Get comfortable, turn the page, and let’s see what this story has been hiding 🔥 ✦ Luna had a nickname: Loony.
Her classmates thought she was mad, and the nickname had not appeared from nowhere.
Luna was, in many ways, very different from other children.
She dressed strangely, spoke about unusual beliefs to anyone willing to listen, and sometimes seemed detached from the world around her.
Other students often made jokes at her expense and called her Loony Lovegood behind her back.
For safety, she had a habit of tucking her wand behind her ear.
She also wore radish earrings.
Her classmates frequently stole her belongings and hid them.
On the final day of term, she often had to put up notices asking for their return.
Her odd habits, including turning butterbeer corks and radishes into jewelry, made her an easy target for mockery.
Yet Luna endured such treatment with astonishing patience and tolerance.
She surely knew people made fun of her, but she never retaliated.
At times, she seemed not to notice at all.
Luna was intelligent.
She would not have been sorted into Ravenclaw otherwise.
But children could be exclusionary.
They often singled out someone lonely, strange, or out of step with the group.
Sometimes it was deliberate.
Sometimes it was careless.
What was happening now was exactly that.
Luna was being rejected by her own teammates.
She did not appear to realize it, and she continued trying to dodge the Fanged Frisbees that came at her.
Elias frowned.
He quietly snapped his fingers.
The Frisbee chasing Luna suddenly stopped.
Then, like a hound catching sight of a bone, it shot toward the Ravenclaw girl who had been enjoying Luna’s humiliation the most.
The girl shrieked and began to run.
The Frisbee, however, seemed to have chosen her.
It pursued her relentlessly, leaving her disheveled and panicked.
Even Frisbees from a neighboring game joined in.
Several of them circled the girl and attacked in sequence.
Before long, she began to cry.
At the sound, the Frisbees seemed to lose power all at once.
They fell to the ground like ordinary Fanged Frisbees waiting to be picked up and thrown again.
The small disturbance ended quickly.
Luna seemed to sense something.
She looked toward Elias and smiled.
He nodded back.
Happy moments always passed quickly.
Elias’s first Magical Close-Quarters Defense class came to an end.
Nearly every first-year looked damp, wild-haired, and thoroughly bedraggled, yet they were still excitedly discussing what had happened.
When Elias dismissed them, many were reluctant to leave.
They gathered in little groups, replaying the strange and entertaining game.
There was no doubt that this class would spread through Hogwarts very quickly.
The Ravenclaw girl who had been targeted by the Frisbees, meanwhile, was supported by her roommates as she walked back toward the castle in a dazed state.
Elias had noticed the watching professors long ago.
After the students left, he walked over to the three of them and politely asked for their opinions on his first lesson.
Professor Flitwick was delighted.
He praised Elias’s innovative teaching method with great enthusiasm and began asking about the underlying pedagogical approach on the spot, already considering ways to introduce parts of it into his own Charms classes.
Professor McGonagall, however, looked worried.
She feared that a teaching style so close to play might encourage students to indulge in games rather than study seriously.
Elias’s explanation reassured her.
The purpose of the game, he said, was to build teamwork among first-years and strengthen their bodies.
Hogwarts’ only real sport was Quidditch, and Quidditch benefited only the small number of students on House teams.
Combined with Britain’s unfortunate food habits, that left far too many young witches and wizards in poor physical condition.
McGonagall considered this and conceded that his reasoning had merit.
She even apologized for doubting him.
Then Elias turned to Flitwick with a more serious expression and mentioned what he had noticed about Luna possibly being bullied.
Flitwick’s face changed at once.
As a very small student in Ravenclaw himself, he had suffered his own share of quiet, subtle bullying during his school years.
He knew exactly what it felt like.
The Charms professor immediately promised Elias that he would pay close attention to the matter.
Professor Vale’s first lesson spread through the school by way of the first-years before the day was out.
Harry and Ron listened with envy as younger students described the strange and wonderful class.
Their own second-year Magical Close-Quarters Defense lesson was approaching, and they were both excited and nervous.
They also worried that their unpleasant first meeting with Elias might make him target them.
One Snape was already more than enough.
Hermione, sitting beside them, wore a frown.
In some ways, she was as strict as Professor McGonagall.
The new professor struck her as unreliable.
When she shared this opinion with Harry and Ron, however, both boys stared at her in disbelief.
Their own impression of Elias was actually good.
He had generously forgiven Ron for crashing into him and had reduced most of the Weasley family’s compensation.
What truly stunned them was that Hermione, of all people, could consider Elias unreliable while remaining a devoted admirer of Lockhart.
“Hermione, the only truly unreliable professor is Lockhart!” Ron exclaimed.
“Professor Vale hasn’t released a swarm of Cornish pixies on us!” Ron genuinely could not understand her strange admiration for Lockhart.
“Professor Lockhart was trying to train us to handle unexpected situations,” Hermione said in a small voice, blushing.
Ron had spoken loudly enough that several Gryffindors were now looking curiously in their direction.
Harry and Ron stared at her as though they could not believe what they were hearing.
If Hermione had not seemed normal in every other respect, they might have suspected Lockhart of putting her under the Imperius Curse.
Hermione still tried to defend him.
“You really should read Professor Lockhart’s books properly.
The material and knowledge in them are very solid.” “Maybe Lockhart stole that knowledge from someone else,” Ron argued.
“If he was really as powerful as his books say, how did Cornish pixies chase him out of his own classroom?” The debate was doomed from the beginning.
It ended with Hermione leaving in a huff.
In the Headmaster’s office, Dumbledore sat with Fawkes in his lap, listening as Professor McGonagall reported on Elias’s lesson.
When he heard that Elias had warned Flitwick about Luna, a faint smile touched his mouth.
After McGonagall left, Dumbledore gently stroked Fawkes’s feathers.
The phoenix narrowed his eyes in pleasure.
“We shall see,” Dumbledore murmured to himself.
“We shall see.” ✦ ✦ ✦ Ready for more?
CREATORS’ THOUGHTS EmberHollow Thank you for reading.
I hope this chapter pulled you deeper into the story.
Stick around, because there’s still a lot waiting just ahead.