Get comfortable, turn the page, and let’s see what this story has been hiding 🔥 ✦ While teaching, Elias’s own command of this world’s magic improved rapidly.
After successfully applying for the use of a Charms practice room, he spent one night mastering most common offensive spells.
He was somewhat disappointed by their power.
Setting aside spells clearly designed for mischief, such as Densaugeo, the Hot-Air Charm, Tarantallegra, and Rictusempra, even genuine combat spells left him unimpressed.
Expelliarmus, Diffindo, the Bat-Bogey Hex, Levicorpus – most of them could only temporarily disable an opponent.
Many did not even cause much damage.
Yet for most Hogwarts students, those spells represented nearly the full extent of usable offensive magic.
Of course, Elias also found spells with more meaningful destructive power, such as Confringo, Reducto, and Incendio, but they occupied only a tiny portion of the thick compendium.
If witches and wizards in his previous world had possessed magic only at that level, ordinary people would have slaughtered them long ago.
Sorceresses in that world could call down meteors, storms, and other large-scale battlefield magic.
This world did possess powerful spells.
Fiendfyre, for instance, released cursed flame capable of devouring everything around it, and only the proper countercurse could extinguish it.
If no one stopped it, Elias suspected Fiendfyre could theoretically burn from Brazil to Canada.
But such powerful magic had been classified as Dark Arts and locked away in restricted collections, where it was gradually forgotten.
In Elias’s opinion, that was a shameful retreat.
He felt a certain responsibility to rescue those endangered branches of Dark magic.
So, making full use of his position as a professor, he entered the Restricted Section of the Hogwarts library.
Only there did Elias truly feel the depth of Hogwarts as a thousand-year-old school.
The ordinary shelves alone were tall and rich with magical texts.
The Restricted Section was no less crowded, packed with all kinds of books.
Some shelves were thick with cobwebs, and many volumes wore layers of dust.
When he approached certain books, the Wolf School medallion at his chest vibrated faintly.
That meant some of them carried magic or curses.
Elias did not touch those.
The curse on the Resurrection Stone ring had nearly destroyed even a wizard as powerful as Dumbledore.
Elias had no interest in testing unknown curses with his bare hands.
A black-bound book caught his attention.
The cover had the unpleasant texture of human skin.
When Elias drew it from the shelf, he found a flat man’s face pressed into the cover.
The moment his gaze met it, the face tried to push out of the book and opened its mouth to scream.
Elias punched it without hesitation.
The scream died in the man’s mouth.
The protruding face retreated instantly, leaving a dented fist mark in the cover.
Elias gave the cowardly book a contemptuous smile and pushed it back onto the shelf.
Before long, he found what he needed: a heavy volume titled Annotations and Research on Advanced Dark Magic.
Satisfied, Elias carried it back to his office.
The book astonished him.
Its contents completely overturned his earlier impression of this world’s offensive magic.
The Drowning Curse filled a target’s lungs with water, causing intense pain.
A powerful enough caster could drown the victim outright.
Another creative mind had taken a spell originally designed to treat constipation and transformed it into a curse capable of drawing a person’s internal organs out of the body.
The sheer imagination and power of the recorded spells made Elias admire this world’s Dark wizards.
It also made him deeply interested in Snape’s self-created curse, Sectumsempra.
Perhaps, Elias thought, he should visit the upper-year Potions classroom.
Once he made up his mind, he went to Snape’s office in the dungeons.
The moment Elias stood outside the door, he felt the temperature drop by several degrees.
The place had a cold, damp quality.
He could not help feeling sorry for the Slytherin students.
Their common room was under the Black Lake.
He sincerely hoped none of the little snakes developed rheumatism.
Elias knocked.
No answer came.
He waited, then knocked again.
Still nothing.
Just as he decided Snape might not be in his office and prepared to leave, a cool voice sounded from behind the door.
“Enter.” Snape’s office was dimly lit.
The flames under several bubbling cauldrons provided most of the light, keeping the room from sinking fully into darkness.
Shelves lined the walls, holding large glass jars filled with various unpleasant things.
Elias looked more closely and saw preserved animal tissues.
On a small table by the wall lay a toad that had been neatly dissected.
Snape stepped out of the shadows in his black robes.
His greasy black hair, sallow face, and thin features looked even gloomier in the cauldron light.
He stared at Elias, plainly puzzled by the unexpected visit.
“Professor Snape, I would like to invite you to study the potions I brought from another world,” Elias said warmly.
He drew a notebook from his pocket.
It contained years of formulas and practical notes on witcher potions.
Snape frowned, took the booklet, and began flipping through it with casual disinterest.
That disinterest vanished quickly.
As a Potions master, he almost immediately understood the value of what he was holding.
For a time, Snape became absorbed in the notes: Black Blood for use against vampires, White Raffard’s Decoction for restoring vitality, Petri’s Philter for enhancing Signs, Cat for night vision, and Killer Whale for underwater breathing.
He began asking Elias questions about brewing methods.
When he learned that the potions were highly toxic and could normally be consumed only by witchers, Elias clearly saw a flicker of scorn in Snape’s eyes.
This world did not possess the same herbs as his old one, but for a Potions master like Snape, the true value lay in the ideas behind the formulas.
Substitutes could always be found.
Snape had already reached that conclusion when Elias took a large quantity of otherworldly creature materials and herbs from his bag.
For the first time, Snape’s mouth opened in surprise.
With some difficulty, the Potions master dragged his gaze away from the pile of foreign materials on the table.
“Thank you for providing these specimens,” he said.
“Every Monday afternoon, you may come to my office for potion research.” Then he turned back to the table and began studying the drowner brain Elias had brought.
Judging by all the jars in the office, Snape had a particular interest in biological materials.
Elias quietly left and closed the door behind him, giving Snape the space he needed.
Next, Elias brought the seeds of various otherworldly herbs to Professor Sprout, Head of Hufflepuff and Hogwarts’ Herbology professor.
Sprout took immediate interest in the unfamiliar plants.
After asking about their growing methods and preferred environments, she enthusiastically gave Elias a large bundle of medicinal herbs in return.
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CREATORS’ THOUGHTS EmberHollow Thank you for reading.
I hope this chapter pulled you deeper into the story.
Stick around, because there’s still a lot waiting just ahead.