Chapter Summaries

Tom discovered a reporter sneaking through the passage and sent a venomous Little Snake after him, while Nelson met Slytherin to hear the history of the Dementor uprising. Slytherin revealed that Herpo the Foul’s dark magic had enabled the disaster and warned that its power could persist even after Herpo’s death.

• Tom watched a reporter sketch the secret corridor and ordered a Little Snake to make him forget the night’s events.
• Nelson met Slytherin in the corridor and asked why Hogwarts had no portraits of the other founders.
• Slytherin said the other founders had died and began recounting the Dementor crisis from his youth.
• Slytherin explained that Herpo the Foul’s magic had brought the Dementors to Britain through a Muggle’s dark inscription, where they multiplied by feeding on human fear.
• Slytherin described how he and the founders fought the Dementors, created a temporary barrier to Limbo, and warned Nelson that Herpo’s power could endure beyond his death.

Tom caught reporter Mike Wallace exploring Hogwarts at night and confronting the Fat Lady’s living portrait. After restraining him and uncovering his sketches of the route to the castle, Tom erased his memories and left him to explain himself to Professor Dumbledore.

• Mike Wallace startled the Fat Lady by looming over her portrait, and she fled in terror before fainting when he approached with a lighter.
• Tom restrained Mike with snakes after stopping him from touching the portrait, took his pistol, and confronted him about his behavior.
• Tom found Mike’s press pass and sketchbook, then accused him of mapping the route from Hogsmeade to Hogwarts.
• Tom extracted silver smoke from Mike, burned the sketchbook, and left him with a snake-made copy.
• Tom struck Mike with silver lightning, erasing his memories, and Mike later woke beside professors with no recollection of the encounter.

McGonagall introduced practical Human Transfiguration to her seventh-year class and warned students that magic should improve their lives, not merely make them stronger. During practice, Tom told Nelson that he had caught reporter Mike Wallace sneaking around Hogwarts and uncovered his method for tracking the castle, while Nelson discussed Wallace’s published report and political news; the class ended with a student unable to undo a Transfiguration.

• McGonagall told the class that its advanced Transfiguration course would become more comprehensive and practical, and assigned a twenty-five-inch essay on Human Transfiguration.
• McGonagall explained that Transfiguration and even ordinary magic could be used in duels, but said magic was meant to make people better rather than stronger.
• Alphard complained about McGonagall’s homework while recovering from a stiff neck, and Nelson and his classmates teased him about his sister and his excuses.
• Nelson and Tom struggled with Human Transfiguration practice as Tom transformed his arm into a flowering branch and then yew wood.
• Tom told Nelson that he had caught Mike Wallace sneaking around the castle and discovered that the reporter had mapped landmarks along the Hogwarts Express route to bypass counter-tracking charms.
• Nelson discussed Wallace’s newspaper report and political news with Tom before a classmate called for help after becoming stuck as a coat rack.

Alphard suffered a failed Transfiguration and detention while Mike interviewed McGonagall about magic. In London, Martha met a sharply dressed man at her tailor shop and recognized him as a likely Wizard.

• Alphard mocked McGonagall, but she caught him and later assigned him detention after his Transfiguration left his face green.
• Nelson directed Mike Wallace to interview McGonagall, and Tom asked Mike whether he had found the bathroom.
• Mike accidentally photographed Alphard as he entered the classroom, then went with McGonagall to discuss magic.
• McGonagall told Mike that turning stone into gold belonged to Wizard legends, while Alphard followed Nelson toward the Duelling Club.
• Martha welcomed a man to her London tailor shop and guessed he was a Wizard because of his unusual clothes and conspicuous pocket item.

Martha measured clothes for Ludwig Kant, who described the dark wizards terrorizing Prussia and pleaded for help. After Ludwig left, a group that had tracked his scent arrived at Martha’s shop.

• Martha spoke with Ludwig Kant while taking his measurements, and he told her that wizards had abandoned Prussia to violent dark wizards.
• Ludwig explained that his deputy had delivered him to the local dark wizards, but his grandfather helped him escape so he could seek help from Dumbledore, Nobby Leach, and Williams.
• Ludwig paid Martha with a bundle of gold, left his signature, and transformed into a bat in the sunlight.
• Martha hid Ludwig’s payment, then heard pursuers arrive and identify her shop as the place where they had smelled him.

Martha was nearly eaten by a Werewolf and threatened by a wizard and his flamboyant companion while they searched for Kant. A mysterious power awakened when Martha fell asleep, destroying the Werewolf and trapping the wizard inside the Tailor Shop as his companion fled.

• A Werewolf threatened to eat Martha, but a wizard blocked his attack and warned him not to disrupt their search for Kant.
• The wizard’s flamboyant companion arrived, used magic to lift Martha toward the Werewolf, and allowed him to take her as a snack.
• As Martha recalled her life and Nelson Williams, a red light appeared and the Werewolf’s arm vanished, leaving him transformed into a convulsing wolf.
• The companion recognized the shop as a trap and fled, while the wizard was compelled inside and the shop’s damaged wall and door restored themselves.

A flamboyant dark wizard escaped the shop and became trapped in an inescapable cell, while his companion survived a lethal attack by transforming into a beetle-like creature. Ogden arrived at the shop to find Martha unconscious, the Werewolf dead, and the transformed wizard surrendering.

• The flamboyant man escaped by Apparition after attacking his companion, but the wounded wizard used a golden beetle to survive as a beetle-like creature, and the Werewolf died.
• The flamboyant man healed his Splinched arm, discovered he was trapped in a sealed cell, and repeatedly failed to Apparate or destroy his way out.
• The transformed wizard examined the Werewolf, then stopped when the shop's red eyes threatened him and his wand lay out of reach.
• Ogden arrived, found Martha unconscious and the Werewolf dead, and reported the emergency to the Ministry of Magic.
• Ogden demanded to know what the transformed wizard was, and the wizard shouted, "I surrender!"

Nelson and Tom discussed a mysterious visitor at their Diagon Alley pet shop and Adele’s Quidditch tryout. In London, Ogden interrogated Tilo Krell, who revealed the Scoundrel Gang’s crimes and identified the escaped wizard as Fritz Haarmann.

• Nelson told Tom that someone had entered their Diagon Alley pet shop, and they decided to investigate the following weekend after Adele’s Quidditch tryout.
• Tom considered buying Adele an expensive broomstick, while Nelson warned that she might not make the team and teased Tom about his birthday gifts.
• Ogden confronted the prisoner, who identified himself as Tilo Krell and explained that his insect-like appearance came from a Durmstrang symbiosis magic.
• Krell described his criminal career with the Scoundrel Gang, its green emotion-controlling potion, and the gang’s growth in war-torn Prussia after the Statute of Secrecy was abolished.
• Krell explained that he had come to Britain with Roma Volensky and Fritz Haarmann to capture German Auror Ludwig Kant, whose grandfather had escaped their control.
• Krell named the dead Werewolf as Roma Volensky and urged Ogden to use Legilimency to understand the escaped Fritz Haarmann.

Crell agreed to write down information for Ogden but withheld what he remembered about the Tailor Shop. At Hogwarts, Tom and Nelson discussed teaching and Christian’s future before Tom revealed that she bore a mark from his Obliviate and asked Nelson to investigate Professor Sakes.

• Crell asked Ogden for medicine so he could write despite his transformed body, then decided not to mention the red-eyed figure at the Tailor Shop.
• Tom and Nelson discussed broomsticks during Charms class, then criticized Professor Merrythought’s Defense Against the Dark Arts teaching and talked about Tom’s ambitions as a professor.
• Nelson gave Christian a self-writing pen and offered to help with her studies, while Tom and Christian exchanged hostile looks.
• Tom told Nelson that Christian had ideas of her own and that he had been protecting her from the consequences of her recklessness.
• Tom revealed that Christian bore a mark from the Obliviate he had left during their first Muggle Studies detention and asked Nelson to find out what Professor Sakes was doing in the United States.

After a Werewolf attack, Dolores Umbridge ingratiated herself with Martha and encouraged her to seek help from the Black family. At Hogwarts, Adele made the Hufflepuff Quidditch team, while Tom and Nelson watched her try out.

• Umbridge comforted Martha, blamed the attack on a German Wizard, and urged her to contact Wizards directly rather than rely on Ogden.
• Martha said she could seek help from Walburga Black’s father, and Umbridge offered to take her to Mr. Black and gave her a card with Diagon Alley’s address.
• A Ministry Wizard outside the shop warned his intern Joan Selwyn that Umbridge was greedy and politically ambitious, but Joan defended her as kind.
• Tom and Nelson watched Hufflepuff’s Quidditch tryouts, and the Hufflepuff captain wondered why Tom and Nelson were in the stands.
• Adele finished her tryout and told Nelson she had been selected for the team.
• Tom congratulated Adele, saying the team valued flying speed and talent more than technique, and gave her a red-painted Small Silver Ball.

Ludwig was cornered in a London alley by the dark wizard possessing his grandfather, who tortured him and condemned his hopes for Prussia and Dumbledore. After the wizard struck him with a curse that Ludwig believed was the Killing Curse, Ludwig awoke in a boundless white place beside an endless railway track.

• Ludwig searched London for the Hogwarts Express and hoped to find help for himself and Prussia.
• Ludwig's possessed grandfather found him and attacked him while Ludwig tried to protect the homeless people in the alley.
• Ludwig's grandfather destroyed his Wand and ordered the vagrants to leave; a red-haired child threw a stone, giving Ludwig a chance to grab his leg.
• Ludwig argued that Prussia should become a better place, but his grandfather rejected his beliefs and struck him with dark-green lightning.
• Ludwig awoke in a white world beside a railway track and wondered whether he had died.

Ludwig boarded a mysterious Hogwarts Express after being struck by the Killing Curse, while his grandfather’s killer tried to cast the curse again before Albus Dumbledore intervened. The chapter left Ludwig’s fate beyond the wall uncertain and ended with Question Mark reacting to strange mechanical noises in Nelson’s dormitory.

• Ludwig wandered across a featureless white plain until a train arrived at a platform resembling King’s Cross, and he boarded the Hogwarts Express as his color faded.
• In the alley, Ludwig’s grandfather watched him die after the old man’s body was controlled by a murderer who had cast the Killing Curse.
• The murderer tried to cast Avada Kedavra on Ludwig again, but the wall behind him softened and Ludwig disappeared into it.
• Albus Dumbledore emerged through the wall and trapped the old man and the green presence inside him in a powerful current of water.
• In Nelson’s empty dormitory, Question Mark heard mechanical sounds, shredded Nelson’s pillow, and hid under the bed.

Dumbledore rescued Mr. Kant from the green magic that had possessed him, but Mr. Kant remained convinced his grandson Ludwig was alive. At Hogwarts, Nelson subdued Question Mark after the cat unleashed a dangerous mess in Slytherin, then went with Dumbledore to see Mr. Kant, who showed them a living Zubat as proof Ludwig could not have died.

• Dumbledore freed Mr. Kant from the green phantom and promised to seek honors for Ludwig Kant, while Mr. Kant searched the alley for his grandson.
• Goyle told Nelson that Question Mark had gone wild in the Slytherin dormitory corridor and injured Abraxas and Crabbe.
• Nelson rushed to the Slytherin Common Room, where Slughorn left him to deal with Question Mark and the dangerous prank devices.
• Nelson caught Question Mark after a prolonged struggle, and Dumbledore arrived through Fawkes to take him away.
• Dumbledore brought Nelson to Mr. Kant, who insisted Ludwig was alive and showed them a living Zubat.

Nelson and Dumbledore mourned Ludwig Kant, who had died after searching for help, and Nelson discovered a record of the events surrounding his final days. The chapter ended with Nelson reading the record and learning that Fritz Haarmann was trapped beneath Martha's Tailor Shop.

• Dumbledore told Nelson that Ludwig had died after his grandfather, Theo Kant, was controlled by dark magic and struck Ludwig with the Killing Curse.
• Nelson subdued Ludwig's grieving grandfather and went with Dumbledore to Platform 9 3/4 to say farewell to Ludwig's body.
• Nelson confirmed that Ludwig was an empty shell, then used the falcon and parchment to reveal a record of Ludwig's recent experiences.
• The record showed that Ludwig fled to London while pursued by three dark wizards and searched around King's Cross Station for Hogwarts's hidden entrance.
• The record identified Fritz Haarmann as the surviving attacker, Tilo Krell as the captured wizard, and Roma Volensky as the dead werewolf, and revealed that Fritz was trapped in the basement of Martha's Tailor Shop.

Nelson watched the horrors unfolding in Berlin and struck the city with a massive bolt of lightning, destroying the freight yard and capturing a Horcrux-bearing man's remnant soul. He returned to King's Cross Station beside Ludwig as Dumbledore warned that the International Confederation of Wizards had been contacted.

• Nelson used the Silver Falcon's vision to witness captives being held and trafficked in Berlin, where a disfigured man demanded thirteen people for dark magic.
• Nelson pointed his Wand at the sky, and a bolt of lightning struck the man at the freight yard, spreading through the rain and setting the surrounding buildings ablaze.
• The lightning left the man as a remnant soul, but a spear emerged from the Lost Mist, pinned him, and dragged him through the gateway to Limbo.
• The freight yard guard died after a captive attacked and bit his throat, while dark wizards gathered in confusion around the crater.
• Nelson returned to King's Cross Station and spoke with Dumbledore, who said he had contacted the representatives of the International Confederation of Wizards.

Nelson read the future self’s account of becoming a tyrant, killing Ludwig and Grindelwald, and sending a magical box back through time in hopes of changing the past. The letter ended with his wish that Nelson would avoid the same fate, but Nelson’s hopes seemed to fail when someone rang the doorbell.

• Nelson read how his future self killed Ludwig with Skynet after Ludwig tried to restore order in Prussia.
• The future self described conquering the world with Grindelwald, then killing him and realizing nothing had changed.
• Nelson learned that Dumbledore, Tom, Credence, Professor Sakes, and Adele had reached the future self and helped him send the box through time.
• The future self entrusted the box to Credence and urged him to stop Grindelwald from taking him to Nurmengard before that summer.
• Nelson finished the letter, lit the fireplace, and heard the doorbell ring.

Tom visited Nelson and learned that Ludwig Kant had been killed by a dark wizard, whom Nelson had captured and used to address the threat in Prussia. Nelson also showed Tom an old notebook written in his own hand, documenting his past involvement with Grindelwald, and they questioned how it had traveled through time.

• Tom found Nelson in a hot, curtained room and told him that Headmaster Sigmund had visited Dumbledore.
• Nelson told Tom that Ludwig Kant had been killed by a curse, then gave him the parchment describing Ludwig’s final moments.
• Nelson revealed that he had captured the dark wizard responsible and planned to use him to deal with the Scoundrel Gang’s influence in Prussia.
• Tom’s snake swallowed the captured wizard’s soul, and Nelson and Tom toasted Ludwig Kant.
• Nelson showed Tom a notebook of dark magic written in Nelson’s own technique, and Tom recognized his handwriting and questioned whether its account of the past was true.
• Tom speculated that the notebook had traveled through time repeatedly and wondered why Dumbledore had not used a Time-Turner to kill him as a child.

A witch and two Scoundrel Gang members investigated the silent crate at Cargo Yard No. 13 and discovered a captive who had killed the guard. The Gang’s leader possessed the captive’s body, returned to the group, and chose the name Reborn as he prepared to take charge again.

• A witch arrived at the cargo yard with two Scoundrel Gang members and learned that the guard was inside a wooden crate.
• The group found the guard dead and a chained, beastlike man in the crate, who broke free and attacked them.
• Green magic entered the attacker’s head and stopped him, revealing that the Scoundrel Gang’s leader had taken control of his body.
• The leader freed himself from his chains, took the witch’s Wand, and told her to buy him new clothes and a replacement Wand.
• The leader said that Crell had been captured, Wolensky had been killed by Harriman, and he had left his former body after fighting Dumbledore.
• The leader chose the name Reborn and declared that he had returned stronger.

Tom and Nelson joked about Horcruxes before Nelson disguised himself as Voldemort, while Zweig learned that Grindelwald had used dark magic to preserve Barry and send him undercover. Zweig agreed to return with Andre to examine Barry, but Nelson’s role in Dippet’s death remained hidden from him.

• Tom and Nelson walked toward Diagon Alley, and Nelson transformed himself into Voldemort to frighten Tom before they continued to Martha's Tailor Shop.
• Andre brought Zweig a report about Tilo Krell, prompting Zweig to recall Krell’s human-sacrifice Potions and condemn the practice.
• Andre told Zweig that Grindelwald had stripped Barry’s fragile soul from his body, frozen his body and Obscurus, and used an ancient spell to send Barry to replace the Scoundrel Gang’s abducted leader.
• Andre revealed that Armando Dippet had died after confronting Nelson, and that he had intercepted Dippet’s relics to keep Barry from learning the truth.
• Zweig agreed to return with Andre to examine Barry, but stood up too quickly and collapsed back onto the sofa.

Nelson and Tom reunited with Martha at her tailor shop, where they learned Ludwig Kant had left her gold for clothes before his death. After Martha shared her Ministry certificate, Nelson and Tom escorted her to the Leaky Cauldron, and she entered the wizarding world through 48 Charing Cross Road.

• Nelson and Tom visited Martha at her tailor shop, where she greeted them warmly after their time apart.
• Martha told them that Ludwig Kant had ordered clothes and left her a large quantity of gold; Nelson took the finished suit and told her to keep the money.
• Martha showed Nelson her Ministry certificate allowing her to enter Diagon Alley and asked him to accompany her.
• Martha explained that Dolores Umbridge had helped her after the dark wizard attack, surprising Nelson and prompting him and Tom to discuss Umbridge's motives.
• Nelson and Tom helped Martha tidy the shop, then guided her to 48 Charing Cross Road and revealed the hidden entrance to the Leaky Cauldron.
• Nelson led Martha to the Leaky Cauldron's door and encouraged her to enter.