At Hogwarts, the story begins with deconstructing Avada Kedavra.

Chapter 60 Hermione's Achievements

The laughter and chatter in the auditorium resembled an absurd silent play.

After yet another round of Slytherin provocations and Gryffindor verbal retorts, Hermione Granger, exasperated, stood up and pushed away the bowl of cereal in front of her.

Ignoring Harry's astonished gaze and Ron's mouth full of pumpkin juice, she turned and strode out of the Great Hall.

She needs a place where she can calm down.

She instinctively walked toward the library.

All the way, her fingers were constantly stroking a test tube.

It seems to be her only anchor in the fight against this absurd world.

Pushing open the library door, Hermione skillfully navigated the bookshelves and headed towards her favorite corner deep inside.

He is here today as well.

Lucian Ashford was leaning against the Gothic lattice window, the morning light shining on his robe.

He was flipping through an old book, his expression as always, with an air of indifference and composure as if he were detached from the world.

Hermione stopped in her tracks, her breathing unconsciously slowing as if afraid of disturbing the tranquility.

An extremely complex mix of emotions—trembling, admiration, and a secret identification—fermented within her chest.

After transforming into sugar last night, she thought she would fall into extreme panic or confusion, but strangely, looking at Lucian's perpetually undisturbed demeanor, her anxious heart miraculously calmed down.

She began to understand, and an irrepressible, heartfelt admiration welled up within her:

Compared to those peers in the auditorium who only shout and yell about the Academy Cup, pointless pranks, or false victories, this is what a wise person should look like.

"It seems you've finally realized that you and your companions aren't the same kind of people."

Lucian didn't look up, but lowered his voice and said.

Hermione took a deep breath, walked to the opposite him, pulled out a chair, and sat down.

She placed the glass test tube from her pocket on the table with utmost seriousness.

"despair."

It was a soft sound, but the action was as heavy as a thousand pounds.

Lucian finally raised his eyes and his gaze fell on the test tube.

It contained a small tube of white, crystal-clear powder.

"What is this?" Lucien asked.

"Sugar." Hermione's voice tightened slightly, tinged with excitement. "Sugar that fits the Muggle definition."

She stared intently into Lucien's eyes. "I've been studying the book you gave me, 'Alchemy and the Reconstruction of Origins.'"

Although the theory works, perhaps it's a problem with my grasp and understanding, I've never been able to successfully practice magic.

But yesterday, I crossed the first major exception to Gamp's fundamental law of transformation—food cannot be conjured out of thin air.

This candy is what I got yesterday.

Looking at the candies, the vortex in the depths of Lucian's eyes began to spin faster.

He was in shock.

Of course, he still maintained a nonchalant demeanor.

The book "Alchemy and the Reshaping of Origin" does indeed record the theory of breaking through the Gamp Law.

But the reason he was able to turn a piece of parchment into a warm blue morpho butterfly in the Room of Requirement on the eighth floor was not because the so-called theory was hidden by authority.

It's just because it lacks a premise that is almost impossible.

That was a spell he cast in reverse, based on the magic stone fragment hidden in his sleeve.

The implicit premise for that theory to function is that it must be activated by the miracle of the Philosopher's Stone, which is capable of "turning stone into gold and reversing life and death".

Without the power of the Philosopher's Stone, that operation would be a death sentence.

Forcing it to run will only trigger a violent backlash of magic, turning the target into a pile of poisonous ash, or directly severing the caster's hands.

Now, a first-year witch without a Philosopher's Stone sits in front of him, holding a tube of real sugar that she has conjured, and tells him that she did it.

"How did you do that?" Lucian leaned forward slightly, his tone carrying a genuine hint of inquiry. "With the third alchemical rune matrix from that book?"

"Yes." Hermione swallowed. "At first, I failed many times, and each time I could only conjure illusions that looked like shards of glass."

Until last night, I finally gave up—I gave up on the rigid copying of the book.

Suddenly it dawned on me—it wasn't a two-dimensional diagram at all!

Hermione's eyes shone brightly, and she spoke faster and faster, "That magical loop, it doesn't represent lines, but—an image!"

My understanding is that it borrows the drifting magic in the surrounding environment, allowing nothingness to devour itself, forming a continuous cycle.

But I was still stuck at the last step; what I transformed was still an empty shell. Until—

She took a deep breath, with a hint of lingering fear and disbelief: "Just when my magic was about to run out and the array was about to collapse, I looked at the flickering afterglow at the tip of the staff and a thought suddenly flashed through my mind: Why should I obsess over what it should look like?"

I stopped thinking about conjuring up a bunch of white powder—I suddenly remembered the feeling of sugar dissolving in water when drinking hot tea in winter.

I realized it must be a sucrose molecule, it must be soluble in water to break hydrogen bonds, and it must be able to stimulate sweetness on the taste buds.

In a flash of inspiration, I seemed to have grasped some kind of essence directly!

Just when my mind was about to succumb to the pressure, and I felt my soul being crushed by these concepts, that incomplete loop—it seemed to come alive on its own and closed automatically! It succeeded!

"Very good, you finally understand what I mean."

But a single success might be a fluke. If you can replicate this miracle before me, it will prove that you have mastered it.

And don't you want to know what lies at the end of this road?

Lucian remained nonchalant, pointing to the parchment on the table.

Hermione did not hesitate. She had an almost blind trust in the person who had given her the truth.

She closed her eyes and held her right hand outstretched above the parchment. She began to construct the intricate alchemical array, a faint red and blue light emanating from her fingertips.

The magic was flowing through Hermione's fingertips.

The first layer of outer runes, the second layer of conversion nodes — an extremely perfect talent.

But on the third level, at the gap that should have been filled by the miraculous power of the Philosopher's Stone, the entire magical structure inevitably began to collapse.

"It's going to explode." Lucian made the judgment in his mind, his wand already drawn, ready to cast the Silent Armor Charm to protect Hermione at any moment.

However, just as that magical vortex was about to collapse into a deadly magical storm, it was in a critical moment.

A sudden change occurred.

Instead, the ancient magic that had accumulated over thousands of years around Hogwarts Castle, which lingered around the library, produced a tiny magical tide in a bizarre and illogical way.

A ray of sunlight pierced through the gray clouds of April England and landed right on Hermione's eyelashes, as if foreshadowing something.

Her thick, always messy brown hair was now slightly fluttering and gently floating due to the surge of invisible magic around her.

A few slightly curled strands of hair clung to her forehead, which was beaded with sweat from her intense concentration.

Hermione's tightly clenched lower lip suddenly loosened, and as if sensing something, she opened her eyes.

Bathed in that sunlight, her clear eyes reflected a pure, almost awe-inspiring wonder.

Her right hand, which had been trembling violently from the pressure of magic, was now being gently supported by the ancient castle of Hogwarts itself, miraculously and firmly suspended in mid-air.

All the coincidences and accidents seemed to be soaked in Felix Felicis at this moment.

They were forcibly joined together by some force that replaced the "miracle" of the Philosopher's Stone, becoming a perfect puzzle piece that forcefully plugged the gap in the array.

The parchment on the table had disappeared, replaced by a small pile of glistening white sugar.

Hermione gasped for breath, opened her eyes, and blushed. "Look! I did it again! Lucien, your theory was right!"

Lucien, sitting opposite him, remained silent for a long time.

His gaze slowly shifted from the pile of sugar to Hermione's face, which was filled with excitement at having discovered the truth.

Luck and fortune.

He finally touched the thread of fate that bound this world.

Hermione Granger didn't complete the array at all; it was the world that completed it for her.

Because she is "Hermione Granger," one of the core anchors in this timeline, and the chosen one representing wisdom and knowledge.

When she deviated from the main storyline to explore a flawed and potentially deadly forbidden magic, the mysterious will of the world did not let her die from the backlash of magic. Instead, it forcibly distorted the cause and effect of things, using countless coincidences to create a miracle that filled the void in the Philosopher's Stone.

She didn't have a magic stone.

But her own destiny is that of a living Philosopher's Stone.

"A truly brilliant spellcasting, Miss Granger."

Lucian finally spoke.

"Your theory—I've proven it!" Hermione exclaimed excitedly, reaching for the pile of sugar.

"No, what you've proven is far greater than that."

Lucien reached out and stopped Hermione's hand as she reached for the sugar. His hand was icy cold, causing Hermione, who was still feeling warm from her recent meal, to shiver.

He leaned closer to the little witch who had been dragged into this mess, and said, "You think you're relying on unparalleled wisdom and precise control of magic? No. The magic rune matrix in that book originally required an extremely rare, life-or-death miracle as a catalyst to function. And you, you have nothing."

Hermione froze, her excited expression turning to ashes. "Then—then why did I succeed?"

Have you ever wondered why it had to be you? Why do certain coincidences always seem to occur when you're on the verge of failure? Granger, you thought you relied on your intelligence, but what you truly leveraged was something you yourself were unaware of.

"A certain kind of innate privilege."

"Because the world favors you."

"You are far luckier than those fools in the auditorium who are reveling in a false victory. Not only because you have a clear head, but also because, even if you were holding a fragment of a dark magic scroll that could blow half your body apart—"

Lucian said, enunciating each word clearly, "This mysterious fate can also forcibly turn deadly poison into sweet icing and personally feed it to you."

Hermione sat there, stunned, her breath almost stopped.

She couldn't understand the full depth of Lucien's words about "miracle catalysts" and "children of destiny," but she clearly sensed a certain future.

The boy before her had once slapped her with a blue morpho butterfly, shattering her faith in the rules.

Now, he uses a pile of sugar to tell her: your proud pursuit of truth is nothing more than fate's boundless indulgence of you.

Lucien simply returned to the window and opened the book in his hand.

So that's how it is. The protagonist's halo isn't something ethereal; it's a kind of reality-altering ability that can be observed and guided.

It can fill the void in the Philosopher's Stone. Does that mean that as long as I can deceive or guide Hermione to believe in a certain theory, the world's will will forcibly fill in all the loopholes in the theory in order to make her perception come true?

If I gave her a flawed alchemy formula, but told her it was the key to the truth, would the world, for the sake of this chosen one, forcefully turn the flawed formula into the correct reality?

Ha, this is no longer a chessboard, this is the pen of the creator god—and I have found the way to hold the pen.

Meanwhile, in the noisy auditorium.

The brief moment of surprise caused by Hermione's sudden departure was quickly drowned out by the clinking of cutlery on the Gryffindor table and the sounds of weekend laughter.

"What's wrong with her now?" Ron finally swallowed the pumpkin juice in his mouth, still holding half a slice of toast covered in butter, staring blankly towards the door. "Those Slytherin guys are always like this, why is she throwing such a tantrum? Or is she upset that we didn't review Potions while we were eating breakfast?"

Harry shook his head, his gaze falling on Hermione's almost untouched bowl of cereal, his brow furrowing slightly. "I don't know—but the look in her eyes just now seemed really off. Like she hadn't slept all night, or like—she was going crazy."

"They must have found some unforgivable typographical error in 'The History of Magic' again," Ron muttered, nonchalantly reaching for another sausage.

Sitting across from them, Neville Longbottom was nervously gripping his spoon when his hand trembled, and the spoon fell onto the plate, splashing a few drops of gravy.

"You—you guys think she's alright?" Neville stammered, his round face filled with worry. "The way she looked when she rushed out just now—it was like she was going to take on a fire dragon one-on-one."

"That's Hermione, Neville," Ron mumbled, his mouth full of food. "The only people she'd ever challenge were Mrs. Pince and her endless library. Could you please pass me that jar of marmalade?"

In the bustling Great Hall bathed in morning light, neither Ron, who was eating sausages and complaining, nor Neville, who was worried, nor Harry, whose intuition was always sharp, noticed anything amiss.

They could not even imagine that, in the quietest corner of this castle, their best friend had just crossed a taboo door that overturned reality.