The Celts believed that on the last night of October the veil between the living and the dead grew thin, and the souls of the departed could return home. That ancient festival eventually became Halloween.
At Hogwarts, perched high in the Scottish Highlands, Halloween was practically a religious holiday.
Hagrid's giant pumpkins had ripened into orange behemoths big enough to use as carriages. Jack-o'-lanterns grinned from every windowsill and corridor, flickering with enchanted flames that burned orange and cold. Cloaked pumpkin-head figures lurked around corners, leaping out with hollow "BOO!"s before cackling and zooming away on tiny broomstick legs.
It was the spookiest day of the year, but somehow everyone was smiling more than usual.
Morning Charms with Professor Flitwick was a highlight. They were finally learning how to make things fly.
"Swish and flick, remember!" the tiny professor squeaked, standing on his stack of books. "And pronounce it clearly. Poor old Baruffio once said 's instead off and ended up flat on the floor with a buffalo on his chest."
A hand shot up. "Which spell did he mess up, Professor?"
Flitwick's eyes twinkled. "For the sake of your ribs, I shan't tell you. Two thousand pounds of buffalo is no laughing matter."
He clapped his hands. "Off you go—practice!"
The room erupted into happy chaos. Everyone pointed their wands at the feathers on their desks and tried Wingardium Leviosa for the first time. It was way harder than Lumos.
Flitwick made his usual rounds, pausing beside Lynn Bell.
"How's it going, lad?"
Lynn gave a sheepish shrug. "Maybe a tiny bit better? But honestly, I'm still rubbish at Charms. I can brute-force the basic spells with enough practice, but they never feel… right."
He demonstrated. "Wingardium Leviosa."
The feather rose smoothly and hovered about a foot above the desk—steady, but clearly taking a lot of effort.
"Anything heavier than a hundred pounds and I'm out of luck," Lynn admitted. "I practiced all summer and this is the best I can do."
Flitwick tapped his lips thoughtfully. "Your raw power is excellent—Professor McGonagall says you're turning sofas into elephants already. Yet with wand-based spells the output is always weaker than it should be. Curious."
He brightened. "I may have a solution. If standard spell-casting doesn't suit you, we can try an older path: rune magic."
Lynn's eyes lit up. "Runes? Like the stuff on wand cores?"
"Exactly! Runes are rigid, but they bypass the 'conversation' problem you seem to have with your magic. Think of them as writing instructions for your power instead of speaking them."
Flitwick took a scrap of parchment and, using his wand like a quill, drew a glowing line of ancient runes. A quick tap, and blue fire flashed across the symbols. The feather on Lynn's desk shot upward six feet and hung there perfectly.
"See? No pronunciation required. Just intent, precision, and activation."
He scribbled a second line. The feather drifted gently back down and settled in front of Lynn.
"Give it a go."
A few nearby students paused their own practice to watch. Most of them hadn't realized Lynn—the kid who could turn a teacup into a tortoise in Transfiguration—was actually struggling with Charms.
Lynn took a steadying breath, dipped his wand tip like a pen, and carefully wrote the same sequence Flitwick had shown him. The runes shimmered faint blue as his magic flowed into them.
"Focus on your target," Flitwick reminded softly.
Lynn tapped the finished rune.
A pulse of blue light burst outward.
Every desk, chair, quill, and ink bottle inside a ten-foot radius lifted a smooth foot off the ground and hovered there like they'd forgotten gravity existed.
The class yelped in delighted shock.
Flitwick burst out laughing and clapped like a proud grandparent. "Excellent! A touch overpowered and no targeting precision yet, but for a first attempt? Splendid!"
He flicked his wand and everything settled gently back down.
"Now then," he told the rest of the class, eyes twinkling, "who else wants to remember exactly how it felt to float just now? Swish and flick, everyone—imagine that lovely weightless feeling!"
Half the feathers in the room wobbled upward at once.
Lynn stared at the parchment in his hand, a slow grin spreading across his face.
Runes might be old-fashioned and clunky compared to waving a wand and shouting Latin, but for the first time, magic felt like it was actually listening to him.
Tomorrow was Halloween, the castle was full of laughing ghosts and floating pumpkins, and for once Lynn Bell didn't feel like the odd one out.
He traced another rune in the air with his finger, just to watch it spark.
Yeah. This was going to be fun.