Weilan believed that Daphne's selection as a champion this time was also manipulated by someone behind the scenes.
And the other party's goal could certainly not be charity. In the original story, the manipulated pawn was Harry; now it has been replaced by Daphne.
Dumbledore dismissed the students who were still lingering in the Great Hall. Afterwards, he, along with the other four members of the judging panel, entered the door behind the faculty table.
The students discussed what had happened that night loudly, then left the Great Hall one after another.
This time, Hogwarts' three houses rarely unified their opinions. Except for Slytherin, no one believed that the tearful Daphne would be the champion representing Hogwarts.
Weilan followed the crowd out of the Great Hall and, accompanied by Hermione and Ron, walked towards the Gryffindor common room.
“Weilan, do you think the judging panel will confirm Daphne as the Hogwarts champion?”
Ron was very concerned about this question; he still felt that Gryffindor's Angelina had a chance.
“I don't think Daphne is very willing to be a champion either. Maybe the judging panel will invalidate Daphne's champion status and let Hogwarts select a new champion.”
“But there's a magic contract for the champion chosen by the Goblet of Fire!” Hermione told him, “Students chosen as champions must participate in the Triwizard Tournament. Violating the contract will result in magic punishment.”
“Let's guess who's the happiest right now.”
Weilan ascended the long spiral staircase, holding Hermione's hand and skipping over sudden gaps in the floor:
“There must be something fishy behind Daphne being chosen as champion. Whoever pushed Daphne onto the champion's throne must have been driven by self-interest.”
Weilan reviewed the situations of Karkaroff, Madam Maxime, Dumbledore, Ludo Bagman, and Barty Crouch in his mind.
“Professor Dumbledore is excluded first. He's not stupid and can see the problem. And no matter our background, he's very kind to us students.”
“Karkaroff and Madam Maxime should be overjoyed right now. Because underage Daphne becoming champion is very beneficial for their two schools to win.”
“Mr. Bagman and Mr. Crouch are hard to say. As Ministry of Magic officials organizing the competition, it's not impossible for them to accept bribes and trick Daphne into this.”
Weilan sneered, stopping in front of the Fat Lady's portrait.
The Fat Lady comforted them from within the frame: “It's alright, children, Dumbledore will surely figure out what exactly is going on.”
“Thank you.” Hermione said to her, “Caput Draconis.”
“Password correct.”
The Fat Lady swung open, allowing them into the common room.
The atmosphere in the common room was a bit subdued; it was still too early to sleep. They took out the Merlin coin again and tried to decipher the text on it.
“Then what about our WPSE?” Hermione sounded a bit wronged, “We can't just go beg Daphne, can we?”
“We won't ask her.” Weilan's dark eyes emerged from behind an Ancient Runes dictionary, “If worst comes to worst, I think Angelina is also a good candidate.”
They noticed a period “.” at the end of the sentence on the back of the coin.
This indicated that the sentence was complete and very likely contained personal pronouns such as “you,” “I,” “he,” “she,” and “it.”
So their method was to try injecting the magic of different spells into the text, and then write down the personal pronouns indicated in Ancient Runes on paper.
They tried basic spells like the Levitation Charm and Stupefy, and also advanced spells like Transfiguration.
Without exception, none of them had any effect.
Ron finally couldn't take it anymore and threw the “Advanced Transfiguration Guide” onto the floor:
“We can't keep going like this, trying so many spells one by one. I'm afraid by the time we grow to rival Merlin, we still won't have finished trying all these spells.”
Hermione put down her book wearily and massaged her eyes:
“We need to guess. What magic would Merlin most likely have used to infuse the Ancient Runes?”
Weilan recalled the scenes he had seen using Minute Observation.
In the scenes, the young man did indeed use magic to infuse these words. But those spells were unfamiliar to Weilan. He couldn't recognize exactly what magic the young man had used.
“What magic would be unique to Merlin?” Weilan proposed a new direction of thought, “What magic could only be cast by Merlin? In that era, no one else could cast the same magic besides Merlin.”
Without waiting for his companions' answers, Weilan himself spoke an answer:
“Time.”
“Merlin was the Archmage who controlled the 'Time' authority.”
Ron and Hermione were both stunned at the same time.
“You mean to say,” Ron stammered, “that in order to decipher this thing, we still have to go to the Ministry of Magic's Department of Mysteries to get something related to time magic?”
“No,” Weilan answered him, “Do you remember? We possess a spell related to time magic.”
Weilan turned and ran back to the dormitory, took out the Slytherin notebook, and returned to them.
He quickly flipped to the page that recorded the “Time Reversal” spell.
“I've tried this spell.” Weilan placed the notebook in the middle of the three so everyone could clearly see “Tempora Retexere (Time Reversal)” written on it.
“Aside from helping me recall what I've eaten in the Great Hall these past few days, this spell has no practical use.”
“But, according to the notebook, this is a spell related to time magic!”
“Then what are we waiting for? Let's try it now.” Hermione urged him.
So Weilan picked up a quill, composed himself, and while chanting “Tempora Retexere,” he wrote down the Ancient Runes word representing “I” on the parchment.
“Weilan! Weilan!”
As he slowly finished the last stroke, Hermione was so excited she almost jumped up:
“It's identical, look quickly, it's absolutely identical!”
Hermione excitedly handed over the coin.
Upon comparison, the word “I” matched one of the words in the sentence on the back of the coin!
“That's the right approach!” Weilan was equally unable to contain his excitement, “Now that we've confirmed the magic, all we need to do is figure out the meaning of the remaining words one by one…”
“If it's related to time magic, then these words will most likely appear in this sentence as well.”
Weilan wrote down the four Ancient Runes words for “past,” “time,” “future,” and “present” again.
Upon comparison, they found that the word representing “past” also matched one of the runes.
So, the deciphered part of the sentence was now—
“…I…past…”
People in the common room gradually left, and Ron yawned, unable to stay awake any longer.
“There are too many words. We're not in a hurry; we can slowly decipher them in the time to come.”
“If you have time, you can learn this spell and see if you can guess a few results.”
Their research progress for the day ended there. They each returned to their dormitories to sleep.
The next day, while eating breakfast in the Great Hall, Professor McGonagall delivered a message to Weilan:
“Professor Dumbledore hopes you can go to his office today after classes. The password is 'Toad Mint.'”
