A certain Hogwarts professor of runes

Finally, the term ended, and the young wizards lined up to board the train home, leaving Hogwarts mostly empty.

A stillness, like that of a clear morning after a heavy snowfall, completely enveloped the entire castle.

Felix walked through the castle, occasionally encountering a young wizard, but he didn't find it boring at all; on the contrary, he felt very peaceful.

Near the frozen Black Lake, he chose a secluded spot, conjured a rocking chair with magic, and lay down comfortably. He snapped his fingers, and a bright blue flame floated above his head.

Felix took a book out of the ring and began to read it with great interest.

What he had was the Ravenclaw Manuscript (Volume 2), which later generations compiled the materials left by Rowena Ravenclaw and divided them into twelve volumes according to different categories.

The second volume is Ravenclaw's daily notes and does not involve specific magical knowledge. In his view, it is filled with long passages of rambling, poetic ramblings.

Picking a passage at random—

The stone transformed into a little bird, chirping and twittering. It crossed mountains and lakes, bringing back daisies from the Red Plain.

Felix: "..." He couldn't understand Ms. Ravenclaw's state of mind at that time.

Felix simply assumed that Ravenclaw had received an aristocratic education in his youth, had a family tradition of learning, and had a special fondness for poetry.

But were there any famous poets in that era?

Felix scratched his head. He knew that the four founders of Hogwarts were active in the Middle Ages, but it seemed that the poetry of that period was inseparable from the category of religious hymns.

He continued reading—

The river said to me, "Creator, you gave me thought, but not form. One day, I will merge into the ocean."

Felix: "..."

Thinking about it carefully, it's quite evocative; at least it sounds profound and mysterious.

He stopped trying to decipher the deeper meanings and instead quickly skimmed through the text. In less than half an hour, he had reached the end.

"Tsk!" Felix clicked his tongue, unsure of what to say.

Does lacking literary appreciation skills disqualify one from studying magic?

He simply lay back in the chair, gazing at the snow-covered lake in the distance, recalling the knowledge he had gained from the diary over the past few days. With his discerning eye, he could easily distinguish which parts were more useful to him. Although the diary had tried to conceal things from him and even convey incorrect information, he was, after all, dealing with a prospective Dark Lord who had not yet left school and was still quite immature in every way.

In this respect, Voldemort is somewhat similar to his former self; both of them relied on "external forces" to forcibly improve their abilities in a single subject, thereby reaching a level far beyond that of their peers.

However, his understanding and perception of magic are still too superficial.

You won't have the corresponding experience unless you've reached a certain level.

Felix felt a pang of sympathy; most wizards spent their entire lives learning other people's magic without ever making any improvements. It wasn't that they didn't want to, but that they couldn't.

"Wait, I think I've just realized something." Felix sat up abruptly. "Birds, rivers, creators, magic, consciousness..."

Felix quickly opened the Ravenclaw Manuscripts (Volume Two), turned to a page, and looked at the familiar writing—

"The stone turned into a little bird, chirping and singing. It crossed mountains and lakes, bringing back daisies from the Red Plain."

If we consider this short poem as a true record of Ravenclaw's own experiences, would that make sense?

The first sentence is undoubtedly about transfiguration; perhaps one day, Lady Rowena Ravenclaw, on a whim, transformed a stone into a beautiful little bird.

What does the second sentence say?

Ravenclaw used magic to make it make a sound? Felix shook his head, connecting the last two sentences to the fact that this legendary little bird had clearly flown a considerable distance and brought back a daisy.

This is something that transfiguration can't do.

Perhaps Ravenclaw endowed it with some kind of "qualities," like life, soul, or something similar, allowing it to retain a certain degree of autonomy even after it is outside the range of spellcasting.

He suddenly remembered part of his conversation with the Sorting Hat that day—

"Sorting Hat, do you remember how you were born?" Felix asked it in his mind.

"Of course, oh, I'm very impressed with that," it said cleverly, and then the dirty, tattered hat began to sing in its mind.

That happened more than a thousand years ago.

I have just been woven into shape.

There were four famous wizards,

He vowed to train the young wizards to become successful.

These four great wizards,

The talents they value differ from person to person.

It was Gryffindor who came up with the solution—

He took me off his head.

All four giants instilled ideas in me.

From now on, I will be in charge of selecting and evaluating!

……

After acquiring the thoughts of the four leaders, the Sorting Hat became almost an independent life form.

How similar it is to that little bird that flies over mountains and lakes and brings back a daisy!

What's the key here? It's autonomy. They all exhibit extremely strong autonomy, just like real life, able to make their own decisions and perform complex actions even outside the realm of magic.

How can this autonomy be achieved through magic?

Setting aside the realms of "life" and "soul" that were completely beyond his grasp, Felix quickly came up with a way he could achieve this—injecting memories.

He happened to acquire this knowledge from his diary.

Felix waved his wand, sending a palm-sized pebble flying in front of him. He then gently tapped the pebble with his wand, and it quickly transformed into a delicate, tiny swift.

But if you look closely, you'll find that this swift has a very dull gaze, like a puppet, and every move it makes needs the guidance of a magic wand.

Next, Felix simulated a short memory of "Swift" in his mind. He touched his forehead with his wand, drawing out a thin, silvery thread that shimmered with a faint light.

Felix integrates this false memory into the swift's body and, relying on the knowledge given to him by the diary, combines the two.

He simplified the process as much as possible, just to verify his own ideas.

Under his gaze, the swift's eyes became incredibly lively. Without his control, it flapped its wings and took flight, albeit unsteadily.

But the next second, it plunged headfirst into the snow, leaving only its two legs twitching.

Felix pulled it out, and the swift hopped and skipped through the snow with difficulty, looking more like a sparrow foraging for food in the snow—this was because the memory he had constructed was too poor.

But he stared intently at the little guy in front of him.

After about two or three minutes, wisps of silver mist began to emanate from the swift's body—the fabricated memory had vanished.

It returned to its dull state.

Felix waved his wand, turning it back into a pebble, and fell into deep thought.