Desperate Wizards

There was nothing particularly strange inside the drawer.

"A monocle?"

Had glasses already been invented in Ravenclaw's era?

Jon carefully picked up the wooden spectacle frame, which looked ready to rot away, and gently set it on the desk. Then he took out the stack of manuscripts pinned beneath it.

The parchment, on the other hand, was much tougher.

The manuscripts were all written in Ancient Runes. Jon had not learned much of that magical script yet, so he could barely understand any of it.

But there was someone on the wall who could.

"Hmm... There's nothing special about this manuscript. It merely records the design concepts for those glasses. This was the last magical item Rowena made before she died."

"A magical item?"

Jon's heart skipped a beat. Magical items were different from alchemical tools. Alchemical tools were merely common implements for wizards, while anything worthy of being called a "magical item" was never ordinary.

The relics left within Hogwarts Castle by the four Founders all fell within the category of magical items. Besides possessing simple magical powers and special properties, most of them also had a certain degree of self-awareness.

Such as the Sorting Hat, the Sword of Gryffindor, Ravenclaw's Diadem that enhanced intelligence, the Golden Goblet that could automatically help House-elves transport food, and those wondrous magical portraits of the Wizarding World.

They might not have any extraordinary power, but they invariably possessed unusual qualities.

Even magical portraits, the lowest grade of magical item, stored a certain degree of human consciousness.

Could a magical item personally created by Ravenclaw, like his own Ancestor, contain a fragment of Ravenclaw's soul?

"No. There is not a trace of Rowena's soul within it."

Although Helga lived inside a portrait, she could sense the world outside it. Only something with the essence of a soul could do that, making her fundamentally different from ordinary portraits enchanted with magic.

"If Rowena had truly wanted to stay, then even if her body had already been failing, she would not have truly died." Helga's voice suddenly turned grave. "She was a master of charms and had researched the Life Curse extensively. If she had not wanted to die, she could even have transformed into an undead creature—something far more advanced than the ghosts in this castle and that Voldemort's Horcrux you mentioned."

"Then why didn't she stay? Being alive is better than being dead, isn't it?"

Helga shook her head. "Some people stay alive because they cannot bear to leave, but once you reach our level, the way you view and understand the world becomes different..."

"Even ants struggle to survive."

"What?"

"It's an old saying from China. Even ants struggle to survive, so people cherish life all the more." Jon rubbed the spectacle frame in his hand. "You know, I have some Eastern blood."

"The East is indeed a wondrous place. There are many philosophers there, though sadly, I never had the chance to visit."

Helga nodded and did not dwell on the matter. "But Rowena was not an ant. She was also a witch who had stood at the pinnacle of the world and seen it from above. When you view this world from the perspective we had back then, you will realize that life and death are nothing more than that."

"To live or to die is not the question."

Jon sat behind the desk with an attentive expression. After all, Helga rarely spoke of the Legendary Wizards of her era.

"A wizard's magic comes from this world, so when a wizard dies, that magic returns to the world. Yet sometimes, by chance, a wizard's soul is preserved by its own magic and becomes a ghost or something else. So tell me—are you truly yourself, or are you your magic?"

Jon shook his head. Clearly, he did not understand.

Philosophical questions had far too many twists and turns. He was terrible at them.

Why think so much about questions like who am I?

I am who I am. Isn't that enough?

This was a world of magic. What was the point of all that dialectics?

"Who you are now is you. But what about your previous life?"

Jon froze.

"Since death exists, reincarnation should exist as well. Magic enters a wizard's body, then returns to where it came from after the wizard dies. It is a cycle, and a creature's soul is fundamentally no different from magic."

"Imagine this: after you die, your soul is ground into nothingness by the will of the world. Then that energy is scattered and recombined, ultimately forming the soul of a new life. Does that possibility not exist?"

"But a possibility is only a possibility, isn't it? Whether wizards or Muggles, no one has ever proven that beings higher than humans exist in this world."

"Has anyone proven that they do not exist?"

Jon said nothing more.

"When I became a Legendary witch, my own research into the essence of magic was not especially outstanding. But Rowena and Salazar were different. They both encountered the limits of their own magic, as though a lock had firmly sealed the stairway that would let wizards advance any further. It was a tragic thing."

"But what hope could choosing death possibly bring?"

Jon truly could not understand. He had died once—though, by Helga's explanation, his memories were merely remnants left behind because the memories of the previous dead person had not been fully washed away—so he was obsessed with living.

If he could live, then he should avoid dying whenever possible. This world was too wonderful; he had to see it properly.

If possible, he even wanted to see the world beyond this one.

"They no longer needed hope, because by then, they were already at their most desperate."

Helga's voice echoed through the empty study. Jon felt as though it had stirred something, and the entire room filled with an eerie sorrow.

"Other than those wizards blinded by desire, no Legendary Wizard truly wished to teach students. I was somewhat different, and I too yearned for the pinnacle of wizardry. How much more so for wizards like Rowena, whose magical talent was so exceptional from the start."

"A wizard's goal is eternal magic. Above lie the stars in the sky; below lies the endless deep sea. The higher you stand, the more unknown things there are. Hogwarts was founded so that wizards could have safer conditions for research, because sometimes one person's strength is not enough. Even a Legendary Wizard's power can seem thin and feeble at certain moments."

"But when Rowena and the others glimpsed the outline of magic's essence, they discovered that it was already the limit. It was like seeing the stars clearly from a tower at Hogwarts, yet never being able to touch them... Having something before you that you cannot touch is even more despairing than being unable to see it."

At the request of many readers, a VIP membership feature for ad-free access is now available.

Click to view