HH_mirror

A shrug. "You do not, not at first. The language of learning in my world has for centuries been Latin, the language of the old Roman Empire and then of the Church that arose in it; here, the language of magic is also Latin, but a terribly mangled and ungrammatical version, sometimes deplorably so. The words of most of the charms you will have learned or read are this sort of Latin. The manuscripts I use in my potions research I find not always easy to interpret. There is nothing for it but to observe strict safety protocols in the laboratory, and to allow for the inevitable squandering of ingredients before a particular recipe may be perfected. What you find in the textbooks readily available to you, though, should not cause you any concern. Should you plan to continue your forays into the Restricted Section --" a wry twist of the mouth, not disapproving, and a pointed look toward the book whose origin Stephen knew -- "it is another matter."