The image on the deed aroused Dracula's curiosity.
He immediately forgot his purpose and put the hooded man's trace behind him. He turned his attention to the deed in his hand and looked at the detailed picture of the interior of Hogwarts Castle on it.
Dracula saw that Hermione Granger was walking towards the library on the fourth floor of the castle with a thick stack of books, looking exhausted.
The other Hermione hid behind a large pillar, avoiding the sight of the previous Hermione. After the previous Hermione turned the corner of the corridor, she hurriedly left her current position and ran towards the direction of the hall.
"This is... Granger from two different time points?" Dracula raised his hand and let the deed float in front of him, watching the scene with great interest.
In fact, he had already started to notice Hermione not long after the start of this semester:
As an excellent student at Hogwarts, Hermione Granger was always energetic and motivated in class during her first two academic years, as if she were on a competition field!
The professor's questions were like signal guns in her eyes. Whenever the professor asked a question, she would be the first to raise her hand high.
Except for the class of Snape, the Potions Professor who blatantly favored his own house, the professors and young wizards would be surprised if she did not get house points for Gryffindor in any class.
However, after the start of this semester, Hermione's performance in class was much worse than before.
She still reflexively raised her hand to answer questions, but she was occasionally slow to respond and suddenly forgot the question the professor asked. Sometimes, she stood up but could not answer the question she had asked herself.
Not only that, Dracula found that he was distracted in class more than once.
It is quite normal for young wizards like Harry and Ron to be distracted, but it is quite strange when it happens to Hermione.
"I see." Dracula raised his lips, his eyes showing a rare excitement. "I was wondering why Granger's mental state was a little off lately. So this is it..."
A special word quietly emerged in his mind -
Time turner!
Dracula had heard of the concept of a time-turner a long time ago, when Nicolas Flamel mentioned it to him in a casual conversation.
According to Flamel, there is an ancient department in the British Ministry of Magic called the Department of Mysteries, which appeared even earlier than the British Ministry of Magic.
In the Department of Mysteries, there are many Unspoken People who study the secrets of the wizarding world, including some magical energies that are rarely known to the world.
These things are usually not known to anyone else except the senior officials of the Ministry of Magic and the Silent Ones in charge of research.
But Flamel was different. His alchemy skills had long been recognized by the entire magical community. Even an ancient and proud department like the Department of Mysteries had invited Flamel to conduct research with them.
Flamel mentioned in casual conversation that there is an energy called "time" stored in the Department of Mysteries, and the Silents have always wanted to use it.
The way they utilize it is to create an alchemical product that can freely store and use time energy.
In Flamel's conception, the name of this alchemical product is called the Time-Turner.
"That's right. After all, more than a hundred years have passed. It's time to come up with something."
Looking at the two Hermiones, one studying hard for tomorrow's homework in the library, and the other hurriedly accompanying Harry and Ron to eat in the hall, Dracula chuckled and snapped his fingers.
A dark moon slowly appeared beside Dracula.
He reached out and took the Hogwarts title deed floating in the air, walked into the dark moon, and came to Flamel's home on Montmorency Street in Paris, France.
"Old man, are you home?"
Dracula walked through the living room as if he knew the way and knocked on the old door of the studio.
With a creaky sound, the door of the studio opened, and Flamel, with a head full of white hair, appeared at the door with a surprised expression, looking at Dracula in front of him with some suspicion in his eyes.
"Old man, why did you come here suddenly?" Flamel asked bluntly.
"Huh? You don't seem to welcome me?" Dracula walked into the studio without any hesitation, and sat directly on Flamel's workbench which was piled with experimental equipment. He folded his arms and looked at Flamel with a smile.
"Slow down, don't knock over my crystal ball!" Although Flamel warned Dracula, he had no intention of stopping him. Instead, he closed the door as if nothing had happened and sat on a chair beside him.
It can be seen that he has long been accustomed to Dracula's behavior.
"Don't you ever reflect on why you are not welcome here?" Flamel said leisurely as he tidied up the messy table.
"Why should I reflect on this?" Dracula asked with a chuckle, "As the owner of this house, shouldn't you reflect on why you didn't welcome your rare guest?"
Flamel glanced at Dracula and pulled the corners of his wrinkled mouth, "I have never seen a guest like you, who appeared in someone else's living room without saying a word."
Dracula smiled and didn't take his words of unwelcome seriously.
If he was really not welcome, Flamel would not have allowed him access to the safe house under the Fidelius Charm until now.
As the only owner of the Philosopher's Stone, there are always some desperate dark wizards who want to get the chance of immortality from Flamel. Therefore, he is always in danger.
Every wizard who is allowed into Flamel's house is a confirmed good person with good character and integrity... Of course, Dracula may be excluded.
Good friends of Flamel, such as Dumbledore and Newt, have a phoenix-embossed bronze mirror connected to the phoenix-embossed book as well as a gold card. Only the holder of the card can see the house at 51 Montmorency Street.
But Dracula doesn't need this card representing authority.
He was the only keeper of secrets in Flamel's safe house, besides the Flamel couple.
The words "not welcome" were just a different way of joking between two lonely people with long lives.
"Tell me, what do you want me to help you with this time, or do you have any questions for me?"
Flamel quickly put the workbench in order and looked up at Dracula.
"Can't I just come to visit you?" Dracula smiled at him.
"Come on, we've known each other for hundreds of years, and I've never seen you come to me just to keep in touch with me!" Flamel said sarcastically. "Tell me, since you woke up this time, when have you come to me without asking for my help?"
"First, you asked me about the world situation in the past hundred years. Then you contacted me to chat with some young wizards and talk about the Philosopher's Stone. Some time ago, you came to me to help you determine the similarities between the two dark energies..."
"I'm already so old, but you treat me as a tool. Don't you feel guilty?" Flamel said, his tone unconsciously mixed with some gritted teeth.
"Okay, okay, my bad." Dracula raised his hands in surrender. "I really came here to ask you something."
Flamel withdrew his gaze and shook his head in a nonchalant manner.
"I'm really unlucky to meet an old man like you." He sighed, "Tell me, what questions do you want to ask me this time."
Dracula nodded, jumped down from the workbench, and said to Flamel:
"I want to know everything about the time-turner during the hundred years I was asleep."
Hearing Dracula's question, Flamel turned his head and looked at him in surprise.
"How do you know..." He was halfway through his words when he remembered something again, "Oh, that's right, since you teach at Hogwarts, it's only a matter of time before you find out about the time-turner..."
As he spoke, Flamel's expression gradually became serious.
"Brad, I hope you don't have any idea of getting the time-turner." He said solemnly, "If someone else gets a time-turner experiment like this, they might not be able to do anything with it, but if it's you who gets the time-turner... I'm worried."
"Oh?" Dracula became interested. "So... the time-twister can really completely change time?"
"It's not as dramatic as switching time, but it can allow a person to go back in time," Flamel said softly.
"I know it can allow people to go back in time." Dracula nodded. "I saw two Hermione Grangers on the Hogwarts title deed. She is one of my students. She used the time converter to go back in time to study."
"So my question is not whether a time-turner can allow a person to go back in time, but to what extent it can do so..."
"Being able to go back to the past, does that mean being able to change past history, or even the direction of the future?" Dracula stared into Flamel's eyes and asked softly, "If the function of the time converter is so powerful, why would it be distributed to those young wizards just for them to use for learning?"
Dracula found it unreasonable.
It is difficult to clearly describe how powerful the power of time is, but if it can really bring people back to life and change the laws of things, then it must be a very foul energy...
And if the time-turner could be mass-produced, the possibility of it falling into the hands of dark wizards with ulterior motives would become very high. Wouldn't that cause chaos in the entire wizarding world
"In fact, the time-turner is not as unsolvable as you think." Flamel looked at Dracula deeply and explained to him, "Time-turning also has its corresponding rules. A person can go back to the past, but he cannot change the course of history."
“Even if someone uses a time converter to travel through time, the history he changes is only the established history that has already happened. Everything this person has achieved forms a closed loop, and our world is the final outcome that has already been changed.”
"How do you put it?" Dracula asked, "Is there a clearer way to put it?"
"In other words, there is only one timeline in this world!" Flamel emphasized the word "timeline".
"I don't quite understand." Dracula shook his head, but his eyes suddenly showed an interested expression, "But I have an idea, you can listen to it and see if it is valid-"
"Since I can change the past, I can make a hypothesis: if I get the time converter and go back to the past to kill myself, since I'm dead, I won't get the time converter, and then I won't go back to the past... In the end, who killed me?"
Dracula's problem is actually similar to the grandfather paradox that is widely circulated in the Muggle world.
If a person goes back in time and kills his young grandfather, then since the grandfather is dead, the time traveler's father will not be born, and without the father there will be no time traveler... In this case, who killed the grandfather
In the same timeline, this paradox is of course impossible to achieve. It was not until the emergence of the parallel universe theory that everything that happened in this paradox had a slight possibility of realization.
But according to Flamel's explanation, in this world there is an item like a time-turner, but there is only one timeline.
This doesn't seem reasonable.
After hearing Dracula's question, Flamel couldn't help but twitch his lips.
Who on earth would want to go back in time and kill himself... Oh, if this person is Dracula, then it's quite normal.
"It's a very profound question." Flamel forced himself to control his expression and nodded in contemplation. "In fact, the kind of thing you're talking about has happened before."
"There was a silent person in the Department of Mysteries at the end of the last century. She used a time-turner to return to the past during an experiment, but died because she stayed in the past for too long. In the experiment of returning to the past, Eloise was trapped in 1402 for five days."
"Her travels have changed the life trajectories of all the people she met in the past. At least 25 of her descendants have disappeared from the modern era and have never been born!" Flamel said solemnly. "This is also the reason why the Ministry of Magic has established hundreds of laws regarding the use of time-turners."
"But doesn't this matter conflict with the time conversion rules you mentioned before?" Dracula asked.
"Yes, these two points do create a huge conflict." Flamel sighed and said to Dracula, "So this involves the self-repair ability of the time conversion rules."
"If the actions that occur during the time conversion process do not have a great impact, then the rules of time can repair them and pull the world line back to the final ending that has been changed, making the logic of the time conversion self-consistent."
"However, if a person causes too great an impact during time travel, then part of the time rules will completely collapse, and time will be unable to be pulled back to the main line, resulting in catastrophic consequences!"
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