"Alright, settle down."
Seeing Richie accept the medal, Professor Flitwick raised his hands to quiet the classroom.
"Now, let's begin the lesson. Once class is dismissed, if you still have questions, I'm sure Mr. Harland will be more than happy to share his experiences with you."
Flitwick shot Richie a quick wink before turning back to the podium.
"For our first lesson of the new term, we're going to learn a rather fascinating spell variant."
"Those of you who followed the Northern Hemisphere Quidditch Christmas Championship might have noticed the glowing patterns the tournament committee projected into the sky during the opening ceremony."
"It looks incredibly flashy and highly complex, but the core mechanics are actually quite simple."
Flitwick launched into his lecture, but the young wizards in the room were still buzzing with restless energy.
"Hey, Richie, let me see that dueling medal," Terry whispered, tugging on Richie's sleeve.
Richie casually handed it over.
Honestly, he didn't care much about the medal itself. What really made his mouth twitch was Flitwick's casual mention of: 'your photograph has already been hung on the wall of the Star-Wand Dueling Hall to inspire their students.'
It clicked. He had been completely used as a prop.
No wonder Madam Mantha was so eager to push her students into dueling him, and why Milosan was so generous in letting him examine Nicolas Flamel's original manuscript (even if his Aunt Annabelle played a part in that).
Now, his face was permanently plastered on their wall and they had shipped him this medal. The next time he set foot in Beauxbatons, there would probably be at least three different year levels lined up with their wands drawn, eager to "greet" him.
Whatever. It was what it was. For now, he just needed to focus on studying. It wasn't like they could storm Hogwarts to get to him.
Richie snapped back to reality and tuned in to the lecture.
Meanwhile, the Star-Wand Dueling Medal was passed from Terry to Stephen, then to Anthony, and then down the line. By the midpoint of the class, all twenty Ravenclaw students had examined and touched the heavy metal badge.
The medal finally found its way back to Richie's desk right as Flitwick wrapped up the theory portion of the lesson.
"Alright, everyone! Give it a try. Attempt to construct your respective House crests using the illuminated pattern."
"Remember, the incantation is: Lumos Leviosa Figura!"
At Flitwick's command, the students immediately raised their wands and began practicing.
The Illuminated Totem Charm was actually a composite piece of magic. As the incantation suggested, it combined three distinct elements: the Wand-Lighting Charm (Lumos), the Levitation Charm (Leviosa), and Transfiguration (Figura).
After an entire semester, the first-years had a basic grasp of all three. However, chaining them together simultaneously was proving to be incredibly tricky.
"Lumos Leviosa Figura!" Terry swished his wand. A ball of light popped out of the tip, only to immediately burst and scatter outward like a cheap sparkler.
"Hey, at least it did something different, right?" Terry justified, his face flushing slightly before he reset to try again.
Anthony laughed, patting Terry on the shoulder before taking his own turn. His attempt wasn't much better; he essentially just cast a standard Lumos, only slightly larger and brighter than usual.
Stephen performed significantly better than both of them. Two thin, elongated threads of glowing light actually materialized from the tip of his wand and held their shape for a moment.
Richie kept his head down, deep in thought.
Based on Flitwick's lecture and his own personal understanding of magic, the absolute core of this spell was control.
On a micro level, the logical process was sequential: cast the basic illumination, use the Levitation Charm to suspend the orb of light, and then apply Transfiguration to shape and maintain it.
But if you followed that strict, step-by-step logic, the initial light would simply extinguish the second you cut off your magical supply to cast the Transfiguration spell. Even if the transfiguration somehow succeeded, the glowing totem would dissipate almost instantly.
That was the exact hurdle the rest of the class was slamming into right now.
On a macro level, however, successfully casting the spell meant the magical current flowing from the wand never broke. As long as the connection held, the totem would persist.
Therefore, whether it was illumination, levitation, or transfiguration—they were all drawing from a single, unified stream of magic.
And what forced them to share that single stream?
The incantation!
Even though it was a composite spell, it was ultimately just one spell. The absolute key was treating it as a singular, unified entity.
You couldn't let yourself get distracted by the individual components of levitation, light, or transfiguration!
With that realization, Richie quickly sketched the Ravenclaw crest in his notebook.
He drew his wand and spoke softly but clearly.
"Lumos Leviosa Figura!"
A concentrated orb of brilliant white light shot from the tip of his wand, instantly floating upward toward the ceiling of the Charms classroom. In the blink of an eye, the light rapidly twisted and morphed.
A lifelike, brilliantly glowing white eagle materialized in mid-air.
"Ho ho! Excellent work! Two points to Ravenclaw for Mr. Harland's outstanding performance!"
The Charms block eventually ended. Surrounded by his buzzing Ravenclaw roommates, a wryly smiling Richie headed off to his next class.
Meanwhile, the Slytherins retreated back to their common room.
Deep beneath the Black Lake, in the Slytherin Common Room.
Draco sat heavily on a leather sofa, his arms crossed tightly over his chest, his face completely dark and silent.
"Man, Draco's been like this since the start of class. What the hell is wrong with him?" Crabbe muttered, exchanging a highly confused look with Goyle behind Draco's back.
Goyle shook his head. "I'm telling you, it's got to be some kind of trick that 'Seven-Pointed Star' pulled on him!"
Hearing that, Crabbe aggressively clenched his meaty fists. "If that's the case, we have to teach him a lesson!"
Goyle nodded in agreement, but his expression quickly shifted into nervous hesitation.
"But... he just won that crazy dueling medal. He's got to be insanely good at fighting!"
"I don't think we can actually beat him."
Hearing that reality check, Crabbe shrunk back a little, but his pride forced him to keep talking tough. "You're huge, but you're a total coward!"
Crabbe's eyes suddenly darted around as an idea clicked.
"We might not be able to beat him ourselves... but we can definitely find someone who can!"
"Come with me!"
Without another word, Crabbe marched away.
Goyle shot a worried glance at the completely catatonic Draco, then looked back at Crabbe. After a second of hesitation, he hurried after his friend.
If Draco had any idea what the two of them were doing, he would have sneered and called them complete idiots for actually knowing how to call for backup.
Unfortunately, Draco was currently way too deep in his own existential crisis to notice a thing.