Recaps

Vaughn and Hogwarts’s professors challenged the Board of Governors over the Duelling Club while Harry secretly tracked the deadlocked votes. The investigation revealed that DeSantis had joined Voldemort, prompting Vaughn to summon Dumbledore and bring Harry into the matter.

• Fudge pursued China’s support for the Potions Exchange Program as Dumbledore warned Master Li that China’s concealed strength and the Confederation’s growing influence could lead to conflict.
• Vaughn’s Forbidden Forest expedition with Hagrid, Kettleburn, Harry, Ron, and Hermione ended with an Acromantula attack, and Aragog revealed that American-accented wizards had visited before Harry arrived.
• Vaughn linked the mystery visitors to Wilkinson and DeSantis, while Dumbledore considered whether Destiny and prophecy explained the plot and agreed to arrange a meeting with Grindelwald.
• Vaughn recruited Snape and other professors to support the Duelling Club, while Harry and his friends overheard the governors split three ways in a 4:4:4 tie.
• Draco enlisted Harry to observe Lucius and the governors, and Harry and Draco followed Lucius to a meeting with Snape where DeSantis appeared and a strange mark activated.
• Guoguo Tea overheard DeSantis tell Snape that Voldemort wanted his help returning to life and demanded an Unbreakable Vow, which Snape accepted.
• Guoguo Tea brought Vaughn the memory of Snape’s vow, and Vaughn decided to summon Dumbledore back.
• Snape summoned Harry to his office, where Vaughn greeted him and said he counted as a witness to the previous night’s events.

Vaughn investigated Voldemort’s cave and Regulus’s Locket while preparing an international Potions exchange and developing the Universal Functional Group. The arc ended with Snape recognizing that Vaughn’s research might let Muggles use potions and reconsidering his suspicions of him.

• Vaughn tested Snape’s limits under the Unbreakable Vow, then worked with Dumbledore to examine the Diary and consider how Voldemort might use it to find other Horcruxes.
• Vaughn entered the Black ancestral home, took Regulus’s Locket from Kreacher, and promised to return Regulus in exchange for it.
• Vaughn and Kreacher explored Voldemort’s seaside cave, where Vaughn uncovered the enchanted cavern and the basin holding the Stone Basin Potion.
• Vaughn brought Crouch and Donald Graves to study the cave’s magic, while Lupin encountered Tonks and was assigned to guide her through WAC werewolf settlements.
• Vaughn prepared for the Potions Exchange Event, and Dumbledore reported on China’s cloud-gathering magic as Harry and Ron learned that an exchange delegation would visit Hogwarts.
• Vaughn recruited Hermione to assist with his Universal Functional Group research, and she used Multi-Spectrum Vision to study Araclaid’s cells and magical proteins.
• Vaughn and Hermione demonstrated the protein robots to Snape, who challenged their design and cost before realizing they might let Muggles use potions without Magic Power.
• Vaughn told Snape that Dumbledore feared him because he judged beings by their usefulness, and Snape began to reconsider his assumptions about Vaughn.

Vaughn prepared to meet the Chinese delegation and heard Li Nanyu’s account of the Creator, Destiny, and the New Gospel Society. As international delegations approached Hogwarts, Hermione reconsidered her campaign for House-elves and the students underwent intensive training for the exchange event.

• Vaughn developed a way to address protein aggregation in the Universal Functional Group, while debate over Magic Protein intensified and Hogwarts announced an international Potions exchange.
• Vaughn and Dumbledore arranged a meeting with China, and Li Nanyu tested Cheng Quandao before bringing him through Vaughn’s fog-bound magical display.
• Li Nanyu explained China’s history with the Confederation and proposed that the Golden Soul and Creator might be tied to the future, Destiny, and the birth of the universe.
• Vaughn reported the meeting to Fudge and began planning experiments about the Creator, variables, and time, while Newt’s research found that magical creatures’ medicinal materials could acquire traits from legends.
• Hermione tried to free Hogwarts’s House-elves, but Vaughn argued that their biology had been shaped by generations of domestication and encouraged her to research how to reverse it.
• Hermione suspended S.P.E.W.’s activities after recognizing she had imposed human beliefs on the House-elves, as Hogwarts prepared students for the visiting delegations.
• The foreign schools and institutes approached England, and Professor McGonagall intensified etiquette and academic training while Harry worried that his reputation would draw challengers.
• Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny entered the Great Hall in early February and found it redecorated for the arriving delegations.

The visiting delegations arrived as Vaughn, Dumbledore, and the Pure-blood Families maneuvered around the threat of Tom’s resurrection and the Potion Exchange. Harry and Ron uncovered the plot but became entangled with Umbridge, while Vaughn tested a new potion on Lupin and Hogwarts prepared its student representatives.

• Harry watched the international delegations arrive, faced Fleur Delacour’s public insult, and learned that Lucius Malfoy and Jacob Rosier were involved in plans to resurrect Tom.
• Vaughn told Dumbledore there had been no Horcrux in Ireland, while Dumbledore warned that Magic Protein threatened the wizarding world’s existing balance.
• Vaughn let the Pure-bloods pursue Tom’s resurrection and extracted Peter Pettigrew’s memories from Scabbers as Harry and Ron searched Hogwarts for the missing rat.
• Harry, Ron, and Hermione followed Lucius and Snape into the Forbidden Forest, where they witnessed a fight between the Pure-bloods and North American wizards and Harry’s scar reacted to a Killing Curse.
• Hermione blinded Jason Hastings with Vaughn’s spell, and Snape concealed Jason’s injuries as Dumbledore and Vaughn allowed the plan to proceed.
• Harry and Ron used Hagrid and a staged Abraxan injury to leave the West Tower meeting, but Umbridge caught them and demanded that they spy for Minister Fudge and help obtain Vaughn’s research.
• Vaughn tested Wolfsbane Potion Version 2.1 on Lupin, who did not transform, and then urged Dumbledore to implement the Werewolf Class and consider an Eightwizard Tournament.
• Harry and Ron deliberately transformed themselves into girls during Snape’s potion selection exam, while Fleur pushed past Cheng Quandao and entered Vaughn’s laboratory.