Chapter 730: Time Magic

【No one can change time, but wizards can use time to change themselves.

Remember, your act of changing history is itself a part of history】

Xiang Xien took out the Time-Turner and the book introducing the rules of the Time-Turner.

On the title page of the book, the yellowed paper spat out this maxim.

He looked at it thoughtfully, and then recalled all the rules again.

For example: absolutely must not be seen by anyone.

This point was also warned to the three of them by Professor Buliduo.

Another example: you can only use it for a maximum of five hours.

This point was marked in red and bold, and several cases were listed to explain it.

These cases particularly attracted Xiang Xien's attention—he always understood one point: the deeper the understanding of magic, the more powerful the magical strength one can control.

Knowledge and wisdom are the most precious wealth of a wizard.

And what made him care even more was that these cases were provided by the Department of Mysteries.

That place buries the most profound secrets of magic: including the brain, death, prophecy, time, love...

As a young wizard at Hogwarts, Xiang Xien had almost never come into contact with information about the Department of Mysteries; after all, what they do is strictly confidential.

People who work for the Department of Mysteries are even called Unspeakables; no one knows where they work, and no one knows what they are doing.

Besides this, the Department of Mysteries also has great autonomy and is the only department in the Ministry of Magic that does not need to take orders from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.

They can even ignore the interference of the Minister for Magic; for example, Rodolphus Lestrange once tried to close the Department of Mysteries but failed.

【Although people have many fantasies about this, even in the Wizarding World, time travel can only be achieved to a limited extent.

This topic is shrouded in extremely high secrecy—the Department of Mysteries is conducting investigations—but magic seems to only be able to take you to a certain extent】

A certain extent? Xiang Xien thought, is this the origin of the five hours?

【The following content comes from Saul Croaker, who spent his life studying time magic in the Department of Mysteries】

Xiang Xien continued to look:

【According to our current investigation, the longest time for heavy living is about five hours, and it will not cause serious harm to the traveler or time itself.

We have been able to encapsulate individual Hour-Reversal Charms in small enchanted hourglasses; these charms can be worn around the neck of a wizard or witch and rotated according to the number of hours the user wants to relive】

The yellowed handwriting introduced a spell Xiang Xien had never heard of: Hour-Reversal Charm.

This is the principle of how the Time-Turner works.

As for who invented this spell, the Department of Mysteries did not explain much.

The following text was pulled back to the five-hour rule:

All attempts to backtrack more than a few hours have resulted in catastrophic injury to the wizard or witch involved.

Since Eloise Mintumble was trapped in 1402 for five days in 1899, all such experiments have been abandoned.

Now we understand that her body had aged five hundred years when she returned to modern times, and due to irreparable damage, she passed away at St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries shortly after we successfully rescued her.

More importantly, her five days in the distant past brought huge turmoil to the life paths of everyone she met, changing their life trajectories so much that no fewer than twenty-five descendants "never born" and disappeared in the present.

Finally, in the days after Madam Mintumble's recovery, worrying signs appeared, indicating that time itself had also been interfered with due to such serious legal violations.

The Tuesday after she reappeared lasted for two and a half days, while Thursday passed rapidly within four hours.

The Ministry of Magic went to great lengths to cover this up, and since then, the strictest laws and penalties have been imposed on those who study time travel】

Killing the user, causing unpredictable and terrifying effects on other wizards, and even changing time itself...

These are the historical cases cited by the Department of Mysteries, showing every user of the Time-Turner the terror of time magic.

Xiang Xien silently remembered these examples and recited the final warning of the Department of Mysteries again:

"What surprises most people in the Wizarding World is that Time-Turners are usually only used to solve the most trivial problems in time management, and are never used for more important or significant purposes.

Because as Saul Croaker said, 'Just as the human mind cannot understand time, it also cannot understand the harm that will be brought if we recklessly interfere with its laws.'"

Immediately, he quickly dialed the hourglass by three notches.

The bright Hope Cottage faded away, and Xiang Xien felt himself flying backward rapidly.

Blurred colors and shapes flashed by, his eardrums swelled, and he couldn't hear any sound—then he felt his feet touch solid ground, and everything became clear again—

He stood in the Hope Cottage, in front of an empty table, and some thin morning mist was drifting in through the open door.

He returned to five o'clock in the morning.

At this time, Hogwarts was still in deep sleep.

Success—

Xiang Xien carefully examined the Time-Turner.

Of course, wizards cannot understand time magic, but if this is really the case, then where did the Hour-Reversal Charm come from?

Carrying such doubts and a cautious attitude, Xiang Xien's time was fully utilized.

For four consecutive weeks, Xiang Xien became even more erratic in his whereabouts.

During this period, another Quidditch match was held, which was Gryffindor versus Hufflepuff.

Early in the morning, the weather was sunny, the sun was bright, and a pleasant breeze was blowing gently.

"It's the most ideal weather for a Quidditch match!"

At the Gryffindor table, Wood was saying enthusiastically while adding many scrambled eggs to each player's plate, and he even ran to the Ravenclaw long table to send some to Harry,

"Harry, cheer up, you need a good breakfast."

Harry had been unable to balance the relationship between Hope Cottage training and Quidditch training recently, and he subconsciously looked for the black-haired young wizard.

But it was this glance that made his pupils dilate.

Xiang Xien was sitting at the long table reading a book, but how could that figure flashing past outside the hall window also be Xiang Xien?

He rubbed his eyes hard, dropped his plate, and ran to the door, but that figure had already disappeared.

In the afternoon.

Harry walked toward the Gryffindor tower, picked up his Nimbus 2000, and joined the bustling crowd crossing the field, but his thoughts were still in the castle, chasing that figure.

When he changed into his bright red robes in the locker room, the only thing he could console himself with was that he had absolute confidence in winning. ===== CHAPTER 731 =====