Muggles, the Environment, and Magic

Anton realized that this magical force permeated the entire apartment building.

The old handrails, the damp, mottled walls, and even the windows in the stairwell, which swayed and creaked in the wind—

they all gave off a faint sense of sorrow and oppression.

Yes, a sense.

A feeling subtler than an emotion, let alone a will.

Anton had seen a house cursed by a Siren. The intense emotions within it had reached the level of a will. This place was the exact opposite: it held only a faint trace of a certain quality.

Such a quality was hard to detect.

He could sense it only through the Lake of the Mind. Neither the method he had learned at school for sensing the magic in Potion Ingredients nor the Wizard's Eye or Augurey's Eye he had once possessed could easily pick up such faint magic.

It was so faint that it could barely produce any magical effects.

Yet it was so vast in scale that it enveloped the entire apartment building.

This quality was so subtle that most wizards would have difficulty sensing the magical currents it carried.

"Is this some kind of magical trait of a Dark Magic Creature?" Anton wondered, rubbing the cold wall in front of him, not quite sure.

Not everything in the world that held magic allowed wizards to sense its presence directly. The sunlight in the sky, Moonlight, and torrential rain and thunder were a few examples.

All these things in nature held the greatest reserves of magic, yet wizards could confirm this only through the use of Ritual Magic.

Of course, Anton could see this too if he transformed into an Augurey. Everything would become colored lines, including sunlight.

Oh, and now he could see it with the Lake of the Mind, too.

Just