Chapter 725
Time Particles
Chapter 725 Time Particles
Under Wade's watchful eye, the headmaster picked up a small bird egg and gently placed it into a glass jar.
"Snapped!"
The egg cracked open, and a tiny blue tit emerged. Its body was quickly covered with cobalt blue feathers, and its belly was a bright pale yellow.
The little bird spread its wings and just let out a clear chirp when it seemed as if someone had pressed the reverse button on the jar:
Its feathers had fallen out, its body was soaked, its claws and wings were tucked in, and it curled up into a bright red ball...
It turned into an egg again.
Two seconds later, the scene repeated itself. Then Dumbledore waved his wand and took the bird's egg out of the jar.
He gently placed the bird egg back on the table, the phantom of the blue-crowned tit still seemingly appearing and disappearing in the golden aura.
Dumbledore's deep eyes, peering through his glasses, fixed on Wade, and said, "This is what Voldemort's men did to you and Harry... the 'magic' that turned you back to your childhood. In reality, they just figured out how to operate this kettle."
"Their rewinding doesn't seem to be a true reversal of time?"
Vader recalled, "My magic hadn't fully returned to the level I was as a child... and I remember recalling some scenes from later on."
A smile of approval appeared on Dumbledore's lips. He nodded and said, "I may have said this before, but I'll say it again—few people can see the essence of things as keenly as you, Wade."
"When the effects of this particle were first discovered, many people thought it could turn back time and make people younger. People were overjoyed, thinking they had finally found the secret to immortality."
"However, the truth is that it is just a phantom of time covering a person, and the actual length of life does not change. In fact, excessive time travel can disrupt the body's normal time, causing terrible and irreversible diseases in certain organs."
Wade felt a chill creep down his spine.
A half-baked expert can kill... Voldemort even had the idea of raising him back to become "Barty II," and if he really did that, Vader might die a horrible death from organ failure before he could grow up again.
"Of course, this is only one possibility."
Dumbledore added: "There have indeed been people who used these particles to maintain their bodies at a young and healthy level, showing no signs of aging until their death, and were regarded as a symbol of eternal youth."
Wade asked, "These particles... what exactly are they?"
Dumbledore said, "We believe...that they are fragments of time, and therefore also called time particles. The Silent Ones have very limited knowledge of these particles. It was only after a long period of comparative study that they discovered that these seemingly identical golden grains of sand actually exhibit completely different movements when magnified."
The headmaster waved his wand, and a vision appeared above the glass jar once again, with a time particle magnified hundreds of times slowly rotating in the air.
It looks like a ring-shaped necklace, with occasional, extremely brief sparks appearing on its surface. It has an extremely fine internal structure, and even if you stare at it intently, you will feel that the patterns on it are completely different every second.
"These time particles create a 'time loop' effect, but if they were to appear in a different form..."
Dumbledore waved his wand again, and the necklace turned into a "ball of yarn," with countless golden rays intertwined yet clearly distinct from one another, preventing it from being mistaken for a ball of light.
"This one... will make the flow of time extremely slow, as if time has been stopped. I think you are no stranger to it," Dumbledore said.
Wade nodded silently.
Finally, there's this one—
Dumbledore flicked his wand, and the illusion changed once more.
The ball of yarn stretched out and became a luminous snake chasing its own tail. There was a narrow slit between its head and tail, which, though very short, prevented its head from ever biting its own tail, so the chase continued indefinitely.
"These are particles inside the time converter."
Dumbledore said, "The Department of Mysteries has studied it most thoroughly, producing a large number of Time-Turners for research. It wasn't until it was discovered that the misuse of Time-Turners would lead to catastrophic consequences for the entire world that it began to be strictly regulated." "Even so, when academic research or urgent missions require a Time-Turner, one can still apply to the Ministry of Magic. Even outstanding students like you and Hermione can obtain permission to use it for academic purposes."
"So, it's understandable if a time-tamper falls into the wrong hands and is used by someone. But this..."
He examined the kettle, his voice turning cold:
"It shouldn't be here."
"While it can bring about 'rejuvenation,' it can sometimes have very terrible consequences. Incomprehensible lesions are just the easiest to observe; some test subjects disappear completely and instantly... We cannot know whether they have been regressed to a state before they were born."
"This is just the most basic usage. If it spreads on a large scale... you can't imagine what serious consequences it would cause."
"Therefore, the management of such things is extremely strict. In principle, this golden jug should not leave the jurisdiction, let alone fall into the hands of a Muggle who has no respect for magic."
“…Muggle?” Wade raised an eyebrow. “That woman with the tattoos?”
“There is another man with a scar on his face,” Dumbledore said.
"Why would Voldemort cooperate with Muggles?" Wade asked in surprise.
"Unfortunately, the two men committed suicide before they were arrested, unable to tell us any more information. But I think Voldemort's reason for doing so is not hard to understand."
Dumbledore stared at the golden stream of energy in the glass jar and said in a deep voice, "He truly believed in only one principle—survival of the fittest."
"When he couldn't get enough support from the wizarding world, turning to Muggles became an inevitable choice. Voldemort was willing to cooperate with even goblins and trolls as long as it was in his own interest."
Wade blinked. "So that ignore spell from back then... had no effect on Muggles, right?"
“That depends on the caster’s choice,” Dumbledore said. “If Voldemort’s spell was intended for ‘wizards and magical creatures who know his name,’ then Muggles would not be covered by the spell.”
"So he chose to cooperate with Muggles, and because he couldn't move freely, he handed over the control of this kettle to them..."
At this point, Wade suddenly realized something was wrong.
He frowned, then adjusted his words: "No, that's not right... Judging from the situation at the time, this water bottle should have belonged to those Muggles. Because of their cooperation with Voldemort... perhaps they brought it out to demonstrate their abilities..."
Dumbledore agreed with Wade, then whispered, "The question is... how did they get it?"
Wade looked at the principal and understood the unspoken guess. He immediately felt a tightness in his throat and his mood became heavy.
The existence of this kettle proves that those Muggles... obviously did not accidentally discover some "mysterious time zone," collect time particles from it, and then happen to discover a way to use them.
Therefore, it seems quite easy to guess how they obtained the kettle.
"There are only two possibilities."
Vader's voice grew deeper, his fingers unconsciously stroking his wand:
"Either... the forces behind the Muggles have already taken over a Ministry of Magic, and the golden water jug is their spoils of war."
"otherwise……"
He took a deep breath and said in a low voice, "It's within a certain secret agency that more than one Silent One has betrayed their duties and beliefs, handing over the most dangerous secret to people who shouldn't have it."
(End of this chapter)