Chapter 48: "Levitation Charm"
"Hogwarts was founded over nine hundred years ago, and during that time, almost all children with the potential to become wizards were selected for admission to the School of Witchcraft and Wizardry by the age of eleven. Even If a student came from a complete Muggle family, at the age of eleven, how much knowledge of natural science could a student who just graduated from elementary school could learn?"
Neville had no answer to Jon's question, he hadn't even understood what the word gravity meant, and who this man Newton is.
"No matter how smart, these students were basically not exposed to too advanced scientific knowledge, and when they were accepted into Hogwarts and become young wizards studying magic later, it would be even less likely for them to want to understand the science of the Muggles because it would be more worthwhile for them to spend their energy and time to study a few more magic spells."
"Coupled with the constraints of the statute of secrecy and the discrimination of traditional wizards against muggles, the magic community has never properly looked at the muggle's own understanding of the world. Never thought about the deeper changes that magic brought to this world!"
Neville had an expression like listening to a heavenly book, and he looked at Jon blankly.
"What exactly are you trying to say?"
Jon took a deep breath to ease the excitement and thrill inside him.
"When we use the levitation charm, what we have in mind is the belief that the object can float, but in fact, there are many ways to make the object float, and the magic itself chooses the simplest and most direct one, forming a force to lift the object up, but what if I can specify a certain way for it to float when I use the spell?"
"What other way could there be?" Neville instead became more and more confused, after all, for a child like him who has not received any modern science education since childhood, he simply can not understand the principle behind the reason why the object will always fall to the ground.
Jon also did not continue to explain to him, and with a serious face he held up his wand, the tip of the wand pointed at the middle of the dormitory.
The incantation that was already about to produce calluses in Neville's ears rang out once again with unmistakable clarity.
"Wingardium Leviosa!"
This levitation charm had no specific target, or rather everything in this entire dormitory was the target of Jon's spell.
And the moment the spell fell, Neville's eyes went wide to the maximum, looking at the magical scene taking place in the room with incomparable shock!
In the dormitory, in addition to him and Jon, the two living people, all other items, such as parchment, quill, ink bottles, desks, and chairs, including the two heaviest four-poster beds, all floated in the air!
The floating state is significantly different from the effect produced by the normal levitation charm in effect.
After the normal levitation charm takes effect, the object will obviously float straight up and down and will be static upon rising to a certain height.
But now in front of Neville's eyes, all kinds of objects floating in irregular suspensions, like fish moving in the water, completely free of any restrictions!
But such a magical scene only lasted less than two seconds, followed by a "bang" sound of things falling ringing in their ears.
The effect of Jon's spell was over quickly, and the floating things fell back to the ground.
The original clean and tidy dormitory instantly turned into a rubbish dump, with tables and chairs scattered everywhere, two beds fell directly on their sides on the floor, the ink bottle broke into two, ink was all over the floor, and parchment was scattered all over the place.
But whether it was Jon or Neville they did not care about this, the two of them stared at each other with wide eyes, one person's eyes were filled with the excitement caused due to his conjecture proven, and another person's eyes were filled with a look that read 'how the hell did this work?'
"How did you do that?"
Neville felt a familiar sensation when those words came out as if he had asked the exact same question just a while back.
"Just like I told you, devising a way for the levitation charm to make objects float, instead of using the power of magic to hold them up, I just willed to use gravity."
Jon did not withhold anything, directly and generously told Neville about his discovery.
But the current Neville simply can not even understand what the word gravity means, so there's no need to mention him understanding the theory behind it.
Jon actually initially thought that he was unlikely to succeed, as one of the four fundamental forces in physics, he felt that this ultimate rule could not be changed so easily.
But in fact, magic itself is a rule-breaking system, the normal levitation charm also completely contradicts the common sense of physics, generating a force out of thin air to hold the object up.
To put it in a different perspective, compared to creating a new force, changing the existing gravitational force would probably more simpler for magic.
However, it was clear that Jon's mastery of this version of the "levitation charm" was mediocre, so the effect could not be maintained for more than three seconds.
Nevertheless, the most difficult thing in the world is a process from 0 to 1. As long as he can use this kind of spell successfully once, then he is not afraid of not being able to master it skilfully in the future.
After restraining his elation, Jon tidied up the dormitory with Neville and left straight away.
He wanted to share this good news with Slughorn, even if the fat walrus most likely won't be able to understand what gravity actually is, but it doesn't prevent him from conveying his happiness.
After knocking on the office door and waiting for an answer to come from inside, Jon pushed the door and walked in.
The office was filled with smoke, and Slughorn was boiling a cauldron of potion.
He had just put a dried snake skin, like a belt, into the boiling potion when Jon walked in.
Jon blinked, and some curiosity rose about the cauldron of potion.
"What are you brewing, teacher?"
"Uh huh, a kind of potion that is very beneficial to the health of the elderly, don't look at all my sugar consumption, I am quite mindful of my health, after all, no one wants to die in a hospital bed."
He stirred the potion with his wand while describing the recipe to Jon.
"Powder of unicorn horn, a small piece of dragon's liver and a tear of Dumbledore's pet bird, these three are the core ingredients, along with secondary auxiliary ingredients such as runespoor snakeskin, for example. Do you want some? Even if you are still young right now, it will still be very beneficial to your growing body, but this cauldron of potion will take a longer time to brew, so you have to wait for it."
"Then I'll thank you in advance, teacher."
"Oh, by the way, why did you come to see me? Do you have any questions about magic?"
Slughorn stopped the movement of twirling his wand in his hand and looked up at Jon in puzzlement.
"Of course not, but I've finally made a breakthrough in my levitation charm!"
His happy smile was still on his face, only there was something more in that smile than the one he had when he arrived.
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