Chapter 122: Curse And Knot
“Most people?”
“Oh, yes, child, there are always some incompetent fools of headmasters who have no secrets.”
The witch who said this wore a Baroque-style court gown and looked elegant and noble.
She glanced at a portrait with contempt and deliberate intention.
Hermione followed her gaze; in the portrait was a gloomy old man who looked anxious and melancholic.
Hermione knew him; when she accompanied Vaughn, the old man had shouted Vaughn’s name, and then was soundly beaten by another old wizard with a long white beard.
They called him Phineas Black.
The name was not unfamiliar; Hermione had read in a section of school history that he was clearly recorded as “the most incompetent headmaster of modern times.”
Of course, his other most famous deed was “nurturing” Albus Dumbledore during his tenure as headmaster!
In this regard, the modern headmasters who could rival him in fame were only Armando Dippet, who “nurtured” Voldemort during his tenure as headmaster…
Lost in thought, Hermione waved goodbye to Vaughn and then to the reluctant portraits.
Seeing that all the other portraits were bidding farewell to the girl and no one was paying attention to him anymore, Phineas Black secretly sidled up to Vaughn:
“Hey, you Weasley boy!”
Vaughn glanced at him but paid no attention.
Phineas was angry; he was not a good-tempered fellow, but now that he had someone to ask a favor from, he forced a smile: “Weasley, do you remember my last proposal? It’s still valid… Oh—Dumbledore!”
Dumbledore walked over, “Phineas, why don’t you try to let it go?”
As he spoke, he took down the frame of Phineas Black’s portrait.
Phineas clung to the frame, begging, “Dumbledore, please, can you let me finish? I’m not asking for anyone to save that scoundrel now, yes, he deserves it, but… but he is the last bloodline of the Black family…”
Meanwhile, Hermione left, and the portraits that saw her off gathered around, looking at Phineas Black crying softly:
“Once he dies, the Black family will be extinct, and a thousand years of history will turn to dust. Merlin, has the Black family been cursed? Dumbledore, Weasley, for the sake of this old man, can you think of a way to at least leave one bloodline of the Black family?”
“It was my fault to lure Weasley with Dark Arts last time, I am willing to apologize. Dumbledore, I am even willing to donate the Black family’s magic to the school, just please, let the Blacks continue!”
He cried sadly, and the portraits whispered.
But Dumbledore was unmoved.
His fingers brushed over the portrait, and a silent spell put the crying Phineas to sleep, then he put the frame away.
One portrait couldn’t bear it and said, “Dumbledore, perhaps…”
“There is no perhaps!” Dumbledore said firmly, waving his wand to put all the portraits to sleep.
He seemed to be in a bad mood. Noticing Vaughn looking at him, he paused before explaining, “Vaughn, don’t listen to Phineas trying to gain sympathy. The last descendant of the Black family committed unforgivable crimes. He only deserves to be locked up in Azkaban and is not qualified to do anything else.”
Dumbledore didn’t even want to say the person’s name.
But Vaughn, of course, knew: “Sirius Black? Sirius is a mistranslation, but due to convention, it is still used here.”
Hearing the name Sirius, Dumbledore’s expression faltered, “Where did you hear that?”
Vaughn had already found an excuse: “After Phineas lured me with Dark Arts last time, I specifically went to check newspapers from over a decade ago and also asked my parents… He was a good friend of Harry’s father, James Potter, and is also Harry’s godfather.”
“Then you should know how evil he is!”
“Mm, very evil. As the Secret Keeper of the Fidelius Charm, he leaked the Potters’ address to the Dark Lord, and after the Dark Lord died, he madly killed his other good friend, Peter Pettigrew.”
Vaughn concluded, showing no change in his expression.
“Sigh…” Dumbledore sighed, not continuing on this topic. He looked at Vaughn’s bandaged wounds and frowned slightly, “Still not healed?”
Vaughn shook his head: “No.”
He unwrapped the bandages, and in the fading sunlight, they could see the split wounds on his chest and shoulder from Voldemort’s forceful Apparition were still bleeding.
The wound edges were granulating, and the powerful healing force of Phoenix Tears was still effective, but on the other hand, a trace of blackness lingered around the wound, hindering its healing!
As the bandages were unwrapped, the black marks spread like a spiderweb over half of Vaughn’s body, extending all the way to the source—a small snakebite on his right hand.
Dumbledore bent down to examine it closely, his blue eyes behind his crescent spectacles gleaming. After a moment, he looked up, “Tom’s curse…”
“Yes, it’s a bit troublesome.”
The curse was cast by Voldemort when Vaughn, using Apparition, tore off Voldemort’s arm.
As a master of Dark Arts, any magic used by Voldemort should not be underestimated.
However, Vaughn was not too worried about this curse.
On one hand, Voldemort was in a hurry at the time and didn’t have the power to cast anything too difficult.
On the other hand, Vaughn was a Potions Master, and potions were very effective in treating Dark Magic.
It just required time!
“Don’t let anyone else know,” Vaughn instructed, “I haven’t told Hermione either, to avoid them worrying.”
Dumbledore understood and said after thinking for a moment, “We should still tell your Potions Professor. Severus is very good at handling… problems left by Tom. I think you know some of his past.”
Old Dumbledore’s gaze was somewhat probing.
He had not told Vaughn that Snape was a double agent.
But what puzzled Old Dumbledore was that Vaughn had never questioned the arrangement of Snape as a “mole” to guide Quirrell and Harry.
It was as if he had always known Snape had ties to Voldemort!
Many times Dumbledore suspected Vaughn had a gift for prophecy—although there had never been a Seer in the Weasley family’s history.
Dumbledore had never tried to ask Vaughn, because he knew that Vaughn and he were actually very similar; if they didn’t want to talk about something, no amount of questioning would yield an answer.
So he could only hint at it.
Hearing his probing, Vaughn smiled and deliberately said, “I will tell the Professor, and by the way, I’ll let him know that I’ve turned his idol, Voldemort, back into a shadow again. I hope he won’t be too sad.”
“He knew it after all…”
Dumbledore smiled, “It would be best to restore the details, such as you tearing off Tom’s arm and ripping off his head… Oh, right, you put a lot of cameras in the Painted World. Perhaps letting Severus see the film with his own eyes would be more direct?”
“You’re a villain, Albus.”
“My dear, you are too!”
After exchanging a few jests, Dumbledore waved his wand and summoned several items: a Time-Turner, the Philosopher’s Stone, and a scroll painting.
He put the Time-Turner and the Philosopher’s Stone into his robe, and pushed the scroll painting to Vaughn.
“What do you mean?” Vaughn looked at the scroll painting, which was the key to the Painted World, equivalent to the core of that miniature world.
Dumbledore explained, “The matter is resolved, and it has no meaning to me anymore. I know you will continue to research miniature worlds. Alchemy materials that can contain a ‘world’ are still rare. The creator spent decades to gather the materials. If you keep it, you can avoid many detours.”
Hearing the last sentence, Vaughn thought for a moment and took the scroll painting, “Thank you… Actually, I’d rather have the Time-Turner!”
“That’s not possible, my dear. You’re not old enough to use it yet. When you’re in your third year, you can try asking Minerva again. As for this, I need to return it to the Department of Mysteries…” Old Dumbledore winked mischievously, “I hope they haven’t noticed one is missing!”
“You stole it?”
“How can you call it stealing for wizards? Borrowed, just borrowed, I just forgot to say hello to Mr. Fudge!”
“Shameless!” Vaughn rolled his eyes, then leered at his bulging bag, “What are you going to do with the Philosopher’s Stone?”
“This has to be returned to Nicolas. I promised him I would only borrow it for a while.”
“And then? What will Nicolas Flamel do with it?” Vaughn pressed.
Dumbledore hesitated for a moment, then told the truth, “Nicolas will probably destroy them… You know, both gold and immortality will arouse people’s greed. Because of it, Nicolas has been in seclusion for two centuries, he even dares not pass on the method of making the Philosopher’s Stone.”
“You won’t either? I remember you two cooperated for a long time.”
“I certainly won’t. Nicolas won’t teach, and I won’t learn. The existence of the Philosopher’s Stone violates the laws of nature. I have no intention of judging whether its existence is right or wrong, but it is clearly most important to ensure it does not spread. Neither Muggle society nor the Wizarding World should have a group of immortal people.”
Vaughn frowned. He understood the logic, but he still felt it was a pity, “The Philosopher’s Stone represents the highest achievement of the ‘Golden Soul’ theory so far. It is a miracle in itself. If it is destroyed like that, wouldn’t it mean that knowledge is also cut off?”
He didn’t care about the immortality of the Philosopher’s Stone, nor was he interested in its ability to transmute gold. He only cared about the knowledge system it represented.
Because in the foreseeable future, Vaughn felt he could not continue along the “Golden Soul” theory. The core idea of that school of alchemy believed that individuals were incomplete, and they pursued wholeness and perfection as a path of completion!
And Vaughn’s current viewpoint, although not yet systematic, was already completely opposite to the “Golden Soul” theory in terms of cognition. In his view, reality and aether were two sides of the same coin; there was no so-called “cosmic soul, golden soul,” and therefore no incompleteness or perfection.
Matter is matter!
Macrocosm, microcosm, energy, and aether are all its different manifestations at different energy levels and dimensions.
Of course, Vaughn didn’t believe he was absolutely correct and others were absolutely wrong, so he still hoped to absorb knowledge systems from different schools to perfect and verify his own system.
If the Philosopher’s Stone were destroyed and its method of creation lost, it would indeed be a pity for him!
Dumbledore understood his meaning. In terms of the pursuit of knowledge, Old Dumbledore had great faith in Vaughn, knowing that he was not someone who would be blinded by greed.
This made Old Dumbledore hesitate even more.
After a long pause, he nodded, “I will convey your thoughts to Nicolas later and see what he says…”
Vaughn smiled and said, “Or you can tell me his address, and I’ll go visit him?”
Dumbledore pretended not to hear.
Although he believed in Vaughn’s pursuit and attitude towards knowledge, it did not prevent him from thinking that this fellow was very dangerous.
He was a ruthless person who dared to pull off Voldemort’s head!
After chatting for a few more minutes, Dumbledore left in a hurry. The Philosopher’s Stone could wait, but the Time-Turner, which was “borrowed,” had to be returned as soon as possible that night.
There was also Mr. Potter, the representative of Ilvermorny. Since he and Vaughn had suddenly left earlier, they had to go back and see him again to maintain courtesy.
As he was leaving, Dumbledore paused and instructed Vaughn, “Vaughn, when you have time, go see Harry. He’s a bit upset right now because of our concealment and deception… He trusts you more than me.”
“Mm.”
Vaughn agreed and asked, “Is there anything you can’t say?”
To comfort a child who craves truth, one must tell them the truth, but some things cannot be told to Harry.
Knowing what he meant, Dumbledore looked towards the sunset light entering through the window, his eyes dimming, “…You decide for yourself…”
Vaughn didn’t rush to see Harry.
After Dumbledore left, he turned on the light in the Headmaster’s Office, sat down at the large desk, and took out his notebook to organize the conclusions and further thoughts from this “experiment.”
“Timeline Folding!”
The quill, under his magic, rustled and automatically wrote down the title and brief content.
“…The time reversal of the miniature world can indirectly prove that within the same dimension, the original timeline of the world can be changed. Using the Novikov Self-Consistency Principle, we can hypothesize that reality is already a changed timeline, and time travel can still occur, but the timeline after crossing is in a folded state…”
“…Simply put, that folded state is like a roller coaster track bent into a circle. A time traveler enters from one end, and no matter which point in the circle they travel to, their trajectory is a futile circular motion, until they complete it without any change and exit from the other end, returning to the ‘present’…”
But how did the “circle” appear?
How to ensure that a time traveler returning to the past would accurately land within the circle?
Thinking, Vaughn wrote down two words.
Node
Stimulus
“If we consider the timeline as a rope, then nodes are like knots. They might be the ‘relics’ left by observers who caused the timeline to collapse and changed past events. If this hypothesis holds, then the shape of the real timeline is likely entirely formed by the rope structure, and no matter how you travel, you can’t escape the ‘circles’.”
“But this is too tedious. On a long timeline, behind every second of ‘present’ is ‘past’, infinitely. How many observers would it take for the timeline to naturally become densely packed with knots, leaving not even 1 second of empty space?”
“So, perhaps the real timeline has a mechanism similar to a stimulus response—for example, any spacetime bubble that deviates from the current spacetime will fall into a ‘circle’…”
Vaughn stopped writing.
After thinking for a moment, he did not continue writing but started a new line and wrote a word—
Destiny
And circled it with a heavy stroke, connecting it to the previous section.
If he had to find a definitive concept for the stimulus mechanism of spacetime, in Vaughn’s cognition, only “destiny” fit best.
And not only that.
He remembered discussing destiny with Dumbledore before. At that time, Dumbledore said that no one could accurately know what destiny looked like.
Before it became reality, in a sense, it could be unknown.
From Vaughn’s current observations, destiny behaved precisely like this; it sometimes had a definitive outcome, but there could be many ways to achieve that outcome, and more often, it had no “outcome” at all.
For example, Harry and Voldemort’s destiny: the prophecy only revealed that one of them must die, without specifying that Harry must die or Voldemort must die.
This conflicted with the idea of a “fixed timeline.”
More importantly—
“How should my existence be explained?” Vaughn pondered, “The original Harry Potter world did not have me at all. If the real timeline is fixed, then I certainly wouldn’t exist, but here I am.”
“What happens when a fixed timeline suddenly has a variable that didn’t exist before? Dumbledore once said that he saw my destiny interfering with Harry’s and Voldemort’s destinies…”
Hesitating, Vaughn wrote on his notes:
Timeline Collapse
Observer
He stared at the word “Observer” for a moment, then waved his hand and erased it…
……
Harry curled up in bed all day.
During this time, people came to visit him one after another, Neville, Seamus, and other Gryffindor friends he was close to, as well as Hagrid, who was close to him… faculty members…
They didn’t know what had happened to him. Dumbledore hadn’t said anything. He had only requested leave for him, Hermione, Ron, and Vaughn.
The Headmaster seemed to temporarily not want anyone to know what had happened in the Painted World.
Everyone was just curious why the trio had suddenly all fallen “ill” （Vaughn’s reason for leave was to receive the Ilvermorny representative）, and even Professor Quirrell was sick.
They didn’t see Harry—this was Harry’s specific request, he didn’t want to be disturbed right now—they only saw Ron, whose swollen head surprised everyone greatly!
Although Ron repeatedly explained that his head was swollen because he was hit by a dangerous Dark Magic, Hagrid still got some hints from Madam Pomfrey.
So in the afternoon, Harry vaguely heard students passing by the window gossiping to each other—
Harry Potter and Ron Weasley had contracted a terrible illness from playing with dangerous magical creature dung.
Hermione was luckily not included in the rumors, because at noon, many people saw her going to the Dining Hall to get food.
Ron, stung by the rumors, flew into a rage, threatening to find Hagrid, until Madam Pomfrey held him down and forcefully poured a bottle of potion down his throat.
Harry ignored the commotion outside and lay silently on his bed, his mind in a mess.
In the evening, Ron, whose head was starting to de-swell, also left. He now had a psychological complex about the Hospital Wing and preferred to return to Gryffindor and endure everyone’s stares rather than face Madam Pomfrey again.
As Ron left, he said he would visit later and asked what Harry wanted to eat.
Harry refused.
He was too confused to sleep and had no appetite.
He just wanted to be alone and undisturbed to think, so when night fell and he heard someone push open the Hospital Wing door, walk to his bed, and pull back the bed curtain.
He said impatiently, “I said I don’t want to eat anything, you…”
Turning his head, his words suddenly stopped. In the bright moonlight streaming in from the window, Vaughn, who had suddenly grown taller this year and showed a hint of grace, was reflected in his eyes.
Harry scrambled up awkwardly, “I… I thought it was Ron…”
He looked at the bandages wrapped around Vaughn’s body and the blood seeping from them, stammering, “You, your wound… Didn’t Dumbledore say you were fine?”
This appearance didn’t look like he was fine!
“It’s a bit troublesome, after all, it’s from Voldemort, but it’s not a big problem,” Vaughn said with a smile, then motioned for Harry to get up, “Want to go for a walk?”
“Oh…”
After greeting Madam Pomfrey, the two left the Hospital Wing and the Castle one after another.
Perhaps it was because it had rained enough in the past few days, the weather had been good today. There was no sudden storm, and the night sky was no longer covered with heavy clouds.
The dark firmament hung overhead like a black gemstone reflecting faint light, with a bright moon and sparse stars, and a cool breeze rustled.
Harry followed Vaughn step by step, vaguely guessing why Vaughn had come to find him, and waited for him to speak.
But Vaughn didn’t say anything until they reached the Black Lake.
Harry could tell he was a bit absent-minded, as if thinking about something else. After following him silently for a while, Harry couldn’t help but ask first, “Vaughn, I heard from Ron that you defeated Voldemort?”
Vaughn snapped back to attention, smiled, and first cautioned, “Be careful not to casually call Voldemort by name in the future. His name is enchanted. It’s fine now, but if he revives one day, calling his name will expose you.”
“Uh…”
Harry had indeed heard that people were afraid to speak Voldemort’s name directly, and he had thought it was out of fear.
He nodded, “Oh, I remember.”
Very obedient.
Vaughn couldn’t help but glance at him, which made him reconsider the contradiction between destiny and the timeline.
In the nearly one year since he enrolled, he had more or less had a significant impact and brought about many changes to Harry, which the original Harry Potter did not have.
Shaking his head and dispelling the complex thoughts, Vaughn continued to answer, “As for defeating Voldemort… I suppose so. At least for a while, you won’t encounter him again, unless he finds another idiot willing to host him!”
“You mean, he’s not dead?”
Harry remembered seeing Vaughn pull Voldemort’s head off before he fainted. It was a nightmare-like scene.
A person’s head was gone, how could they still live?
As if sensing his thoughts, Vaughn chuckled, “The body that died was Quirrell’s. Voldemort himself did not revive, so he naturally didn’t die. He just returned to his original state, continuing to hide and eke out an existence in the dark jungle.”
Harry couldn’t understand what kind of state that was, but he didn’t dwell on it. In the magical world, there was too much he couldn’t understand.
So he quickly changed the subject and asked the question he had been wanting to ask:
“Why did you and Dumbledore… why did you hide it from me? Why lie to me?”
Harry disliked deception, just like a child’s world.
Black and white, and unable to think thoroughly and meticulously, sometimes lies and deception are not malicious.
It could also be for protection, for example, when the truth is rather cruel.
Vaughn replied, “Deceiving and misleading you was Dumbledore’s decision. He wanted to test you. I thought it was meaningless, but he was very insistent.”
“Why test me? Because my destiny is entangled with Voldemort’s? What exactly does our destiny mean?”
Harry asked a series of questions.
Vaughn stopped walking, looked at Harry, and after a long silence, shook his head and said, “I cannot answer these questions for you. It’s not time yet…”
“Then when is it?” Harry was dissatisfied. Dumbledore was like this, and Vaughn was like this too!
Why were they unwilling to tell the truth?
Harry thought dejectedly that he had already predicted what Vaughn would say next, which would be the usual riddles.
But what he didn’t expect was that Vaughn gave him an accurate answer: “When you are as strong as I am now!”
Harry: “…”
That answer was worse than not saying anything at all…
“That’s impossible!” Harry had watched Vaughn and Voldemort’s battle for almost the entire time, the proficient and eerie Apparition, the terrifying “Confringo” that blasted the hall full of craters, and the exquisite Transfiguration.
Harry felt he might never be able to match it!
Vaughn asked him, “You haven’t tried, why do you think it’s impossible?”
Harry was speechless.
“Only mediocre people will subconsciously deny themselves when they encounter something, and subconsciously think it’s impossible to achieve.”
Vaughn said slowly, “But in reality, all denials and impossibilities are just because you think it’s very difficult to achieve, and you are evading the difficulty. Why not think about it the other way around? If one day you can become as strong as I am today, I will tell you anything you want to know!”
The young Harry didn’t understand what “chicken soup for the soul” meant, but at this moment, he did feel as if he had drawn strength from Vaughn’s words.
At least Vaughn’s last sentence gave him a lot of room for imagination!
Although he didn’t explicitly agree with Vaughn’s words, he no longer dwelled on whether he could do it, and instead asked, “So, what can you tell me now?”
“There’s quite a lot. For example, why Voldemort died at your hands 11 years ago; and what role Snape played between you and Voldemort… You have many confusing questions, and some of them are not that important, I can tell you all of them!”
“Even the things I can’t say for now, it’s not that I and Dumbledore deliberately want to hide something with malicious intent, but we think your current strength is not suitable for knowing those things, understand, Harry?”
Harry’s lips moved a few times, he wanted to speak but stopped. After a long while, he slowly nodded, “I understand…”
In essence, he wasn’t afraid of tests; what bothered him was not knowing why he was being tested. Now that Vaughn had plainly stated it, the test they designed for him, or not telling him things, was all because he wasn’t strong enough yet!
A simple and direct answer, very much in Vaughn’s style.
Harry exhaled, as if exhaling the pent-up emotions of the day. Just like when he used to practice Occlumency with Vaughn, he tried to put himself in Vaughn’s shoes to think, suppressing his boiling thoughts from not getting an answer.
Then he tried to grasp the answers he could get at the moment.
“Tell me everything you can, Vaughn.”
“Mm… it’s quite a lot. What do you want to hear first?”
Harry thought for a moment, “Let’s start with why I could kill Voldemort. In the Painted World, I could feel his hatred and disdain for me. People say I killed him with a spell, but that’s not true, is it?”
“That’s right. The one who killed him was the protective spell your mother cast on you… Her name was Lily Evans. That was her maiden name. You should remember it firmly, Harry…”
On the quiet shore of the Black Lake, the two of them talked as they walked further and further away, their voices blurring into the gentle breeze and the vast night.
………
“…Voldemort was always parasitizing Quirrell. Quirrell kept wrapping his headscarf because he wanted to hide Voldemort’s face on the back of his head.”
The next morning, Harry, who had tossed and turned all night, excitedly told his friends some things he had heard from Vaughn.
Ron, who was groggy and disoriented, immediately sobered up in fright:
“Merlin, so we were with Vold… we were with the Dark Lord for a whole year? So every time Quirrell turned around to write on the blackboard, the Dark Lord was watching us from behind his headscarf?”
His face was pale to the point of transparency.
Neville, who had just woken up and had only secretly overheard a few sentences, was gasping violently with his limbs curled up, and fainted with a “hiccup.”
Fortunately, Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnigan were always heavy sleepers and hadn’t heard this terrifying news, otherwise, the dormitory would have been in chaos.
After Harry and Ron clumsily carried the fainted Neville back to bed, Ron washed his face in a daze. Harry pulled him out of the dormitory and all the way to the courtyard. After breathing in the cool morning air, he finally confirmed he wasn’t dreaming.
Ron trembled, his lips chattering, and asked for confirmation, “Vaughn solved him, right?”
“Sort of. Vaughn said he’s turned back into a shadow.”
“A shadow? He’s not dead yet?”
Hearing Ron’s scream, Harry quickly explained all the causes and effects of Voldemort’s “death” that Vaughn had told him yesterday, as well as his current state.
Then he comforted the mournful Ron, “Although he’s not dead, he’s worse off than dead now. Loneliness and pain torture him every second, and in that shadow-like state, he can’t do much, so don’t worry.”
Ron didn’t feel comforted, “But he’ll revive someday…”
He remembered in class, when he sometimes secretly threw chalk at Quirrell from behind, and remembered in the fairytale town and the Painted World, his sharp tongue had also caused Quirrell to be struck by lightning twice, and once by a dragon’s breath…
In a daze, he seemed to see his end—
