Hermione's face turned bright red, and she forgot all about trying to get George and Fred into trouble, even though it wasn't the first time Ivan had kissed her.
They entered the Entrance Hall together. The students they met along the way were polarised. Some greeted them warmly, while the rest stayed away as if they were the plague.
Ivan, of course, knew exactly what was going on. The young witches and wizards who were avoiding him must have believed the Daily Prophet's claims, or perhaps they had been ordered by their families to stay away from him during the summer holidays.
Those who still believed in him were probably his adoring admirers.
Harry was also keenly aware of the avoidance of others, and was immediately discouraged, unable to understand why so many people would want to believe in the Ministry's nonsense.
"Because of the power of public opinion, of course!" Ivan explained. "Muggle-like governments are authoritative in their own right, and most people would choose to believe anything they say, if it wasn't too outrageous, and with the Daily Prophet's information bombing, even more people do!"
Ivan was well aware of how easy it was for the authorities to manipulate public opinion and distort the truth. If even a bag of washing powder could be claimed to be a biological weapon, Voldemort's life or death would be up to them.
"Yes! Those wizards can only see what the Ministry wants them to see, and if only there were another influential newspaper willing to report the truth…" Hermione, having recovered from her earlier embarrassment, began to speak, then paused and said regretfully.
"Even Lavender believed the words of the Daily Prophet."
"Don't worry, I'll convince her. It'll only take a few moments!" Ron promised, thumping his chest. His relationship with Lavender had improved by leaps and bounds since the dance last year, and they had become a couple within a few days.
As they chatted, Ivan and the others sat down at the Gryffindor table and enjoyed their breakfast.
Professor Binns, a ghost, was his usual self. He didn't seem to care much about class order, as he went through the entire lesson word for word.
The boring history of magic made the audience drowsy, and Hermione was the only one who took notes.
Even before the lesson began, Ivan chose a secluded spot and began leafing through The Book of Hieroglyphs.
Since he had nothing better to do the night before, he skimmed through the two books that Nicolas Flamel had given him.
The other, the Book of Abraham in Judaea, contained a great deal of advanced alchemical knowledge, and even the method of making a Philosopher's Stone was unearthed by Nicolas Flamel.
However, the entire text was written in a mixture of Latin, Arabic, Chaldean, and Old Syriac, so he could not understand it without a translation.
Ivan also believed that the Book of Hieroglyphs would help him most quickly.
These were, after all, Nicolas Flamel's research notes, and the knowledge was all collated and concise.
In addition, there were hundreds of different magical runes and thousands of ways to arrange them, as well as ways to use the Philosopher's Stone!
"I knew it. Last summer, my teacher was researching something related to the Philosopher's Stone…" Ivan muttered to himself as he reached a certain page.
The page depicted an eccentric armguard-like device with a central recess in which was mounted a bright red, irregular stone.
He had seen the same thing on a research drawing by Nicolas Flamel a year earlier.
After reading the contents of the book, Ivan soon learned the purpose of the device.
Generally speaking, one would have to set up an Alchemy Array in order to use the large amount of magic contained within the stone. It would be somewhat inconvenient in battle, as the enemy would not give you time to prepare.
This was why the armguard that Nicolas Flamel had developed was so important. It was akin to a magick-guiding device, capable of extracting the magic stored within a Philosopher's Stone and using it to cast spells.
This is probably the trick that Nicolas Flamel used to gain an abundance of magic in battle.
Seeing this, Ivan understood that he had one more task to do this year, and that was to create this alchemical device!
During the next lesson, Ivan found the method of converting substances using an Alchemy Array in the Book of Hieroglyphs, as well as the recipe for the Elixir of Life…
Ivan was very excited. It was one thing to turn stone into gold, but at his current level of alchemy it was easy to make money, but immortality was a different matter.
It was the ultimate dream of the vast majority of people.
This was especially true when it came to quality longevity. After all, potions also had the effect of delaying aging.
There was a reason for Nicolas Flamel's elderly appearance.
The first was that taking too many potions greatly reduced the resistance of the body to them.
Second, it took Nicolas Flamel twenty years to analyse and create the stone, and he would be fifty or sixty years old by the time he took the Elixir of Life.
What a pity, indeed!
He, on the other hand, was very young and could maintain his body at its peak state for a long time after taking the potion!
Yvonne was overcome with emotion at the thought, but she forced it down.
Steady, steady…take it slow!
This is not the time to be distracted by studying these Alchemy Arrays…
Ivan forced his gaze away from the array and back to the device that channeled the magic needed to be studied in the near future.
[Ding, after the host's tireless efforts, History of Magic class has ended. Please continue to work hard.]
Overall Evaluation: Low
Commentator: Binns Cuthbert
Reward: GPA*2
…
While Ivan was trying to figure out how to make the alchemical device, the system prompt in his head rang.
Ivan was stunned for a moment before he realised that History of Magic was over. Professor Binns floated out of the classroom and looked in his direction before leaving.
Apparently, the senile-looking ghost professor had discovered that he was not paying attention.
It made sense. It was rare for him not to stand up and answer the question.
Ivan rubbed his nose. 'I guess I'll have to be more careful in the future. GPA is very important when it comes to improving my academic efficiency.'
The next lesson was Potions, and nobody wanted to be late for Snape's class, and Ivan was no exception, so he quickly gathered his textbooks and left the classroom.
"Ivan, why were you so distracted in class today?" Hermione asked, catching up with him.
Today, when Professor Binns asked her a question, Yvonne did not argue, much to Hermione's discomfort.
"I'm just working on a very important alchemy subject, and I'm getting a little carried away… Besides, I've read about the history of the Giant War, and it doesn't matter if I don't listen," Ivan said with a smile.
Both Harry and Ron were envious of Ivan's ease of speech.
Professor Binns's lecture was so boring that the two of them fell asleep listening to it and played the game for a while, now begging Hermione to lend them her notes for History of Magic next time she had an exam…