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After Neville stepped down, the rest of the first-years took their turns on the platform.
The Ravenclaw eagles handled the test without any major issues. The only slight hiccup was one student whose Mending Charm didn't entirely fix the vase, leaving a noticeable crack.
The Gryffindor lions, on the other hand, were an absolute disaster.
Maybe it was just pure stage fright, but when Seamus Finnigan attempted the Levitation Charm, he completely replicated his masterpiece from their very first class: he blew the feather up. In the end, he only managed to successfully cast the Locking and Unlocking Charms; everything else was a catastrophic failure.
Ron didn't fare much better. His Mending Charm actually caused the shattered vase to splinter into even smaller pieces, and his Unlocking Charm completely failed to open the magically sealed door.
Harry and Hermione, however, executed all five spells flawlessly on their first attempts.
Soon enough, the practical test concluded.
Standing on the platform, Professor Flitwick reviewed his grading sheet and gave a quiet nod. Aside from Neville's genuinely surprising breakthrough, the rest of the students performed exactly as he had expected.
Putting away his clipboard and drawing his wand, Flitwick addressed the room. "Alright, young wizards, gather round. Let's briefly review the mechanics of these five spells..."
#### The Quidditch Cold War
Once Charms class wrapped up, the students scattered.
The Ravenclaws headed straight to their next lecture, while the Gryffindors loudly and excitedly made their way down to the Quidditch pitch.
With the first official match of the season kicking off this Saturday, all four houses were aggressively ramping up their final practice sessions. Because there was only one pitch, the final four days before the match were divided up, giving each house one exclusive day to train. Naturally, these final practices had essentially evolved into highly publicized exhibition matches.
The goal was to run drills, show off their star players' signature moves, and visually assert dominance to boost their own house's morale.
Today happened to be Ravenclaw's exhibition day, and the eyes of the entire school were locked onto them.
The Ravenclaws were acting completely unhinged this term. You couldn't walk down a corridor or step into a classroom without seeing groups of eagles aggressively debating Quidditch tactics. But instead of talking about formations or brooms, they were violently arguing over obscure terms like 'data modeling,' 'aerodynamic resonance frequencies,' and 'parabolic trajectory shifts.'
Their absolute obsession with the math behind the sport was deeply unsettling to the other houses.
The Hufflepuffs were feeling the pressure the most. Historically, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff basically just played friendly matches against each other, politely fighting over who got to finish in third place. Seeing their perennial "slacker" rivals suddenly treating Quidditch like a high-stakes physics exam made the Badgers feel incredibly lazy. As a result, the Hufflepuff captain had aggressively doubled their training hours.
The Slytherins were immediately on high alert. They absolutely despised dealing with Ravenclaw's brand of intellectual warfare. When dealing with highly intelligent opponents, the most terrifying thing wasn't being outmatched on the field; it was realizing you were playing checkers while they were playing four-dimensional chess.
But the Gryffindors had the most aggressive reaction by far. They firmly believed that Ravenclaw's sudden tactical overhaul had all started with that "Declaration of War" poem posted on their notice board.
The Gryffindor Beaters, the Weasley twins, were practically leading a rally in the common room.
"This is psychological warfare!"
"But Gryffindor fears nothing!"
"If those nerds think they can outsmart us on the pitch..."
"...we'll literally beat them into the ground!"
The lions roared their agreement, buying entirely into the hype.
Of course, not all the Gryffindors were just blindly shouting slogans. The team captain, Oliver Wood, had already started conducting covert reconnaissance on Ravenclaw's practices, desperately trying to formulate strategic countermeasures.
Meanwhile, the actual subject of all this paranoia—the Ravenclaw Quidditch team and their student analysts—were entirely oblivious to the panic they were causing. They were completely consumed by their new obsession, essentially inventing a brand-new academic discipline: Quidditch Metric Analysis.
However, none of this really mattered to the first-year Ravenclaws. With three incredibly dense classes a day, they were completely buried in homework.
"We are literally the only ones not having fun right now," Terry Boot lamented tragically.
#### The Expanding Study Group
Before they knew it, evening rolled around.
After finishing dinner, Richie grabbed his textbooks, fully intending to head straight to the library. But halfway there, he changed his mind and took a detour toward the abandoned Charms classroom on the third floor.
If I can tap into that same flow state from last night...
When he arrived at the portrait of the frowning vase, he wasn't exactly surprised by what he found.
Hermione and Neville were already standing there. Clearly, they had the exact same idea.
However, there was a third person standing with them...
Richie walked closer and recognized the kid standing nervously next to Neville. He had sandy-brown hair and a face covered in freckles.
"Seamus Finnigan?" Richie asked.
Seamus Finnigan. Gryffindor's resident demolitions expert.
"H-hi," Seamus greeted him, looking incredibly anxious.
"Oh, hey Richie," Neville said, rubbing the back of his head awkwardly. "Seamus had a really rough time during the practical today. He asked me for help, but... I didn't really know how to explain things to him. So I just brought him along."
Neville looked at Richie hopefully. "I wasn't sure if it was okay for him to join us..."
Richie thought about it for a second and gave a slight nod. "Of course it's okay. If you don't understand something, asking for help is exactly what you should do."
"But next time, give us a heads-up so we can actually prepare," Richie added, subtly setting a boundary.
He didn't mind helping people, but he wasn't a Hogwarts professor. He had his own massive workload to get through; he couldn't dedicate all his free time to tutoring half the first-year class. He needed to be able to schedule it.
Honestly, the only reason Richie had even come here tonight was to test his theory about the classroom triggering his flow state—he hadn't planned on running a study group.
Hearing Richie's mild reprimand, Neville flushed red and nodded frantically. He knew bringing Seamus unannounced was pushing his luck.
But he and Seamus were friends. They had naturally gravitated toward each other over the past month, bonding over the shared trauma of being the two absolute worst spellcasters in Gryffindor.
Now that Neville had finally broken through his mental block with Richie's help, he desperately wanted to pull his friend out of the trenches too. But knowing his own limitations, Neville naturally turned to Richie and Hermione. As the undeniable top scholars of Ravenclaw and Gryffindor, they definitely had a solution!
Neville was absolutely certain of it.
Standing off to the side, Hermione had a small, immensely satisfied smile playing on her lips. She was in an incredibly good mood today.
Because Neville had crushed the Charms test, she had officially won her bet. Ron had no choice but to honor the terms and become Neville's personal pack mule.
At first, Neville had been incredibly uncomfortable with the arrangement, but Ron stubbornly insisted on following through.
And just as Hermione had masterminded, the ripple effects were already showing. Because Ron and Harry were stuck following Neville—who woke up early to make sure he never got lost—the two of them were actually making it to class on time. Even better, during their afternoon free periods, instead of messing around with Wizard's Chess, they were actually sitting down and doing their homework (since Neville was quietly studying, they felt too guilty to just slack off next to him).
Seeing her friends finally getting on track was incredibly fulfilling.
This is exactly how a study group should operate!
As for helping Seamus?
She was more than happy to. She loved aggressively correcting people's mistakes!