"Madness! Everyone's gone mad!"
Watching his wig being tossed around like a trophy, feeling the embarrassing patch of bare scalp exposed under the classroom lights, Lockhart's final bit of composure shattered completely.
He let out a shriek that hardly sounded human.
Scrambling to his feet, he rushed toward the classroom door in total panic.
His only thought was to escape.
Escape this nightmare.
Escape the eyes of the students.
But just as his hand reached for the doorknob—
A calm voice cut through the chaos.
It wasn't loud.
Yet it clearly overpowered every scream, every crash, every shrill pixie cry.
The voice came from the quiet corner of the classroom.
Lucian Thornwick had stood up.
He didn't even glance at the fleeing Lockhart.
His gaze simply swept over the swirling blue creatures filling the room.
To him, they were like a swarm of buzzing flies.
Noisy.
Annoying.
It was time to end the farce.
Lucian didn't draw a wand.
He didn't even raise a hand.
In a calm voice—yet one that carried the authority of a decree—he used the same Law of All Things he had once used on the three-headed dog.
He spoke just two words.
"Form ranks."
The moment the words left his lips—
An invisible force spread outward like ripples across water.
A power representing absolute order and command swept across the entire classroom.
One second earlier, the pixies had been screaming and wreaking havoc.
The next—
They froze in midair.
A pixie that had been about to pour a bottle of slug slime onto Parvati Patil's head remained frozen with the bottle tipped forward.
Several pixies tearing Neville's robes hung motionless in the air, claws gripping fabric.
The golden wig drifting between them slowly floated downward.
The world shifted from deafening chaos to complete silence.
Students looked up in shock.
The blue creatures had become living statues.
Then something even more unbelievable happened.
The mischievous madness in the pixies' eyes faded.
Replaced by something empty—
Something obedient.
Suddenly they moved.
But no longer randomly.
Instead, they began moving like well-trained soldiers.
The closest pixies even adjusted their spacing, lining themselves up perfectly.
Under the stunned gazes of the entire class, more than twenty blue pixies rapidly arranged themselves into a perfect formation in midair.
Front to back.
High to low.
So neat and orderly it looked like a formation prepared for a military parade.
Once the formation was complete—
They all faced the same direction.
Toward the quiet boy standing in the corner of the classroom.
Lucian Thornwick.
They marched through the air with synchronized movements.
When the front of the formation reached him, the leading pixie suddenly bowed deeply—nearly ninety degrees.
Immediately, every pixie behind it bowed as well.
Perfectly synchronized.
The scene looked less like magical creatures being subdued by a student—
And more like soldiers paying respect to their supreme commander.
After bowing, the lead pixie turned and marched back toward the iron cage on the teacher's desk.
One by one.
Two.
Three.
Four.
They entered the cage in perfect order.
No pushing.
No noise.
When the final pixie flew inside, it grabbed the door from within.
CLANG.
It shut the cage and slid the latch closed itself.
Then—
Silence.
Absolute silence filled the classroom.
Aside from Neville still hanging from the chandelier and the wreckage scattered everywhere, it was as if the disaster had never happened.
Lockhart stood by the door with one hand still on the handle.
Completely frozen.
His mouth hung open wide enough to fit a Quaffle.
His eyes were filled with the raw shock of someone witnessing a miracle beyond understanding.
Hermione stood motionless.
Her wand hung loosely at her side.
She stared at Lucian—who looked as calm as if he had merely brushed dust from a table.
Her mind was blank.
The suffocating silence lasted only a few seconds.
Then someone finally gasped.
"Merlin's beard…"
"That was… impossible!"
"How did Lucian do that?!"
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