Chapter Summaries

Charles took Pheobe to inspect his greenhouse herbs before the new term, where she shared her knowledge and warned him that the Mandrakes might fight over soil. The chapter ended with Professor Sprout taking Harry away to study herbs after he spotted Charles and Pheobe together.

• Charles agreed to let Pheobe visit the greenhouse and received Dumbledore’s permission.
• Charles showed Pheobe the unusually large Phoenix Feather and explained his plans to test its medicinal effects.
• Pheobe examined a Thornwood thorn and explained its venom and medicinal uses.
• Pheobe warned Charles that his Mandrakes might fight over fertile soil and advised him to separate them.
• Harry arrived to tell Charles that someone had written his holiday assignments, but chose not to interrupt Charles and Pheobe.
• Professor Sprout arrived, took Harry to study herbs, and showed her interest in Charles and Pheobe’s time together.

Charles sought Dumbledore’s permission to consult books in the hidden, more dangerous part of the Restricted Section and used the request to reveal Augustus Rookwood’s defection and Voldemort’s plans. Dumbledore agreed to meet Rookwood privately, leaving Charles to arrange the encounter.

• Ron told the returning students that Snape had spun upside down beneath the ceiling at Christmas, while students also discussed Peter’s transformation into a rat.
• Charles refused to let Harry play the twins’ unfinished magical Tetris game, but promised Harry one if he answered questions correctly in five consecutive lessons.
• Wood came to see Harry’s Firebolt, while Hagrid celebrated Black’s admission that he had released the hippogriff that attacked Peter.
• Charles brought Dumbledore a book list and asked to enter the hidden section of the Restricted Section, then revealed that Augustus Rookwood had defected from Voldemort.
• Charles told Dumbledore that Rookwood wanted proof he had been sent to spy on Voldemort, and Dumbledore asked to speak with him alone.
• Charles agreed to arrange a private meeting between Dumbledore and Rookwood in a room in the dining hall.

Charles discussed Catherine Klett’s expulsion from Vagadu and her research into Human Transfiguration with Grindelwald, who offered her a place at Farbaton Castle. Grindelwald also explained his past experiments and argued that conservative opposition had stalled magical progress, while Charles left with a new idea.

• Grindelwald scolded Charles for adding to Dumbledore’s workload, then told him Catherine Klett planned to visit.
• Charles recalled meeting Catherine in Vagadu and learned that she had been expelled; Grindelwald offered her a place at Farbaton Castle.
• Grindelwald described his former research into transforming animals and humans, including experiments he later realized were on the wrong path.
• Grindelwald explained that old records showed human-modification experiments had ended in destruction, though he believed limited changes could be beneficial.
• Grindelwald argued that conservative resistance had interrupted magical research, including investigations into blood transfusions and blood types.
• Grindelwald said Catherine had been expelled because her Animagi research challenged wizards’ established understanding of Human Transfiguration.

Charles helped Catherine Klett recover from being expelled from Vagadu by buying her animal-transformation spell and sending her to a position in Chengdu. After she settled in, Charles tested the spell himself and made rapid progress learning to fly as an owl.

• Catherine told Charles that Vagadu had expelled her after her research into transforming humans into animals angered professors who prized Animagus transformations.
• Charles paid Catherine three thousand Galleons for the spell and gave her a letter of introduction to Xu and the Chengdu Panda Breeding Research Base.
• Catherine accepted Charles's help, traveled to Chengdu, and later wrote that she had become a guide at the Panda Museum.
• Charles learned Catherine's spell, transformed into Crookshanks, and repeatedly failed to fly as a phoenix while Ruby watched and mocked him.
• Charles transformed using one of Hedwig's feathers and improved his owl flight until he stayed airborne for fifty-nine seconds and flew 260 meters.

Professor McGonagall escorted Charles into the true Restricted Section, where he studied a book on breaking protective spells. Back in the Gryffindor common room, Charles gave Percy advice about inviting Penelope home for the summer, and his earlier matchmaking schemes became the subject of laughter.

• Professor McGonagall led Charles through a hidden entrance to the Restricted Section, where he studied material on breaking protective spells.
• Charles returned to the Gryffindor common room and shared beef stew with Ruby, Harry, Hermione, and the others.
• A seventh-year girl revealed that Percy wanted to invite Penelope home for the summer, and Charles suggested an excuse involving Ron doing somersaults.
• Harry recalled Charles's old proposal advice, and Charles admitted he had once made Harry practice somersaults so Hermione could meet him.
• Fred and George wondered aloud whether a spell could make someone do somersaults, while Percy eyed Ron.

Charles and Dobby discovered Malfoy’s plan to frighten Harry during the Quidditch match, and Seamus led a group of Gryffindors in beating the disguised Slytherins. After the match, Charles discussed a magical research institution with Dumbledore and offered Penelope a job at his company.

• Dobby overheard Malfoy and another student planning to disguise themselves as Dementors and scare Harry during the match, so Charles told Seamus to gather allies without warning Harry.
• Gryffindor fell behind Ravenclaw during the Quidditch match, while Seamus and other Gryffindors cornered Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle, and Flint in the stands.
• Seamus blasted the four Slytherins out of the stadium with an explosive-fist spell, and Professor McGonagall brought them to Dumbledore for punishment.
• Charles discussed creating an international magical research institution with Dumbledore, who said it would need a respected leader capable of preventing another Voldemort.
• Penelope asked Charles about work at his company, and he offered her the administrative supervisor position, which she accepted.

Charles continued his alchemical research while Eleanor reported on the Centaur Liaison Office's growing profits and warned him that Death Eaters had escaped Azkaban. Charles revealed that he feared Voldemort would return and take over the Ministry, prompting Eleanor to consider quietly separating the office's business.

• Eleanor reported that she had been unable to find the graphene researcher Charles sought at Manchester University.
• Eleanor told Charles that escaped Death Eaters had appeared overseas and that the Auror Office wanted to place people among the Centaur Liaison Office's travelers.
• In the Mirror Space, Charles asked whether Eleanor had contacts among the Aurors, and she described helping a half-blood Auror whose Muggle relatives had faced trouble.
• Charles warned Eleanor that Voldemort might still be alive and could seize the Ministry of Magic, putting their business at risk.
• Eleanor agreed to plan how to separate the office's business and said she would watch for wizards with Death Eater connections.

Charles was badly injured while testing an unknown spell and was taken to St. Mungo’s Hospital, where healers used filtration treatment to remove him from the stone floor. He survived and began recovering in an extravagant ward, while the cause of the accident remained unknown.

• Hermione asked Charles for a long list of Valentine’s Day pastries, and he teased her before she recalled his scheme from the previous year and pummeled him.
• Professor Sprout asked Charles about his grandfather’s Valentine’s Day plans, but Charles said his grandfather was abroad and had not returned.
• Seamus told Gryffindor students that Charles had become fused with a floor between two levels and that Peeves had found him unconscious; Professor McGonagall later said Charles had injured himself while practicing a new spell.
• Joseph and Dumbledore supervised a filtration treatment that extracted Charles from the stone, then administered potions to help him regrow missing flesh and bone.
• Dumbledore arranged the most expensive hospital care to punish Charles for his recklessness, and the Daily Prophet reported his hospitalization without explaining the cause.

Charles woke after a week in the hospital and learned that his failed attempt to pass through walls had drawn the Ministry’s attention. Grindelwald and Jack identified the cause as Charles pronouncing an ancient Middle English incantation with modern English pronunciation, leaving him to recover with the mystery solved.

• Eleanor told Charles that his injuries were healing, the Ministry had sent Aurors to investigate, and Gabrielle had secretly left him candy.
• Charles reviewed his failed spell and could not understand why it had left him stuck in the floor.
• Grindelwald and Jack visited Charles, and Jack examined the spell in Charles’s notebook.
• Grindelwald recognized that the spell was written in Middle English, and Jack explained that its pronunciation differed from modern English.
• Jack said he was leaving for Foshan, and Charles asked him to have Ruby send back some fermented pork trotters.

Charles followed Harry, Hermione, and Ron after they spotted Professor Lupin leaving Hogwarts, then joined Dumbledore and the others in the Shrieking Shack. Lupin’s trial of going without his medicine prevented his full transformation, but the full moon still affected his mind.

• Harry, Hermione, Ron, and Charles followed Lupin into the grounds, but Charles left the others when they entered the tunnel beneath the Whomping Willow.
• Dumbledore brought Charles to the Shrieking Shack, where Black explained that Lupin had volunteered to stop taking his medicine for a month.
• Black warned Dumbledore that Fenrir Greyback might target a Hogsmeade weekend after hearing that the Ministry planned to arrest him and his pack.
• Lupin emerged from the kitchen without transforming, but said his head was buzzing and asked for a medium-rare steak.
• Dumbledore tested Lupin’s counting and memory, finding that Lupin remembered the current day clearly but confused events from the previous two days.

Fenrir Greyback and Ramsey struggled to survive after the werewolf potion and Ministry pressure dismantled Greyback’s gang, so they planned to kidnap a Farbaton Castle worker for money before fleeing Britain. They ambushed a cloaked person leaving the castle, but the chapter ended before revealing who it was.

• A drenched Ramsey stole chickens and eggs from The Burrow and brought them to Greyback, who was running out of food and money.
• Greyback recalled how the werewolf potion’s success, increased security, and impending Ministry crackdown had scattered his followers and left him without their payments.
• Ramsey proposed kidnapping a wizard for ransom so they could escape to Canada, and Greyback agreed to target a well-paid worker at Farbaton Castle.
• Greyback and Ramsey stole broomsticks, watched Farbaton Castle, and charged after a cloaked person who left it for Hogsmeade.
• Grindelwald reacted with confusion.

Charles was selected for the trip to Koldostorets, and Grindelwald took him away to provide special training at Dumbledore’s request. Charles escaped the duel by tricking Dumbledore into becoming Grindelwald’s target, then watched the two old men fight from hiding.

• Charles, Seamus, Harry’s trio, and Neville appeared on the list of workers selected for the trip to Koldostorets.
• Dumbledore unveiled Hogwarts’s new ship, which a reporter named “The Flying Dumbledore” after a student suggested it.
• Grindelwald took Charles to a mountain valley and attacked him, explaining that Dumbledore had requested special training to prepare him for Koldostorets.
• Charles escaped to the Hog’s Head Inn and sent Dumbledore a fruit-flavored cookie ring that transported him to Grindelwald’s valley.
• Grindelwald mistook Dumbledore for Charles in disguise and attacked him, while Charles watched from a mountaintop with Ruby.

Dumbledore piloted Hogwarts’s miniature ship to Koldostorets, where it crashed into Durmstrang’s sailboat and triggered a dispute over compensation. A mysterious wizard repaired the wreckage with powerful magic, leaving Charles and Dumbledore wondering why he had intervened.

• Professor Sprout questioned Charles about Dumbledore’s shortened beard, and Charles denied burning it off.
• Dumbledore set the miniature ship’s destination to Koldostorets, then briefed the passengers during the journey.
• The Hogwarts ship crashed into Durmstrang’s sailboat, prompting Karkaroff to demand compensation from Dumbledore.
• Charles met Lily Smith and Louis Mantz at the lakeshore, while Kytov pointed out Valentina in the sky.
• A hooded wizard restored Durmstrang’s wrecked sailboat with lightning, and Nikita used the repair to urge Karkaroff to drop his claim.
• Dumbledore recognized something familiar in the wizard’s magic, while Charles wondered why the Old Man had come and intervened.

At Koldostorets, Charles and the Hogwarts students watched the Cossack Club rescue Valentina after her test-flight aircraft began falling. Charles befriended the club members and left thinking about how to get a supersonic broom.

• Charles showed Harry the Koldostorets students flying on uprooted trees and explained the Cossack Club's importance.
• An alarm announced that an Aerospace Club aircraft had fallen, and Charles realized Valentina might be aboard.
• The Cossack Club members formed a net with their brooms and caught the falling aircraft before it reached the terrace.
• Valentina emerged from the Core Module, drank Charles's homemade potion, and greeted him and Lily.
• Sinbar and the other club members warmly welcomed Charles after Valentina identified him as Kytov's boss.
• Harry tried to get Charles to ask about the club's metal flying brooms, but Charles instead chatted with the members and planned how to obtain a supersonic broom.

Charles attended Koldostorets’s welcome banquet, learned about its goblin reforms, and reunited with four Australian friends who had traveled there selling Translation Birds. He discovered Koldostorets had hired Elizabeth to assist with research related to Phoenix Logistics, while Kelly remained troubled by her lack of work.

• At the banquet, Kytov introduced Charles to students interested in joining his company and invited him to Professor Chepzin’s magical-item class.
• Kytov explained that goblins at Koldostorets had accepted the wizards’ view of ownership after a reform, while Comrade Dzhugashvili had sent dissenters to Siberia.
• Charles reunited with Emily, Elizabeth, Teresa, and Kelly, who had arrived at Koldostorets after selling Translation Birds during their journey from Australia.
• Emily told Charles that Professor Chepzin had invited Elizabeth to work as a teaching assistant and research fellow, and Teresa explained that the professor connected Elizabeth’s expertise to Phoenix Logistics’ translation needs.
• Charles learned that Kelly was unhappy about being unemployed and offered to help if she needed him.
• As the friends chatted late into the night, Emily asked Charles to transform into a jellyfish so they could use him as a mattress.

Charles sat in on Koldostorets's Magical Artifact Manufacturing class, where Professor Chepzin tried to recruit him and taught students about metal broom damage and spell interference. The lesson stirred a sense of familiarity in Charles, while Chepzin hinted that two influential people wanted to meet him.

• Professor Chepzin invited Charles to transfer to Koldostorets and offered support for his alchemy research, despite Dumbledore's displeasure.
• Charles met Harry, Hermione, Ron, and Seamus in the corridor before they split up to attend different classes.
• Charles sat beside Honda Mihide, who told him he was Yamada Hakko's neighbor and that his family ran the pastry shop supplying Yamada's snacks.
• Professor Chepzin explained how violent vibrations caused metal broom bristles to suffer fatigue and described methods for reinforcing damaged components.
• Professor Chepzin discussed spell interference in complex magical machinery, and Charles felt the subject was strangely familiar.

Charles visited Professor Mikhail, who explained how Charles’s weapons commission had funded his research into explosive metal bullets. Mikhail invited Charles to test one at the training ground, and Charles agreed.

• After class, Kytov, Charles, Honda Mihide, and Louis Mantz discussed how difficult Professor Chepzin’s lesson on Magical Materials Science had been.
• Valentina told Charles that Professor Mikhail wanted to thank him because the money from Charles’s weapon commission had saved Mikhail’s research.
• Charles went to Mikhail’s cabin, where the professor showed him an AK-47 and explained how he had developed explosive-metal bullets.
• Mikhail invited Charles to test a bullet at the training ground with Boris, and Charles agreed.

Charles visited Koldostorets’s training grounds, where Professors Mikhail and Boris demonstrated enchanted firearms, then discussed arming household dolls to protect his properties. The chapter left Charles preparing for a meeting about the dolls and agreeing to attend a Hogwarts Quidditch rules discussion the next morning.

• Professor Mikhail took Charles to Professor Boris’s training grounds, where he fired an AK-47 at a stone giant and complained that its power was weak.
• Professor Boris enchanted small stone targets, demonstrated bullets that magically tracked them, and let Charles try the gun.
• Charles showed Professor Mikhail a Shanghai Doll and said he wanted more than a hundred household dolls equipped with weapons for security.
• Professor Mikhail invited Charles to meet with him, Chepzin, and Shimusin that evening to discuss possible designs.
• Charles agreed to meet Joyce after breakfast to discuss the latest competition rules, and Joyce warned him that the girls leaving his room could cause trouble.

Charles worked with three professors to plan a defensive housekeeping doll and discussed turning its production into a business. As he headed back to the castle, the Old Man appeared and said an old friend wanted to see him.

• Charles showed Professors Chepzin, Mikhail, and Shimusin his doll design, featuring concealed combat wings, detachable weapons, and a self-destruct system.
• Professor Chepzin studied household spells for the doll, while the professors discussed goblin traditions and possible markets for the product.
• Charles proposed plug-in modules for recipes, languages, and customs, and asked the professors to help Fred and George with their research.
• The professors reached a preliminary agreement with Charles about making a sample and potentially forming a company together.
• After Charles left, the professors wondered why they had treated him like an adult, then decided his manner probably made people feel familiar with him.
• The Old Man appeared before Charles near the castle and told him that an old friend wanted to see him.

Charles met Jack’s old friends, three revolutionary ghosts whose history had changed after learning about Charles’s memories, and discussed his scientific goals and the International Statute of Secrecy. Afterward, Jack told Charles to meet someone in China during summer vacation and asked him to arrange Quidditch World Cup tickets, suggesting they invite Professor McGonagall.

• Jack brought Charles to a hidden room and explained that he had shared Charles’s memories with his old friends ten years earlier.
• Three ghosts arrived, and one asked Charles about his goal of using alchemy to create a room-temperature superconductor.
• The ghosts explained that they had changed history by advancing a theory and working with comrades to preserve their movement’s core strength.
• Charles learned that Jack had once handed out bread to homeless people in Vienna with Dzhugashvili.
• Jack told Charles that someone in China wanted to meet him during summer vacation and asked him to get Quidditch World Cup tickets.
• Jack suggested inviting Professor McGonagall to the Quidditch matches, while Charles decided he would still go watch.