The Shopkeeper of All Worlds in the British Wizarding World

Chapter 62 Discussion on Black Magic
"What is black magic?" Ryan started his topic with the most basic question.

"Destructive and evil magic is called the Dark Arts," Hermione replied after a moment's thought.

"This is what is written in the Defense Against the Dark Arts textbook. You are worthy of being our Miss Know-It-All. You can remember all the textbooks." Ryan praised Hermione in a teasing tone. Then he said seriously, "In fact, the core criterion for identifying dark magic is evil rather than destructiveness. For example, the fire spell can make fire for us, but it can also create deadly and extremely destructive fires. But we cannot think that the fire spell is evil."

"Yes, so I think the core criterion of dark magic is evil, a kind of malice towards the object of the spell. This is why I oppose you learning this. I don't want the classmates I know to become an evil dark wizard." Hermione replied.

"But the problem is that the definition of evil magic is that as long as negative emotions are generated towards the target when the magic is released, then the magic is evil. It is undeniable that this kind of magic with negative emotions is often more lethal. And as the negative emotions become more serious, the power of the spell also increases."

"What do you want to say?" Hermione asked, confused.

"I just think that negative emotions should be allowed within a certain range and do not represent evil." Ryan said, turning to the page with the bookmark in the third-grade black magic textbook, pointing to one of the spells and saying, "Look, this magic requires disgust for the target, and then you can form a force field from your wand to bounce the target away.

Disgust is a negative emotion, but I don't think it's evil. Compared to the power that these magics can show, this little bit of negative emotion shouldn't be a problem."

After listening to Ryan's explanation, Hermione took a textbook and flipped through it. Then she said, "As one of the top three schools in the European wizarding world, the textbooks used do not contain those magics that seem too cruel. I also believe that even the professors at Hogwarts know some of these spells, but they are learned for the purpose of resisting them." (Note 1)
I am worried that at our age and intellect, we may be attracted by power and go astray. This is why I think Hogwarts only allows senior students who take the Defense Against the Dark Arts Advanced Class to view certain books related to the Dark Arts in the restricted area. I think that when we are in senior years, we will naturally be able to study related knowledge under the guidance of teachers, but it should also be for the purpose of resisting them. "

"So what do you think we should do with this knowledge? I just want to learn some powerful magic to protect myself and my friends. After all, the feeling of being powerless against evil like last year was really terrible." Ryan said.

"I believe that only through practice can we learn to resist the power of black magic. It is far from enough to just understand theoretical knowledge. We should practice some self-defense magic. But I don't think we should learn the contents of these books, because this is black magic after all. I don't think the current situation is so bad that we need to increase our strength by any means. Everything that happened last year was just some accidents.

I won't object to you reading these books. Since you have decided to learn to protect yourself, you can learn how to identify and deal with the black magic by understanding it, and learn some magic that can resist it. This is enough to fight against the evil forces and protect yourself.

You know, it's not that other magic is necessarily less powerful than dark magic. There's no need to cross that dangerous line to learn dark magic. I think we should read these books together to make sure no one takes a dangerous step. "Hermione thought for a long time before pursing her lips and telling Ryan her opinion.

Ryan was a little surprised when he heard Hermione's answer, because he found that Hermione was not convinced by him, but tried to convince him. However, Hermione's words also caused him a mental shock. After a period of reflection, Ryan suddenly found that there was something wrong with his thinking.

Indeed, Ryan knew the plot, which was an advantage. But sometimes the plot would limit one's thinking. He knew that the war was about to break out, so he sometimes seemed eager for quick success. However, he ignored the fact that he had the Wanjie Grocery Store, and he had enough time and channels to obtain powerful strength. There was no need to be so impatient to use some methods that might cause trouble to improve his strength.

As a person with a mental age of over 30, he actually didn't see things as clearly as a little girl. This made him feel extremely ashamed. "Thank you, I almost went astray. Thank you for pointing me in the right direction. I swear I will never learn the dark magic above." Ryan made a solemn promise after listening to Hermione's answer.

To show his determination, Ryan gave all the dark magic textbooks to Hermione for safekeeping. Hermione looked relieved. After that, the two discussed some other things and then went home for lunch.

Ryan thought Hermione was right. Dark magic that could cause serious irreversible mental damage was not worth the risk. But he still needed to practice the other magic he had mastered. It was just like swimming. No matter how solid the theoretical knowledge was, it would be impossible to master the skill without swimming.

Since we need to practice, we need to find a place where the Ministry of Magic cannot monitor us. Ryan thought about it and felt that the Plants vs. Zombies world was a good place to practice because there were enough targets there. Moreover, it had been a long time since he left last time, and Ryan wanted to know how his house was cleaned up.

Ryan took advantage of the free time in the afternoon to go to the library to look up and copy a lot of industrial information related to daily life to bring to Dave as a gift. After all, it was a zombie apocalypse world. Although humans are now slowly becoming stronger and rebuilding their homes, it is not so easy to restore many things. Ryan planned to bring some information related to daily chemicals to help the people of that world rebuild a modern civilization.

At dinner, his mother, Ms. Sally, asked Ryan, "I have a question that I haven't asked you. Why do you have to go to the library to study every morning after the summer vacation? I don't think the community library has any books related to magic."

"Because I have to do homework with a classmate, Mom." Ryan said while eating the pasta on his plate.

"Classmate? The daughter of dentist Mr. and Mrs. Granger? You seemed to have said that she was top of your grade at the end of last semester." Mr. Lambert also interrupted at this time.

"Uh, yeah. I didn't score as high as she did in the last final," Ryan replied quietly.

"So when you do homework with her, learn from her strengths. In fact, we have always been worried that you would become a little arrogant because of your good grades in elementary school," said the mother, Ms. Sally.

Afterwards, the two of them taught Ryan about his attitude towards learning. Ryan then realized that he might have been misled by some propaganda before. Who said that European and American parents don't pay attention to their children's learning? This is the same all over the world.

Note: In the last book, Professor McGonagall used the Imperius Curse to control a Death Eater, which is a dark magic of the Unforgivable Curse level, which shows that at least professors should know dark magic. However, most professors learn it for the purpose of studying how to resist them, except for professors who are born as dark wizards like Snape.

(End of this chapter)