"Mother, you always know everything." Helena said excitedly, she had always had a feeling that something special would happen when she appeared in front of this statue with the crown.
Now, the magic her mother had left had worked.
She had repaired the crown, removed the curse attached to it and, holding it, Tom felt a soft warm breeze run through his body, sweeping the weariness from his mind and body.
"Mother..." Helena also felt her mother's feelings, but unfortunately she was now a ghost and could no longer experience that warmth.
[Ravenclaw Crown (5 stars): a crown left by Rowena Ravenclaw, used to make learning more efficient, as long as it can withstand Ravenclaw imbued knowledge].
"Imbued knowledge?" Tom was curious, did it hold the knowledge Ravenclaw had gathered throughout her life? It would be a priceless treasure.
"You'll find out when you wear it." Helena flashed an inexplicable smile.
Tom felt there was some trickery in it, but at best it was a joke and would cause him no harm, so he put on the Ravenclaw crown.
With the crown on, Tom felt like he was in a noisy Great Hall, with a million voices in his ears saying.
"There are ten species of pureblood fire dragons, and they occasionally mate with each other to produce rare hybrids."
"The trick to the levitation spell is that subtle hand movement."
"An incantation is a spell that adds a specific property to an object or creature, and to do it successfully requires concentration, as well as correctly waving the wand and accurately reciting the spell."
...
It was a matter of seconds before the sound got louder, as if he had accidentally pressed the volume button with his headphones on, and Tom grunted, feeling a little distracted, as if he had been staring at his cell phone for a while on the bus. Tom felt a tightness in his chest and wondered what would become of him if he kept listening.
He took off his crown, but the dizziness didn't go away until he walked over to the window and let the cool breeze blow.
"Not bad." Helena floated over to Tom and looked at him with a hint of praise.
"It's the crown feature, it pours knowledge into your head madly. Your performance is one of the best I've ever seen. Back then, my mother would occasionally lend the crown to her students and faint immediately after wearing it."
"Why does it have to be like that...?" Tom felt less like throwing up and turned to Helena and spat.
"If you want knowledge, you have to pay a price." Helena said matter-of-factly, "My mother's class was wonderful: many students wanted to learn more and had to pay some price in theory, even if that price didn't measure up to the knowledge. Like how the rule of requiring a teacher's signature in the forbidden section of the Hogwarts library came from Mum's way of teaching."
Tom: "..."
Let's just say "Ravenclaw" treats knowledge like treasure.
"I think it's time for you to go to class." Helena changed the subject and pointed to the wall clock, reminding Tom that it was almost time for class. Tom hurried to put away his crown and ran for the door.
Glancing behind Tom's back, Helena sighed and whispered in an inaudible voice, "Is it coincidence...or fate?"
This Defense Against the Dark Arts class was like answering reporters' questions at a press conference. The little wizards' curiosity about Tom's experience didn't vanish overnight, but intensified.
"All right," Tom, who had been mobbed by the students, had no choice but to give the young wizards on stage a selective account of his experiences, but he certainly could not mention Horcruxes; otherwise, Dumbledore would have knocked on his door and invited him in for tea.
The concept of Horcruxes was so evil that the magical world kept it secret, and even books dealing with the dark arts merely glossed over it. For example, Poison Magic contains a great deal of advanced dark magic, but still doesn't delve into the depths of the Horcruxes.
"The most evil of magical inventions, the Horcrux, will not be discussed or instructed here" are the exact words of the book. The author's attitude is also very clear: Horcruxes are too evil even for dark wizards.
The definition of dark magic has always been somewhat ambiguous in the magical community, but in general it is defined as magic that causes irreversible damage. This basically includes all magic directed at the soul.
Among all dark magics, Horcruxes are the most evil. The reason is that it can request to split the soul. After the wizard who made the Horcruxes is destroyed and all Horcruxes die, they cannot become ghosts or be reincarnated. Instead, they will be trapped in an illusory world of torment for all eternity. This is almost impossible for a wizard to accept.
It is possible for a magician to become a ghost, but most magicians do not choose to do so. If people don't choose to do it, there must be a reason not to. It's like enrolling in a specialty, and it's not for nothing that everyone is deterred from taking the Biohazard course! If you have to go against the grain, chances are you'll be screwed to tears. If you want to do the opposite, there are some schools that offer Biomaterials Environmental Studies, and it is recommended that people who think this way go for it, and get their debuffs all over the place.
What do you get in return for paying such a high price for a Horcrux?
It is the existence of "worse than the lowliest wandering soul" after the death of the main body.
That is, the Horcrux does not allow you to "come back as lightning" after death as if you were wearing resurrection armor, it only guarantees that you are "immortal" and that there is a process to bring you fully back to life. Without Peter Pettigrew, Voldemort would have been a rat in the Albanian woods for a long time.
The excessive cost and this form of "immortality" deterred even dark wizards from calling Horcruxes the most evil of magical inventions.
Because wizards are so secretive about Horcruxes, only a few in the magical community know about them, and the rest know the name at best. At Dumbledore's request, all research into Horcruxes was banned at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and all materials detailing Horcruxes were removed, with Dumbledore himself keeping the book "Secrets of the Advanced Dark Arts," which detailed how to make Horcruxes.
For younger wizards, it is better not to even know the term. The main reason is the allure of the Horcrux: immortality! What does a young wizard know about the cost of immortality? Knowing about Horcruxes could arouse curiosity and the desire to try them.
That's not good.
Tom didn't even mention the term "Horcruxes" to the young wizards, just to be on the safe side. He replaced it with "evil spirits".