In the Potions class professor’s office, Felix and Snape are playing a wizard chess game.
Felix opened with a white King’s Pawn, and Snape opened with a black Sicilian Defense. The set reached the mid-game, and they exchanged pieces back and forth, but neither of them had their minds on the board.
“How’s the mucus from the Firetrail Snails working out?”
“Not bad, there seems to be some kind of unknown change, I personally think it’s beneficial …” Snape commanded his black pawn to move up, while whispering: “It seems to be a good idea, using magic with different properties to process the material in order to ‘kill’ certain unnecessary but stubborn traits of the material.”
“Doesn’t the same thing apply in potions, where the ingredients neutralize each other? Oh … I see.” Felix said while commanding his queen to advance two squares, sweeping the black pawn off the board at once.
Snape dispatched the bishop unhurriedly, “Most mediocre wizards are unable to distinguish the subtle differences which are important factors in determining his success in the path of potions …”
Felix’s white knight trembled under the threat of the black bishop and kept shouting at Felix, “Come and save me! Come and save me!”
Felix coldly gave the command, and his white queen moved forward three squares diagonally without expression, her eyes moving back and forth between the two black pawns diagonally and vertically. Snape stared and thought for a few seconds and gave up on the vertical black pawn.
It was then that Felix moved the white knight deeper into Black’s territory. “Charge!” The chess piece shouted enthusiastically.
“That’s right.” Felix said, to respond to Snape. “But it’s also important to take into account the lack of basic common sense of newly enrolled muggle wizards.”
“It has been taken into account, and the potion ratios for the first year are extremely simple, leaving them plenty of time to adjust.” Snape said slowly, “Unless they can’t read or don’t have the slightest grasp of logical thinking.”
Felix thought back for a moment, it is indeed so, the entire first-year potions textbook contains only a few recipes, most of them are the introduction of common magic potion ingredients, as well as the notes on brewing potions and a summary of the characteristics of common potions and other elements. Even for the only remaining dozen potion recipes, the handling procedures are described in great detail – How many times to stir, and the subsequent reaction is detailed, there are also common mistakes and corrective measures attached to the back of the page.
At this point, Snape’s Black Knight approached the center of the board and attacked the central position, Felix mobilized the fortress move to meet the challenge. While the smell of gunpowder on the board was getting stronger, the two men sitting outside the board chatted unhurriedly –
“Recently, many students are discussing the use of ancient runes to increase modern magic potency, and some of them have already developed quite a few things.” Snape said softly.
“I know …” Felix stared at the board and felt that the central pawn formation is wrong, after a moment of contemplation he keenly spotted a hidden trap, he gave Snape a look, trying to distract me by talking?
He decisively told the white knight to fall back. The black pawn immediately followed, the white bishop stepped forward and swept away the black pawn, the black knight counterattacked and captured the white bishop, then the white queen suddenly attacked and captured the black knight, the black queen followed and confronted her, and finally, Felix captured the black queen with the only white pawn left.
After a fierce exchange, Felix breathed a long sigh of relief.
“In fact, the fusion of ancient rune and modern magic is a dead end.”
“Dead end?” Snape looked at him in disbelief, ignoring the chess piece in his hand.
“Well,” Felix thought seriously, “it would be more accurate to say … a fork in the road, like a river dividing into different streams, which, in the end, still have to merge into one.”
“I’ve never heard this kind of claim.” Snape said slowly, twirling a black knight who kept struggling in his hand.
Felix smiled as he explained more specifically, “Take the ‘Flow of Water’ Rune and the water making spell for example, part of their magical concepts overlap, therefore this rune has a reinforcing effect on the spell, but you will find that this type of reinforcement cannot be suitable for all spells, and, I suspect the exact effect will vary from person to person …”
“Varies from person to person?” Snape mulled over the word.
“Exactly. For example, the degree of mastery of the runes, and a deep understanding of the runes is the most basic requirement. This can be compensated with shortcuts, though someone has to be willing to teach it … and the selection of the right spell is important. The students are now working very hard because of the enthusiasm, so they need to be able to achieve some results before their enthusiasm runs out… …and the casting time, launch timing, etc. These are all problems.”
Felix continued: “This is just a fusion of a single rune and modern magic, and after that? The integration of two or three runes? Runic circuits, runic sequences, ancient magic? You’ll find that the further you go, the greater the burden of ancient runes can be so that it didn’t make much sense.”
“Then why did you–” Snape took a breath.
“I’ve gotten sidetracked in the past,” Felix said calmly, “I was determined to climb up and discover the higher mysteries, so naturally some routes that obviously didn’t fit were discarded, like this line of thought in which I knew the follow-up and the endpoint — -transforming modern magic into ancient magic, breaking through all kinds of tangible and intangible restrictions. But it became obvious that this was not what I wanted.”
Especially with the Book of Runes. Felix thought to himself.
Snape remained silent for a moment, ” So then you think it would be more fruitful if you brought it to the table now?”
“It was Diggory who reminded me of it, and I went along with it.” Felix shook his head slightly, staring at the chessboard for a moment, then moving his eyes away and said, “Of course, when you think about it, it indeed has a great benefit for me when it comes to promoting ancient runes …”
The situation on the board entered the stalemate stage, and the field began to settle down. The contest on the board had taken a lot of thought, especially since he didn’t intend to cheat with the Thinking Room or Thought Acceleration magic.
Felix leaned lazily on the back of the sofa, as he watched Snape contemplate intently, and then he resumed what he had just said: “Although I didn’t need it, Diggory’s unexpected discovery also reminded me of one thing: the ancient runes may have started to blossom because of me, but I’d rather have a thousand flowers blossom behind me, so I encouraged them to submit their ideas to the magazine.”
Snape jerked his head up and looked at him in surprise.
“Discussing the advantages and disadvantages of combining ancient runes and modern magic, as well as some decent case studies … I devised a structure for the thesis, and they were able to get it published in the magazine by following that and a bit of luck.” Felix explained. “Of course, I’m talking about the members of the Magic Runes Club.” He added. While commanding his white knight to advance, the white knight drew his scimitar in an exaggeratedly intimidating manner to intimidate the opposing knight. “I also suggested the students to send out two copies, one designated to the Ancient Rune Society.”
Snape showed an expression of understanding.
The relationship between his student and the ancient rune society has never been good, those old scholars who have studied the character and meaning of the runes for a lifetime find it difficult to accept Felix’s theory, their common view is: ancient rune is a language, except it borrowed some of the “shape” from old practical runes.
Now, it is not impossible to form a “New Ancient Rune Society” when these students grow up. Or rather, it is virtually inevitable. More than half of this year’s Hogwarts graduates have taken Ancient Rune Class, and more than a fifth of the entire class has taken Advanced Class in Ancient Rune, and their knowledge and experience with Ancient Rune are what Felix had hoped for.
A frightening fact is that, Felix has only been in this job for less than three years, in other words, the students who graduated in these two years did not learn from him from the beginning of the course, and if we go by this benchmark, only the current fifth grade – those who are preparing for the O.W.Ls exams – are the first to receive Felix’s ancient rune class from their third-year education.
The only thing those old scholars can do is to express their voices in the margins of some newspapers to rebuke such behaviours, or to consider dividing those ‘practical’ ancient runes apart by not recognizing their existence and splitting them in two, which is not that great part of the ancient runes anyway… …
This should be the best way. Snape thought to himself, like how a gecko severs its tail to survive, although it is humiliating, at least they can save themselves.
Felix fiddled with a chess piece and said with a smile: “I have recently made another discovery, some of the runes that we previously considered as mere translatable runes, might have been a simplification and mutation of some practical runes, well, perhaps to a greater extent …”
This is also an insight brought to him by the Book of Runes.
Snape was speechless.
Even the last step is blocked, besides obediently conceding defeat, does the Ancient Rune Society have any way out?
…
The headquarters of the Ancient Rune Society.
Compared to the Most Extraordinary Society of Potioneers, St. Mungo’s Magical Medical Society, and other large organizations, the Ancient Rune Society’s headquarters looked extraordinarily shabby, with only three dozen members in total, which is still the result of the Society’s repeated relaxation of requirements and accumulation of decades of effort.
“Did you see that? It’s not unusual to produce a valuable article in the field of ancient Rune every few years, but in the last half month, half a dozen extremely groundbreaking thesis have been sent to me …”
“Does the stuff they’re researching concern us?” A cranky old man slapped the table.
“Old Vera, don’t bring in your personal emotions, your granddaughter went to work for ‘Future World’ company, no matter what, you can’t affect the impartiality of our association.”
The old man looked at his buddy in frustration.
“Think about it, these theses have been published in the Daily Prophet and the Witch Weekly, they even attracted the attention of the Ministry of Magic-”
“What’s wrong with that?” The old man asked with wide eyes.
“Ha! This matter involves at least three departments, the Committee on Experimental Charms, the Wizarding Examinations Authority, and the Auror’s Office.” The man said slowly, “I heard that they are also planning to assemble a booklet on ancient runes under Felix Hap, so there is also the possibility of attracting the attention of the publishers …”
“The people from the Wizarding Examinations Authority are also involved in this?” The old man asked.
“Originally, Griselda was quite patient and intended to see the results of this year before talking about it … but things are changing so fast that she can’t sit still either, it’s almost a subversion of modern spells!”
” Is it that exaggerated?” The old man looked unconvinced.
“At least it’s an add-on, I’ve taken a step back, you can’t refute this!” The man said, blowing his beard and staring.
“Well,” the old man smacked his lips, without moving for a while, “you know Professor Marchbanks right? Ask her to bring me along!”
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