The Great Hall.
A salamander near the edge suddenly whooshed up into midair, whirling madly around the room and spitting sparks with a series of sharp cracks.
Percy, voice hoarse, laid into Fred and George. Orange-red sparks sprayed from the salamander's mouth—dangerous, but dazzling.
With a staccato string of pops, it dove back into the hearth fire. The whole scene left Sean—already in a good mood—feeling even more at ease.
He'd decided to give himself a day off. Professor McGonagall had insisted he go stretch his legs and wander all over Hogwarts.
She'd warned him sternly that if a young wizard trains too aggressively, it can backfire.
He was to get a proper night's sleep, unwind, and remember that balancing work and rest never goes out of style.
At the doors of the hall, two pairs of eyes were fixed on Sean.
"Justin, are you sure this will work?"
Hermione had to tip her head back; otherwise she couldn't see Justin over the small mountain of books.
"Of course it will. Remember what that knight said? He was wearing a chivalric medal from the age of King Arthur. You know—knights don't lie."
Brimming with confidence, Justin strode over.
Under the enchanted ceiling (this afternoon it showed a flat, gray overcast sky), the four House tables were set with bowls of porridge, plates of pickled herring, hills of chops, and saucers of pudding.
Hermione and Justin sat beside Sean. Hermione's copy of Intermediate Transfiguration lay open, propped on a milk jug.
"Er, Sean, I mean—it's the weekend, and I might need a teeny bit of help—"
Justin began, a touch sheepish.
Sean, who'd been mulling what it meant to maintain an excellent level of magic, nodded silently.
"I need your History of Magic notes."
"I just updated the section on the Arthurian period. This week's assignment starts on page sixty-five."
"And Herbology, Astronomy, and Potions—"
"Mm. But you'll have to practice the details yourself; the procedures are all written there."
"Oh—I forgot to say, Defense Against the Dark Arts and Charms too—"
Sean paused for a beat, then gave Justin a helpless look. "The Charms notes are with Hermione. Your Defense notes are with you."
"You're hopeless! He caught you—"
Hermione's cheeks flushed.
"That's not the point, Hermione," Justin said with an even warmer smile. "You and I both know that if Sean doesn't have his notes, he'll finally have to rest."
While they whispered, Michael had already gone wide-eyed. A second later he was shaking Anthony by the shoulders.
"Look, look—now that's friendship. The kind that saves your life on Death Weekend! Oi! You two, could you please do me proud for once?"
Young wizards were noisy as ever. At a raucous corner of the table, Neville ate his toast. He'd glance at the commotion now and then, then drop his gaze again.
Suddenly Michael slung an arm around his neck.
"Hey, Neville, I paid a whole week's worth of puddings for this—did you get into that place or not?"
Neville shrank a little. He only now remembered that every time Sean had coached him, they'd stopped at the second corridor.
He realized he'd never actually seen "that place." His breathing quickened; his lips trembled with nerves.
"N-no—"
"Merlin's pants—!"
Michael's eyes went even wider.
By evening, night was seeping in from the direction of the Forbidden Forest.
Sean walked at an easy pace, a magical lantern in hand lighting the flagstones beneath his feet.
Before the invention of the Lumos charm, wizards had always used magical lanterns for light.
Sean could feel the spell-array inside it—a configuration of illumination magic distinct from Lumos, seemingly more powerful but also more draining.
If Lumos had a brightness of one, with a theoretical maximum of seven,
then a magical lantern's minimum was three—and at full blast it could top twenty.
It drew power from an older cluster of enchantments, apparently etched in runes.
There's a half-believed saying in the wizarding world that the older the magic, the stronger it is. That doesn't mean magic hasn't advanced; rather, compared to the simple, easy-to-use Standard Spells, ancient magic was downright brutal.
Even everyday charms like unlocking spells packed a punch; young wizards often used them in duels, and the injuries were no joke.
Ancient magic also took ages to cast. Records from the International Wizarding Dueling Tournament make that clear:
many a wizard chased raw power and ended up losing because the spell took too long.
There was once a duelist who tried to cast something with an absurdly long wind-up; had it landed, he'd have conjured a mountain to crush his opponent. Instead, his opponent hit him with a single Expelliarmus and sent him packing.
Modern magic has been streamlined over a dozen centuries—blindingly fast to cast, but weaker than the old stuff, and often used for entirely different ends. Take the Severing Charm: in ancient times it was commonly used for executions.
For Sean, though, once his proficiency reaches a certain point, the standard syllabus will no longer be enough.
No wonder so many powerful witches and wizards, at a certain stage, take up runes and delve into older magics; there's a ceiling to what you can do otherwise.
This kind of deep musing on magic had blended into Sean's daily life. In a relaxed state, it actually felt like unwinding.
He had just pulled out the Headmaster's letter, wondering how he might manage to keep lingering at Hogwarts indefinitely, when he noticed a figure on the stairs, pacing and trying to melt into the corner.
"Sean—"
Neville practically scraped together all his courage to call out.
Sean stopped. When he turned around, Neville turned around too, as if he hadn't been the one who called him.
At the classroom door, where he'd been sneaking a peek, Justin snorted with laughter.
Inside, Hermione was practicing the Levitation Charm.
Her desk was buried in notes of every kind. Several library books she hadn't even returned yet were already half-hidden under new loans.
Sean's desk looked a little different. He tended to memorize the less important volumes and keep the crucial ones with him even after he knew them by heart.
Like Theories of Magic—that one never left his side. The result was a spotless, orderly workspace; aside from the occasional freshly-summoned sweet, everything had its place.
"Excellence in magic clearly means both practice and theory, and practice is the only standard that tests theory—"
A shorthand quill hovered over a pale-blue notebook, scratching away. "In practice, a wizard's level is usually reflected in charms and transfiguration; potions can count as well—"
What Dumbledore had asked of him lined up perfectly with Sean's current goals. He'd already been making preparations for the dangers Hogwarts might hide (trolls, for instance—or those "pure-blood" types who despised Muggle-borns).
So as he mapped out his aims for the week ahead, he drifted closer to Neville.
~~~
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