Ian and Harry strolled along the staircases of Hogwarts Castle.
These moving staircases, which caused Harry and Ron plenty of headaches on normal days, seemed as smooth as flat ground beneath Ian’s feet.
Even when stepping out over open air, the moment Ian’s foot extended, a staircase would swing into place just in time to catch him.
“Ian, how are you doing that?” Harry asked in wonder, staring in surprise at the stairs appearing beneath their feet.
“What?” Ian asked somewhat absently, not noticing Harry’s expression.
Harry pointed at the moving stairs below them.
“This!
How are you predicting them?
Ron and I always get fooled by these stairs when we’re trying to get to class.” On their very first day of school, he and Ron had nearly been late simply because they weren’t familiar with these stairs.
Now, he had to set out half an hour early for every class.
Harry felt that this extra half-hour was even more effective than waking up half an hour early every morning during the holidays to exercise.
Naturally, he desperately wanted to learn the secret from Ian.
However, he was destined for disappointment, as Ian’s method was not something he was currently capable of achieving.
“Hogwarts has existed for over a thousand years.
Originally, the school was built by the four founders as a wartime fortress,” Ian explained as he walked up the stairs.
“You’ve read Hogwarts: A History, so you should know what the living conditions were like for wizards back then.” Harry nodded.
While he hadn’t memorized the entire textbook like Hermione, he was well aware of the essential historical facts.
Hogwarts was founded around 993 AD, coinciding with the Early Middle Ages in European history.
During this period, Europe was torn by war, and the rise of the Church brought immense harm to the wizarding community.
The four founders were close friends who joined forces to build the castle with magic, establishing a home where young British witches and wizards could study magic systematically without persecution from Muggles.
All of this was recorded in the history books.
“The Four Big Guns chose to build the castle in a remote valley in the Scottish Highlands as a refuge by design,” Ian said, stopping to wait for the stairs ahead to rotate.
“Because of that, a vast amount of defensive magic was left embedded within this castle.” “Defensive magic?
Like the Protective Enchantments?” Harry asked.
“Exactly!” Ian nodded, continuing forward.
“That is just one aspect of it.
However, over the course of time, many advanced branches of magic have lost their continuity.” “Yet all things share a common root.
If you become proficient in Ancient Runes and learn to sense the flow of magical energy, you can discern the underlying patterns.” “It’s quite simple, isn’t it?” Ian stopped outside the entrance to the Gryffindor common room, turning around with a smile to look at Harry.
Harry stared back at Ian, his mouth hanging wide open.
“Haha, alright, I’ll stop teasing you.
You can just ask the Weasley brothers—they have a complete map of Hogwarts in their hands.” Seeing Harry’s shocked and somewhat bewildered expression, the smile on Ian’s lips deepened, and he finally stopped pulling his leg.
Snapping back to his senses, Harry said in disbelief, “So you were just tricking me?” “No!” Ian’s expression turned serious.
“Once you can clearly sense the flow of magic, you can do what I just did.” “In fact, you could do even more—like this.” With that, Ian drew his wand and thrust it sharply forward.
A frightening sight unfolded.
Harry distinctly felt the entire castle shudder the instant Ian thrust his wand.
Right before his eyes, all the spinning, shifting staircases froze completely in place with a harsh clack-clack sound.
It was as if a pause button had been pressed on the entire castle.
Although it only lasted for a few seconds before the stairs resumed moving, it was still enough to leave Harry thoroughly stunned.
He looked down at the stairs beneath his feet, then looked up at Ian and the wand in his hand, his eyes filled with utter incredulity.
“How did you do that?
Just by seeing the flow of magical energy, you can do all this?” Ian withdrew his wand, the serious expression fading from his face as his usual gentle smile returned.
It was as though he had merely performed a trivial trick, rather than momentarily shaking part of the core defensive matrix of a thousand-year-old magical fortress.
“It was just interfering with a certain nexus slightly—a minor clever trick, nothing more,” Ian said dismissively.
However, his gaze flicked toward a specific direction, a flash of solemnity passing through the depths of his eyes.
It was the direction of the Headmaster’s office.
Just a moment ago, Ian had distinctly felt a burst of magic erupting from that location.
Though it had been fleeting, Ian could still feel the immense power behind that magical pulse.
And in this castle, only one person possessed that kind of strength.
Albus Dumbledore.
Ian had never dared to underestimate the old Headmaster’s power.
Judging by the results of that brief probe, the Headmaster’s true strength evidently exceeded Ian’s expectations.
No…
perhaps it was also boosted by the school itself!
Recalling the sensation that burst of magic had given him, Ian consoled himself in his mind.
At that moment, Harry also noticed Ian’s strange behavior.
Following Ian’s gaze, he looked over, but saw nothing out of the ordinary beyond the staircases rotating as usual.
“Ian, what are you looking at?” Harry asked curiously.
Ian withdrew his gaze and shook his head at Harry’s puzzled expression.
“Nothing!” Then, changing the subject, he said, “Alright, now you can call your friends out.
I’ll take you all somewhere in a moment.” Harry was a bit dissatisfied with Ian’s brushes-off, but hearing the second half of the sentence, he immediately perked up.
“Great, I’ll go call them right now!
Wait for me!” With that, Harry bounded over to the portrait of the Fat Lady and shouted the password before she could even speak: “Pig snout!” The door to the common room swung open.
Harry looked back at Ian, and seeing Ian smiling at him, he finally stepped inside.
Once Harry was gone, the smile on Ian’s face gradually faded.
He looked down at his palm.
Unbeknownst to anyone, a faint layer of intricate golden patterns had emerged beneath the skin of Ian’s palm, slowly receding as his magic settled back down.
When the golden lines vanished completely, Ian let out a long breath.
A sudden wave of weakness washed over his body, causing him to stagger forward.
If he hadn’t leaned against the wall in time to support himself, he might have struggled to even stand upright.
Leaning against the cold stone wall, Ian closed his eyes to steady his breathing, feeling the lingering exhaustion brought on by overexerting his magic.
As expected…
that was still too reckless!
After an unknown length of time, Ian reopened his eyes, a bitter smile gracing his lips.
He hadn’t anticipated that a simple “probe” would instantly drain more than half of his magical power.
What was more, his clash against the castle of Hogwarts had drawn Dumbledore’s attention.
“Dumbledore…” he murmured the name softly under his breath, his mind clearly recalling the powerful surge of magic that had radiated from the Headmaster’s office just moments ago.
There was no mistake—that feeling!
Dumbledore had indeed taken that step.
Ian twitched the corners of his mouth, letting out a complex smile.
It was a realm he had been striving for, yet remained unable to reach.
Legendary!
It was a tier high enough for any formidable wizard to look up to in awe.
A century of life experience gave Dumbledore absolute confidence; A vast reservoir of knowledge laid the foundation for Dumbledore to ascend to the summit; And a dazzling array of legendary tales provided Dumbledore with his ultimate crown.
With power, willpower, and glory bolstering him, just how powerful Dumbledore truly was remained beyond imagination—even for Ian, who stood at the very threshold.
Yet Ian knew that the view from that height was bound to be far more spectacular.
Just then, the door to the Gryffindor common room opened once more.
Harry emerged, leading Ron, who looked thoroughly curious, and Hermione, who wore a serious expression while clutching a book in her hands.
“Ian!
We’re ready!” Harry called out excitedly.
Ian took a deep breath and straightened up, placing the gentle smile back on his face as he skillfully concealed his weakness.
“Very good,” he nodded.
“Follow me.” He offered no explanation as to where they were going, simply turning around and leading the way down the stairs.
Harry hastily urged the other two to keep up.
And so, Ian led the three youngsters out toward the castle grounds.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the castle, at the exact moment Ian launched that “earth-shattering” probe, two entities in the castle detected the commotion immediately.
In the Headmaster’s office on the eighth floor, Dumbledore blinked in confusion, the Elder Wand gripped tightly in his hand.
Yet, he was currently at a loss as to what he ought to do.
Just as Ian had anticipated, the moment Ian interfered with the movement of the castle stairs, Dumbledore had realized something was amiss.
Instinctively using his authority as Headmaster, he had mobilized the castle’s magical power.
Or rather, the castle itself had guided him through a cycle of magical power.
It had been extremely brief—so brief that before he could investigate what was happening in detail, the incident had ended, and the castle had returned to quiet stability once more.
Dumbledore stroked his silver-white beard and turned to look at the portraits of the former Headmasters around him.
“Everyone, do you happen to know what just transpired?” The Headmasters in the portraits woke up one after another, seemingly unaware that they had all fallen into a deep slumber just moments ago.
“What is it, Albus?
Did something happen just now?” It was Professor Armando Dippet who understood Dumbledore best.
Seeing Dumbledore draw the Elder Wand, he knew something beyond their knowledge must have taken place.
At those words, the look in Dumbledore’s eyes instantly turned solemn.
A situation like this was a first even for him.
Dumbledore hastily recounted the recent events, including the anomaly of their collective slumber.
After listening to Dumbledore’s explanation, every single Headmaster on the wall fell silent.
For a time, apart from the weak low coo of Fawkes the phoenix and the rustling sounds coming from Dumbledore’s drawer, not a single sound stirred in the entire Headmaster’s office.
After an unknown amount of time had passed, the Headmasters—having come up with nothing—turned their collective gazes toward Dumbledore.
After all, they were merely residual memories of their original selves.
Though sustained by the castle’s magic to think like normal living people, they had passed away long ago, and their wisdom and experience remained frozen at the moment of their creation.
Seeing this, Dumbledore had no choice but to abandon the idea of getting answers from them.
However, judging from his tightly furrowed brows and the way he paced back and forth across the office, he clearly didn’t have the faintest clue either.