Neither of them moved for a second.
"Are we supposed to…" Harry gestured vaguely toward the floating books.
"Touch them," Nova said.
Hermione didn't hesitate. The moment her fingers brushed the cover, the book snapped open. Its pages fluttered rapidly, far faster than any normal book should, before settling all at once. Her eyes widened, pupils dilating as information flooded her awareness—not as memories being forced into her mind, but as concepts unfolding and locking themselves into place.
She practically bounced where she stood, eyes locked onto the open grimoire as if it might disappear the moment she looked away.
"This—this is amazing," she said, breathless, fingers hovering just above the page. "My magic is called Script Magic."
Harry blinked. "Script… like writing?"
"More like structure," Hermione said quickly, excitement spilling into her voice. "It's based on rules, logic, and verified principles. It isn't just about casting spells and hoping they work. It's about understanding exactly why they work, how every part fits together, and only then being able to use them properly."
Nova folded his arms, studying her closely. "And what does it do?"
Hermione looked up at him, her grin sharp and bright with barely contained excitement. "With verified knowledge, I can use any kind of spell. Any type. Any attribute. I'm not limited to a single attribute."
The words landed heavily between them.
Harry stared at her, his mind taking a moment to catch up. "Any… type?"
He glanced instinctively at Nova, remembering what he had been told earlier. In this world, magic simply didn't work that way. People were born with a single magic attribute—fire, water, wind, earth, lightning, or something similar—and that attribute defined everything about their spellcasting.
Their mana naturally aligned with it. Their grimoire only responded to it. Every spell they could ever learn belonged to that one category. One affinity, one path, one set of attributes for life. No exceptions.
That was why Nova had warned them earlier. The rules of this world were strict, and they had no idea how foreign magic systems would react once they accepted grimoires here. Gaining a grimoire wasn't just a power boost—it was a binding.
There was a real risk that the moment they accepted one, their original magic might stop responding entirely. Their spells, instincts, and years of practice from their own world could become unusable, overwritten by laws they didn't yet understand.
It would mean starting over from scratch. New magic, new rules, new limits. Everything they had built until now could have gone down the drain the moment they touched those grimoires.
And yet, it was a risk they had been willing to take. The prospect of gaining new magic and traveling to another world had been too exciting to ignore. That was also why they hadn't told their parents—because there was no chance they would have been allowed to take that kind of gamble.
Meanwhile, Hermione continued excitedly, "Yes. Any of them. Script Magic doesn't lock me into a single element. If I understand a spell and verify the theory behind it, I can execute it."
Harry stared at her like she'd just grown wings.
"If this works the way it says," Hermione went on, barely able to contain herself, "then I don't lose anything. I don't have to abandon my old magic. I just… have to understand it properly."
Nova didn't say anything, but his eyes narrowed slightly as he listened. What she had just described felt uncomfortably familiar to him. Knowledge-driven execution. Logic forming the backbone of power. Results that only manifested when understanding was complete. The resemblance was close enough to set off warning bells in his mind, even if he didn't voice a single thought.
For a brief moment, the overlap made him frown.
Then his gaze shifted back to the cover of her grimoire. Three leaves were clearly etched into it, glowing faintly with mana. Not four. That distinction mattered more than it seemed, because in this world, the number of leaves was never just decoration—it defined limits, ceilings, and the kind of power a grimoire could truly hold.
"Then what are the limitations?" Nova asked.
Harry nodded. "There have to be limitations for magic like that."
Hermione didn't hesitate. "There are several."
She took a breath, her excitement cooling into something sharper and more focused. "First—verification isn't optional. Even if I have a spellbook with perfect instructions, diagrams, and a step-by-step method, I still can't cast the spell until I personally verify every part of the theory myself."
Harry frowned. "Meaning?"
"Meaning," she said carefully, "I have to reconstruct the logic from the ground up until there are no gaps. If I skip a step, or just accept something because 'that's how it works,' the magic won't respond."
Nova nodded once. That sounded more reasonable.
Hermione continued, tapping the page. "Second—affinity. According to this, my natural affinity is water magic."
Harry relaxed slightly. "Okay, that sounds more normal."
"It is," Hermione agreed. "Water-based spells cost me about three times less mana than other elements. They're easier for me to learn and execute."
"And the rest?" Nova asked.
She winced faintly. "Everything else—fire, wind, earth, lightning, light, darkness, space—costs roughly three times more mana than water magic. And that's before factoring in complexity."
Harry let out a low whistle. "So you can do everything… but you pay for it."
"Exactly," Hermione said, then continued, "The third limitation is that there are certain attributes labeled as supreme. Time, life, death, fate—things like that."
Harry stiffened. "You can use those too? Isn't that… a bit much?"
Hermione shook her head. "No. The cost is extreme. The baseline mana requirement is about twenty-five times higher than a standard water spell, and it increases even more depending on scale, duration, and abstraction."
Harry stared at her. "That's insane."
"It's meant to be," she replied. "Those spells aren't forbidden, but they're not practical. According to the grimoire, unless very specific conditions are met, attempting them is… self-destructive."
Silence settled between them.
Harry looked at her, then at the grimoire, then back again. "So you're not broken. You're just… heavily regulated."
Hermione let out a slow breath, the earlier excitement finally settling into something steadier. "That's a good way to put it."
Nova, unseen, let out a quiet sigh of relief. But in his mind, the comparison was already clear. Her power wasn't limitless like his, nor did it override the world through sheer authority. Where his strength could force outcomes through understanding alone, hers was locked behind structure, cost, and verification.
His power could ignore gaps when necessary. Hers would collapse the moment a shortcut appeared. It wasn't weaker—just narrower, harsher, and far less forgiving. And unlike him, she couldn't wield supreme elements freely, not unless she met some unknown conditions.
Nova paused, a quiet thought clicking into place. He turned toward Hermione and spoke evenly.
"Use any spell you already know."
Harry frowned, looking between them. "What do you mean?"
Hermione froze. It took her only a moment to understand what Nova was pointing at, and when she did, the excitement on her face faded into something more subdued.
Without saying anything, she took out her wand, then briefly pointed it toward a nearby chair. "Wingardium Leviosa."
Nothing happened, the chair didn't even tremble let alone float. There wasn't even a flicker of magic.
Hermione lowered her wand slightly and tried again, almost out of habit. "Wingardium Leviosa."
Still nothing.
Harry looked from the chair back to her. "It didn't work?"
Hermione shook her head once. "No."
She glanced down at the open grimoire, then back at her wand. "It fits the rules. I know the spell, but I never reconstructed its theory myself. I learned the incantation, the wand movement, and the intent, but I never verified how it actually functions."
She let out a slow breath. "So as far as Script Magic is concerned, I don't properly understand it."
Harry processed that for a moment. "So… your old spells?"
"Unavailable," Hermione replied. "Until I verify them one by one."
The implication settled in. Every spell she had cast instinctively, every piece of muscle memory built over years, was now locked behind understanding she had never needed to question before.
Nova watched her in silence. This confirmed what he had suspected. Her magic didn't erase previous knowledge, but it refused to acknowledge anything that hadn't been personally validated. Now she needs to go through all her previous knowledge and verify it one by one.
Hermione tightened her grip on her wand briefly, then relaxed it. "I'll have to rebuild everything," she said evenly. "Starting from the basics."
Harry exhaled slowly. "That's rough."
"It is," Hermione agreed. She looked back at the grimoire, already reading again. "But at least it's consistent. And now I know exactly what I'm dealing with."