A rare burst of late-October sun had drawn nearly every student outside. On the sloping lawn leading down to the Black Lake, Shya and Talora were engaged in a fierce, high-stakes competition: seeing who could balance a Chocolate Frog on their nose the longest.
"This is undignified," Shya stated flatly, her eyes crossed as she stared at the wobbling confection.
"Stop talking, you'll knock it off!" Talora hissed, her own frog teetering precariously. Her entire body was rigid with concentration. "I'm... gonna... win..."
"You're not. The angle of your head is suboptimal. You're fighting your own spinal curvature." Shya's frog, defying all logic, remained perfectly steady.
"Not everyone has a ruler for a spine, Bob!"
From their picnic blanket a few feet away, Cassian and Roman watched the spectacle with a mixture of fascination and bewilderment.
"Is this a common Muggle... ritual?" Roman asked, his dimples showing as he tried not to laugh.
Talora's frog chose that moment to leap from her nose. "No, it's a Gill-Livanthos ritual," she grumbled, snatching the frog from the grass. "And it's serious business." She flopped onto the blanket, grabbing a bottle of Coke. "Your turn, Nott. Let's see your pureblood poise."
Roman, ever the good sport, accepted a Frog. He managed about three seconds before it somersaulted onto his lap.
"Pathetic," Shya commented, her own frog still miraculously in place. "You're all tension in the shoulders. It's about micro-adjustments, not brute force." Her frog finally fell. "Eleven seconds. A new record. The scientific method prevails."
"The scientific method for... balancing chocolate?" Cassian asked, his tone not mocking, but genuinely curious.
"For everything," Shya said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. She lay back on the blanket, squinting at the clouds. "Observation, hypothesis, experimentation. It's how Muggles understand the world without magic. It's just... logic."
This casual mention of the non-magical world often opened a door, one the boys from old wizarding families were still hesitant to step through.
Later, in the library, the divide became more apparent. They were wrestling with a tricky Herbology concept about Fanged Geranium regeneration.
"The book says the regrowth is 'magically accelerated,'" Talora read, her brow furrowed. "But what does that actually *mean*? Where is the energy coming from? Is it drawing from sunlight? The soil? It's so vague."
Shya, who had been sketching the plant's structure, pointed at the stem. "It's not magic first. It's biology first, *then* magic. The plant has meristematic cells at the nodes. That's where growth happens. The magic just tells those cells to divide faster than they normally would. It's a catalyst, not a creation."
Roman and Cassian were both staring at her.
"Cells?" Roman asked slowly.
Cassian's gaze was sharper, more intent. "You speak of this... biology... as if it's a known law. Like the laws of transfiguration."
Shya looked at them, her head tilted. "It is a known law. Just because you can magic a table into a pig doesn't mean you understand the pig. Muggles spent centuries figuring out the pig. Cells are the building blocks of the pig. And the geranium." She said it not with condescension, but with the plain frustration of someone who couldn't understand why this wasn't common knowledge.
"But... how?" Cassian pressed, leaning forward slightly. "Without magic, how could they see these... building blocks?"
"They built microscopes," Talora chimed in, eager to share this bit of knowledge. "Lenses upon lenses that make tiny things look huge. You can actually see the cells. It's not a theory; it's something you can look at."
The boys fell silent. The idea that Muggles hadn't just stumbled around in ignorance, but had built tools to uncover the hidden architecture of life itself, was a profoundly disruptive concept.
This new lens made its way into all their studies. In Charms, when Shya critiqued the "inelegant" wand movement for the Softening Charm, she didn't just call it inefficient.
"The wrist flick is too broad," she stated, practicing on a small rock. "It's wasting kinetic energy. A tighter, more focused movement would direct the magic more precisely. It's basic physics."
"Physics?" Roman asked, now recognizing the cue for a Muggle concept.
"The study of matter, motion, and energy," Talora supplied, watching Shya. "How things move and interact. It's all equations."
Shya gave a sharp, precise flick of her wrist. "Molli!" The rock on the desk deflated instantly into a perfectly smooth, plush cube. She looked at it, then at the others. "See? More efficient. Less energy wasted on theatrics."
It was this specific, unfiltered critique that kept leading them into collisions with Hermione Granger in the library. The first clash came when Shya was analyzing Professor McGonagall's teaching methods after a particularly frustrating Transfiguration class.
"Her positioning is flawed," Shya announced to their study group, not bothering to lower her voice. "She demonstrates from the front. The parallax error means anyone not in the center sees a distorted wand angle. It's basic optics. No wonder half the class can't manage the match-to-needle spell."
Hermione, who was studying at the next table, slammed her book shut. "Professor McGonagall is a master of her craft! Her methods have stood the test of time!"
Shya looked genuinely confused by the outburst. "A person's skill doesn't change the laws of visual perception. If you can't see the demonstration correctly, you can't replicate it. It's simple geometry."
"But... you can't just criticize a professor like that!" Hermione spluttered, her cheeks flushing.
"Why not?" Shya asked, her brow furrowed. "If the method is flawed, identifying the flaw is the first step to correction. How else does anything improve?"
Hermione stared, her mouth opening and closing. She looked to Talora, to the boys, searching for someone to share her outrage. Finding only thoughtful or amused expressions, she gathered her books with a huff and marched away.
The final confrontation came a week later, back in the library. Hermione was helping Neville with his match-to-needle transfiguration, her voice patient but firm. "No, Neville, you need to visualize the molecular structure more clearly. The book says-"
"You're overcomplicating it," Shya's voice cut in. She had been watching from their table for several minutes, her analytical mind unable to stay silent. "The visualization technique is inefficient. He's trying to picture the entire transformation at once. He should focus on the tip first - visualize just the point forming, then let the transformation propagate downward. It's a sequential process, not a simultaneous one."
Neville looked between them, utterly lost. Hermione's face flushed with frustration. "The standard method-"
"-is clearly not working for him," Shya finished bluntly. "Why keep using a broken tool when you can fix it? Here." She took Neville's match. "Watch. Just the tip. Sharp. Metallic. Cold." Her wand moved in a precise thrust. "Vera Verto." The match's end shimmered, turning to a perfect silver point before the effect faded. "See? Sequential."
Neville's eyes widened. "Oh! I think I... I see."
Hermione stood frozen, her carefully constructed lesson plan dismantled in seconds. The look she gave Shya wasn't just one of frustration, but of something deeper - a sense of her entire world being challenged. "You can't just... change centuries of established technique!"
"Why not?" Shya asked, handing the match back to Neville. "If it works better, why wouldn't you change it?"
As their group packed up to leave, Talora looped her arm through Shya's. "You know, for a genius, you have the social grace of a concussed troll."
Shya shrugged, entirely unbothered. "I said what was true. Why would I say anything else?"
Talora just sighed, squeezing her arm. That was the problem, and the beauty, of her best friend. Shya Gill only knew how to tell the truth, and she was only just beginning to learn that the world was rarely ready to hear it.