After the afternoon class of fifth-year ancient runes, Felix held the twins back.
“Professor, are there really seven kinds of Sneakoscopes?” Fred asked curiously.
In that class just now, Felix made the same arrangement as the seventh year, explaining the learning plan for the whole school year as well as briefly reviewing the learning contents of the third and fourth years. At the end of the lesson, he mentioned that in addition to the golem, a new kind of artefact, the Sneakoscope, is additionally going to be introduced for this school year.
Felix nodded and said, “It does exist, as you will see in the following class.”
He held it back because there is still one kind of Sneakoscope that is missing, and it is in a state of tweaking.
The Ancient Alchemical Mysteries mentions seven ways to craft a Sneakoscope, but they all follow the route of alchemy, and what Felix has done in the meantime is to substitute some parts with rune circuits in it, keeping its function the same or even enhancing it.
He happily tried, and if he could, he is prepared to spend most of the year on it – changing one alchemical creation into a runic artefact
With Nicolas Flamel, a master alchemist, at his side, he has plenty of confidence in this.
…
George asked, “Why are there seven kinds of Sneakoscope?”
Fred said without thinking: “Perhaps to disguise the shape of the Sneakoscope? For example, it is usually a doorknob, once touched, it will scream loudly and chaotically.”
George followed his train of thought and said, “Kind of like our fake wand, or it could be the other way around, normally a Sneakoscope shape, but if you try to do something to it, it will shoot fireworks from the end and scamper all over the house …”
Fred smiled jokingly and said, “Very good thinking, George, what a charming little brain.”
George bowed, “You too, Mr. Weasley.”
“Ahem!” Felix coughed twice to stop their playfulness, “Seeing you all so happy, I can’t bear to tell you what’s ahead.”
The twins turned their heads to look at him at the same time.
“Oh, don’t, Felix, we’re on the same team,” Fred said without a second thought.
Felix is amused, a comment he’s only been saying not long ago, “No respect for the professor, huh?”
Fred raised his hands in a pleading gesture.
But neither side cared, and Felix discovered early on that these two personalities were perfect for being friends, provided you had some authority in front of them, otherwise their habitual pranks would be enough of a headache.
They were also unfit to be an assistant; Felix started with the idea of having someone to help him share his work, but he could hardly imagine the twins taking grading the assignments seriously. He even suspected that they might cast a vile jinx on some papers.
For example, a Pimple Jinx is applied to assignments with a zero grade, so that the little wizard who doesn’t study properly may feel the malice from the ancient rune class assistant …
It is still quite interesting when you think about it, but it is something you can really only think about.
Felix’s expression got serious: “Well, let’s get back to business. This is your OWLs year, how many exams are you confident you can pass?”
“Ancient rune is no problem, if they change the exam content to the golem,” Fred said with a big breath.
Felix scowled, “This is not a joke. I will not refuse you to do research and may provide you some guidance after school, but you can’t pull down your grades too much either.”
The twins sighed, and Fred told the truth in a rare manner, “I guess I’ll pass four or five OWLs, or even less, what about you, George?”
“We’re both at about the same level, but I think that he might be overly optimistic, and I consider three certificates to be a more reasonable number,” George said with a stern face.
Fred instantly raised his eyebrows and smiled.
Felix shook his head, he couldn’t let them casually pull away from the topic, he said directly, “In order to prevent you from over-indulging, I specifically entrusted your brother, Percy Weasley, to take his time to watch you-”
“What!”
“Don’t, Professor!”
The corners of Felix’s mouth curled up, “What’s wrong with that? I made a deal with him that he wouldn’t interfere with your research, at least not in the short term, and as far as I know, he’s got a very good track record and can give you guys some advice.”
Fred scowled, his eyes slanted to the side in a condescending pose – he mimicked Percy’s tone and said, “Fred! Put your prank gummies away, and if I ever see you give them to anyone else again, I’ll have you detained up, I’m serious!”
Felix: “… Frankly, your gummies aren’t poisonous, are they?”
“Of course not, Professor, we’ve done tests, and I was the first test subject,” Fred said.
“I was the second,” George said.
The twins softly talked to Felix for ten minutes, and seeing that they were about to be late, they rushed to leave. Before leaving, they did not forget to yell –
“Professor, we are not going to give up!”
“That’s right, unless you retract this decision!”
Felix looked at their backs with some headache, and at a certain moment, a thought popped into his head: ‘Wasn’t Professor Snape looking at me the same way back then?
”But I’m not that hopeless.” He returned to his office and spent some time finishing the improvement work on the last seventh Sneakoscope.
Looking at the Sneakoscope of various shapes on his workbench, his mood inexplicably improved.
“The number of ancient runes I have mastered now is over a thousand, when will this number become ten or twenty thousand?”
“At that time, what will my understanding of magic will reach?”
Felix imagined a moment, when fighting, the magic runes dazzled around him, and under his intention, they automatically converged into powerful ancient magic, others used incantations that they were best at, while he had completely abandoned his wand and raised his hand to attack endlessly.
There is no escape, no avoidance, only tough resistance.
” Thinking too much, there are not many people who can make me go all out now. I’m still mulling over the contents of my next exchange with Nicolas Flamel. His understanding of alchemy is completely beyond my imagination.”
“With the help of his perspective, I can stand at a higher level to examine alchemical creations and runic creations.”
“This will help me better understand the characteristics of magic runes.”
In the evening, when Felix walked out of his office and went to the great hall for dinner, he unexpectedly heard two pieces of gossip.
One is that Hagrid’s first class had an accident and a student got injured. Felix asked carefully and relieved that the situation was not serious, the student’s wound carries a bit of foreign magic, with Madam Pomfrey’s craft, at most three days of recuperation he could be alive and kicking.
He did not take it seriously, the former professor of the course caused a much more serious mess than this, Hagrid can at best receive a probationary punishment.
The second thing that made him scratch his head is that the new professor taught the third-year students to resist the Boggart, a magical creature that can shape-shift according to one’s fear, in his Defense Against the Dark Arts class.
Boggart is not strong by nature, but it is surprisingly powerful against wizards with fatal weaknesses or weak hearts. Especially when faced unsuspectingly.
In the classroom, the object of fear of one student turned out to be Snape, and with the encouragement of Professor Lupin, the student overcame his fear and recited the Boggart-Banishing Spell “Riddikulus”, and things really turned out to be ridiculous – the symbol of his inner fear Professor Snape changed his outfit into women’s one.
Felix is sitting at the long table of Hufflepuff, and two seats away from him, a small witch with two blonde braids is describing the scene in graphic detail.
“… Professor Snape came up to me in a huff, and even though he was aiming for that Longbottom, I was chilled to the bone, thinking this is bad, he’s going to fail for sure. And guess what?”
Hannah Abbott said with a red face: ” Longbottom shouted the incantation, as if a whip hit Professor Snape’s body, his clothes instantly turned into an embroidered grandmother’s dress, wearing a triangular floppy hat on his head, waving a huge red handbag in his hand … ”
“Seriously, for the first time, I found that boy so cool!”
Felix listened in amazement, knowing Snape well, he must be furious.
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