The next afternoon.
I knocked on Professor Snape's office door.
"Professor, please teach me Sectumsempra quickly."
"Don't rush me. Theory comes first, as always. You need to know what spell you're using, don't you?"
"Fair enough."
"Sectumsempra is magic that creates invisible blades and fires them out. It looks similar to [Diffindo], but the wounds are far larger and deeper.
[Diffindo], strictly speaking, is closer to an everyday spell. If it hits a person, it will injure them, but the wound isn't severe.
However, Sectumsempra is a spell made purely for combat. And the wounds caused by this magic don't heal easily. Miss the treatment window, and you'll be left with a scar forever.
The only way to treat Sectumsempra is to cast the counterspell. Remember this well: the counterspell to Sectumsempra is Vulnera Sanentur."
After finishing his explanation, the professor demonstrated Sectumsempra and Vulnera Sanentur one after the other.
"Now you try it."
I pointed my wand at the wall like he had.
"Sectumsempra!"
The stone wall of the office split clean through.
"Oh!"
"What on earth are you doing, you idiot! You split it too much! Are you trying to destroy my office?"
"Controlling my magic is harder than I expected."
"Hard? This?"
"I thought I was using it really weakly."
"Weakly? That looks weak to you?"
"Hmm... Then I'll try it without my wand."
"Without your wand? That'll be a bit difficult."
I cast Sectumsempra again, this time using only my finger.
Fortunately, this time it split exactly as much as I wanted.
"Yes, that's more like it. There's no way I'd fail at controlling my magic that badly."
But Professor Snape looked at me as if something was strange.
"Leonard, why is your magic so strong?"
"Strong? This? I just did it the way I always do."
"You aren't practicing without your wand, are you?"
"I am. The wand still feels a little cumbersome, so it's awkward. I think I'll only be able to use it once I get stronger and my arms get a bit longer."
"That explains it. I see why you asked about wand movement. Your wand is quite different from ordinary ones. Its magical amplification is far too strong."
"I just felt that myself."
"Until you can properly handle your wand, use magic without it. Let's practice without your wand today too."
Then a thought came to me.
"Professor, I have a question."
"What is it?"
"You said Sectumsempra fires invisible blades."
"I did."
"Could you fire the blade a little later?"
"Hmm? I've never tried that, so I don't know. Let's see."
The professor experimented a few times, then nodded.
"So it can be done. But why would you want to fire it later?"
"Then could you keep the blade attached instead?"
The professor experimented again and nodded once more.
"That works too. Though I don't know how long you could keep it attached."
"Then could you stretch the blade forward?"
"You could, if you put in more magic. But why are you asking such ridiculous questions? If you're going to keep the blade attached to your wand, why not just swing a sword?"
"So it does work, then. I'll try it too."
I kept pouring magic into my finger the way the professor had.
Then I could feel the blade of magic extending farther and farther from my fingertip.
Suddenly, I felt an urge to make the Aiel proud.
I stepped up to the wall and thrust my finger into it. A hole was carved into the clay wall in the exact shape of my finger.
"It works well. Though I should always practice without my wand. This feels like just the right amount of power."
"Fine. I don't know what stupid thing you're planning, but keep practicing with your finger."
I kept asking about Sectumsempra's applications.
"Professor, Sectumsempra fires the blade in the exact shape of the wand movement, right? Then if you draw a huge motion, wouldn't it cut that much bigger?"
"Yes. It's just that people don't usually have reason to draw it that large, but it can be done."
Good. So it all depended on how I used it.
I might not be able to cut through lightning like some trash ninja somewhere, but in theory I could cut the sea.
Wait. That's an interesting idea.
It might not work, but there was no such thing as impossible in the wizarding world, was there? Except bringing the dead back to life.
It was definitely worth trying.
While I was lost in thought, the professor called out to me.
"Leonard, there's something I want to ask."
"Yes?"
"The fact that you saw my memories in your dream... that's your gift of prophecy, isn't it?"
"Uh... I'm not sure, but maybe?"
"Then tell me this... since when has prophecy been able to read the past?"
"Huh?"
Oh? Right. That was strange.
"Read any one of my past memories right now. Just like you do with prophecy."
"Are you sure that's okay?"
"It's not okay, but do it anyway."
I took out my wand and poured magic into it, thinking that I wanted to see Professor Snape's happy memories.
The magic moved exactly as it did when I was divining, and showed me a scene from when the professor was young, playing with Lily Evans.
"...So it does work."
"It does, doesn't it."
"What scene did you see on the train?"
"On the train, I saw the future where Ron becomes Gryffindor's Quidditch keeper, and I also used it once to find Neville's lost toad."
"You found a toad?"
"Yes."
"You saw Longbottom finding his toad in the future?"
"No."
"Then what?"
"I saw where Neville's toad was."
"You saw the location?"
"Yes."
"That's odd... rather than seeing Neville finding the toad, you saw the place where the toad was?"
"Well... I was thinking I wanted to be shown where the toad was."
"So when you went to that place, was the toad there?"
"Yes. I didn't go myself, but Neville found it right away, so wouldn't that mean it was there?"
"Then what you saw wasn't the future, was it? It was the present."
"Huh?"
Was it?
"What do you mean, 'huh'? You don't even know your own ability properly."
"No, I just thought that since I saw the future before, it had to be the future."
"To think I'd have a disciple like this... Let's test it. Do it again."
"Yes, sir."
Hmm... Hermione? No, it felt a little wrong to look at what a girl was doing.
Let's try Harry and Ron instead. Those two were obviously in the common room anyway.
I focused on what Harry and Ron were doing right now, just as I had before, and poured in magic.
"They're playing chess in the Gryffindor common room. By the way, does that mean my ability really is prophecy?"
"I don't know. All the seers who have appeared so far could only see the future. And even then, they only made prophecies with very vague content."
When I stayed silent, Professor Snape continued.
"In cases like the Trelawney family, they would put into words the future they had seen, but the wording of the prophecy was open to interpretation. For example, in the prophecy about the one who would vanquish 'the Dark Lord,' there were two people who could be considered the subject of the prophecy: Potter and Longbottom. 'He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named' thought it was Potter, so he attacked Potter, and the prophecy was fulfilled.
In Grindelwald's case, he could show others the scenes he had seen, but even then he couldn't see a fixed future. He only saw scenes that were highly likely to happen. Come to think of it, Grindelwald's prophecy is very similar to a Demiguise."
Well... the future isn't fixed anyway, so... of course it should be like that. If the future were already decided, then what would be the point of living? If nothing changed no matter how hard I tried, was that really the future? It would just be hell.
"Anyway, I guess I need to be more careful from now on. That means I can find out where my enemies are and what they're doing, right?"
"That's right. You might even be able to uncover your enemies' secret pasts. In any case, you should go now. It's late."
"Yes, Professor."
I ran straight to the Room of Requirement, set it up as a huge training hall, and got rid of all the scarecrows.
Then I built a large clay wall in the middle of the training area.
The wall was long enough to touch both the far left and far right ends of the Room of Requirement.
I tried Sectumsempra again with just my finger, the way I had before. As expected, the wall split clean through.
I restored the wall and this time fired Sectumsempra much farther. The clay wall split far longer from side to side than before.
Finger practice was over.
I took my wand out from inside my robes.
The professor had told me not to practice with it yet, but it would be fine.
This was the Room of Requirement, after all. There was no need to worry about anyone getting hurt, and no need to worry about the wall collapsing.
Still, just in case, I made both the room and the clay wall much larger than before.
The Room of Requirement was now almost the size of a soccer field.
I poured magic into my wand and cast Sectumsempra at the clay wall.
Sure enough, the clay wall was cut far more deeply than before.
The experiment continued.
After restoring the clay wall, I poured in a great deal of magic this time.
Then the clay wall that had stretched across the Room of Requirement split cleanly in half horizontally, and the upper section fell to the ground.
Looking at the ends, my Sectumsempra had not only split the clay wall, but had also cut a little into the walls of the Room of Requirement itself.
Still, this was the amazing Room of Requirement. It wasn't going to collapse just because I practiced magic a little.
Now I decided to practice maintaining the Sectumsempra blade.
As I poured a certain amount of magic into my fingertip, the rate at which the blade grew slowed noticeably, then stopped at some point. This seemed to be the limit of its length.
I raised my wand again and poured in magic.
It was clear that creating Sectumsempra with a wand consumed far less magic than using a finger, and the blade was much longer too. With the length of the wand added in, it now felt almost like a two-handed greatsword.
I gripped the wand with both hands and swung it at the clay wall.
The clay wall split smoothly, as if it had been cut by a real sword.
Haha, this is actually fun.
Of course, it probably wasn't very practical in real combat. I wasn't some genius swordsman like Godric Gryffindor.
But... it was cool, wasn't it?
After all, men are supposed to like cool things like dinosaurs, robots, and ninjas.
Could I make a flame sword too?
Back when I used to play that Romance of the Three Kingdoms game at the arcade, I always picked Zhuge Liang and got the flame sword. And then I died on the very next stage...
I focused my magic again.
Flames bloomed from the tip of my finger, stretched out, and then stopped.
This attempt was half a success.
Because this wasn't a flame sword. It was just fire.
When I waved my finger, the fire drooped like balloons at an opening ceremony.
I was going to have to change my approach.
The important thing was imagination.
Picture exactly what I wanted.
Not flames shooting out in a long stream. Flames wrapped around a blade of magic.
This time I decided to use my wand. Holding something in my hand would probably help with the image training.
The wand wasn't a sword, but it was still much more sword-like than a finger.
I focused again and drew out a blade of magic.
Then I imagined flames covering it.
At once, fire began to roar along the Sectumsempra blade.
I fired the blade of flame at the clay wall split in half.
Hmm... the effect was definitely less than I had hoped. This was just Sectumsempra and fire being fired together, so the result was the same as ordinary Sectumsempra.
It was at least a little better because the flames were flying too, but since a Sectumsempra that size would already split someone in half and kill them, a bit more fire wouldn't make much difference.
What I had wanted was an explosion along the point of impact.
Ah, then should I mix in [Bombarda]?
Whatever the case, I should probably stop here for today.
I had already used up a lot of magic.
Still, I had obtained a pretty interesting spell with a lot of research value.
Starting tomorrow, I was going to need a slightly different kind of training.
Comments (0)
Please log in to leave a comment. Login or Register