Chapter 529: Is Snape afraid?

On Wednesday, Ivan and other third-year wizards learned runic scripts in the first course of the Ancient Runes Study class.

This is an extinct script that once circulated in northern Europe. Its study belongs to the entry level "ancient magical text studies," and is represented by black and white runes.

In the past, it had emerged with the prosperity of medieval black magic in Europe.

It is said that a dark magician would leave the specially arranged runes at the victim's door, waiting for him to pick it up. Or he would send it directly to the victim. The note was actually a curse. After receiving the note, the victim would show some abnormalities.

They would always feel that something was following him, like a dog. But looking back, he couldn't see anything.

Strange things would also start happening around him.

They would persist around the victim until a week before his death, and then all the abnormalities would disappear and everything would return to normal. But by then, I could clearly hear the footsteps of death.

There are many such types of curses using runic magic to cast spells, and they were once very popular.

This ancient magical script is not widely used in alchemy, but being relatively simple, it was more suitable for beginners to learn.

Ivan had seen the relevant records about it in the book Pictographic Dictionary that Nicolas Flamel had given him, and the systematic learning in class was also very interesting, which gave him a lot of inspiration.

Now, wherever he went, Ivan carried a scroll full of ancient magic words.

He intended to master the simple rune as soon as possible and, on this basis, to learn deeper ancient scripts.

The next few days were quiet and uneventful at the school.

Caresius' impersonation of Moody was becoming more and more accurate. No one in the school doubted him at all; on the contrary, he was increasingly admired.

Throughout the castle voices could be heard talking about Moody's past experiences and the three Unforgivable Curses.

Moody was very popular among the young wizards. Although he looked terrible, everyone thought he knew how to work outside and how to deal with dark wizards. That gave a sense of coolness to the young wizards at the school.

In fact, the same was true. When it came to dark magic and dark wizards, Caresius was no less competent than Moody. As an evil vampire, his mere existence was taboo. His perennial life experiences were also in the gray zone at the edge of the magical world, with frequent contacts with various intrigues, vicious Dark wizards and Dark creatures.

Now, it was entirely practical to mention many of these experiences to the little wizards.

Compared to "Moody," who was becoming more and more at ease, Snape's temper had become more irritable.

He seemed to have reached new levels of vindictiveness over the summer, and every student who dared to make mistakes in his class was punished severely.

Neville, for example, melted his cauldron again in Potions class, and he was already sixth.

After a bad depreciation, Snape punished him rudely.

On Friday night, Neville had been forced to gut a barrel of horned toads.

When he returned at nine in the evening, he was in a state of nervous breakdown.

Sitting around the warm fire, everyone was surprised to see Neville stagger into the Common Room with tears streaming down his face.

"Neville, what's wrong?" asked Harry.

"For over five hours he's had me in the dungeon to gut horned toads," said Neville faintly in a very low voice, "Those things are disgusting. I've thrown up my dinner."

"The blood of these horned toads is slightly corrosive, so wash quickly!" said Ivan, looking at the frog guts from under Neville's fingernails. "I know an effective Washing Charm. You can try it."

"Snape has gone too far. You know why he's in such a bad mood, don't you?" said Ron to them as they looked at Neville's miserable appearance. "I bet it's because of Moody!"

Ever since Moody took Malfoy, Goyle and Crabbe to Snape's office, he had been like this. He went into a state of irritability, taking all his anger out on the young wizards.

It was common knowledge that Snape really wanted the Defense Against the Dark Arts position, and now he had failed to get it for the fourth year in a row. Snape had disliked all the previous Defense Against the Dark Arts teachers, and never hesitated to show it.

This situation came to a head with Sirius, and they fought directly in front of the students.

However, he seemed strangely cautious about showing overt animosity towards Mad-Eye Moody.

All the young wizards had noticed, more or less, that whenever Snape and Moody were together, at lunchtime, or when they passed each other in the corridors, Snape avoided Moody's gaze, magical or normal.

It seemed that Snape was a little afraid of Moody.

"I don't understand, why is Snape afraid of Moody?" said Harry.

"Imagine if Moody turned Snape into a horned toad" said Ron, his eyes misty "And bounced him all over his dungeon... That would be great."

Ron had been working a lot on Transfiguration lately since Moody had turned Malfoy into a ferret.

He wanted to learn that spell too, but was making little progress. Turning humans into some kind of animals required very advanced knowledge of Transfiguration, which could only be reached after going through the Ordinary Level of Magic.

"Snape isn't that weak, he wouldn't warp easily like Malfoy."

"It's hard to say, think about it, Moody is very powerful, definitely more powerful than Snape. When he read the Avada Kedavra, the spider died instantly, and stopped moving immediately. I never thought dark magic like that existed."

The fourth years had had their first Defense Against the Dark Arts course this afternoon; and everyone was amazed.

Ron was still talking happily, but Harry felt bad about the Killing Curse.

He didn't dare think that his parents had been killed by that spell, but there was no way he was going to talk about that dark magic in a relaxed tone like Ron or the others. He couldn't. In the eyes of the others, it might be a wonderfully funny performance, but Harry didn't find it all that interesting.

A few seconds later, Ron noticed Harry's abnormality. He hastened to change the subject. "Let's not discuss these things. Harry, we'd better get started on Professor Trelawney's predictions tonight, as it will take hours!"