To be honest, Loren had never really noticed this before—or rather, he'd known about it but hadn't cared. It was like someone who'd lived in a big city all their life: they knew the air was bad, but they were used to it. Then one day they step into a primeval forest and breathe air that's actually clean—and only then do they realize how foul the air back home was.
That was Loren now. He'd always stayed in environments touched by the Ministry's laws. He'd sensed the interference, but hadn't quite grasped it. With a clean comparison, he understood at once.
A sudden chill ran through him. Maybe his small world had already been noticed by the Department of Mysteries, because it resembled the outside world in one crucial respect.
Thinking it through, a cold sweat pricked his back. Perhaps his greatest enemy in this world would be that department which watched the world through law.
Because just now, a chunk of knowledge flashed up in his mind—passages he'd once read in a novel in his previous life.
"An imperial edict orders the realm; family is the root; laws are woven; decree births decree."
More fragments followed—commoners brainwashed by law, cultivators whose hearts were turned by a single imperial writ.
Loren mulled on the images. The Ministry's enchantments seemed to be something similar. Compared to the text in his memory, they were less grand—but the shape was the same.
He asked Dobby not to disturb him, then threw himself into probing Helga Hufflepuff's modified space shard.
Under a full-strength sweep, the shard's secrets surfaced quickly.
The reason the shard was untouched by the Ministry's legal-force came down to two things.
First, Hogwarts' power saturated the shard. In effect, the shard sat with its back to Hogwarts Castle. It obeyed Hogwarts' "law," and the Ministry's enchantments were repelled.
Second, house-elves. They used magic too, and at a glance they were like wizards. But in certain ways their magic was fundamentally different.
With the reasons clear, Loren tried to refit his own small world and purge its abnormal energy. Soon he discovered it was pointless. He could wrap the small world in his own power and drive out the Ministry's legal-force there—but he still had many wizards and two Fireball dragons inside. They brimmed with magic themselves; they were carriers—little pollution sources. They'd lived in wizarding society too long, and unlike Mr. Weasley they had no dedicated magical shelter items. Loren could do nothing about it, for now.
Which meant the small world he'd built was temporarily scrapped. Until he found a solution, it could only serve as a storage space and logistics base.
He was not about to place a supercomputer critical to himself under the eye of the Department of Mysteries. No chance. Even Rona—the magical assistant he'd built on Ravenclaw's Diadem—was only trusted to a limited degree; he would not make her the supercomputer's core. Let alone the Department, whom he had never met.
In the end, Loren left an order—"Without affecting the house-elves' normal work and life, cultivate new house-elves as quickly as possible"—and had Dobby take him back to Hogwarts.
He didn't have Dobby return him to the kitchen. He walked into the common room—and was spotted at once. A wave of students swarmed him, peppering him with questions about the alarm clocks: were there any left to buy?
Hemmed in by their enthusiasm, Loren felt a bit embarrassed. In the end, George and Fred stepped in and calmed everyone enough for him to slip free. Once he'd sat down, George spoke for the worked-up crowd and explained.
On Christmas Day, almost every student connected to Loren had received an alarm clock from him. At first, everyone thought it was an ordinary trinket. Fortunately, they could switch off the voice function—or there would've been bigger trouble. But some students found a new way to play with it: use it as a voice-changer to prank people.
From then on, any corridor in Hogwarts might suddenly ring with Professor Snape's voice—scolding a misbehaving student, or loudly docking points from some House.
Professor Snape began patrolling the castle, checking every student's pockets and confiscating every alarm clock he saw—whether it was one of Loren's or not.
The climax came when a boy used "Snape's voice" to confess to the girl he liked, scaring her straight into the hospital wing.
Only then did Dumbledore intervene, confiscate all the clocks, and even write to the students still at home telling them not to bring Loren's clocks back to school.
Naturally, Snape became the butt of every joke. When your voice scares a girl into the hospital wing…
Hearing it all, Loren finally understood that strange, wounded look Snape had given him last night. He'd thought the potion gift had dredged up bad memories. It turned out this was why.
At last George voiced the students' request: "People want to chip in and buy something that can alter voices."
Loren thought for a moment and firmly refused.
It wasn't that a magical voice-changer was some profoundly dangerous tool—but for now he'd seen no sign of a mass-propagated spell for imitating others' voices. That likely meant the Ministry forbade it under the table.
Students only wanted a toy for pranks. Loren could see the trouble behind it.
If someone with an agenda used a voice-changer to mimic a sensitive person's voice at the wrong moment, a few whispered insults could spark a small riot. Worse—use a voice-changer during the Minister for Magic's speech to blurt out some improper remarks… the fallout could be ugly. Serious incidents could shake the whole society.
Once magical voice-changers spread, no one could be sure a voice was truly a person's own. Anyone could curse in public, then claim it was "someone using a device." Like the old pure-blood Death Eater families who all swore they'd been Imperiused to dodge guilt—the Ministry had no way to sort truth from lies.
If this were the Loren who had just entered the wizarding world—relying only on memories from his past life—he might have agreed without a thought. The magical world? Nothing to it.
But the Loren of today was touching its deeper layers. The more he knew, the more cautious he became. Until he mapped the Ministry's depths, he didn't plan to confront it head-on. The Department of Mysteries gave him a very bad feeling.
Hearing his refusal, the students drifted away in clusters, already plotting how to use "Snape's voice" to prank people over the holidays.
George and Fred's eyes spun with ideas. Loren understood. "I know that with the machine I gave you, you could duplicate the clocks easily. But think through the consequences. If you still can't see them, talk to Mr. Weasley. If he still agrees, then do as you like."
He got up and left them to think. The twins were smart enough to spot the risks; and if they didn't, Arthur certainly would. If Arthur couldn't… Loren would need another business partner.
He pushed open a door and found Harry, Ron, and Neville huddled over a book, deep in discussion.
Neville looked different—more confident, voice stronger. His parents' recovery had transformed him.
Loren's entrance drew their eyes at once—especially Harry's. "Loren, where'd you go? I've got questions, but after dinner you vanished."
"I went to bring Hogwarts' house-elf with me," Loren said lightly.
All three gaped. None of them had ever imagined Loren would try to take control of Hogwarts' house-elves.
"Harry, what did you want to ask me?" Loren added.
"Do you know Nicolas Flamel?" Harry asked.
//Check out my P@tre0n for 20 extra chapters on all my fanfics //[email protected]/Razeil0810