In the Magic Runes Club, the young wizards sat in a relaxed mood on couches of all sizes, chatting animatedly and discussing what they were going to do on their holidays.
"I'm definitely going to the World Cup ... I'll also be going to visit relatives with my family, and my uncle has a giant creature with a tall spine and a pair of long horns ..."
In the corner of the couch, Hermione whispered, "I guess he's talking about Graphorn, they're usually found in the mountains, they're Greyish-purple in colour and have a very aggressive nature-"
"Oh, Hermione, we're all done with exams." Ron said.
"That's not part of the exam-"
"I know, you were just too excited to control yourself because Mr. Newt Scamander wrote back to you, and you got all his information memorized." Ron said.
Harry couldn't help but laugh out loud, and Hermione glared at them in shy annoyance.
Harry played with a heptagonal Muggle coin, Professor Hap had told him that he could only use the Apparition outside the Room of Requirement when the entire coin turned into a dazzling golden colour, but it currently had one corner left to change, and Harry had been hoping to fill it in before the holidays.
Ron glanced enviously at the coin, he had tried a few times along with Harry when he was practicing that magic, but it had never worked, and he had always had a desire to learn that spell before the twins did, so he can laugh at them well.
"Harry, the day of Professor Lupin's farewell party, is it confirmed?" Ron asked.
"The day after tomorrow," Harry said, "just a small get-together, some professors ... and us."
"That's odd," Ron said, "I thought Snape was going to spread about him being -- ouch!" Harry stomped on him in a panic, which sobered him up, "I mean, with the way Snape treats Professor Lupin, surely he wouldn't mind spilling his secrets ..."
Hermione said, "Professor Snape knew that from the beginning, and he had no need to do that."
"I mean--"
Harry said thoughtfully, "Maybe it's something that he's too proud to do, and Professor Lupin kind of helped him, didn't he? He doesn't know the Patronus Charm." Despite saying this, he still is unsure whether the silver glow he saw on Snape's wand that day was his own illusion or not.
Or maybe that magic had nothing to do with the Patronus Charm at all?
At that moment, Professor Hap walked over, holding a shallow stone basin in his hand, as the young wizards gathered around curiously.
"Is this ... Pensieve?" A sixth-year student called up and said excitedly, "Professor, is this a Pensieve?"
"It's just a replica." Felix said with a smile as he smoothly placed the stone basin on the small, low table, so everyone could see it, "We'll use it later."
The gray stone basin held some silvery substance that looked like liquefied clouds and melted silver, which slowly swirled around.
Harry remembered that in his first class on ancient runes, the professor had introduced this ancient type of magical artefact, which could store and observe memories. He thought of the unnamed book he had and couldn't help but speculate that perhaps it worked similarly?
Felix sat down and looked at the crowd with a smile, "As many of you are well aware, I will be teaching you an ancient magic for the last part of the school year, and I am glad to see that you have all mastered the runes that need to be used."
"Illumination - I named it myself, originally I only thought it could be used for illumination, but some time ago I discovered that it also has a notable restraining effect on dark creatures, and can also dispel the dark mists caused by magic ... In short, it's good magic that can be classified as defensive magic."
As he said that, Felix uttered odd phrases and pointed his fingers forward, he deliberately slowed down the process to make everything visible, and the young wizards strained their necks to look, afraid of missing a detail.
One after another, ancient runes appeared out of thin air, as if they had always been there, only invisible before. Smaller than the tip of a pinky finger, these ancient runes overlapped with each other to form an exquisite pattern, and the next second, a milky white light rippled and bloomed from the professor's fingertip.
"I just demonstrated the process of casting the spell, not showing its power, in fact, you can hardly assess the upper limit of this magic." Felix chuckled, "But I don't think anyone would be bored enough to drain their magic either-"
He suddenly paused as more than one young wizard would jump at the chance, he held his forehead, well he was the one who thought out of line, for him, it is the boring thing, but for the young wizard, it is quite fun entertainment.
So he warned again, "Even though this magic is safe enough and the greatest danger is nothing more than the discomfort of draining your magic, it is a very unpleasant feeling and all I can say is that if you pass out, you will be glad that you did."
The professor's seriousness made the students restrain themselves a little, and Felix continued, "Great power and difficulty in controlling it are the characteristics of ancient magic, but why is that? Has anyone ever thought about it?"
The members of the club discussed with gusto, after most of the year, they had long since ceased to be the novices in ancient runes, and when it came to practical runes, they are among the top group of people in the wizarding world.
Although, in Felix's opinion, it remained as weak as it was.
"Because it requires a lot of magic power?"
"Obviously not, my guess is that when the runes converge into a magic it will explode if something goes wrong."
Draco Malfoy suddenly spoke: "My father said that ancient magic is very dangerous, once it takes shape, it has a mind of its own, it will extract the magic power of the caster, and even life ..."
The discussion weakened, and the crowd looked at him with scowling eyes.
Felix clapped his hands, "Well, Malfoy, in a way, I can't say you're wrong, it comes down to the question, how do we get to master an ancient magic ..."
"First, the first step is to master all the ancient runes corresponding to the magic, preferably to the level of mastery, i.e. mastering the rune's meaning itself;"
A rune appeared in the air in front of him, which took various forms and then disappeared silently.
"If we take illumination as an example, there is only one core, signifying light, the sub-core runes are six, representing its different characteristics; then the outer layer, seventeen less important runes."
Felix showed all these runes in magic, and everyone present mastered them, at least the seven core ones, to the level of proficiency.
"The second step, we have to combine the runes in a specific order, in ancient times, this is a wizard's biggest secret, unless the closest kin, it will not be easily revealed ..."
"The reason is simple, the number of magic mastered by wizards at that time was small and often similar, once leaked, it was easy to be targeted by enemies."
"To complete this step, although it is not easy, it is not difficult either, the best way is a lot of practice. Except for certain out-of-the-way ancient magic, the danger involved in this step is not too great, especially with the illumination we're going to talk about today."
Hermione nodded continuously on the side, she practiced relatively smoothly, even if the rune sequence collapsed, it just turned into pure magic - she wrote down specific tips at the end of each practice, and kept looking through them during the weekdays.
"Finally, it comes to the key part, where the characteristics of ancient magic are also reflected the fullest - moulding."
Felix looked around, satisfied that all the students were listening with full attention, he continued, "The form of ancient magic is not fixed, the same magic, some people can use it as a fire phoenix, others only can use it like a fire bird, Fire Salamander, fire crab ..."
He gave an exaggerated example, and the young wizards laughed in a low voice.
"The first half of Malfoy's sentence is quite right, once ancient magic takes shape, it seems to have a mind of its own, it will instinctively extract the magic power of the caster and grow itself, like a greedy monster, at this time you must be able to control your own magic power enough to counter this suction;"
"In addition to that, ancient magic has no fixed form, so you have to make it obey your orders and run according to your will ... How much magic power do you want to put in? How long to maintain it? What form does it take? What traits to strengthen? How do you want it to end up?"
Felix asked a series of questions, and after waiting quietly for a few seconds, he spread his hands and said, "Unfortunately, there are no fixed answers to all of these, it's up to you to decide."
"So once you learn a powerful attack magic, you can imagine what it will cause when it gets out of control."
Harry imagined along the lines of the professor. If it is a flame type of ancient magic, which did not take shape well enough, but once by chance you cast it successfully, but as a result, you can not control it and be drained of magic power, I guess you can only watch the magic devour you ...
"But the good thing is--" Felix raised his voice to wake up a group of young wizards who had fallen into a terrible hallucination, "the illumination you are going to learn is not dangerous, at least you don't have to worry about being burned to ashes by flames, corroded by poisonous mist into pus, and being blasted by lightning into dry corpse ..."
The young wizards stared blankly in unison, they really didn't get much comfort from the professor's words.
"Does anyone know what this tells us?"
One of the twins muttered, "Don't let it take shape."
"That's right," Felix gave him an approving look, and Fred's mouth wide open as he blurted it out.
"Don't let your ancient magic take shape easily, repeat the second step until you feel very proficient, and then you can proceed to the next attempt."
"Each of you will be tested before you leave the school, and I will also write to your parents to explain the situation, and it is strictly forbidden to practice in private, it is stupid to be drained by your own magic, understand?"
The young wizards went silent, the professor had never been so strict before, so they nodded one by one like a pecking chick.
"Very well, you have almost a week to master the initial illumination," Felix pointed at the stone basin, "with the help of it."
Felix stood up and looked around, "Anyone wants to be the first to go in? Although it's a replica, I've kept some features of the Pensieve, and the way to enter is a bit like diving, which I personally find intriguing."
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