Chapter Summaries

Brian took Fred to Diagon Alley to have his broken wand repaired, where Mr. Ollivander examined Brian’s unusual wand and watched him cast a distinctive Avis. They ran into the Weasley family, and Brian spoke with Arthur about Muggle life before returning to Hogwarts with Fred.

• Brian brought Fred to Mr. Ollivander, who agreed to repair Fred’s broken wand by the day before Christmas Eve.
• Mr. Ollivander examined Brian’s wand but could not identify its materials or make it respond to his spells; Brian cast Avis and produced miniature phoenixes.
• Fred tried his newly chosen wand and summoned magpies, while Mr. Ollivander demonstrated a normal Avis with sparrows.
• Brian and Fred encountered Arthur, Molly, and Ginny Weasley in Diagon Alley, and Brian explained that Professor McGonagall knew about their trip.
• Arthur invited Brian to a café, where he enthusiastically questioned Brian about Muggles, engines, and aeroplanes while Fred and Ginny played wizard’s chess.
• Brian and Fred said goodbye to the Weasleys and headed back, with Brian reminding Fred that having family who cared enough to nag him was a blessing.

After Snape's fake poisoning warning gave Hogwarts students a second, unofficial Christmas Eve, Brian spent the holidays celebrating with students and professors, exchanging gifts with his magical companions, and joining the Christmas feast. The chapter ended with Brian greeting the professors at the feast and hoping his presents had arrived safely.

• Snape reassured a Ravenclaw prefect that his poisoning threat had been an effective lesson, while students left Hogwarts for the real Christmas Eve.
• Brian collected the Stone Soldier, the Little Sapphire Dragon, and the little Whomping Willow, then exchanged Christmas gifts with his magical companions and opened presents from Hogwarts staff and students.
• Brian gave the students Honeydukes candy, and the Weasley twins played their guessing game until Angelina identified Fred and George by striking Fred's arm.
• Brian visited the Hogwarts Kitchens, sampled a badly made lemon pudding, and joined the professors and students at the Christmas feast.

Brian celebrated Christmas at Hogwarts, gave his colleagues Happiness Mirrors, and prepared to return to his Muggle home. After arriving at a nearby pub, he discovered that the Weird Sisters were performing under their wizarding names and recognized the band members as people he knew from the Muggle world.

• Brian gave Hogwarts staff Happiness Mirrors made with ancient magic, and Dumbledore invited him to supply more for Ministry employees who needed help casting the Patronus Charm.
• Professor Trelawney drunkenly prophesied fear and misfortune connected to someone swimming, while the Hogwarts staff and students continued their Christmas festivities.
• Brian received parenting books from Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, packed his belongings, and learned that a student had broken into the Restricted Section the previous night.
• Brian traveled by Floo Powder to a pub hosting a Weird Sisters imitation contest and joined the audience in voting for a band.
• Donaghan Tremlett and Myron Wagtail revealed that the second-place band was the real Weird Sisters, then began a lively performance.
• Brian recognized the band's lead singer and bassist as Muggle acquaintances and prepared to settle a score.

Brian reunited with Myron Wagtail and Donaghan Tremlett, revealed that he was a Hogwarts professor, and returned to his Muggle home for Christmas. There he encountered Hermione and her parents, visited the Granger home, and heard Mr. Granger worry that Hermione had grown more distant from her Muggle family.

• Brian stopped Myron Wagtail during the Weird Sisters' performance and revealed that he knew him as Mike Charles.
• Backstage, Brian told Myron Wagtail and Donaghan Tremlett that he was a wizard and a Hogwarts professor, and accepted an invitation to join a future band tour.
• Brian returned home, opened his friends' Christmas gifts, and took care of his magical companions before going to the convenience store for food.
• Brian met Hermione and the Grangers at the supermarket, introduced himself as a Hogwarts librarian and Muggle Studies professor, and accepted their invitation to visit.
• At the Granger home, Mr. Granger asked Brian about magic for straightening Hermione's teeth and shared his concern that she talked to her parents less since learning about magic.

Brian visited Hermione at the Grangers’ home, where he told her about the house-elves’ working conditions and urged her to speak with them before trying to help. Later, Brian attended an Edinburgh Christmas gathering with Professor Burbage, where he encountered Tonks and Alastor Moody.

• Brian discussed Hogwarts house-elves with Hermione, who became angry after learning that they worked without pay and could be mistreated.
• Brian told Hermione about a girl who freed an elf by giving him clothes, leading the elf to choose death rather than the freedom imposed on him.
• Hermione decided to speak with the house-elves in the Hogwarts Kitchen, and Brian agreed to help her find books about them.
• Brian attended an Edinburgh Christmas gathering with Professor Burbage and bought a painting of Hogwarts as Muggles saw it.
• Brian entered a wizard gathering and saw Tonks trying to change her hair color and Alastor Moody interrogating a waiter about poisoned pasta.

Brian learned that the Ministry would pay fifty Galleons for each Happiness Mirror, celebrated by sharing a strange wizarding feast with Moody, Burbage, and Tonks, and delivered transformed frogs to Hermione. He began keeping a diary about his studies and Hermione’s questions, ending as the holiday drew to a close and he prepared to return to Hogwarts.

• Moody told Brian that the Ministry could pay fifty Galleons per Happiness Mirror, and Brian treated Burbage and Moody to the restaurant’s secret dish.
• Moody discussed the danger surrounding the waiter’s mother, a member of the Order of the Phoenix, and Brian asked whether Voldemort was dead.
• Tonks joined Brian, Burbage, and Moody, and they tried a giant pizza topped with magically transformed frogs.
• Brian gave Hermione a box of frogs and praised her ability to recognize the effects of Transfiguration.
• Brian decided to keep a diary, recorded his Transfiguration practice and a call from Hermione about House-elves, and wrote that he was sad the holiday was ending.

At Hogwarts’s opening feast, Dumbledore introduced Alastor Moody as the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, while Brian arrived late after his Little Sapphire Dragon and Stone Soldier chased Peeves through the castle. Brian’s dramatic entrance won the students’ admiration, and his colleagues began arranging turns to borrow his companions to deter Peeves.

• Fred and George joked that their Prophecy Machine predicted Alastor Moody would become the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, and Dumbledore then announced Moody’s appointment.
• Peeves burst into the Great Hall fleeing the Little Sapphire Dragon and Stone Soldier, with Brian arriving behind them and stopping his companions.
• Brian apologized for being late, and the students cheered him for chasing Peeves as he took his place at the staff table.
• Brian checked that Moody’s flask held liquor rather than potion and agreed to visit Hagrid and Norberta for drinks.
• Professor McGonagall borrowed the Stone Soldier, and Professor Burbage proposed drawing lots to decide which colleagues could borrow Brian’s companions next.

Brian revised his Muggle Studies plans to make the course more engaging, negotiated limits on Peeves’s pranks, and received a letter from Mr. Ollivander suggesting his wand was incomplete. The chapter ended with Fred Weasley and George Weasley delivering jars of Fanged Fruit to Brian.

• Brian realized his Muggle Studies syllabus needed to focus more on cultivating students’ interest, and he planned a lesson involving a Muggle supermarket and borrowed Fang from Hagrid.
• Peeves intensified his pranks, but Brian warned the students about the danger of confronting him and arranged negotiations with Professor McGonagall, Professor Flitwick, and Dumbledore.
• Brian and Peeves signed agreements restricting dangerous pranks, while Peeves secured permission to keep his weekly swim in the first-floor boys' bathroom.
• Mr. Ollivander wrote to Brian that his wand might be an incomplete wand core and offered to make a casing, so Brian arranged to visit Diagon Alley.
• Fred Weasley and George Weasley arrived at Brian’s door with jars of Fanged Fruit.

Brian resisted opening the Fanged Fruit jars and taught a Muggle Studies lesson about pets, focusing on dogs and their uses. He began connecting dogs to Professor Moody’s magical eye, leaving the class curious about the explanation.

• Brian fed honey to the Fanged Fruit, stored them away, and chose to prepare for his lesson rather than explore their memories.
• Four wandmakers sent Brian offers to make a casing for his wand, and he recognized them as the unsolicited letters Ollivander had warned him about.
• Brian discussed Hogwarts’ lack of lesson bells with Professor McGonagall, who explained that bells would disturb the portraits and staircases.
• Fred Weasley and George Weasley arrived five minutes late to Muggle Studies with unfinished snowmen as their excuse, and Brian let them take their seats.
• Brian quizzed the class on Muggle pets and explained that dogs served purposes including companionship, profit, work, and protection.
• Brian asked whether the students had seen Professor Moody’s magical eye, and Fred Weasley and George Weasley described its ability to rotate around Moody’s head.

Brian taught his first Hogwarts Muggle Studies lesson by explaining guide dogs and having students design outfits for a clay model of Fang. After class, he discussed the Weasley twins’ Regret Potion and joined Professor Burbage for a ketchup-heavy lunch, where she wondered who had caused a normally reliable house-elf to make a mistake.

• Brian explained how Muggles train guide dogs to help blind people and described the lengthy work involved in preparing a dog for the role.
• Brian had students design pet clothes for a clay Fang, and Fred received paw-print marks after Fang rejected his restrictive outfit.
• Brian awarded Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, and Ravenclaw five points each and warned the students about Peeves’s ketchup-filled tomato balls.
• Fred and George asked Brian when he would try their Regret Potion, and Brian tried unsuccessfully to repair their cracked snowman with Reparo.
• At lunch, Brian drank tomato pumpkin juice with Professor Burbage, who asked him to guess who had caused a house-elf to add ketchup to the food; Brian glanced at the dejected Hermione.

Brian visited Ollivander’s shop to find that Ollivander had failed to make a casing for his wand, then watched the wandmaker set off for Germany to consult Gregorovitch. At the Leaky Cauldron, Brian recognized the disguised Wraith as the Ice Cream Shop assistant and spotted James Potter in a photograph in his suitcase.

• Brian found Ollivander’s shop wrecked by failed experiments, and Ollivander explained that he had broken six designs and caused eleven explosions while trying to make a wand casing.
• Brian suggested Ollivander contact his old friends, prompting Ollivander to suspect Gregorovitch might have succeeded and rush off to Germany.
• Brian tried Tom’s Gamp Vintage Social Wine, then watched Wraith fail the pub’s drinking challenge and earn free drinks and ten Galleons.
• Brian recognized Wraith as the former assistant at Mr. Fosco’s Ice Cream Shop, and Wraith said Fosco had closed the shop and left him a week’s wages.
• Brian saw a photograph in Wraith’s suitcase and asked whether the young man pictured was James Potter.

Brian met Remus Lupin, learned of his concern for Harry, and confirmed Lupin’s identity with Professor McGonagall before asking about Transfiguration. Back at the Castle, Brian discovered Book had eaten his Fanged Fruit sweets and refused Book’s offer of more ancient magic, though Book taught him the magic of “Memory.”

• Brian recognized Wraith as an old friend of James Potter after discussing Hagrid and the Marauders with him.
• Brian told Wraith, who revealed that his real name was Remus Lupin, about Harry’s life and offered to answer future questions by letter.
• Brian confirmed with Professor McGonagall that Remus Lupin had been a Gryffindor prefect, then asked her how magic conjured seasonings and liquor.
• Brian discovered that Book had stolen and eaten his Fanged Fruit sweets, healed Book’s swollen cover, and refused to lose control for more ancient magic.
• Book accepted Brian’s reasons and taught him the magic of “Memory.”

Brian completed the first stage of studying the ancient Memory magic and learned to conjure a whisker from a memory, though the conjured whiskers vanished when he lost focus. He visited Dumbledore to share his discovery and met Nicolas Flamel, who thanked him for protecting the Philosopher’s Stone and gave him two gold bars.

• Brian finally illuminated the first page of the Memory magic book by imagining a dragon breathing affectionate smoke, then read instructions to make something from a memory appear in reality.
• Brian tried to conjure a tulip but failed, then successfully produced one of Dumbledore’s beard whiskers and discovered he could make two before they vanished when his attention wandered.
• Brian brought mead to Dumbledore’s office, where he encountered Nicolas Flamel, whose hair smelled delicious because of a shampoo he had developed.
• Dumbledore introduced Brian to Nicolas Flamel as the ancient-magic user who had helped protect the Philosopher’s Stone, and Flamel thanked Brian on behalf of himself and his wife.
• Nicolas Flamel gave Brian two gold bars, and Brian offered to demonstrate his newly learned ancient magic.

Brian demonstrated a new ancient magic that turned memories into temporary physical objects, then prepared to study it with a Pensieve and a Memory Potion. Snape offered him an enhanced potion for twenty Galleons.

• Brian showed Dumbledore and Nicolas Flamel that his memory magic could recreate objects, including a beard based on a false memory, though the creations vanished when his attention wandered.
• Nicolas Flamel explained that his ancient magic knowledge was much weaker than Brian’s, shared the story of a broken mirror from his courtship with Perenelle, and revealed that his gold bars were Wakefulness Gold Bars.
• Brian drank a Wakefulness Gold Bar, learned its effects lasted a month and could be ended by drinking three liters of milk, and received Dumbledore’s Pensieve to help study his memories.
• Brian went to Snape’s office to buy a Memory Potion, and Snape offered him an enhanced bottle for twenty Galleons.

Brian sold Snape potions, then helped Hermione understand why the House-elves resisted her campaign and reconcile with them. The next morning, Moody told Brian his instincts warned that a strange force was watching Hogwarts, and Brian wondered what threat might be approaching.

• Brian sold Snape two bottles of Enhanced Memory Potion, teased him about Moody, and left before Snape's cauldron could explode.
• Brian found Hermione in the kitchens, where the House-elves asked him to stop her from visiting them so often.
• Brian deducted ten Gryffindor points for Hermione's nighttime rule-breaking, then helped her realize that centuries of wizard influence outweighed her brief efforts to persuade the House-elves.
• Hermione apologized to the House-elves, who welcomed her back, and Brian returned to the kitchen for milk and an apple pie.
• Brian encountered Moody patrolling Hogwarts, and Moody said he felt a strange force was watching the school.

Brian discovered that Professor Moody was under a curse and used Ancient Magic to remove it, but the curse quickly returned. Moody then cast a powerful curse-breaking spell, which also failed to stop the mist from reappearing.

• Moody decided that he had been cursed and prepared to use a goblin-made Curse Detector that appeared to require his blood.
• Brian stopped Moody from stabbing himself and offered to examine the curse with a spell Voldemort had taught him.
• Brian and Moody went to Moody’s office, where Brian used his magic to see a pale black mist surrounding Moody.
• Brian erased the mist with Ancient Magic, but it soon reappeared around Moody.
• Moody cast a powerful curse-breaking spell that dispersed much of the mist, but the curse returned again.

Brian, Moody, and Dumbledore discovered that Voldemort’s prophetic curse on Moody was tied to Hogwarts’s employment magic and could be disrupted by repeatedly destroying and renewing Moody’s contract. The curse faded each time the contract burned, but Moody insisted they still had one last step to take against Voldemort.

• Brian and Moody sought Dumbledore’s help after ordinary methods failed to remove the curse.
• Dumbledore explained that the prophetic curse took effect when its target or enough powerful observers believed it existed, and Moody said Brian had not caused it.
• Fawkes sang an ancient phoenix song that briefly shrank the curse, but it surged back after the song ended.
• Brian suggested using daily employment contracts to reset the curse, and Dumbledore tested the idea by destroying Moody’s contract and having him sign a new one.
• The curse vanished when the contract burned and returned when Moody signed the blank one, revealing its connection to Hogwarts’s personnel magic.
• Dumbledore praised Brian’s Muggle-minded solution, while Moody said they still needed one final step before the matter was settled.

Brian helped Professor Moody destroy Voldemort’s curse on a letter, then watched Book devour the face on Moody’s Curse Detector. He experimented with merging memories in a Pensieve, nearly suffocated when a bizarre false memory affected his real breathing, and ended the night seeing Hagrid’s Hut engulfed in flames.

• Professor Moody destroyed the curse on the envelope, and the House-elves joked with Brian and Dumbledore about serving mammoth meat.
• Brian questioned Book about its ability to eat things, then let it swallow the face on the Curse Detector, leaving the instrument ordinary and attractive.
• Brian merged memories in the Pensieve and entered a surreal false memory in which he became a slice of bread eaten by a House-elf’s eye.
• Brian nearly suffocated after the false memory affected his breathing, so he recorded a warning about merging incompatible memories and reduced his practice to once a day.
• Brian practiced Memory Magic until he could conjure half of Dumbledore’s beard sticky with mead, then saw Hagrid’s Hut burning from his window.

Norberta set Hagrid's Hut on fire after Hagrid brought her upstairs, and Dumbledore put Hagrid and Brian on probation while arranging for the dragon to go to the Romanian Dragon Sanctuary. Harry and Ron arrived with a letter, and Norberta lunged at Ron before Hagrid calmed her down.

• Brian arrived at Hagrid's burning hut and saved Hagrid's beard from the flames.
• Hagrid explained that Norberta had been upset over losing her teddy bear, so he brought her out of the fireproof basement and she accidentally set the hut ablaze.
• Dumbledore arrived, placed Hagrid on probation, and issued Brian a probation notice as well.
• Hagrid agreed to contact the Romanian Dragon Sanctuary to arrange Norberta's departure, while Dumbledore promised to visit the rebuilt hut.
• Harry and Ron emerged from under the Invisibility Cloak to deliver a letter, and Norberta lunged at Ron before Hagrid restrained her.

Brian learned that Charlie’s message had been delayed by a Bowtruckle’s tampering, leaving little time before Norberta’s scheduled departure. He used memory magic and Ancient Sealing Magic to bring part of Norberta’s vanished teddy bear into reality, revealing a breakthrough in his research.

• Ron realized Norberta had been fixated on the scent of Scabbers and apologized to the dragon, while Hagrid tearfully prepared for her departure.
• Brian read Charlie’s letter and discovered that a Bowtruckle had altered the timing, leaving less than an hour before the planned meeting.
• Hagrid lamented that Norberta would leave without her teddy bear, and Brian considered using memory magic to recreate it.
• Brian manifested a memory of the teddy bear and sealed it with Ancient Sealing Magic, but the effort caused an explosion that threw him backward.
• Brian found fragments of the teddy bear on the snow and realized he had successfully turned part of a memory into reality.