Days and nights passed in rotation.
In the blink of an eye, two more days went by.
Living under Fred's identity, Dawn attended classes like a perfectly normal student, moving from lesson to lesson across Hogwarts.
Unexpectedly—
It actually felt rather nice.
Perhaps because he had experienced too much already, compared to his first year, he now found this peaceful and leisurely routine—once something he would have considered a waste of time—to possess its own strange comfort.
Especially with George nearby.
A truly excellent brother willing to risk his life for comedy.
"Madam Pomfrey, if you really can't cure him, I suggest amputating all the damaged parts and regrowing them with healing potions."
Inside the Hogwarts hospital wing.
At long last, after being denied for nearly two days and nights, the Gryffindors finally received permission to visit.
The moment they entered and saw George's horrifying condition sprawled across the bed, they immediately began expressing their advanced medical theories with deep concern.
Unfortunately, the conservative-minded Madam Pomfrey strongly opposed medical reform.
Not only did she dismiss their treatment plans as dark heresy using the authority of her qualifications—She also sternly threw the founders of those ideas out the door.
Outside the infirmary, the frustrated little lions stared at the tightly shut entrance while recalling George's appearance.
Every single one of them felt lingering fear.
"Professor Snape really went too far... How could he do... something that excessive?"
One Gryffindor spoke up indignantly.
Yet he paused twice during the sentence, carefully adding "Professor" before Snape's name, while his voice gradually weakened toward the end.
Clearly all bark and no bite.
Everything had begun on Monday afternoon, beneath a dim sunset sky.
After losing the wager, George had been forced to travel to Hogsmeade after classes ended and purchase a full set of Potter-brand hair-care products.
Then, accompanied by a massive crowd of Gryffindors following specifically to watch the disaster unfold, he marched into Snape's office and delivered the fatal line:
"Professor... with your image, you'll never win back the woman you love. Would you like to try this?"
The consequences were predictable.
That evening, staring at the giant POTTER label on the bottles, Snape displayed to the students the astonishing emotional range of an adult wizard.
Confusion. Shock. Rage.
Nostalgia. Pain. Madness.
And afterward—
Using George as a demonstration model, Snape educated the Gryffindors on the tragic consequences of provoking a Potions Master.
In less than five minutes, George had been forcibly fed over twenty different potions.
The resulting scenes were horrifying enough to scar observers for life.
They included, but were not limited to:
Severe bodily swelling.
Hair loss.
Boils erupting across the skin.
Bone-deep aches and agony without lasting side effects.
And nonstop vomiting of slugs.
Only after George finally collapsed unconscious did Snape stop.
Then, with George face-down on the floor, Snape dragged him several hundred meters before expressionlessly dumping him inside the hospital wing.
Among the watching crowd, Dawn firmly believed that if Snape had possessed even slightly less self-control, George would already have been humanely exterminated inside the office.
Still—
Possessing absolutely no empathy whatsoever, Dawn found the entire thing hilarious.
Not even the slightest guilt emerged within him.
Another noteworthy consequence was that Snape's reputation among the students—especially Gryffindors—had improved in an extremely bizarre way afterward.
Perhaps because the contrast had been too extreme, the little lions suddenly realized that Snape's usual sarcasm and point deductions really weren't that bad.
Some had even begun greeting him politely in the corridors.
Of course—Fear probably played a role too.
Shaking his head, Dawn stepped out from the crowd.
Having already satisfied his curiosity by observing George's miserable condition, he no longer intended to remain and participate in the discussions.
Today was Wednesday.
Cloudy skies hung over Hogwarts.
Fred only had one class that morning, during second period.
Checking the time and seeing roughly an hour remaining, Dawn headed toward the library to pass the time there.
Yet while standing upon the moving staircase and waiting for it to align with the next floor, his thoughts slowly detached from Fred's peaceful life and returned to his own circumstances.
Though the past two days had been leisurely, not everything had been pleasant.
Several troublesome matters continued bothering him.
First—The mind-links.
The first two journeys into the memories of the dead had occurred fairly frequently—roughly once per day.
Yet ever since the "Black Dog Church" incident, two entire days had passed without the third mind-link appearing.
This dissatisfied Dawn greatly.
He wanted to suppress Voldemort's consciousness as quickly as possible and use the castle consciousness to achieve his goal.
Second—Voldemort himself.
The man still remained absolutely determined to kill him.
Just yesterday morning, Voldemort had launched a second attack using the body of a Ravenclaw student.
This time, however, unlike the previous all-out assault, it had resembled the sort of sneak attack Voldemort once used against Harry—more of a sudden stab when the target least expected it.
Naturally, it achieved nothing.
And after Dumbledore arrived and once again mentioned the parasitic jellyfish incident, the witnessing students reacted with strange indifference, as though they had already become accustomed to such absurdity.
The attack created very little disturbance.
Still—The incident confirmed something important for Dawn.
Voldemort clearly could not perfectly control students' bodies whenever he wished.
There were limitations.
Or conditions.
Clack—!
With a crisp sound, the staircase aligned itself with the fifth-floor corridor and slowly stopped moving.
Dawn returned to himself.
Carrying several books he intended to return, he walked toward the library hidden beyond the nearby corner.
Before he even reached the entrance—
A familiar voice drifted out.
"Madam Pince, do you have last year's Daily Prophet?"
Neville stood on tiptoe against the counter, asking the stern librarian behind it.
"Oh? The Daily Prophet?"
Madam Pince paused briefly before pointing toward the back.
"Walk to the end and turn left. There's a rack hanging beside the cabinet. You'll find what you want there."
She suddenly remembered Lee Jordan.
Apparently quite a few students really were borrowing newspapers lately. Good thing she had restocked them in time.
"Thank you."
Neville quietly thanked her and prepared to leave.
But then he heard approaching footsteps behind him.
Turning instinctively, he saw Fred.
Neville awkwardly greeted him before immediately lowering his head and hurrying away.
So it really was Neville.
Dawn narrowed his eyes slightly.
Maintaining deliberate distance, he made no attempt to investigate what the boy was doing.
Instead, he handed his own books to Madam Pince.
After inspecting them carefully, the librarian nodded with surprise. "Mm. Excellent condition. No visible damage or stains. Keep it up."
Clearly, her tone revealed a certain degree of prejudice against the twins.
Dawn merely shrugged.
He cared very little.
Moving deeper into the library, he headed toward the history section.
Dense rows of book spines passed before his eyes.
Unfortunately, the wizarding world seemed to possess no dedicated books specifically discussing the Church.
Most information appeared only scattered throughout broader historical works.
Since Dawn had no idea which books might contain useful material, he simply selected one at random that looked interesting and sat at a nearby table.
The Development of the Wizarding World: Egypt and Britain
Opening the book, Dawn listened to the wind rattling the library windows while remaining alert for possible surprise attacks from Voldemort.
At the same time, he began reading.
Yet after only a short while, he realized the book was deeply misleading.
Though supposedly a comparison between Egyptian and British magical history, its focus overwhelmingly favored Britain.
Egyptian wizarding society received only shallow mentions, while the narrative constantly leaned toward praising Britain by comparison.
Even worse—The book's discussion of British magical history only began after Hogwarts was founded.
Everything before that period was completely ignored.
Dawn found this deeply disappointing.
Though he had always lived in Britain—and even possessed knowledge from the so-called original storyline—those memories focused entirely on the future.
They could not help him understand the distant past. Especially anything before the Common Era.
Back then, Egyptian pharaohs had ruled entire nations as wizards.
Meanwhile Britain had no Church yet and remained under Celtic rule.
Dawn was incredibly curious about what wizarding Britain had looked like during that era.
Sadly, perhaps due to the fragmentation and destruction caused by the witch hunts, almost no records from that period remained.
Not even fragments.
Still—Though disappointed, the book was not entirely useless.
Within one chapter titled Comparison of Alchemical Objects, Dawn finally discovered something interesting.
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