Chapter 299: Sudden Event
Chapter 299: Sudden Event
The medal ceremony went smoothly, and nothing "worrisome" happened. Felix thought Professor Trelawney had once again misread the signs. However, he couldn't be sure, as he couldn't enter the Hall of Prophecies in the Department of Mysteries to check if any new prophecies had formed.
The Department of Mysteries is located on the ninth floor of the Ministry of Magic. It is a secret research department dedicated to specific enigmas, and most of its operations are highly confidential. Even other Ministry departments' employees are tight-lipped about it.
Wizards who work in the Department of Mysteries are known as the Silent Ones. They are forbidden from revealing any details about their work or the location. Felix speculated that they might have signed stringent confidentiality agreements—allowing them to conduct dangerous research while being subject to more restrictions.
However, there are rumors that the Department of Mysteries has a mysterious room where a new prophecy orb appears every time a prophecy is made in the world. Since the founding of the Ministry of Magic, thousands of prophecies may have been recorded, waiting for future generations to verify them.
...
Felix played with a gold medal, which hung from a purple ribbon, awarded to him for his "outstanding achievements and efforts." Belby told him that a First-Class Medal is adorned with a green ribbon, representing Slytherin House.
"Merlin lived in the early Middle Ages, how could he be related to Slytherin House?" Felix asked curiously.
"Ha, some Pureblood Families trace their lineage back to Merlin, claiming their ancestors once followed him..."
"Is that true?"
"Who knows! But some families do have a long lineage."
Felix returned to his office. The next two weeks were the Easter break, and he could take the time to organize his recent work. But first, he needed to deal with the stack of Easter eggs that filled half the room. He suddenly felt a bit queasy; these chocolate candies could last him for a decade.
He picked some to send to Sirius and casually included the recent findings from the Marauder's Map.
It was a rather crude map, only about the size of a palm, irregular in shape, as if drawn by a child. It simply marked the castle, the Forbidden Forest, the Black Lake, and Hagrid's Hut.
Sirius took it with a look of disdain. The map was covered in tiny dots, making it dizzying to look at, but some names were written in small gold letters—those were the people Sirius cared about—Harry Potter, Remus Lupin, Severus Snape, Albus Dumbledore...
"There's also Peter Pettigrew, but he's not visible."
Sirius tore open the packaging of an Easter chocolate egg with his teeth and took a big bite. "Thanks, or I would have gone mad", he said, staring at the small piece of paper.
Kreacher muttered quietly, "The wasteful master goes to the Muggle community to play chess every day, bringing back a stench..."
"Shut up, Kreacher", Sirius snapped, his face red with anger.
Days passed, and Felix took the time to reorganize the magical items he had studied this year, cataloging the research materials in his Mind Chamber.
Mundungus went to the Far East as planned and brought back a large number of magical items. Felix had only one requirement—ancient.
As his knowledge grew, he increasingly felt like a younger version of Flitwick, who knew a lot of runes but could only use a small fraction of them.
"That's why I decided to write a book on runes."
Felix thought, and with each thought, magical symbols appeared in the air, golden, red, blue, green—like a rainbow river flowing through his office.
"Next—the Nameless Book. I remember Ron Weasley called it the Ghost Book, which is quite fitting."
In front of Felix, a semi-transparent book appeared. The first few pages were solid, but the rest were ethereal, much like the Nameless Book Harry had, though the two were not comparable.
He flipped to a new page, and one by one, Runic Scripts flew out from the colorful river, leaping into the book. Various forms of Runic Scripts appeared on the page—
A waterfall cascading down, a bolt of lightning splitting the sky, a bridge connecting two places, a spreading green mist...
Felix watched this with satisfaction. If he managed to compile all the Runic Scripts, it would mean he had fully grasped their magical symbolism, even though the process might take a long time.
Suddenly, a question came to mind. How did Ancient Magic originate?
Were wizards born with it? That seemed unlikely. Felix believed that ancient wizards discovered this magic while studying magical creatures and plants, accidentally triggering this inspiration.
The key difference was that, for magical creatures, their abilities were innate and did not require learning, much like how humans can run and jump. These creatures could naturally emit lightning and change their forms, but they were also limited by their physical bodies.
When ancient wizards transformed these innate abilities into Ancient Magic, they unexpectedly broke free from these constraints. The challenge for them was to control it and prevent it from going out of control. However, in doing so, they also made the magic more powerful.
Felix felt a stirring in his heart and took out a stack of parchment. This was Slytherin's manuscript, which he had decided to seal away because of Salazar Slytherin's cruel methods and the unsuitability of the Runic Scripts for his own path. However, now it seemed that the two paths had intersected.
Unconsciously, he had reached a point where he could analyze others' paths using his own.
Felix skipped over the bloody and cruel methods and examined the records of magical creatures, especially the three parchments he had previously selected as suitable for himself. These recorded Slytherin's early thoughts on bloodline magic: how to strip the innate abilities of magical creatures and convert them into spells for wizards to use.
This seemed to align with Felix's hypothesis—Salazar Slytherin had once considered retracing the steps of ancient wizards, seeking inspiration from the broader magical world.
Unfortunately, he eventually abandoned this approach.
Felix couldn't help but wonder what Salazar Slytherin had pursued after giving up on this path. Recalling what Helena had told him, it seemed that Slytherin had delved deeper into forbidden areas, his appearance becoming increasingly terrifying. This suggested that Slytherin had experimented on himself, integrating the bloodlines of magical creatures, and possibly more than one.
Did Salazar Slytherin ultimately become completely inhuman?
Rowena Ravenclaw's words echoed in his mind, "We ourselves are magical creatures."
What made someone a magical creature? Or, to put it another way, what changes would a wizard undergo if called a magical creature? Felix had no way of knowing, but he believed that since Rowena Ravenclaw had told him this so seriously, it must be a significant threshold.
And it was likely that Salazar Slytherin had crossed this threshold by grafting bloodlines. What about the other three? What did they rely on?
So far, he only had some understanding of Rowena Ravenclaw. From her manuscripts, she was a true polymath, excelling in alchemy, transfiguration, spells, and potions, but her deepest research was in Memory Magic.
As Felix delved deeper into Memory Magic, he began to wonder: Was the Rowena Ravenclaw he had seen in the Room of Requirement just a memory?
Or was it her in person?
What would Memory Nodes ultimately develop into, and was it related to the soul?
He had too many questions, but no one could answer them. He could only continue on his own.
On the last day of the Easter break, Felix gathered his thoughts, preparing to face the final stretch of the school year. But Dumbledore appeared with a grave expression, bringing bad news.
"Nearly Headless Nick is leaving. He wants to see you one last time."
(End of Chapter)
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