Once the naming problem was settled, it was time for what everyone most looked forward to: learning magic. Unexpectedly, Ron was every bit as enthusiastic as Terry.
Sterling thought Mr. Weasley's thinning hairline probably didn't give Ron much sense of security.
"This spell originally has no incantation, but if we add one to lower the difficulty… Aurora."
Sterling demonstrated it once. For this, he deliberately abandoned his usual casting habits, carefully flicked his wand by the book, and spoke the incantation.
"The wand should dip down, then immediately lift up to the right, tracing a crescent arc… give it a try?"
Ron volunteered first. Imitating Sterling, he called, "Eurora!"
With a pop, his hair turned an unmistakable platinum-blond.
He stared in horror at the fringe falling in front of his eyes, trembling. Platinum… of all the possible colors, it had to be this one.
Harry burst out laughing. A Weasley child with Malfoy's hair colour—this was the kind of thing that would spread across the whole castle before breakfast.
"St–Sterling?" Ron nearly sobbed.
Sterling pressed his fingers against his temples. "Your pronunciation and motion are both off. First, it's not 'Eu' but 'Ao', and you need to hold the vowel a bit longer. Also, when lifting the wand, you didn't swing to the right; you went straight up."
Ron nodded miserably, too afraid to try again. He looked at Sterling with desperate hope.
"That's… a bit tricky," Sterling admitted. Even he hadn't expected a miscast to dye someone's hair. It felt like the difference between a Levitation Charm and a Bison Hex—an accident unique only once.
"Maybe Madam Pomfrey might have a way?"
"Oh no… if I walk into the hospital wing with Malfoy's hair, I'll never live it down…" Ron looked ready to curl into a corner.
"Do not be like that, Ron. Remember you are a wizard." Hermione huffed, tapped a parchment, and transfigured it into a hat that she plopped over his head.
Then she raised her wand, carefully practised the pronunciation twice, traced the crescent motion several times, and only then combined them.
"Aurora!"
In an instant, her bushy hair became sleek and glossy, spilling down her back and trailing like silk across the floor.
Success.
Sterling's eyes lit up. With an example like this, maybe… maybe Avonlian spells could actually be taught in the waking world.
But before he could savour the thought, Hermione suddenly let out a weak groan.
"Hermione?!" Padma caught her before she collapsed. The others gathered quickly in panic.
That shouldn't have happened… what caused this?
Sterling's hand clenched behind his back around the black quill. With sharp, urgent strokes, he wrote in the air:
"Hermione Granger is safe and sound."
The instant the final letter was formed, Sterling felt a wave of weakness drain through his body. But Hermione's strained expression faded, her brows slowly smoothing.
"Hermione! Are you alright?" Ron's voice wavered. "Should we take you to the hospital wing?"
"Mmm… no need." She steadied herself, sitting upright again.
"My magic was suddenly drained dry… If another surge of magic hadn't just poured in from nowhere, I might have fainted right here…"
The air turned heavy.
Ron, Neville, and Terry—raised in wizarding families—knew best what that meant. A wizard's body shouldn't be able to burn through their reserves. By design, the body cuts off magic supply long before exhaustion. Safety mechanisms, ingrained since birth.
If a wizard actually emptied their reserves—fragile like glass, vulnerable to even the gentlest shock—that was how accidents turned fatal.
And it only happened in two cases: battles desperate enough the body tore off its own restraints… or forcing magic wildly beyond one's level.
Yet Aurora was just a hair charm.
Sterling's eyes darkened. If a trivial Avalonian spell could reduce Hermione to this, what kind of toll would shaping magic demand?
"This spell's magic cost… it doesn't make sense," Terry muttered, baffled. "The consumption doesn't match the result. Magic always scales—the brighter a Lumos, the higher the cost. But this is just hair."
Sterling forced a smile, though guilt twisted in his gut. "Then I chose wrong. I'm sorry, Hermione. I shouldn't have rushed this. And I nearly dragged the rest of you down with it."
Hermione shook her head, smiling faintly. "Good thing we cast one at a time. If we'd all tried together, we'd all have collapsed. Don't apologise. We pushed you into teaching it so quickly."
Still… she felt some strange force coursing through her. The eyes that had been weary from weeks of books shone sharper than before.
"…Let's go to the hospital wing anyway," Sterling insisted. "And Ron—your hair!"
"Yes, yes, quickly, before anyone sees me like this!"
"They're only first-years, Slytherin and Hufflepuff…" Hermione sighed, looking at Ron. Sometimes she wondered how he and she could possibly be the same age.
Chattering nervously, they left, Padma carefully lifting Hermione's long silk hair so no Gryffindor stepped on it—especially not a certain redhead.
Harry was last out, responsible for closing the door. He hesitated, glancing back at the empty classroom where Sterling had demonstrated.
"…Aurora?"
Hair brushed his forehead. He hadn't even raised his wand. Just the word, half-spoken, was enough to lengthen his fringe an inch.
"Harry! Hurry up!"
Ron's voice rang from the stairs. With a quick shake of his head, Harry pushed the door shut and ran after them.
Inside the sealed classroom, a candle suddenly dropped from the chandelier and burst into flame. From the spiralling blaze, Dumbledore and a broad portrait frame stepped out.
"Your control over fire grows ever more refined," said a languid voice.
The portrait depicted an elderly man lounging in sunglasses, sipping from a coconut through a straw—Nicolas Flamel.
"I knew it. Your old paramour was always so adept with flame… There was no way you'd be worse, Albus," the painted alchemist teased.
But Dumbledore, usually quick to bristle at any mention of that "old paramour", was uncharacteristically solemn.
His half-moon glasses glowed as he tapped the empty air with the Elder Wand. White light pulsed outward, revealing a line written across the void in burning letters—
"Hermione Granger is safe and sound."
The phrase dissolved like chalk wiped from a slate.
"Oh?" Flamel lifted his brows behind his dark lenses. "So you did think of something, old friend?"
"I recall, Nicolas…" Dumbledore murmured, staring at the vanishing words. "You also once found Avalon in Jerusalem. You know."
"Indeed, indeed. My alchemy itself was born of that glimpse, taught by a radiant Archangel… I too beheld, through the gateway, the holiest heart of Avalon."
In the portrait, Nicolas Flamel touched the cross on his chest, whispering with reverence.
"The omniscient, omnipotent Lord… Only He holds the authority of Creation. All things and all beings flow from His infinite love…"
Dumbledore ignored the prayer. Quietly, he polished the tip of the Elder Wand, its wood faintly charred from his spell.
"How similar…" he muttered to himself. "That glimmer, leaking from a quill's tip… how unlike it is from His gaze… and yet… how close."