Ginny's shock was perfectly justified.
She was not some naive, sheltered girl who knew nothing, nor was she a Muggle raised in the Muggle world who knew almost nothing about wizards.
Under the normal model of wizarding education, what young witches and wizards were truly meant to learn during their seven years at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was not some profound magic that could shatter the world with a casual wave of the hand, nor all sorts of methods for fighting Dark Wizards or dark creatures.
The real focus was on making sure every young wizard built a solid magical foundation...
The accumulation and control of magic, and the study and practical application of theory.
That was the knowledge Hogwarts was truly meant to teach over those seven years.
Aside from a small number of genius students, most wizards only began specialized training after graduation, choosing a direction based on the kind of work they would do and the skills they needed, then mastering the spells best suited to them.
In fact, offensive spells were not something every adult wizard had to know.
More often, those were left to specialists to study and master...
Aurors, for example.
The Transfiguration based composite magic Pansy was using right now was one of the magical techniques and abilities Aurors would learn and master.
As for Hermione...
"That's the Levitation Charm? Are you sure it isn't some new spell?"
Ginny stared blankly at the massive rocks suspended in midair, as if time itself had stopped around them.
At the sight, her face was full of disbelief and suspicion.
Beside her, Luna calmly nodded. "It is the Levitation Charm. It's the very first spell we learn in first year."
"..."
The timing might have been terrible, but Ginny still rolled her eyes at Luna.
That was obviously not what she had meant to ask.
If Pansy could do something like this, her powerful background could at least serve as an explanation. But Hermione displaying something that ordinary wizards could never accomplish was what truly left Ginny stunned.
Just as she had been thinking.
They were only one year apart, and they studied at the same school, under the same professors...
Yet the gap between them was already this obvious.
...
Completely unaware of what Ginny was thinking behind them, Hermione and Pansy had all their attention fixed on the Giant in front of them.
Even though they were romantic rivals, the understanding between them was better than that of most best friends.
Without exchanging a single word, they worked together perfectly to stop the Giant's advance. They exchanged one glance, and both their wands moved at the same time...
Hermione first held her wand upright beside her face, then thrust it forcefully toward the Giant as if firing something.
It was an advanced application of the Levitation Charm that Draco had used before.
The rocks shot out like cannon fire.
From the way the Centaurs had fared earlier, it was obvious that a Giant was not so easy to injure.
So Hermione did not aim for the Giant's head, face, or any of the usual vital spots. She aimed at its lower body, the ankles that supported that enormous frame.
And more than that, she chose the exact instant the Giant lifted its foot to attack...
Bang!
"Gah?"
It was perfect timing. It did not do much real damage, but the stagger in the Giant's footing was exactly the result Hermione had wanted.
"Parkinson!"
"As if you needed to tell me. Go, Stone Bear!"
"Roar!!"
It was a massive bear of stone, animated and so large that it did not seem small even standing before the Giant.
Now, under the sweep of Pansy's wand, moving like a conductor's baton, the giant stone bear, which had been on all fours a moment ago, suddenly rose onto its hind legs and swiped a paw at the Giant in front of it.
Faced with the giant bear that had suddenly appeared before him, the Giant's face showed obvious confusion.
Apparently, this not particularly intelligent Giant not only could not understand why a creature tall enough to look him in the eye had suddenly appeared, but was also confused about why he could not even walk properly anymore...
In any case, this was the opening Hermione had created.
The force.
The roar.
Even from a distance, Draco could feel the power behind that paw strike.
And what happened next proved it...
Boom!
If time had slowed down, you would have seen that paw slam into the Giant's face, direct and brutal, distorting his brow and features on impact. You could even clearly see the blood rushing into his face in an instant.
Then came the enormous body crashing down and the dust exploding into the air...
Gulp.
The Centaurs, who had been helpless just moments earlier, all swallowed instinctively, their eyes on Pansy and Hermione now full of wariness.
If anyone still looked at Pansy and the others as harmless foals now, it would be an insult to everyone's intelligence.
They did not know exactly how badly the Giant had been hurt, but they knew very well that they could not have achieved what Pansy and Hermione just had, at least not in such a short time...
...
Seeing the Giant lying flat on his back, Hermione wiped the cold sweat from her forehead and finally let out a breath of relief.
To be honest, she had not been confident she would succeed at first, and the overwhelming pressure coming from the Giant had genuinely frightened her.
But... unwilling to remain just an ornament standing behind Draco, and with Parkinson right there beside her, Hermione had gathered her courage and acted before Draco could.
And from the look of it, the result was pretty good...
"Did we do it?"
"Not even close. Don't stop, Granger!"
Unlike Hermione, who still had a soft heart, Pansy had grown up in an environment that believed in the law of the strong devouring the weak, so she naturally understood the importance of following up after an attack.
She did not truly want to kill the Giant in front of them, but at the very least, she had to make sure he completely lost the ability to get back up and fight...
Driving more magic through her wand, Pansy gritted her teeth and swung it again.
"Bite down on him, Stone Bear!"
The next second.
Under Pansy's command, the Stone Bear lunged at the Giant from above, while he still had not fully grasped what was happening.
Powerful limbs and sheer weight. That was the advantage of a giant bear in nature, and the way a top predator fought...
Its two forepaws slammed down on the Giant's shoulders. The combination of weight and force made the ground beneath them visibly cave in by several more meters.
Another burst of dust rose up, making the view even worse.
At that point, they could only rely on sound to tell what exactly was happening in the center of the battlefield...
"You're trying to stop... Grawp from finding Hagrid too?!!"
The tremor that followed was even more violent than before.
And unexpectedly, that Giant could actually speak in such a complete sentence.
Just as everyone froze for a moment in surprise, a huge dark shape came hurtling backward out of the dust.
It was... the Stone Bear, with nearly half its face smashed away...