For the rest of the Christmas holidays, Harley didn't go out exploring at night again. Instead, she spent the whole time studying the book she had snatched from the Restricted Section.
That night, Professor Dumbledore hadn't asked what had happened to the book Powerful Potions, and Madam Pince hadn't said anything about a book going missing from the Restricted Section.
Harley had a vague suspicion that Professor Dumbledore had covered up the incident.
The Christmas holidays soon came to an end, and Harley quietly returned to the Restricted Section and put the book back where it belonged.
She had already copied down the book's most important recipes, as well as the ones that interested her most.
The other potions were more complicated and more dangerous. Harley could achieve the same effects through simpler rituals.
The day after Harley returned the book, the students who had left for the holidays came back to school by train.
As soon as Hermione entered the dormitory, she gave Harley a hug and said she really liked the Potions notes Harley had given her.
"The only downside is that I can't understand a lot of the material in them," Hermione complained.
"The knowledge Professor Snape added is so advanced. I'd bet anything that your Potions skills are already way beyond mine."
"That's okay. I'll make you a reading list. Once you've finished the books on it, you'll be able to understand the material in the notes, too.
"You're just as capable of learning as I am. You've simply never come across the relevant material before."
Harley reassured Hermione. She was more than happy to help Hermione reach her level.
If she had the chance, Harley wouldn't mind bringing Lavender and Parvati along, either.
After all, if everyone's skills improved, discussing things together would help them progress even faster.
Even though Harley was already very good at Potions, some ideas were inevitably overlooked because of the limits of her own perspective.
Pooling ideas and learning together was always the fastest way to improve. If it meant she could recover into a Demoness of Unaging, sharing some knowledge was an acceptable price.
Unfortunately, asking Gryffindors to study seriously seemed like a bit much, especially when the subject was Potions, which most of them hated.
At least among the girls Harley knew, only Hermione was willing to settle down and study the dry, complicated principles behind potion ingredients.
Even the Ravenclaw girls—such as Padma, the sister of Harley's roommate Parvati—had no interest in potion ingredients.
For the time being, though, Hermione alone was enough.
After the school term began, Harley grew busier and busier. Professor Snape added practical lessons, teaching her how to handle some rare potion ingredients.
There, Harley came across the roots of a Mist Tree. She wasn't sure whether this Mist Tree was the same as the Mist Treeman required by the Seer Pathway.
But one thing was certain: the two materials had to be handled differently.
If she treated the Mist Tree's roots the way she would the true roots of a Mist Treeman, the material would become unusable.
This made Harley even more cautious about learning the technique. No matter how dirty or unpleasant the work was, she insisted on doing it herself at least once.
The Weasley Twins, who were handling ingredients alongside Harley, were dumbfounded.
Their first assignment after the start of term had somehow earned them a "T," and Professor Snape had sentenced them to a month of detention, where they had to handle all sorts of disgusting potion ingredients.
The first time they handled those ingredients—washing out a Black-striped Rat's intestines, for instance—they were so overwhelmed by the stench that they threw up.
But Harley could handle the work herself without hesitation or so much as a frown. She wore gloves and a mask, but even so, she was impressive.
Besides studying Potions, Harley also had to make time for Quidditch practice.
In their second match, Harley once again demonstrated her superb skills. She completely scattered Hufflepuff's formation and caught the Golden Snitch right under the nose of their Seeker, Dillinch.
It was clear that the Hufflepuff Quidditch Team's captain was furious. They would probably be replacing their Seeker.
Despite winning by a huge margin again, the Gryffindor Quidditch Team actually increased the intensity of their training.
"We haven't won the championship in five years!" Wood said solemnly.
"Everyone, I want that championship! Gryffindor needs it, too!"
So Gryffindor's training load doubled. If Professor McGonagall hadn't stepped in when she'd had enough of it and stopped Wood's insane plan, he would have tripled it.
During this time, Harley finally worked out a way to recover some of her strength.
She had identified correspondences between many potion ingredients and the various ingredients from the Sequence Pathway world.
That meant she could start brewing many potions. She could also begin planning to regain her strength.
When Harley had been fleeing, she had destructively used several Mystical Items, shattering them and merging them with her Mythical Creature Form.
Through rituals and the guidance of Spirituality, the Beyonder Characteristics of those Mystical Items had formed a special state of existence. They had become entangled with Harley's Mythical Creature Form and sealed away her status and strength layer by layer.
So, to regain the power of Sequence 3, Harley would have to break the seals in reverse, one layer at a time.
Each time she broke a seal, her strength would rise by one Sequence, and one part of her Mythical Creature Form would be freed from its restrictions.
The Beyonder Characteristic that separated out each time couldn't be made back into a Mystical Item. It had also been contaminated by her Mythical Creature Form, so it couldn't serve as a potion's main ingredient.
But if it was combined with the right auxiliary ingredients and brewed into a potion, then absorbed by a suitable object, it could still become a Sealed Artifact.
Since the contamination came from Harley's Mythical Creature Form, she could make limited use of these Sealed Artifacts, as long as she was willing to pay the price.
To break a seal, she needed to use a specific potion to contaminate the Beyonder Characteristic used to form it, separating it from Harley's Mythical Creature Form.
When Harley had sealed away the power of Sequence 6, she had used a Mystical Item formed after the death of a Baron of Corruption.
She had forcibly used the concept of Distortion within it to seal away her strength for the final time.
After identifying viable potions and substitute ingredients, Harley lay in bed that night, looking at the parchment on which she had written the recipe:
"The properties of an Earth Rhinoceros heart seem similar to those of an Earth Rhino heart. Unicorn Pegasus blood could probably be replaced with Unicorn blood."
"Unfortunately, Unicorn blood is cursed, too. I don't know if it's the same as what I have in mind.
"If it is, then I do have a way to deal with it..."
Harley planned out how to brew the potion, but in the end, she couldn't fight off her sleepiness. She folded the parchment and drifted into a deep sleep.
Even so, the corners of Harley's mouth curled into a smile as she dreamed.
Because she could see hope of becoming a Demoness of Pleasure again!
(Thanks for the tip, Zǔfàn Diǎn Wàimài!)
Some people have said I'm poisoning the story, but as the author, I honestly can't see it. If anyone has a different opinion, please join the reader group and talk it over there. A lot of my messages mysteriously disappear from the comments.
I also revised the previous chapter. A reader was right that Amon possessing Peter Pettigrew was too disgusting and didn't fit Amon's handsome image, so I changed the host to a sparrow.
Before you continue