A certain broken Hogwarts

Chapter 32 Forbidden Book Zone

He pulled an exquisite silver pocket watch from his pocket. The delicate silver bracelet shimmered in the night, and the hands on the dial, engraved with a beautiful floral pattern, pointed to 12:30 a.m.

"There's no time to find a fax machine tonight, but since I'm already out, I might as well explore the restricted section of the library." Thinking this, Owen felt a surge of excitement. Regardless of his past or present life, his thirst for professional knowledge had always been insatiable.

The forbidden section—that's where the most precious crystallization of Hogwarts' thousand-year history lies. Countless pieces of knowledge are laid out there like shining pearls, waiting for those who come after to collect them.

After quickly casting a spell to block out sound and breath, Owen excitedly climbed to the second floor of the castle and arrived at the corridor where the library was located.

The library closes at eight o'clock every night, but the doors remain open, as if extending a silent invitation to those who come out to wander at night.

"Who could resist this..." Owen licked his lips. Although his dream was to become a magician who created miracles, this did not conflict with becoming a master magician; in fact, they complemented each other. To him, knowledge was power, a priceless treasure.

He peeked into the library from outside the door for a while. In the quiet, dark environment, rows of huge bookshelves stood like giant beasts lying in the darkness, fast asleep.

At this hour, even the librarian, Mrs. Pince, would have already gone home to rest. Unless a professor suddenly had a sudden urge to come to the library to look up information in the middle of the night, only Filch and his cat would be patrolling here.

But these past few days, Filch has been focused on waiting for the Hufflepuff wizards to line up and jump in front of him, and then he'll lock them up in solitary confinement... and maybe Gryffindor tonight too.

Owen, with a malicious intent, thought to himself, "I've been secretly reporting this to someone."

He strode to the back of the library, stepped over the rope separating the restricted section from the regular area, slightly raised his wand, and whispered, "Flicker."

In this empty and silent environment, Owen's voice carried far, sounding deep and hollow. A faint glow emanated from the tip of his wand; because the brightness was deliberately controlled, the light could only illuminate a small area, making it look like a white fluorescent ball glowing in the night.

Owen placed the tip of his dimly glowing wand on the rows of books on the bookshelf, letting the inconspicuous light illuminate the titles on the spines, as he slowly moved forward.

"The Evil Spells You Don't Know," "The Most Poisonous Magic," "The Forgotten Ancient Magic"... Looks like this is the Spells section. Owen was sorting through the categories of the books on the current shelf and was about to head to the next when he noticed that in the area illuminated by his wand, on an old book with a peeling cover and no title, a line of dark writing, like charred marks, appeared on the spine, forming the book's title.

"Black Magic, Mind and Soul." Owen pulled out the book and flipped through it, but found no treasure map or anything tucked between the pages. Still not giving up, he chanted "Quickly reveal yourself," but the book remained the same, and no hidden cipher was revealed.

"Okay, I knew it. You've been poisoned by the adventure plots in novels." Owen chuckled and put the book back in its place. "This must be the test mechanism of this book. Being able to see its title means that this person is qualified to read it."

Owen was already quite used to this kind of testing mechanism, having encountered so many magical books at home. This book's test was one of the mildest and most common types. Besides this, some books would emit chilling screams or conjure terrifying illusions to scare away unqualified readers. Others were more sinister, potentially radiating invisible magical shockwaves to shatter the reader's mind, even bewitching them…

However, regardless of the circumstances, this reading threshold set by the book's author or later readers serves as both a test and a protection. Its purpose is to warn readers against forcing themselves to read things they shouldn't yet be exposed to, lest they harm themselves and others.

Owen shook his head with great regret. He had just tried to copy these books in his own walled space, but he was only able to copy a very small number of them successfully.

"Oh well, something's better than nothing." Owen always had a good attitude; after all, as long as he stayed at Hogwarts for a few more years, these books wouldn't escape him anyway. He slowly walked out of the area, wand in hand, quickly searching among the rows of bookshelves.

It was eerily quiet, with only the occasional distant noises emanating from somewhere within the castle—perhaps Filch had caught some misbehaving wizard, or Peeves playing ball in his armor in some corridor. Here, they sounded more like a cacophony of whispers, adding to the eerie atmosphere.

Fortunately, Irving has always had a good mental fortitude. He continued to browse books as if he were shopping in a mall, because he knew that even if he was unlucky enough to get caught, the worst that could happen was a deduction of points and solitary confinement. A student life without being punished for violating school rules is incomplete.

"Phew, found it!" Owen spotted what he was looking for on the upper right side of a bookshelf.

"How to See Through People's Minds", "The Amazing Mind Magic: Legilimency", "Legilimency and Counter-Legilimency", "How to Shut Down Your Brain", "The Brain Shutdown Technique in the Curse"...

Irving pulled out a book titled "How to Close Your Brain," pointed at it with his wand, and read: "Duplicate."

The book trembled in his hands, then fell silent.

"Sure enough, any book with a bit of value has a copycat spell..." Owen muttered to himself, unsurprised. But he absolutely couldn't just take the book away. He could imagine that if Mrs. Pince discovered a book was missing from the restricted section tomorrow, she would probably cast a spell on the spot to make the book jump up, grab Owen by the neck, and be delivered to her.

Owen rummaged through his bag and pulled out several rolls of parchment. Then he took out a quill pen and cast a rapid copying spell on it. This spell allowed wizards to copy down words they saw at an extremely fast speed, but because the copied words were exactly the same as the words they saw, it couldn't be used for the copying assignments given by the professors…

For the next while, Owen quickly flipped through the pages, the quill pen beside him faithfully copying down what he saw. For a moment, the only sounds in the quiet library were the rustling of pages turning and the scratching of the quill pen across the parchment.

After spending more than half an hour copying several books on Occlumency and Legilimency, Irving reluctantly left the library.

"Let's set a small goal first: empty out the forbidden book section," Owen thought to himself. "Hmm, I'll move all the books from the forbidden book section into my brain, or into my meditation space!"

(End of this chapter)