Chapter 51 Persuasion and Research

"The prejudices of the heart are a mighty hill to climb, Harry."

...

As Harry walked dizzily out of the Ancient Runes office, his mind is still reverberating with what Professor Hap had said to him.

Two hours ago, he tried to dispel the professor's "horrible" idea, but two hours later, he's already holding a magical scroll and began to think about how to translate the evil language" Parseltongue ".

He even thought he would be benefiting the entire wizarding community.

"Harry, I think Professor Hap's point is right, a person's talent is not what matters, and what matters is what kind of person he chooses to be!" As someone who had listened to the whole conversation, Ron quoted Professor Hap's words.

"What's more - Professor Hap's offer is also very generous," Ron added, he looked at the golem in Harry's hand with an envious look, it is a golem with ice blue hair.

This is the price Professor Hap had paid for the complete deal - one of the top class Golems from his private collection, which, according to Professor Hap, could "easily defeat a seventh-year graduate".

Harry's memory returns to two hours prior ...

"Harry, we are always quick to label people, to label things we are not familiar with, but with a little understanding, we can see that this action is quite one-sided. For example, Headmaster Armando Dippet did a lot of solid deeds during his term yet all people can remember are just some ridiculous rumours that have been twisted by someone with a vested interest ..."

Prof. Hap brought the book "Armando Dippet: Master or Moron?" on the table and the book " went " to the middle page, so that the trio could see the contents.

"Headmaster Dippet improved Hogwarts' school rules by abolishing the vast majority of corporal punishments ... At the same time, he also refused the Dark Lord's application for a job and spared the students of Hogwarts from his influence - this is a general opinion, but Is this really the case? The author with the idea of exploring the truth, from which I see a completely different logic, it was a dusty history that was covered up, full of political dirty ..."

Felix said calmly: "This book, full of lies and distorted facts, which has been on the best-seller list for a long time."

Harry was disgusted with the woman named "Rita Skeeter" and empathized with Principal Dippet - they were both misunderstood, only he is because of the Parseltongue.

He quickly agreed with Professor Hap's offer out of some sense of empathy. Professor Hap then flung him a dictionary and told him to translate it accordingly.

Ron and Hermione watched curiously, and after some initial shock, they became intensely interested in the matter itself. In Ron's words, "This is the process of decoding Parseltongue, we're witnessing history!"

But the process is not easy, Harry turned the first page of the dictionary and held his tongue for a while, but could not say a word.

"Professor, I can't do it."

Felix thought for a moment, "You are not skilled in your Parseltongue, perhaps you are missing the direct stimulation." He waved his wand and applied a detect-feedback enchantment to the magic dictionary.

The effect is that when someone is reading the book, it would feel like they were looking at a snake face to face.

This got Harry into gear quickly, and after skipping the first and second useless words, he made a raspy, eerie sound that startled Ron and Hermione who were next to him.

"That voice feels so evil." Ron shivered, his body chilled.

"This is a serious piece of research on magic, Ron." Hermione is shocked as well.

"Which word is it?" Felix asked.

Harry pointed at the third word in the dictionary, " This one, [stay away]."

"How many tones can you make on this page?"

Harry tried again, moving his fingers over the dictionary so that the other three could judge his progress.

The next moment, though, Harry either stifled his speech or normal English words popped out of his mouth. Ron reminded him more than once, "Harry, you're speaking human tongue " and "Harry, we can understand."

It wasn't until the last word on that page that Harry finally said in a Parseltongue, " This word is [eat]," he said excitedly, "I'm familiar with this word, I heard it on Halloween."

Felix's fingers rested on his chin, "That means that out of 23 words on one page, the left and right sides to be exact, only two can be translated into Parseltongue."

"What did that mean, Professor?" Harry asked.

"Ah, animal language is always less enriched than human language, and it's also vague. The concept of 'eat', for example, we have a dozen words with similar meanings, which is very rare in the languages of other intelligent creatures."

Felix thought for a moment, "Let's pause while I do some modification on the dictionary."

The trio looked at Professor Hap's workbench, a very wide " dent " type table with a smooth wooden surface and with a waxed finish.

In Harry's view, Professor Hap with his wand tapping the dictionary, the tip of the wand emitted various shades of light, the professor sometimes silent, sometimes reciting something, and only after ten minutes, he stopped.

"Professor?" Harry is about to ask what he did, and then he opened his mouth wide.

The words in the dictionary suddenly "came to life".

Completely literally, the surface of the yellowish pages swirled with ripples like water, and the words in the caption of each entry began to twist and turn as if they had arms and legs. Then they struggled to break free from the dictionary and emerged into the three-dimensional world.

Next, the dictionary flipped pages with a clatter, and one by one the " captions " were thrown out, they landed on the surface of the workbench, the black hollow lines wiggled and bounced. In less than a minute, the number reached several thousand.

This scene is extremely shocking, a two-dimensional object came into the real world at once.

"Professor, am I dreaming?" Harry asked dumbly.

"It's magic," Felix said calmly.

Hermione's eyes erupted with an intense glow, this is magic ... She had always thought that magic is something concrete, a magic spell, a magic potion, or a picture that moved, but Professor Hap had shown her in action that magic could do much more than that.

Magic is unknown, with all kinds of possibilities.

Felix looked at the array of "words" in front of him with satisfaction, they were temporarily animated, he flicked his wand, the suitcase in the corner opened with a bang, from which a sheet of parchment flew out.

Felix held up his wand and made a circle, allowing them to be connected to each other, these parchments stuck together under the effect of magic.

Then Felix's wand struck the table, and the legion of "words" on the workbench got incorporated into the parchment, and a word appeared on it, and they were arranged in a clear order.

When it's all over, the long parchment, or rather parchment scroll, rolled itself up and turned into a magic scroll.

"Snap!"

It landed on the workbench.

"Here you go, Harry, thankfully I know quite a bit of cold magic." A smile appeared on Felix's face.

"How is this meant to be used, Professor?"

"It stores your pronunciation of the Parseltongue - of course, you'll need to tap the corresponding words with your wand before using it. Also, I've eliminated some English vocabulary, mind you, there are tens of thousands of words in the dictionary, but a lot of it is simply useless."

So in the remaining time, Harry spread out the scroll, word by word translated - this time the translation progressed much faster.

Throughout the office, a raspy, eerie voice would come every few dozen seconds.

And Ron and Hermione also from the initial discomfort, to get used to it, and then numb, after less than an hour.

At nine o'clock, Professor Hap sent the three out, "Harry, you can usually find somewhere unoccupied to record, and if you encounter any problems, just find me."

Then he said to Hermione, "Tomorrow's runes lesson is temporarily cancelled, I have something to deal with temporarily."

"I have to go to see someone." The professor said so.