Chapter Summaries

Charles and Gabrielle finished their outing, then joined the Delacour family for dinner and a violin performance. On the terrace, Angelina explained the Veela secret realm’s connection to Joan of Arc’s teacher and to Ruby’s former owner, and Charles considered exploring it himself someday.

• Gabrielle and Charles collected Madame Angelina’s repaired violin, bought a seafood feast and snacks, and declined a director’s offer to make a movie.
• Pheobe confiscated Gabrielle’s snacks after they returned, and Madame Angelina played the violin after dinner.
• Charles asked Angelina about Joan of Arc’s teacher, and she confirmed that the woman’s last known appearance was in the Veela secret realm.
• Angelina revealed that Ruby’s former owner had agreed to explore the secret realm but fled, while Pheobe entered it the previous year and suffered an unknown outcome.
• Angelina invited Charles to explore the secret realm someday, and he considered accepting the challenge.

Charles spent a lively day at the beach with Gabrielle and Pheobe, then heard a theory linking Black, Grindelwald, and the recent deaths in Britain. As Charles prepared to leave the next day, Pheobe voiced her intuition that Black was innocent and asked whether he really liked girls like Gabrielle.

• Gabrielle drew attention on the beach, while Pheobe fended off men asking for her number and Charles was praised by bodybuilders for his physique.
• Gabrielle asked Charles about his romantic preferences while they waited for ice cream, and she pointed out the bearded man from their roadside encounter as police arrived.
• Two British tourists discussed the wanted criminal Black, and Charles heard their fears about the hundreds of corpses discovered in Britain.
• Jerome Gobel told the Delacour family that Auror chief Ludovic Crouch suspected Dumbledore had enlisted Grindelwald and Black to investigate a Voldemort treasure, with the deaths and Hogwarts's Basilisk connected to the scheme.
• After the guests left, Pheobe swam in the sea at night and asked Charles if he was going back the next day.
• Pheobe told Charles she believed Black was innocent and might be seeking revenge or atonement, then asked whether he liked girls like Gabrielle.

Charles avoided returning to 3 Privet Drive and spent the summer at his villa before joining a London historical fencing club, where he quickly became skilled with a Longsword. As the next full moon approached, he prepared to leave for a few days to help Erika, while a club member warned him to watch out for the fugitive Black.

• Charles learned from Dudley that Mr. Smith and a professor were playing Princess Maker 2, while Dumbledore was in the living room eating snacks.
• Charles decided to stay at the villa for the summer and traveled to London to join the Historical Fencing Club.
• Charles swore he would not abuse force and began training with Longswords and sabers under Jamie Maciver.
• Charles mastered the club's footwork and was fighting Maciver evenly by the end of July, though he still needed to correct his instinct to block with his hands.
• Charles told the club he would be away for a few days to help Erika, and an Oxford professor warned him that Black had not been caught.

While shopping in Egypt, Harry overheard Arthur explain that Sirius Black had been his parents’ close friend and was believed to have betrayed them, and that Black might target Harry. The revelation left Harry shaken, and he hurried home after returning to Britain.

• Harry bought Egyptian souvenirs and overheard Arthur warn Percy that Black might go to Hogwarts to find him.
• Arthur told Percy that Black had been James Potter’s close friend and Harry’s godfather, but was suspected of betraying the Potters to the Dark Lord.
• Arthur said Black would seek revenge on Harry and urged Percy to protect him, adding that Harry was family.
• Harry crushed his cup as he listened, then became overwhelmed when Percy mentioned Ginny might marry him and Fred and George appeared beside him.
• After returning to Britain, Harry Flooed from the Ministry of Magic to his home at 3 Privet Drive.

Harry persuaded Vernon to sign his Hogsmeade permission form by trading news about Jack’s romantic pursuit, then prepared to leave the Dursleys’ home before Marge arrived. He planned to stay at the Leaky Cauldron and left Charles and Jack a note warning them about Marge.

• Harry heard Vernon complain about his miserable business trip and learned that Marge would stay with the Dursleys for a week.
• Harry agreed to Vernon’s demands for Marge’s visit, then hinted that he knew news about Jack that could keep Vernon from angering his employer.
• Harry traded the news that Jack was pursuing a woman for Vernon’s signature on his Hogsmeade permission form.
• Harry packed to leave, rejected staying with the Smiths or the Weasleys, and chose the Leaky Cauldron as his likely destination.
• Harry found Charles’s house empty and left Charles and Jack a note saying that Marge was coming the next day.

Jack, Charles, and Dumbledore each returned to the Privet Drive house, but Harry’s note sent Jack and Charles fleeing while Dumbledore fell asleep there. The next day, Petunia suggested that Sirius Black was innocent and offered to introduce Dumbledore to a Sherlock Holmes Club member who had another view of the case.

• Jack promised a neighbor he would ask the police to increase patrols, then rushed away after his refrigerator magnet changed from “At Home” to “Out.”
• Charles found Harry’s note, panicked, and fled through the fireplace; Dumbledore arrived afterward and fell asleep on the sofa.
• Marge came looking for Charles and Jack, and Dumbledore told her Jack was traveling with a girlfriend, prompting her to drop her cake and leave.
• Dumbledore repaired the fallen cake and carried it toward a large black dog, which fled from him in terror.
• Petunia told Dumbledore that Black might be innocent and Peter had betrayed Lily, then offered to take him to meet a middle-school friend from the Sherlock Holmes Club.

Dumbledore retold Sirius Black’s case as a story about wartime resistance, and Petunia’s friends debated whether Peter had betrayed James or staged his own death. Their analysis left Dumbledore with new doubts about Peter, and he decided to investigate further.

• Dumbledore disguised the wizarding case as a World War II resistance story and told it to Petunia’s Sherlock Holmes Club.
• Peggy argued that Peter was the traitor and may have been threatened into betraying James, while Freddy suspected Black might have masterminded the betrayal.
• Susie said an explosion could not have left only one intact finger, and Danny suggested Black had kept quiet out of guilt and a desire for redemption.
• Peggy proposed that Peter had faked his death to escape, while Freddy maintained that Black could still have been involved.
• Dumbledore reconsidered Peter’s role and decided to conduct further investigations.
• Peggy and Freddy explained how the condition of Peter’s finger could distinguish a deliberate cut from damage caused by an explosion.

Charles found Harry working at Mrs. Finnigan’s shop in Diagon Alley, then checked on the Decryption Challenge and recruited Moss Jeff to help build a security team for his communications-network project. The two founded the Dragon Guard Bureau and began planning its operations.

• Charles visited Harry at Mrs. Finnigan’s shop, where Harry was earning wages and planning to give Snape Potter-brand shampoo for Christmas.
• Charles learned that Koldostorets, Beauxbatons, and Moss Jeff had placed first, second, and third in the Decryption Challenge’s Firewall, with Moss Jeff solving it alone.
• Charles studied the competitors’ solutions and invited Moss Jeff to dinner to explain his plan for a GIF Paintings communications network and logistics company.
• Moss Jeff accepted Charles’s offer to lead network security and help recruit skilled independent participants into a professional team.
• Charles and Moss Jeff named the security department the Dragon Guard Bureau, celebrated its founding, and discussed salaries, structure, and office space in Hogsmeade.

Charles recruited Kytov and sought Louis Mantz for his international communications network, while Mantz hesitated because his family had likely planned a Ministry career for him. The chapter left Charles waiting for Mantz’s decision as Hermione’s parents compared her with Charles.

• Jeff persuaded Dumbledore to hold a Decryption Forum after the Decryption Challenge award ceremony.
• Jeff introduced Kytov to Charles, and Kytov agreed that the network needed communications expertise and a way to process information efficiently.
• Charles traveled to France and arranged to meet Louis Mantz, an expert in the field, through Pheobe.
• Charles outlined his communications plan to Mantz, including a binary-based system to translate messages between languages, but Mantz asked for time to decide.
• Pheobe told Charles that Mantz’s family likely expected him to enter the French Ministry of Magic, while Charles chose to wait for his answer.
• Hermione saw Charles meeting a beautiful woman at the café, and her parents compared her with him after overhearing his plans.

Charles recruited Mantz and gathered his team to establish their company at Farbaton Castle, where they began developing the Oil Painting Communication System. As Pheobe left for home, she asked Charles to help her try again next year with the Veela, while Grindelwald and Jack watched their relationship impatiently.

• Mantz chose to reject his family's career plan and joined Charles after they met in Dijon.
• Charles brought Pheobe to Hogsmeade, where he met up with Jeff, Kytov, and Mantz and showed them the abandoned Farbaton Castle as a possible headquarters.
• Charles assigned Dobby and the other employees to clean and repair the castle, then asked Eleanor to help arrange the paperwork.
• Charles, Jeff, Kytov, and Mantz began developing the Oil Painting Communication System, and Jeff accepted his prize at the Decryption Challenge ceremony.
• As August ended, Pheobe prepared to leave and asked Charles to help her try again next year with the Veela; Grindelwald and Jack complained that Charles had not even held her hand.

Charles returned to Hogwarts after missing the train, explained away his delay, and learned that Dementors were patrolling the grounds for Black. He greeted the Dementors as old acquaintances and ended the chapter worrying about the trouble caused by spending several days with Pheobe.

• Professor McGonagall dragged Charles into the Three Broomsticks, where Moss Jeff revealed that he had told the professors Charles planned to stay home.
• Charles ate with the others and agreed to move the office temporarily to The Leaky Cauldron because the Dementors were disrupting work in Hogsmeade.
• Professor McGonagall escorted Charles toward Hogwarts and warned him to avoid the Dementors and report to Dumbledore before entering the Forbidden Forest.
• Charles greeted two Dementors at the castle entrance, chatted with one he knew, and promised Professor McGonagall to report Black if he encountered him.
• Charles asked Professor McGonagall whether she would forgive his grandfather for keeping a secret, then received Gabrielle's angry letter about his trip with Pheobe.

Seamus used the Patronus Charm Charles taught him to drive off the Dementor that attacked Harry on the Hogwarts Express. At the start-of-term feast, Dumbledore introduced three new professors and announced new safety restrictions, while Hermione and Seamus stirred up gossip about Charles and Miss Delacour.

• Seamus drove away the Dementor with a Patronus, saving Harry but leaving a hole in the train compartment.
• Professor Flitwick hosted the Sorting Ceremony, and Hermione and Harry arrived at the Great Hall after it ended.
• Dumbledore announced that Dementors would patrol the school grounds and that students were forbidden from approaching a greenhouse reserved for an important experiment.
• Dumbledore introduced Remus Lupin, Rubeus, and Henry Delacour as the new Defense Against the Dark Arts, Care of Magical Creatures, and Alchemy professors.
• Hermione described Henry Delacour's work defusing a magical poison-gas bomb, and Seamus and Hermione spread hints about Charles's connection to Miss Delacour.

On the first day of term, Charles watched Malfoy suffer from a spell and tried to work out why Hermione and the Divination class were caught up in strange events. After an explosion injured several students, Dumbledore received an angry Howler and left, while Charles asked Seamus how the blast had happened.

• Harry used a spell Charles had traded him to make Malfoy repeatedly kick things with his little toe, causing a commotion in the Great Hall.
• Charles studied his packed timetable, gave Hermione chocolate, and noticed she arrived late to Muggle Studies with shorter hair.
• A loud explosion in the Divination classroom injured several students, and Hermione ran to the scene with the others.
• Dumbledore received a Howler from an angry woman, listened to it in private, and left the castle area.
• Charles returned to the Hospital Wing and asked Seamus how he had caused the explosion.

Charles organized a large greenhouse experiment comparing magical, Muggle, and mixed fertilizers, then discussed ending Hogwarts’s Oil Painting Communication System contract with Dumbledore. Dumbledore asked Charles to return that evening to consider a new proposal.

• Charles planned an experiment with eighteen herb varieties divided among four fertilizer groups and recruited Dobby and other House-elves to prepare the greenhouse.
• Charles arranged the plants, pots, soil, and propagation materials, and planned to recruit students to help with measurements, records, and soil testing.
• Dumbledore visited Charles and asked whether he still wanted to proceed with Hogwarts’s fifty-thousand-Galleon Oil Painting Communication System deal.
• Charles explained that Hogwarts’s failures in the Decryption Challenge had convinced him to end the existing contract after its completed milestones and shift to paid consultations.
• Dumbledore said he had new ideas and asked Charles to meet him in his office at eight that evening.

Charles told Hermione that he had refused Dumbledore’s request to translate foreign literature and explained that Hogwarts needed dedicated departments for large-scale projects. Their conversation turned to spells and the Time-Turner, and Charles left Hermione with a map to an empty room after revealing he knew she needed a place to rest.

• In the Gryffindor Common Room, Charles told Hermione that he had refused Dumbledore’s request to translate foreign literature because the task was too broad for one person.
• Charles suggested that Hogwarts establish dedicated departments for translation and research, and Hermione warned him not to throw beef jerky at her.
• Hermione asked whether Charles had given Miss Delacour cat ears, and he confirmed that he had used a spell from Merlin’s Trial.
• Hermione cast a pink spell at Charles, which rebounded and transformed her into a pink Lolita dress; Charles bought the spell from her for one thousand pounds before it wore off.
• Hermione secretly cast the spell on Charles, transforming his robes into a black Gothic Lolita dress, and he revealed that he knew about her Time-Turner.
• Charles drew Hermione a map to an empty room where she could rest, and Hermione realized he knew she was using the Time-Turner.

Professor Delacour introduced alchemy by explaining how questioning and careful experiments could correct old theories, then told the class how his own research had exposed a flaw in Nicolas Flamel’s work. He demonstrated alchemy’s practical uses through Neville’s cauldron and Charles’s flying broomstick, leaving the students to inspect the broom after class.

• Professor Delacour began the first Alchemy Class by describing alchemy’s history and stressing the need to question and verify existing knowledge.
• Professor Delacour recounted how his experiments as a student disproved a theory attributed to Nicolas Flamel, though Beauxbatons professors dismissed his findings.
• Professor Delacour said Dumbledore had confirmed that his discovery corrected a mistake that Lord LeMay had noticed decades earlier.
• Neville explained that his cauldron had been treated through alchemy to resist corrosive potions, and Professor Delacour described how alchemy could alter materials.
• Professor Delacour asked Charles about a long, narrow alchemical item, and Charles showed the flying broomstick made by Mr. Bloch.
• Professor Delacour explained that the broom combined six kinds of wood through alchemical processing and invited the students to examine it after class.

Professor Delacour began teaching Alchemy with a simple lead-coloring experiment, then punished Charles for secretly altering his classmates’ mixtures and violating safety rules. In the professors’ lounge, she discussed Charles’s boldness and worried he might attempt a dangerous experiment from her next lesson.

• Professor Delacour introduced the students to Alchemy and guided them through an experiment that changed the color of lead roses.
• Charles secretly added lead petals to his classmates’ mixtures, then assembled a multicolored rose from the dyed pieces.
• Professor Delacour praised Parvati’s precise work, assigned copying to students whose experiments were flawed, and ordered Charles to copy the safety rules twenty times and clean the classroom.
• Professor Delacour told Professor McGonagall and Professor Flitwick that Charles had brought home unusual dried meat, prompting them to remember the Basilisk meat he had cut.
• Professor Delacour warned the professors that Charles was clever and decisive, and said she feared he might attempt a dangerous experiment from her next lesson.

During a lesson on Animagus magic, Professor McGonagall repeatedly warned Charles not to study it recklessly, while classmates teased him about what animal he might become. Charles later organized students to tend greenhouse plants for pocket money, but his real magical interest was Human Transfiguration.

• Professor McGonagall explained the differences between Animagi, Metamorphmagi, and Human Transfiguration, and warned students that Animagus magic required approval and was dangerous to attempt alone.
• Professor McGonagall described Talbot Unger and his friends mastering Animagus magic, then again forbade Gryffindor students from secretly studying it.
• At lunch, Seamus, Neville, Harry, Ron, and Hermione teased Charles about learning Animagus magic and guessed what animal he might become.
• Charles recruited teams of students to care for eighteen kinds of greenhouse plants and reassured them that Seamus would accompany them at night.
• Professor Sprout accused Charles of wanting to steal mandrake leaves, while Charles privately planned to use Human Transfiguration instead of Polyjuice Potion to change his appearance.

After Ron was injured when Hippogriffs charged at Harry and his classmates, Charles suspected Black had interfered, while Dumbledore and several professors waited for Black to appear. Charles later discussed werewolf treatment research with Lupin and ended the night by chatting with a Dementor by the lake.

• Harry told Charles that Hippogriffs had charged at the class during Care of Magical Creatures, leaving Ron injured, and Hermione and the others suspected Black had caused it.
• Harry went to visit Ron in the Hospital Wing, and Dumbledore followed him while six professors waited outside for Black to take the bait.
• Charles taught his classmates in the greenhouse, then walked back to the castle with Lupin and asked about the Marifasa-based werewolf treatment research.
• Dumbledore told Charles that a Dementor was looking for him by the Great Lake, where Charles chatted with it and returned carrying two fish.

Charles claimed a Dementor had given Harry fried fish as an apology and Seamus a protection fee, prompting the students to think his brain was damaged. He secretly bewitched Malfoy’s voice, then checked on the greenhouse project before afternoon Defense Against the Dark Arts Class.

• Charles told Harry and Seamus that his Dementor friend had brought them fried fish to make amends, and Hermione suspected he was Black in disguise.
• The students carried Charles to the Hospital Wing, where Madam Pomfrey’s attempt to reassure them was mistaken for a grim diagnosis; Filch also believed Charles was seriously ill.
• Snape ordered Hermione to sit with Charles and keep him out of trouble during Potions Class, while Charles suspected Dumbledore was behind the arrangement.
• Charles secretly cast a spell on Malfoy, making his voice sound like a soprano at lunch, and acted as though he knew nothing about it.
• Charles visited the greenhouse, greeted the students, and checked their seedling and cutting work before afternoon Defense Against the Dark Arts Class.