Get comfortable, turn the page, and let’s see what this story has been hiding 🔥 ✦ The atmosphere of study at Hogwarts was unusually strong over the next few days.
The library was often full.
Everywhere in the castle, young witches and wizards could be seen holding books and studying hard.
The professors were very pleased with the thick academic mood.
They believed their students had finally grown up and begun thinking about their futures.
Even the Weasley twins, who usually loved pranks more than anything, had gone quiet.
Their pranks, normally popular among the students, had received no support lately.
Whenever they caused a commotion over the past few days, the nearby students quietly studying would turn on them with a collective glare.
The condition Elias had written, requiring an O in both Ancient Runes and Charms at the end of term, had been selectively ignored by the upper-years.
They all intended to write brilliant essays and attract Professor Vale’s attention.
Of course, a certain second-year witch had also ignored the condition requiring applicants to be fifth-year or above.
Professor Flitwick had become very popular among the students lately.
The upper-years were not shameless enough to go directly to Elias and ask about the essay scope, so they began pestering good-natured Professor Flitwick instead.
Years of studying under him had allowed the students to understand Professor Flitwick’s movements perfectly.
They either blocked the door to his office or waited along the routes he had to take, seizing every chance to ask him about the scope and key points of the essays.
At first, Professor Flitwick was quite willing to answer their questions.
The endless interruptions from the students, however, soon made even the mild-tempered Charms professor somewhat impatient.
Professor Flitwick began criticizing some of the students’ essays.
He picked out mistakes and omissions, then scolded them sharply, hoping to frighten a few away.
To his surprise, it only drew more upper-years to him.
Even students who had not originally intended to approach Professor Flitwick now gathered around him, hoping he would point out errors in their essays that they had not found themselves.
In fact, Professor Flitwick was now surrounded by students almost every time he left his office.
Poor Professor Flitwick could not even eat in peace.
Some bold students even climbed up to the staff table, hoping he would give them a little more guidance.
Although Professor Flitwick always scolded them for it, when those students returned to their tables, their books and notes usually contained a few new corrections and markings.
Hermione was one of them.
When Hermione returned to the Gryffindor table, excitedly clutching her notes and books, she found Ron staring at her in shock.
During this period, Ron had been trying to wake Hermione up and convince her to give up on a goal that looked impossible.
Hermione had stayed up all night the previous evening to write a frighteningly long essay.
Faint shadows now circled her eyes.
According to Hermione, that was only her first draft.
By now, the draft was covered in Professor Flitwick’s corrections and annotations.
That had changed the way Ron looked at Hermione.
There was already a trace of awe in his eyes.
When he tried to read that first draft, he discovered that he could barely understand it.
Ron had always known Hermione was brilliant and had always been far ahead of him, but only today did he clearly realize how large the gap truly was.
As time passed, the situation soon changed again.
The Weasley twins keenly smelled a business opportunity.
They went around flattering upper-year students and temporarily borrowing many sets of notes.
From Professor Flitwick’s corrections and annotations, the twins quickly found patterns and summarized the key concepts and common mistakes that appeared most often.
Then they wrote everything down, bound it into booklets, duplicated many copies with a Doubling Charm, and began selling them at school for five Galleons apiece.
The Weasley twins’ booklet was quickly welcomed by the upper-year students.
Within a few days, supply could not meet demand.
Even Hermione bought one and began studying it.
The twins made a small fortune from it, giving them more money to invest in their dream: Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes.
Gryffindor even lost ten points over it during Potions.
Hermione finished brewing her potion as quickly as possible.
Once Snape had inspected it, she began using every spare second to study the contents of the booklet.
Snape soon discovered what she was doing.
“Miss Granger, we are in Potions at the moment,” Snape said coldly.
“I do not believe brewing a potion requires the application of Charms or any knowledge of spell models.
Ten points from Gryffindor for reading unrelated material in class.” Hermione quickly put the booklet away and wisely did not defend herself.
She knew Snape’s personality well enough to understand that arguing would only cost Gryffindor more points.
Even so, her eyes reddened a little because she had caused Gryffindor to lose points.
As soon as Potions ended, Harry and Ron found Hermione.
Seeing the redness around her eyes, they both somehow became sensible at the same time and began complaining about how Snape always targeted Gryffindor, and how Hermione had every right to do extra studying once she had completed the lesson’s work.
Their words finally made Hermione feel better.
The appointed day for submitting the essays soon arrived.
Early in the morning, Elias opened the door to his office and found the corridor packed with students waiting to hand in their essays.
By evening, a thick stack of papers had piled up on Elias’s desk.
He invited Professor Flitwick to review the students’ essays with him.
Flitwick looked somewhat bedraggled.
His usually well-groomed hair and beard were a little messy, and his eyes were full of red veins.
The students had truly exhausted him lately.
Even so, as a professor, Flitwick still reviewed and marked every student’s essay with great care.
For a time, Elias’s office was very quiet.
Only the soft rustle of pages being turned by the two professors could be heard.
Elias read and marked all the students’ essays seriously.
This was also his first direct look at the academic level of Hogwarts students.
There were indeed some excellent and brilliant pieces among the essays.
Most, however, copied the original wording from books or padded out their length with repeated stock phrases.
Some were outright copied from textbooks, while others were nonsense written by students hoping to get lucky.
Flitwick and Elias gave every essay careful annotations, corrections, and comments.
The two professors soon selected the two strongest papers.
They came from fifth-year Ravenclaw prefect Penelope Clearwater and second-year witch Hermione Granger.
Professor Flitwick looked at Hermione’s paper in admiration.
For a second-year student to possess such a deep understanding of Charms and Ancient Runes was truly impressive.
Professor Flitwick felt that, when he had been Hermione’s age, he had been nowhere near her current level.
But Elias and Flitwick quickly faced a difficult choice.
Choosing between two equally excellent essays was extremely hard.
Strictly speaking, Hermione did not meet the recruitment requirements at all.
But eliminating her for that reason would be far too regrettable and cruel.
Both professors could see how much effort Hermione had poured into the paper.
Penelope, however, had also worked extremely hard for this opportunity.
She had both the ability and the qualifications to serve as an assistant for Witcher Sign Studies.
Elias and Flitwick soon reached a decision.
Each professor would hire one young witch as an assistant for the research.
✦ ✦ ✦ 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.