"It's 'Leviosa' and not 'Leviosar'." Rigel heard Hermione explaining to Ron, clearly annoyed by the idiotic way the boy was performing the magic, not only was he pronouncing it wrong, but he was also waving his wand as if it were a stick.
Even Rigel found it difficult to see that.
"Well then! Do it yourself, if you're so smart!" Ron said, annoyed.
Rigel knew that the way Hermione spoke might sound like she was talking to a dumb baboon, yet she still wanted to help. In the end, Ron was just frustrated and wanted to take it out on someone, and Hermione acting like a know-it-all really became an outlet for his frustrations.
Hermione loved the feeling of showing how clever she was, and Ron's request gave her the perfect opportunity. Unfortunately, she couldn't see that Ron's request only aimed to point out her flaws, not celebrate her successes. So, when Hermione made the feather float perfectly with practiced movements, Ron wasn't happy at all.
Instead, his face completely hardened, and he looked away in irritation.
"Very good! Miss Granger, very good!" Professor Flitwick knew nothing of the pair's inner dramas, he was simply delighted that a student had managed to perform the magic so quickly. "Look, kids, Miss Granger did it! One point for Gryffindor!"
Rigel simply watched the scene in silence, then made his own feather float perfectly, earning another point from the satisfied Professor Flitwick.
Right after Rigel made the feather float, an explosion sounded not far from him, although most of the students were surprised, including Professor Flitwick, Rigel, Harry and Dean were not.
The trio had been expecting this, especially Dean and Harry, who had moved away slightly when Seamus began waving his wand.
Seamus's face was covered in soot, his expression showing he couldn't comprehend how 1 + 1 equaled an explosion.
Harry spoke to the professor soon after, still keeping a little distance from Seamus. "I think we need another feather here, Professor."
By the end of class, Seamus had exploded two more feathers before launching one away like a rocket, the feather nearly hit the professor like a missile, who quickly ducked to dodge it.
Seamus seemed both embarrassed and hopeful. "Does that count?"
That didn't count, Flitwick almost wanted to deduct points from the boy, but luckily he had a good humor.
Harry and Dean also managed to make the feather float a little before the end of class. Neville barely managed to move the feather, but Rigel still patted him on the shoulder, proud that he hadn't exploded the feather or tried to hit the professor, which was already very good.
Besides, the fact that he didn't get hurt during the whole class was even better, considering the boy's luck, he was expecting him to end up making his own clothes float away and consequently float along with them until he fell and broke another bone.
Madam Pomfrey was already used to visits from Neville by this point.
Ron's mood didn't improve until the end of the lesson, he tried a few more times, but Hermione seemed to think that because she had succeeded, she should try to help Ron succeed as well.
Ron, of course, grew increasingly irritated, his freckled cheeks already red with anger, though Hermione didn't seem to notice any of it. Her mind was filled with the realization of teaching a colleague how to improve. She loved that.
When class ended and they were leaving, Ron finally had time to vent. "Damn, she's so annoying, 'it's Leviosa and not Leviosar', no wonder she doesn't have any friends, acting like such an irritating know-it-all..."
Ron continued to complain, Seamus and Dean were laughing, Harry didn't like to speak ill of others, even behind their backs, so he just nodded calmly, letting Ron vent.
Rigel and Neville just walked normally, Neville was still smiling, satisfied that he wouldn't end up in the infirmary this time.
It was at that moment, while Ron was speaking, that Hermione passed by him, deliberately bumping into the boy. She left clutching her books tightly, head down, and walking quickly.
She was clearly very upset, probably already crying.
"I think she heard." Harry said with a hint of pity.
"So what?" Ron said, a little awkwardly. Despite everything, Ron just wanted to vent, not hurt Hermione, so he was a little hesitant and awkward, but whether it was his pride or the belief that it wasn't his fault for speaking up, but Hermione's for being annoying, he quickly dismissed it.
Rigel simply ignored it, he was still thinking about the troll during the night, more precisely, how to deal with it.
Diabolus? Using Dark Magic at Hogwarts? No, sorry, it would have been better to avoid that.
Ira Maris was also dropped for the same reason.
Slicing him into pieces with wind magic or electrocuting him to death with lightning magic could also attract unwanted attention, especially considering the look he gave Snape at the start of the school year.
Therefore, he hoped not to kill the troll, at least not in a way that seemed intentional.
He considered using transfiguration or water magic, drowning the troll seemed like a good idea, or perhaps transfiguring it into a ball of steel around its head.
Well, he'll see what the circumstances are like at the time.
After class, since he didn't have to take Neville to the infirmary, he and Neville went to the library to do the homework that Flitwick had assigned.
They invited the others too, but Dean and Seamus preferred to go play and Harry was dragged away by Ron to play wizard's chess, so in the end it was just the two of them.
Neville seemed increasingly like a bookworm, although his theoretical knowledge was still difficult to measure, bordering on negative.
The boy's mind simply couldn't retain much information unless he was interested in it.
So, most of the time, he was reading about plants, he had already picked up the same book more than 10 times, he quickly forgot some things, so he had to reread everything, even so, he liked it, so Rigel didn't stop him.
First they did their homework, Rigel didn't need much help, it was just a short essay about the levitation spell, how it was created, by whom, for what purpose, when, how to pronounce it, gestures and blah, blah, blah.
[A/N: I was just thinking: is homework still homework if you go to boarding school? That's weird.]
It was quite fast, for first-year students, teachers wouldn't ask for much critical thinking, just copying information from the book was perfectly acceptable.
Rigel and Neville split up to look up each piece of information in their books, and in the end they finished in just a few minutes.
They spent two hours afterwards reading whatever they wanted in the library, Neville, as was his custom, picked up a book about plants.
Rigel, on the other hand, was studying a book on advanced transfiguration, basically the book on Animagus.
This book was in the restricted section, but Rigel asked Minerva directly after she realized he was too far ahead of himself. She only allowed Rigel to take the book after he asked for it at least ten times and further promised not to try to become an Animagus without her permission.
Rigel had no interest in trying, he had been studying the magical animals materials he had obtained from Calypso during those months. Although transforming into a magical animal was still a long way off, he had barely managed to replicate the effects, albeit in a much weaker way.
Most of the time he only died after the spell went wrong, but he had the advantage of being able to try as much as he wanted.
The only reason he was studying Animagus was to deepen his theoretical knowledge of human transfiguration.
Upon reading the book, he quickly became disappointed, although it did involve a lot of theoretical content about 'how', it was purely theoretical, nothing more.
As when explaining what animal an Animagus transforms into, the book said that some wizards believed it was a matter of personality, others of lineage, and still others believed it was a matter of time, place, and mentality.
It was difficult to say who was right, but it became clear that no in-depth research had been done on the subject, at least that information wasn't in those books.
Rigel figured he would probably find the answers he was looking for in Uagadou or Castelo Bruxo, places more focused on that kind of ritualistic magic.
Sighing, Rigel closed the book and returned it to Mrs. Pince, still before leaving to have lunch with Neville.