Chapter 97: Hyperdimensional Maze And 35-dimensional Creatures
Today is Saturday, but the entire Hogwarts is completely different from before.
In the past, the castle would become very lively every Saturday.
The younger students who normally might be hiding in their dormitories or the library, struggling with homework and essays, and the older students busy with their studies, would all leave the castle on this day.
Or they would gather in groups of three or five to play with giant squid in the Black Lake—this was usually something only first and second-year students did.
Or they would hold their lovers’ hands and arrange to go to Hogsmeade, to visit the candy shops and the Three Broomsticks. Sometimes, there would even be a circus performing in Hogsmeade on weekends. Hogwarts students, who usually had Sickles in their pockets but nowhere to spend them, were the ideal targets for exploitation.
But such scenes would gradually disappear starting in March each year, especially as Easter approached. Classrooms and libraries would once again become popular spots for students to frequent.
If students were to choose the most unpopular holiday of the year, Easter would certainly win first place.
It was all because of the damned exams!
Younger students, mainly those in fourth year and below, were busy preparing for their end-of-year exams in June. Older students, like fifth-year students, would be taking their OWLs （ Ordinary Wizarding Level exams ）, and seventh-years would be taking their NEWTs （ N.E.W.T.s ）.
When calculated, starting from March, the only students at Hogwarts who were leisurely were the sixth-years—they had already taken their OWLs and were in their advanced studies. In theory, even if they slacked off, it wouldn’t affect them going into their seventh year.
On his way to the fourth floor of the castle, Vaughn encountered several fifth-year students walking with hurried steps. The immense academic pressure made them speak at an incredibly fast pace, even when they were just talking.
“…Merlin’s beard, I still have 26 reference books to finish, and there are only a little over two months left. What should I do?”
“I’m in a similar situation. Damn it, why can’t wizards or Muggles escape exams?”
“Muggles are a bit better off; at least exam results don’t lock down their future. But NEWTs are different. If you want to find a decent job after graduation, your NEWTs scores are the only indicator.”
“But I really can’t take it anymore. Speaking of which, can seventh-years repeat the year?”
“It seems so, but I advise you not to. As long as you can pass one out of twelve subjects, you can graduate smoothly… You’re not going to fail all twelve, are you? As far as I know, no student in Hogwarts history has ever achieved such a feat!”
Vaughn, as he brushed past them, remained expressionless.
They would never know that in less than two years, a student would achieve such a feat, and unfortunately, that student would be a Slytherin.
That’s right, Marcus Flint.
The legendary figure who would later have to repeat the year due to failing all his subjects!
Before I transmigrated, there was an old saying in my hometown: “Speak of the devil, and he shall appear.”
Just as I thought of Flint, Vaughn encountered him at the entrance to the fourth floor.
He looked very enthusiastic, his face as ugly as a troll’s, and he wore a foolish smile that was impossible to look at directly: “Mr. Vaughn Weasley, do you have time to come back for training recently? The whole team is eagerly awaiting your return. We’ve studied a few more tactics to deal with Ravenclaw, and we guarantee they’ll wish they were dead, allowing you to go through smoothly!”
Alright, Vaughn had to admit that there was no one in the world who was entirely useless; at least Flint had some talent when it came to flattery.
After casually dismissing the overly fawning Flint, as he was leaving, Vaughn couldn’t help but advise him, “Flint, I would be more grateful for your efforts if you could pay a little more attention to your studies. For example, at least ensure you pass one subject. Can you do that?”
Flint looked a bit stunned, his slightly parted lips revealing buck teeth.
He didn’t understand…
Vaughn had to be more direct: “What I mean is, if you don’t want to bring shame to Slytherin Academy one day by failing all your exams and then being thrown by me into the Acromantula nest in the Forbidden Forest, then you’d better start working harder on your studies now!”
Having said that, he waited patiently for a while. It was a full 12 seconds before Mr. Flint reacted, his expression turning to one of horror.
Seeing that his notoriously slow reflexes had finally kicked in, Vaughn politely bid him farewell: “Please consider my words carefully. I don’t want to see you on the Quidditch team when I’m in my third year. That’s all, have a pleasant day!”
Of course, after spending a few months together, the Slytherin students who were well-acquainted with Vaughn’s style all knew.
This anomaly of the Weasley family, the more polite he appeared, the more it indicated he had lost patience with someone or something.
Not to mention how the pale-faced Flint was anxiously worried.
Vaughn continued all the way to the fourth floor, passing through the entrance to the vertical passage guarded by Fluffy, and entered a large, empty room.
This was where the mechanism for the Philosopher’s Stone had originally been placed.
Of course, those mechanisms had now been removed, and Dumbledore had arranged for it to be a transit point for the new mechanism’s location.
A perfectly ordinary wooden door stood in the center of the room, and nothing else.
Vaughn, who had been here a few times, was not surprised. He walked straight to the wooden door, grasped the doorknob, and then spoke the password:
“Fizzing Whizbees!”
As the correct password was spoken, the doorknob turned on its own, and the door opened. What appeared before Vaughn was not the other half of the room blocked by the door, but a long corridor.
The corridor was so deep and dark that it seemed endless.
Although it was not dark, a light source from an unknown origin illuminated everything brightly.
What created the illusion were the walls, floor, and ceiling of the corridor, their surfaces densely covered with complex geometric patterns like a kaleidoscope.
Dumbledore, in his pale pink pajamas, was the only splash of color in the entire long corridor. His hands were clasped in front of his abdomen, and he was clearly waiting for Vaughn.
Seeing Vaughn enter, he chuckled, “Ah, my dear, how is Hagrid’s Fire Dragon? You didn’t dissect it, did you?”
“Don’t worry, it will definitely live longer than you.”
“That’s very reassuring. Minerva was telling me last night, she was full of praise for your Vanishing Spell. I rarely see her admire a student so much, but since it’s you, I find it quite reasonable. Of course, she certainly wouldn’t have imagined that you made a Fire Dragon vanish.”
“Hmm? Are you threatening me?”
“No, no, no, it’s praise. I’m very glad you’re considerate of your friends. In fact, even if Minerva had seen the Fire Dragon yesterday, she wouldn’t have punished you. Instead, she would have come to me. Your Vanishing Spell saved me a lot of effort explaining.”
Vaughn snorted, “If I had known, I should have let Professor McGonagall discover it, and let her see how many school rules her beloved Headmaster violated to test the Boy Who Lived.”
Dumbledore coughed dryly, finally daring not to continue the conversation, as further discussion would touch upon matters he was trying his best to avoid.
He spread his arms, looked around the corridor covered in kaleidoscope patterns, and said cheerfully, “See, how is the construction of the new mechanism coming along?”
The patterns in the corridor were composed of countless regular, symmetrical designs. These visual illusion tricks from Muggles made one feel as if space were splitting and moving just by looking at them.
And Vaughn knew that this corridor, or rather, this challenge, was indeed capable of movement!
As Dumbledore clapped his hands, the entire corridor seemed to “come alive” in an instant. The floor, walls, and ceiling, along geometric lines of symmetry, the walls and floor began to undulate, flip, and transform like a moving hypercube.
In the blink of an eye, the corridor transformed from a straight line into a cross shape.
And this movement continued. Everything visible in the entire corridor acted like self-moving building blocks, sometimes stacking up to form walls, blocking the path ahead.
Sometimes they would recede into hexagonal or octagonal openings, creating new paths forward on dead ends.
Sometimes they would flip inside out, instantly becoming a completely new space…
Movement was occurring every second, and every second the corridor gave the impression of being completely different from the previous second, as if one had been teleported to another dimension.
Dumbledore clapped his hands once more. The geometric patterns on the ceiling flipped open, revealing an opening.
The floor beneath them also simultaneously rose, and a hexagonal platform with an ever-increasing base emerged from the ground, piercing the ceiling and rising higher and higher until the two of them could overlook the true appearance of the corridor—
A gigantic cube, composed of hundreds upon hundreds of small cubes, resembling a Rubik’s Cube, rotated in a vast, seemingly boundless space.
“It’s quite spectacular, isn’t it? Your new design, the Hyperdimensional Labyrinth…”
Overlooking the giant cube, Dumbledore sighed, “Fortunately, this is Hogwarts. This castle has existed for a thousand years. Besides the great wisdom of the four founders, outstanding wizards of successive generations have also attempted to renovate and modify it.”
“Over a thousand years, no one knows its true spatial extent, nor how many rooms it has. Even as Headmaster, I am far from understanding it… What you see before you is only a small portion that I have accessed using my authority.”
Vaughn nodded, “It’s done very well. The Hyperdimensional Labyrinth finally looks somewhat hyperdimensional.”
Speaking of this, Dumbledore became somewhat curious, “By the way, why did you name the new mechanism the Hyperdimensional Labyrinth? What does ‘hyperdimensional’ mean?”
Vaughn, gazing at the cube below, smiled and replied:
“That’s a Muggle term. The Muggle scientific community believes that the universe has many dimensions, but humans can only directly observe and measure three dimensions, which are length, width, and height. Dimensions beyond that range are hyperdimensions.”
Dumbledore didn’t quite understand, “Humans can only observe and measure length, width, and height? How is that defined?”
“For example, let me explain from a two-dimensional perspective. Imagine I draw a square on a piece of paper. From a two-dimensional viewpoint, the square should be a closed space. However, humans, as three-dimensional beings, can directly see the inside of the ‘closed’ square.”
“Similarly, if I place a cubic box in front of you now, before you open it, you can only measure its length, width, and height. The inside remains unobservable and immeasurable. If a four-dimensional being existed, it could directly see the inside of the cube because space would be readily accessible to it.”
“Oh!”
Dumbledore let out a short sound and said nothing more.
Vaughn said with a smile, “Don’t you quite understand? It’s alright. Wizards generally lack logical thinking abilities, so it’s normal if you don’t understand or can’t imagine it.”
“…I feel like you’re mocking me.”
“No, don’t talk nonsense. In reality, I consider wizards to be barely 3.5-dimensional beings. With our magic, we can observe the inside of a cubic box without opening it, not to mention that many spells can achieve this.”
With that, he continued to observe the cube, while Dumbledore was lost in thought.
After a moment, Dumbledore asked, “So, Vaughn, in your opinion, are legendary wizards not four-dimensional beings?”
“Of course not. Let me use a two-dimensional analogy. Suppose I draw a little person on paper, and it comes to life. Then, for that person, the white paper is its world. It cannot see beyond the white paper. If I were to place a ball on the white paper at this moment, what do you think it would see?”
Dumbledore thought for a moment and then exclaimed, “It would only see the shadow of the ball cast on the paper…”
“Yes,” Vaughn nodded. “It can only see the projection of the ball, a dark circle. The same principle applies to a four-dimensional being descending into three dimensions. If a four-dimensional being truly existed and appeared before us, we would only see its projection.”
“Just like the little person on the paper, our vision cannot extend beyond the world we inhabit. When we look at higher-dimensional beings, it’s like a blind man feeling an elephant; we can only perceive a part of it and not the whole picture… Actually, I have a rather wild idea: Don’t you think that descriptions of higher-dimensional beings are very similar to souls?”
Dumbledore was a legendary wizard, but he was clearly still a real presence in this world, not a “shadow” or a hand floating in mid-air.
Therefore, he was certainly not a four-dimensional being.
Listening to Vaughn’s final words, Dumbledore’s blue eyes became a little distant. Yes, it was indeed quite similar.
As is widely known, after death, the soul disappears.
This is certainly not complete annihilation—the existence of ghosts can attest to that. At least after a wizard dies, their souls continue to exist. However, the fact remains that for thousands of years, no wizard has found out where the soul goes after death.
He had been curious before but couldn’t find the answer.
Until Vaughn’s words, it suddenly dawned on him: Could it be that after death, the soul goes to a higher dimension? That’s why three-dimensional Muggles and 3.5-dimensional wizards can no longer see them.
Seeing Dumbledore lost in thought, Vaughn smiled.
Vaughn felt that, aside from his system, the biggest difference between him and other wizards was his way of thinking.
Most wizards grew up in a purely magical environment from a young age, even those from Muggle families. From the age of 11, their most important formative years were almost entirely dominated by magic.
This led to them, as adults, whether pure-blood or Muggle-born, having their thinking patterns drift away from the Muggle scientific system.
Vaughn, however, was different. In his previous life, he had received a complete and scientific higher education, and his worldview was already fixed. Even after transmigrating and accepting the wonder of magic, his thought patterns never changed.
This gave him his unique perspective today—using Muggle theories to cross-reference and collide with magic!
The reason he brought up the topic of dimensions was also deliberate. As his studies in magic deepened, he began to gradually attempt to combine the physical theories of Muggle technology with magic to explain many issues that were “obvious” yet difficult to understand.
Such a task, of course, could not be accomplished by a single individual. Vaughn needed help.
There were two types of help: one was a true assistant, someone who could understand his ideas and assist him in research without holding him back.
In this regard, Hermione was currently the most suitable candidate. Others were not impossible, but they would require more training.
For example, Fred and George!
The other type of helper was more like a teacher or a pioneer, someone who could guide him into the most profound and cutting-edge areas of magic, while also helping him clear mines and test theories…
Without a doubt, his target was Dumbledore.
Vaughn was never one to suffer losses. Last time, Dumbledore had targeted his soft spot, appealing to his emotions and reason, asking him to be a meddler between Harry and Tom.
Although he eventually agreed out of personal choice, the feeling of being manipulated made him very uncomfortable.
Vaughn considered himself to be petty; he usually sought revenge on the same day. Although, due to Dumbledore’s smooth methods, they were far from reaching a state of hatred, if there was an opportunity to push Old Dumbledore into a big pit, Vaughn would still not refuse.
What had Old Dumbledore always cared about the most?
Death and resurrection!
He cared not for himself, but for Ariana, for Harry… Vaughn remembered that in the original story, Dumbledore had possessed the Resurrection Stone for a long time, and he had even admitted that he “was a fool,” “tried to forcibly bring back the slumbering,” and “sought the Hallows for the wrong reasons at the wrong time.”
Ariana was Dumbledore’s lifelong nightmare, and even on his deathbed, he still longed to resurrect her.
Harry was his concern for the world, a poison bait left behind because he worried no one could control Voldemort after his death, and also the person he felt most guilty about.
Dumbledore himself could face death with equanimity, even saying, “Death is but the next great adventure.” However, he clearly did not want to impose his own ideas on Ariana and Harry.
So, in the last few years of his life, he had been trying to research death and resurrection, attempting to resurrect Ariana and ensure Harry’s life was safe.
Unfortunately, it ended in failure, which led him to arrange for Draco and Snape to kill him, and ultimately led to Snape being killed by Voldemort.
Vaughn did not want to see such an ending, nor did he like the so-called predetermined fate, so he wanted to take Old Dumbledore along for the ride.
Of course, it was also reasonable for Old Dumbledore to test the waters and scout the path before taking off!
“As a man over a hundred years old, I feel that your smile is rather mischievous, Vaughn.”
“A misconception. I’m just very happy that you seem to have some interest in my crazy ideas. This indicates that the possibilities I propose are not just wild ramblings.”
“Hmm…” Dumbledore twitched his beard and mumbled, “Let’s not jump to conclusions. Everything still requires research and verification.”
Seeing his hesitation, Vaughn did not press further. He had plenty of time and patience to lure Old Dumbledore in.
He then said, “According to Muggle theory, a prominent characteristic of four-dimensional beings is their ability to manipulate time and space. For them, time and space are as intuitive and readily adjustable as length and width are to us!”
Dumbledore was astonished, “…This is probably the main reason you consider wizards to be 3.5-dimensional beings, isn’t it?”
“Exactly.”
In the wizarding world, any adult wizard who has received a proper education can use the Undetectable Extension Charm and Apparition.
Space is practically at the wizards’ beck and call.
As for time…
Dumbledore manipulated the platform to descend, returning to the corridor. He led Vaughn through the hexagonal openings in the walls, arriving at a sealed complex of buildings.
It should have been part of the castle, built in an unknown era, and it had distinct militaristic features—an inner and outer wall structure. The outer wall was relatively narrow, primarily for defense against enemy breakthroughs. Behind the outer wall was a large open area, filled with numerous stone houses and streets.
The inner wall had wide walkways and round towers. Some animated stone soldier statues patrolled back and forth, holding weapons.
Excluding the animated stone soldier statues, the castle that Dumbledore had intercepted looked normal. This was until Dumbledore raised two fingers and shook them.
Swish!
In that instant, like a change of scene in a stage play or a transition in a movie, Vaughn’s vision blurred.
The castle was still the same castle, but everything had changed. Huge fireballs flew through the air, and fires erupted on the city walls, with raging flames licking the rough wall surfaces and soaring into the sky.
Some walls collapsed, and rubble and flames crushed the original stone guards beneath them, blocking the streets.
Before Vaughn could discern the details, Dumbledore shook his fingers again, and with another swish, the scene changed and transitioned once more.
This time, it was the same city walls, but the fires had been extinguished, and the broken remnants had shifted positions. The walkway of the inner city wall was completely clear.
Vaughn pointed to the straight, wide, and unobstructed walkway on the city wall and said, “In two months, when Norberta grows up, she can guard there and breathe fire at her will on the walkway.”
“…You are truly cruel!”
Dumbledore said this, but he smiled, “But I must say, this is the most marvelous challenge. You are truly a genius, Vaughn. Separating the trial and the puzzle into different time periods and connecting all the elements with time travel. I believe Harry and the others will have an unforgettable summer!”
“You’re not bad either, Albus,” Vaughn also praised. “I only came up with the ideas, but you are the one who brought them to life. How did you do it?”
“I made some modifications to the Time-Turner, allowing it to rotate between several fixed frequencies so that Harry and the others can accurately arrive at the correct past.”
“Of course, our dear Minerva also contributed. In one of the stages, she meticulously prepared a more perfect chess game than last time. Those animated stone soldiers are the chess pieces.”
The tall and the short looked at each other and smiled.
Then, Dumbledore took out a necklace from his pocket. The pendant of the necklace was a golden hourglass. He handed it to Vaughn, but his hand did not let go of the necklace.
“You can look at it, but you cannot take it. I don’t think you are psychologically prepared to face another version of yourself!”
Vaughn’s hand, which was reaching for the golden hourglass, paused.
Then, under Dumbledore’s gaze, he slowly retracted it.
“You are right. I am indeed not prepared.”
Vaughn knew himself quite well. He had always been a rather self-centered person. To be honest, even if he were psychologically prepared, he was unsure how he would react to suddenly seeing another version of himself.
Therefore, it was better to just not play with the Time-Turner at all!
