8:30 AM.
There were still twenty minutes before Charms class officially began.
At this early hour, the classroom was not yet crowded. Roughly eighty percent of the students already present were from Ravenclaw House. With Ailey guiding them through the corridors of Hogwarts, Ryze and the others managed to reach the classroom without any trouble and quickly secured seats in the second row.
Hermione Granger had arrived even earlier—nearly ten minutes ahead of them. As expected of someone as diligent as she was, she had already claimed the seat in the very front row, closest to the lectern and slightly to their left. At the moment, she was deeply absorbed in her copy of The Standard Book of Spells, reading with intense concentration.
It wasn't until ten minutes before the class started that the Gryffindor students began arriving one after another.
Neville Longbottom also hurried into the classroom along with the crowd around this time. He squeezed through the doorway, his robes slightly wrinkled, and quickly took a seat somewhere in the middle rows. As soon as he noticed Ryze, he enthusiastically waved at him.
However, judging from Neville's flushed face, damp hair, and slightly disheveled appearance, it was obvious that he must have spent quite a while wandering around the castle trying to find the classroom.
Five minutes before class began, the Charms professor—and the Head of Ravenclaw House—Professor Filius Flitwick, finally arrived.
He stepped into the classroom with a brisk pace and began introducing himself to the students.
Professor Flitwick was surprisingly small—barely a meter tall. In order for everyone to see him clearly, he had to climb onto a chair behind the lectern. Even then, that wasn't quite enough. He stacked several thick books on top of the chair and carefully climbed onto the pile.
Only then could his head properly rise above the lectern.
In the final thirty seconds before class officially started, a few late Gryffindor students jogged hurriedly into the room, trying not to draw too much attention to themselves.
Professor Flitwick began taking attendance from the class roster.
The names were called in alphabetical order by surname.
Everything proceeded smoothly until he reached one particular name.
"Harry Potter."
The moment he read it aloud, Professor Flitwick suddenly let out an excited squeal. His reaction was so dramatic that he lost his balance and tumbled straight off the chair.
The entire classroom froze for a moment.
Hermione immediately jumped to her feet, clearly intending to rush over and check whether Professor Flitwick had been injured.
However, before she could even take a step forward, Professor Flitwick quickly waved his hand dismissively.
"I'm quite alright!" he said cheerfully, dusting himself off as he climbed back up. "Just a little… excited."
No one in the classroom dared laugh or look down on him.
After all, nearly every young wizard present—especially those raised in wizarding families—had long heard of the famous name Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived.
It was the name of the wizard who had supposedly defeated the dark wizard Lord Voldemort as a baby.
Naturally, curiosity filled the room.
More than seventy percent of the students turned their heads toward Harry, their eyes filled with fascination as they tried to see what was so extraordinary about this legendary figure.
Under so many curious gazes, Harry Potter appeared extremely uncomfortable.
He shifted awkwardly in his seat, clearly not used to this level of attention.
Professor Flitwick soon adjusted his mood. With a quick wave of his wand, he tidied his robes, straightened his hair, and neatly restacked the books on the chair. Then he hopped nimbly back onto the stack.
"Alright, everyone, quiet down," he said, his tone friendly but firm.
"I can certainly understand your excitement. However, we have not yet finished roll call, and this is a Charms class. If you wish to chat, you may do so after the lesson."
With a subtle flick of his wand, he cast a small spell that amplified his voice, easily suppressing the chatter spreading through the classroom.
The room quickly fell silent again.
Once attendance was completed, Professor Flitwick did not immediately begin teaching the Lumos Charm, which was listed as the first spell of the course.
Instead, he clasped his hands together and began explaining something else.
"Before we begin learning spells," he said, "there is something more important that you must understand."
"Charms class is not simply about memorizing incantations and wand movements. More importantly, it is about understanding the essence and principles of magic itself."
He paused for a moment, letting the words sink in.
"Anyone can learn to cast a spell," he continued. "That only makes you an ordinary wizard. But if you wish to go further along the path of magic, you must understand how spells come into existence and what principles govern them."
"This understanding is also the foundation for non-verbal spellcasting, which you will encounter in your fifth year."
According to Professor Flitwick, Charms class was usually arranged in two consecutive periods.
The first period focused on spell theory.
The second period was dedicated to practical spellcasting.
However, it quickly became clear that not all the young wizards present fully appreciated the importance of theory.
At the beginning of the lecture, nearly everyone listened attentively, eager to learn their first spell.
But as Professor Flitwick began discussing the deeper theoretical aspects of magic, many students gradually started losing focus.
This wasn't limited to Gryffindor students.
Even among the Ravenclaws—who were generally known for their academic enthusiasm—a few students wore confused expressions.
Ryze, however, had no trouble keeping up.
He had not tried to memorize every single textbook word for word before the term started. Instead, he had focused heavily on the underlying theoretical foundations.
His approach was simple.
First understand the principles of a spell.
Then learn to cast it.
With this method, even if he temporarily forgot a spell's wand movement, he could still reconstruct the magic through his understanding of the incantation and the magical principles behind it.
Of course, casting spells in such a way was much more difficult and far less stable.
Under normal circumstances, forgetting the wand movement would rarely happen anyway.
After all, wand movements existed for a reason.
They were the optimal casting patterns discovered by countless wizards over centuries of experimentation.
As long as a wizard performed the correct wand movement—allowing both their muscles and magical energy to remember the sensation—while maintaining the proper intent during casting, the spell could be released quickly and reliably.
Even without fully understanding the theory, one could still perform the spell correctly.
That was why practicing wand movements was just as important as studying theory.
From Ryze's perspective, Professor Flitwick's teaching arrangement—one period for theory and one for practice—was extremely reasonable for young wizards who were just beginning their magical education.
Throughout the lecture, Ryze listened carefully while quickly jotting down notes in his notebook.
Hermione, sitting in the front row, was undoubtedly the most active student in the classroom.
Every so often, she would raise her hand to ask questions related to the theory Professor Flitwick had just explained.
Her enthusiasm was impossible to ignore.
During a short pause in the lecture, while Professor Flitwick was taking a sip of water, Michael leaned closer to Ryze and whispered quietly.
"I'm starting to believe what you said earlier."
He nodded toward Hermione.
"She really is serious about studying. I'm still busy copying notes, but she can already keep up with the lecture and think of questions about the theory."
Ryze simply shrugged in response.
"We'll see how things go," he replied calmly.
In the original story, Hermione Granger was widely recognized as the top student in her year at Hogwarts when it came to theoretical knowledge.
Even among students a few years older, there were probably only a handful who could surpass her.
Perhaps Percy Weasley—who managed to earn twelve O.W.L.s—might have been one of them.
Then again, Hermione had always struggled with Divination.
But aside from that subject, her academic abilities were unquestionably exceptional.
During the first Charms class alone, Hermione's thoughtful questions earned Gryffindor three house points.
Of course, Ravenclaw was not far behind.
Several Ravenclaw students also asked insightful questions, earning points for their house as well.
Ryze himself did not raise his hand once.
It wasn't because he had no questions.
On the contrary, most of the questions that came to his mind were already beyond the scope of the current lesson.
Thanks to the stack of supplementary materials he had purchased—and the additional tutoring he had received from Nymphadora—Ryze had already mastered the theoretical foundations behind the Lumos Charm and many other basic first-year spells.
Professor Flitwick's explanations were still useful, however.
They helped refine Ryze's understanding and made the concepts clearer and more structured.
The questions Ryze wanted to ask were mostly related to the Lumos Charm's derivative spells.
For example:
The Sunlight Charm, Lumos Solem, which produced sunlight.
The enhanced Lumos Duo, capable of creating brighter illumination.
And the extremely powerful Lumos Maxima, which could produce a blinding flash similar to a magical flashbang.
In fact, the Lumos Charm had dozens of derivative forms that produced different effects.
According to the supplementary materials Ryze had studied, the Sunlight Charm could even genuinely frighten vampires, who were said to fear sunlight.
Ryze had not yet fully mastered the theories behind these derivative spells.
At the moment, he could only cast them by memorizing the instructions mechanically.
Still, asking such advanced questions during class would only disrupt Professor Flitwick's lesson for the other students.
Originally, Ryze had planned to wait until the end of the class and ask Professor Flitwick privately.
"So… is there anything you didn't understand about the theory?" Hermione suddenly asked during the short break between periods.
She turned around in her seat to look at Ryze.
Interestingly, she had not approached him immediately.
Before speaking with him, she had already asked all the Gryffindor students sitting nearby whether they had any questions.
Only after that did she finally turn to Ryze—the Ravenclaw student sitting behind her.
Quite a strong sense of house pride.
"I understand most of it," Ryze replied with a nod.
"The theoretical foundation is definitely very important."
Hermione seemed slightly skeptical.
She immediately brought up several difficult points that had been discussed earlier in the lecture and began quizzing him.
Ryze answered each one calmly.
Only after hearing his responses did Hermione nod with clear satisfaction.
"It seems you really did understand," she said.
She sighed slightly afterward.
"I wish the others could be like you."
"When I asked them whether they understood the lesson, they all said yes. But when I tried asking about some of the key theoretical points…"
"They all suddenly went silent."
As she spoke, Hermione shook her head with visible frustration.