In the Slytherin Head of House's office, Snape relayed Dumbledore's decision without embellishment.
"The Headmaster and I accept what you told us," he said. "We'll support you fully. Training. Research. Whatever you need to prepare for what's coming."
Rowan's eyes lit up, relief and excitement carefully balanced behind polite restraint. "That's… a relief, sir. I was honestly worried you wouldn't believe me. Half the time, even I'm not sure I would."
He paused, then added casually, "The only real problem is time. I practice what the old man taught me, I keep up with classes, and it still never feels like enough."
Snape didn't hesitate. "Then we'll solve the time problem. I'll apply for a Time-Turner on your behalf."
Rowan blinked. "A Time-Turner?"
Snape explained patiently.
A Time-Turner could rewind up to five hours at once. It couldn't be used repeatedly in succession; time had to progress past the original point before it could be reversed again. At any given moment, no more than two versions of the same person could exist. The Ministry's rules weren't laws of nature, but safety limits. Ignore them, and the consequences could range from erasure to catastrophic paradoxes.
Rowan listened carefully.
Doubling his usable time was more than enough. He had no intention of gambling with unstable temporal loops. Immortality meant nothing if the world itself collapsed.
That evening, Snape personally handed him the Time-Turner, repeating the warnings with unusual seriousness. Rowan accepted it with solemn gratitude.
From that day on, his schedule became brutal.
Classes. Library. Private study. Then back again, looping time to carve out hours no one else had. When he wasn't in the stacks, he was in the Headmaster's office, learning magic Hogwarts didn't teach.
Dumbledore had time. Rowan made full use of it.
Spells he already knew sharpened into instinct. New ones came quickly. Ancient magic followed. Mountain-moving charms. Stormcalling. Controlled cyclones. Eventually even Dumbledore began to look tired, his patience stretched thin by Rowan's relentless curiosity.
To his credit, Rowan adjusted. He spread his questions among the professors. Snape. McGonagall. Anyone with a free moment.
While Rowan's Hogwarts self pushed forward at terrifying speed, another version of him made progress elsewhere.
In the mage-apprentice world, the panda-bodied incarnation had finally stepped back from endless meditation. Having secured immortality, it devoted itself fully to spellcraft. That was when it mastered one of the Merlin system's most destructive techniques: the plasma cannon.
Mages feared electricity for good reason. Disrupted currents shattered magical control. Rowan didn't share that weakness. His power wasn't bound to fragile spell structures, and raw voltage answered to him like a limb.
He studied the spell carefully.
A plasma cannon condensed unstable energy into a single devastating discharge. Powerful, but limited. One shot at a time.
Rowan's mind immediately went elsewhere.
He already wielded electromagnetic acceleration. Railgun physics. Supersonic velocity.
Plasma alone was destructive.
Magnetism alone was precise.
Together?
He smiled.
If he could fuse the two, he wouldn't just have a stronger spell.
He'd have a weapon that rewrote the rules.