White orchid (turned blue) - interlude

 Empowering rituals

A thesis on how magical traits can be enhanced by the drawing of magic from nature and the fundamental use of the Connection Rune  - (1798)

By Cordelia E. Corday 

Department of Runes for the Developing of New Wards and Enchantments

… Other than the “Merlin Drawing” and the “Salazar’s Rite” whose true intent and procedures are just fantasized hypothesis considering the fragmentary nature of the reports available to modern academics -  it’s uncanny how many researchers have based their work on ten lines of text salvaged by a monastery fire - the first real Ritual we have evidence of is the one known as the “Snakes Connubium”, and thus is the only Ritual we should take into account in the examining of the Medieval and Pre-Medieval Runes usage. 

In regard of the “Snakes Connubium”, if we allow ourself to gloss over what are considered the most important Runes of the Ritual in academic circles (the second - the Ouroboros, also know as the Eternal Serpent of Life, - and the fifth Rune - independently of its interpretation either as the Marriage or the Family) and if we don’t get into the well known trap of trying to guess what the lost third, fourth and sixth Runes could have been, we can then proceed to examine the remaining two Runes. 

The first and seventh runes are the well known Rune of Protection and Rune of Connection, often undervalued as the basic Runes for every ritual. 

But while the Rune of Protection explains his role in his own name, - shielding the caster from the power they are trying to call upon - the Rune of Connection is much more mysterious and yet underrated. 

Also known in the academic field as ‘the Universe’, the Rune of Connection is often discarded as a simple stabilizer to the whole casting, while instead we believe it to be an actually integral and not ignorable part of the ritual. In the second chapter of this thesis we will try to demonstrate how ‘the Universe’ is not merely a side rune, but one of the most important known to the whole wizardry world. 

While we can’t have certain proof of the nature of magic, we are inclined to believe that the theory explicated in ‘Universus: the epitome rune of the holistic nature of Magic’ by Augustus Oaktree has fundament. If we take into account Oaktree’s equation of Magic as Life itself, then the Connection Rune, the one that binds the Ritual to the forces of Nature, is what allows magic in the first place. Without that connection, the ritual wouldn’t be different from any Muggle bumbling… 

…While the ability to speak Parseltongue is considered to be an exclusive of Salazar Slytherin’s descendant, there are quite a few disproving examples of Parselmouths that aren’t officially part of Slytherin’s genealogy (we won’t speculate on the possibility of out of wedding births, but it seems quite improbable that a magical power would be tied to one and only one family), thus providing the possibility for Parselmouths to exist as their own entities, such as Animagi and Metamorphomagi. 

We won’t also speculate on the nature of “Salazar’s Rite” - nor its possible resemblance to the “Snakes Connubium” - but surely it couldn’t be the only ritual ever performed by one of the four more powerful wizard of that Era, and while no written proofs of such a ritual even exist, it wouldn’t be so absurd to imagine the Parseltongue ability was gained by a ritual performed drawing upon the forces of Nature directly connected with snakes, instead of being a random mutation of magic that never happened again…

Honestly, Cordelia, my dear,

 I’m very glad you want to discuss your thesis with my Department,

 but the topic is not acceptable for your degree. 

First of all, the hypothesis of the Seven Runes is improbable at its best, (we have already discussed about the Five Runes protocol in use, there is a reason if it is the standard for casting) so I wouldn’t take it for granted that there were seven runes in the ‘Snake Connubium’ as you seem to be doing. The mere idea of the seven runes for the seventh son of a seventh son was an academic joke not even that funny back in 1658. Imagine writing a whole thesis about it. You would be mocked in every academic circle for centuries to come. 

And second, old magic legends are just that… legends. If you want to make a career in the field you should specialize in the creation of new spells and runes, not in the investigation of old rituals that probably never worked and that have no real application. 

I’ll wait for the new draft of your thesis via owl in three months. 

Millicent Hughes 

Head of the Department of Runes for the Developing of New Wards and Enchantments

PS. Don’t try to convince me, you would fail. The topic is not acceptable. If you tell me again that only by knowing our past we could move into our future, I’m gonna send you to the Department of History of Magic to ask for a thesis. It’s a threat. 

PPS. And for goodness’s sake, leave the Parseltongue out of this. It’s just some Dark Art thankfully long forgotten. Leave it forgotten. 

(The unpublished thesis, along with Madame Hughes corrections, are currently consultable both in the Department of Runes’ library and in Miss Corday’s heirs’ library - as possession of the Department, both the original and its private copy are written on pre-runed parchment that allows the immediate translation of the content in a language understandable to the reader, as it was originally written in Latin)