CHAPTER 39

Understanding how incomplete and fragmentary the fragments' memories are made me feel a bit annoyed. Oh well. But at least the local rune magic is familiar to me in its complexity, which grows exponentially as the chain becomes more complex. But if you think about it, it is rune magic as a discipline that should be underdeveloped here. It's just that the rune chains and contours familiar to the fragments are quite narrowly specialized in terms of requirements for the type of energy, and there is a reason for that. For example, the energy of fire in the rune contour significantly suppresses the likelihood of triggering effects—such as water—that are embedded in the runes. The locals are deprived of such joy, and in the chain, you will have to completely calculate all interactions because neutral energy is equally well-suited for everything and does not suppress anything. Wizards do not really need such complexities because they can cast spells without it, and as a result—there is no need to develop this business.

But all this does not cancel the fact that I will definitely study local witchcraft. The bits of knowledge and skills of the fragments will definitely help me, if not to invent something new, then maybe to see what the locals missed—if not because of ignorance, then because of the lack of need to "look"?

***

Lunchtime is a wonderful time for "clashes" and completely, totally unexpected encounters. Of course, I'm being ironic, but the way feuding students sometimes look at each other when they meet in the corridors is, of course, wow.

This time I had to get to the Great Hall not in the company of other students from the house but together with those who were present at Ancient Runes. The students from the Ravenclaw house kept to themselves both during the lesson and after. Daphne quickly gathered her books and, remembering my attention to them, cowardly ran away from sin. As a result, I made the whole way, essentially, in the company of Hermione, who was in a hurry.

"Sorry I didn't come by sooner," Hermione said as we walked.

"It's nothing to worry about."

"I didn't even know that you had already woken up. And then those Dementors on the train, the Sorting—only at which I learned that you had woken up. Professor McGonagall said, when I assured the schedule in the morning after the feast, that you had woken up completely independent and not a baby, as everyone was afraid, and then this study, the schedule, subjects one after another until the evening…"

Hermione quickened the pace of her story. If my memory of this life doesn't fail me, that's how she behaved when she was nervous or, on the contrary, on the rise. Under the girl's monologue, we reached the doors of the Great Hall, where groups of students merged into one stream.

"To put it simply, neither you nor I know where to even begin," I nodded when we finally entered the Great Hall along with a stream of other students. "Then let's keep it simple. Somehow the moment of my awakening coincided so that all opportunities to get acquainted disappeared."

Turning to Hermione, who immediately stopped, I extended my hand.

"Hector Granger, your brother."

Blinking stupidly once, Hermione shook her shock of unruly but styled hair and shook my hand.

"Hermione Granger, your sister. The eldest, by the way," she smiled weakly.

"Let's go to our table; we'll talk, eldest," I didn't hide my grin.

"Isn't that so?"

Having sat down at a free place next to each other and immediately received empty plates with cutlery, we began to put something meaty and side dishes from common plates, served "at the table"—an uncommon manner of serving, because usually the portions are individual. The students from my house didn't attach much importance to the fact that a Gryffindor was sitting at the table, because sometimes guests from other houses drop in to visit us.

"Well, despite my past state, I remember everything."

Hermione looked at me with obvious doubt not only in her eyes but in her overall facial expression.

"You don't believe me? I remember how when you were five years old, you heard somewhere that you were too young to use swear words."

My sister stared at me with doubt and disbelief, and my house colleagues sitting down at the table tried to move closer under the pretext of filling their plates with dishes from the common ones.

"For about two months, you walked around the house like an important fluffy hamster, and if your parents weren't looking, you'd throw in a strong word with or without reason," I really did remember that. "And with each—absolutely with each—word, you became more and more important and 'adult.' Until your mother used a disciplinarian's belt on you."

"Exactly! I remembered," Hermione beamed, but then looked at me disapprovingly. "You could have remembered something else."

"Yeah, like how you hid 'adult' books from our parents in my room?" I grinned kindly. "Or how, when I was nine, you gave me—given my condition—a three-hour lecture-rehearsal of your own speech about how I was the 'wrong' patient and was not sick according to the book?"

"Oh, okay, I get it, that's enough," Hermione raised her hands in a protective gesture with a slight smile, holding a fork in one of them. "And you… You…"

"Well, there's nothing to say," I summed up, taking a sip of pumpkin juice from a glass. "Before recovery, I did only a few things: stared at the wall, drew or painted, wrote unknown formulas, and went to relieve myself."

"Yes…" the sister nodded much more dejectedly, starting to awkwardly pick at her plate of food.

The students around me, as they say, deserve respect and admiration because, despite the curiosity, they did not violate personal space or pester with questions right now.

Having eaten her lunch without much appetite, Hermione awkwardly twirled the mug of juice in her hands.

"It was very awkward. I mean, in the summer. I had to meet you with our parents. But Madam Pomfrey's most optimistic forecasts said that you would be ill for at least another six months. So I decided that it would be great to meet you at Christmas in the hospital wing. And it wouldn't be so great if you turned out to be psychologically and skillfully slightly…"

"Underdeveloped?"

Looking into my eyes and not seeing any mockery or derision there, Hermione nodded. Well, so what? Maybe I don't have that much life experience, because the shards are extremely inadequate in this regard, but I'm not "pure" thirteen years old to be offended by trifles.

"Yes," the sister nodded.

As if waking up, she looked around and noticed that the students had already begun to leave the Great Hall. Yes, the lunch break is the longest, but time, no matter how you look at it, is not elastic.

"We should probably run. By the way, don't be upset with your parents for stopping visiting you while you were in the hospital wing. I read that Muggles have a very hard time being in places where there are a lot of wizards actively casting spells. They start to psychologically look for a reason not to go back there."