Chapter Summaries

Nelson watched a memory of Hagrid meeting a disguised wizard who helped him understand his strength as a half-giant and encouraged his bond with magical creatures. The wizard revealed his name as Ivy and said Hagrid would see him again if he befriended many magical creatures.

• A disguised wizard led Hagrid from Knockturn Alley to Fortescue's dessert shop after Hagrid bought an Acromantula egg.
• The wizard questioned Hagrid about magical creatures and learned about Ludwig's creature-merging ability and Nagini.
• The wizard demonstrated that Hagrid's half-giant body resisted a Golden Knife and Acromantula venom.
• Hagrid asked the wizard's name, and the wizard revealed himself as Ivy, saying they were both outsiders and would meet again if Hagrid befriended many magical creatures.

Nelson and Tom investigated the spider incident and learned that Hagrid’s memories had been altered by a man named Ivy, who carried a Deathly Hallows locket. Nelson contacted Andre and learned that no Nurmengard wizard besides Penguin’s group was in Britain, then resolved to investigate Ivy and begin an experiment that might help save an Obscurial.

• Nelson and Tom brought Hagrid to Dumbledore, where Tom suggested using Veritaserum on the school and Dumbledore rejected the idea.
• Nelson told Dumbledore that Hagrid’s memories had been tampered with and identified the mysterious egg-giver as Ivy, who wore a Deathly Hallows locket.
• McGonagall dragged Hagrid away and threatened Nelson and Tom with detention, while Peeves fled after recognizing them in the corridor.
• Nelson called Andre and confirmed that no Nurmengard wizards were in Britain besides Penguin’s group; he also learned that Barry’s condition had worsened and told Andre he might be able to save an Obscurial.
• Nelson instructed Nurmengard to investigate Ivy beyond the wizarding community, then told Tom he was going to begin the experiment.

Tom and Nelson used their celestial model and a Small Silver Ball to investigate how Centaur Divination worked. Nelson concluded that Divination was observation of a person’s path through the stars, and he set out to trace that path into both the past and the future.

• On Halloween Eve, Nelson worked on a rotating flowerpot device outside the dormitory while Tom asked whether he wanted to win for himself and whether he would still pursue victory if he were wrong.
• Nelson climbed into the dormitory, read a letter Tom handed him, and noticed that Ivy might not be a true wizard and seemed to have followed him to Hogwarts.
• In the Chamber of Secrets, Tom and Nelson completed a model of the star system and used Nelson’s hourglass remote to rewind it to the night Question Mark had beaten Nelson.
• Tom threw a Small Silver Ball into the model, and its projected star map matched the celestial model’s positions from October thirty-first exactly.
• By early December, Nelson used the star map and Centaur magic to trace a black trajectory across Earth, explaining that Divination involved observing a path through the stars rather than simply predicting the future.

Nelson joined Dumbledore for Christmas at the abandoned family home in Godric's Hollow, where they cleaned the house and shared sweets. Dumbledore showed Nelson a battered, sealed suitcase from the future, and Nelson returned to Hogwarts while Dumbledore stayed behind.

• Nelson visited Dumbledore in the Headmaster's Office, and Dumbledore invited him to his home in Godric's Hollow.
• Nelson and Dumbledore used magic and Alchemical Automatons to restore the neglected house and shared Cockroach Cluster sweets.
• A phoenix delivered a damaged silver suitcase from Credence, and Dumbledore explained that it was meant for Nelson from his future self.
• Nelson examined the suitcase, found the initials N.T. beneath the bloodstains, and stored it in his small sphere without discovering how to open it.
• Dumbledore chose to remain at the house alone, and Nelson returned through the portrait to the Headmaster's Office.

Dumbledore revisited the family home and, haunted by memories of his mother and Ariana, shared a meal with Aberforth. Aberforth warned him about Nurmengard’s secret shipments and Grindelwald’s recent activities, and Dumbledore left thinking of the family he had lost.

• Dumbledore imagined a Christmas dinner with his mother, Ariana, and Aberforth, then watched the vision dissolve when he tried to touch Ariana.
• Aberforth climbed into the cottage, ate with Dumbledore, and criticized him for avoiding responsibility.
• An Exclamation Mark Nelson had left behind emerged from the Cockroach Cluster and began cleaning the table.
• Aberforth told Dumbledore that wizards were secretly moving magical creatures toward Bulgaria and gave him a list of the creatures involved.
• Aberforth reported that Grindelwald was building a scaffold, experimenting with kites, and ordering Muggle books about science and engineering.
• Aberforth returned to Nurmengard, and Dumbledore left the cottage wondering why he had stayed away from his family’s graves for so long.

Nelson brought Tom to an underground factory built in Herpo the Foul’s former resurrection site and revealed his birthday present: a fragment of death that would anchor an experiment in time travel. The chapter ended as Nelson prepared to test the leap through time at midnight.

• Nelson took Tom from school to a hidden Birdcage and descended with him into a vast underground complex where Mayflies manufactured Alchemical Automaton cores.
• Nelson showed Tom the Basilisk remains he had taken from Herpo the Foul and explained how the machines were turning the serpent into a guardian.
• Nelson told Tom he distrusted the wizards gathered at Nurmengard and had used Herpo’s abandoned site to build a factory for Mayflies.
• Nelson led Tom to a sealed room containing a fragment he had brought back from Limbo and explained that death could serve as the final anchor for a time-leaping experiment.
• Nelson wished Tom a happy birthday and revealed that the fragment was death, identifying the structure as the door in the Department of Mysteries.

Tom confronted Herpo the Foul’s death magic and overcame it, awakening greater control over dark magic. Nelson then activated his clockwork ritual to seize the future, but after Alexander forced time back by one second, Nelson vanished.

• Tom was overwhelmed by the Veil and Herpo the Foul’s magic, but the black snake within him destroyed the runes invading his eyes.
• Tom regained consciousness, confirmed that he was still himself, and used his magic to raise the fallen Basilisk bones.
• Nelson asked Tom to help identify the anchor point behind the Veil, and Tom agreed before they began the time ritual.
• Nelson’s clocks and runes shaped a magical clock face as the midnight chime connected his tower to a distant star, and Penguin declared that they had caught the future.
• Tom sent death magic into Nelson’s clock face while Nelson used the House Point Hourglass and stored magic to complete it.
• Alexander stopped the clock’s second hand and forced it backward one second, after which Nelson vanished.

Nelson’s first attempt at time travel succeeded, though it drained his magic and badly injured his arm, and he and Tom prepared to return and open the box. Meanwhile, Dumbledore learned from Chiron that a mysterious wizard had brought another Acromantula into the Forbidden Forest, while Johnny and Joseph investigated a long-dead Muggle on their lord’s orders.

• Tom pulled Nelson from the Lost Mist pool and found him pinned beneath his magically heavy overcoat until Alexander removed it.
• Tom checked Nelson’s watch and learned that Nelson’s time-travel experiment had succeeded, though Nelson had used up nearly all his magic.
• Tom discovered Nelson’s arm was badly injured by the magical exchange and agreed they should return and open the box rather than risk Credence’s life.
• Dumbledore invited Chiron to teach Arithmancy, but Chiron declined and told him another Acromantula had come from a wizard seeking to end himself.
• Johnny received orders to investigate a Muggle who had been dead for years, and Joseph urged him to finish the task before visiting Knockturn Alley.

Nelson and Tom returned from Kraków while discussing the war, Nelson’s plans after graduation, and Tom’s growing confidence that he could kill Grindelwald. Back at Hogwarts, Nelson began preparing for final exams, but his yawn during Professor Binns’s lesson left him scrambling to catch up with Marr’s story.

• Tom carried the exhausted Nelson toward Hogwarts and told him about protecting Mrs. Cole’s orphanage during the war, with help from Dumbledore.
• Tom told Nelson that a young naval officer named Jack had donated supplies to the orphanage after believing Nelson had died.
• Tom recited a lurid film advertisement from The Quibbler, and Nelson objected to its portrayal of the mysterious N.
• Nelson told Tom that he planned to spend time in the Department of Mysteries after graduation, while Tom said he had gained something that made him confident he could kill Grindelwald.
• Nelson and Tom reached the hidden teleportation array at dawn and returned to the United Kingdom.
• Nelson attended Professor Binns’s History of Magic lesson, yawned, and hurried to follow the lecture about Marr’s downfall.

Dumbledore faced Shafiq in a Wizengamot election inquiry and won the office of Chief Warlock after exposing Shafiq’s corruption and past collaboration with Grindelwald. Shafiq was left awaiting trial, while Nelson revealed that his Mayflies had helped him clean the examination room quickly.

• Professor Merrythought told Nelson that his Defense Against the Dark Arts exam would be held to N.E.W.T.s standards and ordered him to clean the room afterward.
• Shafiq invoked the rule allowing consecutive terms and competed against Dumbledore for Chief Warlock, while the candidates swore to tell the truth.
• Carrow asked Dumbledore about his stance toward Grindelwald and the Magic Factory, and Dumbledore openly supported cooperation with it.
• Old Malfoy accused Shafiq of having aided Grindelwald and exposed his corruption, prompting other Wizengamot members to reveal further crimes.
• Dumbledore took Shafiq’s seat and thanked him for the Hogwarts Express and Knight Bus before ordering that Shafiq’s trial begin.
• Nelson told Tom that his Mayflies had cleaned the examination room in ten minutes, and Tom asked what they would eat.

After Shafiq lost his position, Dumbledore and Leach discussed reforming the Wizengamot and holding Shafiq accountable for his abuses. Penguin trapped Shafiq in a magical corridor until he signed a stack of confessions, then Shafiq stumbled back into the hall.

• Nelson told Tom that his exams had gone well, apart from the possibility that the Ancient Runes professor might hold Credence's offense against her.
• Shafiq accused Dumbledore of conspiring against him, while Dumbledore rejected the accusation and spoke with the presiding witch about reforming the Wizengamot.
• Leach confronted Shafiq over corruption and abuses in the Ministry, and Shafiq insulted him before denouncing the people in the hall.
• Leach revealed a plan for a Chronicle Office that would record Shafiq's actions, and Shafiq tried to flee the Wizengamot hall.
• Penguin trapped Shafiq in a repeating corridor and forced him to sign every parchment, which he discovered was a confession.
• Shafiq rushed back into the hall clutching the signed papers, leaving the wizards there astonished.

Nelson and Tom read The Quibbler’s exposé of Shafiq’s corruption, while the magazine’s new magic lets readers share reactions worldwide. Penguin celebrated the issue’s success, then encountered Aberforth, who asked to speak with him after a dangerous misunderstanding with Penguin’s security guard.

• Nelson showed Tom the magazine cover’s shifting depictions of Shafiq and explained that Caractacus Burke had exposed the Chief Justice using a Time-Turner prototype.
• Tom read the evidence of Shafiq’s embezzlement and learned that Shafiq faced 195 years and three months in Azkaban.
• After Nelson and Tom left the magazine at Hogsmeade’s entrance, readers’ comments appeared in copies worldwide through the magazine’s magical network.
• Penguin left the Ministry celebrating the free issue’s reach and told his subordinate that the magazine’s power lay in giving people free thought.
• Aberforth confronted Penguin, and Penguin’s subordinate attacked him; Penguin and Aberforth deflected the spell before it corroded a nearby wall.
• Aberforth accepted Penguin’s explanation of the attack as a misunderstanding and politely asked him for a conversation.

Dumbledore learned from Shafiq’s confession how corruption and injustice had shaped the Wizengamot and how Shafiq had helped Grindelwald escape, then received a memory that alarmed him. He rushed to Diagon Alley and found a craftsman driven from his workshop as the remaining old workshops were being destroyed.

• Dumbledore confronted the disgraced Shafiq, who admitted that his family name had secured his rise and that he had concealed the theft of German Ministry defense plans and delayed reinforcements in Paris.
• Shafiq gave Dumbledore a memory from his endless loop and warned that destroying the existing system could be simpler than clearing its corruption piece by piece; Dumbledore’s expression turned cold.
• Dumbledore left the Wizengamot hall, telling Nobby Leach to handle the confessions, and Apparated away despite the hall’s protections.
• Dumbledore rushed to Diagon Alley and saw a wizard drive an elderly craftsman from his workshop before the building collapsed.
• Dumbledore looked across the standardized buildings and the lone remaining Malfoy workshop and wondered whether he had arrived too late.

Dumbledore confronted Edward Fudge, who explained why he had become a thug serving Malfoy and anticipated profiting from the new Magic Factory. Penguin then described to Aberforth how the factory would exploit wizards’ hunger for easy Galleons to dismantle the old order, leaving Aberforth with a movie ticket and a letter for Lord Wiltening.

• Dumbledore stopped Edward Fudge from driving an old craftsman away and recognized him as a former student who had become a servant of Lord Malfoy.
• Edward said he had rejected low-status work after his uncle fell from power and preferred bullying workers at Malfoy’s manor for a handsome salary.
• Edward predicted that equipment from Nurmengard would let him command the district, while Dumbledore worried about the upheaval the plan would cause.
• Penguin told Aberforth that the Magic Factory would draw wizards in with free Galleons and make them dependent on its production line, helping reshape the old social order.
• Aberforth asked why Grindelwald would pursue the plan, and Penguin clarified that his lord was Lord Wiltening before leaving Aberforth a movie ticket and an envelope to deliver.

Nelson and Tom saw Hogsmeade wizards crowd around The Quibbler’s magical instant communication feature, which Nelson used to direct attention back to the issue’s accusations against Shafiq. After Aberforth delivered Penguin’s warning about Nurmengard’s movements, Nelson and Tom learned that a Muggle was coming after Nelson.

• Nelson and Tom followed a crowd to the owl shed, where Hogsmeade residents eagerly snatched copies of The Quibbler and discovered they could communicate through its pages.
• Nelson used a wind blade to scatter the magazines among the crowd and wrote a message promoting further discussion of the issue’s contents, intensifying the comments about Shafiq.
• Nelson and Tom discussed the magazine’s unprecedented communication magic and Nelson invited Tom to attend a wizarding fair in France during the holidays.
• Aberforth joined Nelson and Tom, then privately warned Nelson that dark wizards from Nurmengard were secretly reallocating people.
• Nelson read Penguin’s letter about Johnny and the others’ investigation, and he and Tom reacted with disbelief when they learned a Muggle was targeting Nelson.

Nelson and Tom traveled home after the school year, discussing Walburga’s results and unresolved questions about the Sakes family. At the station, Nelson reunited with Jack, who mistakenly believed Nelson was the resistance hero from a popular novel, leaving Nelson desperate to flee while Tom laughed.

• Nelson asked Walburga about her N.E.W.T.s, and she said she had earned O's in magical creatures and Divination and A's in everything else before dragging Alphard from the carriage for teasing her.
• Nelson told Tom that Gioconda seemed to be trying to change, then explained that Johnny’s investigation had confirmed Mr. Ivy was Mrs. Sakes’s Muggle brother and suggested his experiment might have succeeded.
• Nelson and Tom fell asleep on the train, then encountered Jack at the station, where Jack recognized Nelson as his former companion from the Icarus.
• Jack invited Nelson and Tom to his office and recounted his years in the Royal Navy and his reunion with Nelson after the war.
• Jack told Nelson that people were searching for him because a popular novel and film portrayed a namesake as a resistance hero in Kraków; Tom laughed and offered Jack a movie ticket.

Nelson and Tom traveled to Paris for a Wizards’ World’s Fair held alongside the city’s 1944 celebrations, where Nelson hinted at a magical invention that could improve lives. At their hotel, Tom spotted a queue for a Parisian attraction called “Finding... Pythia?” and saw Nelson react stiffly.

• Nelson and Tom sailed to France, then traveled by train to Paris, where they encountered the city’s festive crowds and visitors in eccentric Wizard clothing.
• Nelson explained that France was hosting a Wizards’ World’s Fair alongside the Muggle fair, and that the gathering would also select the president of the International Confederation of Wizards.
• Tom and Nelson bought cream puffs from a French vendor, and Nelson hurried Tom away after he proposed calling them “Blitz Cream Puffs.”
• Nelson told Tom that the Wizards’ Fair shared the Muggle fair’s “Toward the World of Tomorrow” theme and hinted that Britain would present an invention capable of changing lives.
• Tom and Nelson checked into the same hotel room that old Riddle had once occupied, where Tom noticed a long queue near the Hidden Place entrance.
• The hotel manager identified the popular attraction as “Finding... Pythia?” and called it a treasure of French spirit, while Nelson stiffened.

Nelson and Tom learned that children had vanished near the Pythia statue and returned with strange tales, then headed toward the Wizarding World Expo. They reached the crowded entrance to the Hidden Place, where wizards, Muggles, and law enforcement mingled as the fair’s preparations continued.

• Nelson and Tom heard a waiter explain that missing children had returned after a week claiming the Pythia statue was alive and led to a world of witchcraft.
• Nelson bought tickets to a Notre-Dame de Paris production, and he and Tom discussed why the French Ministry of Magic had not placed Muggle-Repelling Charms near the statue.
• A Muggle pickpocket collided with Nelson and fled, and Nelson and Tom encountered the self-proclaimed “Napoleon” searching for him.
• Nelson identified the man accompanying “Napoleon” as a swindler and noticed that the chieftain wore a magically Transfigured locket.
• Nelson and Tom reached the Expo grounds, where Aurors approached an old witch tempting Muggle children and crowds of wizards and Muggles filled the area around the Hidden Place entrance.

Nelson and Tom witnessed three young wizards brutalize Ferdinand, his grandfather, and his little brother at the Hidden Place, then intervened and defeated the attackers. Nelson gave the little brother a repaired Wand, while he and Tom left after Nelson accused the Aurors of allowing the violence to happen.

• Nelson and Tom failed to enter the Hidden Place at first, then watched two boys and an old man fly out of Pythia's statue as three young wizards pursued them.
• The young men called Ferdinand a Mudblood, broke his Wand, and tormented him and his grandfather while the spectators and Aurors stood by.
• Tom attacked the three men after declaring that he was a Mudblood too, then forced them to accept his duel challenge and defeated them with the same minor hexes they had used on Ferdinand.
• Nelson covered the little brother's eyes, returned his repaired Wand, and reassured him that Ferdinand was alive.
• Tom treated the unconscious boy and levitated the attackers as slugs fell onto nearby Aurors, while Nelson accused the Aurors of letting the violence happen and left with Tom.

After Nelson and Tom left, Zweig treated Ferdinand while Jin watched in silence and then fled the crowd. Gioconda found Jin in the Paris streets and offered to teach him how to use his magic.

• A French Auror captain ordered his team to tend to the injured and avoid confronting Nelson and Tom.
• Zweig helped heal Ferdinand, while Barry confirmed the boy would recover and bantered with Zweig as they left.
• Jin ran away before Ferdinand could see him, and an Acolyte-marked stranger retrieved a silver chain link from the stones.
• The American wizards criticized the French Ministry, and a reader spotted the incident in The Quibbler.
• Gioconda approached Jin in the street, asked him to come with her, and offered to teach him how to use his magic.