Hogwarts: Lacus doesn't want to be a witch who destroys nations.

Chapter 130 Cycle

Lux followed Newt out of the box and stepped back into the alley where even the lighting was exactly the same. The smell of pancake syrup in the air, the cries of newsboys in the distance, and even the stray cat yawning in the corner were all perfectly matched with the scene in her memory.

Tina appeared on time, wearing a dark blue travel cloak, her expression sharp and efficient, even her tone of voice remained unchanged: "Everything's ready? — It seems your 'little friends' are still very enthusiastic?"

Lux nodded blankly. With the pull of the key, the cool air of Mount Greylock, the rugged outline of Fort Ivermony—everything was precisely replicated, down to the second.

Ms. Picqueri entered the drawing room. "Tina, Mr. Scamander," her voice was as steady as reciting a charter, "and this—Miss Laksana Crownguard. I received Tina's letter, and Dumbledore believes—"

"Yes, Ms. Picqueli." Newt stepped forward, his lines flowing as if he had rehearsed them.

From a certain perspective, that is indeed the case.

Lux forced herself to endure the detached feeling of watching an endlessly looping drama and reached out her hand again.

Lush greenery filled the air, plants stretched out gracefully, and Piqué's face once again showed just the right amount of shock.

Silence, weighing the options.

Then, Piqueli turned her gaze to Lux and began her classic recruitment speech: "Miss Lux, given your current situation—" "Thank you very much for your kind offer, Ms. Piqueli,"

Lux almost blurted out the answer, quickly reciting her refusal statement, "But I refuse, Hogwarts is mine." Piccolo expressed his regret, then got to the point: "I will use my influence—but while we wait for news, perhaps you can help me, and all of us, investigate something."

She brought up the dreamcatcher legend again, which "weaves dreams and twists time," and the clues once again pointed to the Lost Raven Tavern.

Lux's heart sank; the script remained unchanged.

She was truly stuck on this damn same day.

Standing once more before the black door of the Lost Raven, listening to the raven relief cawing, "A place of bewilderment?", Tina replied, "A raven carrying a twig."

The tavern was still a scene of chaos and debauchery.

The same complaints, the same gossip, and the same scorn for the dreamcatcher legend.

Tina returned after circling around, shaking her head with a grim expression: "There aren't any valuable leads—one person said it might be in the hands of a smuggler called 'Red Moon,' but that guy was arrested by the Aurors last week for adding vixen egg liquid to his mead."

Lux listened, but her eyes remained fixed on the dark corner at the far end of the bar.

It was empty. The wizard in his tattered robes hadn't appeared.

He broke free from the cycle and therefore no longer appears?

Lux, unwilling to give up, squeezed to the bar and deliberately lingered while ordering the blue layered cocktail, her eyes fixed on that corner.

Time passed, and the corner remained empty until the bartender placed the glass in front of her with a "thud".

He disappeared.

Or rather, in this cyclical "standard script," he shouldn't have appeared at all? Was it Lux's intrusion last time?

If the only person who gave her the key disappears, how can she end the loop?

Give that rune fragment to another person?

But it seems to be cursed; handing over the rune will bring misfortune.

"Lux?" Tina's voice was filled with concern. "What are you still looking for? We should go."

Lux looked at Tina and Newt, took a deep breath, and knew she couldn't continue acting according to the script.

"Tina, Newt," her voice carried an urgency she herself didn't realize, "we need to talk, right now. Let's go outside and talk. Things have completely gone off track."

Back in the comforting woody scent of Newt's trunk, Lux took out the dreamcatcher and placed it on the table.

"What is this?" Newt asked curiously as he leaned closer.

"Don't touch it!" Lux immediately softened her tone. "Sorry, but this thing is troublesome; it's stuck on time."

Under the bewildered gazes of Tina and Newt, Lux quickly recounted the events of the past, describing in a rapid sequence of events: the appearance of the mad wizard, his incoherent ramblings, the forced insertion of the dreamcatcher into her hands, his subsequent death in a car accident and complete disappearance, and the unexpected events that followed.

"—Then, I realized that time had jumped back to the beginning. Everything that happened today had already been played out exactly the same way yesterday, word for word. We met Ms. Picqueri, came to the tavern, and heard the same conversation—except for the man who gave me the fragment, he didn't show up."

Lux looked at the two who were still processing the massive amount of information and said, "I suspect this is what's going on. It's like I've been thrown into a time loop, and the key to breaking the loop is probably to collect all the fragments of this modified rune."

Tina and Newt stared at her in disbelief, then at the old-looking dreamcatcher on the table. The sheer volume of information left them speechless.

"A time loop?" Newt murmured, his eyes beginning to show academic curiosity overshadowing his confusion. "Like some kind of regional, self-sustaining time magic barrier? But that requires a stable and enormous energy source—"

"Lux," Tina's expression was extremely serious, "Are you sure you haven't been hit by some extremely sophisticated confusion spell, or—have experienced some kind of intense mental shock?"

As an Auror, she instinctively leaned towards the more plausible explanation.

"I'm sure, I can vouch for it. Newt, you'll be spending the whole night at the research station observing the ballerinas, but you'll be so tired you'll almost eat your observation notes like cookies. Tina, under the flowerpot on your windowsill, there's a birthday card your sister Queenie sent you last year that you couldn't bear to throw away. On the back, it says in ink, 'Go home if you miss home.'"

Tina and Newt's faces flushed instantly, their eyes filled with shock and disbelief.

Lux could never have known these details, especially the last one, because Lux had never been to Tina's house. "Merlin's beard!" Tina gasped, finally accepting this unbelievable fact.

"We must inform Ms. Piqueli immediately! This situation is completely out of control!"

Without hesitation, Lux and her group immediately traveled to Ifamoni via the Floo Network.

This time, they did not wait and directly requested an emergency meeting. Piqueli showed great shock and unprecedented solemnity at their return, especially regarding Lux's account of the time loop.

She received them in her private study.

"—So, you believe that because of this fragment, you're trapped in the same day? And the trigger for the loop is every time you wake up?"