hung from the ceiling.

"Notify me immediately if anything happens, Dave," he instructed.

"Clear."

Sean walked toward the simple corridor in front of him, and soon he saw a plain black door.

The information given to him by Barty Jr.. was exactly the same...

Without hesitation, Sean pushed open the pitch-black door.

He stepped across the threshold and stood in a huge circular room. Everything here was black, from the walls to the floor, like the calm surface of a lake in the darkest hour deep in the forest.

The walls were dotted with branches of candles, their blue flames flickering pitifully and weakly, offering Sean a sliver of vision.

Above the black wall, twelve identical black doors stood silently, looking completely indistinguishable, without handles or markings.

Sean slowly walked to the center of the circular room. Immediately, the black wall and the black door on it began to spin rapidly, and the blue candlelight turned into a blurry band of light.

This is one of the defense measures of the Department of Mysteries.

Once the room stopped spinning, Sean walked toward the nearest door. He didn't try to leave a mark on it because he knew it wouldn't work.

The black door was pushed open effortlessly, and Sean saw the scene inside the first room.

This is a huge square room, almost half the size of a football field. In the center is a stone pit, and around it are steep steps leading down, like a terrifying lecture hall.

Sean walked to the edge of the steps and looked down. In the very center, there was no podium, but a raised stone platform with an ancient, dilapidated archway standing on it.

There were no walls supporting the archway, and a tattered black curtain or drape hung on it. Although the air was cold and there was no wind, it swayed gently, as if it had just been touched.

"The Death Chamber ..." Sean muttered, this was not the place he was looking for.

He glanced one last time at the massive archway, and the tattered curtains, which had been moving without wind, suddenly trembled.

A strange feeling welled up in Sean's heart, as if someone was waiting for him behind the arch.

The Occlumency activated automatically, helping him resist the subtle yet alluring temptation.

There were too many strange and inexplicable things in the Department of Mysteries, so Sean didn't plan to linger and turned to walk towards the exit.

"Hmm?" Just as Sean was about to reach the door, not only he himself but also the things he carried rippled slightly with an unusual magical power, which then quickly vanished without a trace.

It was as if something was drawn to the Death Chamber.

Sean carefully examined his body and found nothing amiss. He peeked into the ring, where the Cat-Leopard Pudding was counting the snowflakes in the Landscape Orb.

"Did you guys sense anything unusual just now?" Sean asked his friends.

The Magical Creatures all said there was nothing wrong with it.

"Okay... let me know if anything is wrong, and let me know when you've finished counting the snowflakes."

After giving the order, Sean locked the ring and walked out of the black door.

Something's definitely wrong, but there's no point in dwelling on it now.

As he stepped out of the black door, the circular room immediately began to spin rapidly.

When the spinning stopped, Sean closed his eyes and sensed it. Sure enough, the Shadow Bug he had left in the Death Chamber could no longer provide any contact.

"I'll just guess and hope I get lucky..."

Sean pushed open the second door.

This was a cold room, almost as tall as a church, filled with towering shelves. These shelves were piled high with small, dusty glass spheres. Each sphere had a small, yellowed label on the shelf beneath it. Some spheres emitted a mysterious, flowing light, while others were blurry and dark, like extinguished light bulbs.

The Hall of Prophecy ... Sean recognized the room.

He suddenly had a thought: Could the Prophecy about himself be stored here?

Professor Trelawney had said that wizards have a strange sense of their own Prophecy, but when Sean closed his eyes and tried to sense it, he didn't find anything that attracted him.

"Maybe not..." Glancing at the fully stocked shelves, Sean gave up on the idea of searching for them one by one. He stopped worrying and walked out of the Hall of Prophecy.

Deep inside the hall, in a dusty corner, a gray Crystal Ball on a cushioned stool twinkled softly. However, the Crystal Ball was covered by a glass dome.

As soon as Sean left, the Crystal Ball immediately stopped flashing.

Sean, back in the circular room, pushed open the third door.

The moment the door was pushed open, he knew he had found the right place.

The ticking of hundreds of clocks was noisy and chaotic, and beautiful, sparkling light, like the shimmering of diamonds, filled his entire field of vision. When Sean squinted and adjusted to the light, he saw all kinds of clocks.

Alarm clocks, grandfather clocks, grandfather clocks, travel clocks... countless clocks ticked away, their continuous sounds filling Sean's ears.

The source of that shimmering, diamond-like brilliance was a tall, bell-shaped crystal dome located at the far end of the room.

However, Sean didn't have time to look around the strange room; someone was there.

Amidst the blinding light and the cacophony of ticking, no one noticed the unexpected arrival of a new guest in the Time Room.

Sean instantly cast the Disillusionment Charm, but to his surprise, he found that under the light of the bell-shaped crystal dome, his familiar Disillusionment Charm was completely ineffective.

His figure remained hidden in the air, but if you squinted and looked closely, you could see that there was a sudden patch of darkness in the air.

Let's make do for now... Sean hid behind a grandfather clock that was hard to spot.

Only then did he have time to look at the two people standing in front of the bell-shaped crystal dome.

A man in a suit is rummaging through something, waving his wand and sending parchment flying everywhere. Beside him is a Mysterious Person shrouded in a black robe.

Through the gap, Sean squinted slightly.

That figure in black robes was floating... Returners...

The man in the suit looked up, holding a thick stack of parchment in his hand.

"Sir, this should be the information you need, but it may not be complete—although the Unspeakables are under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Magic, they tend to become silent and dull after spending too much time in the Department of Mysteries, making them very troublesome to deal with."

"Hmm." The man in black responded in a low voice. Sean didn't see him extend his hand; instead, he waved his sleeve, and the thick stack of parchment flew into his arms.

The man in the suit seemed to want to curry favor, bowing somewhat obsequiously as he said, "Sir, if you're not in a hurry, I can help you search again. There's still a lot of information about time travel accidents..."

The man in black robes interrupted him, his voice hoarse. "No need. The Elder is waiting for my news. I only need to obtain the most crucial information."

"Oh, I see. Okay, okay." The man in the suit rubbed his hands together somewhat awkwardly.

Then, the man in the black robe floated toward the exit, with the man in the suit following closely behind.

Sean, who was hiding, frowned. The other party had not noticed him, but he was now facing a choice.

He could wait for the two to leave and then search for the information he needed on his own. However, the other party had just mentioned that the core information about the time travel accident had been taken away by the man in black, Sean might not be able to find the information he needed if he stayed behind.

Following him would mean two problems: firstly, the true strength of the man in black would be unknown; secondly, the Ministry of Magic might escort him away, leaving you potentially facing a group of elite wizards...

Sean is now certain that the man in black robes is a member of the Returners, and the Elder he mentioned is likely the leader of the Returners.

From this perspective, it seems that even the Returners, apart from Dumbledore, are unaware of the truth behind this World Disturbance. They only sensed that it was related to a time travel incident, so they sent people to the Ministry of Magic to retrieve information.

After a brief moment of thought, Sean made a decisive decision: he could not let the other party take the information away.

The Returners ' magic possesses the properties of Obscurus, a fact Sean discovered from Gormlaith Gaunt. He initially thought she was some kind of magical being, but the appearance of the ' Silent Mouth,' which can devour Obscurus, confirmed to Sean that the Returners and Obscurus are inextricably linked.

The Returners can be somewhat inaccurately categorized as a type of Half-Ghost possessing magic from their previous life, but with a nature similar to the Obscurus. And Sean happens to have a way to deal with them—thanks to Voldemort for the spell, and thanks Gormlaith Gaunt for being his guinea pig.

Sean didn't move, but instead sent a message to Dave.

"Notify me immediately if anyone comes out, then make some noise, but don't expose yourself. Tell the two people who come out later to go to the lobby slowly."

"Received." Dave's intelligence is improving, and he can now clearly understand Sean's meaning and carry it out effectively.

Sean quickly walked to the front of the bell-shaped crystal dome. He scanned the folders around him that had been flipped through, and sure enough, he didn't see a single document about the time travel accident.

"Most of them should have been taken..." Sean quickly flipped through all the folders, tossing any folder with a date on it into the ring first.

Take it regardless of whether it's useful or not.

Having done all that, Sean slipped through the gap in the table to the other side; he needed to confirm something.

He quickly found what he was looking for: a huge glass cabinet that was constantly breaking and rebuilding.

The cabinet contains hourglasses of various shapes. The hourglasses and the cabinet constantly break into pieces, and then, as if the scene Rewind, they recombine to their original, intact state.

Stephanie's information to Sean was indeed accurate; all the Time-Turner had been destroyed.

It was most likely Grindelwald who did it... Sean thought silently.

He is now almost certain that the person who went back in time was not Dumbledore, but Grindelwald.

However, he didn't know the other party's purpose in doing so, or what consequences it would bring.

Was all the Time-Turner destroyed to prevent anyone from going back to the past...?

Just as Sean was pondering, Dave sent him a message.

He stopped thinking and ran out quickly.

As Sean stepped out of the Time Room, the Disillusionment Charm returned to normal, and he quickly walked out of the circular room while still invisible.

In the shabby corridor, the man in the suit and the man in the black robe were dealing with stones falling from the ceiling— Dave had directly caused the ceiling to collapse.

"An enemy is attacking?!" the man in the suit shouted in panic.

The man in black robes was much calmer than him. After flicking his sleeve to knock the falling black stones aside, he said in a deep voice, "Call for backup. We won't go out yet; the elevator is too dangerous."

Sean secretly tucked the Thorn Sheath into his pocket and disappeared Silencio.

He used the Trajectory Flash technique to return from the Department of Mysteries on the ninth floor to the lobby.

At this moment, hurried footsteps could be heard, and Hit Wizard and Auror were rushing over. Some of them stayed in the lobby, while others ran towards the elevator.

Sean emerged from the shadows and snapped his fingers at a service counter in the distance. There, an employee who had been sending and receiving messages paused, his eyes momentarily losing their sparkle.

He stood up from his seat and ran to the center of the hall in a panic, just like the other ordinary employees who went to inquire about the Auror's situation out of concern. Among these people, several were in the same situation as him.

Sean then teleported to one side of the corridor, where an Auror, seemingly oblivious to the sudden appearance of the newcomer, continued to stare intently at everything around him.

Sean snapped his fingers, and the Auror immediately hurried away, hiding himself in an empty office.

Sean's face contorted, transforming into the appearance of that Auror.

Although coming to the Ministry of Magic was a last-minute decision, he still made some arrangements in advance—such as a few minor Imperius Curse.

At this moment, the elevator returned to the lobby from the ninth floor, and a group of people escorted the man in the suit out. The man in the suit had somehow put on a large trench coat.

Sure enough, the Returners cannot make a public appearance yet... Sean narrowed his eyes.

That guy should be hiding inside the man in the suit. This would be troublesome for a person with a physical body, but it's very simple for a ghost... However, the man in the suit probably isn't having a good time.

The moment this group of people appeared, several employees who were surrounding Auror and asking him about the situation suddenly sprang up and pulled out their wands, pointing them at the man in the suit.

In other corners of the hall, several people also pulled out their wands with vacant eyes.

"Boom!" The Ministry Atrium was suddenly filled with various explosions. The chandeliers on the ceiling shattered and fell down. The security checkpoint, the Fountain of Magical Brethren, and the Floo Network fireplace were all attacked by Explosion Charm.

The group of people who had just stepped out of the elevator were instantly enveloped by the curse.

Wishing all students taking the college entrance exam tomorrow the best of luck and a triumphant return.