Julian frowned at that, because he had gone out of his way to make sure his flying talent never stood out too much during class. As far as he was concerned, what he had shown was nowhere near impressive enough to justify her coming to him personally to ask whether he planned on playing Quidditch.
"Tsk. I thought so after Sinistra mentioned your little flight on Christmas night. It was obvious in class that you were never really giving it your all, but what I can't understand is why. What stopped you all this time?" she asked, sounding genuinely confused.
Julian groaned the moment he heard that, having completely forgotten about the astronomy professor, who naturally had every reason to spend her time staring at the sky.
"If you really must know, it's simply because I didn't want to waste my time. Quidditch is a time sink that demands a ridiculous amount of training, and it's boxed in by enough rules and regulations to suck every bit of fun out of flying, in my opinion. As for whether I'll be playing next year, no, I won't. Is that all?" Julian said seriously.
Madam Hooch visibly recoiled at the sharp contempt in his tone toward her favorite pastime. She studied him for several long moments before shaking her head and leaving with a disappointed expression.
"That was rather harsh this time, wasn't it?" Helena asked, sounding concerned at how quickly he had snapped at the professor over what had seemed like an innocent set of questions.
Julian drew in a deep breath to calm himself. "You're right. I overreacted that time. I'll have to find some way to apologize, it seems," Julian said with a sigh.
"It just made me so angry that she was asking me to settle for a cloud when I could have the whole sky," he said honestly.
...
After that, Julian took it easy for the rest of the week while waiting for the emerald for Malfoy's ring to arrive. Harry had woken up three days after the incident and spoken with Dumbledore, who came to see him shortly after Madam Pomfrey informed him Harry was awake. One detail, however, made Julian frown. During Harry's clash with Voldemort, the dark lord had apparently hissed, "How dare that brat touch what is mine!"
Clearly, Julian and Helena had triggered the traps around the diadem right in the middle of Voldemort's confrontation with Harry, alerting him that the defenses he had placed had been activated.
It doesn't matter. He won't be able to return for at least another three years, and by then I might already have destroyed all of his horcruxes, Julian thought with a sigh.
The original plan had been to destroy the cursed objects methodically, one by one, while keeping the dark lord completely unaware until Harry delivered the final blow. Now, however, Julian had roughly three years to accomplish most of that work before Voldemort came looking for revenge.
...
At the end of the week, the exam scores were announced early in the morning. Julian took first place, with Hermione close behind in second and Daphne in third. Harry, Tracy, and Ron all passed as well, though only with average scores compared to the three intellectual heavyweights of the group. There was a sizable uproar during dinner when the Great Hall was decorated in Slytherin colors for winning the House Cup, but just before they could properly celebrate, Dumbledore happened. Julian found it rather amusing that the man liked to preach about unity and healthy competition, only to openly rig the House Cup so Gryffindor would win.
Over the next few days, Tracy and Ron went back and forth repeatedly over who should have rightfully won the House Cup, but Julian wisely kept himself out of that argument.
Finally, May, the last month at Hogwarts, arrived, and Julian learned that the old religious wizarding practice of Beltane actually had some basis in reality. It had been outlawed, of course, but the underlying idea was that on that date the entire planet experienced a sharp surge in magical energy. Julian discovered the truth of that the hard way. One moment he had been reading, and the next blood was pouring from his nose as his magical senses were overwhelmed.
The surge itself did not last long, only about three hours, but during that time Julian was effectively magically blind, which left him deeply uncomfortable. He had also finally finished digesting the gains from the energy he had absorbed from the horcrux during that holiday, causing his own magical reserves to increase by a large amount. If before he had been around the middle of the fifth year in raw quantity, he was now well into the sixth year range. In other words, his magic was now roughly on the level of an adult wizard who had not been particularly exceptional in school.