Chapter 231: Examiner Leonardo
The clock on the Alchemy classroom wall ticked steadily on. The three-hour qualifying round was drawing to a close, and competitors had begun finishing their work one by one.
Reiman Selwyn, seventh-year Slytherin.
Gathering up his three completed items, he walked toward the front of the room.
Seeing another competitor approaching to submit, Leonardo gestured toward the parchment and quill laid out on the lectern.
"Sign your name first."
With a wave of his hand, he summoned the three items, letting them hover in a neat row before him as he examined each one carefully, occasionally making notes on the scoring board in his hand.
Watching Leonardo mark his work, Reiman felt a strange, creeping unease. He was the senior student here. Why was he being assessed by someone two years below him?
Reiman came from the Selwyn family, one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, a house that had built its name on Alchemy and Potions. He had considerable natural aptitude for Alchemy, and with his family's resources and tradition behind him, he had entered the qualifying round with real confidence.
Genuinely capable Alchemy students at Hogwarts were few. Among the sixth and seventh years, Reiman reckoned he could at least place in the top three. With two spots available for the tournament, his chances of being selected had seemed fairly good.
Then Leonardo had appeared out of nowhere. A second-year, no less. Couldn't he have left those spots to the older students?
Now only one place remained, and the pressure had suddenly become very real.
An Alchemy-themed tournament jointly hosted by the three great European wizarding schools — the last competition of this scale had taken place over a century ago. The prestige of winning was self-evident, especially to a Slytherin.
At the thought of prestige, Reiman's expression turned pained. The second-year student, currently scoring his work, had just received a first-class Order of Merlin. Every Slytherin in the school had been green with envy over that particular honour.
"Is there something on your mind, Selwyn?"
Leonardo finished marking and looked up, only to find the student's face cycling through expressions at a remarkable rate. He asked the question simply.
Reiman flinched slightly, then quickly composed himself.
"Ah, no, nothing. I just... er, wanted to ask how I did."
Leonardo studied him for a moment before setting down the scoring board.
"Your completion rate was high, and your time was good. I'll announce the results shortly. You can head back to your seat for now."
With little choice, Reiman gathered up his work and returned to his seat.
Leonardo glanced at the clock. Ten minutes remaining. He called out a time reminder to the room.
Then he looked back at the scoring board, at the neat columns of marks and deductions he had drawn up, and shook his head to himself.
He had come up with all of this on the spot, based on the three tasks. Professor Shafiq had vanished at impressive speed without leaving so much as a hint of what the evaluation criteria should be.
Fortunately, tutoring Harry and the others had given him a certain familiarity with setting assignments and assessments. Combined with his own command of Alchemy, putting together over a hundred scoring points had not been particularly difficult.
Leonardo scanned the room. In truth, there were not many competitors. Students with a sufficient level of Alchemy had never been numerous to begin with. The subject was genuinely complex, and natural aptitude was only part of it.
Alchemy was also expensive to study. The early fundamentals were manageable enough, but serious long-term practice demanded a steady supply of materials, and the cost quickly became considerable.
Looking around the room, Leonardo could see that the overwhelming majority of competitors came from pureblood families. That was hardly surprising.
His thoughts drifted briefly to Beauxbatons, a school he had yet to visit. He was genuinely curious how they had managed to introduce Alchemy to the younger years, making it accessible to a broader range of students.
Perhaps there was something worth learning there. Something he could bring back to Hogwarts.