[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-wizard-war-at-hogwarts":3,"chapter-wizard-war-at-hogwarts-wizard-war-at-hogwarts-chapter-140":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"chinese","Wizard War at Hogwarts",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},2358113,4612,"Chapter 140","wizard-war-at-hogwarts-chapter-140",140,"\u003Cp>Harry struggled to push Gennady Ivanovich Yanayev and his convoluted international politics out of his mind; right now, the true culprit beneath the Chamber might be more worth attention.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>TARDIS displayed the date as December 27; the second-year Neville was currently in the Avalor Realm striving to become the King of the Faded, while the third-year Neville had wisely chosen this moment to explore the Chamber, ensuring he would never encounter his past self.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Harry recalled his earlier political analysis of the Basilisk’s death; with Justin’s attack having just occurred, Dumbledore now faced pressure from both the Ministry and the Board of Governors. Thus, Dumbledore would cooperate with the Ministry, showing them the dead Basilisk, and tacitly reach a consensus: “Use the spider as the scapegoat.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Perhaps Dumbledore had originally prepared other contingencies, but when the third-year Neville stood before the Chamber, he would likely once again choose to play along and wait to see what unfolded.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>No wonder, when Harry and the others met Dumbledore at the end of the term, he said, “You killed the monster in the Chamber—twice,” because the Basilisk had indeed likely been killed by Neville.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Neville tried several times and finally opened the Chamber’s passage; a dark, damp hole emitted a foul, fishy odor, and Harry felt the Basilisk was probably still alive.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Neville descended the tunnel; Harry and the Doctor stealthily followed, the three of them walking along the winding, endless path until they reached the very bottom of the Chamber.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Unlike the vast hall he had seen last time, the tunnel now ended at a single stone door. Harry remembered Donald’s words: this door, too, could only be opened with Parseltongue.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Neville strained again to mimic the hissing sound, and finally, the stone door slowly opened.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>An empty hall came into view; the Basilisk lay in its familiar place, while across the hall, a faint, flickering lamp burned.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“What’s going on?” Neville hurried to the Basilisk’s corpse. “Is it dead?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“And… who’s over there?” As he turned toward the light, he gripped both sword and wand tightly.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The dim light revealed a small folding bed; Harry couldn’t help wondering who lived here.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A girl in a white gauze dress stepped slowly forward—it was Zhang Qiu.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Oh, Neville,” Zhang Qiu smiled. “You…”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Who are you?” Neville said warily. “Are you really Zhang Qiu?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Uh.” Zhang Qiu’s smile froze. “So this is your first time seeing me. Probably.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In Neville’s confused gaze, Zhang Qiu spoke slowly: “Travelers’ timelines aren’t parallel—they’re more like a tangled knot. When I first met you, you’d already seen me several times.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“But now, you’re meeting me for the first time—yet I’ve already seen you many times,” Zhang Qiu shrugged.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“So you mean… you’re the future version of yourself?” Neville ventured.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“It’s convoluted, but yes,” Zhang Qiu said. “The future you will meet the past me, so for me, I can give you advice. Likewise, the past me heard plenty of advice from the future you—both were useful.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“If you hadn’t told me where the Room of Requirement was, I could still have hidden in the Chamber,” Zhang Qiu sat on her folding bed, “but then I’d have no way to bathe—it would drive me mad.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Why are you hiding here? Did you kill the Basilisk?” Neville asked.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Actually, you were present when all this happened, so I’ll explain later,” Zhang Qiu winked playfully. “You could return to the Forbidden Forest one week before your first-year exams, or to the Chamber the day before your second-year term started. My advice: go back to your third year quickly. After Hyperion’s activation, your magic and spirit drain continuously—returning voluntarily lets you recover faster.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“I think I understand,” Neville nodded. “You went to the Forbidden Forest in first year, then to the Chamber the day before second year started, and only now appear here.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Correct. And you came here first,” Zhang Qiu nodded. “Our meeting order is reversed.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Then it’s clear—I’ll return first, then go to the Forbidden Forest in first year and hear what the past you has to say.” Neville nodded, and his form began to fade.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“It’s the day you saw the unicorn’s corpse—you should remember,” Zhang Qiu added.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The unicorn’s corpse? Harry strained to recall—he didn’t have a strong memory of it. But Neville had injured Buckbeak during his travels and planned to kill the Basilisk; adding one more unicorn wouldn’t be surprising.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After Neville vanished completely, Harry moved to remove his invisibility cloak and speak to Zhang Qiu—but the Doctor stopped him.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Zhang Qiu’s situation is off,” he whispered. “I feel she’s rushing Neville away. Meeting her might not be a good idea.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“But isn’t this strange?” Back in TARDIS, Harry asked. “Zhang Qiu and Neville are both time-traveling—that’s understandable. But if Zhang Qiu doesn’t tell Neville where and when they last met, he won’t find that place, and she won’t meet him there. I mean, this is too coincidental—it feels arranged.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Precisely. That’s fate—or the will of time,” the Doctor nodded lightly. “Why do you think Neville told Zhang Qiu about the Room of Requirement? And how did Neville find it in the first place?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Uh.” Harry paused. Neville’s discovery of the Room of Requirement had also been strange.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Let’s run a thought experiment,” the Doctor said, pulling and pushing TARDIS’s controls while explaining his view of time and fate in simple terms. “Suppose I write a string of numbers and seal them in an envelope. Before you open it, you won’t know what the numbers are.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Now, I want you to open them one hour from now, then travel back one hour and tell your past self the numbers.” Harry imagined a version of himself arriving from one hour in the future.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“You noticed the key phrase: ‘within the plan,’” the Doctor snapped his fingers approvingly. “So if you hear the numbers from your future self and remember them, what happens when you travel back again one hour later?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“You mean… I don’t need to open the envelope at all,” Harry mused. “Through time travel, I can gain information out of nowhere.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“But opening the envelope and learning the numbers is ‘within the plan’—that is, fate,” the Doctor said. “Time travel lets you gain information out of nowhere—but that information is tied to fate.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“The gift of time!” Harry suddenly understood what Zhang Qiu had said. “Does that mean if we help correct deviated fate, we can gain knowledge otherwise impossible to obtain?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Usually,” the Doctor sighed, “either knowledge you were always destined to gain eventually—like the numbers on the paper—or knowledge that just happens to help you correct fate—like your future self telling you, ‘Better open the envelope before you time-travel, or you might get hurt.’”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Hurt?” Harry frowned. If you tried to alter history or appear before your past self, that might be dangerous—but in the paradox of the numbers, what harm could come from not looking at the paper?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“We’re here,” the Doctor gestured outside. Two Zhang Qius sat face-to-face on the ground; Neville slowly materialized.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“It’s June 27, 1992—the end of first year, the Forbidden Forest?” Harry, still under his invisibility cloak, approached them. On the grass now stood two Zhang Qius and one invisible Harry—three people, truly.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>One Zhang Qiu wore her school robes, gripping a bloodstained sword, leaning against a tree, her face pale; the other wore a Hanfu, seated opposite, radiating quiet confidence—Harry guessed this was the future Zhang Qiu.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Oh, Neville, you’re here. Listen too,” the Hanfu-clad Zhang Qiu said without turning. “I returned to this moment because my future self told my past self: this is my final chance to use the Yin Corpse Transformation Talisman.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“And you used that final chance to come here?” the past Zhang Qiu said weakly.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Correct. If not to say this, they wouldn’t have granted me this last use,” the future Zhang Qiu smiled wryly. “In truth, the Yin Corpse Transformation Talisman isn’t just for time travel—it can also extract you from mortal peril, isn’t it?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“True. But who are ‘they’?” the past Zhang Qiu asked.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“The Hounds of Tindalos,” the future Zhang Qiu whispered. “I thought they were just ominous black dogs—but they’re manifestations of time’s will. Too many jumps have drawn their attention. If you don’t want to be erased by time, you must follow every word I say.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“But what you say is only what you’ve already lived through—it’s really fate telling me what to do,” the past Zhang Qiu sighed.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Yes. The most critical thing is ensuring the Chamber attacks proceed as they should.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As she spoke, both Zhang Qius glanced unconsciously at the bloodstained sword.\u003C\u002Fp>",1439,"2026-06-21T04:54:27.874Z",1,"Qwen3-Next 80B","fcf5e856e5afb6875c14d60efbffe65341f32f7bab06ae3db62a234c3bf38741","wizard-war-at-hogwarts-chapter-141","wizard-war-at-hogwarts-chapter-139",528,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fwizard-war-at-hogwarts-cover.jpg"]