After dealing with Rita Skeeter, Norman took her away, leaving only Lehende and Leonard in the basement.
"That weapon called a gun... it really is something." Looking at the wizard who had been shot in the head, Lehende said, "I didn't even have time to react."
"Don't underestimate Muggles. There's a reason Earth is still under Muggle control." Leonard took out the pistol and removed the magazine. "Only five bullets left."
"Bullets? What are those?" Lehende asked curiously.
"It's a bit complicated to explain. You can think of them as arrows for a bow." Leonard took out a bullet, thought for a moment, and cast the Doubling Charm.
The bullet immediately writhed and split into two.
Leonard's interest was instantly piqued. He picked up the magazine and studied it for a moment.
"Arrows? So a gun only works properly if it has bullets to kill with, right?" Lehende noticed what Leonard was doing. "Wait... are you saying the Doubling Charm works on bullets too?"
"It should, shouldn't it?" Leonard loaded the duplicated bullet into the pistol, aimed at the dead wizard, and pulled the trigger.
A gunshot rang out, and a fresh bloody hole appeared in the corpse.
Who would have thought the Doubling Charm really worked?
Leonard toyed with the two bullets and suddenly had an idea.
If he could somehow engrave the Doubling Charm onto the magazine, then wouldn't that make a pistol with unlimited ammunition?
And it was not just the Doubling Charm. He could engrave other things onto the bullets too. Confringo, for example. That might even increase the damage.
Leonard had already started thinking about modifying magical firearms, but then he quickly remembered that he had never studied Ancient Runes systematically.
He had read quite a few books on Ancient Runes and memorized many runes, but when it came to actually applying them, Leonard was probably not even as good as George and Fred.
At the very least, those two had already taken Ancient Runes classes, while Leonard still lacked practical experience and needed both study and a professor's guidance.
Luckily, Ancient Runes was one of the electives in third year. If there was anything he really did not understand, he could always ask the professor.
Lehende had no idea what wild thought had suddenly occurred to Leonard. He was still studying the pistol with great interest and privately thinking that he should get one for himself to play with.
But that was not important right now. There would be chances later.
What mattered most was the living Raven wizard.
That was a ready-made source of intelligence.
"I'm planning to interrogate this Raven wizard. You're a Legilimens, so help me," Lehende said.
"No." Leonard shook his head. "I'm interested, sure, but you know I'm still a student. School starts again in a few days, so I need to keep a lower profile."
Lehende's mouth twitched. "So you do remember you're a student? And now you suddenly want to keep a lower profile? I didn't see you holding back at all when you were killing people."
The way he had grabbed the gun and calmly shot the corpse just now had already been brazen enough.
"Tsk. I was saving you. Don't be ungrateful." Leonard rolled his eyes. "My suggestion is that you do not interrogate him in Britain. Go back to France instead, make preparations, and guard against accidents."
"You're worried someone might rescue him?"
"Yeah. You've got broad connections in France, and it'll also be easier for you to carry out an interrogation there," Leonard said.
Lehende hesitated for a moment, then nodded. "All right. In that case, I'll arrange to return home as soon as possible."
"Oh, right." Leonard suddenly remembered something. "I still have a few of Raven's crows. Do you want to find someone to study them?"
Leonard still had the three crows. They were dead, but maybe someone could still learn something from them.
Lehende hesitated for a moment, then nodded. "Give me one. I'll take a look first. If I can't figure anything out, I'll ask some old friends for help."
Lehende was from the approachable branch of Veela bloodlines. His looks were not as striking as his daughter's, but his presence was naturally attractive.
Combined with his good personality, he had friends everywhere, including quite a few highly capable ones.
"All right, I'll give you one. I'll study the rest myself..." Leonard said as he took out a crow and was about to hand it to Lehende, only to suddenly notice that the crow, whose chest had previously been torn open in a bloody mess, had somehow completely restored itself.
"What...?"
Before Leonard could inspect it properly, the crow slowly dispersed and finally turned into a blood-red symbol.
"Is that Runic magic? No, it seems even more advanced. Those are Rune letters!" Lehende exclaimed in surprise.
The moment the Rune letter appeared, it branded itself onto Leonard's arm. It flickered a few times, then disappeared.
"What is going on?" Lehende stared at Leonard's arm in shock.
"How would I know?" Leonard was startled too. He stared at the patch of skin where the Rune letter had appeared and vanished. With a thought, the letter surfaced again.
Magic from inside his body flowed into the letter. In the next moment, a crow emerged from it, landed on Leonard's arm, and gave him an affectionate cry.
"You're controlling that crow?" Lehende's eyes widened. "How did you do that?"
"I told you, I don't know." Leonard looked at the crow in some surprise. He could feel that it was now completely under his control. He could direct all of its movements and even decide whether it lived or died.
But that was not the main point.
Controlling a crow was nothing special in itself. Unless this crow had some kind of special ability...
For instance, that powerful transfer magic. Or the ability to use ancient magic without regard for talent.
...
Leonard had three crow corpses in total. After taking them all out, he ended up with three Rune letters on his hand as well.
The three Rune letters were completely identical, and the crows formed from them showed no differences either.
Each one possessed powerful transfer magic. And as long as Leonard supplied the power of ancient magic, he could also cast it through them. He could control them, and he could even use them as "cameras" to record images.
That ability, however, was somewhat useless to Leonard.
Leonard could cast ancient magic himself, and he had no intention of letting Lehende and the others know that he could use it.
Still, giving one crow to Lehende would mean that with that powerful transfer magic, which even Anti-Apparition wards could not restrict, Lehende's safety would be guaranteed.
And Leonard could conveniently keep an eye on Lehende's situation as well. Two birds with one stone.
For the next few days, Leonard stayed at the Slughorn residence, studying the crows and waiting for the school term to begin.
Meanwhile, at Lehende's request, Fleur temporarily studied under Horace Slughorn.