The first class of the morning was Charms, taught by Professor Filius Flitwick, Head of Ravenclaw House.
He was quite small—barely visible over his desk without the assistance of a stack of books—and began the lesson by calling the register.
When the last name had been read, he set it aside. In a high-pitched yet carrying voice, he announced, "Today, we will light the first spark of magic at Hogwarts—the Wand-Lighting Charm: Lumos! This is the cornerstone of all practical spellwork. It tests not brute force, but the subtle control required for a steady magical output."
Professor Flitwick walked them through the syllable breakdown of the incantation, the precise range of wrist rotation, and, most importantly, the importance of clear visualisation.
"The pronunciation must be exact. Hold in your mind a steady, pure light blooming from the tip of your wand—not a blinding flash, and not a faint flicker."
Paired with Theodore, Henry adjusted his breathing, followed the professor's instructions, rotated his wrist with a light, deliberate motion, and said clearly, Lumos."
A stable, soft white halo gathered at once at the tip of his wand—like a candle flame enclosed within an invisible lampshade—illuminating a corner of the book in front of him without so much as a flicker.
"Beautiful! Absolutely perfect, Mr. Welsh!" Professor Flitwick appeared beside their desk as though he had materialised there, his eyes bright with admiration. "Smooth magical output, flawless control! Five points to Slytherin!"
Professor McGonagall's class, by contrast, required no intervention to fall silent. Her opening remarks were sufficient.
"Transfiguration is the most rigorous and the most dangerous subject in your course of study. Any lapse in concentration will lead to irreversible consequences," she said. "Anyone who misbehaves in my class will be removed and will not return. I have warned you."
She then transformed her lectern into a pig and back again without pausing to acknowledge the students' expressions.
Everyone in the room longed to do the same thing immediately—but Professor McGonagall had no intention of indulging that wish. She proceeded to lay out the foundational principles of Transfiguration in thorough and uncompromising detail, after which she distributed a match to each student and asked them to attempt to turn it into a needle.
Henry produced visible changes on his first attempt; the tip was not yet sharp, but the shape was already beginning to suggest a needle.
Before the lesson ended, he had turned it into a slender sewing needle with a clean, tapered point—and, for good measure, had engraved a small serpent pattern along its length.
"Exceptional Transfiguration, Mr. Welsh." Professor McGonagall lifted the needle and held it up for the class to see. "A flawless piece of work. Ten points to Slytherin." She then gave Henry a rare, brief smile. It was clear that even this exacting and traditional woman found his performance admirable.
Apart from Henry, only Hermione Granger managed to successfully complete the Transfiguration, earning Gryffindor five points in the process.
"You're really good at this," Draco said after class, eyeing Henry with undisguised envy. "Fifteen points for Slytherin in just two lessons."
"Practice makes a difference," Henry replied, his tone easy, neither arrogant nor falsely modest. "Once you understand what it's actually asking of you, Draco, you'll find it less difficult than it seems now."
The class had been looking forward to Defense Against the Dark Arts, but Professor Quirrell's lesson had already become something close to a joke.
His classroom reeked of garlic—which everyone said was to ward off a vampire he had apparently encountered somewhere in Romania, for fear it might come back to finish what it had started.
He claimed his large purple turban was a gift from an African prince, given in thanks for his help in dealing with a resurrected zombie, though whether anyone genuinely believed that story was difficult to say.
When Pansy asked, with poorly concealed scepticism, how exactly he had defeated the resurrected zombie, the professor flushed to his ears and began mumbling something incoherent about the weather. The class also noted that the turban itself smelled distinctly odd.
"It's garlic—obviously," Millicent Bulstrode said dryly after class. "They say vampires are terrified of it, so he's stuffed the turban full of it to protect himself from being hunted."
"It's not entirely impossible," Pansy added, with a gleeful sort of disgust. No Slytherin had any particular fondness for their stammering professor.
Henry said nothing. He did, of course, know perfectly well why Professor Quirrell kept his turban on and what it was concealing—but that had nothing to do with him. That particular problem belonged to Mr. Potter's story, not his.
After classes ended, it was time for afternoon tea.
The location was the same cleverly arranged empty classroom on the second floor, dressed as before with the dark green tablecloth, the bone china teaware, and the full three-tiered pastry stand.
Draco and Pansy had already become regulars, and this time Pansy had brought along her friend Daphne Greengrass—a pretty, fair-haired girl from a traditional pure-blood family who was attending for the first time, visibly excited and doing her best not to show it.
Henry intended to establish the afternoon tea as a proper fixture within Slytherin.
The atmosphere was considerably more relaxed than it had been the first time. Draco found occasion to mention, somewhat obliquely, certain accounts of wizarding interactions with Muggles that had featured in his father's letters—taking care to leave out the parts that reflected too specifically on the Malfoy family.
Pansy contributed anecdotes she had collected from family conversations over the years. Daphne was quiet at first, but under Henry's gentle and unhurried prompting, she gradually began to speak about the Greengrass family's tradition of cultivating certain rare magical plants, her composure warming by degrees as she went.
When the tea party drew to a close and Draco, Pansy, and Daphne turned toward the Great Hall, Henry did not follow.
He waited until they had gone, then turned and made his way toward the upper levels of the castle, moving with clear purpose.
He found the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy without difficulty—the one depicting a hapless man being beaten by trolls—and crossed to the plain stretch of wall directly opposite it. He stood still for a moment, shaping the need clearly in his mind: a private room where I can practice spells safely, without interruption, and observe the effects of my magic.
He paced back and forth in front of the wall three times.
A smooth, unremarkable doorway appeared quietly in the stone.
Henry pushed it open and stepped inside. The room was more functional than he had expected—spacious and unadorned, the walls and floor appearing to be composed of some dim, matte material that seemed to absorb magical energy rather than reflect it.
A few fixed magical lamps provided steady illumination. In one corner, a low shelf held a modest arrangement of practice dummies and targets.
It was so quiet that he could hear his own breathing. The outside world seemed to have been entirely shut away.
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