Harry Potter and the Secret Treasures - H.P.S.T Chapter 1653: Reading Comprehension

Elaine, looking thoroughly delighted, was shaking her wand as countless magic books skimmed past in mid-air.

As the books fluttered and spun, her body swayed along with them in a steady rhythm.

She was definitely treating this as some sort of game. Evan looked at Elaine helplessly. Before, getting this child to read had been like forcing her to take bitter medicine. She had never been this proactive; not even last year, when she was preparing for her O.W.L.s. Back then, Evan and Hermione practically had to drag her to revise, trying every possible trick to make her read.

That was a scene he’d never imagined to witness before.

Of course, the trouble she caused was nothing short of catastrophic.

Evan was beginning to regret agreeing to let Elaine help.

With the way she was only glancing at each book, she would almost certainly miss important information. He would still have to go through all the books slowly later, and because Elaine had muddled up their categories and dates, he would need to spend ages sorting them again. The Black family library contained more than ten thousand magic volumes — just thinking about that number was exhausting.

Right now, Elaine was doing the exact opposite of helping, greatly increasing Evan’s workload!

“Elaine!” Evan called out several times, trying to stop her, but received no response. He looked to Hermione for help.

Most of the time, Elaine listened to Hermione, but Hermione clearly didn’t want to get involved. She shook her head slightly at Evan, giving him a “good luck” look, then curled up on the large sofa with her thick ancient Greek map, leaving Evan alone to deal with Elaine.

Evan sighed. He understood Hermione’s message; it seemed he would have to handle this problem alone.

Elaine wasn’t the kind of child who would easily obey. Stopping her might not be too difficult, but keeping her quiet for any length of time would be another matter entirely.

At this rate, Evan suspected he might even have to spill a little blood — literally. At the very least, he needed to be prepared for that possibility; interrupting a vampire’s fun was a decidedly dangerous act.

Of course, he could simply wait until Elaine had played enough or grew tired. She would stop on her own eventually.

But judging by her current enthusiasm… that would probably take hours!

Evan looked over at her again, and after confirming that she had no intention of stopping, he raised his wand.

Instantly, hundreds of flying books stopped in mid-air.

Elaine’s movements also stopped abruptly, and she looked around blankly before turning to look at Evan, her pale, porcelain-doll face filled with confusion.

The excitement was slowly fading from that delicate face devoid of any color.

“What happened? Why did you stop my magic?” she asked, slightly annoyed.

“Well, Elaine, I think your reading method is a bit… exuberant.”

“Exuberant?!” Elaine raised her eyebrows.

“I mean you’re not reading carefully enough. We should examine these books more thoroughly and make sure we don’t miss any information.”   

“But when you taught me this spell, you clearly said we should focus on efficiency,” Elaine stared intently at Evan, mimicking his tone. “Don’t worry about reading too carefully, Elaine, we don’t have the time. The Black family library has far too many books, and no one knows which one might contain the information we’re looking for. It’s possible none of them do. If that’s the case, reading them all would be a waste of time. And the one thing we’re shortest on right now is time.”

“Uh, I think I did say that,” Evan shuddered. He paused and continued, “But what I said earlier had a premise: we should focus on efficiency while reading carefully. The Black family’s collection is already very complete. Apart from the Hogwarts Library, you probably won’t find a more complete collection in Britain. These books may contain extremely important information that we absolutely cannot miss. So we must read, analyze, and study them carefully, you understand?”

“I don’t think I do!” Elaine shook her head.

“I mean you need to look through these books seriously.”

“But I was looking through them! At least, before you interrupted me, I was. And I think I was being very serious.”

“No, Elaine, you need to be more careful. The spell I taught you is just an auxiliary reading method; it helps us quickly locate the information we might need, but we still have to read that information carefully ourselves,” Evan explained. “You should know that the homeland of the house-elves might be recorded under different names in ancient magical texts. That means we have to make those distinctions. In the books you’ve just looked at, did you judge the context of the information properly?”

“No!” Elaine slowly shook her head. “That sounds troublesome!”

“It is troublesome. It’s called reading comprehension, an ability that requires long-term practice to master.”

“Reading comprehension?!” Elaine scoffed. “What kind of ability is that? Is it some sort of human wizarding magic?”

“That’s right, it’s a type of magic, like Occlumency; very difficult, and I can’t guarantee a vampire can master it, since there’s no precedent for it,” Evan said casually. “It’s a tough magic, not very useful, and for a beginner like you, it would take a lot of time and energy just to get started. Reading requires patience, Elaine. So? Do you want to stay here and practice this magic? Or go upstairs and take a nap?”

Knowing Elaine as he did, Evan knew she would usually back down quickly after hearing this.

Elaine’s biggest weakness was patience. Her vampire blood already guaranteed her a natural grasp of many difficult spells; there was no need for her to continue learning wizarding magic. That had been the case at Hogwarts too; most of the time, she approached whatever the professors taught with only the most casual, superficial interest.

Sometimes, when this knowledge conflicted with what she already knew, she would even make fun of it.

Evan looked at Elaine expectantly, and sure enough, she hesitated.

“Very troublesome?” she asked.

“Yeah, very troublesome!” Evan replied seriously, barely suppressing a laugh. “I don’t think you’d want to waste your time here.”

“No, I’m staying.”

“Hmm?” Evan blinked.

“You and Hermione need help. I’m not like Harry, who’s probably still hiding under his blankets at a time like this. In fact, I slept enough last night and don’t want to sleep now!” Elaine squinted at Evan, seemingly sensing something, and said suspiciously, “You’re not saying all this to kick me out, are you?”

Translating_Wizard

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