In any case, Ian didn't plan to maintain the potion's effects forever.
Once Lily Evans was lured out, he would immediately withdraw his magical influence, allowing Harry Potter to return to being a regular boy.
"I can discuss it with Harry later." Ian temporarily placed the potion in his pouch since he had more important matters to attend to tonight.
It was time to enter the Twilight Zone, and Ian could hardly wait to return to that familiar place. He glanced at the time. Half an hour had already passed since he had initially wanted to sleep.
"No other matter is as important as this one." Ian still had plenty to do in the Twilight Zone, so he immediately conjured a large, luxurious mattress for himself.
When the young wizard lay down on the bed,
The velvet curtains automatically closed, shielding him from the black-robed skeletons and Dementors outside. They also blocked the chaotic commotion of the two people chasing each other like cats and mice.
The bed itself was exceptionally comfortable. Ian had factored ergonomic design into its construction, yet tonight, sleep eluded him as he tossed and turned.
Snape's greasy face wasn't what occupied his mind at that moment, but rather, all the strange events of the past half-month. The young wizard didn't hold grudges against his "good uncle" for long, but Ian's thoughts were consumed with matters of past timelines.
The secrets surrounding Dumbledore and the anomalies in his magic twisted and knotted in his mind like a tangled mess, impossible to shake off.
He knew that if he entered the Twilight Zone and found his teacher, Morgan, and his friends, he might find answers to some of these questions.
However, he couldn't sleep.
The problem was that he couldn't sleep. He couldn't enter. It was a vicious circle: He needed answers to find peace, but without them, he couldn't sleep.
"Sigh... I guess I'll have to rely on magic and serious effort!"
Ian sat up quickly and reached into his pouch, pulling out a bottle of Draught of Living Death. As if it were soda, he popped the cork and downed the entire bottle in one go.
It must be said that Legendary-level wizards had significant resistance to such potions. One bottle could knock over several elephants, yet Ian only felt a faint effect.
"Good thing I stocked up!"
He reached for another bottle.
One.
Two.
Three...four.
After downing five bottles of Draught of Living Death, sleepiness finally crept over him. He immediately collapsed onto the bed, his thoughts drifting into a twilight state.
To be honest, this was his first time entering the Twilight Zone at his legendary level. Previously, entering it had always felt like falling or crossing some barrier. This time was different, he felt completely still while an invisible "door" passed through his body.
As the door passed through him,
The world before his eyes began to blur.
Yet
His mind was clearer than ever before, enabling him to perceive a truth that most wizards had likely never considered, the way his magical power field spread like a golden web and resonated with the silver runes on the door passing through him.
"I see now."
Ian was astonished yet enlightened.
"You don't reach the Twilight Zone by crossing a location; you reach it by altering the state of your soul. When your soul reaches a certain state, that's when you arrive in the Twilight Zone."
"The Twilight Zone has always overlapped with reality. It is both distant and near. If you cannot reach this state, you can never arrive." Ian wondered if any legendary wizard had discerned this truth after death. He was puzzled because many past events seemed to confirm that the concept of "distance" was real.
Otherwise, he wouldn't have been able to more easily summon Ariana in the time loops yet struggle in the real world. However, this fact now seemed to contradict what he was discovering.
"Perhaps there is an explanation that could resolve this contradiction. I just don't know what it is yet." Ian considered this a worthy research direction to etch into the annals of history.
However, now was clearly not the time to ponder such questions.
With his vision sharpening, Ian had fully arrived in the Twilight Zone, where cold mist immediately clung to his eyelashes. The young wizard stood by a river that appeared unnaturally dark. The water flowed thick and silent, like molten obsidian. Yet it differed greatly from the black seas he had seen before.
The river's surface reflected scattered points of starlight, but when Ian looked up, he saw that the gray, murky sky held no stars. The water was black as ink yet reflected the nonexistent starlight.
The glimmers danced and flickered, illusory and ethereal, as if weaving some hidden dream or like fireflies trapped in the dark current, blinking on and off.
"A new map, huh…"
Ian was no longer surprised by such sudden twists. Compared to before, he remained calm in situations like this.
Times had changed.
Ian now knew how to find his way back to familiar ground. His legendary-level power allowed him to apparate within this world using only his magical influence.
"First, let's see where this place is."
Ian knew he would never appear in an unrelated scene without reason. He didn't rush to leave but began carefully examining his surroundings instead.
On both sides of the river, bizarre, twisted black forests rose.
The trees were contorted like tortured human bodies, as if manipulated by invisible giant hands. Their bark was knotted with eye-like scars, and their branches intertwined to form arching thorns.
Dark green moss hung from the trunks like a witch's long hair. The air carried a decayed sweetness mingled with the scent of damp soil and some ancient herb. The dense foliage was layered so thickly that not even an inch of sunlight could penetrate.
Well.
There wasn't a sun anyway.
The place was as eerie as a dark forest in a fairy tale where a villain lived. Ian didn't understand why a pure-hearted young wizard like himself would appear there.
"Fairy tale..."
His thoughts seemed to latch onto a keyword. Indeed, this forest resembled the dark woods from childhood stories where evil witches made fences from bones and used poisoned apples as doorbells.
"Hm?"
As Ian focused his gaze, trying to peer deeper into the forest, his eyes pierced through the layers of mist and met a pair of glowing eyes approaching him. They were profoundly deep and an unsettling dark green with strange, pentagonal pupils. Clearly, they were not friendly eyes.
"What the hell..."
Ian narrowed his eyes slightly.
His wand was already in his hand.
The mist seemed to freeze the moment their gazes locked.
(End of chapter.)
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