Chapter 34
1. The laboratory's early-morning alarm
The night at Hogwarts was like velvet soaked in ink, so thick it would not disperse. Hailey Leicester bolted upright in her four-poster bed as the vibranium spectrometer on her bedside table emitted a high-pitched buzz. Unlike the steady ringing of an ordinary alarm clock, it was more like countless fine needles stabbing her eardrums at once, sharp enough to make her temples throb. On the instrument's fluorescent screen, the 315-hertz magical energy curve was bouncing wildly in a jagged pattern, the distance between its peaks and troughs alarmingly large, even more violent than Wood swinging his bat at a Bludger during the Quidditch final. She leaned closer and saw the Leicester family crest glowing an icy blue on the metal casing. This was the family's specially designed "pure magic warning mode," triggered only when an exceptionally pure magical creature was in danger. The last time it had lit up, her father had said he had run into an injured Thestral in Diagon Alley three years earlier. He had secretly treated its wounds with vibranium tweezers, and her mother had scolded him for an entire week.
"Eileen! Wake up! Something terrible's happened!" Hailey hauled her bleary-eyed friend upright, her nails nearly digging into her arm. Eileen's panda hair clip fell onto the pillow with a plop. Her eyes narrowed to slits as she mumbled thickly through her nose, "What is it... I haven't tried the new milk tea flavor yet..." Before she could finish, the band on the screen gradually turning red startled her upright, as though someone had cast Waddiwasi on her. Her panda hair clip instantly turned alarm red, brighter than the Weasley family's fireworks. In her panic, she knocked over the glass jar on the bedside table, spilling nutmeg powder down one of Hailey's trouser legs like a waterfall. Its spicy aroma mingled with the cloying sweetness of agave syrup in the air, but did nothing to dispel the tension. "Malfoy was bragging in the corridor yesterday that he was going to pick 'magic herbs for Pure-bloods only' in the Forbidden Forest. Could he have planned to take advantage of being punished with Harry and the others to cause trouble on purpose?" Eileen's voice trembled, and her fingers clawed wildly at the air. She looked just like a Boggart hit with Riddikulus, making Hailey want to laugh, though she couldn't.
The two stumbled into their wizarding robes. The spectrometer's buzz suddenly rose an octave, shaking even the magical portraits on the wall, and Hailey hurried to switch off the sound. The portrait of an old wizard who was always stroking his beard was now tugging irritably at his bow tie, muttering, "Young witches and wizards have no manners." As they passed through the corridor, sixteen suits of armor suddenly turned in unison. The clang of metal gauntlets striking breastplates formed an eerie resonance with the spectrometer's buzz, as though someone were conducting this symphony of steel with a wand. Hailey's vibranium bracelet was frighteningly hot, its gear pattern casting a serpentine shadow beneath her skin. She suddenly remembered her father's words in a letter: "When your bracelet and the instrument share a frequency, something important is sure to happen." It was a parchment her father had sent by owl last month, with a smiling face wearing glasses drawn at the end. Now, thinking back on it, it carried an inexplicable weight.
Professor Sprout, the head of Hufflepuff, was stirring hot milk with her wand. When she saw the red curve on the screen, her teaspoon clattered into her porcelain cup, and the splashed milk foam seemed to form the shape of a Mandrake in the air. "Go to the edge of the Forbidden Forest and tell Hagrid!" She pressed Hailey's hand, and the coolness of a Calming Charm came from her fingertips, like the touch of Hailey's mother massaging the spot between her eyebrows. "But remember-" The professor's gaze suddenly sharpened, as though she were watching a disobedient Venomous Tentacula. "Hufflepuffs never take risks without protection. If you run into danger, crush this. You can use magic to send me a message." She pressed a vibranium button into Hailey's hand. It was engraved with a pattern unique to Professor Sprout's family, and its edges still bore fine marks worn into them by time. "I bought this from your Leicester family shop. It can send a signal, and its color is ginger yellow, Hufflepuff's favorite."
As they ran out of the head of house's office, Eileen suddenly grabbed Hailey's sleeve and pointed down the corridor. "Look! The armor's swords seem to be pointing toward the Forbidden Forest too!" Sure enough, the last suit of knight's armor was pointing its longsword diagonally northwest. Dew on the blade gleamed black and purple in the moonlight, looking just like a ruined poisonous brew from Professor Snape's Potions Class. Up close, it smelled strangely of rust and rotting leaves. Hailey's spectrometer suddenly gave a long beep. The magical energy ripples on the screen formed a distinct snake shape, spreading toward the depths of the Forbidden Forest at a dark magic frequency of 180 hertz. Each pulse made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end, as though a cold snake's tongue were flicking across it.
2. Cross-dimensional tracking through the mist
The ferns at the edge of the Forbidden Forest were covered in black-purple dew. They crunched underfoot like broken glass, and each step squeezed out a few drops of sticky sap that glowed eerily in the moonlight. Hailey's spectrometer suddenly gave a piercing, sustained beep. The snake-shaped ripples on the screen split in two, like a giant python flicking its tongue. The magical frequency at the fork was so high that the instrument's casing began to vibrate slightly. "It's Dark Magic!" Eileen screamed, pulling out a clay jar. Inside, an improved potion mixed with nutmeg powder and agave syrup was bubbling fiercely. The amber liquid formed a whirlpool at the mouth of the jar, looking just like a miniature Floo Powder flame. The rising steam carried a spicy aroma, but it could not mask the foul smell of the dark magic beneath it. "Quick, use the upwind patches!" Hailey shouted. She pulled a thin piece of vibranium from her canvas bag and poured the improved potion onto it. Her father had made it from a Muggle adhesive bandage, and a scrap of label paper still clung to its edge. Every time she saw it, she remembered buying bandages at the supermarket before she transmigrated.
They had just attached the vibranium beacon to a crooked tree when a branch cracked in the distance, louder than a Troll snapping a rib. The sound made the fallen leaves nearby tremble and rustle. Four figures stumbled out of the fog: Harry Potter was clutching his bleeding left hand, his cuff blackened as though a dragon had breathed fire on it; sparks glimmered at the tip of Hermione's wand, and faint cracks showed near its core, clear signs of a fierce fight; Malfoy's velvet cloak had been torn into strips, its pearl buttons scattered across the ground, and his usually slick blond hair was now a mess like a bird's nest; Neville had vines wrapped around his ankles, like a butterfly caught in a spiderweb, and still had half a fern leaf clenched between his teeth.
"The unicorn... under the giant sequoia!" Harry panted, his green eyes bright as the fluorescent mushrooms deep in the Forbidden Forest. Drops of blood seeping from his cuff fell onto the leaves and instantly turned to ice crystals, making Hailey's heart tighten. "Someone wearing a turban was drinking its blood. We tried to stop him, but he took the unicorn away and made magical plants attack us!" Hermione added, her voice trembling. She still gripped her wand tightly, her knuckles white with the strain. Hailey's spectrometer suddenly shook as though about to explode, and overlapping magical waveforms appeared on its screen. From far off to the left came the unicorn's dying cry, its frequency reaching 800 hertz, like countless silver strings snapping at once and making their eardrums ache. To the right was Voldemort's distinctive dark magic pulse, its 180-hertz waveform sharp enough to pierce an eardrum. The resonance from their collision made the instrument crackle with electricity.
She and Eileen exchanged a glance and simultaneously pulled out vibranium devices from their families' secret collections. Hailey's starburst iron gear scanner clicked open, casting an arc of silver-blue light through the mist like a laser at a Muggle amusement park. Wherever it passed, the mist took on a faint silver hue. Eileen used her wand to control the spiced vibranium patches. Twenty butterfly-shaped pieces formed an array in the air, nutmeg powder sparkling on their vibranium surfaces like scattered diamond fragments. They fluttered up and down with Eileen's incantation, forming an airtight barrier around the group. "Stay close!" Hailey shouted, stepping over a clump of biting Venomous Tentacula. She felt a sting on her ankle, and numbness crept up her calf as though she had been hit with a numbing spell. She hurriedly used her wand to cast a swelling-reduction spell on herself, easing the discomfort.
The mist grew thicker, reducing visibility to less than three meters, and Hailey could only rely on the spectrometer to guide her. Suddenly, Eileen grabbed her sleeve and pointed ahead. "Look! There's blood on the ground!" Sure enough, black-purple blood wound across the fallen leaves like a strange carpet, stretching all the way toward the giant sequoia. Hailey crouched and took a blood sample with vibranium tweezers. She tested it under the scanner, and a line of text immediately appeared on the screen: "Unicorn Blood, 97% purity, contaminated with a high concentration of dark magic." She drew a sharp breath, never having expected Voldemort to be so cruel.
3. The vibranium barrier and spice resonance
The sight at the base of the giant sequoia made the group of four gasp. A figure in a purple cloak was kneeling beside the unicorn, his turban mostly slipped off. The exposed half of his face was shriveled like dead bark, the skin stretched tight over his bones, with veins clearly visible like twisted earthworms. His mouth was pressed to the unicorn's bleeding neck. Green mist pouring from the tip of his wand entwined with the blood, forming a spinning vortex that looked just like the black holes Hailey had seen in Muggle documentaries as a child. It gave off a sickening stench. Hailey's scanner suddenly flashed red, showing that 315 hertz and 180 hertz were forming a deadly resonance. This was the "dark critical point" marked on the surviving page of the family's book of prophecy. Once reached, every magical creature within a ten-li radius would be affected, and even the air would become unbearably thick.
"All patches, full power!" Hailey roared, plunging the scanner into the ground. Its starburst iron gears began spinning at high speed, buzzing like a hundred bees beating their wings at once and making the ground tremble slightly. Eileen hurled out the spiced patches with all her strength. The twenty "butterflies" formed a precise array, and nutmeg powder and vibranium particles coalesced in the air into an amber barrier as thick as a Gringotts vault door. Fine golden patterns flowed across its surface, making it a lovely sight. Sparks burst out the instant the green mist struck the barrier. The vibranium's metallic lattice broke the dark magic down into golden dust like a sieve, while the spices' magical frequency resonated with the unicorn's horn, producing a clear chime sweeter than Professor Flitwick's Christmas carols and warming their hearts.
"Impossible!" Voldemort-possessed Quirrell's voice was hoarse, as though his throat had been scraped with sandpaper, every word thick with hatred. "Muggle scrap metal can interfere with Dark Magic?" He jerked his head up, and his turban slipped off completely, revealing a fiery-looking scar that glowed an eerie red in the moonlight, shaped much like a twisted lightning bolt. Hailey seized the chance to raise her vibranium music box. Her father had made it from a pocket-watch movement, filled it with agave syrup oil, and hidden a small pinch of ginger powder from Eileen's family inside. She pressed the button, and a gentle melody flowed out, a tune her mother often hummed. It overlapped with the unicorn's cries, forming resonant sound waves that stabbed at Quirrell's eardrums like countless fine needles, making him cover his ears in pain.
Quirrell staggered backward as though struck by an invisible fist, snapping an aerial root off the giant sequoia with a crack. The green mist seeping from beneath his purple cloak was absorbed by the vibranium music box's patterns of light, forming wisps of blue-green smoke in the air that gave off a faint smell of sulfur. The unicorn struggled to its feet, and its silver-blue blood dripped onto Hailey's vibranium bracelet. The gear pattern suddenly lit up, brighter than enchanted candles on a Christmas tree. Warm light spread up her arm, dispelling the numbness from before. Eileen seized the chance to pull out the clay jar and use magic to scatter the remaining potion powder at him. The powder formed icicles in the air, stabbing him and making him howl as though he had been hit with a Stinging Hex.
"Protect the unicorn!" Hailey shouted, casting a spell with her wand to stop its bleeding. But as soon as her magic touched the unicorn's wound, a powerful force repelled it, jolting her arm numb. "What's going on?" She looked at the scanner in confusion and discovered that the Unicorn Blood and vibranium were strongly repelling each other, the complete opposite of the earlier test results. Eileen leaned in for a look, then suddenly pointed at the screen. "Look! The dark magic seems to have formed a film in the blood!" Sure enough, thin strands of black magic now wound through the once-pure Unicorn Blood, slowly spreading like drops of ink in clear water.
4. Completing the gear in the prophecy's surviving page
The moment Hailey's fingers touched the unicorn's dripping horn, an electric current surged through her body. Her vibranium bracelet snapped open, scattering its gear parts across the ground, but the instant they landed, they assembled into a complete ring with a click. The spectrometer's screen suddenly refreshed, displaying the resonant waveform of the Unicorn Blood and vibranium. Hailey realized that the half that had appeared precisely completed the missing half of the gear pattern on the surviving page of the Leicester book of prophecy.
Only then did she understand the deeper meaning of her father's words, "Gears never turn without protection." The vibranium equipment passed down through her family for generations had been designed for this very moment. It was like her mother always adding three pieces of dried tangerine peel when she made ginger tea: one more would be too bitter, one fewer too weak. Everything had been arranged just right. Just then, the centaur Firenze suddenly emerged from the mist, dew hanging from his antlers. When he saw the gear pattern on the ground, his pupils contracted sharply and his mane stood on end. "Go, quickly!" His voice held unprecedented urgency, and his tail swished uneasily.
Seeing that things were going badly, Quirrell grabbed his purple cloak and tried to flee. "Don't chase him!" Hailey grabbed Harry, who wanted to rush after him. Her scanner showed that the dark magic on Quirrell was rapidly growing stronger; he was clearly making a last-ditch struggle. After the centaur Firenze came over, the Dark Magic on the unicorn gradually dispersed. Eileen took the opportunity to seal the unicorn's wounds with spiced patches, working even more skillfully than Madam Pomfrey. With each patch she applied, she recited a Calming Charm, as gently as if soothing a baby. Firenze pulled the four onto his back. The vibranium bells in his mane chimed, resonating with Hailey's scattered gear parts to form a peculiar rhythm. As Quirrell's figure disappeared into the mist, Hailey's scanner recorded one final set of data: the 180-hertz dark magic pulse had weakened by 70%, with an extremely faint echo of vibranium resonance mixed in, like a bell struck three times in the distance, its notes lingering.
When they returned to the castle, the head of Hufflepuff was standing at the end of the corridor, holding a piece of parchment about the size of the button, with the small words "danger has arrived" written on it. An emblem was embroidered around the edge of the button in vibranium thread, glimmering in the moonlight. "Well done. There's no shame in retreating." Looking at the gear pattern in the scanner, she drew the same pattern on the flagstones with the tip of her wand. Every stroke carried powerful magic, making the ground grow slightly warm. "But remember, everything you saw today must stay buried inside you. I'll report it to Headmaster Dumbledore and discuss it with him." Hailey and the others nodded. After Harry and his companions had gone, Hailey moved close to the head of house and couldn't resist asking quietly, "Professor, do you know what the twin gears mean?"
Professor Sprout sighed and stroked Hailey's head like a mother. "Some answers you need to find for yourself. But remember, the Hufflepuff spirit is the key, and the lock to the answer is always hidden in the most inconspicuous place." With that, she turned and walked into the darkness, leaving Hailey standing there alone. A trace of warmth came from the bracelet on her wrist, as though someone had patted her shoulder from the shadows. Eileen came over and offered her a piece of gingerbread. "Stop thinking about it. Have something to eat first."
5. The unspoken mission of cross-dimensional tools
That night, Hailey was adjusting her instruments in the dormitory when she discovered that the marks left by the Unicorn Blood on the vibranium surface formed a gear pattern that exactly matched the surviving page of the book of prophecy. She released the surviving page of the Leicester family's book of prophecy from her necklace. Her father had magically copied it during the summer holidays. The page opened automatically with the fluctuations of magic, and Hailey picked up a drop of Unicorn Blood on the tip of her wand and carefully transferred it onto the missing part of the gear.
In an instant, gold-stamped words appeared in the moonlight: "When pure blood activates the vibranium gears, the chosen one who breaks the deadlock shall hear the echo of the twin gears." She ran her fingers over the gear pattern on her bracelet, remembering the altered melody the vibranium music box had suddenly played before Quirrell disappeared. It was exactly like the sound of the silver instruments in Dumbledore's office: both played "Auld Lang Syne," lowered by three semitones. It sounded somewhat eerie, yet inexplicably harmonious.
The experience in the Forbidden Forest was like a key. It had not only unlocked the secrets of Dark Magic, but also allowed her to hear the distinctive roar of cross-dimensional wisdom deep within the gears of the prophecy. Just as her father had used a Muggle multimeter to measure the optimal resonant frequency of a wand core, and her mother had adapted a magical Preservation Charm into a supermarket freezer, Hailey suddenly realized that perhaps the meaning of her existence was to use Muggle logic to supply the missing link in the magical world's gears of prophecy. She was no chosen one, merely a transmigrator with modern knowledge who happened to have a wizarding family skilled at invention.
Eileen rolled over, and her panda hair clip fell to the floor, startling Hailey out of her thoughts. "Do you think... Malfoy will tell his father?" Eileen's voice was thick with sleep, but held a hint of curiosity. Hailey smiled, her dimples faintly visible in the moonlight. "You never know. His father is a Death Eater. Although he doesn't know who the person under that cloak was tonight, his position means he might do it."
Hailey switched off the spectrometer and lay back down, ready to rest. But still unable to sleep, she remembered her father's words: "All cross-dimensional tools will ultimately point to the same mission-to let the magical world hear the echo of Muggle wisdom." And tonight, the gears deep in the Forbidden Forest had begun to turn. When and where would the next resonance sound? She touched the ring on her hand, and a trace of warmth came from the cold metal, as though someone were protecting her from the shadows, leaving her no longer afraid. Perhaps this was Hufflepuff courage: not being fearless, but choosing to move forward even when you knew you were afraid.