#23 - Charms

Anduin walked around the entire castle, returning to the Great Hall from the Entrance Hall. He noticed that some people were already having breakfast, and feeling hungry himself, he joined them.

"Anduin, I thought you hadn't gotten up yet. I didn't expect to find you here. I was waiting for you in the common room this morning," Vivian said as she entered from the doorway just as Anduin sat down. Seeing that he was already there, she walked over with a look of resentment.

"Sorry, I woke up very early this morning, so you didn't see me. You don't have to worry about me in the mornings anymore, I'm used to waking up early," Anduin explained to Vivian with a slightly apologetic expression.

"I won't wait for you anymore. What if you run off early and can't find your way back? Luckily, our common room is directly above the Great Hall. Otherwise, I might not be able to find this place in such a large castle," Vivian said, jumping from one topic to another.

"Don't worry, I've already walked around the castle. I've also found the classrooms where we'll be having lessons. Just follow me later," Anduin said before lowering his head to eat his breakfast quickly.

As they were chatting, a flock of owls suddenly flew into the hall, dropping letters. Anduin received several letters, from Lily, Sirius, and Tom. The letters were mostly congratulating Anduin on his admission, while Sirius was anxiously asking which house Anduin had been sorted into and whether it was Gryffindor.

That's going to disappoint you. If Sirius finds out I was sorted into Slytherin, would that guy break off our friendship? Anduin thought wryly.

Afterward, Anduin put away the letters and went to Charms class with Vivian.

Upon entering the classroom, Anduin discovered that they were having class with Gryffindor, which he found very puzzling. He knew that Slytherin and Gryffindor had a deep conflict, which even affected the lower-year students after the Sorting Ceremony.

Inside the classroom, Anduin saw Charles, wearing his Gryffindor robes, already sitting in his seat waiting. Anduin and Charles exchanged a glance and nodded to each other, before Anduin found a seat on the other side. Soon after, the bell rang for class to begin.

The Charms professor, Filius Flitwick, was short in stature and said to be a human-goblin hybrid. During class, he even needed to stand on a pile of books so that the students could see him clearly. And so, Anduin's first class at Hogwarts began.

In Anduin's opinion, the Charms class taught very basic things. Only a dozen simple spells were taught in a year. In the first class, Charms professor Filius Flitwick mainly explained the basic principles of charms without even getting into the spell-casting part, which greatly reduced Anduin's interest in the class. He had essentially already mastered all the first-year spells.

Anduin barely listened during the entire class. Instead, he took out parchment and began replying to the letters from his friends.

In his letter to Tom, he simply exchanged basic greetings and reported that he was safe.

In his letters to Lily and Sirius, in addition to greetings, he also told them about being sorted into Slytherin and gave a general introduction to what he had seen and heard after entering Slytherin, expressing his worries about his future and hoping that the two graduated seniors could give him some advice.

After carefully writing the letters, Anduin noticed that Professor Flitwick had finally finished explaining the magic theories, and the second class finally began with spell-casting instruction.

The first spell they learned was the Levitation Charm, which Anduin was most familiar with. Professor Flitwick spent a lot of time explaining the hand movements and incantation, and then began to have everyone practice, trying to cast the spell on a feather to make it float.

The young wizards around him began practicing the spell. Most people couldn't even make the feather move an inch after reciting the incantation for the first time.

"Wingardium Leviosa, Wingardium Levio-sa..." Vivian recited the incantation with an inaccurate accent, frantically waving her wand at the feather. She even turned red in the face.

Anduin rolled his eyes. Did this girl put all her talent into gossip? Professor Flitwick demonstrated so clearly, yet she still mispronounced the incantation.

On the other side, Sampul Travers managed to make the feather float after a few tries. Although it was shaking as if it would fall at any moment, he smiled triumphantly at the people around him after seeing his success.

Anduin saw that Professor Flitwick had already walked down from the podium and was looking around. Not wanting to slack off too obviously, he had to take out his wand and gently point it at the feather as the professor approached. The feather floated steadily in front of the wand, not moving at all.

Crap, forgot to chant.

Because Anduin was so familiar with this spell, he cast it habitually, without any hand movements or incantation.

"Excellent Levitation Charm, Mr. Wilson. This Levitation Charm is cast very well." Professor Flitwick didn't seem to notice that Anduin hadn't chanted, and walked straight over, praising his Levitation Charm. "Slytherin gains 2 points. This is almost the perfect casting of the Levitation Charm. Everyone, follow Mr. Wilson's example."

Everyone in the classroom raised their heads to look at Flitwick and Anduin, and many young wizards showed envious eyes towards Anduin's spell-casting. Of course, some people's eyes were not so friendly.

Anduin awkwardly accepted Flitwick's praise because he hadn't used any hand movements or incantation this time. He wondered if anyone had noticed.

"Did you not chant just now?" Vivian brought her head close to Anduin and whispered.

"Shh," Anduin hushed Vivian, telling her not to speak out loud.

Anduin didn't want to be too different in class, knowing that the more obvious the target, the more dangerous it was.

It seemed that Professor Flitwick really hadn't noticed Anduin's trick, and continued to patrol, correcting and guiding the other students' hand movements and incantations.

Anduin also gave up on pretending to practice and turned to teach Vivian. After Anduin corrected Vivian's hand movements and incantation errors, Vivian finally cast a fairly complete Levitation Charm before the end of class.

"Alright, that's all for today's class. Everyone go back and write a 6-inch essay about the Levitation Charm." Then Professor Flitwick paused and added.

"Mr. Anduin Wilson, please stay behind for a moment."

As expected, he didn't escape the professor's eyes. Anduin signaled Vivian not to wait for him and remained alone in the classroom.