At the far end of the Pensieve chamber, an entire wall shimmered like a mirror.
But this was no ordinary mirror—it was enchanted, and rather than reflecting Wyzett's own image or the room behind him, it revealed a vision of a decrepit, abandoned stairwell.
Cautious as ever, Wyzett slipped seamlessly into Ancient Magic: Self-Molding (Devil's Snare Form). After a quick magical probe for traps, he stepped through the mirror and entered the forsaken stairwell beyond.
The difference was immediate. Unlike the meticulously kept storeroom he'd just left, this staircase bore all the marks of long neglect. Crumbling stone steps were broken in several places, loose bricks and rubble littered the ground, and a thick carpet of dust muffled every footfall. From the cracked ceiling, cobwebs draped down in heavy sheets.
Wyzett glanced at the floor. With just two light steps, puffs of dust billowed up around his shoes. A few more and he'd be wading through clouds of swirling mist.
He climbed the ruined steps, deliberately leaving the dust undisturbed—for secrecy's sake, best not to leave evidence of his passage. Reaching the top, he paused at the door and, with a flick of his wand, cast a Reparo to erase his footprints, restoring the dust to its original, untouched state.
A thought struck him—perhaps every Guardian who'd passed through here had done the same, each erasing their tracks, and so the dust simply accumulated, undisturbed by time or cleaning.
Beyond the stairwell, a spiral staircase wound upward into darkness. At its summit stood a peculiar statue, crowned with dancing magical flames that cast a bright golden glow.
Along the spiral, candelabras appeared at intervals, each holding a flame that flickered but never seemed to consume the candle.
"The candles never burn down, and there's no trace of melted wax...," Wyzett mused, his curiosity piqued. "If so few people come here, and the flames never go out, then these must be magical fires... How fascinating!"
How did they keep burning, he wondered? What spellwork or ritual magic sustained them? Was it the candlesticks themselves that were enchanted, or something more complex? His mind raced with possibilities.
He patted his pocket, reassuring himself that the newly acquired notebook was still safely tucked away. With it, returning to the Pensieve room would be easy—he could always come back to study these magical flames in detail.
Ascending the spiral, Wyzett finally got a good look at the statue: four human-faced goats, their tails pressed together in a circle. The design was bizarre, even by wizarding standards.
At the top, he gently pushed open a dusty door and stepped into another room thick with cobwebs and age. Bookshelves and cabinets of every shape and size lined the walls, their shelves crammed with books. Strange masks hung from the walls, their empty eyes watching. Piles of books on the floor were draped in webs, and a mahogany bookcase stood opposite, topped by a glass dome containing an upside-down bat specimen.
One precarious stack of books teetered so high it nearly brushed the ceiling. Above the cabinet, a portrait of a wizard in a red pointed hat nodded endlessly, as if dozing.
Wyzett slowed his steps, tiptoeing past the portrait to avoid waking the painted wizard—no need for extra complications tonight.
This was clearly a storeroom, the narrow passages between shelves crowded with all manner of oddities: rusted armor, dust-caked porcelain, globes, lamps, telescopes, even wooden contraptions that looked suspiciously like instruments of torture.
—
It wasn't until Wyzett pushed through yet another door that he realized exactly where he was.
"The Restricted Section... So the room with the Pensieve leads here? Brilliant!"
A grin broke across his face. This discovery meant he'd have plenty of excuses for future midnight excursions.
He'd rarely ventured into the Restricted Section before. The air here was thick and strange, a cocktail of odd scents—rust and copper, dried blood, moss and earth, even a whiff of burnt eggs.
Unlike the docile tomes in the public part of the library, the books here were anything but calm.
Some cabinets were more like cages than shelves, their contents rattling and thumping like gladiators trying to break free. The most dangerous volumes were chained down, padlocked tight, yet still they strained and shivered, making the shelves tremble with their fury.
The Most Potent Poisons, Secrets of the Darkest Arts, Powerful Potions, Untold History of Magic, Shadows and Secrets: The Rise of Dark Wizards...
Developing the Self: Inscribing Runes on Your Organs, Hollow Out His Head: Harvesting Exquisite Pain, Thus Spoke Merlin Ambrosius...
A significant portion of the Restricted Section's collection was devoted to Dark Magic.
Take The Most Potent Poisons—the instant Wyzett picked it up, he felt its unnatural texture. The cover seemed to be made of human skin, icy cold and faintly pulsing, as if blood still flowed just beneath the surface.
Inside, he found two familiar curses: the Wasting Curse and the Strangling Scream Curse.
Since he already had it in hand, Wyzett saw no reason not to finish the book. He forced down his discomfort, leafed through every page, and only returned it to the shelf once he was sure its contents were safely committed to memory.
Every book that wasn't chained down, he browsed and mentally catalogued, building a formidable collection of knowledge.
But it wasn't all Dark Magic. Some tomes delved into magical creatures, offering insights that left Wyzett awestruck.
Compared to today's cautious wizards, their ancient counterparts had been truly wild in their pursuit of magical knowledge. They didn't just observe magical beasts—they experimented with them, sometimes even merging their own essence with these creatures to gain new magical talents.
Sometimes this meant ritual magic to steal a beast's gifts; sometimes it was something more direct, so that future generations might inherit new powers.
Books sharing these reckless methods were everywhere here.
Of course, most such experiments ended in failure. Only a handful of wizards succeeded, while many more lost themselves, giving rise to entirely new magical creatures.
Some of these hybrids faded into legend, leaving only a myth behind for Muggles. Others, like the Sphinx, survived and became new species in the wizarding world.
The longer Wyzett explored, the more he understood why the Restricted Section existed. Some knowledge simply wasn't meant for the unprepared—these books could warp a mind, drive a wizard to madness or worse.
He drew a steadying breath, feeling the weight of ancient secrets all around him. In this forbidden place, the line between genius and madness was razor-thin.
And yet, the hunger for knowledge burned brighter than ever.
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