It took a whole bar of chocolate to bring Hermione back to normal, and although she looked rather tired, at least her intelligence went online again.
"Professor, is this the downfall of the thinking room? It was as if I hadn't slept for three days and nights, and then this exhaustion came rushing towards me all at once." She described how she felt.
"That's one of the drawbacks: it accelerates the consumption of your energy, and that consumption is constantly stacked." Felix explained, "You've just spent seven hours in the thinking room, but the level of exhaustion felt could be more than fourteen hours."
With that Felix looked at her thoughtfully, "It looks like you will have to shorten your time in the Thinking Room in the future, I think three to five hours, twice a week, would be a more appropriate frequency."
Hearing the professor's desire to compress her study time, Hermione is about to retort out of habit, but the experience she just had made her heart palpitate, and she acknowledged Felix's arrangement.
Her attention quickly shifted to the magic she saw just now, and she asked curiously, "Professor, how did you come up with that magic, it's simply amazing, I think the Ministry of Magic would award you an Order of Merlin!"
Felix shook his head and said softly, "This magic is still very imperfect. I originally thought - it would give me hours, even dozens of hours, out of thin air, but in practice, I've encountered far too much trouble."
"The essence of this memory magic is that it makes you think faster, which is currently about -" he glanced at the clock, "three times faster or so."
Hermione craned her head to stare at the clock too, with a very mixed expression, "I've been in the thinking room for seven hours and only two hours have passed in the outside world. It's, like, a miracle!"
How much time one would have been able to spend studying if others were to learn this magic as well!
I suppose the side effects of the magic could be tolerated by very few people, though.
And one would have to be assisted by Professor Hap ...
Looks like she's the lucky one, Hermione thought gleefully.
Felix went on to explain, "The Thinking Room is not real-world, essentially, everything about it is made up from your perceptions. Do you realize what's wrong with it?" Felix asked.
Hermione thought for a moment, "It reflects our own perceptions of the outside world, which means - means, we can't get the right feedback! No, I can obviously practice rune writing in there."
The young witch's idea behind the existence of the Thinking Room is that the wizard's perception of the outside world made it impossible for her to "construct" something she had no idea about, such as - using the Thinking Room she can't be able to brew potions, practice magic, or, of course, master magic runes.
But again, this is contrary to her experience.
Felix watched with interest as the young witch spun her brain around, thinking hard - Professor McGonagall's assessment of Miss Granger was very apt.
"That child has a great thirst for knowledge, and she has always been able to grasp the knowledge in books faster than anyone else. Of course, she may not be as gifted as you, but I suppose you are an exception ..."
It is true that he is an anomaly, after all, he has a special advantage when it comes to practicing magic spells. And his view of the witch kept changing, from a familiar stranger to a recommended candidate for an assistant, to a hard-working academic tyrant.
True enough, as one of the three main characters of the original plot, their potential is rarely matched.
And what kind of talent did the other two have? Felix's mind spun.
The clock ticked away.
"Could it be because of your presence, Professor?" Hermione's eyes lit up.
Felix revealed the answer with an approving look, "I'm the one using the magic, so the thought room is constructed with my perceptions, at least for the most part. And that would mean-"
"It means that your knowledge of ancient magic runes overrides my perceptions!"
Hermione dawned on her, "Your understanding of ancient runes far exceeds mine, which is why I can practice ancient runes in your perception."
In short, Felix was the creator of the thinking room and Hermione was his invited guest.
Hermione followed this line of reasoning, "So this magic ... doesn't seem to do much for the Professor."
Felix shrugged, "It's more or less useful. It has all the books I've read before, which allows me to quickly refresh what I've learned. Or it comes in very handy when I want to have a period of undisturbed reflection."
In fact, Felix originally developed it as a form of combat magic - using it to gain superb dynamic vision and reflexes.
Combined with his own level 6 Apparition and Stupefy, it simply slipped through the cracks.
This idea came to him in his fifth year, but he had no clue how to do it until he graduated.
Compelled to keep a tube of magic potion with him at all times, he improved his reflexes by getting "high', on drugs".
It is only after he read a lot of research papers on the brain and mind in the Muggle world that he was able to make some progress, but unfortunately, it is used for teaching purposes now.
A long way to go.
Putting those thoughts aside, Felix advised her, "The Thinking Room is still not the same as the real world, and you will have to keep practicing over the next week to turn the illusory sensations into a genuine reality."
Hermione is now in a state where she has been playing a VR game in which she has learned the skill called " frying ". If she started learning to cook when she got back to reality, it would be like having a tenfold experience on, but if she didn't make any extra effort, that somewhat 'imaginary' experience would quickly pass away.
Certainly not today, she is too tired.
"Professor ..." Hermione bit her lip nervously, as if she had something to ask.
"What?"
"Nothing." Hermione swiftly said.
She had seen Malfoy go out of Professor Hap's office on her way here today, could it be that Malfoy was also getting help from the Professor to train in the Thinking Room? She wanted to ask the professor, but couldn't find the right excuse.
Perhaps Ron might know?
Ever since the slug incident, Ron had been particularly concerned about Malfoy, especially the news of his downfall.
After a ten-minute break, Hermione still looked a little sickly, but it isn't a big deal, so she'd just have to go back and get a good night's sleep.
...
Evening, Common Room.
Hermione asked Ron about this and is surprised that he actually knew.
Ron grinned widely, "He's been confined by Professor Hap. It's the third day. ... According to the story, Professor Hap thought he was disrespecting his classmates, so he punished him by copying books."
"Copying books?" Harry asked curiously, very happy about his old rival's downfall, and couldn't wait to find out more details.
"That's right, the complete hand-copying kind. I overheard him complaining to Crabbe and Goyle about it, it is two huge books, stacked at least three inches thick, and he had to spend a month of his time on it."
"What books?"
"I caught a glimpse of it at the time, didn't really read it, seemed to be Muggle or something." Ron frowned for a while, "Right! I remember, Malfoy made a comment at the time, complaining that books are written by Professor Hap that didn't sell a thing and is only used for punishing students."
"Is it "How Muggles Think" and "The Muggle Struggle: from a Million Years Ago"?" Hermione blurted out the two book titles in one breath.
Ron rubbed his head, "It seems to be ... but how do you know?"
Hermione didn't reply but stomped back to her dormitory, and within a few moments, she is carrying two books over.
They were indeed big ... Harry thought to himself. Looking at the spines of the books, they were exactly the two names Hermione had mentioned.
Ron's mouth widened, "Hermione, don't tell me that you used this for a pastime too."
"You have a problem with that?" Hermione frowned forcefully.
Harry took a book and flipped it through the middle, inside were large passages of text that made his eyes dizzy for a moment. "Hermione, do you even need to read these types of books? I mean, we grew up in a Muggle family."
Hermione looked amused, "It's still interesting to see the muggle world from a wizard's point of view. And Professor Hap wrote a brilliant book, he discusses issues from a perspective that I would have never considered at all."
Then she added hatefully, "What a bargain for Malfoy, if it wasn't for Professor Hap, he'd never have read such an excellent book in his life!"
Hermione didn't mince her words in complimenting Felix, and the two boys looked at each other and silently exchanged remarks - Hermione's object of admiration didn't shift from Lockhart to this Professor Hap, right?
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