Chapter 37

The morning light in the Hogwarts hospital wing always had a peculiar gentleness. The glow of the magical chandeliers filtered through the white curtains, weaving tiny patches of light across the floor like a handful of stars suspended by a Freezing Charm. Harry opened his eyes amid a sensation of softness. The first thing he smelled was a mixture of Mandrake juice and honey-Madam Pomfrey's signature healing potion. Apparently, it contained Muggle lemon essential oil, which gave wounds a faint fragrance as they healed.

He moved his fingers and found himself lying on a velvet-covered hospital bed, his wrists wrapped in bandages that shimmered silver. The skin beneath them prickled faintly, but the sensation was far gentler than the stabbing of ice picks he had felt before waking, like someone lightly brushing him with a quill. A glass of pumpkin juice floated above the bedside table, tiny ice crystals clinging to its rim. It had evidently been given a Warming Charm.

"Awake?"

Hailey's voice came from beyond the curtain, as steady as a freshly calibrated vibranium scale, without a trace of emotion. Harry pulled the curtain aside and saw her sitting on a wooden chair beside the bed, her back perfectly straight and a copy of Analysis of Magical Fluctuation Charts open on her lap. A vibranium bookmark clipped the edges of the pages—it had been her father's gift for her fifteenth birthday, and supposedly it could automatically mark abnormal magical peaks.

Her vibranium bracelet rested on the pages, its gear patterns stripped of their usual silver-blue sheen, like old machine parts coated in a thin layer of dust. Her canvas bag lay open, revealing the spectrum analyzer inside. Its screen was dark, but Harry recognized the specks of amber-colored icing on its edge: Eileen's family's special agave syrup. Just last week, the girls had used it to make magical gingerbread in the kitchen.

"How do you feel?" Hailey turned a page, her fingertip passing over a section headed "Dark magical characteristics at 180 hertz." Her nails were neatly trimmed, but a little dark green powder was lodged beneath them-juice from Devil's Snare in the Forbidden Forest. Madam Pomfrey had said it took a Scouring Charm at triple strength to wash the stuff off.

Harry cleared his throat, which was painfully dry. "All right. Just... my head feels a little heavy." He instinctively touched his temple. All that remained at the site of his lightning scar was a faint tingling, as though a butterfly had landed there and was fluttering its wings.

Hailey closed the book, stood, and poured him a glass of pumpkin juice. Her wrist trembled slightly as she moved, but her loose sleeve cleverly concealed it. "Madam Pomfrey said you lost a bit too much blood, so she added a blood-replenishing potion. It has some angelica powder my mum sent from China mixed in. It smells like a potion, but it tastes all right."

Harry took the glass, and the instant his fingertips touched it, he suddenly remembered Hailey using the vibranium map to block the green light in the Chamber of Secrets. On the silver-blue barrier the map had unfolded, the gears of the Leicester family crest had been spinning too fast for the eye to follow, as though calculating the most precise angle of defense. "Your bracelet..." He stared at the dulled metal. "Is it broken?"

Hailey glanced down and gently nudged the topmost gear with her fingertip, the gesture an almost instinctive habit. "Just vibranium fatigue. My dad said it could withstand three impacts from Dark Magic, and this happened to be the third." She abruptly changed the subject. "Ron and Hermione are sitting on the bench outside. Ron's arm was cut by a knight chess piece, and Hermione's telling him about Magical Traumatology. He's nearly asleep."

Harry couldn't help laughing, but it pulled at the wound on his chest and made him grimace in pain. Hailey reached out to support him, then stopped halfway and instead pulled a small tin from her bag. "Here. Eileen secretly slipped me a Chocolate Frog. She said it was an 'improved Muggle-flavor version,' with ginger juice in it."

The moment the tin opened, the curtain was gently drawn back. Dumbledore stood in the morning light, specks of icing clinging to his silver beard, his blue eyes behind his Half-moon Spectacles like two pools of moonlit water. "It seems our young champion is not only awake, but enjoying a post-battle dessert." His voice was like aged mead, rich and warm. With a gentle tap of his wand, a plate of lemon drops appeared on the bedside table, their wrappers shimmering like rainbows in the light.

"Madam Pomfrey said you needed some sugar." The old headmaster sat in the chair Hailey had vacated, its legs making a faint sound against the floor. "A paper recently appeared in a Muggle medical journal saying that the combination of chocolate and lemon can stimulate the release of endorphins—or, to put it simply, make people happy."

Harry picked up a lemon drop. Its cellophane wrapper reflected his bewildered face. "Professor, the Philosopher's Stone..."

"It has already been destroyed through the Mirror of Erised." Dumbledore gently rubbed the wrapper between his fingertips, as tenderly as if he were stroking a fragile butterfly's wing. "That mirror has a wonderful property: only someone who 'wants to find it, but does not intend to use it' can truly see the Philosopher's Stone. The courage you felt in the mirror was actually a projection of the pure motives in your heart-like Hailey's spectrum analyzer, which can capture the truth only when tuned to the right frequency."

Hailey's fingers curled on her lap, her nails digging into her palm. She remembered the diagram of mirror magic her father had drawn in his letter. The "resonant frequency" he had circled in red matched the Mirror of Erised's core spell exactly. "So the mirror is like... an FM radio?" she murmured, her voice so soft it was as though she feared disturbing something. "You can only receive a signal when you tune in to a particular channel."

A glimmer of approval flashed in Dumbledore's eyes. "A very precise analogy. Miss Leicester's cross-dimensional thinking always brings fresh insights." He turned to Harry, his tone growing grave. "More importantly, do you know why Quirrell could not touch you?"

Harry's sweet nearly slipped from his fingers. "Because... of the vibranium map Hailey threw over?"

"That was only a physical barrier." Dumbledore shook his head, his blue eyes looking especially profound behind his lenses. "What truly worked was the protective charm your mother left behind. Lily's love exists in your blood, forming a special magical field. Its frequency happens to be able to break down Voldemort's Dark Magic. Like vibranium absorbing impact, it is a natural energy converter."

He paused, his gaze falling on Harry's wrist. "When you placed your palms against your parents' images in the mirror, that warm sensation was no illusion. It was a resonance between the protective charm and your memories of familial love. Hailey's spectrum analyzer should have recorded the peak at the time, shouldn't it?"

Hailey pulled the spectrum analyzer from her bag and pressed play. A steep green curve appeared on the screen, its peak labeled "210 hertz," with "suspected intervention of familial-love magic" written in small letters beside it. "I thought the instrument was malfunctioning at the time." As she looked at the curve, she suddenly remembered how her mother always tucked a dried sprig of lavender into the protective padding of every parcel she sent. "Now I understand. The protective charm was responding to the love in those memories."

"Precisely." There was a barely perceptible note of sadness in Dumbledore's voice. "And Professor Snape's 'hostility' toward you was actually another form of protection."

Harry looked up sharply, crumpling the sweet wrapper in his palm. "Him? The professor who's always taking points from Gryffindor?"

"People are often misled by the direction a gear turns and overlook what it is actually driving." Dumbledore picked up the wrapper Harry had crumpled and gently smoothed it with his wand. "Snape once loved your mother deeply, and those feelings made him a guardian full of contradictions. During the Quidditch match, he appeared to be cursing your broom, but was actually fighting Quirrell's Dark Magic. He was also creating an opportunity for Hailey and the others. Hailey's vibranium equipment recorded all of this, did it not?"

Hailey opened the small notebook in the side pocket of her canvas bag. Several magical waveform comparison charts were pasted inside: on the left were the chaotic curves from Quirrell casting his spell, and on the right were the steady wavebands emitted by Snape's wand. Between them, "neutralization point" was marked in red. "My dad calls this 'phase cancellation,'" she said, pointing to the intersection. "It's like the noise-canceling principle in Muggle sound systems. Two sound waves with the same frequency and opposite phases can cancel each other out."

Harry stared at the two charts and suddenly remembered a scene from Potions Class. Snape always found fault with him when he was brewing Shrinking Solution, yet when he accidentally knocked over some wolfsbane, Snape had cast a Cleaning Charm with remarkable speed. At the time, Harry had thought it a coincidence. Only now did he understand that the magical fluctuation at that moment had matched the Interference Spell Quirrell had secretly released in Dark Magic Defence Class exactly.

"His wand core came from the same source as your mother's," Dumbledore added, his voice as soft as a sigh. "That allows his protective charms to connect precisely with your magical field, like the vibranium parts produced by the Leicester family, which can fit any magical device perfectly."

Hearing this, Hailey looked at her bracelet, which had already lost its shine. She remembered the words in her father's letter: "The difference in resonant frequency between wands with cores from the same source is no more than 0.5 hertz. It is the most precise protection mechanism in the Wizarding World." So the green powder that always clung to the hem of Snape's robes was not potion residue he had brushed against by accident, but a trace left by the frequency of Lily's protective charm passing through his wand.

"So he took points from us..."

"Partly to conceal his concern," Dumbledore said with a smile, sending the icing on his silver beard fluttering down. "And partly because he did not want you drawn into the center of danger. He knew better than anyone that a fragment of Voldemort's soul was living as a parasite on Quirrell. That poor young man sought out darkness while traveling in Albania and ultimately became its host."

Harry clutched the bedsheet. A small fragment of the vibranium flying disc was caught in a fold of the clothes by his hand. It was the weapon Ron had thrown at the end, and the gear pattern along its edge gleamed coldly in the morning light, like a frozen bolt of lightning. "Voldemort... will he come back?"

"He will not have a body for the time being." Dumbledore looked out the window, where the outline of the Forbidden Forest appeared and vanished in the morning mist. "When Quirrell's body collapsed completely from the backlash of the protective charm, his soul lost its host and could only flee in the form of smoke."

Hailey pressed play on the spectrum analyzer, and a piercing buzz broke the quiet of the hospital wing. Mixed into the sound were Quirrell's final scream and Voldemort's roar, like a recording tape that had been forcibly cut off. "My dad says soul fragments at this frequency are extremely unstable." She switched off the instrument, her fingertips turning slightly pale. "Like a poorly sealed can, their magic will slowly evaporate. They won't be a threat for the time being."

"But he will always find a new host." There was no hint of ease in Dumbledore's tone. "Darkness is like a tenacious vine: wherever there is a gap, it will spread. But remember, it is not only spells and the Philosopher's Stone that stand against it. There is also love, courage, and... cross-dimensional wisdom." He glanced at his watch, whose magical hands were turning counterclockwise. "I must attend to the aftermath. People from the Ministry of Magic will come at noon to ask what happened. Get some rest."

When he reached the door, he suddenly looked back, his gaze falling on Hailey's bracelet. "Oh, and Miss Leicester, the 'vibranium magic stabilizer' your father sent by owl was very useful. Madam Pomfrey said it can improve the efficiency of Healing Charms by thirty percent." As Hailey froze in surprise, the old headmaster added, "The union of Muggle and magic can often create unexpected miracles-like the ginger tea your mother makes, which always brings warmth when it is coldest."

After the curtain closed again, a brief silence settled over the ward. The sweet smell of pumpkin juice mingled with the scent of disinfectant, like two utterly different emotions pulling against each other. Harry watched Hailey stuff the spectrum analyzer into her bag, then suddenly smiled. "So Snape is actually... a good person?"

"At least he's a complicated gear." Hailey's fingertip brushed lightly over her bracelet, and the topmost gear finally turned one complete revolution. "My dad says the most intricate machines often have the strangest parts. They may be hard on the eyes, but you can't do without them." She stood, the strap of her canvas bag leaving a shallow mark on her shoulder. "I'll go tell Ron and the others to come in. Madam Pomfrey says you can have visitors now."

Harry nodded and watched her walk to the curtain. Morning light fell on the top of her head, revealing a small patch of reddened skin behind her ear—a trace of the green light that had burned her in the Chamber of Secrets. Even after a Healing Charm, it had left a faint mark. He suddenly remembered how Hailey's hands had shaken the whole time she was adjusting the resonator in the underground passage, though she had insisted she was only cold. He remembered the red veins in her eyes when she woke in the hospital wing, cleverly hidden beneath her lowered lashes.

This girl, who was always talking about "cross-dimensional logic," actually understood the weight of tears better than anyone. Her strength had never meant an absence of emotion. She had hidden her vulnerability in the gaps between vibranium gears, in the stream of data from her spectrum analyzer, and in those seemingly offhand jokes.

"Hailey," Harry suddenly said, his voice softer than he had expected, "thank you for your help."

Hailey's steps faltered. She didn't turn around, only gave a quiet "Mm." The curtain slowly closed behind her. Harry saw her hand clutch its edge, then release it, as though she had completed a ritual no one else knew about.

Outside, Eileen's laughter came through the glass, followed by her usual boisterous voice. "Madam Pomfrey's gone too far! Just because I added nutmeg to the pumpkin juice, she's making me wash medical instruments!" Hermione's exasperated voice followed. "That's what you get for using healing potion as vanilla extract..."

Harry lay back down and touched the scar on his temple. It no longer hurt at all, but it was like a gentle mark, reminding him of his parents' smiles in the mirror, of the protection hidden beneath hostility, and of the unspoken care and courage behind the turning of vibranium gears.

When the ward door opened, he smelled iodine on Ron and lavender in Hermione's hair, as well as the nutmeg powder Eileen had secretly hidden in her pocket. The mingled scents were like a jigsaw puzzle, slowly filling the gaps in his memory.

At the end of the corridor, Hailey leaned against the stone wall, gently turning her bracelet. The bottom gear finally slipped back into place with a barely audible click. She pulled a piece of gingerbread from her canvas bag-Eileen had tucked it in before they set out, and it had gone a little damp by now. When she bit into it, the heat of ginger and the sweetness of caramel burst across her tongue, as though she were swallowing every unspoken emotion.

Sunlight passed through the stained glass, casting tiny patches of light on her vibranium bracelet. Those dulled gears were quietly gathering strength, waiting for the moment they would mesh again. After all, in this world where magic and science intertwined, true strength had never meant never crying. It meant turning tears into the lubricant that drove the gears and, in a corner where no one could see, quietly building up the courage to move forward.