Dawn's first lesson ended just like that.
There were no secrets in the castle. By the time noon approached, what had happened in class was already spreading throughout Hogwarts.
The young witches and wizards argued heatedly among themselves.
Opinions on Professor Hickman's teaching style were sharply divided—some praised it, others resisted it outright.
But the professor at the center of these discussions paid none of it any mind.
After finishing lunch and stopping by the kitchens to instruct the house-elves to deliver all three daily meals directly to his office from now on, Dawn headed for the library.
He pushed open the door, greeted Madam Pince, returned the books he had borrowed earlier, and then walked between the shelves.
He had never forgotten the true reason he returned to Hogwarts.
However.
Dawn soon realized that while the library's collection was indeed astonishingly vast, ritual magic had never been systematically organized.
Relevant knowledge was scattered across fragments of different books, hidden in isolated chapters or footnotes.
As a result, searching through it was inefficient.
Moreover, he discovered that while the Restricted Section held an abundance of dark magic, the parts related to rituals were mostly curses, heavily overlapping with the Carter family's collection.
Because of that, Dawn was now focusing most of his efforts on the books in the public sections.
Tall mahogany shelves stretched all the way to the ceiling. Breathing in the scent of old books, Dawn felt as though he were walking through ink and paper.
It brought him a rare sense of peace.
"Hm?"
As he passed one shelf, Dawn suddenly stopped.
A title caught his attention.
Dreams and Prophecy.
He thought of the long, continuous dreams of his childhood and raised an eyebrow. Hooking a finger around the spine, he pulled the book free.
It was very thin, probably less than ten pages. The cover was adorned with drifting, sand-like mist.
Weighing it in his hand, Dawn decided not to look for a desk. He leaned against the bookshelf and opened it directly.
The text inside looked handwritten rather than printed.
Dreams, from ancient times to the present, have always carried an air of mystery.
We suddenly find ourselves in unfamiliar places, seeing strange sights and encountering bizarre events.
Yet when we wake, we can grasp none of it, like trying to scoop the moon from water, watching it slip away through our fingers.
We do not understand dreams.
And so, we are driven to ask: what exactly is revealed within them?
This was the book's preface.
Dawn did not pause. His fingers brushed over the rough page as he turned to the main text.
In my limited lifetime, through the exploration of dreams, I have finally come to understand this: they are the source of prophecy. Within dreams, we may glimpse the revelations granted by the world itself.
For example, in the year 990, when the four founders established Hogwarts.
Dawn froze.
Was the founding of Hogwarts connected to dreams?
He searched his memory of Hogwarts: A History, but could not recall any mention of this.
He continued reading.
At the time, under the leadership of church and crown, the witch hunts raged fiercely, and bloody conflict spread across the world.
In order to protect and educate young witches and wizards, sparing them from persecution, the four founders made a great vow to establish a school far from strife, in a sparsely populated land.
Yet they traveled nearly everywhere they could reach, only to find that the flames of the pyre had already exposed every hidden refuge.
They found no peace.
Just as the four founders were overwhelmed with disappointment and discussing whether to leave the land entirely, Lady Ravenclaw had a dream one night.
She dreamed of a warty wild boar appearing before her, guiding her through forests, across the Black Lake, and finally to a sheer cliff.
There, stood a towering castle.
After waking, Lady Ravenclaw followed the route of the dream with a tentative heart. Together with the other three, she crossed a perilous forest—and in reality, they found the very same place.
Thus, Hogwarts was founded.
Lady Ravenclaw later stated plainly that this was a revelation granted to her by fate.
And beyond that—
Merlin, the famed archmage of Britain, was also deeply entangled with prophecy and dreams throughout his life.
It is said that before the birth of King Arthur, Merlin dreamed of stars shaped like dragons, and proclaimed that King Uther's son would become the greatest ruler of Britain.
In the end, Arthur drew the sword from the stone, proving the prophecy true.
....
So, young reader of the words I leave behind—have you ever experienced a dream of particular mystery?
If one day you have a dream that lingers in your mind, do not doubt it. That is fate's warning to you.
Rustle.
The book closed.
That was the end.
Dawn flipped to the author's name and was surprised to find that it was written by Cassandra Trelawney, the renowned Seer.
The woman who made the prophecy of the savior. And Sybill, now the Divination professor, was her great-granddaughter.
Dawn slid the book back onto the shelf, stroking his chin thoughtfully.
He couldn't help thinking of the dreams he had as a child.
They had been vivid, coherent, and full of ordinary logic. Yet Dawn had never been able to confirm whether those dreamlike scenes were truly memories of a previous life.
If they were— Why had he dreamed of them? And why had he arrived in the world of a book?
And if they were not— Then what were they?
A warning?
Dawn frowned.
He wasn't blindly trusting the words of a famous figure like Cassandra, but even by his own reasoning, dreams did seem closely connected to prophecy and revelation.
After all, throughout history, countless people had believed the same, and traces of it could be found in myths from every land.
In Norse mythology, Odin foresaw Ragnarök through dreams: after a long winter, the wolf Fenrir would break free, devour the sun, the gods and giants would perish in battle, and the world would burn.
In Indian mythology, sages dreamed of an age where greed and violence spread unchecked, until the savior Kalki descended to usher in a renewed golden age.
In Mayan mythology, sacred texts recorded that the gods created humanity from maize and entrusted them with maintaining the world's balance.
Priests often used prophetic dreams to foretell the rise and fall of city-states and natural calamities.
Even into the modern age, prophetic dreams were still discussed endlessly, labeled as pseudoscience yet never fully dismissed.
So—
Dawn believed that whether or not dreams truly made sense on their own, under the influence of collective belief, natural magic would cause dream-prophecy to become something real.
He decided he should start paying closer attention to his dreams.
But then he remembered that aside from those childhood dreams that felt like memories of another life, he had not dreamed at all since.
Oh right.
Except for the night he was first afflicted by Anubis's curse, when he dreamed of his heart being pierced.
Was that normal?
Leaning against the bookshelf, ignoring the glances of passersby, Dawn sank into his thoughts.
Then, suddenly, an idea struck him.
Perhaps it was time to deliberately make himself dream again.
___________
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