"We are flattered you think so, but we are just a couple of pranksters," the twin on Julian's right said, shrugging off the compliment.
Julian reached over and smacked him lightly on the back of the head, earning a shocked stare in return.
"Do not lie to my face," Julian said sharply. "You two dream up prank after prank out of those Merlin cursed imaginations of yours. Do you have any idea how much talent it takes to make that many joke items and have them actually work?"
He tightened his grip on both twins' shoulders with surprising strength as he went on.
"You might not be top of the class in academics, but if I ever hear either of you say you are talentless, I will prank you so hard that either you or the school will beg me to stop."
"You win, mate, relax," they said together, clearly spooked by the absolute seriousness in his tone.
"Never thought an ickle firstie would tear into us like that, eh, Gred?" the twin on his left said after a moment, a grin creeping back onto his face.
"Indeed not, Forge. Seems we will have to keep our heads high for safety's sake," the other replied with the same wide smile.
They wandered off a moment later, actually in good spirits after the odd, backhanded pep talk.
...
"You really are a big softie, you know that?" Tracey said, grinning at Julian.
"Not at all," Julian replied. "I was completely serious about the prankpocalypse. I would not stop until the professors got involved or they begged me for mercy."
He laughed, and there was just enough malicious delight in the sound to suggest he meant every word.
"In fact, if I did not have more productive things to do with my time, I might do it anyway just for fun. Something to keep in mind for the future," he added with a casual shrug.
"Please do not," Tracey said, half joking, half worried. "I am far too young to be dragged into a war."
...
Dinner arrived, and, as expected, Flitwick could not resist bragging on Julian's behalf to the rest of the staff. He described the Starlight Dirge combination in detail, and Dumbledore expressed immediate interest in seeing it for himself.
Flitwick, of course, was more than happy to oblige.
He performed the combo at the staff table, and it was even more spectacular at his level than when Julian had cast it. Above the enchanted ceiling, which already mirrored the sky outside, a huge spread of star like lights appeared, glittering and drifting. They slowly dimmed and vanished, overlapping with the real stars in a breathtaking, layered display.
Students and teachers alike murmured in appreciation. The effect was mesmerizing, and more than a few jaws hung open until the last of the lights faded.
Dumbledore's eyes shone as he watched, an indulgent smile on his face. When the spell ended, all four house tables broke into applause. The combination of the ceiling and the spell made it impossible not to.
Then Flitwick, smiling brightly, announced that the original creator of the charm variation was not him, but Julian.
Every head in the Great Hall turned.
Julian suddenly found himself under the collective stare of the entire school.
For him, it was extremely awkward. He was not shy, but there was something deeply unnerving about that many people looking at him like hungry Kneazles spotting a canary.
He drew in a breath, sighed, and got it over with. Pulling his wand, he cast the Starlight Dirge combo at the strongest level he could currently manage.
His version was only about half the size of Flitwick's, but nobody in their right mind had expected a first year to match a Charms master's output. The Hall still murmured in approval, and more applause followed.
Julian did not mind sharing the actual spell at that point. In a clear voice, he called out the incantations and described the wand movements, repeating them slowly enough for everyone to follow, and added the same hint as always.
"The key is in the name."
Dinner turned into a very unusual affair after that. Students all over the Hall kept trying to reproduce the combo between bites of food. Spells flickered and fizzled and occasionally popped up as small, shaky star clusters overhead.
None of the professors made any move to stop them. A few even looked amused by the attempts.
Julian, meanwhile, ate as fast as he could without choking, desperate to escape the constant stream of eyes flicking his way.
He barely managed to slip out of the Great Hall early. Nobody else seemed motivated enough to rush through dinner just to follow him.
Dumbledore watched him go with a look of quiet amusement. Julian was not shy by nature, but being stared at like a prize artifact in a vault was clearly not his favorite experience.
Julian retreated straight to the Gryffindor common room, then up to the dormitory, and went to bed early. He had no interest in being ambushed by students from every year trying to worm extra secrets out of him.
...
The next morning, he woke at dawn again and spent another hour reading from the book on magical fundamentals. This time, he focused on the section about magical creatures.
He learned something unsettling: with only a few exceptions, many magical creatures had actually evolved into weaker versions of their ancestors, and wizards were largely to blame.
Even dragons were not exempt.
Modern dragons were far less dangerous than their predecessors. By confining them to reserves and tightly controlled breeding, wizards had effectively stripped away the wildness that fueled their potential. They could still grow powerful, but only up to the bare minimum of what their species had once been capable of. Over generations, that restricted potential became the new baseline.
If dragons were allowed to live truly wild again, the book suggested, the power their various species could reach would be far greater than anything most modern witches and wizards had ever seen.