Caryll sat slumped in a chair, head down and silent, seemingly consumed by regret and despair.
He could hear Professor McGonagall arguing with the Aurors outside:
"How could you... how could you just snap his wand like that? Even the Ministry of Magic can't expel our students without due process!"
"Please calm down, Professor. The situation is actually—"
"This is impossible! Caryll Johnson is an outstanding student! Even though perhaps... perhaps his background is a bit different, I refuse to believe he committed those horrible crimes you're accusing him of!"
"Believe me, Professor McGonagall. I wouldn't want to treat a child this way either, if I had a choice. But do you know what he tried to do? He deliberately led Wade Grey into a room filled with dozens of ambushing vampires!"
"Could this be some kind of misunderstanding?" McGonagall said in disbelief. "Maybe... maybe it was the Imperius Curse... he didn't know what he was doing..."
"No, he knew. We're certain of it. From the moment he entered Hogwarts, he had a goal, Professor McGonagall. The Caryll Johnson you knew was just a disguise."
Their voices came through the door and McGonagall's tone shifted from anger to shock, then gradually into disappointment. Caryll had little reaction.
She was a good professor, but he had never felt close to her.
He lowered his head, and stared at the gold chain in his hands for a long while before finally putting it around his neck and gently twisting it once.
The golden hourglass rotated, and glimmered slightly. Its craftsmanship was very exquisite, and the sand inside slid silently.
But nothing happened. The voices outside the door continued without interruption.
Caryll let out a long breath, leaned back in the chair, and stared blankly at the ceiling, as if all strength had left his body.
He had known from the start that it wouldn't be so easy.
Especially when Wade left without asking for the time-turner back, Caryll had already suspected that what he held was a fake. But even so, the crushing disappointment still hit him hard at that moment.
...
In fact, Caryll had always been puzzled why his classmates were so slow, why none of them noticed the enormous secrets Wade and Hermione were hiding.
Especially Harry, Ron, and Neville — they had spent even more time with Hermione. They knew some of her classes repeated, knew she had never missed a single one, yet their brains, as if chewed on by a Flobberworm, never thought to question it.
Caryll was different. He had been observing Wade closely and noticed something wrong early on.
At first, he thought it was some kind of clone magic and scoured spellbooks but found no such spell.
Then he thought it was some kind of magic doll. Eventually, he realized the truth — the most unbelievable possibility — from how increasingly exhausted Hermione appeared: time.
Wade was elusive and hard to track. Hermione, however, was much less cautious. After following her for a few days, Caryll discovered that whenever she twisted that golden hourglass, she would suddenly vanish from where she stood.
What followed was a long process of verification and research. It wasn't easy, but eventually Caryll confirmed the function, usage, and various taboos surrounding the Time-Turner.
Every description of the Time-Turner repeatedly emphasized: this object is only to be used for small matters — it must not be used to change history.
However, there was a well-known cautionary tale in the wizarding world — which is used to warn future generations:
A witch who traveled several centuries into the past for a few days did, in fact, change the life paths of people she met. Some individuals who were meant to be born vanished from existence, and time itself became distorted. The witch rapidly aged and died as a result.
This proved that changing the past with a Time-Turner wasn't impossible — the price was simply too great, and the wizarding world was unwilling to bear that cost.
But Caryll didn't care. From the moment he learned what the device was, he had been thinking about how to get one for himself.
He had seen Dumbledore's terrifying power with his own eyes and dared not make any reckless moves inside the school. Wade never accepted his invitations during holidays either. The only chance to act was during Hogsmeade weekends.
Conveniently, his so-called parents had also been plotting against Wade Grey.
That was their second mistake — originally, Caryll's real memories had been erased with the Obliviate spell, and a fake backstory was implanted, in which he was raised by the organization and trained to become a wizard loyal only to them.
But later, when Wade's fame exploded, the organization realized that this young alchemist held immense value. Upon investigating, they were overjoyed to find out that Caryll had grown up with Wade as his childhood friend. They wanted to exploit that bond.
But greedy people often end up with nothing.
Before performing memory wipes, the organization typically extracted and stored a copy of the person's original memories. To help Caryll regain Wade's trust more easily, they restored his memories of their time together.
However, that set of memories clashed sharply with the fabricated, monotonous memories of life in the organization.
So the organization's wizards were forced to repeatedly revise Caryll's memories, replacing the faces of his parents and altering his identity — turning him into a born vampire.
The organization seemed to believe that a racial divide would keep him permanently alienated from the wizarding world, and that his experience of having killed someone at a young age would serve as a psychological weapon, easily shattering any trust others placed in him.
Even after placing Caryll in Hogwarts, they believed his final allegiance would be to the organization — his "vampire family."
But unfortunately for them, memories are not film reels. You can't just cut out what once existed and expect there to be no trace left behind.
Caryll had forgotten what his real parents looked like, but he still remembered his mother's gentle voice, his father's cheerful laughter, the scent they carried, and the irreplaceable feeling of happiness when they were all together.
Vampires, on the other hand, carried nothing but a permanent stench of blood, no matter how much they tried to wash it off. If one sniffed closely, there was also a strange fragrance — the faint, sickly-sweet scent of rotting corpses.
And not to mention, that bowl of odd-smelling seafood chowder, so completely different from what he remembered.
That Hogsmeade weekend, when his fake parents appeared before him, Caryll felt as if he heard the sharp crack of shattering glass.
The mask over his memories instantly cracked wide open, revealing the cruel and painful truth that had always been hidden underneath.
During countless sleepless nights, Caryll slowly pieced together the truth. One early morning, while flipping through newspapers in the library, he suddenly came across a small article tucked into a corner.
A Muggle woman referred to as "Mrs. Johnson" had been strangled to death by the necklace around her neck while lying in a bed at a care facility.
The article didn't go into much detail about the unfortunate victim. It simply condemned certain wizards for selling magical items to unsuspecting Muggles and stated that the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes had handled the situation appropriately. The Auror Office would continue investigating the source of the necklace.
For reasons he couldn't explain, even though the article included no full name or photo, when Caryll saw it, it felt like his heart was being torn apart. The pain was suffocating. His entire body trembled, and tears fell silently down his face.
In that moment, he was absolutely certain — the unnamed Muggle woman who had been killed for no reason was his biological mother.
…
A single tear slid down the corner of Caryll's eye, disappearing into his hair near his temple.
"Mr. Johnson."
A voice suddenly came from the doorway.
Professor McGonagall stood there with an Auror. The head of Gryffindor House looked heartbroken, while the Auror's expression was a mix of sympathy and disdain. He said:
"Your request has been approved. You may now go to your dormitory to collect your belongings."
Caryll slowly stood and followed the Auror toward the Gryffindor common room.
To preserve his dignity, he hadn't been shackled. However, the Auror had cast a restraining spell on him. A pair of dark iron cuffs encircled Caryll's ankles. If he tried to run, the cuffs would instantly snap shut, restricting his movement.
As they walked down the corridor, just before reaching the fifth floor, a sudden explosion rang out, followed by students shouting angrily. Then came the triumphant singing of Peeves the Poltergeist:
"Peevesy, Peevesy… no prank too wild or bold… Peevesy, Peevesy… ink all over young and old… Peevesy, Peevesy… no one escapes his hold…"
He sang as he hurled ink bottles at fleeing students. The corridor, from ceiling to floor, was soaked in ink.
"Peeves!" Professor McGonagall stormed forward in fury. "Stop your nonsense at once!"
Upon seeing McGonagall, Peeves let out a shriek and darted off in the opposite direction.
Caryll froze for a moment and lifted his head slightly.
Just before flying off, Peeves had seemed to deliberately wink at him.
Immediately afterward, Caryll saw a messy-haired girl clutching her bag, angrily wiping ink off her face as she walked over. A faint golden glow shimmered near her collar.
It was Hermione.
Caryll's eyes narrowed slightly.
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⭐Harry Potter: Becoming a Study God (HP:BSG)- +235 Chapters
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