"Hermione, is this the snowman you girls made?" Louis walked over, chuckling as he looked at the lopsided pile of snow.
It didn't even resemble a snowman—more like a crude cone shoved into the ground.
Calling it a "snowman" was already being generous. Clearly, they just didn't know how.
Louis glanced at Hermione's companions. One was Padma—nothing unusual there. The other was an Asian-looking girl he hadn't seen before. That must be Cho Chang.
She was a second-year, so Louis had no idea how she ended up hanging around with Hermione and Padma.
"Well, we're not exactly good at making snowmen," Hermione admitted with a troubled look. "Let me introduce you—this is my new friend, Cho Chang."
Hermione pointed toward the girl with obvious Eastern features.
Cho gave Louis a shy smile.
"Nice to meet you, Cho Chang… I'm Louis."
He almost wanted to call her Zhang Qiu by her Chinese order, but figured that having grown up in Britain, she likely wasn't used to it herself.
Cho was a half-blood. Her father was Chinese, but while her appearance leaned distinctly Eastern, certain details—her complexion, her build, her expression—showed Western traits.
It made Louis feel oddly conflicted just looking at her.
"Need a hand?" Louis asked, gesturing toward the sad excuse for a snowman.
"Of course! Please, make us a proper one," Hermione said happily.
Louis, keeping up appearances, pulled out his hollow replica wand and tapped the snow.
The power of the Rooster Talisman flowed out, wrapping around the snow and reshaping it exactly the way he wanted.
In no time at all, a snow-sculpted Hermione stood before them.
Because of the loose snow, the figure was a bit rough around the edges, its expression lacking fine detail. But as a snowman, it was undeniably impressive.
"That's amazing!" Cho and Padma exclaimed, admiration—and maybe a hint of envy—shining in their eyes.
Hermione, however, didn't blush or grow flustered. Instead, she was practically bouncing with curiosity.
"How did you do that?" she asked eagerly. "What spell was it?"
Of course. Her thirst for learning overrode everything else.
Padma and Cho exchanged amused looks, watching Hermione badger Louis for his secret.
Louis obviously couldn't teach her the use of the Rooster Talisman—but bluffing was easy. Wizarding magic didn't have rigid systems anyway. If someone claimed to use an unusual method, others usually chalked it up to talent rather than suspecting some foreign power.
That was the nature of magic in Harry Potter's world—it leaned on instinct and self-belief more than formulas. Confidence in "I can do this" was half the battle.
"It's the Levitation Charm," Louis said with utmost seriousness. "I just applied it more flexibly—treating the snow as both a whole and as separate parts…"
His straight-faced nonsense was so convincing that the three girls leaned in, listening intently to every word.
Louis rambled on until his mouth was dry, and when he felt he had spun enough, he concluded, "That's about my take on it. You can give it a try yourselves."
And try they did.
Hermione, Padma, and Cho all whipped out their wands and cast Wingardium Leviosa at the snow piled on the ground.
But the very first step proved difficult. Theory might have been sound, but reality was far less forgiving.
Loose snow wasn't the same as compacted snowballs. Their spells did affect the snow—but only managed to blast up little explosions of powdery white mist from the ground.
After Louis finished bluffing, he simply stood to the side, watching the girls experiment, expressionless as he waited for the system's notification.
But nothing came. The system didn't judge his words as deceit…
"Huh… don't tell me what I just said was actually true?" Louis tapped his forehead blankly.
So the system had this kind of function too? Didn't that mean he could march up to a researcher, toss out some scientific hypothesis, and immediately know from the system's response whether it was correct?
Good lord—at that rate, humanity would be fast-tracked into a great leap forward, colonizing the solar system in no time.
Still, that was just a passing thought. The important part was that Louis' words had to convince his audience.
In magic, there was no need for proof—belief itself was proof. Convincing a few trusting girls with his "theory" was child's play.
But trying to use a half-baked guess to convince an actual scientist? Even with illusions, Louis wasn't sure how he'd pull that off.
Too much trouble. Pass.
"Wow! Look, Hermione—she did it!"
Padma's startled exclamation snapped Louis out of his musings.
Sure enough, Hermione had her wand pointed at a clump of snow, which was slowly floating upward. The snow trembled slightly, but didn't scatter—it was as if a pair of invisible hands were holding it up.
She had actually succeeded.
Louis chuckled softly. See? That's magic. So simple.
As long as you dared to imagine, you could make it happen—that was the essence of magic.
But this was just the beginning. Hermione had only managed to treat a bundle of snow as a single whole. She still didn't know how to shape it, so her eyes inevitably turned to Louis for help.
And what could he do? The "lesson" he had given was pure nonsense. Convincing nonsense, yes, but he had no real method to teach. All he could do was spread his hands and give Hermione an encouraging look.
Hermione lost focus for just a second, and the snow in her grasp suddenly split apart, exploding in midair. Clearly, her perception of the "whole" had slipped.
Snow showered down, covering the three girls from head to toe. Padma and Cho froze for a moment, then burst into shrieking laughter before scooping up snow to retaliate against Hermione.
Louis stood by grinning, watching them play—until, inevitably, they turned on him too. A volley of snowballs came flying his way.
Laughter and joy filled the courtyard, the air thick with playful energy.
And then, striding past in the corridor alongside the courtyard, came Quirrell—an aura utterly at odds with the lively scene.
The moment the twins spotted him, their eyes lit up.
Quirrell, this year's Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, had long since disgusted them to no end.
Hogwarts had never offered alchemy classes—there just weren't enough qualified applicants. Which made Defense Against the Dark Arts all the more important.
In past years, the professors might not have lasted the whole school term, but their teaching was at least competent, inspiring, and full of intriguing ideas.
Quirrell, however, was completely useless. His "lessons" were nothing but reading from the textbook, and whenever the twins asked a real question, he always had no idea.
It sickened them. So seeing him now, they exchanged a glance, grinned, and packed a pair of snowballs.
Their enchanted missiles twisted elegantly through the air in an S-curve, aiming straight for the back of Quirrell's head.
He spotted the threatening snowballs at once and panicked, clutching his head as he tried to run. But he wasn't fast enough—they smacked him on the back of the skull.
The damage was nothing… but the humiliation was immense.
That was Voldemort's face that just got hit.
Louis, dodging snowballs in the courtyard, couldn't help laughing as he watched the spectacle.
After all, Voldemort didn't dare lash out right now. So why not enjoy the show?
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