Step by step, Anne followed the familiar procedures etched into her mind, precise measurements, exact ingredient order, and careful stirring of the cauldron. She performed the experiment with meticulous attention to detail.

  Freshly picked, a tender leaf from the Lokki pnt was added into the potion emitting white steam, just as her notes instructed.

  Anne snipped off a leaf with scissors while Gooka quickly moved the struggling Lokki pnt, which seemed desperate to leap from its pot, to another table so it wouldn’t interfere with Anne’s experiment.

  Anne gave Gooka a brief smile before fully turning her focus back to the experiment. This next part was crucial. After adding the remaining pre-measured ingredients, the mixture in the cauldron needed to be heated and stirred until it evaporated into crystalline form.

  She stirred the potion with a gss rod, gradually increasing the fme. Billows of white steam rose as the liquid slowly reduced.

  Rexing a little, Anne stepped into a corner of the b, pulled out a stool, and sat down.

  “We can take a short break now. Crystallization takes about fifteen minutes. I’ll check every five,” she expined to Gooka.

  She got up occasionally to stir the cauldron, carefully controlling the fme. Only one Lokki leaf remained, and it took four months to grow just one. The dried-bde grass was also exceptionally rare, she couldn’t afford to fail this trial.

  Gradually, crystals began forming at the bottom of the cauldron. With a final burst of white vapor, the potion had fully evaporated, leaving behind crystalline solids. At the same time, Anne extinguished the fme.

  With a wave of her wand, the crystals floated from the cauldron into a clear crystal dish. The orange crystals varied in size.

  Using tweezers made from Eastgreen wood, Anne picked up the rgest crystal and examined it carefully.

  “Good transparency, solid structure,” she murmured, pcing it on the scale and adding weights. “5.8 grams. Meets the minimum requirement of 5 grams.”

  “Phew, halfway there.” She dropped the crystal into a small gss vial.

  After weighing the rest, only three crystals met the standard.

  Holding the three beled vials in her hand, Anne muttered, “What a complex experiment.”

  But that complexity only fueled her excitement. Her notebook listed only the steps and materials, no results were recorded. Unlike her previous 12 experiments, this one was a mystery, and Anne was burning with curiosity. Working with Curdon Sharpe had opened her eyes to so many fascinating discoveries. Completing each experiment felt like clearing a level in a game, and this final one was the mysterious final boss.

  She gathered the rejected crystals into another bottle and moved on to the next stage.

  Again, she was boiling an unidentified liquid in the cauldron. Sharpe hadn’t named the substances, so Anne took the liberty to do so herself. She named the potion “Color-Shift Elixir” because it changed into five distinct colors as it boiled, and the crystals she called “Suncrystals” for their vibrant orange hue, straightforward and vivid.

  True to its name, the elixir changed through five colors during the brew. Once it turned milky white, it was time to add the dried-bde grass.

  She weighed out 15 grams, snipping it with sycamore scissors until only a single tuft remained in the pot.

  “Barely enough,” Anne muttered. She hadn’t expected the dried-bde grass to be hollow. This was the rger of her two pots, and even with its dense leaves, it had just made weight.

  She crushed the leaves and dumped them into the cauldron. A puff of multicolored smoke rose and faded slowly.

  Peering in, Anne saw that the potion had turned completely clear, like water. Not a trace of the dried-bde grass remained.

  “Ha! We’re almost there.” She turned the fme up to maximum.

  According to the notes, after the potion turned clear, it needed 20 minutes on high heat to become rainbow-colored again, then another 10 to turn clear once more, only then could it be used.

  She waited patiently, stirring and monitoring the heat.

  After 36 minutes, the potion had turned clear again. Only a shallow pool of liquid remained at the bottom of the cauldron.

  She poured it into a bowl made of magnolia wood. Though transparent like water, under the light it shimmered with iridescent hues.

  The final step in the notes, and the experiment, was to drop the Suncrystals into the clear liquid.

  Anne stared at the bowl, seeing no obvious reaction. “Guess there’s only one way to find out.” She turned to Gooka. “Tidy the bench and get the dried-bde grass and Lokki pnt back to the greenhouse. Now.”

  Gooka nodded. He pointed a finger and muttered a charm. All the materials on the workbench vanished. As for the remaining magical pnts, a group of house-elves rushed in to carry them out.

  Now the b was quiet. Only Anne, Gooka, the instruments, the bowl, and the vial of beled Suncrystals remained.

  Anne looked to Gooka. He nodded and activated the b’s full defensive enchantments.

  Suppressing her excitement, Anne took a deep breath, then exhaled. She unstoppered the vial and let the Suncrystal drop into the bowl.

  The moment the crystal hit the liquid, it sizzled violently. Then, without warning, a surge of force erupted from the bowl. It was like hundreds of invisible wind bdes shooting outward.

  Caught off guard, Anne stumbled back. One bde sliced through her dragonhide coat, cutting her left forearm and side. The gash on her arm was deep, blood poured freely.

  To her horror, the b’s protective spells seemed to have failed completely.

  “Bloody hell!” Anne cursed. “Gooka! Get down!” she shouted, ducking under the bench.

  She reached for her wand, intending to stop the bleeding, but her magic failed. It was as if magic itself had vanished.

  A chilling realization dawned: the lower yer beneath the wind bdes had become a magic vacuum, no spells could be cast.

  Terrified, Anne clutched her wound and peered out. The wind bdes were tearing through the b. Equipment was being shredded. The walls, though not destroyed, were visibly marked.

  Even the special protective stone and enchanted wall coating weren’t immune.

  “No wonder Sharpe called this experiment ‘unbelievable and dangerous’,” Anne muttered. “This thing disrupts magic and creates a magical vacuum, it’s like a weapon that could rewrite the wizarding world.”

  Then it struck her.

  “Wait. What if… Sharpe died because of this experiment? An accident. This is exactly the kind of accident that could’ve killed him. And that was over 300 years ago. He didn’t have any of the protection I do.”

  Anne gnced at her bleeding arm. The cut was bad, deep and steady.

  “If this keeps going… I might die here too…”

  “Ugh, stop thinking like that.” She looked toward the door. The bench wasn’t far. If she stayed low, she might make it.

  Three minutes had passed since the Suncrystal was dropped. She had to move.

  Cautiously, she crawled toward the door, testing the limits by extending her wand beyond the bench, nothing happened. Then a finger, still safe. Her wounded arm followed, still safe.

  “So this lower yer is secure,” Anne whispered, creeping forward.

  But just as she began to move, the wind bdes suddenly vanished. In the sudden silence, shattered tools cttered to the floor.

  She ducked back under the bench.

  Five minutes and six seconds had passed since she dropped the crystal. The one she used weighed exactly 5.1 grams.

  Standing, she surveyed the wreckage. The b was in ruins. The faint magical glow of the protective barrier reappeared.

  Magic had returned.

  “Heal, now!” she gasped, casting a healing charm on her wounds. A soft glow enveloped her arm, but it didn’t work. The spell had no effect.

  Still bleeding, Anne was rushed by Gooka through the Floo Network to the one pce that could help:

  St Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Madies and Injuries, the only major magical hospital in Britain. Its emblem: a wand crossed with a bone.

  She was taken to the Spell Damage Ward on the fifth floor.

  The hospital had five main departments:

  First Floor: Artifact Accidents – for exploding cauldrons, misfired wands, broom crashes.

  Second Floor: Creature-Induced Injuries – for bites, stings, burns.

  Third Floor: Magical Illnesses – for Dragon Pox, Vanishing Sickness, and fungal infections.

  Fourth Floor: Potion & Pnt Poisoning – for rashes, vomiting, uncontrolble ughter.

  Fifth Floor: Spell Damage – for irreversible hexes or incorrect spell usage.

  The sixth floor housed a tea room and hospital shop.

  A rge sign in the lobby read:

  If you are unsure of your condition, unable to speak clearly, or don’t remember why you’re here, our receptionists are happy to help.

  Anne didn’t know which department to go to, so after bouncing between the second and fourth floors, she was finally admitted to the fifth.

  An elderly wizard healer gnced at her wound and said, “In all my years, this looks like a wind-bde curse injury. That’s why healing charms won’t work, it’s resisting them.”

  Since his diagnosis matched perfectly, Anne stayed in the fifth-floor ward.

  At around 5:40 p.m., just after changing into her hospital gown, Aaron and Diana burst into the ward, both panting heavily, they’d clearly sprinted all the way up.

  Seeing them, Anne felt a warm rush of emotion. A part of her that had long felt cold began to thaw.

  No bme, only worry and concern filled their voices.

  Diana helped make her bed, while Aaron went to speak with the healer.

  And so, Anne spent the final two nights and a day of her summer break in a room on the fifth floor of St. Mungo’s, with Diana and Aaron taking turns staying by her side, Diana in the mornings, Aaron in the afternoons.

  ??━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ? ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━??

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