Chapter 621 Ancient Runes Advanced Class

Gryffindor Common Room.

"What did you say? In the school! Are they crazy?" Ron shouted, with an expression of disbelief on his face.

Hermione glared at him fiercely. Ron lowered his voice, but his tone became more urgent, and hissed, "Is this true? The You-Know-Who is locked in classroom seven? Am I dreaming?" He subconsciously glanced at the wall clock in the common room, but unfortunately the lights were off and the light was too dim for him to see clearly.

"The professors cast a lot of magic on him." Harry whispered. He described to the two of them in detail what he had seen of Voldemort, emphasizing the Ouroboros with multiple Patronuses, but Ron was still muttering "Mad, all crazy."

Hermione seemed a little calmer. She was only surprised for a moment, and then tried to analyze the intention of doing so.

"I thought Voldemort was dead-"

Harry and Ron looked at him in surprise.

Hermione said impatiently, "Oh, yes, the last thing Harry saw last semester was the scene of Voldemort being captured, but that doesn't mean anything, because at that time," she made a mouth shape of "Horcrux," "there was another one in the hands of Bellatrix Lestrange."

"...If Voldemort had died at that time, it would have been a relief, because he could have hidden himself in the form of a remnant soul. So I can fully understand what Professor Happ and Headmaster Dumbledore did. The problem is, I thought they would destroy the Horcruxes as soon as possible, but they didn't..." She looked at Harry with a confused expression, "There must be something wrong."

"Your analysis is correct," Harry said, "Voldemort has one more thing that he uses to live forever than expected..."

Hermione and Ron took a breath together.

"Have you found the extra one? Has it been destroyed?" Ron asked hurriedly.

Harry stared at him, nodded woodenly, and shook his head.

"Found it, but it hasn't been destroyed yet?" Ron guessed, "But why, is it in someone's hands that it's not easy to get? Oh, you can ask Professor Happ to steal it--"

"Harry!" Hermione shouted.

"Oh, sorry, I don't think Professor Happ would mind--" Ron was halfway through his apology when he suddenly realized that Hermione didn't call him by his name, "My name is Ron, remember?" But Hermione was staring at Harry's face, her lips trembling.

Ron's pupils dilated in fear, and he slowly turned his head to look at Harry.

"Yes, I'm the last one." Harry tried his best to keep his tone calm.

"Shh." He saw the two mouths open at the same time, and raised a finger, "There is still a chance, and that's why Headmaster Dumbledore and Professor Happ saved Voldemort

's life. Listen to me--" He began to tell them everything, except that Dumbledore asked him to keep the Resurrection Stone secret. The story was long, and he had to start from the last History of Magic exam. Harry quickly talked about the scenes he saw from Snape's memory. For some reason, he didn't hide anything and told it out loud.

Ron and Hermione couldn't help but sigh.

"Remember the boy in the apothecary shop?" Hermione asked softly. Harry knew she was talking about the story they had gotten from Professor Happ in the name of Ms. Jane. That was the first time Harry forced himself to examine Snape's complicated feelings for Lily Evans.

No one spoke for a long time.

After a while, Harry continued. He talked about seeing the private conversation between Snape and Dumbledore - "They knew it a long time ago?" Ron shouted, "No, you knew it at that time?" He looked at Harry with a liar's expression, and Harry grinned at him, "I thought I was dead at that time."

"No wonder you suddenly want to write a book." Ron came to his senses and then showed a suspicious look, "You and Ginny didn't interact much at the Burrow. I thought you were embarrassed at the time. Now think about it..." He clenched his fists and was furious. Harry took

a step back in fear.

"If you plan to abandon your love -"

"How could it be!"

Harry said panicked, and Ron had already rushed up at this time. Harry closed his eyes, but what greeted him was not a punch, but a hug. Harry almost couldn't breathe. "Damn it, remember this punch, if there is a next time--" Ron waved his fist threateningly.

Hermione covered her mouth, tears in her eyes, "Oh, you two."

Things seemed to have passed just like that, the sky cleared after the rain. Harry felt that this was the first time in two months that he had laughed so hard. He saw the worry in Hermione's eyes, hesitated for a moment and said: "Don't worry, Dumbledore told me something... He has a secret weapon..." Seeing Hermione wanted to speak, Harry shook his head repeatedly. "Don't ask, I promised Dumbledore to keep it a secret."

Harry's confidence came from the legendary Resurrection Stone. He witnessed the magic of this holy artifact with his own eyes-Dumbledore used it to recall his sister Ariana and introduced her to Harry, and this was just "some of the fur obtained by Dumbledore from studying the Resurrection Stone."

"By the way," Ron said, "I saw Hagrid when I left the hall at night."

Harry's eyelids jumped fiercely. He felt the confidence in his chest was quickly replaced by something else, and he said in a dry voice: "Hagrid, he-what did he say?"

"Are you going to take his class this year?" Ron asked. Neither Harry nor Hermione said anything.

The three of them looked at each other.

While lying on the bed, Harry stared at the bed board of the four-poster bed, and couldn't help complaining in his heart, why didn't Ron raise this difficult problem tomorrow?

The next day after breakfast, the new sixth-year students stayed.

The four housekeepers came down from the staff table to distribute and organize the class timetables for the students. This was really a troublesome thing, because the housekeepers had to check the students' OWLs exam results first to confirm that they were eligible for the class.

"Potions class-good, if I still teach this class, I will never accept this result."

Snape's recognizable cold voice came to the Gryffindor table.

"Potions class only requires good?" Ron asked, and he just had time to think that the professor of Potions class had been replaced.

"Yes, Weasley, Professor Slughorn is willing to accept students with grades of 'good' and above." Professor McGonagall said, placing a stack of blank timetables on the dining table and looking through her notes.

She called the names of several students in order and distributed the timetables to them.

"Granger."

Hermione strode over and said quickly:

"I will continue to study Charms, Defense Against the Dark Arts, Transfiguration, Herbology, Arithmancy, Ancient Runes and Potions."

Professor McGonagall's serious face showed a smile.

"Of course, Miss Granger, Professor Marchbank has written a special letter of praise." She waved her wand, and some golden red ink words immediately appeared on the empty schedule. Then she turned her head to Neville, who took out a small note with a slightly nervous look and lowered his head to read the contents on it, "I choose Herbology, Defense Against the Dark Arts, Ancient Runes--"

Professor McGonagall raised her eyebrows.

"Don't be nervous, Longbottom, your mother has already written to me. With your grades, you can still choose another Potions, okay?" She looked at Neville, and Neville nodded.

Then Professor McGonagall cleared her throat and raised her head from the crowd, "Is there anyone else who chose Ancient Runes? The first class is Ancient Runes, you have to hurry up--"

Countless arms were raised.

"——Professor Hepple only accepts students who get 'Excellence' in the OWLs exams." She added.

Several arms dropped down dejectedly.

"In that case," said Professor McGonagall, looking at the number of students who had not decreased at all, she said with a headache: "Let's line up in order."

Ron looked at the crowd in surprise and whispered to Harry: "There are still people who didn't get Excellence, it's incredible..."

Harry just shrugged. According to his observation, everyone's ancient magic scores were surprisingly good, which led to a phenomenon that everyone seemed to regard the advanced class as a compulsory course. Although Professor Hepple warned everyone that the advanced class would be difficult last school year, few students had the courage to give up a subject that they were strong in.

In the end, Harry and Ron chose the same courses, which were Charms, Defense Against the Dark Arts, Herbology, Transfiguration, Potions and Ancient Magic.

"Only one less subject than Hermione." Ron said half proudly and half sighing.

Harry was not surprised. He recalled his five years at Hogwarts - the first three years were relatively easy, and he and Ron basically only worked hard in the last two months of the finals; but the four and five years were like a nightmare.

In the fourth year, they practiced magic hard for the competition, but at the end of the third project, they were almost killed by Voldemort.

Harry will never forget how powerless he was when facing Voldemort - if it was just him, it would be fine, but he watched Ron and Hermione being tortured. Their life and death depended entirely on Voldemort's thoughts, and they could become a cold corpse at any time.

It was because of this experience that the intensity of their training once made Sirius unable to bear it. Even Ron - Harry knew that he didn't care much about grades, but he had been gritting his teeth and persevering in the past two years.

The only explanation, Harry thought of what Hermione said to him during the summer vacation of the fourth year, "I don't want to die in the war." But they didn't want to watch their companions die in the war next time they faced Voldemort.

...

When the three of them arrived at the Ancient Magic Classroom, Professor Hep was already waiting there, and the chairs were full of students.

"Why are there so many people?" Harry said in surprise.

"The advanced class is for four colleges to take classes together." Hermione whispered.

"Hey. Look over there." Ron poked Harry's ribs with his finger. Harry looked at the leftmost side of the first row. A furry Niffler was yawning and sitting on a pile of thick books. Daphne Greengrass was sitting upright on the other side, but her eyes always glanced to the left subconsciously.

"Valen?" Hermione said in surprise. Valen heard the voice, raised his head and waved lazily at them.

"Merlin's beard," Ron said in admiration, "Professor Hep is no longer satisfied with letting the Niffler learn to read."

They found a seat and sat down. Harry couldn't help staring at the back of Valen's head. He looked at the professor sitting next to the podium flipping through the magic book, and felt it was extremely strange. Are they going to be classmates with a Niffler?

After a while, Felix put away the magic book and stood up. He swept his eyes across the classroom, and now the seats were full.

"You have gone through three years of ancient magic learning and have achieved excellent results."

"I hope you chose this course because of your love for ancient magic, because you will find that the difficulty of the advanced class is completely different from the previous one... You should have heard of wandless casting? Yes, this technique is widely used in the Uagadu Magic School."

"Ancient magic has similar requirements."

"Now put away your wands, you need to learn to get rid of unnecessary constraints," Felix said, and the students below put away their wands in a mess. "Very good, I need you to use your fingers to outline the ancient magic in the air. I know some of you can do it. The next step is to mobilize magic power with your will, so that the magic symbols will automatically appear around you. The more the better! Get started."

The importance of the wand to wizards is unquestionable. Losing the wand is undoubtedly a huge mental blow to the students. Most of them stared at the small piece of air in front of them, their faces flushed, and their fingers moved randomly, as if they had some kind of disease.

"I told you so,"

Felix said in a low, amused voice, walking among the students, "There are actually some tricks, but you need to discover them yourself." There was no lack of gloating in his tone.

He walked to Hermione, who was holding a glittering rune in her hand. Just as she was about to raise her hand, she looked up and saw the professor glaring at her.

Hermione put her hand down awkwardly.

"How did you do that?" Harry whispered when Felix left. Ron and the students around him immediately pricked up their ears to listen.

"Imagine the magical symbol of the rune symbol in your mind." Hermione whispered.

Harry and the students around him suddenly realized it.

Professor Happ had emphasized the importance of the magical symbol of practical runes more than once, but they didn't connect it with the content of this class. Soon, this "secret" spread to every student's ears at a rapid speed. Felix pretended not to hear it, watching the students rack their brains to imagine a ray of light, a ball of fire, or a flowing stream of water...

Some students were already rolling their eyes in anxiety.

Harry hesitated for a moment between the three runes of 'flame', 'light' and 'sun disk', and finally chose the rune of 'light' - this was the practical rune he had mastered the longest, and because of the Illuminati, he was very familiar with its magical symbolism.

He imagined in his mind how it would feel to use Illuminati, and his fingers moved unconsciously. After failing several times, he successfully outlined a shining symbol.

"Good, Potter." Felix suddenly appeared behind him. "You have initially gotten rid of the constraints of the wand. Next, try to get rid of the physical assistance--" With the successful experience, Harry was full of confidence, but the optimistic mood did not last long. After failing more than a dozen times in a row, he began to get irritable and his breathing became rapid.

"Maintain enough patience and confidence, and a little skill as a support." Felix raised his voice to cover the panting and panting around him. Many students turned their heads and looked at them dizzy.

"It's not difficult, anyone can do it."

He swung his arm downward, and the ancient magic symbols fell like raindrops.

As time passed, the students gradually found a trick. First, it is extremely important to master the magic symbol of the magic rune. The current successful examples all support this view; second, the students who can illuminate the magic seem to be more at ease.

"Think about it carefully, ancient magic does not need to use a wand at all, but we have been obsessed with it in the past..." A student said after realizing it.

Even so, before the end of the class, only 30% of the students were able to draw a faint magic symbol with their fingers, and the number of students who made it appear on their own was no more than five.

"The top ten will each get 10 points. Let me see, Gryffindor and Ravenclaw will each get 30 points, Slytherin and Hufflepuff will get 20 points. Homework, a 15-inch long paper--" Felix said.

There was a wailing in the audience.

But Felix was unmoved.

"--Required to discuss the similarities and differences between wand casting, wandless casting, and gesture casting, as well as the differences in psychological effects. Reference list." A list of book titles appeared on the blackboard behind him, "Of course, if you can complete the second step when we meet next time, the homework can be waived."

The students looked as if they had just been sentenced to death, and then came back to life in the blink of an eye. Obviously, they underestimated the difficulty.

"Around Halloween, we will learn new content. Students who fail to meet the requirements will be detained."

Felix ended the first day of classes for the sixth graders neatly and left with Valen, who was so bored that he used his special wand to draw abstract paintings in class. The two argued quickly as they walked -

"Didn't you have to come?"

"Chi!"

"No, you are just too idle. Don't tease that person. He looks at you with a strange look. He must have suffered a loss..."

Many students overworked their brains and slumped in their chairs with dull expressions.

"My head is full of flaming flames now." Seamus muttered softly and yawned loudly. Then, as if it was contagious, all the students felt drowsy.

Hermione kept rubbing her forehead.

"What is the next class?" she asked tiredly.

"It's Defense Against the Dark Arts." Neville said who seemed to be unaffected.

The image of an old man appeared in Harry's mind. He gave him an encouraging smile in the morning. After lingering in the classroom for a while, the students left one after another and lined up to the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom. Harry opened the door, then suddenly stepped out and stared at the sign on the door, his expression as if he had seen a ghost.

"What's wrong, Harry?" Hermione asked in surprise. She squeezed past and looked into the classroom, then her mouth opened wide. In addition to Professor Bagshot, there were four people sitting neatly in the last row of the classroom -

Snape, Professor McGonagall, Professor Happ and Headmaster Dumbledore.

At this moment, the wrinkled old man standing on the podium in the sun became unfathomable.