Nick could help but appreciate the obvious dedication to teaching that Slytherin seemed to have as it was clear he held nothing back when writing this book. Knowing this he shamelessly stole it to add to his personal collection of books since he could appreciate what was held within. Honestly speaking Nick wanted to add the entire "ancient" section to his personal collection but unfortunately such a massive loss in literature was bound to be noticed quickly. Instead Nick simply limited the books he took to the real gems that lay hidden within it.-

Despite being so comprehensive Nick old needed an hour to memorize the entire book due to how clear and simply Slytherin wrote the information. Eagerly Nick moved on to the next book written by the great wizard and was delighted to find that they were actually a set. This book was written with the previous book in mind as it went into the more advanced used of both legilimency and occlumency. The clear emphasis on the art of healing a broken mind however was the main topic of the book and covered close to half the entire tome. Slytherin had included nearly every possible reason for mind damage as well as how to fix it.-

The topic had some dark undertones in some parts however as Slytherin seemed to speak of personally torturing someone to insanity before repairing their mind. Nick could understand how people may assume the ancient wizard was dark after reading such a thing but could also tell that the man was likely just brutally efficient instead. Dark wizards are those who delved into the dark arts and lost themselves along the way while from his writings Nick could see that the man dove into the dark arts in order to help the true victims of it.-

Nick felt it a pity that clearly none of this information was known as it may help those driven to insanity in the previous wizarding war via the crutiatus curse. The other half of the book held the advanced tiers of the mind arts and Nick simply went over the information to commit it to memory even if it was useless to him at this point. He could only sigh however when he went to the other tomes he had found and discovered that they almost only covered the stuff the the Slytherin books did but in a much more long winded and convoluted manner.-

Nick ended simply skimming through those books since he was mostly getting redundant information. In the end he went through all of those books and only got a handful of additional useful information on the mind arts that wasn't covered by the Slytherin books. This left Nick with around four hours until dinner so he stored away the second Slytherin book for his personal collection before putting the other books back on the shelf and leaving the library. While maintaining his magical senses to make sure he wasn't tricked again Nick made his way to his workshop where he wasn't surprised to find Helena playing with the hammer.-

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

"Good evening." the ghost said casually as he walked in before going back to messing with the hammer. Nick politely returned the greeting before sitting against the wall cross-legged and closed his eyes to try and form his mindscape again. While he still failed in all of his attempts he was beginning to narrow it down as some of his choices lasted slightly longer than others. So he experimented about exactly what facet of them it was that was correct before moving onto other things with the facet added on.

By the end of these four hours he had discovered three facets that remained constant between each iteration , the small pond of water , the body length mirror and the stars overhead. Slytherin's book did say that ones mindscape was in theory infinite so Nick wasn't surprised that something like the starry sky without the moon was part of his. What did surprise him however was that neither the sun or moon were accepted by his mindscape. Still despite not making much real progress Nick was happy with what he had found so far and went to the great hall in a good mood but still careful about ambushes.-

Dumbledore spoke on this evening however and despite Nicks distaste of the man what he said had Nick put aside any grudge he had. "Students it with a heavy heart that I must inform you of grave news. Earlier this very day the dark lord Grindelwald has escaped from his prison in Nurmengard castle." The great hall broke into uproar at this information and Nick noted that Quirelmort did NOT look happy at the news. "I recommend writing to your families as soon as possible so they may prepare for whatever may come of this information and that if possible you all chip in to help those who would fight the dark lord." That last part was clearly directed at Nick as the man looked right at him and bowed his head , the meaning of which was perfectly clear.

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