Even worse was that one of those tomes was merely pure theory without any actual spells while the other had a single half finished piece of magic that was stupidly complex as it involved both a ritual and a spell and both were incomplete. It was fairly easy to guess how irritating it was for Nick to have to slowly piece together both of those via a LOT of trial and error. The plus side however was that he had figured out how Voldemort and his death eaters flew without brooms. That black smoky stuff they turn into is a by product of twisting this exact piece of magic in a dark direction.-
Nick himself had no plan to ever use this magic personally since he was planning to undergo the Animagus transformation. He was almost ninety percent sure about what he would turn into thanks to the patronum charm he had been practicing periodically. He finally summoned his corporeal Patronus and was not surprised to find that it was none other than a celestial bird. It was huge by the way , like twelve feet tall huge. Appearance wise it looked most like a phoenix with an extra set of wings directly below the first and long tail feathers.-
Animagi tended to transform into their Patronus animal so Nick felt he was likely no different in this regard. The biggest problem once again came in the form of the phenomena that accompanied the birth of a magical beast. Him turning into an elf had not gotten that phenomena since he was not being born so much as elevated to a higher state. Unfortunately arithmancy was proving horribly difficult to make progress in and the phenomena he had experienced twice needed a high mastery of the field to call down.-
Shaking his head to clear away those thought Nick went back to reading the theory tome on flight magic. While fairly complicated the field of magic could be boiled down roughly into a group of five rules. The first was that the magic was almost always very draining on the mana reserves of the witch or wizard. The second rule was that the magic must always have a stabilization component or the user will certainly go up but at an uneven rate. The third rule was similar to the second as it was that the magic must always contain a control component so that the user could steer.-
The fourth rule was that the magic must always have a way to negate the effects of gravity or else the cost goes up dramatically. The final rule was the magic of flying through space was different than that of the atmosphere. Some of these rules made Nick think that the person who wrote this tome had definitely had their own method to fly and had personally experienced these things. Wizards had tried to reach the moon several times according to the history books after all and someone with flight magic had a good chance of succeeding if they were prepared enough.-
Nick didn't put away the tome even after Hermione walked down from the girls dormitory since he had no need to hide this topic from her. "Is there actually a spell that let's one fly without a broom?" she asked curiously after reading the title. Nick nodded "From what I can tell based on this book and one other there is likely several. The annoying part is that the library doesn't have any of them. Well complete spells anyways." he said honestly. "Perhaps they are in the forbidden section?" she suggest but nick shook his head.-
"I checked there already , there weren't." he said with a shrug. Hermione frowned at that answer "I can't believe you broke into the forbidden section , it's forbidden for a reason you know." she scolded him and he scoffed. "Most of those books contain dangerous or illegal knowledge and or are cursed which is why they are forbidden for all but those who get permission. I have no interest in dark magic and those curses are childs play to get around so I barely visit that section." He explained disdainfully.-
For being "forbidden" that section was a huge disappointment to Nick as all the information there was either on topics he didn't care about like the dark arts or on highly advanced but usually illegal topics like potion recipes like Polyjuice. Hermione looked both relieved that he wasn't interested in the stuff in the forbidden section and worried about his clear disregard for the rules. She knew he broke at least four every single day for a fact as she has seen him do it but they were usually the rules that seemed pointless like the no spells in the hallways rule.