HP: Azkaban's Outstanding Graduate

……

"Professor Lumina, what are you trying to do?"

More and more curious young wizards were drawn to the edge of the Black Lake, craning their necks to watch the red falcons busily darting across the ice, their wands waving incessantly, and couldn't help but ask questions.

"Ha! This is brand new teaching material!" Red Falcon stopped what he was doing, turned around, his face beaming with excitement, and answered loudly.

"A skating competition?" a student peered out and guessed.

"Of course it's not just about ice skating!"

The kestrel waved its hand dramatically, as if dispelling a boring thought.

Then she strode towards the students by the lake, lightly tapping her throat with her wand:

"A loud and clear voice!"

Her voice was instantly amplified, echoing clearly and powerfully in the frigid air and on the ice:

"This is to test your ability to adapt to changing circumstances," she said seriously. "Imagine, in battle, what if the enemy sees they can't defeat you and tries to escape?"

The students looked at each other in bewilderment: "Huh?"

"Idiot! Of course we should give chase!"

The hawk shouted in exasperation, then changed the subject, "Then what if you can't beat your opponent?"

This time the students learned their lesson and shouted in unison, "Run away!"

"Wrong!" Red Falcon immediately raised a finger, correcting him sternly, "That's called 'strategic transfer'! Understand? Strategic transfer!"

With her hands on her hips and chin slightly raised, she spoke with righteous indignation: "Can you survive by simply running away like a fool? How naive! The art of running away—or rather, 'strategic retreat'—lies in learning to change the path you're on!"

She paced back and forth, speaking eloquently, "Whether it's building bridges and paving roads to gain a chance of survival, or creating 'little surprises' for the pursuers to buy time, these are all life-saving skills in real combat! This lesson is a rehearsal for the future battlefield!"

The students, seemingly understanding but not quite, exclaimed, "Oh—!"

"Alright, you won't grasp the essence just by talking about theory."

Red Falcon, clearly satisfied with his explanation, waved impatiently, his gaze sweeping across the crowd like a searchlight. He pointed at a dozen or so young wizards, shouting, "You! You! You! You! You! And you and the rest of you! Yes, don't hide, it's you!"

She pointed precisely at Hermione, who had been dragged over by Harry and Ron to watch the commotion, and said, "Don't just stand there, go down and try out the track! Practice makes perfect!"

Hermione looked bewildered, but she had no choice but to slowly stand on the starting line with the other unlucky ones who had been called out.

Red Falcon explained the key points of the rules to everyone concisely and quickly. Only after making sure everyone understood did she take out her wand.

"Pay attention, the way the commands are given is a bit special!" Red Falcon grinned slyly. "At the beginning, I'll give you a little... small help!"

After saying that, she gracefully waved her wand in the air.

The young wizards, lined up in a row, felt an irresistible force suddenly thrusting from behind them. Before they could even utter a cry of alarm, they were sent flying like pebbles launched from a slingshot.

The once silent ice field was instantly ignited, transforming into a giant magical ice rink filled with uncontrollable screams and maniacal laughter.

At the same time, to the astonishment of the young wizards, the kestrels took off and transformed into a glowing red bird phantom, quickly flying towards the sky above the racetrack.

"Ahhh—plop!" A Hufflepuff freshman stepped into a "slippery trap" as soon as he started, and flew out like an out-of-control top, his face covered in ice shards, which drew a burst of laughter.

He frantically cleaned himself up, then scrambled to his feet and continued.

"Watch my ice slope—ouch!" A confident Gryffindor senior uses "Ice Rise" to try and leap over an obstacle.

Unfortunately, the angle was too steep, and the "ice slope" turned into an "ice wall." He crashed into it solidly and then slid far away along the ice like a flattened frog.

"Cross the bridge! Hurry up and cross the bridge!" Two Ravenclaw students rushed toward a "swaying ice bridge" almost simultaneously.

As soon as one person stepped onto the bridge, another person behind him grinned mischievously and applied "ice lubrication" to the bridge surface behind him.

"Swoosh—splat!"

The two of them, along with several others who were trying to pick up the scraps, slipped and fell flat on their faces on the bridge.

"Obstacles everywhere!...Wait, not here!"

An overly nervous Slytherin student misjudged the finish line, tried to brake but his hand slipped, and he threw "Obstacles" in front of the runners on the adjacent track.

The innocent athlete was sprinting at full speed when he suddenly felt as if he had hit an invisible rubber wall. He was "bounced" into the air and landed on the ground in an extremely comical manner, which drew even louder laughter.

"Level it! Level it quickly!" someone shouted at the bumpy area shrouded in "mist spray" ahead. His companion hurriedly cast "Ice Leveling," but the spell went astray. The spell swept across the side area and turned a good road into a bumpy mess. He rushed in and was jolted so hard that he almost dropped his wand. His curses were drowned out by laughter.

The whole scene was like a magical version of "Mario Kart on Ice," with the ice surface rising and falling under the influence of a spell, and the ice bridge appearing and disappearing like a phantom.

As the wrestlers screamed and struggled to maintain their balance on the ice, they frantically waved their wands like duelists—reshaping their own path, digging pits for their opponents, or trying to save themselves from an impending wrestling fate.

At the heart of this chaos, a kestrel, a nimble black shadow, hovered low in the sky, overseeing the battle.

She held a gleaming stopwatch in one hand and a scoreboard in the other, which was magically updated in real time with various hilarious deductions: "Bumping into an ice pack -1", "Friendly fire -2", "Gorgeous fall +1".

One moment she'd whistle loudly at a student who had narrowly escaped the edge of the "bottomless ice cave," and the next she'd mercilessly mock a hapless student who had fallen flat on his back due to a mishap with his spell.

Chapter 158 Hermione's Unexpected Journey

"She'll definitely be the first one to fall." Before the match even started, Ron mumbled his prediction while munching on a chicken pie he'd snatched from the kitchen. "Hermione can't even ride a flying broomstick properly, let alone—Merlin's socks!"

Harry followed Ron's suddenly wide-eyed gaze and saw Hermione's wand already swinging swiftly the instant she was pushed away by magic.

She took a slight leap into the air like a nimble bird, her robes fluttering as she landed steadily on the ice, while five or six students around her had already fallen into a heap.

"Levitation Charm!" Harry nudged Ron's arm in surprise. "She cast the spell on the sole of her shoe!"

Ron's pie froze in his mouth: "Did she plan this all along?"

Harry suddenly pointed to the arena, "Look! She's about to cross the mist."

While the other contestants were bumping around in the fog like headless flies, Hermione suddenly crouched down. A burst of magical light shot from the tip of her wand, and the ice in front of her instantly became as smooth as a mirror.

"She wouldn't be going to—"

Before Ron could finish speaking, Hermione had already used the momentum to slide tackle.

She flew almost parallel to the ground, her chestnut curls brushing against the ice, and "whoosh"ed out from the narrow gap below the mist. The crowd erupted in cheers.

"Merlin's beard!" Ron gasped. "I think I've seen this move before in Quidditch!"

Just after passing through the fog, there was a fork in the road ahead.

On the left is a straight path full of "tripping ice bumps", while on the right you have to cross a not-so-narrow ice crevasse with only a narrow "swaying ice bridge" on it.

A Slytherin student was trying to rush onto the ice bridge. Hermione didn't hesitate for a moment, her wand quickly pointing to the edge of the crack: "Ice Bridge Formed!"

A new ice bridge, closer to her side, was instantly formed.

Before the bridge was even fully stable, she used the momentum of her high-speed gliding to make a light jump, landing steadily in the center of the bridge and sliding across.

The Slytherin student, due to the swaying of the bridge, lost his balance and fell into the crack with a "plop," drawing laughter from the crowd.

Harry suddenly grabbed Ron's shoulder: "Watch out! Someone's up to no good!"

They saw a Ravenclaw boy secretly pointing his wand at the ice in front of Hermione.

Harry had barely uttered a warning when Hermione, as if she had eyes in the back of her head, cast a spell with her own hands, striking first. The boy slipped and fell straight into the snowdrift.

"Beautiful!" Ron excitedly pounded the railing, abandoning his pie. "When did she learn that move?"

“She’s hardly had any rest lately,” Harry grinned. “She’s been practicing every day!”

The most exciting part is the "slippery trap" before the finish line.

While the other contestants were twisting and turning in this area, Hermione suddenly conjured a series of small ice slopes. She moved left and right on the slopes, her speed increasing instead of decreasing.

"She's using obstacles to accelerate!" Harry jumped to his feet. "No, we're going to crash!"

"Slow down!" Ron suddenly shouted.

Hermione is rushing toward the boundary at an astonishing speed.

At the critical moment, her wand burst forth with dazzling magical light, and the ice surface in front of her instantly transformed into a miniature roller coaster track with a spiral slide.

Without hesitation, she stepped onto the makeshift slide.

She glided rapidly around the spiral track twice, skillfully dissipating most of her momentum, and then her wand lit up again: "Stop! Obstacles!"

The ear-piercing scraping sound echoed throughout the venue, and ice shards flew everywhere.

Hermione scraped two long white streaks across the ice, finally coming to a steady stop just an inch from the edge, her robes billowing high due to inertia.

The audience was silent.

Hermione calmly pointed her wand at the robe: "Cleaned up."

All the ice shards vanished instantly.

A deafening roar of cheers erupted instantly. All the students who witnessed this scene by the lake began to applaud wildly.

"When did Hermione become so...so..."

"cool?"

"That's right, it's cool!"

"Perfect maneuver! Textbook level!" The kestrel swooped down like lightning, stopping in front of Hermione, patting her shoulder hard, its face full of undisguised admiration and excitement.

"Well done, Miss Granger! First place! 20 points added to Gryffindor!"

The Gryffindor students cheered again. Hermione, however, became a little embarrassed. She quietly hugged the scattered books to her chest and slipped away from the chaotic crowd when no one was looking.

"Hey! The champion ran away!" Seamus shouted, pointing at Hermione's retreating figure.

Harry and Ron exchanged a glance and followed after them in unison.

……

The field test was over, and there were a few more young wizards with scrapes in the infirmary. When another group of laughing and playing injured people pushed open the door, Ms. Pomfrey's hand holding the medicine bottle visibly trembled.

Seeing the group of wounded soldiers chatting and laughing, a sense of foreboding suddenly rose in her heart.

"Is it Professor Lumina's Defense Against the Dark Arts class again?"

Several students nodded immediately.

She sighed, waved her wand, and a row of small vials filled with purple potions flew onto the table and lined up.

Several seventh-grade medical volunteers immediately sprang into action, skillfully distributing the medicine.