Jingle jingle...
As Adrian walked in, the sweet doorbell rang.
In the dark magic shop, Irene held her cheek with one hand and sat at the counter, leisurely looking at a handwritten notebook. After noticing Adrian's dusty appearance, she joked, "How is it? You weren't scared by the Dementor's appearance, were you?"
Since Adrian wasn't injured, just had a little dust on his body from climbing the attic, Irene didn't notice anything unusual.
"No, I think it might have been frightened by me," Adrian rolled his eyes. A Dementor was now hiding in its box.
"Really? Just don't have nightmares tonight." Irene smiled. She didn't believe it, thinking about how terrified Adrian must have looked when seeing the Dementor for the first time. That should have been very interesting, but she hadn't seen it.
"By the way, Mom, do you know about Deputy Director Dougt's past experience?" Adrian asked, changing the topic instead of arguing about this.
Although he'd taken the money, he was still hesitating about whether to disclose his experience in the battle. But that didn't mean he couldn't ask about other things.
"When did you become so interested in him? Didn't you always look forward to seeing Deputy Director Dougt?" Irene closed the handwritten notes on the table and said suspiciously.
"I just heard someone calling him, Dougt The Unhinged, so I was a little surprised," Adrian said.
"Was he very angry?" Irene wasn't surprised, she just smiled.
"Almost." Adrian thought of the old witch who'd sold him Thestral blood. Dougt had almost knocked her head into a cauldron because of that phrase.
As for the conflict with that goblin, Adrian still didn't understand it. He knew too little information, so it wasn't clear whether it was because of being called a coward, or because he'd been cheated out of a lot of Galleons while playing cards with the stall owner.
Irene thought about it for a moment, then said, "I'm not very clear about this matter. I only know that he was dismissed from St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries more than ten years ago because of some incident."
"Later, Dougt came to Knockturn Alley, and because of a small incident, he used a spell to blow off a wizard's arm and caused a lot of trouble. Everyone started calling him that."
'More than ten years ago... Wasn't Dougt only about thirty years old when he became deputy director of St. Mungo's?'
Adrian was speechless. Thinking of the photos and medals he'd seen at Dougt's house, it was hard to imagine how this guy had fallen to where he was now.
Then Adrian tried to ask about Dougt's information from different angles. Apart from learning that Dougt seemed to have been disowned by his family, everything else was trivial.
Seeing he couldn't ask anything more, Adrian changed his voice and brought up some gossip.
"Mom, how did you and Deputy Director Dougt meet? I think he seems to like you very much."
"He likes himself more than he likes me!" Irene replied irritably, then looked suspiciously at the potion bag Adrian was holding.
"How much did you charge him today?"
Irene's gaze became more and more dangerous because she'd found that Adrian hadn't come back empty-handed.
"I just borrowed a few dozen Galleons," Adrian said with a guilty conscience, then showed off the bracelet on his left hand before Irene could attack.
"I think this thing might be useful, so I bought it at the wizard market and spent thirty-five Galleons. It seems to have ancient runes on it. Can you see if it can be repaired or decoded?"
Irene took the bracelet off Adrian's left hand. After looking at it carefully for a while, she couldn't take her eyes off it.
"How is it? I didn't take a loss, right?" Adrian had been brooding about this. He wondered if he'd been scammed, because when he'd left the small stall, the short wizard had smiled happily.
"This bracelet will break after one more use at most," Irene quickly assessed, then continued.
"However, some of the runes on it aren't recorded in my collection. They have high research value. After analyzing the meaning of these runes, we might be able to repair it."
"You got it for thirty-five Galleons, which means you're lucky." Irene praised.
"Rune arrangements? What's that?" Adrian thought of the wand in his hand and the storage box containing the Dementor. The runes on them seemed to be arranged in specific ways too.
Irene didn't hide anything and began to explain.
Generally speaking, the foundation of a magical item maker was the number of runes analyzed and the formulas for arranging them.
The former was the foundation of everything, but if you wanted to release magical effects, you still had to rely on specific rune arrangements.
Usually, magical items were made with runes inscribed inside the items. Once someone tried to analyze them, they might be damaged.
After all, every new runic formula was the result of time-consuming and laborious research and exploration by the maker is very precious.
But there were exceptions to everything. Magical items modified later were inconvenient to hide. For example, when modifying a wand, it was impossible to disassemble it. The runes could only be burned on the surface, and at most the arrangement could be encrypted to a certain degree to increase the difficulty of cracking.
Having gotten some new runes, Irene was in a good mood and didn't even care that Adrian had borrowed money to buy lots of things.
After eating a fairly sumptuous dinner together, Irene took the bracelet back to the work area for the first time, ready to analyze the meaning of the runes. Before leaving, she told Adrian that in two days he could start learning some basic knowledge about rune arrangements.
Going back to his room alone, Adrian put away the potions he'd purchased, then continued practicing the Patronus Charm.
In the previous two battles, Adrian had discovered that this blood magic consumed too much of his magical reserve, especially when it materialized and regenerated after being severely injured.
This meant he couldn't use it many times at all in battle. Adrian could only hope the magic consumption would decrease after the spell rose to Level 5.
However, after practicing for a while, Adrian found that his proficiency growth was slow, almost stagnant. It seemed he still needed to practice with the Dementor.
Adrian also remembered at this point that Dougt's box containing the Dementor also seemed to have some ancient runes on it. He could bring it over and study it then.
At the same time, Adrian was also wondering whether he needed to tell Irene about what happened at the wizarding market, because he always felt Dougt wasn't reliable.
'What should I say?'
Fortunately, Adrian wouldn't have to worry about this for long. Within a day or two, Dougt's great feats had spread throughout Knockturn Alley. Even Irene, who often stayed in the work area studying new runes, heard the news.