"Cho, try being more decisive when you say the incantation, and put a little more force into the flick of your wand..."
With a whoosh, Cho's wand flew out of her hand and hurtled toward him.
Zhang Xiao tilted his head to dodge it and caught the wand. Looking at the young witch, whose face had turned scarlet as she hurriedly apologized, he paused.
"But not too much force... at least make sure you can keep hold of your wand."
Cho hastily nodded, then sheepishly resumed practicing with Hermione. Hermione was actually quite proficient with this spell.
But Hermione had a problem of her own: she was too textbook. Every spell she cast followed the rules to the letter, right down to the wand movements and the rhythm and pitch of her incantations.
Textbook was the only way to describe it, and that created a problem: rigidity.
Zhang Xiao tried getting her to relax and be more casual, or to flick her wand as though casting a fishing rod, but any substantial change to her movements left Hermione unable to cast the spell.
This left Zhang Xiao scratching his head. There was little he could do. Hermione was a young Muggle-born witch, still learning about the wizarding world and finding her place in it.
Second year was precisely when those anchors were most deeply entrenched. Only in her third or fourth year, once her understanding of spells had advanced further, might she break the "rules" she had established in her mind.
Rules it was, then. At least this approach let her quickly learn a large number of spells. She could absorb and refine them later.
Davis and Parkinson had been paired up, and the two acted as though they were fighting a duel to the death, brandishing their wands and