Hogwarts' Golden Glory

"Then let's start with the basics. This path means you have to give up some things from before. Like the things you used to be most afraid of, or things that have already happened."

Grindelwald—it wasn't explicitly stated, but everyone knew what he was.

Ariana Dumbledore, Dumbledore's sister.

"I should be able to," Dumbledore said, though he wasn't entirely sure at the moment.

Often, forgiving yourself is much harder than forgiving others.

Grindelwald's voice sounded a little lower in the candlelight than before, as if he were entering a realm he himself rarely revisited.

"Those things you always remember, those burdens you've become accustomed to carrying, those things you can't change but have kept in place—these will all become obstacles!"

Dumbledore sat behind his desk, his hands still folded on the table, without moving.

"What I used to fear most was that one day I would discover that my past was the result of my own choices from beginning to end."

Grindelwald said, "But later I realized that those were indeed the results of my own choices. It's just that by then I had reached a point where I could accept that fact and no longer needed to constantly overcome it."

"Have you passed that spot?" Dumbledore asked.

"We've passed by," Grindelwald said.

"But once I got there, I discovered there was still a long way to go. The rest of the journey involved more about the body's integration with magic."

Dumbledore didn't look away, but he didn't immediately respond either, as if he was confirming the accuracy of the sentence's meaning in his own way.

Kane stood by the table, his gaze shifting from Dumbledore to Grindelwald and back again, like an instruction being provided with information from two different sources, simultaneously reading information from both directions and piecing them together in his own way.

"You mean, this power requires the practitioner to have a relatively stable state of mind as the basic framework for receiving and storing it, otherwise it will begin to dissipate before it even arrives?" Kane asked.

“Yes,” Grindelwald said. “Power can only stay in a structure that is strong enough. If the structure itself is tilted, it cannot enter, and even if it does, it will gradually dissipate during its stay.”

"So, by adjusting your own state until it no longer requires you to exert additional effort to maintain it?"

Grindelwald glanced at him: "You're already starting to touch the edge of that line."

Kane didn't respond; his gaze remained fixed on Grindelwald's direction, as if waiting for the next explanation.

Grindelwald's hands remained on the table; he neither stood up nor moved. "Want to test how far I've come?"

"How do I try?"

Grindelwald did not answer, but he took a step forward, his body surging with magic.

It was as if something was extending outwards from some deeper level at an extremely fast speed, and then stopping around him.

It is not an impact, nor a suppression, but a change in the density of "existence" itself.

It was as if the air around him was compressed together, with subtle distortions at the edges.

Kane sensed the change. When his magical perception came into contact with that thing, it was as if it were being pushed back to the vicinity of his body surface by a thick, uniform substance, as if the density of that area had been rearranged, and the gaps between different layers were disappearing one by one.

Dumbledore sensed it too.

He remained seated behind his desk, but his gaze shifted slightly the instant Grindelwald made his move, as if confirming that some source of information he could not otherwise capture was rearranging the distances and positions around him at a rate he could not discern.

Kane did not back down.

He stood still, his gaze fixed on the area that continued to exist.

His magical perception was touching the edge of that area, slowly and steadily expanding outwards, as if it were drawing the air around him into its domain.

But he didn't probe deeper; he just stopped at the outer layer, as if confirming its outline and thickness, without going inside.

"What are you feeling right now?" Grindelwald asked.

"A uniform sense of oppression," Kane said. "It's like the area around you is being filled with a persistent layer of matter."

"So what would you do?" Grindelwald asked again.

Kane did not answer.

After sensing it for a moment and confirming its operating mode and boundaries, he extended his magic in that direction, making brief contact with the outer layer of that area.

The area underwent a minute deformation the instant he touched it. At the moment of contact, it seemed to achieve a brief balance at some distance before each part retreated to its own boundary.

"Wow, that's impressive! I never imagined you'd come this far!"

Grindelwald was somewhat surprised.

Dumbledore then spoke as well.

"As I said before, love is the most powerful magic. The last spell that Harry's mother cast must have been at the level of magic that Gellert is referring to now, which is why it was able to successfully deflect Voldemort's spell."

The night outside the window was still deep, and the castle lay quietly in the deep dark blue, as if it were still asleep.

Two old wizards and a young wizard went to the House of Requirement late at night to begin practicing spells.

As the principal's office door closed behind Kane, only three candles remained lit in the corridor, as if waiting for someone to walk the last stretch of the road before extinguishing them.

Grindelwald walked in front, Dumbledore in the middle, and Kane at the back. The sound of their footsteps fell on the stone slabs in turn, forming a series of intermittent but even rhythms.

As they reached the corner of the stairs, a gray, semi-transparent figure emerged from the wall, seemingly taking a shortcut, and bumped right into them.

That was Lady Grey, the ghost of Ravenclaw. She stopped, her gaze first falling on Dumbledore, then on Grindelwald, and finally on Kane.

Her light-colored eyes swept back and forth between the three people, then her lips moved slightly, as if a sentence in the process of forming had been temporarily stopped.

She nodded, passed through the opposite wall, and disappeared without a word. But as she left, the hem of her skirt lingered on the wall for a moment longer than usual when passing through a wall, as if she were recording that moment in her own way.

They didn't stop there and continued walking forward, but as they rounded the corner, Nick, who was almost headless, popped out from behind another wall. He was about to say something, but when he saw the three people, he shut up, greeted them, and then disappeared.