For ordinary witches and wizards, innate talent matters enormously. The gifted grasp things in a flash; without talent, sheer effort alone won't cut it.
The wizarding world doesn't praise effort. Hermione studies hard, but when people talk about her grades they say she's "very talented," not "very diligent." And she is a prodigy—she learns everything fast; her hard work just gilds the lily.
Which means unlocking a new Charms-domain title first is the smarter play, because it directly boosts Sean's Charms aptitude.
If he unlocks the title by pushing three other spells to Expert, then levels up his aptitude, grinding proficiency on the harder spells afterward will be twice as effective.
Call it: grind early to power the later grind.
Sean quietly crossed out "Disillusionment" in his notes and replaced it with Quieting Charm.
That made the front-row "to Expert" combo on his list: Finite and Quieting Charm.
While Sean practiced the Quieting Charm on the Biting Vine, three more students trickled into the classroom.
Mr. Owl squawked "Little wizards! Foolish little wizards!" while letting them in.
"I heard Hogsmeade has giant jelly-juice orbs—when you sip them, your feet float a few inches off the floor," Justin said with a grin. He pulled a notebook labeled "Charms" from a sky-blue wooden shelf near the door and swapped his own "Herbology" notebook back onto it.
"Ahem. I'm more interested in a sweet from Honeydukes—Toothflossing Stringmints," Hermione said, naturally taking the Herbology notebook and shelving one labeled "Defense Against the Dark Arts."
"They're supposed to clean your teeth like floss while you suck them. Sounds decent."
Sean's notebooks were shared property in the classroom. Thanks to his powerful summarizing and his precise, almost scientific descriptions, his notes practically hunted down the fuzzy spots where the authors of the textbooks themselves must have been confused.
One glance, and first-years would toss the old books aside—like the originals weren't even written in English.
If they were, why did no one understand them?
"Oh, if only we could reach third year a bit faster," Justin sighed. "Timing's perfect—Sean, Levitation again today?"
"Mm." Sean nodded, and they launched into their daily drill—Justin on Levitation, Sean on Finite.
[You practiced Finite once at an Expert standard. Proficiency +50]
[You practiced Finite once at an Expert standard. Proficiency +50]
…
The small wooden board spun twice and settled neatly into Justin's hand.
Sean flicked his wand silently; a chart sheet with their headshots zipped into his hand. He wrote Adept next to Justin—Levitation, then sent the sheet back to the shelf by the door where it was easy to reach.
Justin grabbed it, thrilled, muttering, "Nice—finally Adept…"
Below Adept Levitation were Beginner Finite and Beginner Aguamenti.
Hermione "happened" to glance over and lifted her nose before walking away—she'd hit Adept ages ago.
The wizarding world has no official fine-grained ranks for casting skill; only in O.W.L.s are grades split into Outstanding, Exceeds Expectations, and Acceptable. That's a broad evaluation, though. Between different casters, the gap in proficiency for specific spells can be so wide it's apples to oranges.
And the Ministry's education system can't rate everyone on every single spell—it would be grueling and pointless.
Maybe that's because spells themselves fluctuate with the caster's state. In the end, first-years can hardly judge their own level, and it's hard to get motivated to practice.
Sean quietly fixed that step. It all started from his digging into Finite: Which levels of Finite cancel which levels of other spells?
By accident it worked brilliantly. His rubric was based on his own performance at each proficiency tier, which made it unusually accurate. The novel "spell mastery tiers" instantly fired everyone up.
It felt like the boss health bar had finally appeared; not casting at least two spells in a row suddenly felt like an insult to your wand.
"For spells of the same difficulty—jinxes or hexes—Finite at the same proficiency dispels them easily," Sean wrote, then added:
"For higher-grade spells, the effect drops off sharply; some tough, powerful magic can't be ended with Finite alone. Maintenance is always harder than release and eats more magic—simply cutting the flow isn't enough."
Sean guessed that's why some strong spells require bespoke counters: Transfiguration and the Counter-Spell to restore, Sectumsempra and its specific counter, and so on.
Dusk slid toward a hazy violet. The cold still bit. At the warm hearth, Sean holstered his wand; Finite climbed from (2200/3000) to (2650/3000).
Four hundred and fifty points in the bank—looked like he'd unlock Expert Finite tonight.
Unlike his early struggle with nonverbal Levitation, nonverbal Finite came much easier.
The pain point with nonverbal casting is that once you're used to speaking, your mouth rebels when you try silence. You feel a strong, physical urge to say the word; you have to clamp down on it with willpower, which tightens your lips or makes them mouth the syllables silently—distraction in its own right.
But Sean had already beaten that back practicing Levitation. And nonverbal casting needs the three pillars—emotion, firm will, and precise incantation.
None of that was hard for Sean.
So when he stood still, said nothing, and snapped his wand to cleanly knock down every strand of Justin's Aguamenti, Hermione couldn't help watching for a long moment.
Neville's mouth, meanwhile, hung open wide enough to fit a goose egg.
One look at his own sheet—pathetic little Beginner Levitation—and a long-lost fire rose in Mr. Longbottom's heart.
"Now that's a wizard…" Justin said, praise warm and sincere. "But it's handover time with the upperclassmen, Sean. Shall we head out now?"
~~~
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