By the time Transfiguration class ended, it was already noon.
"Rowan, want to go to the Great Hall together?"
A Slytherin girl from his year smiled as she made the invitation.
Rowan returned the smile and declined without hesitation.
"Not today. I'm going to ask Professor Snape about a few spells."
At this point, invitations like this had become routine.
Teenagers were like that. Feelings arrived suddenly and intensely, and courage often outran caution. Rowan remembered being the same at that age, only far less bold. Because of that, he never dragged things out or left room for misunderstanding.
If he knew he didn't feel the same, the cleanest answer was a firm refusal. Lingering out of misplaced kindness only caused deeper disappointment later. Given time, they would move on.
Of course, there were always a few who refused to take no for an answer.
When that happened, Professor Snape became the perfect deterrent.
Just mentioning his name usually ended the conversation immediately.
Sure enough, the girl's expression stiffened.
"O–oh… then never mind."
She had been torn apart in Potions class just the day before for adding the wrong ingredient. The mere thought of Snape still made her shiver.
Nearby students who had been working up the courage to approach Rowan abruptly changed direction.
Mission accomplished.
Rowan packed away his book, left the classroom, and found a secluded corner. Once he was certain no one was nearby, he raised his hand and turned the Time-Turner.
Using it required care. Appearing suddenly in front of someone, or worse, encountering his past self, could cause serious temporal backlash.
Five turns.
The world blurred, racing backward like an accelerated reel of film. In the blink of an eye, he was standing in the same spot five hours earlier.
"Time magic really is something else," Rowan murmured.
No matter how many times he used it, the sensation never lost its impact.
Unfortunately, time magic itself remained frustratingly elusive. Even after consulting Dumbledore, real progress had been slow. The discipline lacked structure. There were too few references, too few surviving theories. Even Dumbledore approached it cautiously, relying more on intuition than method.
Rowan had considered studying time magic from other worlds.
Marvel came to mind. The Time Stone. The Ancient One.
And that was precisely the problem.
He had too many secrets. Until he could stand on equal footing, involving someone like the Ancient One was a risk he wasn't willing to take. Behind her stood forces far beyond his current reach.
Other worlds weren't much help either. Merlin's legacy offered nothing concrete. The Fairy Tail world mentioned time magic only as a lost art. Academy City held no answers yet. Middle-earth didn't appear to touch time at all.
So, for now, time magic would wait.
Alchemy, on the other hand, was a different matter.
Hogwarts didn't offer a dedicated alchemy course, but it didn't need one. There was a master already on campus.
Albus Dumbledore.
Second only to Nicolas Flamel, Dumbledore's achievements in alchemy were exceptional. Beyond Transfiguration and Defense Against the Dark Arts, he had quietly mastered disciplines most wizards barely understood.
The Deluminator alone was proof.
It didn't break electric lights. It removed light itself. Power still flowed, switches still worked, but illumination simply ceased to exist until the light was returned.
That wasn't destruction. It was manipulation of rules.
Scale that principle up, and it could extinguish any light. Even the sun.
That level of craftsmanship placed Dumbledore firmly among the greatest alchemists alive.
Today, Rowan intended to learn how to create Portkeys.
For his purposes, they were among the most practical magical tools imaginable.
Apparition required familiarity with a destination and had distance limits. Flying was slow. Carrying people made things worse. His spatial container solved some problems, but it wasn't something he wanted widely known.
Portkeys were different.
They allowed long-distance transport, mass movement, and didn't require his presence. Two people could share paired Portkeys and reunite instantly, no matter where one of them went.
In the modern world, he could scatter them across cities and cross continents in seconds. In Middle-earth, they could move armies, enable ambushes, and reinforce battlefields before enemies even realized what was happening.
If magic was a toolset, then Portkeys were leverage.
And Rowan was finally ready to learn how to make them.