Surely they could not be anything simple. After all, daring to name the completed creation "God" means it must be capable of rivaling a true god.
As Ian stared entranced at the two alchemical artifacts, which were straining toward union yet unable to merge, Young Morgan suddenly turned her gaze toward him. Her eyes held a nervous glint, and, without warning, she blurted out,
"Teacher, are you going to leave?"
The question was startlingly abrupt. Even Ian, who had been fully immersed in studying the mechanical heart, was caught off guard and couldn't fathom why Young Morgan would ask such a thing.
In the few seconds he was frozen in thought, the ancient Time-Turner in his robes began to tremble faintly. Looking down, he saw its surface flickering with a dim light.
It was as if some unseen force had triggered it. Ian's heart lurched. He hadn't expected the Time-Turner to activate at that moment. Had Professor Flamel of the future found a way to summon him back?
"This is a bit too sudden..."
Ian could feel the power of time manifesting around him.
He could clearly sense the great current of time surging beside him.
Yet, he was even more startled by Young Morgan's foreknowledge. Did she perceive the strength of time more keenly than he did? Or did she possess the gift of prophecy?
Many of the powerful wizards he had met seemed to possess foresight. Even Dumbledore, despite his refusal to believe in prophecy, could not escape its reach.
Ian himself had no such gift. He had no time to complain, though. Pulling out the glowing Time-Turner, he cast one last glance at the metallic heart still resting inside the box.
"I think this belongs to you."
Ian closed the lid. Immediately, the sound of gears and clockwork ceased. Then, he handed the box back to Young Morgan.
But Young Morgan did not reach out to take it.
"Will we see each other again?" She saw the expression on Ian's face and, in that instant, knew she was right. Her features softened with a hint of reluctance, and her eyes were faintly rimmed with red.
For once, the girl betrayed emotion.
"Of course," Ian answered without hesitation before he quickly pulled out his classroom notes and handed them to Young Morgan.
The cover was worn, and its pages were filled with his neat handwriting, records of magical knowledge and insights he had collected. Among them were lessons from Morgan of the Twilight Zone, who had taught Ian.
"Then give me the box when we meet again," Young Morgan said as she accepted Ian's notebook. Still, she refused to take the box that had fallen from the Mirror of Erised.
Clearly, she wanted the box to serve as a kind of promise between them.
Ian looked at Young Morgan, about to say more, when he suddenly realized that Riddle and Malfoy were not by his side. He snapped his head toward the door, ready to run over or cast a spell to summon them.
But the ancient Time-Turner's power surged too quickly. The currents of time swelled, wrapping around him and growing stronger. They flooded over Ian like a great tide.
Then, his figure began to blur.
Everything in this era grew hazy before his eyes, vanishing into the fog of time.
Young Morgan stood rooted to the spot, clutching the notebook tightly to her chest. Her eyes were fixed on the place where Ian had disappeared. A faint shimmer of tears passed across her gaze but was swiftly replaced by resolve.
"I will find you, Teacher, no matter how long it takes..." she whispered softly, her voice carrying quiet determination. There was still so much she didn't know about him.
Yet perhaps...
Could she learn these things from the boy her teacher had left behind? Stepping out into the corridor, Young Morgan glanced toward Riddle's room, where shadows still flickered.
Clearly, the other two had not left with Ian. Truthfully, even Ian himself was exasperated. Surrounded by the torrents of time, he hadn't seen Riddle or Malfoy at all.
"So what was the point of going back to the past, then?" Ian muttered in frustration. He had gone back in time to hunt down Riddle, but instead of retrieving Malfoy, he managed to leave Riddle behind as well.
Well, perhaps this journey hadn't been entirely meaningless. At the very least, he had earned his place among the legends and saved a city. The only uncertainty was what hidden dangers Riddle and Malfoy might stir up in the Middle Ages.
"Just don't let me return to rewritten history books, or worse, a completely changed world!" Ian muttered to himself, caught between anticipation and dread as he was carried by the roaring current of time toward the future.
Light and shadow streamed past him at dizzying speeds, like countless shattered mirrors reflecting fragments of history. He saw medieval knights charging across battlefields and carving their glory in blood.
He glimpsed Renaissance artists pouring inspiration onto canvases. He watched the smokestacks of the Industrial Revolution belch black clouds while steam engines roared beneath them.
Some fragments were moments of triumph, great figures immortalized in time. Others were harrowing tragedies, failures sealed in silence. Together, these pieces wove a tapestry of human history, frozen moments stitched together by time.
Among them, of course, were many glimpses of wizards: the founding of Hogwarts and the mysterious transfer student with the raven. That student was shrouded in mystery indeed.
Ian witnessed not only the figure laying waste to all around him, but also when a dragon collapsed at their feet. Ian swore the transfer student lifted their head and looked straight at him! It was the same uncanny occurrence he had once encountered in the time stream.
Except last time, it had been a mere infant staring back at him.
"This transfer student...?" Ian barely had time to register it before the scene changed. Fragments of Hogwarts and the student vanished as the "train" of time sped on.
It was moving faster than before; perhaps the flow was hastening deliberately, afraid that lingering too long would trigger a change. Time itself seemed to be driving him forward at a breakneck pace.
Suddenly, a blinding light surged from ahead. Ian squeezed his eyes shut as a powerful force yanked his body out of the passageway.
"Finally... back to my own era?"
A deep, resonant hum filled his ears, like countless indistinct, unintelligible voices murmuring at once. Perhaps these were simply the side effects of taking the "express line" through time.
Thankfully, it didn't last long.
Soon, Ian felt the weight of his body return and his feet plant firmly on solid ground. Slowly, he opened his eyes and found himself surrounded by familiar sights.
The office of the Hogwarts Professor of Alchemy.
Bookshelves lined with ancient tomes and peculiar alchemical instruments filled the room. His gaze swept across it all before finally settling on the figures ahead: a tense-looking Headmaster Albus Dumbledore and a visibly relieved Professor Nicolas Flamel. They stood before him.
The good news was that their clothing, the office's arrangement, and even the atmosphere of Hogwarts itself seemed unchanged. There were no banners or proclamations declaring Voldemort's conquest of the world.
The bad news was that some of his past actions had inevitably influenced the future. On the office wall hung a painting that should never have existed.
It depicted him and Herpo, painted as a shadowy monster, standing beside him.
His face was still in close-up.
(End of chapter.)
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