Realizing my unpleasant situation, and specifically—the lack of any understanding of where, actually, I should go, I thought about a fairly simple thing.
Who can I ask?
Glancing once more at the empty corridors around, I came to the only correct conclusion if I want to get to class at all—ask in the staff room.
Without wasting another moment, I walked briskly to the already familiar office where the DADA practical took place. On the way, I met almost no one, but there is nothing to be surprised about here either—it's five minutes to the start of the next lesson.
Reaching the necessary doors and knocking out of politeness, I opened them and entered the spacious office, which had not changed since my last visit, except that the wardrobe with the Boggart was missing. My fault, of course, but at least they didn't bring a new one.
"Mr. Granger?" came the voice of McGonagall, who was standing next to a desk and explaining something to a lanky redhead upperclassman in Gryffindor uniform. "Did something happen?"
"Banal ignorance of where my next lesson will be held."
"As far as I remember," the Professor adjusted her small glasses. "You should be starting Ancient Runes electives now?"
"You know?" I was a little surprised.
"Of course, Mr. Granger," the Professor nodded. "As Deputy Headmistress, I am responsible, among other things, for drawing up the timetable, as well as for certifying applications of various kinds. Including for additional subjects. Mr. Weasley."
McGonagall shifted her gaze to the lanky redhead. The guy was already standing, as they say, at attention, but now he stretched even more, although it seemed decidedly impossible.
"Yes, Professor?"
"You understood the essence of my instruction?"
"Of course."
"Excellent. Then, be so kind as to escort Mr. Granger to the Runes classroom. Your lesson is on the same floor?"
"Yes, Professor. Will do," curly red-haired Weasley nodded, briskly turning to face me and heading for the exit.
Nodding gratefully to the Professor, I left the office following Weasley, on the lapel of whose robes a Prefect badge was visible. We walked in silence, without uttering a single word. But words were not needed to understand the type of this guy—an executive office worker. He would make an excellent assistant, true, he values only those who are higher in status than him. And there is surely a personal list of the most important persons.
We reached the necessary classroom quite quickly. The elder Weasley stopped at the open doors and turned to me.
"Classes on Ancient Runes are held here," he said in a dry stern voice, imitating McGonagall. "Go in, there is still time."
"Thank you…"
"Percy Weasley," he nodded.
"Hector Granger."
"I know."
Percy went further down the corridor, and I entered the classroom.
Only five students from different Houses, not counting me—few young wizards in our year chose Ancient Runes as an additional subject. The classroom itself was quite ordinary, without any details by which one could understand that this is—a Runes classroom. Although, there is one difference—the walls are not stone, as everywhere else, but with very decent wood paneling, favorably distinguishing the office among others.
"Hmm? Another one? Well…"
The voice belonged to a middle-aged black-haired woman sitting at the teacher's desk. Her robes were a rich dark red colour, and the fabric itself gave off a feeling of "heaviness"—velvet usually produces such an impression. In her hands, she held a parchment, and every little thing in how she sat, held this very parchment, looked at it, all this betrayed a certain dissatisfaction and hopelessness. This witch looked at me for only a couple of moments, returning to the study of the parchment.
" come in, young man, sit down. We'll start soon…"
I didn't need to be asked twice—I quickly headed to one of the free large tables. Taking out everything necessary from the backpack in the form of a textbook, notebook, parchment, quills, and other stationery, I quickly examined those present. Three Ravenclaw robes. One of the guys is called Anthony Goldstein, it seems. At the desk closest to the teacher sits Hermione, the only one from Gryffindor, and diligently reads something in a book. Amusing. It seems my agreement to communicate, along with the invitation to the House table for lunch, threw her off thought, and she missed the fact that I would have Runes. Just like her. Oh no, she looked back, found me with her gaze, and somehow even exhaled with relief.
To the side of me sat Daphne, to whom I hurried to nod in greeting. In the girl's gaze could be read: "And here he is…". Should have sat closer. Why? I find slight hostility amusing, as well as equally slight benevolence, and this is true for all ages. Without crossing boundaries, one can rock such sentients to funny reactions. But the main thing is—not to cross boundaries.
And I also noticed that Daphne has as many as five books on the table—a textbook, and four smaller in format, but thicker. Dictionaries? Or maybe something valuable and interesting? If rumors are to be believed that only pureblood wizards get into Slytherin, well, or at most half-bloods, is it possible that the girl has more interesting sources of information on the subject? Well, or at least an understanding of which books are better to take, and which—to ignore?
Daphne couldn't help but notice my gaze on her books, frowned, looked at me, at the books, again at me, and with a terribly funny, cute, and simultaneously proud movement simply grabbed her books, moving them closer to herself. At the same time, even a complete layman in non-verbal communication could read a simple phrase in her gaze: "Like hell!".
"So," the teacher drew attention to herself, getting up from the table. "There are a bit too many of you…"
The students looked around in bewilderment, but everyone could see only five people besides themselves. Apparently, everyone still remembers McGonagall's words that she had to lead classes larger than the entire third-year stream.
"Excuse me, many?" Hermione asked a question, not forgetting to raise her hand.
"My subject has never been popular among schoolchildren. Which they undoubtedly regretted after graduation. This allowed splitting the course into two or three groups of two or three students and conducting classes almost individually. An excellent approach, because the understanding of Runes is very individual. Who can say what this might be connected with?"
I had thoughts, but decided to hold back on expressing them for now—Transfiguration was enough. But the question did not remain unanswered—Anthony Goldstein, like Hermione, raised his hand.
"Yes, Mr.…" the Professor pointed with a sparing gesture of her hand towards the guy.
"Anthony Goldstein, Professor."
"Ah, yes, I am—Professor Bathsheda Babbling. So, Mr. Goldstein?"
"The reason for the individuality of understanding Runes lies in the fact," the guy spoke confidently, "that primarily Runes are languages. Ancient languages, and having no literal translation."
"Precisely, Mr. Goldstein. Hence all the difficulties flow."
Anthony sat down, and the Professor began to pace slowly in front of the class, telling.
"You can write this down. In educational literature, there is too much superfluous, sometimes even artistic description. Let's get rid of this."
We amicably opened notebooks and prepared to write under dictation.
"Each rune is informationally self-sufficient, carries a load at the level of a word, and sometimes a phrase, has many semantic meanings, and along with this—many magical effects. Just as the meaning of a runic text can be understood only by context, so the magical effect of even one rune depends on many external factors."
The quiet scratching of quills filled the office, and the Professor waited a couple of moments, giving time to write down.
"In my subject, we will study several runic languages, analyzing all semantic facets. Along with this, we will study on examples the principles of building magical chains using runes, analyze their variability and learn to compose them from scratch. It is very important to understand that several runes in writing can mean one thing, by the meaning of the runes themselves a completely different phrase turned out, and the magical impact—generally different…"
With the edge of my ear, I listened and wrote down Professor Babbling's words, but with the greater part of my consciousness, I plunged into unraveling the suddenly crawled out fragmentary associations-memories of the dwarf. Crawled out because of the lesson topic, the subject itself. These fragments, scraps of memories, like frames from a movie, led me through vague images created on their basis.
Dwarves, great craftsmen and masters of extracting everything valuable from the earth's bowels. Their skills cultivated in them immense pride, and jewels in the earth's bowels, as well as masterpieces of their own production—immense greed. But this also forced them to move forward, because it is unacceptable for the "eared ones" to suddenly create something better, and such things happened. The dwarf from the shards remembers father's educational birch rods when he couldn't memorize and compose a rune chain, or when he didn't keep track of the temperature in the furnace.
But there were also more specific memories. The first correct rune chain, the first war hammer that was personally forged and enchanted by this chain. The first and last Personal Masterpiece—an ax.
But much more important was that words about Runes and languages based on them found their response in this shard. A rune can give one of several effects depending on the environment, magic around, magic in the construct, on other runes—factors are many. The probability of triggering an unnecessary effect can be removed with the help of other runes and chains, as well as by supplying a certain magical energy poorly compatible with unnecessary effects. But controlling rune chains also consist of runes, and they also have unnecessary effects. To take all this into account, you need to know runic languages very well. Pity that the "holiness" of the shards does not allow remembering them.
However, it was these miserable crumbs, carrying practically no knowledge, that allowed the puzzle called "Local Magic" to finally come together. Everything is extremely simple!
Everything I saw, and everything I might still see, with some exceptions, is not the school of magic I am used to, and there is an explanation for this—all these complex calculations, monstrous control of energies, monstrous constructs from runes and other structures… They are simply not needed! Due to the fact that local wizards all without exception, as I see, possess internal neutral energy, they never faced an energy deficit, they did not have to learn to accumulate it, collect crumbs of diverse external energy from the world around and its manifestations, did not have to complicate constructs by orders of magnitude for the sake of a tiny increase in energy efficiency, and other "did not have to."
Even more, local wizards followed the path of psychological limiters to prevent spontaneous magic, but at the same time finding their own, unique and completely incomprehensible to me method of creating charms, spells, and other sorcery based on gestures, words, will, and fantasy. And it works, I know for sure, although I don't understand exactly how. Like a program or a ritual… Hmm, and the latter will need to be thought over.
"You look disgustingly inspired," Daphne's remark reached my hearing, even though she wasn't sitting that close.
"I understood magic."
Daphne rolled her eyes to the ceiling.
"Conversations, please, leave for breaks," the Professor turned to us.
The dwarf's memories awakened a keen desire to make something, but from these same memories I can say with confidence that I won't make anything sensible—I simply don't know the necessary.
From understanding how incomplete and fragmentary the memories of the shards are, I felt somehow annoyed. Well, nothing. But local rune magic is at least familiar to me by its complexity, which grows exponentially with the complication of the chain. And if you think about it, it is rune magic as a discipline that should be undeveloped here. Simply rune chains and contours familiar to the shards are quite narrowly specialized in terms of requirements for the type of energies, and there is a reason for that. For example, fire energy in a rune contour significantly suppresses the probability of triggering effects of, for example, water, which are embedded in the runes. Locals are deprived of such joy, and in the chain, one will have to completely calculate all interactions, because neutral energy is equally well suited for everything and suppresses nothing. Such complexities are not particularly needed by wizards, because they can cast spells without this, and as a consequence—lack of necessity to develop this matter.
But all this does not cancel the fact that I will definitely study local sorcery. Grains of knowledge and skills of the shards will definitely help me if not invent something new, then maybe see what the locals missed, albeit not out of ignorance, but out of lack of necessity to "look".
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