Harry Potter and the Great Old Ones

Chapter 653 The Interpretation of Dreams
"What do you associate it with?" Berennick Cornell repeated Tierra's words in a strained voice.

“Yes, Mr. Berennick Cornell,” Tierra said with a smile. “An orphan, gifted, with a sinister charm and an extraordinary influence—does that ring any bells?”

“No, no, sir,” Berennick Cornell replied nervously.

“Me.” Tiye stretched out a finger and pointed to himself.

“I’m an orphan. I was successful at a young age and I’m not ashamed. I’m talented and I understand people.” Tierra smiled as she left Berennick Cornell’s seat. “Didn’t you think about me?”

“Sir, I...I don’t understand...I don’t understand what you mean,” Berennick Cornell asked in a somewhat panicked manner.

"Rewrite these assignments." Tierra walked to the front of the class with her hands behind her back, then lightly snapped her fingers—

Besides the few assignments that Tiera had just distributed, another thirty or forty assignments broke free from the pile of assignments on the podium and flew back to their respective owners' seats.

“This is your last chance,” Tierra said with a smile. “If you still fail this assignment, I will ban you from the Dark Arts class again.”

“However, not all of you have Hermione’s writing skills or reading volume. If you were to analyze a person, especially a complex Dark Lord, based solely on a single memory, it would be extremely difficult. Therefore, I’ll relax the requirements a bit—”

Tierra said mysteriously.

“Based on the memories I’ve shown you and your understanding of me, compare the similarities and differences between me and Voldemort,” Tierra said with a smile.

“This is just your dark magic assignment for this school year. If you want to continue receiving dark magic education, you will receive a similar assignment at the same time next school year. However, this time you will not be analyzing some dark lord or analyzing others, but,” Tiera said with a smile, “analyzing yourselves.”

As Tierra finished speaking, the classroom fell silent, and everyone seemed to begin to think about how to analyze themselves.

“If you are to learn black magic, you must learn these things: learn to understand others, and more importantly, learn to understand yourself and analyze yourself,” Tiera said.

"Alright." Tierra clapped her hands with a smile. "The supplementary requirements for students whose assignments were not satisfactory this time."

"The requirements are: at least three hundred words, and at least five similarities between me and Voldemort, and two differences. Submit them to the Inquiry Office within a month. For this, I will allow you to interview every Tyrell in this school. It must be truthful and based on your genuine feelings. Don't make up words to belittle Voldemort or curry favor with me," Tyrell said. "Students who fail this assignment will be banned from the Dark Arts classroom. Understand?"

"clear."

The young wizards whose assignments had been returned nodded dejectedly.

“Good, very good.” Tierra nodded, waved her hand, and lightly swept the stacks of homework on the podium to the ground next to the podium.

“I will keep these assignments on file,” Tierra said. “Now let’s begin class.”

"In this lesson, we won't be discussing the principles of magic, or black magic, or anything related to magic from the previous day. Instead, I'm going to talk about wizards, or rather, about our inner selves—"

Tiera waved towards the podium.

Soon, a vivid illusion appeared on the platform, as if it were a real entity. The illusion depicted a balding old man with round-framed glasses and a white beard.

Two lines of text floated above the old man's head—

The Interpretation of Dreams

—Sigmund Freud

“We’re going to talk about Muggle psychology,” Tierra said. “It’s something invented by Muggles that allows them to analyze a person’s character, whether they’re lying, and what they might do in the future, without using legatomic thinking or divination, just by looking at other people’s body language, speech habits, facial expressions, actions, and dreams. It’s a huge, but also very infuriating, discipline.”

“Of course, we don’t intend to learn all of this completely. To be precise, we are merely using this foundational work of psychology as a stepping stone for self-analysis. We hope you can use non-magical means to understand and analyze yourselves, thereby fully mastering the power of dark magic, rather than being enslaved by it,” Tiera said. “Do you understand?”

"understand!"

This time, almost everyone answered in unison.

"Okay, very good. Um. Miss Granger, what's the matter with your hand raised?"

"Sir, where are our lecture notes?" Hermione asked in confusion.

“Oh no, you don’t need it,” Tiera said with a smile. “All you need to do in this class is to fully engage your minds and take a few simple notes.”

"This copy of *The Interpretation of Dreams* is on the fourth shelf of the fifth bookshelf in the library; there are about five or six copies," Tierra said. "But I don't recommend you borrow it now, because... frankly, even Dumbledore and I find these kinds of books a bit confusing."

“As far as I know, you learned how to interpret dreams in Professor Trelawney’s divination class, right?” Tierra asked.

"Yes!" came the unanimous reply.

“That’s very good, very good,” Tiera said with a smile. “Dream divination has a certain degree of accuracy and magical principles; to some extent, it can indeed predict the future. But what we’re going to talk about today is the interpretation of dreams—”

"It's used to reveal your past."

“As the old saying goes,” Tiera said with a smile, “the future is rooted in the past, the past gives birth to the future, and dreams connect the past, present, and future.”

“So even though I’m still a bit confused by this book, ‘The Interpretation of Dreams,’ I’d still like to share it with you,” Tierra said with a smile. “You don’t need to be too reserved. I’m just an apprentice in Muggle psychology. If you have any questions, feel free to raise your hand. It might just bring a whole new understanding to our topic.”

With that, Tierra straddled the podium and sat down.

“So, let’s first understand the background,” Thiella said. “Psychology emerged in the early 19th century. Before Freud, the field of psychiatry was relatively unexplored territory. French scientist Jean Charcot and his student Pierre Jannet established an independent position in this field through their research on hypnotic states and hysteria. Freud studied under him from 1885 to 1886—his relationship with Jannet was similar to that of Saint-Simon and Comte. It was Jannet who conducted in-depth research on the mental process of hysteria. Based on the genetic theory that was prevalent in French psychology at the end of the 19th century, he believed that this condition was a form of nervous system degeneration, manifested as a kind of innate ‘weakness’.”

(End of this chapter)