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

Chapter 131 Time Magic

Piqué's fingers tapped silently on the table.

"So, what is the anchor point of the loop? Is it a fixed time? Or an event? When you wake up each time you loop, will your belongings be retained? Or will only your memories remain?"

Lux tried to recall: "I'm not sure about the anchor point, but every time I wake up I'm in Newt's box, woken up by magical creatures. The items seem to stay. The dreamcatcher in my pocket and the token you gave me are still here. I already have two identical ones."

Piqueli fell into a long silence, the only sound in the study being the faint crackling of the fireplace flames devouring the firewood.

"Time magic—" she finally spoke again, her voice low, "is the area most strictly regulated and most forbidden by the Ministry of Magic, with hundreds of laws enacted to limit it, far exceeding those of the Unforgivable Curses, not because of its immediate destructive power, but because of its subversive distortion of causality and its almost unpredictable chain of disasters."

She looked at Lux and the other two, her eyes serious: "How much do you know about the Time-Turner?"

Newt replied, "I know a little. The Ministry of Magic strictly controls it, with extremely strict usage rules. You can't meet your past self, you can't change major events, and the usage time can't exceed a few hours, otherwise it will cause spacetime disorder."

“That’s right.” Picqueri nodded. “But that’s just the most superficial application. The real depth of time magic involves the perception, intervention, and even weaving of the timeline itself. The Ministry of Magic has legislated against it not only because of the danger of altering the past, but also because maintaining the stability of the timeline itself requires unimaginable power and precise control. Most wizards can’t even perceive the flow of the timeline, let alone intervene.”

She pointed to the dreamcatcher in Lux's hand: "What you're experiencing is more like a powerful, pre-programmed magical effect, a time loop spell centered around a rune fragment. Unlike a time converter that lets you actively rewind, it forcibly resets you to a certain point. The power and skill required far exceed the current understanding of the magical world. The person who created it, or rather, the person who modified this rune, probably had a terrifying understanding of time."

Lux frowned. "Is there any way to break it?"

"In theory, all magic has its rules and loopholes," Picqueli mused.

"Since it behaves as a cycle, there must be a cycle mechanism and nodes. Collecting all the rune fragments may be one method, because the rules of a complete rune may change. Alternatively, you could find the caster or satisfy a certain condition preset by the cycle."

She stood up, took an antique-looking bronze key from the bookshelf, the handle of which was engraved with a thunderbird with outstretched wings, and handed it to Lux: "This is my private access pass. The deepest part of Iphamoni's library houses some books that are not suitable for public viewing, including some rare copies on the theory of time magic, as well as various ancient legends and records of unusual magical events circulating in North America. We can go there to investigate, focusing on records related to dreamcatchers, time magic, and dream prophecy."

"Thank you, Ms. Piqueli!" Lux gripped the key tightly.

"Let's go." Piqueli's expression was solemn. "Time waits for no one, although it may be the opposite for you. Remember, in the cycle, you are the only variable. Make good use of your prophecy, but be careful, excessive intervention may cause unpredictable changes to the cycle itself."

Iphamoni's forbidden book section was more complicated than she had imagined.

The air was filled with the faint scent of ancient parchment, dried herbs, and some kind of magical seal.

The bookshelves are so tall that you need to use an automatically moving floating ladder to reach the files on the top shelf.

Before Piqueli's Thunderbird Key, all protective magic quietly dissipated.

For the next few hours, the three of them were practically buried in books.

Newt has an exceptional sensitivity to legends, while Tina excels at finding clues in various adventurers' notes and sealed scrolls from the Ministry of Magic. Thick books and yellowed scrolls piled up on the huge long table.

Lux turned to a thin manuscript bound in some kind of tough animal hide, written by a shaman who called himself "The Dreamtalker".

The text, written with distorted symbols and simple drawings, recounts a legend: an ancient tribal warrior, in an attempt to save his people from being swallowed by dreams, prayed to the spirit of the stars. He wove a net using fallen feathers from thunderbirds, spider silk under the moonlight, and star iron ore soaked in tears of regret, to retrieve "fragments of time." He repeatedly plunged into the vortex of time, trying to find a way to save them, but in the end, he himself became lost in the endless echoes, and the net shattered into countless pieces, scattered in the gaps between dreams and reality.

Tina and Newt pulled out an old report labeled "Observations in the Anomalous Regions of the Americas" from a pile of dusty books: a witch claimed that an ancient pendant passed down in her family could allow her to "choose a day again." She used it to avoid various minor troubles until she found that she could not really remember things outside the loop, and the pendant's cracks increased. Finally, in one loop, the pendant shattered completely, and she herself disappeared as if erased by an eraser.

As dawn broke outside the window, they dragged their leaden legs and gathered the most likely clues they had found in front of Piccolo.

Piqué carefully perused the notes and excerpts they had compiled, her fingertips tracing the ancient texts and illustrations. After a long while, she looked up, her eyes flashing with a sharp light.

"There are still three hours until Miss Lux wakes up," she said slowly. "The power of this modified rune may not be a simple time reversal, but rather a superposition of dream and time. It pulls the user, or rather the victim, into a time dream based on reality, but which also loops independently."

"What do you mean?" Lux scratched her head, not quite understanding the concept.

"If it's a dream, then the key to breaking the cycle might not just be collecting all the fragments, but also waking up." Piqueli looked intently at Lux.

"wake up?"

"This is a general solution for dream-related magic. Finding the discordant element will make the person realize they are dreaming. Isn't that a direction to explore?"

"Huh—so what should I do now?" Lux was more concerned about what she was going to do next than about academic things.

"I'll wait to see if the next cycle happens, and then I'll write you a letter telling you what to do in the next cycle."