In the dead of night, the hustle and bustle of Hogwarts faded into slumber. Casen, who had just warned Julien not to snore, was already snoring away himself, sounding remarkably like a saw cutting through wood.
Julien, however, was not asleep. He closed his eyes, focused his mind, and let his consciousness slip quietly into the wondrous realm that belonged only to him: the Magical Resonance Library.
In the center of the library, the black cat calling himself the "Librarian," Murphy, was sprawled spreadeagle across an open copy of Advanced Spatial Folding Theory: A Tutorial on Origami Cranes. His tail flicked lazily back and forth as he absentmindedly batted at the edge of the page.
Julien coughed lightly. "Murphy, wake up. I have real business."
Murphy lazily cracked open one eye. In the darkness, his pupils glowed like two differently colored gemstones. "Oh? It's you, rookie. Back to ask about becoming an Animagus again? Save it. You're still struggling to turn a match into a needle."
"I am not struggling. Ugh, that's not what I'm here for!" Julien said, exasperated. "I want to find a book about leyline nodes. You know... the kind that teaches you how to sense leyline energy? Or something about guardian steles."
Murphy's ears instantly perked up, and his tail stopped swishing. He slowly sat up straight, eyeing Julien with a look that said, You've got some nerve, kid.
"Leyline nodes?" Murphy stroked his whiskers with a paw, his tone suddenly turning serious, even a bit academic. "Hmm... we do have those. For instance, The Strings of the Earth: On the Resonant Frequencies of Europe's Three Major Nodes, How to Construct a Miniature Ley Line in Your Backyard, and that little gem tucked away in the Restricted Section—What Voldemort Wanted to Know: Node Stabilizers."
Julien's eyes lit up. "Quick! Let me borrow them!"
Murphy smacked his paws together and shook his head with exaggerated regret. "Insufficient privileges, my dear little wizard. Your current spiritual power level is barely enough to read Basic Meditation: From Counting Sheep to Counting Magic Particles. Leyline nodes? If you randomly flip open one of those books, you might wake up tomorrow morning to find you've grown roots, or you'll start having conversations with the castle stones."
"Is it really that dangerous?"
"More dangerous than being chased around by Peeves screaming 'Snivellus.'" Murphy hopped down from the pile of books, strolled over to another shelf, and used the tip of his tail to hook a book and toss it to Julien. "Here. Considering you've already started Defense Against the Dark Arts, chew through this first. Build a solid foundation. Don't always try to run before you can walk. Who do you think you are, Merlin reincarnated? Even Merlin had to learn not to blow up his cauldron when he was a kid."
Julien caught the book. The gold-embossed title on the cover read: Defense Against the Dark Arts for Beginners: From Running Screaming to Elegant Disarming (Includes 3 Bonus Anti-Pervert Spritz Spells).
"Isn't this... a bit too basic?" Julien's mouth twitched.
"Basic keeps you alive!" Murphy rolled over, flopped back onto the advanced theory book, and yawned. "Especially when the 'professor' you're currently dealing with has a breathing Post-it note stuck to the back of his head. Hurry up and learn something practical—like 'How to Pretend You're Just a Walking Rock When Targeted by the Possessed'."
Julien stared. "...Is that really a chapter in this book?"
Murphy narrowed his eyes in a mysterious smile. "Chapter Three. The title is On the Art of Keeping a Low Profile: When You Don't Want to Be a Dark Wizard's Breakfast."
Julien sighed. "...Thanks. I'll go memorize it right now."
As he turned to leave, Murphy lazily tossed out one last remark. "By the way, remember to bring some catnip next time you visit. Your Librarian has been under a lot of KPI pressure lately and needs a spiritual massage."
Julien nodded, not knowing whether to laugh or cry, as his consciousness slowly withdrew from the library. Back in reality, he stared up at the ceiling, feeling as though the texture of the "escape guide" was still lingering on his hands.
Ravenclaw had no classes the next morning, so Julien enjoyed a rare sleep-in—partly because he had stayed up late reading. Julien wasn't lazy, but he wasn't as rigidly disciplined as the protagonists of other fanfictions who forced themselves to get up early every single day to exercise, come rain or shine.
He had discovered that as his magic grew, his body was naturally washed over and improved by it, yielding results even better than ordinary physical training. Of course, this might also just have been an excuse he made up to justify being lazy.
When Julien came down to the common room, he found that almost all the first-year Eagles had already gathered and were excitedly discussing something. Quite a few Hufflepuff Badgers were there as well.
Because they often shared classes with the Hufflepuff first-years, they had grown closest to them. Besides, they couldn't stand the Slytherins' "sneakiness" or the Gryffindors' "recklessness."
This afternoon, they were scheduled to take their first flying lesson alongside the Hufflepuffs. Everyone was incredibly looking forward to it, which was why so many Badgers had come to the Ravenclaw common room to continue the conversation they hadn't finished at breakfast.
If Defense Against the Dark Arts ignited a curiosity for danger (though that spark had already been thoroughly doused by Professor Quirrell), then Flying class awakened the oldest, most romantic desire in every child's heart, be they wizard or Muggle: the dream of flight.
"I already practiced riding a broom with my uncle in the Amberley Valley last year. My uncle says I'm a flying genius!" declared Wayne Hopkins from Hufflepuff.
"That's nothing!" Casen Moretti snapped his head up from his pumpkin juice, nearly knocking the goblet over. "I've been flying a Nimbus 1000 in my backyard since I was five! My dad says I was born to be on a Quidditch team—Keeper? No, no, no, Seeker!"
"Stop bragging. The Nimbus series wasn't even in production when you were five." Terry Boot from Ravenclaw was clearly the fact-checking type. "I already looked it up. The Nimbus line only started production three years ago."
"Whatever! The point is, I have incredible eyesight, and that's a fact. I can lock onto a fly fifty meters away the second it twitches!" Casen didn't care about Terry's fact-check. He pulled out his golden Snitch model once again.
"Oh yeah, your eyesight is incredible, alright. Last time, you wrote your assignment so small it looked like fly specks; nobody could read it. Professor McGonagall made you do it over," Edgar pointed out mercilessly.
"That was a lighting issue!" Casen's face flushed red. "Plus, I had just drank some hallucinogenic Puffskein tea that day!"
"Is flying really that amazing? I'm sort of... worried." Justin Finch-Fletchley, a Muggle-born, didn't explicitly say the word "scared," but his expression gave him away.
At that moment, Hannah Abbott—who was usually as quiet as a closed book—spoke up, her voice uncharacteristically loud. "Don't worry, Justin! My uncle says the first time you ride a broom, it feels like getting a kiss from the wind!" Hannah's face was bright red. Truthfully, she had never ridden a broom either.
The first-years sat in a circle, eagerly chatting over each other as they fantasized about the afternoon's flying lesson. It was rare for the Ravenclaw common room to be this noisy.
Some claimed they were going to attempt a vertical climb, some said they wanted to try doing handstands in mid-air, and others swore they could tame a temperamental Comet 260—even though they had never so much as touched a broomstick.
This enthusiastic racket quickly drew the attention of the older students.
Roger Davies was leaning back in an armchair beneath the starry dome, flipping through a copy of Advanced Quidditch Tactical Analysis. He couldn't help but laugh out loud. "Did you hear that, Cho? They think they can tame a Comet 260 with first-year wrist strength? That broom has a worse temper than Peeves."
Cho Chang, holding a mug of hot chocolate, smiled warmly. "Don't laugh at them, Roger. Weren't we exactly the same? I still remember my first flying lesson. I was so nervous I yelled 'Down!' instead of 'Up!' and ended up throwing my broom straight into Professor Sprout's Mandrake patch."
"Haha, well, at least you didn't end up waltzing across the pitch dragged by your broom like Michael did." Roger shrugged, his tone teasing but free of malice. "Still, Ravenclaw has a secret weapon like you this year. Make sure you give the other Houses a 'pleasant surprise' when the time comes."
"I'll practice hard. But Ravenclaw still has too few good Quidditch prospects. I wonder if any of the first-years have potential. That Julien seems to be in pretty good shape."
"Julien?" Roger frowned. "He walks like he's pondering the ultimate truths of the universe. He probably wouldn't even dare touch a broom."
"We'll find out this afternoon."