Julian did not waste even a second. He lifted his wand toward the locked box in front of him.
"ALOHAMORA!"
The lid popped open immediately.
"Excellent work as always, Mr. Iron. Ten points to Gryffindor!" Flitwick said brightly, beaming at him.
...
After that, Julian did what he usually did. He stood up and moved to help the students still struggling with the spell. He paid no attention to the frustrated look Hermione shot him as he made his way toward the center of the classroom. His golden eyes shifted from student to student while he watched with a quiet patience.
...
After a few minutes of observation, he had a clear sense of who was truly stuck and who only needed a small adjustment to get it. Neville, surprisingly, was not among the worst off. He only required minimal help, so Julian did not bother interrupting him.
He walked over to Ron and gently stopped what the boy was doing.
"Slowly, but firmly. No rush, mate. Like this," Julian said, demonstrating the wand motion at an unhurried pace and showing him the proper rhythm.
Then Julian reset the lock and had Ron try again. Ron still failed, but the attempt was noticeably cleaner, and Julian told him so.
...
Positive reinforcement mattered when teaching. It gave people a quick hit of satisfaction that made them want to improve, to chase that feeling again by getting it right. This was not some revolutionary discovery either. Humans had used it for ages, even when they did not understand the exact reason it worked so well.
Julian moved away from Ron and crossed the room toward one of the Slytherin boys who was having trouble.
He did not recognize the student, but he approached anyway with an easy, helpful expression.
"Your pronunciation's a little off. Try it like this. AH LO HA MORE UH," Julian said carefully, breaking the word into clean pieces.
The boy repeated it slowly. Julian nodded and praised him for getting the sound right. One more attempt, and the box clicked open. The student's face lit up with delight.
When he looked up again, Julian was already a few steps away, helping someone else.
...
Unseen by the class, Flitwick quietly awarded Gryffindor another twenty points for Julian's efforts. The professor could not help but marvel at how naturally the boy handled teaching. Julian did not rely on overly complicated explanations or obscure theory. He simply broke problems down into manageable parts without ever sounding like he was talking down to anyone.
...
Once the lesson ended, Julian separated from his friends and headed straight for the library. He had research to do in the "ancient" section.
There was a particular book he had noticed earlier, one that had caught his attention the first time he ventured into that area.
A Beginner's Guide to Rituals by R. S. Black.
...
While digging into the basics of magic, Julian had been struck by how little information he could find on rituals at all. It was as if the subject had been deliberately scraped clean from the library.
He was not truly surprised when he considered the Ministry's list of banned magics.
All rituals were forbidden.
The punishment for performing even the simplest divination ritual was a minimum of five years in Azkaban. To Julian, the severity felt absurd. Being condemned to share space with happiness eating dementors over something harmless seemed beyond excessive.
That was not to say he doubted darker rituals existed. He had no illusions about what people could do with magic. Still, he also believed there had to be rituals that were useful, even beneficial.
...
Ironically, the book addressed that exact topic almost immediately, right after Julian turned past the opening forewarning.
According to the author, most rituals that truly fell under dark magic were sacrificial ones. The principle behind sacrifice was essentially a form of equivalent exchange. If you offered something as significant as a wizard's life, the potential reward could be immense.
The examples in the book were not like that, though.
These sacrificial rituals demanded ingredients such as specific plants, other rare materials, and in a few cases, certain magical creature parts.
...
One ritual in particular appealed to Julian more than the rest.
It involved trading the heart of a hunted animal, the eyes of a bird, and a strand of hair from the person conducting the ritual. In exchange, the caster would receive a small increase to their reflexes.
Reaction time could be the difference between surviving a duel or dying in one, and Julian knew that with perfect clarity. If he could tip the odds in his favor by offering a few minor pieces, he would do it without hesitation.
The procedure was also refreshingly simple. He only needed to draw a circle with a triangle inside it, place each ingredient at one of the triangle's points, and then speak the incantation.
That was all.
Clean, direct, and easy.