A certain broken Hogwarts

The first to emerge from the passage was Professor Snape, who surveyed the surrounding ruins with his empty and indifferent eyes.

The embers of the fire still burned on the fragments of the wooden planks, and thick smoke billowed obliquely towards the low-lying clouds with the howling cold wind. Most of the wooden house's floor had collapsed into charred pits.

Owen, standing obediently at the edge of the pit, raised his face, which belonged to Harry, and stared intently at the newcomer with his bright and clear emerald green eyes, while Blaise, who was in a deep coma, slumped limply to the side.

As Owen gazed at him with a look of surprise and trust, Snape, who had been staring at him with some suspicion, froze, his face turning as black as the bottom of a pot, and he gripped his wand even tighter.

Melete transformed into a streak of light brown lightning and darted out, rushing to Owen's feet in a flash. She climbed onto his shoulder, clinging to his robe, and rubbed her furry little head against his face.

Harry and Sirius followed closely behind as they emerged from the passage, finally bringing a bit more life to the place.

Owen let Professor Snape go, then turned to look at the panting Harry, a hint of interest on his face. This person with his own appearance seemed both familiar and strange, especially the kind of clear-eyed foolishness in the other's eyes that didn't belong to him, which Owen found novel and intriguing.

"Where's Bellatrix?" Sirius growled in a hoarse voice, pacing anxiously along the edge of the crater created by the explosion, wand in hand.

"She ran away." Owen patted Melete's head, slowly raised his hand to straighten his cuffs, and blinked innocently.

"Damn it!" Sirius muttered, smashing a stubbornly standing plank beside him with his fist. Harry's latest brush with danger right under his nose had enraged him, and he couldn't control his temper.

Harry was also carefully examining Owen, finding no injuries on him, which made him breathe a long sigh of relief, finally putting his mind at ease. But seeing "himself" standing elegantly and calmly amidst the mess, spotless, even his usually unkempt hair neatly combed, he felt extremely uncomfortable.

"Uh, Owen, your robes are torn," Harry blurted out, sounding completely out of place.

Owen glanced at him sideways, a faint shadow falling over his clear emerald green eyes, like the reflection of distant mountains on a shimmering lake. He tapped the tip of his wand on his robes, and the holes burned by the spells and flames healed like closed flower petals.

Harry slapped his forehead and quickly asked, "How's Blaise?"

Snape was already crouching down beside Blaise. He frowned, tapped his wand twice, and made Blaise float lightly in mid-air. He said in a low voice, "No danger to life, not a deadly poison... but you've been hit by the Imperius Curse."

A chilling cold enveloped the area. Dementors surged in one after another, circling the ruins of the wooden house. Screams and clamor grew louder as they approached. Some students and residents of Hogsmeade Village, having heard the explosion, rushed over to watch from a distance, while several professors were running quickly from the other side.

The arrival of the Dementors made Harry tense up; he shook his head vigorously, trying to shake off the faint screams that were beginning to echo in his head.

Sirius frowned, his expression turning grim. He looked up and roared, "The person you're looking for isn't here! You should be hunting down the fugitive, not gathering here for a spectacle!"

But the Dementors continued to gather in greater numbers, and the moisture in the air condensed into a thick fog, the cold dampness seemingly seeping into one's bones through the pores of their skin.

"Harry, do you remember what to do? Look them in the eye, you can do it!" Sirius gritted his teeth and patted Harry's shoulder hard.

Harry raised his wand, trying to recall his birthday party during the summer holidays. A dazzling Patronus stag leaped from the tip of the wand, its antlers striking the swarming Dementors...

The Dementors retreated and scattered, disappearing into the dark clouds. The moonlit stag returned to Harry's side, its large silver eyes bright and gentle.

Snape walked past without glancing to either side, leading Blaise into the secret passage. Owen, carrying the little fuzzy cat, followed behind him, quietly waving for Nyx to leave first, then smiling and nodding at the two of them.

"Good heavens! What happened?" Professor McGonagall and Professor Flitwick rushed over and exclaimed in shock as they looked at the Screaming Shack reduced to ruins.

Sirius Black had no choice but to go over and explain to them, while Owen had already followed Professor Snape into the low, secret passage.

The already narrow tunnel became even more cramped, with pebbles scattered everywhere and a choking dust filling the air. Owen had to recite a "soaking head spell" to get some fresh air.

"Ever since Peter Pettigrew sneaked into the school from here, Sirius has blocked all the secret passages he knows of." Harry followed, mimicking him and reciting the Bubble Head Charm, his head contorting comically like a funhouse mirror inside a giant bubble. "Professor Snape and I met Sirius on the way, and he led us to reopen this secret passage so we could get there faster..."

"But we didn't expect that the second half of the secret passage was set with a trap. It exploded halfway through, and we were almost buried in it..." Harry explained the previous events to Owen in a rapid-fire manner.

Owen nodded and quickly recounted his experience. He explained that he had stalled for time by talking to Bellatrix, then narrowly escaped her attacks with Nyx's help. After hearing someone coming from the secret passage, Bellatrix fled and blew up the Screaming Shack before leaving.

Snape listened to Owen's account in silence, only giving him a deep look; his dark eyes seemed to see into the depths of one's soul. He had clearly found traces of a fierce battle in the ruins, and the air was thick with the aura of dark magic.

Owen simply stared at him with his clear, bright emerald eyes, his expression firm and self-righteous. In the end, Snape was the first to avert his gaze with a gloomy face, looking rather embarrassed.

They emerged from the secret passage and went straight to the school hospital. Ms. Pomfrey quickly cured Blaise of the poison and revived him, but she had no good way to deal with the Imperius Curse.

She sighed as she dragged Owen and Harry from head to toe, checking them over and over again. Upon learning of the terrible ordeal Harry had endured, she gasped, her eyes welling with tears.

"You have to stay here for the night!" She forcefully pushed the two of them onto the hospital bed. "What you need right now is sleep."

Seeing Ms. Pomfrey bring over two glasses of purple sleeping potion, Owen said pitifully, "But I'm hungry, ma'am."

"Oh, I forgot about that." Mrs. Pomfrey placed the medicine on the bedside table, then turned and hurried off to find them some food. "You can have dinner here before you go to sleep..."

Owen let out a soft sigh, leaning lazily against the headboard, his arms behind his head, while Melete lay on his chest. His body, still aching from the Cruciatus Curse, trembled involuntarily, and he felt utterly weak.

Harry sat on the hospital bed next to him, looking listless. Although he wasn't in physical pain, the mental anguish he had endured was still vivid in his mind.

"I'm sorry, Owen, I've dragged you into this again, and Blaise too," he said sullenly, turning to look at Blaise. Snape was using special methods to question Blaise, while Professor McGonagall and the others stood nearby.

"While that's true, it's not your fault," Owen said calmly, yawning. He touched the scar on his forehead with his finger, feeling a slight pain. Hmm, Harry's scar seems to flare up often; the guy's having a tough time.

He raised his left hand and looked at it; he could no longer feel the thin red thread connecting him and Harry. Actually, in the immediate aftermath of the body swap, he had sensed the illusory red thread; if he had traced it back to its source then, he should have been able to find its origin.

Unfortunately, he simply didn't have the time to do that at the time.

"Do I have to wait until the next body swap?" Owen thought to himself, his eyes darting around slightly. Although he didn't particularly like this feeling, he wasn't entirely against it either; he was always willing to try new things.

Harry gave him a slight smile, a touch of sunshine appearing on his pale, handsome face. He looked down and tugged at a loose thread peeking out from his sleeve, pulling out a long red ribbon.

He tilted his head blankly, pulling the ribbon outwards with all his might, but it only grew longer and longer, the winding ribbon soon covering his bed. When he finally encountered some resistance, he exerted a little force, and with a "pop," a large amount of glittering colored paper scraps and colorful ribbons sprayed out of his sleeve.

The professors all looked over at the sound, their expressions disapproving as they gazed at the confetti scattered everywhere. Madam Pomfrey, carrying a large plate of food, gasped and raised her eyebrows, but knowing Harry was a patient, she simply shook her head and cleaned up the mess.

Harry lowered his head awkwardly, digging his toes into the mattress, his body covered in glittering scraps of paper. Owen glanced at him, already plotting how to kill him.

The two enjoyed their delicious meal while the professors on the other side received some clues from Blaise.

"Honeyduke," Snape's deep voice drifted over, "If nothing unexpected happens, Zabini was struck by the Imperius Curse while buying sweets at Honeyduke. The one who did it was the shopkeeper, Froome, who demanded that Zabini take Harry out of Hogwarts."

"We have to go to Honeydukes!" Professor McGonagall said hastily. "I don't believe the Froomes would do such a thing; they might be under control too..."

They walked out of the ward talking, their footsteps fading into the distance. Ms. Pomfrey settled Blaise, who had fallen into a deep sleep again, gave the two a few words of advice, and then returned to her office.

Owen chewed on his juicy steak, feeling much more relaxed. Harry, on the other hand, shoveled in a few bites of food, then anxiously fiddled with his fingers for a while, before inadvertently reaching into Owen's magic props from his sleeve.

He asked somewhat awkwardly, "Owen, can I see the gadgets you've been hiding on you?" He felt he needed to do something to distract himself.

Owen squinted at Harry's absent-minded fidgeting and his two restless little hands, and said speechlessly, "Remember to put it back where it belongs."

Harry's eyes lit up, and he nodded quickly, studying the various strange and wonderful gadgets hidden on his person with great curiosity.

He first reached into his other sleeve and pulled out two wands, blinking as if unsure if they were real or fake. He carefully put the wands back in, then rummaged through his pocket and pulled out a realistic finger cot and several specially made coins, turning them over and over in his hands. He then pulled out an exquisitely crafted belt full of mechanisms from his waist and a long handkerchief from under his collar.

As he pulled the gleaming gold hourglass from his collar, Irving suddenly raised his eyebrows and said, "Don't touch this!"

"Huh?" Harry was stunned, his mind went blank, but his fingers still instinctively moved the hourglass according to the instructions he had received earlier.

In the blink of an eye, he vanished from the hospital bed.

Owen couldn't help but roll his eyes, but thinking that it wasn't a big deal for Harry to know the secret of the Time-Turner, he continued eating his steak with a clear conscience and fed Meurette a piece of grilled fish.

The door to the ward was opened gently, and Harry sneaked in, sat back on his bed, his eyes wide open and his expression extremely excited.

"You know what happened, right, Owen?" he said excitedly in a low voice. It was an incredible secret. "I went back in time! It was a time machine! Now I know how you managed to have two classes at the same time."

Irving raised his eyelids slightly and nodded noncommittally.

"You never told me that!" Harry exclaimed excitedly, his previous dejection completely gone. He felt like he was having a bizarre dream.

"I swear I won't tell anyone about this." Owen picked up a napkin and wiped his lips, then suddenly leaned closer to him, saying with a half-smile, "You have to keep it a secret too, Harry, or I'll have to cast a forgetting spell on you."

Harry, who inexplicably felt that Owen had a villainous vibe, quickly shut his mouth, nodded like a chick pecking at rice, but his dark eyes were sparkling.

Irving resumed his languid posture and casually said, "I thought you'd do something when you got back."

"I just felt a momentary daze, and you and Blaise next to me disappeared, and the sky outside the window became a bit brighter. I thought I was hallucinating, so I wandered around the castle for a long time, trying a lot of spells, before I realized that I had probably gone back to an hour earlier." Harry scratched his head a little embarrassedly. "It was already quite late by then."

"I watched as we walked out of the secret passage under the Willow Tree, but I didn't go out..." he said. "I felt that if there were two of me, it would cause a lot of trouble."

"A very wise choice," Owen praised, his gaze fixed unfriendly on the other man's hair, which was now sticking up haphazardly from being scratched.

Harry felt a chill run down his back and quickly raised his hand to desperately press the sticking-out strands of hair down.

Owen crossed his arms and calmly explained the precautions for using the Time-Turner, making Harry break out in a cold sweat.

Harry felt like he had truly walked right up to the gates of death.

But his initial fear quickly turned into excitement. It was a time machine that could travel to the past! He had thought it only existed in fantastical fairy tales, but he never expected it to be right beside him. This made him even more eager and fascinated by the magical realm.

Before he knew it, Irving had already sat down next to him, picked up the long, thin gold chain, and hung it around his own neck.

Meeting Harry's questioning gaze, he said with a smile, "Now that you know this secret, it's perfect to make use of it." With that, he patted Melett's head, then picked up the small hourglass and turned it five times.

In the sensation of rapidly rewinding, the two returned to five hours earlier, the sky outside a hazy gray. Owen removed the chain from his neck and walked out of the school hospital first.

"What are you going to do?" Harry asked, following behind.

"Go to sleep," Owen said sleepily.

"Huh?" Harry stared blankly at his retreating figure, thinking this guy was a bit crazy. Why would he specifically go back in time to sleep?

"This way we can get our bodies back sooner." Owen raised his eyelids slightly. "It's too inconvenient like this."

"Is that so?" Harry raised his hand and touched his face. "Yeah, I don't know why, but I always feel that your body is very cold, and there's a kind of oppressive feeling..." The longer it went on, the more obvious this feeling became. He felt like something was pressing down on his heart, and he felt like he couldn't breathe, as if he was drowning in a frozen lake.

Owen turned around, put his hands behind his back, and looked at him intently for a moment, his eyes deep and meaningful. He slowly raised the corners of his mouth, his voice as light as a murmur in a dream: "Your imagination, Harry."

"Oh—" Harry said suddenly, "I guess I'm not used to this."

Owen smiled and led Harry to the Room of Requirement, into a room where they could sleep peacefully.

In the room with two soft, large beds, the two climbed into their respective beds. Already exhausted, Harry quickly fell asleep, while Owen lay on his back, quietly staring at the empty ceiling.

In the firelight from the fireplace, he saw Harry with a furrowed brow in his sleep, his pale face showing unease and discomfort, as if he were trapped in an inescapable nightmare.

"Tsk." Owen clicked his tongue lightly. After all, his body had undergone several transformations by dark magic, as well as the Vengeful Shadow used to resist curses and the Mark of Slaughter used to enhance magic power. He himself could ignore these effects, but others could not.

He got out of bed, poured Harry a glass of purplish-red sleeping potion, and watched as Harry's expression gradually calmed down and he drifted into a peaceful sleep.

"Sweet dreams," he murmured softly.

Irving returned to his bed, stretched lazily, and slowly closed his eyes. (End of Chapter)