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The hatching of the phoenix egg had finally shown some progress. This was certainly a stroke of good fortune for Ian.
However, what irked him was that the phoenix egg was drawing life essence from the dragon egg and the others at a maddeningly slow pace. Though its appetite was clearly immense, the amount of “life essence” it could absorb at once seemed frustratingly meagre.
“If you don’t hatch tonight, I swear I’ll turn you into a Sunday roast!” Ian decided it was time to apply a bit of pressure on the little creature nestled within the phoenix egg.
Of course, he wasn’t daft enough to actually consider cooking the thing.
Even Magical Creatures in the Cauldron wouldn’t dare suggest such a recipe, and whether it was coincidence or not, the egg’s absorption rate did seem to quicken slightly after his threat.
It was primarily drawing life from the dragon egg; the other magical creature eggs offered less vibrant energy, as most beasts tend to lie dormant before hatching.
Still, a half-blood dragon was a dragon all the same.
While keeping a close eye on the phoenix egg, Ian took out a stack of notes and began cross-referencing them with the teachings of Professor Morgan.
His Potions expertise was nearing level five, close to unlocking some rare and exceptional talent.
“This ingredient is tucked away in the Amortentia formula… there’s something rather final about it, as if it touches on one of magic’s ultimate mysteries.” The deeper Ian delved, the more he realised that Professor Morgan’s knowledge was anything but ordinary.
Sometimes, Ian genuinely couldn’t make heads or tails of these elder wizards.
The older they were, the more cryptic they seemed to become— Dumbledore and Grindelwald could easily earn first-place trophies in the League of Cryptic Codgers.
Just like the previous time loop.
Now, looking back on it, Ian increasingly sensed that something about the two of them didn’t quite add up. It was as though they’d been pulling strings behind the curtain while keeping him blissfully unaware.
“And the whole business with Professor Ronnie Ehrlich remains unsolved…” Ian remained intrigued by the strange runes etched upon Professor Ehrlich and the curious methods both Dumbledores had used to confront him.
What sort of magic could unravel a condition where someone lingered between life and death? Could it be a reworked version of Finite Incantatem? Ian suspected all those questions had faded into nothingness, swallowed up when the time loop collapsed.
At present—
Only he remembered fragments of that strange loop, and there was no one left to ask. The mystery of Professor Ronnie Ehrlich had become yet another unresolved tale, left to drift into obscurity.
[Through tireless study, Potions proficiency increased by +3]
[Through tireless study, Potions proficiency increased by +2]
[Through tireless study, Potions proficiency increased by +3]
…
Time ticked by, second after second.
Ian leaned against the wall beside his desk, a posture that left him comfortably sprawled. Aside from catching the occasional glimpse of a lazy fish in the enchanted aquarium, he was quite at ease.
He was the only one in the dormitory at the moment, after all, so there was no need to concern himself with appearances.
The coming two weeks of the Christmas holidays would likely unfold in much the same manner.
Even if he ended up doing something embarrassingly daft while alone, his two dorm-mates wouldn’t be any the wiser once they returned.
“I still need to get my hands on a few more ingredients. This potion formula that stirs up desire… Why do I get the feeling it might be repurposed to awaken dormant magical ability? Could it be… that even Filch, poor Squib that he is, could be helped?”
“Even if it did work, Filch would still have to be ruled out. As a Squib, he clearly wouldn’t have the coin to afford anything I’ve brewed.” Ian moved with the decisiveness expected of someone who got things done.
He gently placed the phoenix egg, which was still drawing life essence from the dragon egg and its companions, into the box he had earlier enchanted with an Expansion Charm. Cradling the box, he left the Ravenclaw common room without delay.
“If it weren’t for the fact I’m worried stuffing it into my enchanted money pouch might disrupt the little one’s hatching, I’d not be hauling it about like this.” With a flick of his wand, Ian cast the Levitation Charm and guided the wooden box smoothly along beside him.
He dashed through the corridor and made his way straight to the Room of Requirement on the floor below.
“Process these for me.” Ian summoned his trusty assistant, the Dementor, and set it to work through the night. His pouch, enchanted to hold far more than it should (not unlike the famed bag of Beedle the Bard), coughed up a pile of potion ingredients onto the floor.
Thanks to several successful raids on Professor Snape’s private stores during the loops, Ian had gathered one of the finest ingredient collections in all of Hogwarts. More than enough for repeat potion-crafting attempts.
After all, no sensible witch or wizard expected their first brew to go off without a hitch.
Glug glug glug glug~
Soon enough—
Mist began to swirl gently within the cauldron.
In truth, Ian had mentally prepared himself for a few failures, but not for this— dozens of unsuccessful batches straight off the bat was thoroughly disheartening.
Not only did he fail repeatedly, but his Potions proficiency had barely crept upwards at all.
“My brewing’s solid, but the colour’s off, and the scent is… questionable. Is it down to the ingredients, then?”
Ian frowned, glancing at several of the rarer items on his worktable. There weren’t many left from the earlier loops, and those he’d gathered in later cycles had clearly deteriorated in quality.
If he truly wished to test whether his magic-awakening potion was viable, he couldn’t rely on the poorer stock from the tail-end of the loop. Some things, after all, were leagues apart in magical potency.
The slightly dodgy ingredients were best sold off in Knockturn Alley.
“If I peddled this stuff in Knockturn Alley, I’d probably be crowned ‘Most Honourable Trader of the Year.'” Packing away the subpar materials, Ian dashed from the Room of Requirement with renewed energy.
First stop— the library. He hoped to scour the archives for viable substitutes to make up for what he lacked. The corridor was eerily quiet; not even a prowling cat in sight.
The library doors were shut fast as usual.
But these days, Madam Pince’s strict schedule posed little threat to the more enterprising young witches and wizards. That didn’t mean Ian could simply blast the lock open— his Unlocking Charm wasn’t nearly that good.
Thankfully, his time spent repeating the loop hadn’t been solely devoted to spellwork.
“I’ve also become quite the expert in boldness—without getting caught, of course!” Ian first checked Madam Pince’s whereabouts. At present, she was in the hospital wing, keeping Filch company.
Apparently, Filch had been on the receiving end of a rather harsh punishment from Professor Sinistra and couldn’t handle being alone in the aftermath. Merlin knew how those two had managed to convince Madam Pomfrey to let them bunk together so late at night.
With both their names appearing together in the infirmary log, it was either a sign that Filch’s injuries weren’t all that severe or that Madam Pomfrey’s healing skills were every bit as formidable as rumoured.
Perhaps it was a bit of both.
“Romance in twilight years… Merlin’s beard, how does one even begin to judge that?” Ian drew his wand and pointed it squarely at a section of the wall, preparing to use a spell he’d perfected over countless loops.
“Confringo!”
The moment the spell left his lips, a loud blast tore a hole through the library wall.
This particular spot had been discovered through repeated trial and error.
It neither triggered the protective enchantments woven into Hogwarts nor caused damage to any of the books inside.
Ian sometimes wondered if the Founders had intentionally left this little quirk behind for students who were more inclined to brute force than finesse when it came to unlocking spells.
“Well, I found it, didn’t I?” Once inside, he immediately turned and mended the wall with a practiced flick. His Exploding and Mending Charms were both nearing level four by now.
Suffice it to say—
During the loop, Ian had managed to blast apart nearly every hidden corner of Hogwarts. He was especially fond of using the final moments of each loop to carry out wild, rule-breaking experiments he could never dare attempt under normal circumstances.
“Lumos!”
A pale glow bloomed from his wand, casting eerie shadows between the tall, silent shelves of the library. Under that soft light, the tightly packed books appeared solemn, veiled in mystery.
Under that soft light, the tightly packed books appeared solemn, veiled in mystery.
A chilly draft slipped through a crack in the doorway, rustling a few pages and producing a faint, continuous flutter that echoed strangely in the utter stillness.
“Choose me! I’ll reveal the forbidden truths of the shadow realms!”
“No, I am the original scripture of the dark arts! Master my secrets, and the world shall kneel before you!”
“Don’t listen to them. My pages hold no sinister magic— just endless, tedious facts you’ll never get through in one lifetime…”
…
In the Restricted Section—
These softly whispering, temptingly cursed books were no surprise to Ian anymore. He paused only briefly in front of the murmuring shelves before heading straight to the corner he knew best.
Given how often he visited to find obscure magical workarounds for outdated potion recipes, he was especially familiar with the alchemical and potions shelves.
The reason he kept returning here was simple: many of the suitable substitutes for ancient ingredients couldn’t be harvested from nature at all.
They had to be forged or crafted through alchemy, and their creation often trod on the edges of magical ethics. Some even outright violated Ministry law.
“This is all Professor Morgan’s fault, driving me to break school rules and possibly wizarding legislation too,” Ian muttered under his breath.
Among the books he flipped through were horrifying alternatives that called for infants or children in their ingredient lists.
The illustrations alone made his stomach churn, but he forced himself to keep turning the pages. Although Professor Morgan was well-read in modern magical theory, most of the ingredients she listed in her formulas, while replaceable in theory, were now as rare and costly as goblin silver.
That left Ian with only one path forward:
Using low-cost substitutes for ingredients that had already been substituted once before.
Layered improvisation. He half-wondered if some ancient, long-dead dark witch had set this whole ordeal up as a test of creative alchemy.
“All right, all right, I let go of that one cursed tome earlier, and clearly the library gods have rewarded me.” With several alternative formulas now firmly mapped out in his mind, Ian turned to leave.
Phase-Shifting Charms didn’t work within the library’s wards, but the Exploding Charm had no such restrictions. After sealing up the blasted section of wall behind him, Ian retraced his steps with practiced ease.
“I’ve still got plenty of dragon’s blood left, but I’ll need to purify it first, then brew a new potion to stand in for dragon brain.”
He muttered as he walked, frowning in concentration. “The trickier bit will be extracting Nightshade essence.”
“That should serve as a substitute for Moonshadow Grass. I suppose the two plants must’ve shared some common ancestor in the distant past…” The young wizard bent over his enchanted money pouch, rummaging through the materials while mentally reviewing the procedure for his latest alternative formula.
However—
Bang!
A suit of armour’s helmet suddenly launched itself straight at him. Fortunately, Ian’s reflexes were sharp, and he managed to duck just in time. For a moment, he suspected Peeves might’ve consumed something as mad as a dragon’s heart mixed with phoenix gall.
He was ready to unleash a tirade—
But then he caught sight of the one who had cast the spell.
All thoughts of retaliation vanished.
“Ah… good evening, Uncle…”
Ian’s voice turned sheepish, his anger melting into a guilty grin.
Yes.
He’d been caught, wandering Hogwarts at night, by none other than Professor Snape.
“Even if we’re not currently in class, you will address me properly,” Snape said icily. “It’s Professor Snape.”
His tone wasn’t outright furious, but the disapproval in his gaze was impossible to miss.
“Right you are… Uncle Professor Snape,” Ian replied, nervously calculating whether it was worth attempting a quick escape and whether doing so would only worsen his punishment once term resumed.
“I distinctly heard you muttering about certain… ingredients. Ones that students should not possess. Don’t tell me you’re planning another late-night ‘salvage mission’?” Snape’s displeasure clearly stemmed from a suspicion that Ian had returned to his usual thieving ways.
“I… don’t know what you’re on about, sir. I was just, er, reviewing today’s reading material in my sleep.” In the end, Ian wisely chose not to bolt.
Other professors might wait until school resumed before meting out punishment—but his dear uncle would apply interest. And Ian did not fancy his future being repossessed in such a manner.
“Hand over that pouch.” Snape’s tone was flat, but his eyes were already fixed on the enchanted bag clutched in Ian’s hand.
Inside it were enough restricted materials to earn him a lifelong stay in Azkaban.
Naturally, Ian had no intention of handing it over.
He wasn’t worried that Snape would report him to the Ministry; he was more afraid the man would simply confiscate it all for his personal stores.
“I swear, I wasn’t up to anything shady tonight! I’ve got more than enough stock for my work. If something’s gone missing, it must’ve been one of the… er… rodents you’ve yet to catch roaming the castle.”
He very nearly said too much but caught himself just in time.
Whether Snape believed it or not, Ian had convinced himself, and that was what mattered.
“Tonight, he says. As though I ought to applaud you for showing restraint for a single evening.” Snape’s sneer deepened. As someone who’d recently discovered his private stores raided, he wasn’t inclined to be forgiving.
“Do I look like I’m hard up for supplies?” Ian tried to pivot, aiming to distract Snape and lend some credibility to his innocence. With a theatrical flourish, he emptied out a portion of his pouch—spilling the stolen contents from the past two loops onto the stone floor.
There they were.
An impressive collection, at least twice the volume currently present in Snape’s storeroom.
Surely, this would prove that Ian had no designs on Snape’s ingredients.
Just as he bent to scoop the materials back up, he was caught off guard—Snape lunged forward to intercept him.
“You want them? Take the lot! After all, I’ve never forgotten how good you’ve been to me!” Ian spoke with exaggerated generosity, though his gaze lingered mournfully on the low-grade potion ingredients scattered across the floor.
They did have value, of a sort.
Perhaps they couldn’t be used to craft proper, functioning potions, but from another angle, their potential wasn’t so different from genuine ingredients. Morality might not be something Ian always possessed in abundance, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t tell right from wrong.
“Mm?” Snape, hearing Ian’s uncharacteristic words of flattery, didn’t look even remotely pleased.
Instead, he frowned deeply, crouched down, and picked up what appeared to be a shrivelled fig.
“You’re calling this potion-worthy?” Snape was not one to be fooled by outward appearances. He didn’t even bother to sniff it, just gave it a firm squeeze, and the fig crumbled into dusty flakes in his hand.
“It looks like an ingredient, sure. Even pretends to pass for one, but if it doesn’t do anything, it’s not a proper potion material, is it?”
Ian’s eyes widened in pain at the sight of the crushed fig.
“Is this what the vendors in Knockturn Alley tell you?” Snape’s voice was thick with disdain. “I rather thought you had more sense than to fall for their snake oil. Clearly, I overestimated you.”
He scoffed, drawing out the insult, his lecture only just beginning—
“No, Uncle— those dodgy Knockturn traders can’t pull one over on me. I didn’t go there to buy fake ingredients.” Ian interrupted quickly, shaking his head in protest.
“Then how do you explain this lot?” Snape’s voice sharpened again, clearly convinced Ian had been duped and was now trying to cover it up.
But—
Under that withering glare, Ian hesitated before muttering:
“They’re, er… fake ingredients I was planning to sell in Knockturn Alley.” His voice dropped, filled with guilty reluctance.
He knew full well this wasn’t something to be proud of.
“…”
Snape’s face went completely still. A moment ago, he had been fretting that Ian had been taken in by dodgy dealers— but now, he realized the boy had intended to be one of them.
This year’s crop of Hogwarts students must’ve been cursed.
“Unbelievable.” Snape exhaled sharply, straightening his robes. “You really think this will pass in Knockturn Alley? You think your little tricks can compare to theirs?”
“I’ll tell you now, even if you manage to brew these scraps into something that looks decent, those people will spot it in a second!”
“Don’t make the mistake of thinking the wizards down there are fools. Yes, they sell counterfeits, but they’re masters at it. Faking a potion properly requires just as much skill as making a real one.”
Snape shot a scornful look at the pile of withered, useless materials on the floor.
To his well-trained eye, it was immediately obvious: these were imitations, no potency, no use.
Of course, to the untrained eye, the illusion might pass. The texture and colouring were close enough to fool someone lacking expertise. But he, as a Potions Master, couldn’t comprehend how Ian had managed to replicate the appearance without adding any actual magical properties.
Because in truth—
They were devoid of any real effect.
“And how exactly do they test whether something is genuine or not?” Ian asked with genuine curiosity.
Snape turned to him with a glare, brow furrowing again. He clearly had no intention of humouring such a foolish question, but after a moment’s hesitation, he decided it might be wiser to educate the boy than let him carry on unchecked.
“Appearance. Aroma. Even the feel of the material can give it away,” he replied curtly.
Good Uncle or not, he still took his craft seriously.
Reaching down, he picked up another item, a shrivelled sleeping bean, just as he began to explain the proper techniques for identifying authentic, fully-brewed potions.
“Brilliant!” Ian suddenly claps his hands together, his face lighting up.
Just as Snape began to frown in mild confusion—
“You’ve touched my stock! Touch it, and you buy it! I can’t sell handled goods, contamination risk, see?” Ian wasn’t the least bit concerned about identifying real from fake. He was simply demonstrating his street-side selling tactics to Snape.
“…”
Snape could see exactly what Ian was up to.
It was precisely because he understood how utterly shameless the boy could be that he found himself temporarily speechless.
“You’re trying to force a sale? Do you honestly believe those cutthroat lowlifes in Knockturn Alley will hand over their gold because of your twisted logic?” Snape’s lip twitched, somewhere between a sneer and disbelief.
“Of course not.” Ian nodded matter-of-factly and whipped out his wand.
“That’s why we learn magic, isn’t it? With the right charm, even Knockturn’s worst will cough up the coins.”
As Ian’s words fell, Snape’s left eye gave the faintest twitch.
Then, Ian added, almost defensively:
“Honestly, I’m being rather decent here. I’m even giving them a few real ones in the mix.”
The boy’s tone was filled with unwavering sincerity.
“I reckon I could bottle up sugar water and sell it as Felix Felicis, and they still wouldn’t dare report me to the Ministry, or anyone else, really.”
“That’s Knockturn Alley for you. They’re dark wizards…”
Ian clearly hadn’t forgotten the delight of fleecing shady types during the Christmas dealings with Aurora.
“This is hardly the kind of thing someone your age should be doing!” Snape spoke firmly now, his voice filled with reluctant concern.
The boy was a natural-born menace.
Even Voldemort might’ve been more restrained at school.
“Which is why I plan to hand it off to Aurora’s relatives. They’ve got proper shops down there, all legitimate fronts.”
Ian’s words were light, tossed out like idle conversation.
But he was baiting the hook.
And Snape bit.
“I also… have a shop in Knockturn Alley…” He muttered lowly, his expression going a bit stiff. He’d never trusted those aligned with Grindelwald, and he certainly wasn’t about to let Ian cozy up to that lot.
As a renowned potioneer, after all—
There was no doubt about it:
He was also an expert in counterfeiting. He’d brewed fakes more times than he cared to admit. Why waste effort on authentic brews when the knock-offs sold just as well?
Ian understood what Snape was trying to say.
“Perfect! That saves us both the trouble of asking favours.” He beamed. “You brew them all, and we’ll go halves on the profit!”
Not waiting for a reply, Ian casually dumped the rest of his low-grade ingredients from his enchanted money pouch onto the ground.
After all, if someone else was willing to do the work, why should he lift a wand?
“…”
Snape opened his mouth to reprimand him, but the sheer volume of questionable ingredients now littering the floor stole the words from his tongue.
He took several deep breaths, shut his eyes, and mentally braced himself.
This was all to keep Ian from getting involved with those blasted Grindelwald supporters.
That was the priority— not the gold.
Certainly not the gold.
And it definitely wasn’t the curiosity burning inside him about how Ian had managed to replicate the appearance of so many complex ingredients.
Yes, exactly that.
With that reassuring thought, Snape reopened his eyes.
But—
The young wizard was already gone.
Vanished.
“That blasted boy… how in Merlin’s name did he make these fakes so convincing?”
Snape grumbled, gathering up the remaining ingredients from the floor.
He didn’t confiscate them, nor did he slip them into his own pocket.
Because just as Ian knew, Snape’s favoured methods of punishing students—
Snape also understood how seriously Ian took his galleons.
And not even Snape was willing to gamble with that kind of greed.
Because winning the wager would merely pad his vault with a few extra Galleons, but losing?
Losing might cost him far more than pride— it could well tarnish his name beyond repair.
Especially when love potions were involved. This particular nephew of his just might actually pour them down a Niffler’s throat and sneak it into his bed at midnight, Snape had learned quite a lot about Ian already.
“Odd…”
Back in his office, even after a lengthy examination, Snape still couldn’t unravel the method behind the forged draughts.
Their woeful lack of effectiveness was clear, yet their outward appearance, confusingly similar to the real thing, clashed with that truth like mismatched potion ingredients in a cauldron.
“How is this even possible?” He began to suspect that Ian had simply siphoned the active magical properties from genuine ingredients, but a thorough inspection revealed no such extraction traces.
They appeared naturally low in potency, utterly feeble, yet somehow, they bore an uncanny resemblance to their high-grade counterparts.
Snape retrieved a shriveled fig from his stores, holding it up for comparison.
“The markings… they’re identical?” A rare note of disbelief crept across his face.
It was undeniable.
Some bizarre, infinitesimally unlikely coincidences had taken place.
He stared at the shriveled fig in his hand, visibly indistinguishable from the rest, save for its utter lack of magical effect, with an expression of stunned incredulity, as though he had just witnessed a breach in magical law.
“Just as there shouldn’t exist perfectly identical witches or wizards, no two magical plants should ever be completely the same.” Snape moved to bring the fig closer to the table’s enchanted candlelight, ready to perform a more meticulous comparison.
“Hsss~”
A sudden, sharp breath escaped him.
A blinding surge of pain jolted through his head, as though a migraine had struck with the force of a Bludger.
“Bang~”
Snape caught several potion flasks just in time before they crashed to the floor, though a few vials of corrosive draughts hissed and steamed where their contents had splashed.
“What in Merlin’s name—? Am I under a curse!?” He barely noticed the liquids pooling across the flagstones.
His skull throbbed violently, and flickering images began to flash behind his eyes—quick, disjointed, and utterly unfamiliar.
Every one of them was connected to him.
And yet, none were memories he possessed.
Elsewhere, in Hogsmeade Village—
The chess player seated beneath the trees always seemed to be there, no matter the hour.
It was as though the hand of a wandering, world-weary wizard moved the pieces gently, his worn robes brushing the snow-dusted bench. A curious shimmer pulsed from the ring upon his finger— subtle, deliberate, ancient in design.
But moments later, nothing stirred around him.
“Fascinating,” he murmured under his breath.
Beneath the snow-laced branches, the scene around the man remained still.
The heavy winter snow continued to fall from the sky, yet within the circle where he sat, not a single flake landed.
Not only did the snow avoid the space, but the chill also did not reach him, within the ring of earth and stone, the air was warmer, touched with the scent of springtime blooms.
The entire circle stood in jarring contrast to the surrounding frost and silence.
“Balance must be maintained,” The man said softly, as if in conversation with someone unseen.
In his gaze, the reflection of a single chess piece gleamed upon the board.
Albus Dumbledore.
(End of this chapter)
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