"—Which spell?"
Zheng Qing sat in his chair, calmly sizing up the girl before him, whose face seemed to have the words "thirst for knowledge" written all over it. Half-jokingly, he said, "Do you mean the spell I used to kill the Dementor, the one I just used to help you pick up your books... or perhaps the spell for this soundproof barrier?"
He raised a hand and pointed at the translucent membrane above their heads.
Hermione instinctively lowered her eyes, a flicker of regret passing through her heart—she had heard that there was a kind of magic in the Wizarding World called Legilimency. As long as the caster looked at someone and their gazes met, they could know what the other person was thinking. Right now, she felt as though the secrets in her heart had been thoroughly laid bare, as if she had no secrets at all before this wizard.
She had rashly approached him earlier purely because she had happened to encounter this unfamiliar wizard in the library, the one who had left her distracted all morning. On an impulse, she had come over to say hello.
Now that she had calmed down,
she realized that she knew nothing at all about him.
She had committed a major taboo in wizardly socializing.
After lowering her eyes, her gaze was immediately drawn to the books in front of the wizard—Hogwarts Yearbook, Secrets of the Forbidden Forest, Where Are Unicorns?, and A School History of Hogwarts.
"A School History?"
A slight ripple stirred in her heart.
She liked this book too. Every time she read it, she felt as though she were wandering through history, touching the reality and secrets of this world. Few of the other young wizards at Hogwarts were willing to read it; they thought it