Hogwarts Raven (Harry Potter) Chapter 267 127 Impossible Miracles Part 1

The enormous clock on the wall ticked steadily, each second slipping away like grains of sand in an enchanted hourglass.

The Ouroboros symbol that had appeared on Ian's hand after erging from the depths of the Hogwarts dungeons pulsed faintly, as if breathing in sync with the passage of ti— tied, in so inexplicable way, to the enchantnt of Quietus.

November 30th.

The final day of November. The eve of December. A date Ian should have passed weeks ago, yet here it was, presenting itself once again, as though ti had doubled back on itself.

"What in rlin's na is going on? Am I trapped in so kind of Temporal Loop? A cursed Pensieve? A botched Ti-Turner accident? This is starting to feel like sothing out of a Binns lecture— repetitive, dreary, and utterly terrifying!"

His heart stuttered for a mont before resuming at a breakneck pace. A wave of unease settled over him, his expression contorted into the sa kind of horror one experiences after a late-night encounter with The Tales of Beedle the Bard's darker stories.

It was as if he had seen a ghost—

Not the Hogwarts kind, either.

Ian had always been fascinated by tales of ti anomalies. He'd devoured every account of magical ti breaches he could find. In theory, the idea of experiencing one himself had seed thrilling.

However—

As the old saying goes, "Be careful what you wish for, lest you find yourself ensnared in a web of your own making." Hypothetical musings on ti's mysteries were one thing— living through them was quite another. And at this mont, Ian found no joy in his predicant.

"I'm not going to be stuck in this loop for centuries, am I?" Panic was beginning to take root, twisting in his gut. No rational wizard could wake up to such an absurdity and remain calm.

His knowledge of magical theory was vast, yet even he had to admit that, when it ca to ti, the Departnt of Mysteries kept its secrets well-guarded. Hogwarts' library, for all its impressive collection, contained few in-depth tos on temporal magic, leaving Ian with a distressingly incomplete understanding of what he was up against.

He had spent countless hours in the Twilight Zone— an obscure, magical space between worlds— questioning Professor Morgan about the nature of ti. But that had been re academic curiosity. Now, the problem was his own, and the stakes were far more dire.

"Professor Morgan's Hourglass of Fate might help , but I don't even have the ans to craft one right now!" The young wizard groaned, running a hand through his already disheveled hair.

"Why does my Christmas have to be so cursedly bizarre?" The chamber around him remained eerily still, the flickering torchlight casting unsettling shadows that should have evoked warmth—but instead sent a chill creeping down his spine.

"What are you blabbering on about? It's not Christmas yet."

The portrait of the rather daft Sir Barnabas the Barmy looked down at Ian in bemusent, his painted brow furrowed as he tried to make sense of the boy's obvious distress.

What was the fuss? Surely it wasn't over cleaning a bathroom?

Hogwarts lavatories were far better maintained than those of the Middle Ages, after all.

"What do you an it's not Christmas?" Ian glanced at the clock again, clinging to the desperate hope that perhaps the Weasley twins had ddled with the tikeeping charms.

However—

The world was not so kind.

"Did you fall asleep in the Room of Requirent again?" Barnabas mused, his expression one of growing suspicion. "I understand your excitent for Christmas presents, but you've got several weeks yet."

"I did not sleep too much! Damn it— this has sothing to do with Salazar Slytherin, I just know it!"

Ian's face paled as his eyes drifted back to the ominous Ouroboros mark on his hand, its soft glow whispering secrets only ti itself could comprehend.

If Ian tried to convince himself that the strange occurrences had nothing to do with Salazar Slytherin, he wouldn't believe it for a second. The mark on his hand had not faded since the mont it appeared.

When it first manifested, Ian had felt a deep sense of unease, it was an instinctive discomfort he had dismissed at the ti. He hadn't expected his sixth sense to be so terrifyingly accurate.

The Ouroboros, also known as the "serpent devouring its own tail," was an ancient symbol representing an eternal cycle, an endless loop.

It signified infinity and recurrence.

This emblem carried a multitude of interpretations, it was deeply rooted in magical traditions, mythologies, and alchemical studies, where it held a particularly profound significance.

"I should have known I was walking straight into a trap!" Ian muttered darkly. He had no idea what Slytherin's so-called "selection" entailed, but one thing was certain— the founder, dead for a thousand years, seed to take great pleasure in playing tricks on people.

Why now?

Why not earlier?

Why not later?

Why, of all possible monts, did this have to happen on Christmas Day?

It was an absolutely wicked sense of humor.

"While it's true this lavatory was designed by Slytherin himself, I fail to see how your toilet-scrubbing duties are his doing." Sir Barnabas the Barmy still seed convinced that Ian's behavior stemd from so particularly nasty punishnt assigned by Snape.

Had the boy gone mad from cleaning toilets? Barnabas wasn't a complete fool, but he was certainly incapable of guessing the truth.

No point in explaining anything to the portrait.

Even if Ian ran straight to Snape or Professor McGonagall right now and declared that he had traveled back from the future, they would dismiss him outright.

"The use of Ti-Turners is traceable. What I'm experiencing isn't." Ian had read extensively about their restrictions and chanics.

He knew this much.

His displacent in ti had nothing to do with a Ti-Turner. This was sothing deeper, an older and more elusive kind of magic, which led Ian to so rather unsettling theories.

"Magic that was never passed down…" He glanced at the mark on his hand, recalling what the bronze eagle had once hinted about Slytherin's secret experints in the Chamber of Secrets.

It all made sense now.

"He was researching ti itself… and he actually succeeded." Ian could scarcely believe it. The idea that a simple mark, left behind a millennium ago, could disrupt the wizarding world's understanding and control over ti was nothing short of astonishing.

Could Professor Morgan achieve sothing like this?

Ian highly doubted it.

"Or perhaps… I didn't travel through ti at all. Maybe I just fell asleep in bed..."

This entire ordeal was so far beyond Ian's expectations that he almost preferred to believe it was all so bizarre, convoluted dream.

"Smack."

Ian struck the edge of the portrait fra with his palm.

"Does that hurt?" He asked, watching as Sir Barnabas flinched back in shock.

"Are you daft?" Barnabas sputtered indignantly.

He had been about to scoff that portraits don't feel pain when he caught sight of Ian reaching for the enchanted pignts used to restore magical paintings. Barnabas yelped and clamped his hands over his face in horror.

"It hurts! It hurts terribly!" He wailed, his performance rather impressive.

Perhaps it was the mory of once being thumped by a troll, or perhaps he simply had a natural flair for theatrics, but Barnabas's depiction of suffering was quite dramatic. At that mont, he would have rather faced an actual troll than risk Ian tampering with his portrait. Every painting in Hogwarts had heard the rumors about Ian's "zombie dog."

"Then I'm not dreaming..." Ian murmured, rubbing his hand where he had secretly pinched himself. But he needed to be thorough— eliminating every unlikely possibility was key.

This wasn't a dream.

(To Be Continued…)

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