"Whoosh!" A red beam of light struck the person, sending them flying back to hit the wall with a heavy thud.
It was Professor Snape. His speed was incredible this time.
Wade was a step too slow; his spell shattered the sink, and blood spilled everywhere.
A white object flew from the man's hand and rolled across the floor.
"What is that?"
Madam Pomfrey waved her Wand, making the object fly to her. After one look, she instinctively gasped, and her spell lost control, causing the white object to clatter to the floor.
"Merlin above—" Madam Pomfrey clutched her chest, looking as if she might faint. She murmured in disbelief, "Even Death Eaters aren't this cruel."
Wade looked down.
It was a Sphenoid Bone.
He had seen pictures in files in the archives before, but this was the first time he had seen one in person.
Professor Snape suddenly said, "Gray, if the one you wish for us to save is that one, I believe you are overestimating the power of magic."
Wade followed his gaze and saw a familiar, unidentifiable head already on the conveyor belt, though its body was nowhere to be found.
Even the most powerful magic couldn't bring someone back to life who was already dead and dismembered.
"No, not this person," Wade said quickly. "Follow me—the girl is over here!"
He led the two professors quickly through the picture book room and into the first operating room, where he was surprised to see two other people.
A plump nurse was tidying various surgical instruments, while another man was using a hose to wash bloodstains off the floor.
When they saw the group suddenly push open the door, they were startled and about to question them, but were immediately struck down by spells.
Upon entering the second operating room, Wade finally found the person they were looking for.
The little girl lay unconscious on the operating table, blood flowing from it and pooling on the floor.
The nurses and doctors gathered around her showed no intention of stopping the bleeding. Instead, they were carefully removing a still-beating heart from her chest cavity.
Someone nearby had already prepared an organ transfer box, identical to the one Wade was carrying.
"You bastards!"
Madam Pomfrey let out an angry roar, and with a sweep of her Wand, a violent burst of magic practically exploded.
The people in surgical scrubs were all sent flying, crashing heavily against the wall. They cried out, unable to get up, and were then struck again by a Stunning Spell.
Professor Snape quickly extended his Wand, and an invisible line tethered the heart, keeping it suspended steadily above the girl.
Then, he also found the girl's kidneys inside the box.
"I've never heard of such a thing!" Madam Pomfrey said, her voice trembling slightly as she opened her medicine kit. "This is… this is… not even demons are this evil!"
"This child can still be saved, Poppy," Snape comforted her. "Just focus on saving her; leave the rest to me."
He handed his precious Potions to Madam Pomfrey, then used a Levitation Charm to drag everyone else in the room out the door.
As he was leaving, Snape turned to Wade and said, "Come with me."
"Yes, Professor."
Wade acknowledged, following behind. He watched as the people floated stiffly, their heads hitting the wall with a thud, then their bodies bumping against the iron frame with another thud.
Soon, the room fell silent, with only the occasional flash of Madam Pomfrey's magic.
Passing the previous operating room, Wade saw the messy footprints and bloodstains on the floor. He sighed, thinking of the boy who couldn't be saved.
He waved his Wand, and under the effect of a Scouring Charm, all the messy traces on the ground vanished.
Then, Wade discarded the box he had carried all along, placing the organs and the boy's head inside, along with the bone he had picked up from the floor.
Professor Snape found an empty room, stunned and bound the people, then threw them in. Afterward, the two of them split up to search the area, finding a few more sleeping, slacking off, or report-writing individuals, all of whom they also subdued.
"What will happen to them?" Wade asked.
"Azkaban will have a place for them."
Seeing Wade's slightly disapproving expression, Professor Snape added, "Believe me, it's worse than death… and in a place like that, they won't last long anyway."
Wade nodded. Seeing that Professor Snape had no intention of directly killing these individuals, he naturally wouldn't raise any objections.
He simply dragged the man with glasses out again and asked, "Professor, did you bring Veritaserum?"
Snape looked at him deeply and asked, "What do you intend to do?"
"Interrogate this fellow, of course," Wade said naturally. "They must have many accomplices. This person seems to hold a significant position and should have a lot of information."
Snape's expression was a little strange. After a pause, he said nothing, just nodded and said, "Leave him to me. You stay here and protect Poppy and the child."
"Alright," Wade said.
He was completely uneasy about leaving the subsequent investigation to the Ministry of Magic, but if it was left to Professor Snape, there would be no problem.
Wade's prompt agreement surprised Snape again. He glanced at Wade, seeming to want to say something but remained silent, finally taking the man with glasses away.
Having walked back and forth, Snape had also stepped in the blood on the floor. Now, as he walked out, he left a trail of red footprints at the doorway.
Wade looked at the footprints, and in a flash of lightning, several images flashed through his mind—
When Mabel and he flew over, there was already a trail of blood-red footprints by the entrance.
Then what? What did they see before that?
A man lying on the ground with a gunshot wound to the forehead, his fallen glasses still hanging on his face.
Some people look like completely different individuals with and without glasses.
That's why, upon seeing the blood-red footprints, Wade suddenly remembered that he had seen the man with glasses, whom Snape had taken, once before.
Connecting it to the gunshot wound on the man's forehead, Wade's expression grew slightly solemn.
But Madam Pomfrey was still fully focused on treating Hailey, and Wade couldn't abandon them.
The last two combat-ready Magic Golems had been left with Hailey from before the time rewind. While Mihail was powerful, a body made of flame couldn't withstand a surprise attack.
It could instantly incinerate the shooter, but—
"Cannot alter history that has already been observed."
This was a rule of time reversal.
If it were truly altered, it wasn't that the Time-Turner user would immediately die or suffer misfortune; the Ministry of Magic simply warned against doing it under any circumstances.
Wade suspected that doing so would create a parallel timeline, and the user would be trapped in that new timeline.
After a moment of thought, Wade took off the wire cloak he had been wearing and softly recited a spell he knew by heart. Beams of light fell upon the cloak.
A moment later, the wire cloak "stood up," wobbled a few steps, then glided a short distance before bouncing back to Wade's side.
Because it was made with copper and silver, and enchanted, the cloak appeared to sparkle, like a celestial garment woven from moonlight and sunlight in a fairy tale.
So Wade cast a Disillusionment Charm on it, and the cloak turned the same color as its surroundings, its outline faintly visible.
It suddenly bent its hood down and spun in circles, just like a puppy chasing its tail.
"Stop playing," Wade said, tapping the cloak with his Wand. "You know what I need you to do."
The cloak, infused with Wade's intent, immediately straightened up, "nodded," and zipped off in the direction Professor Snape had left.
As for Wade, who remained, he frowned, looked around, and with a wave of his Wand, transformed everything back to how he had originally seen it.
...
Snape didn't know that the student behind him was worried about his safety, but he was currently thinking about Wade as well.
Sometimes, he felt he could see a shadow of the Dark Lord in Wade, even more ruthless and colder than the man himself.
Although he hadn't experienced Voldemort's youth firsthand, through Wade, Snape could fully imagine what a brilliant yet cold-blooded young man he must have been.
But soon, he felt these were all his own delusions; Wade was still that intelligent and upright student.
He told himself—it's normal for young people, especially teenage boys, to be aggressive and talk about killing when they're angry, completely ignorant of the preciousness of life and more prone to throwing around threats of death.
Just like himself, in his youth, he cursed James Potter and his group to die early every day, genuinely wishing they would meet a gruesome end at his hands.
Of course, the hatred, in fact, hadn't faded even now.
Later, when he joined the Death Eaters and saw his comrades kill, Snape didn't feel much—he wouldn't be as excitedly euphoric as Bellatrix, nor did he feel disgust or resistance.
Snape had once desperately yearned for the Dark Lord's favor, to climb to a higher position, to gain greater power.
Until that day... until he saw the person he loved most become a cold corpse...
The Potions professor squeezed his eyes shut, pulling his thoughts away from the painful memories.
He knew that Wade from the original timeline would soon arrive at this location. To avoid interference, Snape first took the man with glasses some distance away, found a secluded spot, and then dripped Veritaserum into his mouth.
The man with glasses groggily opened his eyes, his expression blank and bewildered.
"Tell me," Snape asked softly, "what are you doing here? Who is the mastermind behind this?"
"I... we are conducting research on gene editing... exploring feasible measures for humans to acquire magical genes... obtaining the secret of Wizard longevity..."
Snape was stunned; this answer was unexpected and incomprehensible to him.
"What is gene editing?" Snape asked.
The man with glasses said in a flat tone, "It's a revolutionary biotechnology proposed only in recent years. Through gene editing tools, specific targets in an organism's genome are modified, efficiently and precisely achieving gene insertion and replacement, thereby altering the organism's genetic information."
"Most human and Wizard genes are identical. We believe that ordinary people cannot use magic because a portion of their genes are not activated."
"As long as these magic genes can be identified, even ordinary people can be transformed into Wizards. Even without magic genes, perhaps replacement and recombination can be achieved in future generations..."
Snape: "..."
He decided to skip the parts he didn't understand, interrupting the man's rambling, and got straight to the point: "Who told you to do this?"
"It was the leader."
"Who is the leader? What's his name? Where can I find him?"
"I... I don't know... the leader never appears before us..."
"Then how does he give orders?"
"By email."
Snape took a deep breath: "Tell me everything you know... for example, who is the mastermind of this island?"
The man with glasses' eyelids fluttered. After a moment of confusion, he finally said, "Zeke, of course."
"Tell me about this Zeke..."
Snape hadn't finished speaking when he suddenly frowned, looking behind him.
Something was flying towards him, cutting through the air. Was it... an invisibility cloak?
Mid-flight, the Disillusionment Charm's effect wasn't very strong, and Snape could clearly see the cloak's outline. He even recognized it by its size as the one Wade had been wearing moments ago.
Snape was momentarily stunned. Seeing the cloak heading straight for him, he didn't know whether to dodge or catch it. In that moment of hesitation, it landed directly on him.
The cloak moved agilely, wrapping Snape in a near-embrace.
Due to its length, Snape's upper body became partially visible, while his lower legs remained exposed, making for a somewhat unsettling sight.
The man with glasses, his mind controlled by Veritaserum, was undisturbed. His eyelids trembled as he began to answer the question.
"Zeke... Zeke is a trusted confidant of the higher-ups. I heard he was sent to this place because he offended a Wizard in The Organization... He knows nothing about technology and is temperamental, but he's quick to pay..."
Snape tried to pull the cloak off, but to no avail. He only managed to tear the hood from his face, yet his ears keenly caught the crucial information—
"A Wizard from The Organization? Your organization has Wizards?"
"Of course! They are..."
*Bang! Bang!*
Before the man with glasses could finish, a bullet pierced his forehead.
He fell straight backward, hitting the wall with a thud. His glasses slid off, and his mouth hung open, blood trickling down his nose.
Another bullet shot towards Snape's forehead but was blocked by the cloak's hood, which had been raised in time.
Snape stumbled back two steps, then quickly spun his Wand to cast a full Disillusionment Charm on himself, hiding both him and the cloak.
Only then did he realize what had just happened.
The invisible Wizard silently left his original spot and stood at the corner of the opposite wall. Soon after, he saw a group of fully armed soldiers protecting a man and a woman, hurrying towards them.
"Who was that guy talking to?" the man with the ponytail said, exasperated. "Who did he leak the secrets to?"
Two soldiers quickly and cautiously ran to the body of the man with glasses. After checking him, they fired several shots into the empty space around them, shattering glass and light bulbs.
"Report, no one."
"They must have escaped," the woman in red said with a frown. "Is Upton a traitor?"
"Definitely! Didn't you see him meeting someone just now?"
The man with the ponytail, Zeke, was furious but also relieved, eager to shift the blame for the base's compromise.
"No wonder we had so many anti-Wizard measures, yet someone still infiltrated and caused damage—it's because an insider leaked our defensive arrangements and even brought in outside enemies!"
Veronica, the woman in red, nodded noncommittally, frowning. "Upton is here, so... the organs they wanted over there..."
"Forget about that!" Zeke said decisively. "The magnetic field is destroyed, escaping is the priority now. Tell the research lab to hurry up, I'll wait for them for five more minutes at most!"
The group rushed upstairs, someone relaying orders through an earpiece.
Snape watched silently. After they ran out of that corridor, he floated up and followed them.
He had once learned flying techniques from Voldemort, and even without a Flying Broomstick, Snape could make himself fly.
The group left the corridor, and complete silence returned to the area.
Soon after, a Firebolt, carrying Wade and Mabel, swiftly flew through.
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