A certain Hogwarts professor of runes.

Book 2 is Ravenclaw's daily journal, which does not involve specific magical knowledge. In his view, it is filled with long passages of rambling, poetic ramblings.

Picking a passage at random—

The stone transformed into a little bird, chirping and twittering. It crossed mountains and lakes, bringing back daisies from the Red Plain.

Felix: "..." He couldn't understand Ms. Ravenclaw's state of mind at that time.

Felix simply assumed that Ravenclaw had received an aristocratic education in his youth, had a family tradition of learning, and had a special fondness for poetry.

But were there any famous poets from that era?

Felix scratched his head. He knew that the four founders of Hogwarts were active in the Middle Ages, but it seemed that the poetry of that period was inseparable from the category of religious hymns.

He continued reading—

The river said to me, "Creator, you gave me thought, but not form. One day, I will merge into the ocean."

Felix: "..."

Thinking about it carefully, it's quite evocative; at least it sounds profound and mysterious.

He stopped trying to decipher the deeper meanings and instead quickly skimmed through the text. In less than half an hour, he had reached the end.

"Tsk!" Felix clicked his tongue, unsure what to say.

Does lacking literary appreciation skills disqualify one from studying magic?

He simply lay back in the chair, gazing at the snow-covered lake in the distance, recalling the knowledge he had gained from the diary over the past few days. With his discerning eye, he could easily distinguish which parts were more useful to him. Although the diary tried to conceal things from him and even attempted to convey incorrect information, he was, after all, dealing with a prospective Dark Lord who had not yet left school and was still quite immature in every way.

In this respect, Voldemort is somewhat similar to his former self; both of them relied on "external forces" to forcibly improve their abilities in a single subject, thereby reaching a level far exceeding that of their peers.

However, his understanding and perception of magic are still too superficial.

You won't have the corresponding experience unless you've reached a certain level.

Felix felt a pang of sympathy; most wizards spent their entire lives learning other people's magic without ever making any improvements. It wasn't that they didn't want to, but that they couldn't.

"Wait, I think I've just remembered something." Felix sat up abruptly. "Birds, rivers, creators, magic, consciousness..."

Felix quickly opened the Ravenclaw Manuscripts (Volume Two), turned to a page, and looked at the familiar writing—

"The stone turned into a little bird, chirping and singing. It crossed mountains and lakes, bringing back daisies from the Red Plain."

If we consider this short poem as a true record of Ravenclaw's own experiences, would that make sense?

The first sentence is undoubtedly about transfiguration; perhaps one day, Lady Rowena Ravenclaw, on a whim, transformed a stone into a beautiful little bird.

What does the second sentence say?

Ravenclaw used magic to make it make a sound? Felix shook his head. Considering the following two sentences, this legendary little bird had clearly flown a considerable distance and brought back a daisy.

This is something that transfiguration can't do.

Perhaps Ravenclaw endowed it with some kind of "qualities," like life, soul, or something similar, allowing it to retain a certain degree of autonomy even after it is out of the spellcasting range.

He suddenly remembered part of his conversation with the Sorting Hat that day—

"Sorting Hat, do you remember how you were born?" Felix asked it in his mind.

“Of course, oh, I’m very impressed with that,” it said cleverly, and then the dirty, tattered hat began to sing in its mind.

That happened more than a thousand years ago.

I have just been woven into shape.

There were four famous wizards,

He vowed to train the young wizards to become successful.

These four great wizards,

The talents they value differ from person to person.

It was Gryffindor who came up with the solution—

He took me off his head.

All four giants instilled ideas in me.

From now on, I will be in charge of selecting and evaluating!

……

After acquiring the thoughts of the four leaders, the Sorting Hat became almost an independent life form.

How similar it is to that little bird that flies over mountains and lakes and brings back a daisy!

The key here is autonomy. They all exhibit extremely strong autonomy, just like real life, able to make their own decisions and perform complex actions even outside the realm of magic.

How can this autonomy be achieved through magic?

Setting aside the realms of "life" and "soul" that were completely beyond his grasp, Felix quickly came up with a way he could achieve it—injecting memories.

He happened to acquire this knowledge from his diary.

Felix waved his wand, sending a palm-sized pebble flying in front of him. He then gently tapped the pebble with his wand, and it quickly transformed into a delicate, tiny swift.

But if you look closely, you'll find that this swift has a very dull gaze, like a puppet, and every move it makes needs the guidance of a magic wand.

Next, Felix simulated a short memory of "Swift" in his mind. He touched his forehead with his wand, drawing out a thin, silvery thread that shimmered with a faint light.

Felix integrates this false memory into the swift's body and, relying on the knowledge given to him by the diary, combines the two.

He simplified the process as much as possible, just to verify his own ideas.

Under his gaze, the swift's eyes became incredibly lively. Without his control, it flapped its wings and took flight, albeit unsteadily.

But the next second, it plunged headfirst into the snow, leaving only its two legs twitching.

Felix pulled it out, and the swift hopped and skipped through the snow with difficulty, looking more like a sparrow foraging for food in the snow—this was because the memory he had constructed was too poor.

But he stared intently at the little guy in front of him.

After about two or three minutes, wisps of silver mist began to emanate from the swift's body—the fabricated memory had vanished.

It returned to its dull state.

Felix waved his wand, turning it back into a pebble, and fell into deep thought.

Chapter 70 Christmas Gifts

“The idea is feasible.” Felix saw more possibilities in this simple attempt, and he felt that with some effort, he could achieve the same level as the sleeping guardian statues in the castle.

However, he did not believe he could create a magical artifact similar to the Sorting Hat or the Diary.

The latter is understandable, since it's a Horcrux containing a piece of Voldemort's soul. But what about the Sorting Hat? It was originally just a hat for Gryffindor, not something specifically made for the Sorting House.

According to Felix's imagination, the four founders may have questioned each other's "talent selection plan" during a shared afternoon tea. In order to resolve their differences, they decided to use "intelligent magical creations" to divide the houses.

Thus, the Sorting Hat was born. And the Sorting Hat has existed for over a thousand years. It can communicate with people, possesses its own memories and personality; in a sense, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to call it a true life form.

This reminded him of magical portraits that could also communicate with people.

Some simple portraits, such as that of Sir Cadogan in the castle, depict him as having extremely simple wisdom, incapable of engaging in complex and organized conversations.

When Felix tested him during their school days, the boastful knight could only offer seven valid responses, such as bragging about his glorious achievements or issuing a duel challenge.

Some of the portraits are quite remarkable – they are able to interact with the outside world in complex ways and retain a considerable amount of their own memories.

As far as he knew, the portraits of past headmasters in the Hogwarts headmaster's office, as well as some portraits of the ancestors of pure-blood families, all fell into this category.

This is because the owners of the portraits infused them with a great deal of memory and magic, so that the portraits they left behind still retain a similar personality to the original owner, but only a similarity; they are not real life.

The biggest difference is that the character of the portrait does not change over time; it remains fixed at the moment it is created, like a complex interactive program.

This is fundamentally different from the Sorting Hat...

"The Sorting Hat definitely hides an even bigger secret!"

……

As dawn broke on Christmas Day, Felix dressed smartly and emerged from his bedroom. Beneath a small Christmas tree in the corner of the office lay a large pile of Christmas gifts of various shapes and sizes.

Roughly speaking, there are about a hundred items.

Moreover, several packages were on their way. While he was making tea, three owls flew into the room through the window he had deliberately left open the night before. One of them had clearly flown quite a distance, carrying a delicate gift box the size of a palm in its beak, before collapsing exhausted on the table in front of him.

Felix had to feed it a few drops of magic potion before its condition improved considerably.

After eating a few biscuits, the brown owl hopped over to him and gently pecked his fingers with its sharp beak. "You want me to open the package?"

The owl looked at him, tilted its head, and stretched out a claw at him, where a small metal cylinder was attached.

Felix opened the cylinder and pulled out a rolled-up note—

"Dear Mr. Felix Heap, my wolfsbane potion has been finalized. Just as 'White Fresh' flew to your location, I submitted the official formula to the Ministry of Magic. Barring any unforeseen circumstances, I will soon be awarded a Order of Merlin—at least a second-class medal! I hope you can attend the ceremony. Enclosed is a vial of the latest wolfsbane potion for your perusal."

The signature is Morklis Belby.

Felix quickly wrote on it, "It would be an honor. Please let me know as soon as the date is set, and I will attend on time. Also: Your Order of Merlin is well-deserved."

He put the note back into the metal cylinder. "Thank you for your hard work, Bai Xian." The owl drank some water, then spread its wings and flew away.

Felix opened the exquisite gift box, inside which was a bottle of potion. He opened the lid and sniffed it lightly. "Ugh, still smells awful. Couldn't he have considered adding some sugar? Or is making potions taste bad a quirk of all magic masters?"

He put the potion into the emerald-encrusted ring on his left hand, and then began to unwrap the gifts with great interest.

A significant portion of the gifts came from his book fans and pen pals, mainly greeting cards. Felix sorted through them and set them aside for the time being; the remaining gifts were from Hogwarts professors and students.

Dumbledore gave the headmaster a private alchemical manuscript, containing his personal insights on alchemy. Felix, on the other hand, presented him with a Muggle book titled "99 Inventions That Changed the World," along with a pair of wool stockings embroidered with red lions.

Professor McGonagall sent me a book called "Quidditch Teams in England and Ireland," which introduces British Quidditch teams and their various honors, and also contains a lot of illustrations of Quidditch techniques.

It seems she wants to bring Felix into the Quidditch fan club.

Hagrid gave him a homemade short dagger, which was quite crudely made, but the material was very special—it was a unicorn horn.

"Tsk." Felix clicked his tongue, unsure what to say.

Professor Flitwick sent him some information on ancient magic and invited him to discuss the subject with him when he had time, to which Felix gladly replied.

Professor Snape's gift was a thumb-sized clear bottle containing about one milliliter of clear liquid.

“It’s a powerful truth serum, you’ve got some talent, Professor,” he said gleefully. “I hope you’ll like my gift.” He gave Snape a set of Muggle school lab equipment, including a measuring cup, a balance, and a dropper.

He also thoughtfully included a "Code of Conduct for Chemical Experiments (Children's Edition)" with plenty of illustrations, so professors wouldn't have trouble understanding it.