My Hogwarts has a serious problem.

Chapter 20.020. Investigation of the Spell

"Hello there."

The boy, who was practicing spells by the Black Lake, greeted Lynn first.

Lynn noticed the style of his robe; its main color was yellow and black, indicating he was a Hufflepuff student.

"Hello," Lynn replied. "I thought I was one of the earliest students at all of Hogwarts. Are you here... practicing spells?"

The boy seemed quite happy; finding someone to chat with on a dull morning was something to be happy about.

"Yes, I'm previewing the first spell Professor Flitwick is going to teach us this year, the Universal Breaking Spell."

"Isn't this a spell that you only start learning in second grade?"

Lynn recalled that when he bought textbooks at the bookstore, he also flipped through the textbooks for older grades, and he still remembered this curse.

The boy smiled apologetically at Lynn.

"Sorry, I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Cedric Diggory, and I'm a second-year student at Hufflepuff."

Upon hearing his name, Lynn paused for a moment. He remembered that this person was a tragic character who died early in the original story, and even his girlfriend later fell in love with someone else.

Cedric looked at Lynn, who had suddenly become dazed, with a strange expression.

"Is there a problem?"

Lynn snapped out of his daze, shook his head, and showed no sign of anything amiss.

"Sorry, I was daydreaming. My name is Lynn Belloc, and I'm a freshman in Slytherin."

"New student, are you up so early to familiarize yourself with Hogwarts?"

"I came here to prepare for my morning run, but... you said you were just practicing a universal anti-charm?" Lynn asked with interest.

Cedric explained to him, "This is a spell used to cancel out the effects of other spells, and it generally works on most spells."

"Do you need a sparring partner?" Lynn asked with a smile. "Its effect is to cancel out the effects of other spells, so you need a spell to take effect first."

Cedric looked at him hesitantly.

"Aren't you a freshman? You shouldn't have started learning spells yet, right?"

Lynn didn't explain, but instead drew his wand, pointing the tip at Cedric's shoes, which were covered in dew and mud.

"Completely cleaned up."

Cedric looked at the clean, brand-new shoes with amazement and exclaimed in genuine admiration.

"A fantastic cleansing charm. Even junior wizards of my level might not be able to use it better than you."

"Thank you." Lynn accepted the compliment readily. "So, am I now qualified to be your sparring partner?"

"Isn't this going to a bit too much trouble for you?" Cedric was a nice guy, and he felt like he was taking advantage of Lynn.

"It's alright, I need to practice spells anyway. Of course, it would be even better if you could point out my shortcomings in using spells," Lynn said, which was exactly what he was waiting for Cedric to say.

"I wouldn't call it guidance, but I can certainly give you some advice." Poor Mr. Diggory was completely unaware that he had fallen step by step into Lynn's trap.

"Your spell pronunciation is too fast, with almost no pauses. You must have figured it out yourself from a book without anyone teaching you, right? That's actually very dangerous."

Every year, Professor Flitwick would tell the new students the story of a wizard named Balfio, who once mispronounced the 'f' of a spell as an 's', resulting in him lying on the ground with a bison standing on him. The professor wanted to show us how crucial spells are to magic; even a single syllable error can have irreversible consequences.

Your cleansing incantation just now deviated slightly from the standard pronunciation. Although it didn't affect the incantation's effectiveness, it could still cause unforeseen deviations in the spell's power.

"scourgify"

Cedric also demonstrated the cleansing spell on Lynn's shoes, though his pronunciation was slightly different from Lynn's.

Lynn pinched her chin, trying to recall Cedric's pronunciation.

"So, you mean there needs to be a slight gap between scourg and ify?"

"Yes," he nodded.

"Not only that, but also the way you waved your wand. Do you remember what the book said? 'A smooth, curved arc like the letter S.' Did your gesture just now curve the wand upwards too much when you finished that 'S'?"

Lynn looked up in thought.

"It seems so. I might have brought in my usual letter-writing habits."

He said with shame, "I thought I had used this spell perfectly, but I didn't expect it to have so many flaws."

Cedric shook his head and said, "That's good enough. Most freshmen can't even use a single spell when they first start school. You're already ahead of many others."

"Let's begin now." Lynn took this sparring session seriously because Cedric had really helped him a lot, giving him a deeper understanding of spells.

His original idea was to use the guise of a sparring partner to get Cedric to instruct him on his spells.

After all, he is a future champion who will represent Hogwarts in the Triwizard Tournament, so his performance must be among the best of his cohort.

But I never expected to reap such great rewards.

Although it is just a cleansing spell, magic is like mathematics; the knowledge is coherent and consistent. With a little inference, many of the problems Lynn is currently facing in casting spells can be solved, and this also provides a layer of protection for the stability of his spellcasting.

Lynn doesn't like owing favors to others, and he even refused when Professor Fox first offered to sponsor him.

However, he now has to admit that he does indeed owe Cedric a favor.

He can think about it later, but he needs to take his current training partner seriously.

……

Lynn and Cedric practiced spells by the Black Lake for an hour before parting ways to have breakfast and begin their first day of classes at Hogwarts.

They agreed to meet at the same time tomorrow. Lynn even thought that he could change his daily morning run into exchanging spells with Cedric after class.

There weren't many young wizards having breakfast in the Great Hall.

Everyone went crazy at home all summer, and they probably haven't broken their habit of sleeping in yet in the first couple of days of school.

The young wizards in the various houses of Hogwarts have a strong sense of sticking together for mutual support. Even for regular meals, they usually sit at the long tables assigned to each house at the opening banquet, and rarely move between tables.

So after Lynn arrived at the Great Hall, he walked straight toward the Slytherin table.

Just as he passed the Gryffindor table, two arms suddenly wrapped around his shoulders from both sides.

They are the Weasley twin brothers.

The pronunciation of the cleansing spell is something I made up myself, but the S-shaped wand gesture is from the original book. My English is terrible, so I don't know if that word's pronunciation is correct. If any readers notice anything wrong, please leave a comment so I can fix it. Thank you!

(End of this chapter)