Chapter Summaries

During Transfiguration class, Tris questioned Professor McGonagall about layered transformations and prompted her to use a Forced Reversal Spell on Scabbers. The spell exposed Scabbers as the Animagus Peter Pettigrew, and McGonagall trapped him as he returned to human form.

• Professor McGonagall explained how consciousness, magical interference, and overlapping spells affected the difficulty and duration of Transfiguration.
• Tris transformed McGonagall’s crystal goblet into a vase, and she explained that an ordinary Reversal Spell usually undid only one layer of Transfiguration.
• McGonagall demonstrated the Forced Reversal Spell on the vase, which reverted through its previous forms to Scabbers.
• Scabbers continued growing after returning to rat form, and McGonagall recognized that he was an Animagus.
• McGonagall transformed the desk into a metal mesh cage and trapped Peter Pettigrew as he changed back into a person.
• Tris watched with relief, revealing that he had secretly planned to get McGonagall to capture Pettigrew.

Professor McGonagall captured Peter after he transformed from Scabbers, and Professor Flitwick helped secure him before they took him to Dumbledore. Tris kept Peter’s identity to himself and wondered what would happen to him and Voldemort’s Resurrection Plan.

• Peter transformed back into a human, alarming the class, while Professor McGonagall questioned him.
• Peter lunged for Harry’s wand, struck the magical cage, and was bound by Professor McGonagall after refusing to identify himself.
• Professor McGonagall sent Tris to fetch Professor Flitwick, who sealed Peter’s magic and helped escort him away.
• The students questioned Ron about Scabbers, and Ron said the rat had been Percy’s pet before he got him that year.
• Tris wondered whether Peter would be killed and what his capture meant for Voldemort’s Resurrection Plan.

Tris finished his homework early and explained his Transfiguration questions to Padma, while Ron and Harry came to borrow his History of Magic essay. Harry’s question about Draco’s absence left Tris wondering whether a Drarry plot was beginning.

• Professor McGonagall assigned the first-years a heavy load of Transfiguration homework, leaving Ron, Draco, Seamus, and others dismayed.
• Tris declined to promise his homework to Ron after Hermione objected, while Theodore criticized Tris for spending time with Gryffindors and Hermione.
• Tris noticed Dumbledore was absent from lunch and suspected he was dealing with Peter.
• Padma asked Tris to repeat his Transfiguration questions and Professor McGonagall’s answers, and Tris explained them to her in the library.
• Ron and Harry found Tris in the library, and Tris lent Ron his History of Magic essay while advising him to write his own version.
• Harry asked why they had hardly seen Draco lately, and Tris wondered if a Drarry plot was beginning.

Tris explained why Draco was still serving detention and considered how much authority Farley held in Slytherin. Before Potions class, Hermione confronted Tris for letting Harry and Ron copy his homework, just as Snape entered the classroom.

• Tris told Harry that Farley had punished Draco with daily detention for breaking the rules on Sorting day.
• Tris reflected on Farley's talent, fairness, and influence among the students and with Snape.
• During heavy rain on Friday, Tris ran inside the castle while Harry and Ron stayed in their dormitory.
• Tris met Harry and Ron outside Potions class and surprised them by not mocking them for skipping their run.
• Tris sat beside Hermione, who asked whether he had let Harry and Ron copy his homework.
• Snape swept into the Potions classroom as Tris struggled to answer Hermione.

Tris observed Snape’s unusual Potions lesson, brewed a nearly perfect boil-treatment potion, and became suspicious when Neville also succeeded on his first try. After class, Tris agreed to visit Hagrid with Harry and Ron, then told them he had tried and failed to bargain with the Sorting Hat.

• Snape taught the first-years to brew the Simple Potion for Treating Boils, insulting most students while offering selective guidance to a few Slytherins.
• Tris carefully brewed an almost perfect potion on his first attempt, earning Slytherin five points, while Neville also succeeded without making a mistake.
• Snape deducted seven points from Gryffindor after Harry and Ron ruined their potions and Seamus Finnigan blew up his cauldron, then left class early.
• Tris became suspicious that someone might have taken over Neville’s body, but Harry and Ron invited him to visit Hagrid that afternoon, and he agreed.
• Harry told Tris and Ron that the Sorting Hat had considered placing him in Slytherin, and Tris admitted that he had tried but failed to bargain with it.

Tris, Harry, and Ron visited Hagrid, where Harry learned Hagrid knew more about Snape’s dislike of him and the Gringotts break-in than he let on. On the way back, Harry told his friends he suspected the intruder had targeted the mysterious item he and Hagrid had collected for Dumbledore, though he did not know what it was.

• Hagrid welcomed Tris, Harry, and Ron to his hut and talked with them about Snape, dragons, and Charlie.
• Harry found a Daily Prophet clipping about the Gringotts break-in, and Tris explained that the robbery had happened while the goblins were changing shifts.
• Hagrid avoided Harry’s questions about the break-in, prompting Harry to suspect that Hagrid was hiding something.
• Harry confided to Ron and Tris that he suspected the intruder had sought the item he and Hagrid had collected from Gringotts for Dumbledore.
• Harry admitted that he did not know what the item was.

Harry, Ron, and Tris speculated about the mysterious package Hagrid retrieved from Gringotts before Harry and Ron discussed Quidditch. Later, Tris finished his homework and mocked Draco, who challenged him to a fight after losing the argument.

• Harry asked Ron and Tris what Hagrid had taken from Gringotts, but Tris said they could not identify it without seeing it.
• Harry and Ron spotted Ravenclaw students heading to Quidditch practice and asked when they could fly or try out for a team.
• Tris returned to the common room, quickly completed his essay, and went out to work on his system tasks.
• Tris saw Draco struggling with his untouched homework and laughed at him.
• Draco confronted Tris for insulting the Malfoy family, but Tris mocked the family's history and Draco decided to fight him.

After beating Draco, Tris received a random treasure chest from the system and found an Astral Meditation technique inside. He entered the meditative night and formed a star sea, but his excitement disrupted the meditation, and he woke to find Blaise and Theodore asleep.

• Tris beat Draco in a fight, threatened Pansy when she tried to intervene, and then beat Draco again when Draco claimed his first loss was an accident.
• The system awarded Tris a random treasure chest for completing an intense competition, and he opened it back in the dormitory.
• Tris received the Astral Meditation scroll, memorized its contents with his Thought Maze, and began practicing after finishing his push-ups and washing up.
• Tris entered the meditative night and formed a star sea, reaching the initial stage of Astral Meditation.
• Tris's excitement caused his meditation to collapse, and he noticed Blaise and Theodore were already asleep beside him.

Tris learned from the Daily Prophet that Peter Pettigrew had been exposed and Sirius Black had been cleared after a wrongful conviction. He told Harry that Sirius might soon visit him, while Daphne remained suspicious that Tris had known more about the rat than he admitted.

• Tris read the Daily Prophet’s report identifying Peter Pettigrew as the culprit and revealing Sirius Black’s wrongful imprisonment.
• Tris denied Daphne Greengrass’s suspicion that he had noticed something unusual about Scabbers.
• Ron brushed off the revelation that his former pet had been Peter, while Harry struggled with the news that Peter had killed his parents.
• Tris told Harry that Sirius, his father’s close friend, might soon come to visit him.

Tris explained to Harry, Ron, Hermione, and other first-years how to write essays after nearly every professor rejected their work. The students began to understand his method of comparing sources and developing their own ideas.

• Harry wondered whether his father's best friend would come to visit him, and Tris said that getting into Hogwarts might be difficult.
• Professors across Hogwarts ordered most first-years to revise or rewrite their essays, while Tris's work was approved.
• Harry and Ron cornered Tris and demanded to know how he had written essays that pleased the professors; students from Gryffindor and Slytherin gathered to listen.
• Tris explained that students should compare relevant passages from several books, consider the authors' differences, and add their own opinions and conjectures.
• Hermione, Daphne, Sally, Sophie, and the other students listened as Tris said that conjectures could be wrong, but working through them made an essay genuine.

Tris's essay-writing techniques led Hogwarts professors to return students' essays and demand better work, leaving students buried in homework. When Professor McGonagall took Harry, Ron, and Tris to Hogsmeade to meet a visitor, Tris suspected Sirius and Ron was captivated by Madam Rosmerta.

• Hogwarts professors returned essays across all seven years after seeing Tris's polished formatting, forcing most students to redo their work.
• Harry and Ron asked Tris for help with their homework, and he joined them in the library despite wanting to practice the Star Meditation Method.
• Professor McGonagall arrived and asked Harry to accompany her to meet a visitor; Ron and Harry persuaded Tris to come too.
• Professor McGonagall led the three boys out of Hogwarts and told them they were going to Hogsmeade.
• Harry and Ron excitedly took in Hogsmeade's shops, while Tris thought about asking the Twins for the Marauder's Map.
• Madam Rosmerta greeted Professor McGonagall at The Three Broomsticks, and Ron blushed as he stared at her.

Professor McGonagall took Harry, Ron, and Tris to the Hog's Head, where Harry met his father's friend Sirius Black. Sirius began telling Harry what had happened to his parents and asked if he could write to him, leaving the fuller story for their letters.

• Professor McGonagall led the three boys to the Hog's Head, where Sirius was waiting to see Harry.
• Sirius greeted Harry warmly, apologized for not finding him sooner, and agreed to explain what had happened to his parents.
• Sirius ordered milk for the boys and began recounting his friendship with James, but Professor McGonagall urged him to focus on the important points.
• Sirius asked Harry if he could write to him, and Harry happily agreed.
• Sirius began explaining the events surrounding the Potters' deaths, starting with the Fidelius Charm.

After learning he could spend Christmas with Sirius, Tris practiced the Astral Meditation Method and discovered that it refreshed him and briefly sharpened his ability to study. The next morning, he spoke with Cedric about the demanding third-year electives, including Ancient Runes.

• Sirius invited Harry to stay at Black Manor during Christmas and summer, while Professor McGonagall reminded Harry and Ron to finish their homework.
• Tris meditated for more than eight hours, saw the Sea of Meditative Consciousness fill with stars, and awoke refreshed at three in the morning.
• Tris studied Transfiguration and found that meditation had temporarily made difficult material easier to understand.
• Tris met Cedric during his morning workout and learned that Cedric had chosen Ancient Runes, Care of Magical Creatures, and Arithmancy as electives.

Tris tested how meditation affected his mind, then attended Charms, where the first-years learned Lumos. After Zacharias Smith challenged him to prove his magical ability, Tris cast a blindingly bright light that left the class astonished.

• Tris completed another meditation cycle and confirmed that it temporarily made his mind feel more agile.
• Professor Flitwick praised the essays that passed and suggested students seek advice from Tris, drawing resentful looks from those whose work had failed.
• Professor Flitwick taught the first-years Lumos, and Blaise Zabini, Ernie Macmillan, and Zacharias Smith were the only students besides Tris to produce light on their first attempts.
• Zacharias Smith mocked Tris for not trying the spell, and Tris retorted that Smith's poor essay skills would keep him from becoming a top-class wizard.
• Tris calmly cast Lumos, producing a dazzling light that made nearby students cover their eyes.

Tris’s unusually powerful Lumos alarmed Flitwick, but Dumbledore determined that Tris’s magic had simply grown rapidly and remained under control. After class, Daphne questioned him about the spell, and Quirrell confronted Tris in a corridor.

• Tris cast a Lumos bright enough to blind the classroom, and Flitwick used Prior Incantato to confirm that it was the spell Tris had cast.
• Flitwick suspected a magic surge and took Tris to Dumbledore, who said Tris’s magic was growing unusually fast but was not out of control.
• Flitwick returned Tris to Charms class and assigned the students a two-foot essay analyzing the Lumos incantation.
• Daphne sat beside Tris in History of Magic, watched him organize his essay, and later asked whether his Lumos had been a magic surge.
• Quirrell blocked Tris’s path in a corridor and fixed him with an ambiguous smile.

After sensing that Professor Quirrell was watching him with sinister intent, Tris arranged for Blaise and Theodore to accompany him and recruited them into his training routine. That night, as Tris tried to meditate, a sinister voice spoke in his mind and scarlet eyes opened in the darkness.

• Tris noticed that Quirrell spoke without stammering and watched him eerily, so he decided not to be alone.
• Tris persuaded Blaise and Theodore that his training could help their magic grow, and both agreed to join his daily exercises.
• Tris walked to class with Blaise and Theodore, puzzling Harry and Ron, and the afternoon passed without incident.
• Tris went to bed intending to meditate but failed to enter his familiar Sea of Meditative Consciousness.
• A sinister voice spoke in Tris's mind as a pair of scarlet eyes opened in the darkness.

Tris trapped Voldemort’s Soul Fragment inside his Thought Maze, where Voldemort failed to break through its shifting walls and passages. Just as Tris thought the maze might drain Voldemort completely, Voldemort exploded into silver light and escaped.

• Voldemort’s Soul Fragment invaded Tris’s mind, expecting to possess him, but found Tris conscious and able to resist.
• Tris transformed his mental world into a Thought Maze and challenged Voldemort to find the exit.
• Voldemort blasted through countless walls, but the maze continually rebuilt itself, and he became lost and exhausted.
• Tris watched from above as Voldemort’s soul weakened and considered whether he could destroy the fragment and later find the Horcruxes.
• Voldemort’s body swelled with lumps that burst into silver light, and Tris sensed that he had escaped the Thought Maze.

Tris discovered that Voldemort escaped the Thought Maze by detonating his soul, leaving Tris worried about Voldemort’s future plans and determined to grow stronger. Voldemort recovered his connection to Quirrell but was furious that his escape had cost him most of his accumulated power.

• Tris realized Voldemort had escaped the Thought Maze by shattering his soul and worried that Voldemort would remember him.
• Tris reminded himself that Voldemort remained weak, considered targeting Barty Crouch Jr., and tried to meditate but could not settle his mind.
• Quirrell lost contact with Voldemort while maintaining the spell that linked them, then regained the connection after his crystal ball shattered.
• Voldemort told Quirrell he had been careless and blamed the ancient magic of the Weasley family for trapping him.
• Voldemort admitted to himself that escaping the maze had cost him more than eighty percent of his power and feared losing his ability to act in the outside world.

Tris’s intense training drew Blaise, Theodore, Hermione, and other students into a growing exercise group, while he grew more confident that Voldemort would not attack again. At flying class, Tris’s broom failed to respond to his command, leaving him embarrassed beside Daphne.

• Harry and Ron wondered why Tris had become so driven, while Blaise and Theodore saw their magic improve after training with him.
• Hermione joined the exercise group, and by the first week of October eight students were running with Tris.
• After a week without trouble from Quirrell, Tris reasoned that Voldemort had been badly hurt and began considering how to recruit more students into training.
• Tris found a notice announcing the first flying class and arrived the next afternoon with Blaise and Theodore.
• Madam Hooch instructed the students to call their brooms, and Daphne’s broom flew into her hand while Tris’s remained on the ground.

Tris struggled to make his broom move during flying class, only to discover that it worked perfectly for Madam Hooch, leaving him humiliated. After trading insults with Draco, he watched Ron volunteer to race him in the air.

• Harry, Ron, Parvati, Draco, Blaise, Theodore, and Daphne summoned their brooms on the first try, while Tris and Neville could not move theirs.
• Madam Hooch tested Neville's broom and found it was damaged, then summoned Tris's broom without difficulty, prompting the class to laugh at Tris.
• After Madam Hooch left to fetch a replacement broom, Draco mocked Tris, who fired back about the Weasleys' Quidditch record and Draco's boastful flying claims.
• Draco challenged Tris to a flying contest, but Ron stepped in and offered to compete against Draco instead.