"People are agitated, scared, and excited at the same time." A girl said while bobbing her head.
"Oh, well, you are absolutely right, Luna ...." Ginny agreed with her from the sidelines and tiptoed along with the crowd to get a better look.
In the ring, Felix addressed the crowd, "There's nothing wrong with getting a little exposure. Mr. Poliakov, I'll watch over your demonstration." He waved his wand and the shattered wooden planks transformed into a human-shaped target.
Poliakov drew his wand, and raised it over his shoulder, as he recited the incantation under his breath, "Turbine nigro Pluma!" A black whirlwind gushed out from the tip of the wand and flew swiftly toward the human-shaped target. The young wizards could clearly see the black wind mixed with even deeper black feathers, which swirled just as fast.
After a tooth-aching sound, the human-shaped target was battered and scraped. When both the black wind and the black feathers disappeared, all that remained were gashes that looked like the jaws of a fish.
There was an audible intake of breath from offstage, and many students jumped up and down on tiptoe to get a better look.
"If this hits a person ...," said Neville, wincing at the wounds on the target, "I still think the stunning spell works best."
Seamus patted him on the shoulder, "The others don't think so ..." Neville's eyes trailed across the room, and he saw Draco and several Slytherin students applauding enthusiastically, then he looked left and right, there were quite a lot of excited people.
"This is the Black Feather spell - creating a whirlwind to quickly approach the enemy, but the main focus is those black feathers, they work like tiny knives, and they are exceptionally swift and corrosive ..." Poliakov introduced the spell.
Felix and the others listened quietly, at which point the location of the human-sized target's wound began to turn black, seemingly verifying that his words were true.
" So can the general healing spell heal this wound?" Felix asked softly.
"Uh, it's best to use a counter-spell, because the effects of other spells are rather poor ... but it more or less works." Poliakov said, "That's why the professor suggested that we should only use it when we are surrounded by dangerous creatures in the wild, like wolves."
"And I practiced this magic all the time imagining myself surrounded by a pack of vicious creatures and having to fight back ..." he began to tell the story of his mindset when learning this dark magic.
Felix saw the young wizards' thoughtful and eager expressions, so he had to speak up and remind them, "This method may have some effect, but it is not suitable for Hogwarts students, since it is built according to the well-established system of Durmstrang, perhaps I should convey your interest to Professor Moody, he must be very interested."
The young wizards moved their heads away nervously.
Felix could understand their thoughts, after all, he also had been restless when he was at school. Who doesn't want to master powerful and eye-catching magic? But when he became a professor, he underwent a certain change of heart. For the Hogwarts students, did they really need dark magic?
He had thought deeply about this question and came to the conclusion that the answer is negative. Hogwarts is not a military school, it is a place where young wizards are trained to use their magic wisely, with a degree of targeted mentorship based on what each person is good at. As for protecting oneself, the class Defense Against the Dark Arts is enough to deal with common dangers in general, especially since the quality of teaching in the past few years is actually not that bad, and the number of people who chose to apply for Auror has increased a lot over previous years.
Felix did envision exposing upperclassmen to some dark magic, but concentrating on dark magic for a short period of time could easily breed darkness in one's heart, so he might as well not do it.
"If we can avoid the side effects, why don't we try to learn one or two?" Ron asked in a low voice.
"Because you won't know if you're affected or not, as you might be changing implicitly," Hermione said pointedly, " For high-level wizards, there are plenty of ways for them to self-assess and rectify those changes."
"Maybe you're right, but I'm sure normal dark magic doesn't work like that." Ron spoke with great conviction.
The exchange continued -
Cedric demonstrated an application of ancient runes and - to Felix's surprise - he chose a route he had once abandoned - incorporating runes into modern magic.
Cedric smiled coyly, " I thought of it during a practice of the 'Flow of Water' Rune, its magical image resembled a spring, and I immediately thought of the Aguamenti Charm, and wondered if I could fuse the two, it took me a long time to succeed."
Felix smiled, it seems everyone has grown, he only wondered how far Cedric's research would go.
At that moment, Cedric held his wand in his right hand and quickly outlined a Rune in midair. The Rune flickered twice and then turned into a shadow that looked like a waterfall or a spring, dimly shining down with a glow.
Cedric nervously reached out his wand, the tip of which poked into the illusion created by the rune.
"Aguamenti!" He grasped the opportunity to shout, his wand glowed, and the spell, with a flash, it seemed to absorb the rune's virtual reflection and became three flowing streams of water that swirled around the tip of the wand.
"The next step is throwing them out--" Cedric said carefully, then he forcefully pointed his wand forward, the water stream darted towards the previous human-sized target and made a dull thud, which sent the target far away against the wall.
The young wizards stared blankly at the target at the corner, and if the one who had been hit by the spell was a living human being, they could already imagine the sight of him groaning on the ground while covering his stomach in pain.
"Why do I get the feeling that his spell can knock people out ..? What kind of magic is this?" Ron asked in amazement.
"It should be a Water-Making Spell, I saw it in my sixth-year charms textbook when I went through it, Cedric happens to be in the sixth year too, but ..." Hermione's expression tangled, "From what I read in the spell description it's not this powerful, could it be, as he said, the use of the rune?"
Her fingertips flashed with a bright rune that flew around.
Many seniors were talking and exchanging opinions. They knew what kind of spell Water-Making Spell is, the effect is not that potent at all, but after Cedric's improvement, the power seems to be no worse than some attack spells.
Next, a few more champions came forward one after another to show their abilities. It's hard to say whether these young wizards on the sidelines learned something, or were just simply watching, but at least it opened up their horizons.
And Felix obviously felt a change in the mindset of the champions, perhaps they are still rivals at the moment, but they also didn't mind being a little more honest, or rather, both enemies and friends, gained empathy for each other?
Felix pondered in his mind whether he should organize another exchange - there had been no similar event since the last failed exchange with the Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
After the exchange, the young wizards were very curious about the skills shown by the different schools, but they could only manage to reach Cedric alone, so he had to demonstrate them a few times in public.
"Timing is important, and I still haven't figured out some principles behind this part, so I'm going to ask Professor Hap for advice." Cedric said.
At the Magic Rune Club assembly, Felix revealed the mystery of this part of knowledge.
"I did discover this phenomenon as well, just like Mr. Diggory mentioned. It was just a hypothesis I had first-" Felix sat by the warm fireplace and glanced around at everyone.
"Is it possible for ancient magic and modern magic to merge?"
The members of the club froze, most of them were unfamiliar with the history, they just knew that ancient wizards used ancient magic, and they use modern magic, not many of them were clear about how the transition was made in between.
"Of course, there is so much thinking involved that if I wanted to explain it in detail, it might require more than one book-length, so I will briefly summarize it by expressing that after a lot of thinking and experimenting, I have made a breakthrough in the direction of whether ancient runes and modern magic can be integrated."
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