Whilst trimming flower branches, her mind constantly pondered matters concerning magical power and understanding of magic.
Spells? Lys wasn't particularly interested. You see, spells were just habits similar to conditioned reflexes, and the 'standard' in standard spells simply meant increasing the degree to which wizards 'believed.'
Otherwise, spells around the world should have the same pronunciation.
So Lys had always firmly believed that when a person's understanding of magic was deep enough, their magic would serve the wizard.
And if a person's magical power was strong enough, they could use magic to forcibly achieve some purposes, but precision would be an unmentionable weakness.
So magical power and magic were different—one was the weapon itself, the other was the method of using the weapon.
Either overwhelm the opponent with torrential magical power, or have such refined technique that you could dismantle magical barriers several times your own strength.
After vanishing the withered branches and leaves, she squeezed herself into the swing. Lys looked up at the stars in the sky, lightly tapping her wand to make the swing rock gently by itself.
In the creaking sound of the swing, Lys felt her own magical power. It had no known origin or destination, but it surged through her bones and blood, dissolving into the space around her.
She could easily sense them, command, manipulate, and control them, but she couldn't make them change like Professor Flitwick had—as if alive—transforming into that three-headed flame dog, transforming into daffodils that could raise water waves. How to put it?
Her power had a touch of stiffness, as if she was directly hurling massive amounts of magical power out, whilst the professor's magic had... fluidity?
Lys didn't know how to describe it. In any case, that slight difference made Lys's magic use feel like wielding a two-metre club. Although the destructive power was indeed shocking, it just wasn't as refined as someone else's metre-and-a-half stick.
She also tried to transform flames into something, but what appeared was merely the appearance created by transfiguration. Though extremely detailed, it wasn't Professor Flitwick's lifelike effect.
Because Lys used too much force, that ball of flame exploded with a bang.
Sighing helplessly, she waved at the two black heads poking out from the window in unison, indicating she was fine, then lay back on the swing, making the swing chains creak with a groan.
Looking up, she saw Dad carrying Fry upstairs. The warm yellow light cast their shadows on the curtains, and it was clear that Fry had grabbed Dad's hair again.
The constant creaking of the swing was quite obvious in the night, making Lys feel rather embarrassed. She simply got up and returned to the materials room, remembering she hadn't finished tidying up.
Seeing the things on the desk reminded her what she'd forgotten. She stared at those symbols for almost the entire night without moving, feeling she was about to remember, but just couldn't lift that veil of mystery despite being so close.
This feeling made her uncomfortable all over.
She took out a notebook and wrote down all the places she'd been and things she'd done over the years that could be recorded. Even things that couldn't be recorded were written with strange code names, carefully recalling in her mind.
On her third reading, she finally knew—these were the symbols on the stone archway she'd seen at the Ministry of Magic, and she'd only had the chance to see it because Dad couldn't use lifts.
This matter was really too, too, too trivial...
No wonder she couldn't remember where she'd seen it for ages.
But what did these symbols mean?
They didn't look like runes, nor any script she knew...
If these symbols hadn't twice challenged Lys's memory, she probably wouldn't have noticed them at all.
After intermittent research for about two months, Lys still didn't know what they were. She even used an owl to consult Professor Babbling as a Hogwarts graduate, but the professor indicated these weren't any script she knew.
Unable to get answers, Lys pasted those notes on her desk as a reminder.
She decided to inquire through Lucius about what that stone archway was.
In his reply, Lucius told her that the room with the stone archway had once been used as an execution chamber.
But it took away not just life, but also souls, and some traces wizards left in the world—meaning the world's forgetting of that wizard.
Some in the Wizengamot thought such execution was too severe, so they abandoned it and stuffed it into the Department of Mysteries.
However, the letter mostly discussed how the British Ministry of Magic was becoming increasingly picky about those trade contracts, telling Lys to prepare and dump the burden when appropriate.
After corresponding with Lucius, Lys promptly resigned from that position. Even though she hadn't recovered some of her previous advance payments, she wasn't short of that money now.
Leaving behind that colleague who was overwhelmed by domestic red tape, Lys walked away without a care.
Regarding those symbols she now had clues about, Lys researched materials more enthusiastically, occasionally holding that Lamb family collection book to deepen her impressions.
But as research deepened, Lys still gave up.
Because Lys could find too little information. Magic related to death was always terribly dangerous, and things related to souls made Lys both curious and wary.
She feared making some irreversible and foolish mistake like in fifth year, so she could only abandon continuous research.
But to prevent herself from forgetting, she pasted those symbols inside the cover of Grindelwald's newspaper clippings.
Afterward, Lys's days were quite comfortable. Those three black spheres from China sold for a handsome price, and Lys's display of power at sea had suppressed some restless people. Some came specifically to negotiate cooperation, and part of the business was even brought into the open.
Even though Senna's identity as a werewolf's wife was criticised, an advanced potions master still held extremely high status, which also brought some benefits to Lys's legitimate business.
Dad managed the related accounts. Lys only felt she seemed increasingly skilled with those ledgers, but she still immediately threw the books to Noah whenever new business came.
During this period, Lys even taught lessons to two noble families who demanded Senna provide potions.
One noble family used Noah's werewolf identity to threaten Senna into selling potions to them, or they'd prevent Noah from being a wizard. Senna dismissed them with two withering looks.
Another family directly sent a house-elf to try following Senna for unknown purposes, which Crunch discovered and told Lys.
This angered Lys so much she spent heavily, paying no small price openly and secretly to block all material orders for those two families.
This forced them to order goods from far-away Mexico, but even so, Lys robbed them halfway whilst masked...
Feeling that wasn't enough to vent her anger, she stubbornly waited half a month for opportunities to beat them up properly.
Only when she saw those two family heads hiding in St. Mungo's and German hospitals respectively whilst being constantly pursued for goods did Lys finally feel satisfied.
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