The Silent Witch of Hogwarts

Chapter 23: Miss Lovegood's Whimsical Ideas

"Miss Hamilton's mother is Veela, right?"

"It has very strong matrilineal characteristics..."

"Her hair is almost golden silver... It certainly resembles the Veela herself more than someone with only a quarter of the Veela bloodline..."

"His eyes are blue too...like jewels..."

"Scar... Mr. Scamander?" Loila shrank back in her chair, looking at Newt who was circling around her timidly, and said, "What are you doing...?"

"Records." Newt gave an embarrassed smile. "Sorry... I... I haven't seen this before..."

"Ah...it's nothing...I just...I'm just a little..." Loila quickly lowered her head and said, "Sorry!" when she saw Newt apologizing.

Seeing the two people apologizing at the same time, Luna smiled.

Loila Hamilton, a new friend of hers, and her first friend besides her parents and the Curved Horned Snork.

She had a beautiful appearance, with pointed ears like the moon and eyes like stars.

But she was always worried about something, or perhaps afraid of something.

Luna didn't quite understand why, but she intuitively knew it might be related to her appearance, because Loila always covered her face with a hood and wore a mask when she was with the Ministry of Magic.

This is a good thing, because wearing a mask can effectively prevent the spread of dental diseases...

Getting back to the point, Luna couldn't come up with a good solution after thinking for a long time about how her friend was always afraid. But the second she decided to talk to Mr. Scamander, she felt that maybe she could ask her friend to come along.

Mr. Scamander certainly wouldn't say anything bad about Loila's appearance; in fact, most people probably wouldn't say anything bad about her either.

But Luna heard that some bad wizards look down on wizards who are Muggle-born or who have Veela, vampire, or werewolf blood.

That's actually pretty cool...

So she and Mr. Scamander would definitely get along... Luna wrote a letter with this in mind. She didn't consider whether Loila would refuse, just as she didn't doubt whether the two of them would not get along.

"Miss Lovegood...can you stop Scamander..." Loila looked at Luna with pleading eyes, "He's trying to pull my hair out!"

"Ah... I have some of Loira's hair here." Luna, snapping out of her daze, slowly took out a strand of hair and handed it to Newt.

Then, to Loila's astonishment, he asked, "Mr. Scamander, do you have your suitcase?"

"Ah...yes...would you like to go take a look?" Newt seemed pleased with his opportunity to study Veela hybrids, so he simply pointed casually into the room and said, "It's on the table..."

Upon hearing this, Loila got up even faster than Luna and went into the house.

Her previous view was completely wrong. Newt Scamander is a far more dangerous person than Dumbledore. Dumbledore would probably just capture her, but Newt might just dissect her for research!

Although Mr. Scamander didn't see himself as a freak... well, he probably just saw himself as a magical creature...

What about Luna?

Loila subconsciously looked at the girl who was skipping and hopping towards her.

Of course she considers me a friend, right?

That's right, I was her first friend!

Aside from her father and the Snork... wait, is she friends with Newt?

As Loila was pondering, Luna had already arrived beside her.

"Loila, that's Mr. Scamander's briefcase."

"A... a briefcase..." Loila subconsciously looked in the direction Luna was pointing, and there was indeed a briefcase on the table.

But... that wasn't a suitcase at all!

"An energy storage magic array plus a spatial magic array, along with a conversion magic array and a locking magic array!"

"A combination of four different magic arrays..." Loila circled the suitcase. "What an ingenious design... If you press this button, you can activate the conversion magic array and extract the contents of the second suitcase."

"Furthermore, ancient spatial runes are engraved in the center of this spatial magic array... This creates a much larger space than a typical Seamless Expansion Spell..."

"Furthermore, the transformation magic circle seems to be engraved with other magic runes... Is this some kind of weather?" Loila gently touched the exterior of the suitcase with her hand, then took out the magic circle and drew a circle on it.

As she moved, the suitcase emitted a faint glow.

"As expected... this is a weather-changing magic circle for sunny days." Feeling the warmth of the sunlight, Loila nodded. "Then the others should correspond to rainy days... snowy days..."

"Can it even switch between night and day?"

"So many magic arrays engraved on a small box... this couldn't have been made in just a day or two..."

"This is a masterpiece!" Loila exclaimed, clutching the suitcase.

"I need to copy the magic circle on it... Luna... Ah... Miss Lovegood, can you help me...?" Realizing something, Loila suddenly stopped, and she looked at the smiling Luna beside her and quickly covered her mouth.

I was just talking about Newt... how come I'm suddenly muttering the same thing as Newt...?

"I'm...sorry...Lofgood..."

"Loila was just calling me Luna a moment ago." Luna tilted her head and handed Loila a piece of parchment.

"You're going to make a copy of the magic circle above, aren't you?"

"Ah...yes...thank you..." Loila hurriedly took the parchment, then said somewhat awkwardly, "I was just doing it by myself again...you must have found it very...boring, right?"

"No, this is very interesting." Luna shrugged and leaned on the table. "This is the first time I've seen Loira so interested in anything."

"Magic arrays...that sounds quite interesting." She pointed to the patterns on the box and said, "So Mr. Scamander's box has so many functions because of the magic arrays on it?"

"Yes...yes!" Loila pursed her lips, carefully stuck the parchment to the suitcase, and then gently waved her wand.

"Magic circles are truly amazing... so much can be done with such a small amount," Luna said, watching the patterns gradually being drawn on the paper. "Does Hogwarts offer courses like this?"

"Oh, sorry, I forgot Loila isn't a Hogwarts student..." Luna said in a low voice, "You're the Auror in charge of preventing bad teeth at the Ministry of Magic, right?"

"I...I'm not..."

"I won't expose you, don't worry, Loila!"

I'm really not... Loila really wanted to explain that she was actually a professor at Hogwarts, but she felt that saying it would only make things more awkward.

Besides... she didn't want to spoil Luna's mood, seeing how happy she was, after all, she had just praised magic arrays! And it was a completely different kind of appreciation from Dumbledore's and Mr. Scrimgeour's!

"Are you... are you very interested in magic arrays?" she asked in a low voice, almost instinctively.

But as soon as she opened her mouth, Loila felt a pang of regret... What if Luna was just being polite? Was she just causing trouble for someone else again?

She cautiously observed Luna's expression and was surprised to find that the usually absent-minded girl was unusually serious at this moment.

"Hmm!" Luna nodded, her big eyes looking very sincere. "I'm very curious about magic arrays!"

"This is something that Dad and Mom have never mentioned."

"I...I'm thinking of replicating this...box in a few days..." Loila subconsciously pursed her lips and said, "Would you...want to come and see?"