A certain Hogwarts professor of runes

Chapter 296 You can trust him!

After practice that day, on the way back, Hermione kept her brow furrowed and remained silent.

"Hermione, you're not still thinking about Trelawney's nonsense, are you? She's an old liar," Ron advised her. "I almost fell for it too, but after I spent a month making up stories of bad luck and got an excellent grade, I stopped believing her."

He then looked at Harry and said with great interest, "I learned a trick from Professor Hyp, so if you ever split your body again, I can help you—" He gave Harry a meaningful look.

Harry shivered, but didn't find much comfort in it.

He held the Muggle coin in his hand, a heptagonal fifty-pence that gleamed slightly in the sunlight.

Ron stared at the coin and said, "I still have the one you gave me last year, but... Professor Hyp is really interesting, to think of such a method."

Before the practice ended, Professor Hyp asked Harry for a coin. Harry originally wanted to find his bronze knuckles, but unexpectedly found this one in the corner of his pocket. After asking if it would have any effect, Harry handed the silver coin to the professor and asked him to cast a spell on it.

The professor told him, "I can't keep an eye on your progress every day, so let's make a deal: you can't use Apparition outside the Room of Requirement until it turns a dazzling gold."

Back in the common lounge, they saw the twins twisting a table.

It was a lion with a vacant stare, its ginger-colored fur limp and its face looking like it had been punched. Harry thought the twins must have been modeled after Hermione's pet Crookshanks.

"Still no good!" Li Qiaodan said dejectedly, pinching the lion's drooping ears.

“You have to make a choice,” Fred said. “At least it can move, can’t it?”

"I don't want to ride this thing out, people will laugh me to death!" Li Qiaodan said fearfully.

Harry asked Seamus, who was watching intently, "What are they doing?"

Seamus said enthusiastically, "They wanted to create a lion mount, exclusively for Gryffindor, but unfortunately the Transfiguration wasn't very effective..."

Harry couldn't help but think of the Slytherin girl who rode a giant snake and showed off in the corridor. Although she was later put in solitary confinement by Professor McGonagall, her name became known overnight.

Many people secretly envied it and wanted to create something similar.

"Bang!"

"I still don't understand why Dumbledore didn't cancel Divination class?" Hermione stared seriously at the lion the twins had conjured up. After a long while, she turned to Harry and Ron and said.

During the evening rune tutoring session, Professor Hyp provided more information—

"Because this branch of magic has indeed been glorious, and it has indeed been useful," Felix explained.

"But Trelawney, she—"

"I don't know what Dumbledore was thinking back then, nor have I ever witnessed a real prophecy, but... Sibyl's ancestor Cassandra Trelawney was definitively proven to have a talent for divination, and she was known as 'the prophet who could see the future'."

Hermione stared wide-eyed as Professor Hyp brushed his fingers through the air before him, and golden smoke condensed into a piece of paper in mid-air. The words on it shone brightly; it was a self-narration:

"I can see a blurry shadow on a person, more mysterious than a ghost—they don't always appear, and most of the time they have no effect, until one moment they transform into a picture, and I see the future... I once saw an endless black tide on a dark wizard, and two months later he orchestrated a massacre... I feel deeply guilty about this, and my third eye may become a burden..."

Hermione stared blankly at the golden paper, which swayed gently in mid-air. She murmured, "This is..."

"I stumbled upon letters Cassandra Trelawney sent to a friend a century later," Felix said. "Cassandra didn't live long, perhaps for that reason; her talents didn't bring her happiness. A few years before her death, she distanced herself from her family and lived a solitary life."

"So, you believe that Professor Trelawney inherited her ancestors' talents?"

"I guess it's partly inherited, judging from her daily behavior."

Hermione sighed; she found herself not so much hating Sybil Trelawney anymore.

After sitting quietly for a while, she patted her face, regaining her composure. "Professor, shall I continue practicing the Illumination spell today?"

"Yes, after all, this is the first ancient magic I plan to teach at the club, so we need to be careful. In all of Hogwarts, you are the only one who has mastered all the runes required for this spell."

Hermione nodded, took a deep breath, and magical runes appeared in front of her. These magical symbols, centered on 'light', continued to piece together and converge, like completing a jigsaw puzzle.

A light bloomed at her fingertips, a milky white glow that was gentle and not dazzling. Hermione carefully controlled the magic, but her magical power poured out uncontrollably...

"I must not be controlled by magic," Hermione said dejectedly as a ray of light shattered in her hand. "Oh, it still doesn't work—" Hermione's magic only lasted a few tries, even though she could do it in the Mind Chamber.

Felix smiled. "You're a fast learner. I expect you'll have mastered it by the end of the Easter holidays."

Hermione wiped her sweat, her gaze falling on the Marauder's Map on the workbench. She couldn't help but ask, "Professor, hasn't that dark wizard shown up yet?"

"Yes," Felix said with a hint of helplessness, "all we can do is wait."

After a long pause, Hermione said, biting her lip with a troubled expression, "Professor, can the Faithful Charm be broken?"

Felix stared into her eyes: "Miss Granger... what have you guessed this time?"

"Oh, me," Hermione said, her lips trembling, "Sirius Black was imprisoned in Azkaban not only for the heinous murder, but also because he was a loyal spy for Voldemort, betraying Harry's parents!"

"If I'm not mistaken, you have one more 'but'." Felix looked at her calmly.

"But that doesn't make sense! Even if Black hates Ron's rats more, for example, due to infighting among the Death Eaters, or some personal grudge, he wouldn't let Harry off the hook. I've thought of a possibility, I've looked into it privately, but the Faithful Charm can't be broken by external force..."

Felix paused for a moment, then said in a deep voice, "Miss Granger, if... I mean if, things change unexpectedly, and you encounter him—Sirius Black, Granger, you can trust him, especially when Harry is in danger!"

(End of this chapter)