Wingardium Leviosa and Contradictions

"Oh, who did this?" Professor Flitwick asked loudly, though he clearly was not angry.

"It was me, Professor." Ye Ting raised his hand from the crowd. "I thought it was just a joke. Apparently, it's a brilliant spell, at least far more complicated than Wingardium Leviosa."

He cast a Vanishing Spell, and the bison that had been about to attack the podium instantly vanished from the classroom. Then he cast Reparo, and the desks and chairs the bison had knocked into disarray immediately returned to normal.

"A splendid spell." Professor Flitwick nodded at him appreciatively. "Though it sounds like a joke, the Bison Spell itself truly is an extraordinary charm. But we won't discuss that now."

He clapped his hands and announced the start of practice.

The scene was chaotic for a while. Harry Potter and Seamus Finnigan were paired together. They swished and flicked, swished and flicked, over and over again, but the feather that was supposed to rise into the air remained motionless on the floor.

In a fit of frustration, Seamus jabbed his wand at the feather, and it caught fire—Harry had to put it out with his hat.

At another table, Ron's luck did not seem much better.

"Wingardium Leviosa!" he shouted, windmilling his long arms.

"You said it wrong," Hermione said bluntly from beside him.

Under Ye Ting's guidance, she had succeeded after only two attempts. When she saw Ron's clumsy efforts beside her, she could not resist instructing him again.

"It's Wing-gar-dium Levi-o-sa. You have to make the 'gar' nice and long."

"If you're so clever, why don't you try it yourself?" Ron roared.

Hermione rolled up her sleeves, waved her wand, and said, "Wingardium Leviosa!"

The feather rose from the table and hovered four feet above Hermione's head.

However, Ron's response to Hermione's advice was thoroughly sarcastic.

"Oh, dear Miss Know-It-All, why don't you stay with your equally brilliant lover?"

Hermione's face immediately darkened.

After class, Ye Ting carried his books to the library, but Hermione did not follow him.

He assumed Hermione had left to take care of something herself—this was not the first time she had done so—so Ye Ting did not look into it further.

On Halloween Eve, the Hogwarts Great Hall had been redecorated.

When Ye Ting entered the dining hall that evening, a dazzling array of Halloween decorations greeted him.

A thousand bats fluttered over the walls and ceiling, while another thousand circled above the dining tables like low-hanging clouds, making the candle flames inside the pumpkins flicker.

Delicious dishes suddenly appeared on golden plates, just like at the start-of-term feast.

Unlike the other young wizards, Ye Ting did not eagerly dig into the food. He walked around the long tables, asking everywhere whether anyone had seen Hermione Granger. A ravenous Himari followed behind him.

Yet everyone said they had not seen her. Only Lisa Turpin, a Ravenclaw girl, mentioned that she had seen Hermione in the corridor outside the bathroom.

The moment he heard this, Ye Ting immediately thought of the original plot—Hermione had encountered the Troll in that corridor.

Even though Hermione was considerably stronger now after Ye Ting's training than she had been in the original story, she was still no match for a Troll—at least, with her current magical power and spellcasting skill, she had no way to overcome its magic resistance.

Ye Ting immediately ran out of the dining hall, but halfway there, he suddenly saw Professor Quirinus Quirrell rush into the hall. His enormous turban was crooked on his head, and his face was filled with terror.

Everyone stared at him as he staggered to Dumbledore's chair, leaned against the table, and gasped, "Troll—in the dungeons—thought you ought to know."

With that, he collapsed face-first onto the floor and fainted.

The dining hall instantly erupted into chaos. Professor Dumbledore had to set off several ear-splitting bursts of fireworks from the tip of his wand before everyone quieted down.

"Prefects," he said in a deep voice, "immediately lead the students of your Houses back to their dormitories!"

Over at Ravenclaw, Penelope calmly gathered the little eagles and had them line up toward the tower. Only Ye Ting slipped away without a sound, and no one noticed except Cho Chang and Penelope herself.

Once he had confirmed that there was no one around, Ye Ting took the figurine-sized Orianna from his pocket and placed her on the ground.

"Take me to the public bathroom on the third floor now." He said urgently to Orianna, "It's an emergency. Hurry, please!"

"Understood, Father." Orianna cheerfully recited an incantation—naturally, one of Valoran's spells. It was used for dispel magic. Her automaton instantly began to glow, and a purple magical ripple shot toward Orianna herself.

After being struck by the magical ripple, the effects of the Reductio on Oriana immediately vanished, and she returned to her normal size.

She scooped up Ye Ting, who was taller than she was, into her arms, then sped away while hovering through the air.