The next morning, Harry, Ron, and Hermione conferred around a table in the common room. Harry spread the previously unknown notes over the table, and several marked books were stacked alongside. They pored over the newfound material and found massive amounts of information, everything they would need to write their report. Dates, places, and names; legends, historical references, and other data were available in abundance. Yet they had not remembered recording these facts – in fact, they had been in despair of ever finding them. For some bizarre reason, a blank spot had etched itself in their minds.

Ron was convinced that a Slytherin had cursed them in Dueling class, but Hermione assured him no memory charm was so specific. She proposed that certain hexes contained in the restricted books could have such an effect, but it was unlikely that these books had been misfiled in the regular shelves. Harry was unsure; neither answer felt correct, but he had no explanation of his own. They would have welcomed Kaspar's advice, but he had visited the hospital wing complaining of a splitting headache.

With little else to do, they decided that a verdict of temporary amnesia would suffice until a better solution presented itself. Classes were dismissed for the weekend, and they would have to use the time to complete their report. While Hermione gathered the parchment and quills she would need to write, Harry and Ron looked through and outlined the data. Hermione could, of course, have written the essay herself, but Harry and Ron felt that suggesting this could result in severe physical injury. When she returned, Harry and Ron presented their summary.

"Well, it looks like the Staff was forged around A.D. 997 by a man named Balthasar Ollivander. If we need more stuff about him, it should be easy to find – he designed about a hundred wands by his twentieth birthday. Says here that he was the first to 'propose the possible influence of wand varnish on overall wand performance' and 'devised experimental core substances never duplicated since.' Probably about a dozen people on Earth would care, but put it in – it sounds intellectual. Anyway, every source that mentions him says he's the best wand craftsman in Ollivander family history. His name doesn't show up after about the year 1000, and those wands that do carry his name are listed 'posthumous manufacture.' So, we've got a legendary wand created by a master of the craft who dies at a young age. How's that for a stellar introduction?" Ron smiled as he finished his section, and passed the notes to Harry.

Harry spoke. "Anyway, Ollivander completed the Staff and presented it to its owner, then specified that no other wands should be built to the same specifications. It was everything it was supposed to be – an immensely powerful tool – but he felt that copies of the Staff would be unsafe. He gave the Staff to his trusted friend, who used it in a series of magical experiments for a few years. Then records of the Staff have a blank spot until it was used in the campaigns of a Dark mage around 1107. The mage had used it as a wand, and even his simplest spells became unstoppable. Apparently, he hadn't quite got the hang of it. He activated one of the innate powers of the Staff, though, and things got out of hand. The Staff consumed him with its energy, but he had already cast enough of the spell to release an underpowered result – one that left a smoking crater a half- mile wide. Took lots of Memory Charms and talk about falling stars to cover that one up. The Staff remained unused until 1498, when Mallefoe the Mad studied the notebooks of Ollivander's friend – the Staff's original owner – and would have been able to harness the full powers of the Staff. Fortunately, he was run over by a horse-cart while trying to reshape the world in his image. The Sorcerer's Council got a little nervous, and the Staff was disposed of in 1507…can't remember how, but I'll look it up. His family even had to change its name – crazy, huh?"

Harry paused to get a drink of water, and Ron continued. "Well, Harry will get back to the uses of the Staff in a minute, but its construction's really wild. The height and order number are written here, but I had to do a lot of looking to find out about the experimental core. Apparently, it's a combination of matter from the heart of a star and –get this – frozen time. Somehow Ollivander managed to extract a lump of time from the fabric of time and space and condense it into the wand core. It produces an incredibly effective material, but the whole setup is pretty weird. The Staff had some amazing powers – Harry'll get to those in a second. I found a picture of the Staff in one of the books we picked out, and some physical descriptions are listed here. The body is of oak, about an inch and a half in diameter, solid as a rock. Every square inch of the thing is covered in carved designs. These glyphs don't mean anything to me – but you're in Ancient Runes, Hermione, they might make sense to you. There are some inscriptions in Greek and Latin, too. On the headpiece, the carving Schizokosmos translates as "I cleave the world" or "I shatter order." These words wrapped around the base, along the staff –

"Sum…Fui…Futurus"- translate, again roughly, as "I am…I have been…I shall be." Various other glyphs and runes are carved into the staff. I think that's everything. Here are my notes – I'll go take a look and make sure there's nothing I missed. Your turn, Harry."

Harry arranged his notes while Hermione massaged her cramping hand. Her intelligence, intuition, and lively prose style had already converted their scanty data into almost 90 parchment inches. Of course, the covert presence of her notes underneath the scroll might have had something to do with it. When she took up her quill again, Harry spoke. "Well, we're just about finished, really. The Sorcerer's Council ruled in 1507 that the Staff had to be disposed of, so they split it in two parts. Even broken, each piece of the staff would possess incredible power, but the Staff's most terrible abilities would be inaccessible unless the Staff was whole. Apparently afraid the Staff could be reunited, the Council used a spell – Akronos – to banish it…from time…"

Harry stopped. He placed his notes on the table with shaking hands. Expulsion from time…he knew it had seemed familiar. "Hey," he said, "You remember Professor Argyropt, don't you?"

Hermione nodded. "I don't see how I could forget. He almost killed us. But, then again, it wasn't really him, was it? I remember the night he told us about the Heresiarch – about himself. About his friends, and how they were killed in the accident that unleashed Voldemort on this world. Do you think…oh my…Argyropt and Ollivander – they were friends, weren't they? I don't know why I didn't think of it before. It all fits. Ollivander died around the same time that Professor Argyropt lost his friends – around the time the Heresiarch appeared. The Staff of Discord…must have been used in the experiment that went wrong."

Harry spoke again. "There's something more. Hermione – I don't know if I ever told you. In the Heresiarch's Tomb, after you were knocked out, I defeated the Heresiarch. You know that, but Dumbledore told me something else. Akronos must have been the spell. I banished Voldemort from time."

"So you think the headpiece of the Staff could be in the same place Voldemort is? It could happen, I suppose. But what would it mean?"

"I don't know. But if Professor Argyropt knew how to use the Staff, Voldemort would. I hope he never finds it."

"Well, we can't worry about it now. We should get back to work. Argyropt and Ollivander…I should look into that."

The only sound in the library was the insistent scratch of quill on parchment.