The walk to the Great Hall went smoothly after that, especially with Flitwick accompanying the group. Nobody was stupid enough to pull anything with a professor right there.
As before, Daphne and Tracey peeled away from Julian and Harry once they reached the Hall, heading for the Slytherin table, while the boys took their usual places at Gryffindor. This time, however, Hermione plopped herself down directly across from Julian, arms folded and expression stormy.
"How did you do it?" she demanded, clearly not in a good mood.
Julian raised an eyebrow and reached for a small ham and cheese sandwich from a nearby platter.
"You are going to have to be more specific," he said lightly, taking a bite.
"The Lumos spell you cast earlier," she clarified, frustration leaking into her voice. "I cannot get it to work, even though I matched your wand movement and the incantation exactly."
A few other students within earshot went quiet and listened in, clearly hoping to catch the explanation too.
Julian chuckled and finished the sandwich. It was barely more than a bite sized thing anyway.
"There is a trick to that version of the spell," he admitted. "Copying what you see is not enough."
He leaned back a little.
"We are not friends, so the best you are getting is a hint. The key is in the name. Make of that what you will."
With that, he turned his attention away from her and focused on the next thing in front of him, which happened to be a bowl of salad he had specifically requested from the house elves. He started eating, leaving Hermione to stew.
The confused looks from the nearby students only amused him. Almost no one seemed to realize where the food came from at all. To be fair, you never actually saw a house elf bringing the dishes in. They just appeared.
What really baffled him were the students who came from homes with house elves and still had not connected the dots. The flavors, the style, the way everything was arranged, it all matched. How did they not recognize the same work they ate every day at home?
Julian decided to keep that particular secret to himself and simply enjoy his salad, playing the mysterious wizard for a little while longer.
...
Once lunch was over, everyone split up again to head back to their classes. Daphne and Tracey rejoined Julian and Harry on the way to Charms for the second session of the day.
"You know," Tracey said with a giggle, "we were practically mobbed by people asking us to share the secret to your spell."
Julian shrugged. "Not surprising," he replied. "Someone who does not like failing already cornered me about it at lunch."
He did not bother to hide the fact that Hermione could easily hear that remark from where she walked with a cluster of Gryffindors.
"The bushy haired girl?" Daphne asked with mild curiosity.
"Yeah," Harry chimed in. "She seemed really upset that she could not figure out the trick without his help."
"Did you tell her?" Tracey asked, eyes gleaming.
Julian grinned. "Nope. She got a hint, same as everyone else who was listening in," he said cheerfully.
"Good," Tracey said, sounding extremely satisfied. "That spell is easily worth a full day of bragging rights, and I am not about to give them away for free."
"My, how very Slytherin of you," Julian joked.
"I never claimed I was not ambitious or cunning," Tracey replied, pretending to be offended while smiling brightly.
"My deepest apologies, milady, for daring to make assumptions," Julian said dramatically, bowing his head.
That set all of them laughing as they reached the Charms classroom.
...
The second half of Charms went much like the first. Julian spent most of the lesson drifting around the room, helping students correct their form, steady their magic, and properly focus their intent.
More than once, someone asked him to explain the secret behind his starlight version of the spell. Each time, he gave the same answer he had given Hermione.
"The key is in the name."
Flitwick had no problem with Julian's little act of secrecy. The hint truly did point to the solution, and anyone with enough creativity and understanding of magic could unravel it. As head of Ravenclaw house, he appreciated the mental challenge built into the whole thing.
By the end of the lesson, only five other students besides Julian's core group had managed to cast his Lumos variation in any capacity. Their versions were smaller, weaker, or less stable, but they still counted. None of those five were Hermione.
The failure weighed heavily on her. It was written all over her face as she watched classmates succeed where she could not.
Man, she is going to feel awful when one of them lets the secret slip by accident while bragging, Julian thought, sighing inwardly.
I did warn her, so whatever happens now is on her.
Hermione was simply too rigid in her thinking at the moment. In the realm of magic, that was a problem. Magic favored imagination over structure. It liked creativity more than it liked strict, mechanical repetition.
Julian's version of Lumos was born from imagination. It was not just a modified incantation and a new wand movement. It was a picture in his mind, a story poured into light and color. For someone like Hermione, who was operating almost entirely from logic and textbook structure, that kind of spell was naturally out of reach.
Maybe this failure would be the push she needed to loosen up, to actually make use of the imagination that was currently buried under a mountain of rigid studying and memorized rules.
Hopefully it does not take getting rescued from a bloody troll to get there this time, Julian thought darkly, gathering his things as the class came to an end.