The library was packed with witches and wizards.
Warm orange lanterns cast a soft, steady light while students gnawed their way through dense books, sneaking the occasional snack between pages.
Madam Pince always pretended not to notice. She wasn't quite as strict as the students liked to imagine.
In the Restricted Section, though, that gentle glow came to an abrupt halt. Only a few dim lanterns sat on the dark wooden tables, lighting the pages in front of Sean.
The Magick Moste Evile.
Sean had only a vague impression of the book.
The Magick Moste Evile was a classic that catalogued the most dangerous, most evil magic in the wizarding world.
Its core content was knowledge about Horcruxes. However, the author clearly hated that magic, and explicitly refused to provide any actual method for creating a Horcrux.
But he did thoroughly explain the concept of a Horcrux.
The screaming book quieted as soon as Sean picked it up; the black smoke it had been emitting vanished as well… which usually meant the book was cursed.
Sean knew for certain this one wasn't, which was the only reason he dared to handle it bare-handed in the Restricted Section—otherwise, this was exactly the place to be twice as careful.
Ancient wizards were not nice people.
Sean remembered another old book that would burn a reader's eyes blind; a volume of Fourteen-Line Verse for Wizards that condemned anyone who read it to speak only in limericks for the rest of their life; and an old tome by a witch named Bathilda that you could never put down once you opened it—you went everywhere with your nose buried in the pages and had to learn to do everything one-handed.
Reining his thoughts back in, Sean opened the black-and-silver cover and saw a name on the first page: Godelot.
He paused, then read on.
[From eggs laid by roosters and hatched beneath toads comes a serpent of extraordinary power and peril. The outside world generally claims this was the wicked discovery of Herpo the Foul.
But any wizard of sound mind can see that is nonsense.
Herpo the Foul did not discover the basilisk—he created it.
This is a form of evil biological magic.]
Sean had found the section on breeding basilisks, yet his curiosity wasn't satisfied at all; instead, it was completely hooked.
He tore his gaze from the words evil biological magic and dredged up what he knew about Godelot himself:
A dark wizard who, with the help of a wand, wrote an entire collection of dangerous spells and advanced the study of Dark magic.
Sean knew some of those spells—like the Biting Jinx and the Tongue-Tying Curse. They were Godelot's work.
And, as it happened, his wand had been the Elder Wand.
[My most wicked and unfathomable friend—its shaft made of ellhorn, familiar with all manner of the foulest magicks.
When I wield it, I know at last from whence a wizard's magic truly springs.]
A cold breeze swept the Restricted Section. Sean looked up and saw that night had fully fallen outside.
He stared at his own wand, lost in thought.
Rowan is chatty, chestnut is lazy,
Ash is stubborn, hazel's crazy.
Elder's master brings no cheer—
No good ever follows an elder wand near…
That little rhyme from The Tales of Beedle the Bard drifted through his mind.
The basilisk-breeding process was clearly written out here. Sean's original goal had been met.
He carefully copied the ritual for breeding a basilisk word for word onto a sheet of parchment, then kept reading:
[Cruel. Twisted. So my old friend said.
I must warn every wizard: studying such magic has a price. If you think you can bear it, then read on.
Dark magic lets a wizard draw out extraordinary magical power—or rather, it lets a wizard use magic as it was truly meant to be used.
That power is so great it reaches into the study of life, and the summoning of death.
Any wizard with sense will find the temptation of such secrets intoxicating…]
Sean frowned.
On the pages, sketches appeared of basilisks, Acromantulas, Dementors—each illustration showcasing some living miracle Dark magic had wrought.
It had created life.
As for summoning death… that part was easier to understand.
[To create a noble faith is difficult beyond measure—but to create an evil faith is effortless.
Any wizard can drown in slaughter and cruelty. My old friend, it is always calling to me.
Calling.
Those who walk to extremes will wield terrible power.
This proves:
Magic, in its essence, is a kind of faith.]
Sean quietly closed the book.
For a moment, the ink on the page blurred and seemed to melt. He frowned, watching this utterly abnormal sight.
The writing re-formed, rearranging itself into new lines:
[Dark magical creatures are born from a wizard's extreme faith; so are Dark curses.
As for paths even more dreadful—Horcruxes, that most abominable invention—we must not speak of them, nor offer guidance.
The only thing I must tell you is this: generations of Elder Wand bearers have all sought out the most unfathomable domains. They are born with unusually rigid convictions.
To chase greater magical power will, sooner or later, corrode their souls. From ancient times until now, there has been no exception.
If you have read this far, apprentice—apprentice holding the Elder Wand—then I warn you, and warn you again: I died consumed by this obsession. I spent my life chasing the essence of magic…
But at some point, when I looked back on my choices, I realized: I took a shortcut. I put my faith in cruelty. Yet perhaps magic's true nature is more than that.]
Those words vanished too. Sean realized he'd been staring at the blank last page for quite a while.
Godelot's message gave him a new direction. He began thinking seriously about will, emotion, faith—those vague, distant-sounding things.
He thought of Voldemort—brutal and twisted enough to plumb terrifying depths of Dark magic;
of how Voldemort believed magic is power, and became so strong he could rival Dumbledore even in his youth.
Magic, in some sense, really might be a wizard's faith.
Wizards sharpen their convictions to draw out greater magic, and in turn the faith they choose shapes their character.
That's the true meaning of Dark magic corroding the soul.
Since his first lessons in spells and potions, Sean had known that a wizard's emotions and beliefs affected their magic. But this was the first time he'd seen the relationship between wizard and magic laid out so plainly.
The night was deep. When he stepped out of the Restricted Section, the corridor outside was utterly silent.
"'It is our choices, Harry, far more than our abilities, that show what we truly are.'"
Only now did Sean fully understand what Dumbledore had meant.
A wizard can choose their own faith.