Hogwarts: Dumbledore reigned over the wizarding world.

Chapter 261 Harry, Alone and Helpless

After repeatedly assuring Wood that he would wash up and then leave, Harry shakily climbed out of bed, glancing enviously at Ron, who was sleeping like a log and hadn't been woken up by Wood's loud talking. He then began rummaging through his team robes.

In the early morning, the Scottish Highlands were as cold as winter in early autumn.

What chilled Harry even more was the sudden realization while brushing his teeth that today's training might become the norm for many Saturdays throughout the year to come.

hateful!

Harry began to miss the days when Vaughn was still in Slytherin.

Back then, although Gryffindor was getting thrashed by Vaughn and everyone was devastated after each loss, Wood was usually more frustrated than anyone else.

When it rains, he would soak in the rain by himself; when it doesn't rain, he would sit on the grass of the stadium and quietly lick his wounds.

While a heartbroken Wood is certainly pitiful, at least he won't bother anyone else.

Once everything was ready, Harry arrived at the pitch. Before he even entered the locker room, he could hear Wood cheering him on from afar: "—This is the most hopeful year yet. Slytherin has lost Vaughn Weasley, but Harry Potter is still on our team. We have the youngest and best Seeker—"

Of course, amidst that fervent enthusiasm, there was no shortage of the twins' sarcastic remarks: "You might be the shortest Seeker, Wood. I've heard that kids need plenty of sleep to grow. If you keep calling Harry to practice in the early hours of the morning, he'll definitely want to kill you in 10 years."

"Nonsense, Fred—"

"I am George!"

"Okay, George—"

"Bullshit, I'm George!"

Unsurprisingly, a quarrel broke out inside. The twins always managed to crack a joke and gloss over things they didn't want to hear or that they found offensive.

Normally, Harry would probably join the two of them in teasing Wood.

But he couldn't smile today—

1. Does lack of sleep really affect development?

2: Can anyone tell him why Colin Crevey is standing outside the locker room?

"Hi, good morning, Harry!" Crevy waved to Harry from afar, holding up his Muggle camera, and was extremely enthusiastic!

If he could, Harry really wanted to turn around and run away.

Last night, he learned from Ron and Hermione that the notebook was a dark magic item, and he had nightmares all night—though he couldn't remember exactly what he dreamt about.

Unfortunately, he couldn't escape.

Good morning, Crevy.

"Very good, Harry. I can't wait to see you on the pitch, although I've never seen Quidditch before—I should say, I've certainly learned about the sport for you, but you know, I'm a Muggle and have never been exposed to it before. I've only read about it in old newspapers or asked my classmates who come from wizarding families. I've never actually played it."

"Actually, I wanted to come last week, but I was afraid of disturbing your training. You know, Muggles have similar sports, right? They never open their training sessions to the public. I thought Hogwarts was the same, until Wood told me it was perfectly fine, that he welcomes people to come and watch and give feedback. I was so happy!"

Yes, yes, you're visibly happy.

Also, Wood, I'll thank you even in death!

Harry was half-heartedly responding to Crevy. He felt awkward in Crevy's presence, both because Crevy's "fangirling" behavior made him uncomfortable, and because Crevy might actually possess that "notebook".

Honestly, Harry wanted to distance himself from Crevy. Ever since last year, when he was "exposed" of his saintly aura as a savior because of the points deducted and his social death experience during the hellish training, Harry didn't care about his image at all.

But looking at Crevy's secondhand robes, which were slightly faded from washing, and his thin, malnourished-looking figure, Harry felt as if he were seeing himself a year or so ago.

He simply couldn't bring himself to say anything harsh to the other person.

One of the reasons he didn't agree to Hermione's proposal yesterday was because he sympathized with Crevy; he didn't know if "possessing dark magical items" would cause Crevy to break the laws of the wizarding world.

Harry knew better than anyone how much a family with nothing, a child from the bottom of society, needed the opportunity to escape that dire situation.

Crevy, on the other hand, did not have the "savior" aura he possessed, nor did he have a wizard father or a huge family fortune.

If Crevy were to be stripped of his right to attend Hogwarts for some crime—Harry couldn't imagine how his life would be ruined.

"Maybe I should talk to him—"

Harry thought as he walked into the dressing room.

But four hours later, the idea of ​​talking to Crevy completely disappeared from Harry's mind.

It wasn't because Crevy, sitting in the audience, was full of energy throughout the four-hour training session, cheering incessantly and providing a lot of emotional value, making Harry overjoyed.

It wasn't because after training, Krivie grabbed his camera and ran off, saying he had made plans to take photos of his classmates in exchange for their developing solution, and there wasn't time to talk.

Rather, Harry was just too tired!

After four hours of training, he was completely dazed. Even after getting off the broom and stepping on the ground, he felt as if he were still floating, and the whooshing sound of the air being cut through still seemed to echo in his ears.

He didn't even notice when Crevy left.

The other players on the team were much the same: the twins, Angelina, Aria, Katie—they all lay down on the grass the moment they landed, not wanting to move again.

Oliver Wood, now completely insane, is even more ruthless than last semester. Perhaps spurred on by Vaughn's "rogue tactics" last semester, Wood, after grueling 30 hours of practice, devised a new strategy, the core of which was to exploit Gryffindor's so-called "weaknesses"—

Physical fitness!

In other words, it's about relentlessly expending physical strength, recovering, and then expending it again!

After four hours, everyone's physical strength was completely drained by the high-intensity competition.

"I think we must have been crazy to believe Wood's nonsense about some damn tactics. I just felt like we were giants riding brooms, crashing around in mid-air."

"Yes, Fred, we'd be better off training in the shed; at least that would guarantee we're dueling."

Ok?

duel?

Lying next to the twins, Harry keenly caught the sensitive words.

But when he turned his head, Fred had already covered George's mouth, and the two were exchanging glances, seemingly exchanging some kind of intense look.

Is it a duel club?

Looking at Fred and George, who were exchanging glances while covering their mouths, Harry's empty mind finally regained consciousness.

He wanted to ask the twins if there was any news—a rumor had recently circulated in the castle that the twins were offering alchemical items as rewards for their younger brother, Vaughn Weasley's, practical lessons.

Among the students, they are probably the ones with the most accurate information about Vaughn and the recent rumors about the opening of the dueling club.

The young wizard, who was familiar with the twins, was very interested in this.

However, the twins have been denying that they know anything about the inside story these past few days.

Noticing Harry's eager look, Fred and George exchanged another glance, ending their stare contest, and pulled him aside: "There's no duel, you misheard, Harry."

"Yes, I said 'dul,' not 'duel'!"

Harry replied expressionlessly, "I haven't asked anything yet!"

The twins froze for a moment, then immediately turned around and started tearing at each other: "Idiot, it's all your fault for having such a big mouth!"

"Aren't you stupid? You were the one who said 'there's no duel' first."

"If you hadn't let it slip, how could I have possibly let it slip—"

"It's all your fault—"

The two wrestled on the ground, their energetic movements making Harry, whose limbs were aching, very envious.

The commotion here went unnoticed by the rest of the team.

In the distance, the three girls had already packed their things, chatting as they headed towards the changing room, while Wood was still floating around in mid-air, seemingly lost in thought.

He looked like he was about to die in the early hours of the morning, but after training for most of the morning and everyone else was exhausted, he became more and more energetic.

Harry thinks Wood needs to be studied by Vaughn!

The twins wrestled for a while, neither gaining the upper hand, before finally separating, exchanging harsh words: "Don't you dare run away tonight!"

"Are you scared? It'll be a 1v1 match, best of five. Don't try to cheat by crying and begging then!"

Harry didn't realize what had happened until the two of them snorted and ran off into the distance. The twins had once again gotten away with their antics.

All that tearing and grappling was just a charade to fool him!

The real intention was to prevent him from digging deeper into the matter.

"A cunning fellow!"

Harry gave a wry smile, struggled to his feet, and staggered toward the castle.

He once again missed his two friends. When they were close, even though Hermione paid more attention to the training of the Slytherin team because of Vaughn's presence there, she would never miss the training of the Gryffindor team.

She and Ron would sit in the stands, quietly waiting for him to finish training. They would bring him food and water, so he wouldn't have to go back to the castle alone after training.

They would stay by his side; Ron would chatter on about tactics, and Hermione, who didn't like to talk about things she wasn't familiar with, would sit beside them with a book in hand. But miraculously, she would never fall behind or get lost.

They walked together in the breeze and under the sun; even when the sky was overcast, the road remained bright.

But—he ruined everything that used to be so warm and cozy!

As Harry walked off the pitch, he gazed at the rolling, expansive hills and lawns between the pitch and the castle, and the distant edge of the Forbidden Forest. The tranquility he saw filled him with a profound sense of loneliness.

For a moment, I felt a pang of sadness.

After thinking it over, he decided not to go back to the castle. Ron hadn't come to watch his training today and was probably still sulking, not to mention Hermione.

Without them, there's no point in him going back, so he might as well stop by and see Hagrid!

Harry turned and walked toward Hagrid's hut.

The weather was pretty good today. Although it was a bit chilly in the morning, there was no gloom, and the sun came out, its warm autumn sunshine feeling pleasant on my skin.

If their friends were still around, they would probably be like those guys in the distant Black Lake who go to tease the giant squid in their small boats, playing around and laughing happily!

After crossing a hill, Hagrid's cottage came into view in the distance, and as it had done many times before, wisps of smoke rose from its chimney.

But things are different now; he has no one by his side.

Looking at the hut and the smoke, Harry's eyes suddenly stung, and the self-reproach he had been suppressing all day welled up like a spring.

He suddenly longed to go back in time, back to the moment he received the notebook.

"If I could go back in time, I would absolutely, absolutely never hide it again—"

He took it for granted.

That thought roared deep within my consciousness!

Numerous fragments representing thoughts and distractions, like a chorus of ten thousand people, repeated his sudden whisper.

Diffusion, deepening —

Countless white mists, rooted in his consciousness and hidden within those fragments, vibrated and teetered precariously amidst the grand "sound".

At the same time, inside the castle, Vaughn, who was engrossed in making records in the Room of Requirement, sensed something.

He raised his head, looked towards the Forbidden Forest, and frowned slightly.

"Vaughn, what's wrong?"

Hearing Hermione's voice calling, Vaughn snapped out of his reverie, looked at the girl with a concerned expression, and shook his head: "It's nothing—"

He paused, then asked, "Why didn't Harry and Ron come with you today?"

Hermione found her in the morning. She first went to the Slytherin dungeon and found Fruit Tea, who had gone out for a walk alone. After bribing her with three dried fish, Fruit Tea took her to the Room of Requirement.

Vaughn is doing research here today.

The trio were no strangers to the Room of Requirement; after all, Harry had undergone a long period of grueling training there last semester.

Hermione's eyes dimmed slightly at the thought of Harry, but she didn't tell him the truth about the conflict between them. Instead, she casually replied, "Harry's busy with Quidditch training, and Ron's interests have shifted recently; he's probably researching magical creatures in the library!"

Seeing that she was not being sincere, Vaughn did not press the matter further.

Within the confines of Hogwarts, the only reason Hermione could part ways with Harry and Ron is probably because of him.

Even though he's been busy with various matters lately and hasn't had the energy to keep up with the latest developments of the trio, Vaughn can still guess that Harry might have confessed to Hermione about hiding the notebook.

In fact, Vaughn hadn't cared much since he discovered that Harry had obtained the notebook but kept it a secret.

On the one hand, he didn't have deep feelings for Harry. To him, Harry was just a familiar "protagonist." Based on the nostalgia he inherited from his previous life, he had some affection for Harry, but that was all.

After all, he wasn't really a 12-year-old child. As a former middle-aged man, reason had long since replaced impulse, and his emotions were slow to develop and he wasn't deeply invested. Naturally, he wouldn't be hurt by Harry's "betrayal."

On the other hand, Vaughn was well aware that Voldemort's notebook had the power to bewitch people, not to mention the influence of "fate"!

Just like now.

The personality suit deeply rooted in Harry's consciousness has just issued a warning.

However, due to the great distance, and unlike reality, the mental world cannot easily transmit information through "dimensional gates".

Vaughn was unsure what changes had occurred in Harry's mindset that triggered the underlying mechanisms of the Persona, sending a warning to his own entity.

However, in his senses just now, Harry was not in danger, and judging from the distance, he should be heading towards Hagrid's hut.

He didn't rush to check.

As his thoughts sank into his consciousness, Vaughn looked at the vague warnings coming from the personification suit and felt somewhat troubled.

"The development of personality embodiment has reached a bottleneck. After all, the mind is invisible and intangible in the real world. It is a subjective concept without an objective entity. For magic that has no objective entity, this is the limit. To continue, we probably have to travel through the ether."

Only in the ether can subjective concepts such as mind, consciousness, and spirit possess reality.

Throughout history, all the masters of memory magic were experts in the field of alchemy. The Golden Soul theory, which unified many schools of alchemy and elevated alchemy to its current status under the name of "modern alchemy," was itself founded by a group of memory magic masters.

"After I finish my current work, I need to find some time to perform the ritual of traveling through the ether."

As for the work at hand...

Vaughn's main consciousness returned from the depths of his mind, looking at the stack of parchment spread out on the desk in front of him. On the top sheet, clearly written in cursive script:

"Second Edition: Research and Development Ideas and Directions for Wolfsbane Poison, along with Experimental Data"

Yes, the Wolfsbane Potion 2.0, after being delayed for two months due to various reasons, is finally nearing completion.

There are many reasons for the delay.

Vaughn originally planned to complete the development of this drug in North America. Compared to the sparse number of werewolves in England and the devastating blow to the "wild" werewolf population after the establishment of C, there were still a large number of experimental subjects in North America.

Unfortunately, the situation in North America was beyond Vaughn's expectations. Although he obtained many test subjects, his research progress was interrupted several times.

It wasn't restarted until they returned to Europe.

Another issue is the complexity of the werewolf virus, which exceeded Vaughn's original expectations.

In Vaughn's original vision, the second version of the Wolfsbane Potion was mainly aimed at two aspects: the problem of full moon transformation and the contagiousness of the werewolf virus.

However, during later development, Vaughn discovered that he had underestimated the power of a wizard who, many years ago, in an era when Muggles were still ignorant and science had not yet taken root, had already observed viruses, the smallest life forms on Earth, and fused magic with them.

That unknown expert carried out deep molecular-level modification and re-encryption of the original template of the werewolf virus—an RN macromolecule whose origin Vaughn had not yet traced.

Moreover, the encryption method uses magic —

This led to the complete collapse of Vaughn's initial plan to use biological means to curb the infectiousness of the werewolf virus before figuring out the original template and the magic involved in its encryption.

The so-called biological means of containing infectiousness are actually about destroying the virus's ability to replicate.

Every living organism, including viruses, needs to store and transmit large amounts of genetic information. The groups that make up the smallest form of life, whether DNA or RNA, have evolved unique structures, namely "long-chain molecules".

It is a structural compression pattern that can fold and nest itself into a ring or spiral shape, leaving enough space for its "core" inside the cell or protein shell.

This also means that when any biological group replicates itself, whether it is mitosis in complex organisms or transcription and reverse transcription in viruses, it needs to "decompress" itself before replication.

In biology, this is called unwinding (also known as unspinning)!

Proteins involved in unwinding (unwinding) are called helicases.

Vaughn's initial idea was to temporarily bypass the magical nature of the werewolf virus and use biological and chemical methods to interfere with the helicase, thus halting the werewolf virus's infectivity at the very first step of replication.

But he failed in his subsequent attempts.

The problem lies in the protective medium of the werewolf virus.

Capsule!

Like all "life," the powerful werewolf virus has a very fragile core, nucleic acid, which needs a protein shell for protection to prevent it from being damaged by the physical and chemical processes of the external environment.

In the normal process, for a virus to replicate itself, it first needs to enter the cell through its capsid (or envelope, but werewolf virus is a non-enveloped virus).

Then it begins to uncoat, unwind, and decompress its own nucleic acid material.

Vaughn's envisioned design for interfering with helicases involves this step: only when the virus loses its capsid can its helication be affected.

But the unknown wizard who developed the werewolf virus seemed to have been prepared. He used the structure of the viral capsid particles (the polypeptides that make up the capsid protein) to form a "protective lock" in the form of a magical code.

There are two main distinctive features that Vaughn has been able to identify that differentiate it from ordinary viruses.

First, this "magical shell" is not a one-time use item!

The capsid of a normal virus will be uncoated by lysosomal enzymes of the cell when it enters the host cell, and once it is uncoated, it is no longer useful.

Once the virus has passed through the early protein synthesis stage (medically known as the incubation period) and entered the late protein synthesis stage, it will "disassemble" the host cell ribosomes to assemble new capsid proteins.

Werewolf viruses are different; their capsids are reusable. When the werewolf virus nucleic acid begins to transcribe within the host cell, its capsid also works with the viral nucleic acid to transcribe itself.

The protein synthesis stage of the werewolf virus has two systems: a "nucleic acid factory" and a "capsid factory".

Both can be done in parallel.

Therefore, after the werewolf virus sheds its capsid, it does not completely lose its protective function; it migrates to the host cell membrane. Furthermore, Vaughn's research revealed that the shed capsid possesses other functions—

Since the capsid is attached to the cell membrane and also uses the cytoplasm to transcribe itself, all methods of interfering with viral helicases, transcriptases, polymerases, etc., must first pass through it in order to enter the host cell.

It's conceivable that the capsid, which has already occupied the outer layer of the host cell, cannot bypass it. Once it encounters interfering factors, it will immediately halt protein synthesis and attempt a dismemberment-style escape—literally, it will push the viral protein synthesis stage directly into the late stage, assembling the already synthesized parts onto the capsid and dismembering the host cell to escape.