A certain Hogwarts professor of runes

Felix stayed in Snape's office until the first class of the afternoon ended before rushing off to teach his seventh-year wizard.

He stood on the podium, looking down at the young wizards from the four colleges below.

There were fewer than twenty in total. "Tsk tsk! That's far too few."

Early in the semester, Felix had spoken with Professor McGonagall about "appropriately" relaxing the students' grades, allowing some junior wizards with A grades to enter his advanced class.

He did this with the idea that "the more the merrier," hoping that his strong personal charm might persuade another wizard to join the research family of ancient runes.

But before his arrival, the course had been lukewarm at best, with very little response. Apart from wizards who aspired to study ancient texts or wanted to work in Gringotts or the Ministry of Magic's retirement division, others showed little interest in it.

So in his seventh-grade class, there were either top students who would not let any mistakes go unpunished and would try to select as many students as possible, or poor students who just happened to be lucky enough to get an A (passing grade) in the ancient magic script.

For example, Marcus Flint is a typical example of a poor student. After entering seventh grade, he only chose two courses—Protecting Magical Creatures and Ancient Runes.

Felix opened a way for him to enter the ancient runes; otherwise, he would have been able to take a course.

As far as Felix knew, the seventh-year Magical Creatures Protection class would introduce a significant amount of knowledge about raising and breeding rare magical creatures, requiring extensive research and memorization. Given Marcus Flint's troll-like intellect, Felix had no idea how he would pass.

On the platform, Felix waved his wand, scattering a dozen or so scrolls in all directions, which landed in front of the corresponding young wizards.

He commented, "Overall, your grades are steadily improving. However, I must remind you that according to the previous NEWTs assessment standards, you must translate a complete ancient document."

"This means that during your exam, you might encounter some extremely obscure ancient magical scripts that you won't be able to find even after searching through five years' worth of ancient magical script textbooks."

"Professor, what should we do?" asked a Ravenclaw witch, who wore a very distinctive pair of thick glasses.

"Miss Vera, this involves a bit of test-taking skills, such as inferring the meaning of words."

"Guessing the meaning of the words?" Vera pushed up her glasses and asked, puzzled.

"In the ancient runes textbooks for grades 6 and 7, a considerable amount of space is devoted to explaining the evolution of ancient runes. For example, Eoh has gone through seven versions, each with slightly different meanings and writing styles."

"But in fact, once you understand its evolutionary logic, you will find that its core meaning has never really changed."

Vera nodded; she knew all of this.

Professor Hyp continued, "Therefore, as long as you know one version of the ancient runes, you can make reasonable inferences based on its core meaning and the context."

"Even with runes you've never encountered before, you can make reasonable inferences based on their word forms. This requires using the 27 most common evolutionary forms..."

"Of course, magical runes are not included in this category and need to be memorized separately, but there aren't many of them."

Marcus next to her looked desperate. What are you talking about?

Why is it that I recognize each word individually, but when they're put together, it's like reading gibberish?

"I understand, Professor Hyp," Vera said excitedly.

In this class, she was the only one who truly loved ancient magical script and was determined to pursue this path, although her research focus was on document translation.

This was actually influenced by her family—her grandfather was the vice president of the Ancient Magic Rune Association.

When she returned home for the Christmas holidays and mentioned that Felix Heap was the new Professor of Ancient Runes at Hogwarts, her grandfather's exaggerated expression, with his beard puffed out and eyes wide open, was quite amusing.

While he vehemently denounced Felix as "a heretic who has gone astray," he also shyly admitted that "he does have real skills, and you can learn from him to some extent," which made her place Professor Hyp on the same level as her grandfather in her mind.

"Let's continue—" After dealing with the routine questions, Felix's gaze fell on Marcus: "Flint, your grades have been hovering around A (passing grade) for a while now, and I'm quite worried about you."

Marcus looked miserable. He had really put a lot of effort into Ancient Runes, even carrying an Ancient Runes textbook in his bag while training on the Quidditch pitch—though he had only opened it once.

But at least his attitude was there; he hadn't been this attentive in any other class. Unfortunately, he just wasn't cut out for it. Marcus wanted to quit, but he trembled at the sight of Felix and simply couldn't muster the courage.

"Teach, Professor, I will try my best," Marcus said tremblingly.

"Great, feel free to contact me if you have any questions."

Felix began formal lessons, and in this small classroom, the top students and the underachievers were clearly separated. The top students became more and more attentive as they listened, while the underachievers became more and more confused. Marcus was an exception—he was an underachiever, but he forced himself to present the appearance of a top student.

A class passed by quickly.

Felix left with a stack of parchment; in his hand were the homework of seventh-grade students.

Today, he received holiday homework for all three grades. Felix decided to fully utilize his assistant's learning enthusiasm and assign her all the third and fourth grade homework.

In the evening, Felix casually flipped through Professor Flitwick's Christmas gift—a manuscript of ancient magic.

The parchment bears two kinds of writing: one is an extremely ancient and ancient magical script, and the other is Professor Flitwick's supplement and annotations, which contain his research ideas on this magic.

Very inspiring.

However, according to Professor Flitwick, he did not have any special talent in ancient runes, so this incomplete ancient magic was a collaborative research project between him and the former professor of ancient runes, Barbling. When Professor Barbling left Hogwarts for vacation, the research came to a standstill.

Sending the manuscript to Felix was also an invitation to collaborate on research.

Felix waved his wand, and a hazy, pale blue light, like a galaxy, streaked through the air and landed on a quill pen.

The brown quill first turned into a toothpick, then rapidly expanded to the size of a cane. As Felix continued to infuse it with magic, the quill grew to about seven feet long and then refused to move.

"Hmm, the effect seems to be a combination of the shrinking spell and the enlarging spell, but it doesn't have the characteristics of high consumption, high danger, and high intensity of ancient magic."

"It's more like modern simplified magic, with a limit to both power and mana consumption."

"Is it because supplementing it simplifies the concept of magic?"

Felix scribbled and drew on the parchment, preparing for a long battle; restoring ancient magic was no easy task.

"I really wish I had a teacher," he thought wistfully before going to sleep.