Eleven years old, and in ten years, plus one semester, that's twenty-two, right?
Was Dumbledore wrong, or was his math not very good, or did he know something that Dumbledore didn't?
Lorne dislikes feeling kept in the dark.
This time, he stared into Dumbledore's eyes. "You're wrong, Professor. I'm twenty-two years old."
Dumbledore smiled and shook his head.
"Ever since you appeared, I've been investigating the reasons for the problems with the Book of Admittance and the Quill of Acceptance. After all, I'm the principal, and I can't tolerate this kind of thing continuing to happen."
"To trace the origins, we inevitably have to start with you. During the investigation, I discovered that you were born in 1969, and this year is 1992, so you are of course twenty-three years old."
"I remember when I first met you, you said you were twenty-one. From then on, you had a problem with your perception of your age. I don't know the specific reason, but one thing I'm sure of is that the fact that you didn't receive any letters when you were eleven years old is related to someone."
Lorne asked urgently, "Who?"
Dumbledore smiled but did not answer.
Lorne calmed down. When he was eleven years old, in 1980, the same year Harry was born, Voldemort was in power.
Lorne carefully deduced that there was no problem with being eleven years old, nor with a semester. The problem lay in the seemingly ordinary ten years he had spent after transmigrating. Why did he always think that only ten years had passed from 1980 to 1991?
Someone stole a year from him.
Lorne immediately thought of the item he hadn't used yet— the Corrupted Time-Turner.
[Having trapped three people in time, and also rescued one person from time, one can exchange their past time for dimensional travel. Remaining exchangeable time: 1 year; exchange ratio: 1 year to 10 minutes]
He understood.
Hogwarts owls usually start delivering mail to young wizards in July. Harry's birthday is at the end of July, which means that before Harry was born in July, Voldemort was still the nightmare of the Wizarding World.
His original self was a Muggle-born young wizard who had received his Hogwarts acceptance letter, but was killed by Voldemort for unknown reasons. This is probably why he can see Thestral now.
Thus, Lorne, who traveled through time and inherited the original body, was treated as a newborn by the Book of Admittance and the Quill of Acceptance because of his new soul. Eleven years later, in 1991, Lorne's name appeared in the Book of Admittance's view along with that of Harry, who was born at the time.
Perhaps it was because the Book of Admittance found its name on the list when it was searching for names that it marked itself as "the Forgotten One".
As for the lost memories, it's highly likely that your future self used the Decayed Time-Turner at some point to exchange for a year's worth of time and memories from when you first arrived.
Lorne isn't an adventurer; he prefers a simple, steady life. But if someone were to tell him one day that he has to set sail, he would gladly accept it.
It seems his life isn't as peaceful as he thought, but he'll enjoy it all.
Lorne took a sip of honey tea.
It's still cloyingly sweet.
Time magic often involves causality, and he now had a new idea: what would happen if he simply didn't use that Time-Turner?
"You're special, Lorne," Dumbledore coughed. "You know, Severus still hasn't been able to create the Soul Potions you invented. He told me that he can sense there's nothing wrong with the formula you provided; it's just that his own magic is mixed with too much emotion, which makes it less effective on the soul."
"I don't know why you can, but Lorne, you are an excellent teacher, and Hogwarts will always remember everything you've done for your students."
Dumbledore finished the honey tea.
Lorne offered him a drink. "Don't worry, Professor, the General Affairs Office's mission is to wholeheartedly serve every faculty member and student, and that will never change."
Snape couldn't make Potions related to the soul because magic was mixed with too much emotion.
The conclusion that magical release is related to emotions is common knowledge in the Wizarding World. Not only does the power and effectiveness of a spell change with the concentration of emotions, but some spells also require specific emotions. For example, Expecto Patronum requires happy memories, and the three forbidden spells require pure malice, and so on.
This is quite normal in the more idealistic Wizarding World, and Lorne suspects that his system mission to collect Power of Emotion is related to this.
So, is it because his magic comes from the system and is untainted by emotions that he was able to successfully concoct Potions related to the soul?
So that's why Dumbledore took him to test Ron's wand in the first place.
Magic is the manifestation of a wizard's personality and traits. Wands select wizards based on their magic, and since a wizard's magic comes from the system, no wand will reject them.
The reason why the common model in his hands could become his magic wand was simply because it entered his hands first, unlike other magic wands.
No wonder Ollivander kept showing Ron new wands to try when they were choosing one later.
The cunning old bee had already begun to doubt itself.
This actually made Lorne feel more real. He couldn't believe that Dumbledore unaware that he had mastered the Levitation Charm to the point of silent, Wandless Magic in just one year, created a Potions that could target the soul, and promoted Magic Mobile Phone that had become a sensation in the Wizarding World.
He had been living in constant fear and racking his brains to figure out how to answer other people's questions and doubts, only to find that Dumbledore had already begun secretly investigating him all along.
Actually, Dumbledore know much either.
Lorne carefully reviewed today's conversation and realized that after all that, Dumbledore had only figured out two things: his age and background, and his magic and emotions—anyone who didn't know better would think Dumbledore was going to act as a matchmaker and introduce him to potential partners.
As for Dumbledore's final praise, Lorne a fool could see that it was just like a boss making empty promises to an employee; Dumbledore was trying to win him over.
There's probably a hint of warning in it too. Lorne's perspective as Dumbledore is indeed a bit terrifying. Before and after Voldemort was killed by baby Harry, he didn't receive his acceptance letter and his memory was damaged. Eleven years later, he enrolled with Harry, possessed extremely high magical skills, had silently mastered a spell, and could even concoct Potions related to the soul.
It looks like he's been possessed by Voldemort.
Oh well, I'm inclined towards the truth anyway, so I'm not afraid of being suspected.
Even if Dumbledore didn't try to win him over, he wouldn't go to Voldemort's side. The Wizarding World under Voldemort's rule was even more oppressive than Hengshui High School, and he didn't dare to think about how he would harvest the Power of Emotion then.