Chapter 9: The Essence of Magic

Chapter 9: The Essence of Magic

At dawn, the freshmen who had just arrived at Hogwarts got up excitedly, went to the hall in groups of three or five to have breakfast, and after wandering in the messy stairwell for a long time, they finally found the classroom for the first class, which was the Charms class. They waved their wands and excitedly flipped through the Standard Book of Spells: Elementary, discussing the various magics recorded in it and the theories that they could not understand at all.

The house that takes Charms class with Hufflepuff was Slytherin, but there is only one person in the whole classroom wearing a green lined robe, and he is sitting quietly flipping through the textbook.

"Baron?"

As soon as Avada walked into the classroom, he saw the only person sitting in the front row of the classroom and couldn't help but be a little surprised: "You got up so early too?"

As a time traveler, he was more excited than the average freshman last night, and his sleep quality was worse. He still feels a little tired now.

"Good morning, Ken."

Baron smiled and said hello: "I didn't expect to see you again so soon. Do you want to sit over here? The front row seats are hard to get."

"I couldn't ask for more. Thank you very much."

Avada thanked him, pulled out a chair, put down his backpack, sat down next to Baron, and pretended to flip through the textbook - he had read it thoroughly during the summer vacation.

Gradually, Slytherin students and Hufflepuffs who had better sleep quality also walked into the classroom one after another and sat down in groups according to their respective houses, forming two clearly divided areas, one yellow and one green. In this way, Avada and Baron became the only border area.

Finally, a wizard as short as a goblin walked in wearing a robe that dragged on the ground. He waved his hand to move a pile of books under the podium, then jumped up in one step, allowing himself to just show half of his body from behind the podium.

"Let me introduce myself," he said in a high-pitched voice. "My name is Filius Flitwick, I teach Charms and I'm the Head of Ravenclaw House."

"Before class, let's take roll call..." He pulled out a piece of parchment, looked at the name on it, and his brows twisted slightly.

"Mr. Ken!"

"Here." The Avada responded weakly, attracting a lot of sidelong glances and whispers - Cedric only reminded the Hufflepuffs not to ask his name; the Slytherins didn't know that.

"Mr. Baron Shafiq!"

"here."

Baron was stunned for a moment before responding, wondering why his name had to be prefixed with "Mr."

"Mr. Sharby Nott!"

"here."

...

The Avada then realized that after Flitwick read out his name, he prefixed all the students with "Mr." or "Miss."

"Very good, everyone is here."

After reading the last name, Flitwick put away the parchment with satisfaction, looked around, and said, "When I walked into the classroom just now, I found that most of the students were looking through the textbooks in advance. This is a good habit. So, what do you think of the contents of the textbooks?"

Several hands were raised in unison.

"Mr. McNeill."

He pointed to a Slytherin student.

A tall and thin boy stood up and answered proudly, "The spells above are very simple. I knew a lot of them when I was at home!"

"Very good."

Flitwick smiled gently and called up another Hufflepuff girl: "Miss White, how do you feel?"

"It feels... amazing!" She answered shyly, "I never thought there would be so many wonderful magics in the world, and that they could do so many incredible things!"

A low laugh came from the Slytherin side, causing Baron to frown slightly.

Flitwick called a few more students and received a variety of answers before nodding and saying, "It seems that everyone has a great interest in learning magic. Then let me change the question: Has anyone read the preface of this book carefully?"

For a moment, the classroom fell silent - they were all eleven-year-old children, and when faced with a new magic spell, who would care about the long and obscure preface?

After a long while, a hand slowly grew out from under the table.

It's Avada.

He did read the preface, which helped him understand the magical world. He wanted to keep a low profile, but he couldn't bear to see the atmosphere that Flitwick had worked so hard to create fall into obscurity, so he reluctantly raised his hand.

"Wow, there really is one!"

Flitwick was a little surprised. "No one in the first year class has read the preface... So Mr. Ken, can you share your thoughts?"

So you did it on purpose?

His face twitched as he stood up. He paused before answering, "The introduction is very profound, and I can't understand much of it. But I can roughly tell that it discusses the nature of magic, why we can use magic, and some of the latest results of magic research. As for the various terms mentioned in it, such as 'essentialism' and 'covering theory', I don't understand them at all."

"That's right. If everyone can understand everything in the book on their own, what's the point of having me as a professor?"

Flitwick happily asked Avada to sit down, "Two points for Hufflepuff."

"Ken is right. Ever since wizards discovered that they had extraordinary abilities and stood out from Muggles, the discussion about magic and magic has never stopped and continues to this day."

His expression became solemn. "Why can wizards cast spells while Muggles cannot, even though they are both human beings? Why does the seemingly orderly natural world allow the existence of 'magic', which destroys the law? What is the essence of 'magic'?"

"These questions still have no answers."

"However, with the development of the times, the research on the mysteries of magic has gradually deepened. We have eliminated many erroneous fallacies and are getting closer to the truth. For example, there was a popular 'ontology' in ancient times, which believed that magic power was a supernatural energy inherent in the body of a wizard. But with the discovery of new theories, this statement has been proven wrong. We have at least confirmed that magic power is pervasive in nature, and wizards can only use certain characteristics in themselves to influence and control it."

"So, professor, what is the current mainstream view on magic?"

A Slytherin asked impatiently, not even raising his hand.

"There are three mainstream views now."

Flitwick did not blame him but continued to talk about his question: "They are 'essentialism', 'covering theory', and 'intrinsic theory', which has only appeared in recent decades."

"The theory of essence believes that magic is the essence of all matter and energy in the world. Anything can be transformed into magic and can be unilaterally affected by magic."

"The covering theory holds that magic is a substance or energy that transcends all entities, covering the entire world from a higher dimension, thus affecting everything in the world."

"And the Intrinsic Theory was born at the beginning of this century, inspired by Muggle science, and became popular soon after its birth. It believes that there is no such thing as 'magic' in nature, but rather an inherent property of all matter and energy. Anything can spontaneously produce magical effects without the influence of external forces. The so-called magic is just a medium to trigger this effect."

Flitwick looked at the students in the classroom, whose expressions were either shocked, confused, or thoughtful. He smiled and stopped explaining, giving them time to think and digest.

After a while, he continued, "None of these three theories has absolute proof. If someone here can completely confirm or disprove any of these theories, then congratulations, you will go down in history throughout the wizarding world, and even the Order of Merlin, First Class, cannot cover one percent of your achievements!"

"I really hope that the great wizard who will go down in history can be born in this classroom."

Seeing the students' increasingly enthusiastic eyes, Flitwick knew that he had stirred up the atmosphere. He nodded with satisfaction, then took out his wand and knocked on the blackboard: "Then, let us move towards this goal and take the first step in exploring the mysteries of magic!"

"The first lesson of the new semester, let's learn the spell 'Wingardium Leviosa'!"

***

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