He pressed down gently.
The world collapsed.
It wasn't an exaggerated metaphor—it truly collapsed. The library vanished, the bookshelves vanished, the moonlight vanished, everything vanished. Leon felt like he was falling into an endless void, surrounded by boundless darkness, with no solid ground beneath his feet and no sky above his head. Only him, floating in the nothingness.
Then, a door opened in front of him.
The door appeared out of thin air: first the doorframe, then the door panel, and finally the doorknob—black wood, a silver handle, with runes he couldn't understand carved into its surface. The door opened a crack, revealing a soft white light inside.
Leon pushed the door open.
Behind the door was a room.
The room wasn't large, about half the size of the Hufflepuff common room. The walls were rough grey stone bricks, the floor was flat black slate, and the vaulted ceiling above was painted with a star map—not any constellation he recognised. Those stars were arranged in strange shapes, like some kind of ancient symbols.
In the centre of the room was a platform.
The platform was circular, made of black marble, with a surface as smooth as a mirror. Right in the middle sat a stone basin so shallow it was almost invisible.
A Pensieve.
In Hogwarts Legacy, every ancient magic ruin held a memory. That memory recorded the past users of ancient magic—their experiences, their choices, and their power. Players needed to enter that memory, watch the past, and only then could they obtain the inheritance.
Now, the exact same thing was happening right in front of him.
Leon took a deep breath, bent down, and plunged his head into the Pensieve.
The sky was blood-red, as if burned by fire or stained with blood. The sun hid behind a thick layer of smoke and dust, revealing only a faint dark red halo. The ground was scorched black earth, covered in craters and cracks. Blue smoke rose from the cracks, emitting a pungent smell of sulphur.
In the distance, people were fighting.
Leon wanted to get closer, but his feet wouldn't move—he wasn't really there. He was just a bystander, an audience member rooted to the spot. He could only watch, listen, and feel.
He saw three wizards standing back-to-back, surrounded by at least twenty dark figures. Those dark figures wore black robes, their faces hidden in the shadows of their hoods, their features indistinguishable. He could only see the green light shooting from their wands—the Killing Curse, one after another, pouring down like torrential rain.
The three wizards were holding their ground.
The one in the middle was the strongest. He swung his wand as fast as lightning; with every wave, a barrier unfolded in front of him, blocking at least three flashes of green light. The one on the left was a woman; her movements were faster, but her power was slightly weaker. Her barrier could only block one or two spells, relying on dodging for the rest. The one on the right—
The one on the right was a young man.
Leon couldn't see his face clearly, but he could see his movements. The way the young man waved his wand was special; it didn't look like casting spells, but more like drawing. The wand in his hand was like a pen, tracing complex trajectories in the air. Every time he finished a stroke, a streak of silver light shot from its tip, crashing into those dark figures.
Wherever the silver light went, the dark figures retreated.
That was no ordinary spell. Leon could feel it—that light contained a completely different kind of power. Ancient. Powerful. As if from another era.
The battle lasted a long time.
Finally, the dark figures retreated. They weren't defeated, but withdrew like a receding tide, disappearing into the distant smoke and dust. The three wizards stood in place, panting. The strong man clutched his shoulder, blood seeping through his fingers. The woman knelt on the ground, her wand dropped to the side, her whole body trembling. The young man—
The young man looked up at the sky.
In the blood-red sky, something was taking shape. It was a vortex—black, massive, and spinning, devouring all the light around it. Something was writhing in the centre of the vortex, like some living creature struggling to crawl out.
"It's here," the young man said.
Leon was suddenly violently thrown out of the memory.
He stumbled backward, almost falling, only steadying himself by grabbing the edge of the Pensieve. His breathing was rapid, his heartbeat drummed, and cold sweat beaded on his forehead.
Those images lingered in his mind, refusing to fade—the blood-red sky, the torrential green light, the way the young man waved his wand, and that black vortex taking shape.
He gasped for air and slowly straightened up.
The light in the Pensieve had dimmed. At this moment, Leon looked down at his right hand.
On the back of his hand, a faint silver pattern had appeared at some unknown point. The pattern was shallow, like some ancient totem, winding from the base of his fingers to his wrist. He raised his left hand to touch it, and the moment his fingertips brushed the pattern, a bizarre sensation transmitted from the back of his hand—
It didn't hurt. It didn't itch. It was a peculiar sense of fullness, as if something was quietly residing in his blood, waiting to be awakened.
Ancient Magic.
The next morning, Leon sat at the Hufflepuff long table gnawing on a Pumpkin Pasty. The silver pattern on the back of his right hand faintly flickered in the morning light.
The pattern was fainter than last night, but it was still there.
It wasn't because the power of Ancient Magic had faded—mainly, Leon's ability to control it had grown stronger, so he could hide it, making it less conspicuous.
After returning from the Restricted Section last night, he had barely slept. Lying in bed staring at the ceiling, his mind was filled with that blood-red sky, the young man waving his wand, and the forming black vortex. The memory of Ancient Magic was branded into his mind like a hot iron, refusing to fade.
The Pensieve contained memories left behind by wizards of the past, which meant he had seen the memory of an Ancient Magic user fighting some evil creature in a bygone age.
It made sense.
This Ancient Magic was simply absurdly overpowered—summoning massive thunderclouds to strike with lightning, shrinking a person to the size of an ant and then tossing them underfoot to be crushed...
Compared to the cruelty of Ancient Magic, Voldemort, who used Avada Kedavra for clean one-hit kills, seemed almost merciful.
After watching the killing scenes of the fifth-year transfer student, Voldemort would cry himself to sleep. It was the scariest thing Leon had ever witnessed in the game—pure nightmare fuel.
It had the mechanics, and it had the stats.
Ancient Magic. Do you like this kind of Ancient Magic?
So, according to the principle that all things generate and overcome each other, if there was such powerful Ancient Magic, it was only normal that there was an opposing force that required it to be used against.
He just didn't know the specifics.
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