Chapter 2 Airflow Experiment on the Hogwarts Express
The wheels of the Hogwarts Express rumbled over the rail joints, making a rhythmic "clack" sound.
Leonard stared at the airflow trajectory diagram in Hermione's notebook; beside the cyan vortex outlined in ink, dense formulas were annotated: "Δ P = ρ v² / 2 · A · C₁, lift coefficient is a cosine curve relationship with Wings of Wind amplitude."
"So the range of airflow you can control is directly proportional to the magic output of the amulet?" Hermione bit the end of her quill, her glasses slipping to the tip of her nose.
"When you picked up the Chocolate Frog just now, you condensed a wind blade in 0.3 seconds, consuming enough magic to cast Wingardium Leviosa three times—is that right?"
Leonard shrugged, his gaze sweeping over Ron Weasley sitting opposite him.
The red-haired boy was folding the wrapper of his third Chocolate Frog into the shape of a frog, completely oblivious that he had become a subject of experimental observation.
"It's more like... making the wind understand me." He rolled up his sleeve, revealing faint cyan patterns on his wrist.
"Just like when you talk to Professor McGonagall, you don't need to spell out 'Transfiguration Charm' word by word."
Hermione's pen stroke paused, and she suddenly grabbed his wrist, pushing his sleeve up to his elbow.
Leonard was startled, but then saw her pull out a magnifying glass she carried with her and meticulously examine the patterns on his skin: "Are these the concretized manifestations of the Anemo element? They're distributed like blood vessels, but their direction doesn't conform to human anatomy at all—" She suddenly looked up.
"Did these patterns appear the first time you used the Wings of Wind?"
"They were there when I was on Earth." Leonard pulled his hand back, the amulet on his chest faintly warm.
"Mother said it was a family birthmark." He didn't mention his mother's dying words: "When the septagram lights up, find the Gargoyles of Hogwarts; they will tell you the way home."
Ron's origami frog suddenly jumped onto the table, croaking as it lunged towards Hermione's ink bottle.
"Oh no!" Leonard instinctively summoned a breeze to deflect the frog's trajectory, a cyan stream of light brushing past Hermione's notebook, leaving translucent wind patterns on the page.
"Don't move!" Hermione pressed his hand, her fingertips touching the starsilver amulet on his wrist.
"These wind patterns are recording the flow of magic!" She quickly flipped to a new page, using her shorthand quill to trace the light stream's trajectory.
"Look, the vortex here is exactly the same as the airflow when a Hippogriff takes off, and this straight line—" She pointed to the end of the light stream.
"—has a 92% overlap with the 'ancient wind-speaker's gesture for summoning storms' recorded in History of Magic."
Leonard suddenly realized that Hermione's shorthand quill was automatically completing details he hadn't spoken aloud.
This was no ordinary quill, but a recording tool she had enhanced with a "Quill Improvement Charm," its tip capable of capturing lingering magic fluctuations in the air.
"You suspected me all along." He chuckled.
"From the moment you saw the Wings of Wind at the platform, you've been collecting data."
"Of course." Hermione pushed up her slipping glasses.
"Wandless magic has an incidence rate of one in a million in the modern Wizarding World, and you possess both Anemo and Geo element reactions—" She lowered her voice.
"Just now at the platform, when you touched the brick wall, the amulet resonated with the starsilver in the wall, didn't it? I heard the Gargoyles' pupils turn."
The train suddenly entered a tunnel, and the carriage plunged into temporary darkness.
Leonard's amulet lit up in the dark, the septagram projecting a miniature star chart, outlining the silhouette of Hogwarts Castle on the carriage ceiling.
Hermione's breathing quickened; she pulled out her wand and illuminated the star chart with Lumos: "The Castle outline perfectly matches the amulet's star chart, and the position of the towers—" She pointed to the seven bright spots on the star chart.
"—corresponds to the directions of the Seven Archons' authorities."
Ron suddenly pointed out the window and exclaimed, "Look! Thestrals!"
Leonard turned and saw several skeletal Thestrals watching the train from the shadows beside the tracks.
Strangely, their pupils reflected a pale cyan light, as if they could see the wind patterns on his wrist.
"Thestrals can see death." Hermione whispered.
"But they're looking at you—or rather, at the elemental power on you."
Light from the end of the tunnel flooded the carriage, and the Thestrals' figures disappeared into the darkness.
Hermione suddenly pulled out a parchment from the bottom of her canvas bag, on which was drawn the Granger Family's family tree, with each name annotated with birth and death years and special abilities: "Eleanor Granger, 1590-1672, skilled in Gargoyle carving and rock enchantment; Matilda Granger, 1712-1799, once recorded 'the spring of wisdom in the Forbidden Forest can converse with plants'—" Her finger stopped on a name.
"My great-great-grandmother, Elizabeth Granger, graduated from Ravenclaw in 1875, her thesis title was 'On the Correlation between Elemental Resonance and Wand Materials'."
Leonard's amulet suddenly hummed, its frequency coinciding with the train's whistle.
He pressed his chest, hearing a faint whisper in his mind, like the sound of wind passing through a Gargoyle's wings.
"In her thesis," he began with difficulty, "did she mention a septagram amulet?"
Hermione shook her head, her expression growing more excited: "But her notes contained a fragment of starsilver, identical in material to your amulet.
Leonard, the Granger Family might have once been 'resonators' of the Seven Archons, just like you—"
The train suddenly slowed, and the spires of Hogwarts Castle appeared outside the window.
Hermione hastily closed her notebook, but left fresh ink on the last page: "amulet and Granger Family genetic resonance frequency: 183Hz, consistent with Gargoyle neural synapse frequency.
Hypothesis: Norton's elemental power activated ancient resonance genes inherited by the family."
Ron suddenly jumped up, stuffing the Chocolate Frog wrapper into his pocket: "Finally here! I'm starving, I wonder if there's steak for dinner—"
Leonard got up with him, the cyan glow of his amulet flowing around his cuff.
He looked at Hermione and saw her lightly tapping her notebook with her wand, the ink instantly disappearing—that was a "Confidentiality Charm" to prevent others from prying.
"Who are you going to tell about these discoveries?" he asked softly.
Hermione looked up, her eyes behind her glasses sparkling with excitement: "Only you for now—and my notebook.
But Leonard," she paused, a slight tremor in her voice, "if the amulet can really activate ancient elemental power, then every Shitou, every wisp of wind in Hogwarts, could be a key to solving the mystery.
And I—" She held up her worn notebook, "—will record every resonance frequency."
The train came to a stop, the carriage doors emitting a harsh grinding sound.
Leonard looked at the bustling Wizard robes outside the window and suddenly realized that he was no longer a transmigrator, but the newest and most critical variable in this centuries-long elemental resonance experiment.
And Hermione Granger, the girl who always carried a shorthand quill and a magnifying glass, would become his most precise coordinate system for navigating between two worlds.
As they followed the crowd towards the Castle, Hermione's notebook quietly opened again, a new page reading: "September 1st, 12:47 PM, Hogwarts Express Compartment 1, Elemental Resonance Experiment Phase One Data Summary.
Next steps: 1. Analyze amulet spectrum; 2. Map Castle Gargoyle distribution; 3. Verify potential resonance between Anemo element and Quidditch brooms."
In the distance, Hagrid's hound Fang suddenly looked up and barked softly in Leonard's direction.
In its eyes, a pale cyan airflow was swirling around the outline of this new student—that was the initial, and most dangerous, mark left by the Anemo Archon's era in the human world.