Harry Potter: A Certain Ancient Rune Professor of Hogwarts (TL)

Chapter 593: The Secret of Classroom No. 7 (2 in 1)

For the next few days, the Wall of Mystery newsletter was sold off the shelves.

The first and most attractive title of the newsletter article was – ‘How to Surprise a Professor?’ On the back, there was another printed article ‘Classroom Seven, our overlooked treasure.’

Just a day later, an article ‘The student’s support – Classroom Seven’ became the new hot topic, with Mafalda ‘successfully’ interviewing several memory bodies who — coincidentally — were more than happy to give their real bodies a bit of a hard time as they recalled their school days when they were preparing for their exams and spilling some little tips.

For example, the Hogwarts students learned for the first time that both Gryffindor and Ravenclaw Heads had an Hatstall when they were sorted, and Professor McGonagall was kept debating with Sorting Hat for five and a half minutes in her mind, as she wavered between Ravenclaw and Gryffindor, before finally sorting into Gryffindor House.

And the Sorting Hat went through a similar process when it met Professor Flitwick, and although it didn’t take that long, it did think twice before finally making the exact opposite decision and sorting the younger Flitwick into Ravenclaw House.

“How marvellous! If the Sorting Hat had changed its hand at the time, we would have had two Heads with swapped positions.” Ravenclaw’s Padma Patil called out.

“The Sorting Hat has no hands.” Her twin sister, Parvati Patil, who had been sorted into Gryffindor, reminded her.

“Are we getting a new Head?” Luna looked around.

“They’re joking.” Ginny said.

The professors were startled. At first, they had turned a blind eye to the students’ actions and allowed them to harass the memory bodies in Classroom Seven – their time was spent studying anyway – but after this story broke, the professors got a bit more concerned.

They have found their memory bodies and given them an earful, warning them not to reveal their little secrets ever again.

Felix then saw Dumbledore sneaking into classroom seven one night during curfew from the Marauder’s map. He grinned, put the map away, and played the latest version of the Wizard Cards with Valen, a card game made by the ‘Chocolate Frog Card Duelling Club’, which was founded by a Ravenclaw student. Professor Flitwick had proudly shown it to them during an afternoon tea session on one occasion.

Felix could remember this event very well.

Since it happened on April 15, not long after that happened the Weasley twins made a big commotion.

“Kee! (Don’t cheat!)” Valen grumbled, clutching a handful of cards in her hand.

Felix slapped a card on the table, ” A distraction! All my attacks are considered twice as powerful when this card is present.”

“Kee!!!” Valen stared at the card with wide eyes, in disbelief.

“How is it impossible?” Felix stated vibrantly, “You’ve clearly seen me prepare this.” Exasperated, Valen wanted to throw the little snake in his face.

“Kee!”

“Well,” he withdrew the temporary card regretfully, “I’ll certainly suggest them to add this card when I get a chance … your turn.”

Valen blinked sheepishly and displayed the cards in her hand one by one:

Felix stared at ‘Niffler’s Cloak’, ‘Niffler’s Wand’, ‘Niffler’s Treasure’, ‘Niffler’s Money Bank’, and the most powerful one of all – ‘Niffler’s Trump Card: Summon the Great Demon King’.

He bristled, ” Well, that’s a perk of being an investor, I guess.”

…

After dinner, Harry, Ron, and Hermione made their way to classroom seven, the corridor by the door was simply buzzing with activity and the three of them were pushed through the crowd to the front to see Angelina talking to Alicia in a low voice.

Harry suddenly realized to his horror that they were both seventh years, and with Fred and George, four of them would be gone at once from next year’s team!

“Harry!”

Angelina waved at him, “Here-” she reached out a hand and yanked Harry over, Harry didn’t even react. Then she rummaged through her book bag and pulled out a stack of parchment, and asked as she searched the bag, “Where’s Ron?”

“Here!” Ron gasped as he squeezed over. Hermione followed behind, clutching her book bag.

“Excellent, you see, this is a new tactic I’ve worked out, the winner of the match between Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff will be our opponent, according to the current rankings we still retain the advantage, but we must not take it lightly-”

Before Harry could speak, the door to classroom seven opened.

“That’s all for now, when you guys go back, take a good look, we will use it at our next training session.” Angelina said quickly, as she hurried into classroom seven after Alicia.

“I’d like to see-” Ron mumbled, squeezing in with Harry and Hermione at the same time.

They had been here so many times in their fourth year that it had left many psychological shadows in their minds, which led to them rarely dropping in even when Classroom Seven became open to students in their fifth year; they had heard that some students who liked to explore used it as some sort of second common room.

“The weather is still so unpredictable.” Ron muttered and Harry thought deeply, unlike the twilight scene outside, the pale sunlight shone down on their faces, is warm, and the soft dirt seemed to glow under their feet.

Under their feet is a twisting, cobbled path that reminds Harry of Diagon Alley, except there are fewer cobblestones. There are wooden signs standing on the road, with a fork in the path extending alongside each sign; they can only see part of the way, and any deeper seemed to be obstructed by a mist.

Harry squinted hard to see further down the road, there seemed to be some small houses hidden in the mist, and he guessed that Mr. Scamander’s magical zoo, Professor Sprout’s wild greenhouse, and other buildings would be there.

“Do you guys think the young Professor McGonagall will be at the end of the road?” Ron said, pointing to the nearest wooden sign, which neatly inscribed ‘Transfiguration’. “It’s possible.” Harry said, feeling intrigued by the idea. He ran to the other side and joined Hermione in surveying a crooked wooden sign.

“It must have been written by Hagrid’s own hand.” Hermione sounded very confident.

Harry grinned as he looked at the wild handwriting on the board, with two letters misspelled.

“Who else could it be.”

At that moment, the students who had come in before and after them took the fork in the road, and their figures quickly disappeared.

“Let’s hurry up and choose one too.” Hermione urged.

“How about Transfiguration?” Harry offered, “I’m not too skilled at cross-species transfiguration yet.”

“The lesson where the owl turns into a small telescope?” Ron whispered, “You’ve done well enough, I was surprised when they blinked at me while I was looking into the telescope lenses and Seamus said he always felt like something was staring at him …”

“That’s because you don’t see them shrink themselves up when they get ticklish.” Harry said gloomily.

So they returned to walk up the ‘Transfiguration’ path, Harry was more and more certain that this path had been designed by Professor McGonagall’s memory body, the plants on either side of the path had obviously been well tended, the shrubs neatly trimmed and seemed to have been measured with a ruler.

Harry recalled Privet Drive with unpleasant flavour, and he shared the thought with Ron and Hermione – the former laughed endlessly, the latter just grunted, before they came to the end of the path.

Harry looked around.

“What’s wrong?” Ron asked.

“Before us -” Harry stretched his arms out, looking a little dumbfounded – “some people picked this path, but none of them are here.” As soon as the words left his mouth, three doors appeared in front of them.

“So they’re waiting inside.” Ron said, and the three of them looked at each other, before each picking a door and walking in.

Behind the door, there is an empty classroom, without a single soul in sight.

Harry walked around the room and finally returned to the same spot, and was somewhat dumbfounded to find that even the door had disappeared. He cleared his throat and asked in a loud voice, “Is anyone home?” At the same time, he clutched his wand vigilantly, fearing that a flock of dragons would come out flying due to his loud shout.

Something similar to a mirror suddenly appeared in the air, its surface rippling with golden light, and Harry saw a blurred image of what appeared to be someone on the other side! Then a red envelope was thrown out.

“Wait!” Harry shouted, “I can see you.”

The golden ripples which were nearly fading came to life and after a few seconds a hand poked out of it, followed by an elegant face – it turned out to be the young Professor McGonagall, who pursed her lips and showed half her body, making him very unnerved. “It’s Harry.” She said in a flat tone.

The red envelope that had just been tossed over to him began to puff out smoke, and the ear-piercing memory about this thing in his deeper mind came flooding back; this thing is a howler letter. Harry tried to move back, but his feet felt like they had taken root, and he couldn’t move.

“Pro- Professor McGonagall?”

“Oh, are you trying to ask about that thing,” the young Professor McGonagall said with a scowl, “That’s Felix’s design, it’s not much use, it’s simply to scare people.” Her tone was somewhat dismissive as the mirror, which was only half a man’s height, turned into a door, and she pushed it in, then with a wave of her hand, two more beautiful chairs appeared in the classroom.

“Let’s sit down and listen together, it’s about all the changes that have been going on here recently.”

So Harry and Professor McGonagall sat down in the chairs and the howler letter – or maybe an instruction manual disguised as a howler letter? Harry couldn’t quite figure it out, but it opened one mouth and began describing the functions of Classroom Seven in graphic detail.

“… A great place to help students … A novel experience … Ahead of the times… …”

Harry listened with rapt attention, and it took him five minutes to realize that all the things it said before were pure nonsense, and at some point towards the end, it finally moved on to the main topic.

” This place is designed with the student’s will in mind, you can learn in single user mode, or in group mode as a class, or together with your friends. Yes, there is an immense degree of freedom … it’s the biggest difference you will find between here and the classroom,” the envelope moved closer with its mouth wide open and Harry leaned his body back, he felt the envelope’s spit about to spray on his face, “we won’t ask you to do anything. ”

“In other words – you have to figure out what you want! No one can help you on that point.”

The envelope began to burn and Harry was afraid it would suddenly explode, but Professor McGonagall simply waved her hand and made it disappear.

“Now do you understand?” The young Professor McGonagall asked.

“Well -” Harry pondered, looking at the exquisitely dressed Professor McGonagall out of the corner of his eye and mentally addressing her as ‘Ms. McGonagall’, “it suggests that that classroom seven is different from the classroom outside.”

He realized he had just said a standard line of nonsense.

“We want the two to complement each other – the classroom and Classroom Seven, the professor and the memory body.” The young Professor McGonagall corrected, “And?”

“Well, I can learn whatever I want to learn?” Harry guessed, and Ms. McGonagall smiled at him, “Limited to Transfiguration, yes, you’re right.”

Harry breathed a sigh of relief.

“What about Ron and Hermione? Did they go through the whole ‘howler letter’ thing too?” Harry asked while wondering if Ron would still be calm enough to listen carefully to its contents when he saw an instruction manual that resembled a howler letter.

“Pretty much, but they didn’t see me, though.” Ms. McGonagall said, “I am here on a whim.” She added in a small voice, then waved her hand and two blurred images appeared in the air, Harry stared in amazement as the images showed none other than Ron and Hermione.

Ron was being chased by a group of round things and Hermione was lost in thought facing a wall with hundreds of books stuck to it, Hermione walked around, occasionally stopping to make a gesture of turning the pages, the books in front of her obediently turned the pages …

Harry watched in amazement. How amazing, but why are there so many differences between the two?

Could it be that this place would divide them according to intelligence?

“They have chosen different ways of learning.” Ms. McGonagall explained, “Ron preferred to learn by playing, so I had a bunch of plates of vegetables to chase him around, and they wouldn’t stop until he could successfully turn them into mushrooms one by one.”

Harry mentally prayed for Ron.

“As for Hermione – she’s more of a thinker, that being said, I think she’s a little too Ravenclaw-ish.” Ms. McGonagall said.

Harry suddenly thought about the rumours he had heard over the past two days. He bravely asked, “McGonagall – um – Ms.?” A slight smile tugged at the corners of the young Professor McGonagall’s lips and Harry dropped the question that was on his mind, “Is it true that you had experienced Hatstall when you were sorted?”

“Yes.”

“Professor Flitwick too?” He asked cautiously.

“Oh, we sometimes do – I mean between each other in this context – poke fun at each other,” Ms. McGonagall said, “I have that part of my memory. But in fact, Filius’s case is not considered exactly as Hatstall, it’s just that the Sorting Hat hesitated a little too long. Well, I can’t stay here for too long, there are quite a lot of students these days and I have to look after them constantly. Although other people will help, but …”

She muttered in a small voice, probably along the lines of ‘don’t want to bother anyone else’.

“I will occasionally show up as a class lecturer – not to lecture, but to answer questions. It’s quite a nostalgic feeling.” She said, “One thing you should know: here, you will get a response to whatever you want.”

“Imagination is important.” She personally demonstrated this by drawing a random door in the air with her finger and then pushing it open and leaving, Harry walked over to it, and it was gone.

He remained in place for a moment and wondered tentatively, “Can I change the setting here? How about turning it into a … forest?”

The air around him began to shake as a vague image of towering trees and shrubs emerged, and a few seconds later they appeared in real life. Harry watched this in awe, almost thinking he had arrived in Professor Hap’s thinking classroom, and then he tried various environments such as the Black Lake, the great hall, the covered bridge, the clock tower, and even the shrieking shack.

After a few moments of intense fun, it occurred to Harry that Ron would still be being chased by the vegetable plates, and he hurriedly enquired, “Can I go to Ron’s place? Ron Weasley, with the red hair and freckles-”

A small line appeared in the air: Personal permission required. After a few seconds, a blurred image appeared in the air, and Harry moved closer to catch a better look, and then he noticed Ron frantically running toward him.

Ron jerked his wand backward and a few dark mushrooms grew from the nearest dish, and when he looked back he saw Harry in front of him. He shouted excitedly, “Harry? A little line of writing just appeared in front of me and I thought it was an illusion-”

“Watch out!” Harry yelled.

“Bang!” Ron went through the fuzzy blur of air and the two crashed hard against each other.

Harry’s eyes went straight up, and he covered his nose and plopped down, tears brimming down his face, and after a long moment, he shook Ron’s leg off his chest and struggled to get up from the ground, his glasses hanging off his left ear and his vision blurred. He hurriedly put his glasses back on and noticed that the plates are dancing and circling around both of them.

When Harry stood up straight, the plates rolled towards him as if they had received a signal, and Harry sat back down decisively, dragging Ron, who was about to stand up, back to the ground in the process.

The plates stopped in their tracks.

“Can we be able to use other magic?” Harry and Ron discussed the countermeasure.

“No,” Ron said with a frown, “I’ll show you.” He fired off a Stunning Spell, only for the spell to go straight through the plate, “I reckon they only react to Transfiguration.”

Harry scratched his head a little, he could already imagine the scene where he would practice turning an owl into a small telescope.

Maybe they could try Hermione’s method next time?

…

The depths of classroom seven.

This area is the absolute heart of Classroom Seven, which is densely woven with runic circuits and magic nodes that look like underground pipes, with layer after layer of protective magic wrapped around them.

Theoretically, this place could not be discovered by outsiders, not even the memory bodies. This is because, at the beginning of its construction, Dumbledore used the Headmaster’s authority – just like in the Room of Requirement – to connect Classroom Seven’s magical feed together with the entire castle.

At the moment, Felix appeared in this ‘non-existent’ place, with jars and pots in front of him, which extracting and storing invisible magic from every corner of the room, the mouths of the jars shone with a star-like brilliance.

Felix clapped his hands together and stood up.

“Let’s see, joy, anger, fear, sorrow, curiosity, disgust, guilt, pride, calmness, confusion, longing, as well as love and hate – what else? Never mind, let’s divide it up later.”

As the date of the final battle approached, everyone is preparing for it accordingly.

————

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