Musings on Magic Books

"Hand-in-Hand Guide to Making Magic Books"?

"So complicated. And it's prose—what the hell? It should normally be expository writing. Does Dumbledore not know how to speak plainly? Did he learn it from reading too many Magic Books?"

During Ryan's usual reading time, he finally found an interesting book. However, it had inherited a common flaw of books in the wizarding world: it did not speak plainly.

Even with Ryan's Charmcraft already at the peak of level 3 and just shy of level 4, he found it difficult to read.

One had to know that level 3 was already the standard of an ordinary Auror. Of course, that referred to overall spellcasting ability; Aurors generally mastered a level 4 signature spell as their core skill.

Ryan had obtained this information over the past month by persistently drinking coffee at the entrance of the Ministry of Magic and gathering intelligence.

After nearly an hour of skimming through it, Ryan had more or less grasped what the book meant.

A complete Magic Book, such as The Invisible Book of Invisibility, had to meet three conditions to be created.

First, its contents had to be as unified as possible, with the entire book focused on invisibility.

Second, it had to record the spell in full. "Full" did not merely mean the words, but also its pronunciation and spelling.

Third, and most importantly, there was its origin: who wrote it, how it was invented, under what circumstances it was invented, and what effect it achieved.

Once all three elements were complete, a book on invisibility imbued with invisible magic would be born.

This book also answered one of Ryan's questions: why books that recorded spells such as Sectumsempra, Levicorpus, and Muffliato were so ordinary.

It seemed that books like "Standard Book of Spells, Beginner," "Standard Book of Spells, Level Two," "Standard Book of Spells, Level Three," and "Standard Book of Spells, Level Four" did not seem comparatively normal because their magical knowledge was shallow.

It was because their contents lacked unity. Even the Half-Blood Prince's Potions Class textbook contained only spells and nothing else.

Only books that could be called complete Magic Books made it easier for a wizard to master and learn their contents. Among Hogwarts's textbooks, aside from The Monster Book of Monsters, not one counted as a true Magic Book.

It seemed Hagrid was not actually simple-minded. He was merely too careless.

But if every spell were truly made into a Magic Book, textbook costs would soar through the roof. Only a small number of pure-bloods could afford them. Besides, some spells were relatively simple by nature and did not need to be made into Magic Books at all.

Take Sectumsempra. It was a variant named after an unseen phenomenon; its true name should have been the invisible poisoned sword. The venom was Snape's hatred for James Potter.

The counterspell was his regret over being separated from Lily.

In a normal Magic Book, all of this should have been explained one by one to make it easier to learn.

For an ordinary wizard without the Detection skill or magical perception like Harry Potter's, learning from nothing but a brief incantation would be unimaginably difficult.

But there was another case. Since Ryan had read the novels, the moment he recalled James Potter pretending to raise a sword while boasting, Sectumsempra seemed to come alive. It eagerly wanted to stab the James in Ryan's memories into a skeleton, easily reaching level 5—a level a wizard might spend an entire lifetime trying to attain.

He even sensed the regret toward Lily, and the counterspell sprang out on its own. Ryan did not even know the incantation, yet he had learned it without a teacher.

This was no myth. Names themselves possessed magic, after all, and Sectumsempra was especially effective against James Potter. Ryan himself was also within Britain; it would probably have been even faster at Hogwarts or atop James's grave.

What was even more noteworthy was that Ryan did not know Lily's surname. Despite not knowing her surname, and despite Lily being such a common name, Ryan still mastered the counterspell with ease and did not find it particularly difficult.

That could no longer be explained by simple fondness alone.

Whenever Ryan thought of the feelings and entanglements between Lily and Snape, he could not help but sigh.

Snape had truly brought it upon himself. At first, they had been childhood sweethearts, innocent and close, and Snape had still been fairly proactive then.

But when he turned eleven, perhaps because he had grown up in the Muggle world and his mother might not have told him what Hogwarts was really like, he hated his Muggle father and actively chose his mother's House, Slytherin.

Of course, that was looking at it in the best light. It might also have been because of ambition. Still, he probably truly did not know Slytherin's reputation at the time, especially since Voldemort was in the midst of his rampage.

During that period, Lily was the more proactive one. Even when Snape, whether actively or passively, began associating with Slytherin's Death Eater hopefuls, she still did not give up on their "friendship."

During that time, perhaps Snape wanted to rise to prominence, perhaps he had no choice but to band together with others because of the targeting by James's group of four, or perhaps his talent had drawn people to recruit him. Most likely, it was all of the above.

From that painful memory in Snape's fifth year, when he accidentally uttered the word Mudblood and formally parted ways with Lily, one could glimpse the whole through a small part. At the time, Dumbledore was not as constantly focused on the school as he would be when Harry later attended; Voldemort occupied most of his attention.

During that period, bullying Slytherins was more like political correctness. It could even earn positive praise and responses from the other Houses. Whenever Sirius was unhappy, he would go looking for trouble with Slytherins.

Yet in the eyes of Professor McGonagall and others, many years later, even when they believed Sirius had betrayed Harry's father and joined the Death Eaters, he had still been a good child in his school days.

Though he could not exactly be called that good. Even Dumbledore, who had always viewed James and his group through a flattering filter, thought they went too far. He made the more steady Lupin a prefect, hoping Lupin would rein in James and Sirius, but it had little effect. Perhaps Lupin, as a werewolf, craved friendship too much.

After accidentally seeing that memory, even Harry himself once thought bitterly of how chilling it was to be praised for resembling his father. In anger and shame, he questioned Sirius and Lupin, only to receive affirming answers from both.

Unfortunately, after this incident, the relationship between Harry and Snape might have eased, at least from Harry's side.

But in that very school year, Dumbledore died.

Snape killed him.

The topic had drifted a little. After Snape and Lily parted ways in fifth year, James was truly quite clever. Not only did he pretend to restrain Sirius and Lupin so they would stop looking for trouble with Snape, he also stopped showing off. Even when he could not resist troubling Snape later on, he did it secretly, without letting Lily find out.

He held out until seventh year, when Lily finally began dating James.

Two years. Two whole years. Snape was truly useless. Couldn't he learn to turn over a new leaf? Teacher James was demonstrating it right in front of him. Was Dark magic and hanging around with Voldemort really that enjoyable?

And what happened in the end? His childhood sweetheart ran off with someone else. Only after he discovered that Lily might be killed by Voldemort did he actively seek out Dumbledore. Only after her death did he begin to regret it. Too late. It was all too late.

Anyone who transmigrated into Snape could probably have won Lily over.

But that was probably why Snape had been so confident at first.

After all, those who were favored had nothing to fear.

"It seems I should pay attention too. I should find out what Penelope's sore spots are, so I don't accidentally set one off someday."

I revised the synopsis. I previously did not mention the third child of prophecy in it because I wanted to avoid spoilers. Now that it has been made clear in the latest chapters, I added it in.