"Mr. Riddle… this is the ancient rune for memory, right?" As soon as Lyla returned to her room, she immediately opened her diary and wrote.
"I'm not sure." After a long silence, Riddle slowly left his elegant handwriting in the diary. "After all, I told you… I've forgotten, haven't I?"
"Ah… sorry…" Lyla muttered out loud first, before realizing and scratching her apology into the diary.
"So… you went to Hogwarts, didn't you?" Riddle slowly asked.
"Ah… yes…" Lyla wrote somewhat awkwardly. "I haven't forgotten about you… it's just that I had to meet Dumbledore first… and it was very rushed."
"I know," Riddle replied thoughtfully. "It will be the same when school starts."
"There will be more students then… which will help me recall my student days."
'Mr. Riddle really misses Hogwarts…' Lyla pursed her lips and couldn't help but wonder what there was to miss about Hogwarts.
Her experiences there this morning had already left her exhausted. First, she was startled by a house-elf standing in her bedroom, then she encountered a lot of people at Hogwarts… then Dumbledore… and Pro… Professor Snape.
Just thinking of Snape's name made Lyla feel a lingering spike of terror.
'Ah, I don't want to think about these things anymore…' Lyla shook her head and quickly shifted her focus to the Magic Array.
The Magic Array she saw carved on the Pensieve was indeed structurally identical to the one in Mr. Riddle's diary. That basically confirmed the Magic Array was related to memory.
Lyla pursed her lips, gently picked up her quill, and began to draw the Magic Array on the parchment in front of her, carefully following the patterns in the diary.
She didn't draw the Energy Storage Array first, but directly drafted the memory array. The two Magic Arrays were not exactly the same; what they had in common was the central hub, which was the ancient rune.
As Lyla completely outlined the Magic Array, she gently raised her ebony wand and tapped the paper.
With a slight infusion of magic, the parchment in front of her immediately lit up. It was followed by a glowing halo that seemed to pull Lyla into it like a grasping hand.
"Miss Hamilton?"
What greeted her eyes was a dim, dark corridor. A young man with short black hair stood by some mottled walls.
"Mu… Muller?" Looking at the person in front of her, Lyla froze for a moment and instinctively pursed her lips.
However, Muller seemed not to see Lyla as he shook his head. He walked toward Lyla, and then passed right through her as she instinctively stepped back.
"Ah?" Lyla turned her head in astonishment and saw a silver-haired girl with messy hair sitting in the corner.
'Is that… me?'
Lyla saw those pointed ears. 'Yes, it's me… So where is this?'
'Durmstrang Institute?'
'But why are there two of me?' Lyla pondered for a few seconds and quickly understood the reason. 'This must be my own memory, right?'
It must be that the memory Magic Array activated and pulled her consciousness into a past memory. As Lyla watched, she saw Muller slowly approach her student self and reach out to stroke her head.
'Did Muller ever do that?'
Lyla froze for a moment, feeling a little ashamed that she had been treated like a pet.
"Muller?" The student Lyla looked up at him. "You… what are you doing?" she asked tremblingly, shrinking her body against the wall.
"I heard about Karkaroff. He came to bother you again, didn't he?"
"Ah… it's nothing… I'm fine…"
Watching her student self wave her hand, her face pale and terrified, Lyla bit her lower lip tightly. If Muller were to ask her that again today… would she still give the same cowardly answer?
"This doesn't look like nothing." Muller frowned and raised his wand. "Lumos."
A flicker of light appeared, illuminating the dim corridor, and casting light on Miss Lyla Hamilton's dirty, bleeding face.
"Why don't you fight back?" Muller reached out to wipe away Lyla's bloodstains, but seeing the girl tremble violently, he slowly withdrew his hand.
"I… I can't use… magic." The girl whispered. "I… I can't…"
"How can you not learn it?" Muller paused and couldn't help but ask. "It's just uttering a spell and waving a wand…"
'Yes, uttering a spell, waving a wand… it's incredibly simple for any normal person… but for me…' Lyla looked at the wand in her hand, then at herself sitting in the corner.
"Uttering a spell… it's too difficult…" The girl stammered. "I'll… I'll faint…"
"This…" Muller was stunned. He looked at the timid girl, remained silent for a moment, and then asked, "Where are your parents?"
"Isn't your father a wizard?"
"Didn't he teach you?"
"My father is already…" The girl whispered, her somewhat messy silver hair covering her face, making her expression unclear.
'Did I cry?'
'Or maybe not?'
Lyla herself couldn't remember clearly. But she remembered Muller's answer.
"Then you don't need to utter a spell to use magic, Miss Hamilton." Almost in the next second, Lyla's present-day murmur overlapped with Muller's memory.
"Then don't utter a spell." Muller repeated firmly in front of the stunned girl. "Although non-verbal spells reduce the intensity of the magic, it's much better than not being able to cast magic at all, isn't it?"
"But I… I can't even…"
'Telling someone who can't even cast a verbal spell to learn a non-verbal spell…' Lyla instinctively pursed her lips.
"Many wizards can cast non-verbal spells." Muller interrupted the girl's unconfident words, stating with unusual firmness. "Grindelwald can cast non-verbal spells, and Dumbledore, who fought him, can too."
'Why is Dumbledore here too…' Lyla didn't expect to hear that terrifying name for the first time here. 'Fortunately, in a memory, there shouldn't be anything to worry about, right?'
"Besides, many others can too." Muller continued. "So, Miss Hamilton, why can't you be one of those people?"
"I… I can't…" The girl still waved her hand in refusal. "I'm a Half-Veela… not a pure-blood wizard…"
"Dumbledore isn't a pure-blood wizard either." Muller couldn't help but say. "And do you know something?"
"Veela can even cast magic without a wand."
"Really?" The girl froze for a moment.
"Of course it's true!" Muller suddenly paused, then his gaze drifted. "I've seen it…"
'It seemed my past self hadn't noticed Muller was lying…' Lyla thought as she watched herself slightly raise her head with hope.
"But… but how do I… learn?"
"Together." Muller took out his wand. "I want to learn non-verbal spells too."
"We can practice together."
"But you… must… must be very powerful, right?" The girl said uncertainly. "I heard you… used that… spell."
"Crucio?" Muller chuckled. "Those are just rumors to scare Karkaroff."
"I do know quite a few spells, but isn't that good?" He shrugged. "I can teach you, and we can practice non-verbal spells together."
"Don't worry."
"I will stand with Lord Grindelwald in the future, so I will naturally learn non-verbal spells, and so will you."
'I did learn non-verbal spells…' Watching the memory in front of her gradually become ethereal, Lyla pursed her lips.
'Not only that… I might even be the wizard most proficient in non-verbal spells, right?'
Much of the credit should go to Muller. He was a good teacher. But… Lyla thought of what happened later, and she couldn't help but shake her head and close her eyes.
When she opened her eyes again, everything in front of her had returned to the familiar tavern room, and the Magic Array on the table had lost its light.
Perhaps the infused magic had been exhausted. She let out a soft breath, relieved that she hadn't injected too much magic, as the ending of the subsequent story didn't seem to be as satisfactory. Also… she seemed to have succeeded.
Lyla held up the parchment in her hand, a smile appearing on her pale face.
She had learned a new ancient rune and a Magic Array that could extract memories.