Chapter 153: Expanding the Understanding of Life
How fast does news travel in the wizarding world? Lockhart soon experienced it firsthand.
Compared to ordinary gossip, news leaning towards the mysterious spreads incredibly fast within the wizarding community.
Of course, this was also boosted by Gilderoy Lockhart's global renown during this period.
Within a few days, he received a letter from Madam Mary.
The witch's words were earnest, pleading for help.
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry might be a place where powerful figures could come and go freely, but in the eyes of most wizards, it remained extremely mysterious. Even wizards who had once studied there couldn't find the school if they didn't have permission to enter.
Madam Mary had been frantic for the past two days. When she heard about Corban Yaxley, the "Life Thief," from others, she was utterly stunned.
Ha!
It was simply too ridiculous!
She had actually sought out the very person who had stolen her life to help her find her lost past!
What could be more absurd than that?
She desperately wanted to visit Professor Lockhart at Hogwarts, hoping for help, but no matter how powerful she was as a Haitian witch, possessing such a wondrous ability to communicate spiritually, she still found nothing.
She had no choice but to write letters via owl post, anxiously checking her mailbox at the doorstep every day. Even when asleep, she would often wake up in the middle of the night, frantically searching for owls at every window in her house.
Finally!
After days that felt like years, she finally received a reply from Professor Gilderoy Lockhart.
"To the esteemed Madam Mary: As a respected professor of a magical school, I am pleased to offer you my assistance.
However, this concerns Ministry of Magic regulations. As an Unspeakable in the Ministry of Magic's Department of Mysteries, responsible for matters concerning the criminal Corban Yaxley, I must remind you that you must submit your application through proper channels to the Ministry of Magic."
The letter's content was generally along these lines.
So Madam Mary rushed to the Ministry of Magic for help, but, but! Heaven knew how bloated and antiquated this enormous wizarding administration was. Her request seemed to sink without a trace, with no news for days.
The Ministry of Magic was utterly inefficient!
She found someone knowledgeable to help, only to be told that for a matter like hers, especially involving a department like the Department of Mysteries, waiting a year or two was perfectly normal.
Ha!
A year or two?
The British Ministry of Magic's efficiency was truly superb!
She didn't even know if the highly criminal Corban Yaxley would be thrown into Azkaban or even sentenced to the Dementor's Kiss in two years; by then, it would be too late!
So she had no choice but to write again, pleading with Professor Lockhart for help, while also activating all her connections to find someone who might be able to assist with the matter.
It wasn't easy. As a reclusive Haitian witch who had established a sheltered community in the Muggle world, she didn't actually have many connections in the wizarding world.
Her past acquaintance with a prominent figure like Corban Yaxley was due to some distant bloodline ties on a family tree. However, due to the tragedies she had endured in her past, she wasn't particularly close to this distant relative and hadn't used Corban to connect with other influential figures.
Fortunately, she finally found someone who might be able to help.
Rita Skeeter, reporter and writer for the Daily Prophet.
This person was somewhat greedy for money, but her methods were genuinely effective. An exclusive interview about Madam Mary garnered a lot of attention and sympathy within the wizarding community. Then, by arranging for some "readers" to write letters to the Ministry of Magic, her case finally received attention from the Ministry.
Madam Mary finally met Professor Lockhart.
It was truly not easy.
This long period had been pure torment for her.
Actually, Lockhart wasn't intentionally doing this. Madam Mary was waiting for news, and so was he.
He was waiting for the news to ferment, for Rita to widely publicize the matter, and then to see how many wizards would come seeking help.
The result was interesting.
Only Madam Mary.
Lockhart compared the differences between the dozen or so powerful wizards whose memories his original self had stolen and found that among these people, the Forest Witch and Madam Mary, who were aware of their memory loss, both belonged to the ancient, spiritually-oriented wizarding paths.
The Forest Witch pursued a path of communicating with "nature," while Madam Mary pursued a path of communicating with "society." Lockhart had only encountered two such wizards in Hogwarts, the place with the highest wizard density:
Divination Professor Trelawney and first-year student Luna Lovegood.
Memory loss was not so easy to detect. Humans would self-mend all mental gaps, reforming a self-consistent way of thinking to help themselves continue living better.
Based on this fundamental logic, the Memory Charm was able to so effectively cover up the wizarding community's tracks.
Madam Mary was led to the Department of Mysteries by Auror Nymphadora Tonks, and then guided by Unspeakable Gilderoy Lockhart into the mist-filled, mysterious Hall of Bloodline.
"I brought the criminal Corban Yaxley back to Hogwarts, where I teach, for research. After students discovered him, the news spread everywhere, leading me to undergo a very strict review by the Ministry of Magic."
Lockhart held up an oil lamp, guiding Madam Mary through the mist. His warm voice came from under his broad hood. "The relevant departments of the Ministry of Magic strictly ordered me not to take Corban out of the Department of Mysteries again, otherwise, your matter wouldn't have been so troublesome."
Madam Mary was stunned, a hint of apology on her face. "I didn't know I would cause you trouble."
Lockhart shook his head. "It's no big deal, and it wasn't your fault."
They soon arrived at a small hut glowing with an orange-red light, extremely conspicuous in the mist. Pushing open the door, they entered, and several young wizards were inside.
"I submitted some applications to the Ministry of Magic, allowing these few students of mine to serve in some auxiliary positions in the Department of Mysteries. They can help me a little, and of course, I can also take the opportunity to teach them more knowledge." Lockhart extinguished the oil lamp and hung it on the wall, inviting Madam Mary to sit. "I hope you don't mind."
Madam Mary seemed a little constrained, shaking her head nervously. "No, not at all."
In fact, she felt a bit envious. Haiti had no wizarding schools; the wizards in her homeland still followed the more primitive, master-apprentice tribal wizarding tradition. And because of her mixed-race skin color, she had lived largely shunned as a child and had never encountered any good mentors in her life.
Seeing a professor like Lockhart who was willing to bring his apprentices along and continue teaching even while working, she could only feel envious.
She was directed to one of the sofas and sat down, looking at the six young wizards in the other seats, realizing they were the same ones who had rushed into her community earlier. Her expression involuntarily became a little awkward.
"Before helping Madam Mary find her lost life, I need to tell you all some knowledge about memory," Lockhart pulled a blackboard beside the sofa, smiling at Madam Mary. "You can also listen; this might be helpful for the experiment later."
Madam Mary nodded somewhat stiffly.
"Memory is an extremely complex existence," Lockhart put down his hood, looking at the neatly seated young wizards before him, talking eloquently. "Many people believe it's a collection of all experiences recorded by humans through their five senses interacting with the world, as well as the information processing within the brain's thoughts and the resulting ideas, emotions, and everything else."
Lockhart wrote on the blackboard: Sight, Hearing, Touch, Smell, Taste.
Then he drew a big "X" next to it.
"This is a misconception, and that's the fundamental reason why many people can't properly use the Memory Charm."
He tapped his head with his wand. "Memory is stored in the brain, no doubt about it, but memory is not born there."
"It is born in the mind, active in the mind, and operates in the mind."
"The mind and the brain—this is a significant distinction."
"Thought belongs to the brain, which is why Veritaserum often cannot be used as a means of interrogation, because it acts on thought. Wizards find it difficult to obtain true memory information through Veritaserum."
Making the young wizards understand the distinction between the mind and the brain was not easy, as there was much conceptual overlap between the two, and discussing it within the English linguistic context also had many limitations.
If it were in his previous life's environment, he could have quoted ancient philosophies, or even widely circulated poetry, to explain it.
For instance, Li Qingzhao's line, "This feeling is impossible to dispel; it just leaves the brow, only to rise into the heart," easily helps one understand the conceptual difference between the "brain" and the "heart."
Madam Mary listened with a dazed fascination. She had never encountered such a specialized field. The charm of this academic course lay in its unparalleled depth and breadth, content that traditional ancient wizards could not directly reach merely through mystery.
She had never imagined that the mere topic of memory was connected to profound fields such as time and space.
"Viewing memory from the dimension of time, it is no longer just a collection of information; it is the traces of life's journey through the world. If you observe memory from this perspective, you will find that it possesses far more information than our brains can retrieve."
Lockhart gestured to the Pensieve placed nearby. "If we extract memories from the brain and place them in the Pensieve, we will intuitively feel this point."
"Using the Pensieve to organize memories is not a simple process of sorting information."
"We will discover something very peculiar—" He smiled, looking at the young wizards' faces, filled with curiosity, narrating, "Our minds experience a richer life than our brains."
"This understanding will expand your perception of life. You will find that many of your actions, though seemingly not conforming to the thoughts that pop into your brain, you still perform them with such determination. This is actually because what truly drives your actions is the mind!"
....
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