After dinner, the three of them hurried upstairs.
"I can only say that you'll love it there in the future," Anthony said solemnly to Charlie.
Hector nodded in agreement, clearly both of them full of confidence in the room.
They walked so quickly that by the time they reached the eighth floor, Anthony and Hector both ended up with stomachaches at the same time.
"I told you not to exercise vigorously after eating," Charlie said with a small smile as he watched them both dash into the eighth-floor bathroom.
Once they emerged from the bathroom, opposite the tapestry of the troll clubbing Barnabas the Barmy, Anthony paced back and forth, whispering, "I want to go to the Moonlight Club's cabin."
After repeating this three times, a double door appeared. The doors were made of wood, not particularly grand, but refined and sturdy, with an ancient charm.
Pushing the doors open, the first thing that caught the eye was a space about a circle larger than an ordinary classroom.
Along the walls, three sets of desks, chairs, and benches were neatly arranged. At the very back of the room were the familiar spell-practice dummies.
On the wall hung an old-fashioned wall clock, showing the time: now five minutes past eight.
"Every set of desks, chairs, and benches was found by us in the Room of Requirement's material storage," Anthony explained.
"We first asked it to create an empty room and gave this empty room a unique name."
"This room doesn't follow ordinary demands, letting the Room of Requirement freely create things.
Instead, everything in it was pieced together bit by bit from items we selected from the material storage."
"What?!" Charlie looked at them in astonishment!
"So you basically went through the entire Room of Requirement's material storage?"
"Probably," Anthony said uncertainly. "We walked around several times anyway."
Charlie suddenly felt a bit of a toothache. He sucked in a breath of cold air: "Didn't you encounter any bad things?"
"Definitely," Anthony nodded, and then he quickly understood what Charlie meant.
"Dark magic artifacts, right? We encountered quite a few. Merlin! The forbidden items researched by past Hogwarts students were really bizarre."
At this point, Hector's expression soured: "I even found a shriveled human head.
That was obviously a bad thing; we didn't even touch it."
Anthony nodded: "My parents always told me to be wary of any magical items of unknown origin. So we kept our distance from those things."
He explained: "I heard that twenty or thirty years ago, there were way too many unruly students at Hogwarts."
"Especially the Slytherin students; basically every one of them was secretly studying dark magic."
Charlie agreed with this, especially Snape—he wasn't he the guy who started researching dark magic while still in school?
Anyway, as long as these two didn't run into trouble, it was fine. Charlie was a bit worried they might have found Ravenclaw's lost diadem.
"Our main needs were desks, chairs, benches, and various furniture. Now this unique room has been recognized by the Room of Requirement.
In the future, when you come here, as long as you think about the general layout of this room and something like 'Moonlight Club,' it should work."
Charlie nodded, and then Anthony continued:
"I suggest that if we want something in the future, we can add it ourselves. Don't let the Room of Requirement randomly add room furnishings!"
Charlie, of course, agreed with this.
After taking two laps around, he looked at the training dummies at the deepest part of the room. "Since we're here, time waits for no one. Let's start now."
Behind Charlie, Anthony smiled. He glanced at Hector with an "as expected" expression.
Hector nodded and then said: "Charlie, we'll pass.
You practice your spells first. Anthony and I want to rest well tonight."
"I haven't written the letter home yet," Anthony added.
Yes, today was Friday, the day Anthony and Hector wrote letters home.
Anthony sat at his desk, which had a quill and ink: "We'll just stay here while you practice your spells. How about that?"
"Of course, no problem," Charlie nodded.
Then he began waving his wand. Facing the dummy, he first spent fifteen minutes reviewing all the first-year spells, waving the Fire-Making Spell the most.
This newly learned spell still needed more proficiency.
"Incendio!"
Snap—
A bolt of lightning shot from the tip of Charlie's wand like a flash, hitting the dummy in the middle. A ball of flame exploded with a boom, enveloping the dummy entirely in furious burning.
The burning lasted a short time, partly because Charlie controlled it intentionally.
On the other hand, whenever his burning intensity was too high, the dummy would flash, triggering some spell.
Then, all the flames on it would disappear, and the burn marks would start repairing.
"Finite Incantatem plus a self-repairing charm?" Charlie tried to analyze this function with alchemical thinking.
This was his recent habit: whenever he saw something magical, he always tried to dissect its magical abilities using alchemical logic.
After a brief warm-up, Charlie came to his own desk.
There were many things on the desk: parchment, vellum, and even rare white paper in the wizarding world.
Charlie flipped through and found an envelope.
Nothing was more suitable for practicing the Undetectable Extension Charm.
He opened his small notebook and first reviewed the content he saw that afternoon, then muttered to himself, familiarizing himself with the incantation.
At his fingertips, his wand lightly tapped in mid-air, like a conductor silently reciting the score.
Once everything was ready, he aimed at the parchment envelope on the desk and softly chanted the spell.
"Capacious Extremis—"
The next moment, the entire envelope instantly crumpled inward, with all the paper squeezing tightly in the middle.
Bang—
A firecracker-like explosion rang out from the parchment envelope.
He quickly put down his wand and unfolded the envelope again.
In the middle of the envelope, a large dent appeared.
Charlie looked at the deep creases and fell into thought.
Obviously, this wasn't an explosion with a gunpowder smell like Seamus often caused.
This was... spatial collapse!
As expected, this spell was harder and more dangerous than imagined.
According to the book, the wizarding world still doesn't know where the vanished matter goes after spatial collapse?
He didn't know if the topic was too profound and no one had researched it, or if such content wasn't recorded in Standard Book of Spells: Grade 7?
Perhaps he could ask the professors when he had the chance?
Speaking of which, the matter that vanishes after spatial collapse reminded Charlie of the Scouring Charm.
"Scourgify"
Just a simple spell like that, and things designated as "trash" disappear.
Where do they go? The book doesn't say.
Perhaps the things cleaned by the Scouring Charm and the matter vanished after spatial collapse go to the same unknown place?
Charlie's wand traced the path of the Scouring Charm in the air.
Then, he regretfully shook his head.
Whether in incantation or wand movement, these two spells had no overlap at all.
Letting out a slow breath, he cast aside these random thoughts and reviewed the issues with his recent casting.
A moment later, he took a new envelope and once again waved the spell.
"Capacious Extremis—"
This time, the envelope contracted inward, wrinkling in a circle.
At least it was progress; no spatial collapse occurred.
He spent a minute reviewing this casting. A minute later, he took another new envelope and began waving his wand again.
After who knows how long, the time reached 9:30.
Anthony and Hector stood up, waved to Charlie, and left the Moonlight Club.
In the eighth-floor corridor, the two exchanged a look.
Anthony laughed: "I told you, we can't give Charlie a bed in there.
Otherwise, he'll definitely work himself to exhaustion."
Hector nodded in agreement: "Yes, yes, Charlie pushes himself too hard. If we put a bed in the club for him, he'll be too lazy to even come out."
Yes, when setting up the club room, they had considered adding a few small beds for naps.
But soon, thinking of Charlie's habits, they rejected the idea.
Of course, Charlie didn't know this.
He was now pondering whether to switch casting methods.
Yes, although the Undetectable Extension Charm is an incantation spell with wand movement that applies a specific effect to an object.
But it also has qualities of Transfiguration and Alchemy.
Alchemy aside for now.
Transfiguration and Charms have profound differences.
As discussed before, most charms arise from human needs; demand-driven is the best casting method.
Transfiguration requires commanding desire.
Previously, Charlie's casting method had always been the former; he constantly tried to build needs and create desires internally.
However, from the current results, this method had little effect.
Perhaps he needed the commanding desire method?
No need to tell his wand why he needed to cast this spell so badly.
Just command it with the purest, most direct desire.
Charlie took out a new envelope.
At this point, a thick stack of blank envelopes was still on his desk.
Anthony said these blank vellum, parchment, and envelopes were all found in a cabinet.
Originally, he divided them into three portions, stacking some on each person's desk.
Now... all the blank envelopes were piled on Charlie's desk.
"Transfiguration casting method... no reasons needed, just the purest, most direct desire..."
Focusing his mind, he chanted the spell again and waved his wand.
"Capacious Extremis—"
A faint light from the wand tip fell on the blank envelope, rippling an invisible wave.
No explosion, no contraction.
It seemed... nothing happened?!
Charlie put down his wand in confusion and picked up the envelope.
Opening the envelope mouth, he peered inside with his naked eye.
'This...'
He wasn't sure if the spell had succeeded.
Thinking, he took a new envelope and reached into both to test depth and width.
The new envelope's depth was about two inches.
The enchanted one's depth was about two and a half inches.
Charlie compared; this envelope's internal depth was already longer than the entire envelope's width.
Succeeded?!
The next moment, Charlie's fingers felt a squeezing sensation!
Rip!
At the bottom of the envelope, his fingers abruptly broke through the paper.
The paper was torn.
This sudden scene startled him; he quickly tossed the envelope aside.
Then, his gaze shifted left, looking at the open notebook beside him.
[The failure of the Undetectable Extension Charm usually brings several different terrible consequences.
First: Spatial collapse
Second: Spatial overlap · repulsion
Third: Spatial overlap · fusion
...]
He succeeded, but only a little.
The spell was cast successfully but lasted only briefly. The slightly expanded space in the small envelope collapsed.
And Charlie's fingers inside instantly returned, causing spatial overlap · repulsion with the envelope paper.
Obviously, flesh and paper repelled; naturally, flesh won, and the paper was torn.
But this was just luck; he encountered the best of all failure consequences.
His fingers didn't vanish with the spatial collapse, nor did [spatial overlap · fusion] occur.
If it was fusion, according to the book, his finger's flesh, skin, and bones would now be embedded with the envelope paper.
However, even this lightest consequence of repulsion startled Charlie.
What if he expanded not an envelope but a wooden or iron container?
In repulsion clashes, the harder material usually wins, and the other is torn, like the paper now.
It seems stupid things like reaching in to probe unstable Undetectable Extension Charm internal spaces should be avoided.
He was still a bit impatient...
He quickly calmed down; he hadn't thought enough. Although the book didn't mention similar warnings.
But such stupidity, with a little thought, could be foreseen. How could he casually probe unstable magical spaces with flesh?
He took a deep breath and decided to pause practice.
Obviously, he should learn a lesson: for such advanced spells, he couldn't just read the book's descriptions and explanations, then chant and wave, starting "self-study."
He needed to think seriously and carefully about potential troubles and difficulties during practice.
In class, this would be where teachers warn students.
For self-study, it's up to himself to think about possible accidents.
Only then can dangers and hazards be nipped in the bud.