Chương 36: Ch33- Age Line

Fred and George leaned in over their desk like a pair of conmen about to forge a treaty with Mordor. Quills in hand, brows furrowed, they scribbled in muttered nonsense, scratched it out, then scribbled again... absolute chaos, but it was chaos with ambition. Occasionally one would snort or slap the other's hand away.

"That is not how veins work, George."

"It is if you enchant them, Fred. Don't question the magic." Cassian rested against the desk edge, watched the chaos, feeling like a biologist observing a nest of particularly ambitious weasels. Most of the others had taken a less... joint-effort approach. Angelina already jotted down three methods, none of which involved explosions or impersonation. She looked like she worked out the cup's security schema and was halfway through devising a proper counter-ritual. Alicia sat beside her, chewing the end of her quill.

She wrote something, paused, crossed it out, then underlined something else twice like that would convince the cup to cooperate. Cedric was neatly sketching what looked suspiciously like a magical feedback circuit. Not bad. Bit textbook, but he clearly knew what he was doing. Wouldn't be surprised if he added a bibliography by the end of it. Not that it would work. Lee leaned back, legs stretched, quill tapping against his lips. The sort of posture that screamed he was about to suggest "we bribe the cup."

Kenneth, bless him, was drawing a moustache on the cup with his quill. Cassian said nothing. Sometimes you had to let kids fail artistically. Eventually, Fred raised a hand. Not out of respect, just to demand attention.

"Sir, can we use an ageing potion?" Cassian shook his head.

"If the caster is thick enough to overlook that loophole, sure, might work. Once. Probably gets patched by next lesson. Anyone else?" That opened the gates. Badly. Angelina raised her hand, cautiously "Polyjuice?"

"Ah yes," he said, "nothing says school charm like identity theft, a restricted potion, and a month of stirring someone else's toenail soup. You are twelve. Try again." Lee looked up, "Get someone older to do it?"

"Delegation. Clever. Also known as cheating. And... completely possible. Right until the cup checks magical resonance and your name shows up with a lovely asterisk that says, 'actually submitted by a sixth-year with a favour to cash in.' Still, nice lateral thinking. Bit morally grey." He tapped the floor near the golden line with his foot.

"Alright," he said, bit too loud to cut through whatever nonsense the twins were muttering now, "I will bite. You lot have thrown a dozen ideas at the wall, and while I am enjoying this brainstorm of petty crime and questionable potioneering... there is a better way." They stilled.

"Magic is a funny thing," he said, walking a slow circle around the cup, "most of you treat spells like recipes. Say the words, do the flick, watch the sparks fly." Fred whispered, "Like cake, but dangerous." Cassian shot him a look.

"Exactly. And what happens when someone forgets the eggs?"

"Explosion?"

"Worse. Undercooked incantations. Nasty stuff." Alicia raised a brow.

"So... you are saying there is a different spell?"

"No," Cassian said, "I am saying free yourself from this limited thinking you've all been conditioned into." He turned on his heel and strolled to his desk. He drew three small pieces of parchments, scribbling random nonnsense on blank slips. Three versions of the same name. Neatly written in a way that would make his old schoolteacher shed a proud tear. He held them up.

"Watch and learn." The first he folded into a paper plane. Nothing magical. Nothing clever. Just a bit of primary school rebellion resurrected for higher education. He lobbed it. The plane soared. Not graceful, this wasn't some enchanted swan of the skies. It passed clean through the false age line and dropped neatly into the teacup with a plunk, quickly soaking into a shade of unappealing brown. Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. Half the room just blinked.

Especially the twins. Fred's jaw went slack. George leaned so far forward his quill fell off the desk. They looked somewhere between scandalised and spiritually betrayed.

"That is cheating," Fred muttered.

"It is worse," George said, still staring.

"It is obvious." Cassian tilted his head, watching the wet parchment sink.

"Yes, yes. The horror. A historian found a workaround that involved no illegal potions, identity theft, or magical age fraud. Truly, where is the fun?" He picked up the second slip.

"This one," he said, "is for the violent thinkers among you. Those who see a magical line and think, maybe I will just lob it really hard and hope it forgets to be magic for a second." Lee raised his hand.

"That is... basically my strategy for most things." Cassian tossed the paperball. It sailed through the air, spun slightly mid-flight, then passed through the fake ward like it didn't exist. Straight into the cup. Another quiet splash.

"Two for two," Cassian said, brushing his hands off. Lee pointed at the line.

"Wait. So the age ward doesn't trigger if you are not touching it?" Cassian shrugged.

"I don't know. Depends how clever the caster was. A fan, a gust, a loud sneeze… any of that ruins the trick. I am just showing you that no spell needed doesn't mean no thinking needed." He twirled the last parchment in his hand.

"Besides, if the line is testing age and nothing else, that bit of paper is older than all of us. The tree it came from probably watched Merlin sprout chest hair." A few snickers. Even Cedric cracked a smile. Cassian folded the third slip. Wand in hand, he cast, "Wingardium Leviosa." The paper floated up, tilted slightly mid-air, then dipped over the golden glow of the fake ward and dropped into the cup with a soft rustle. Three for three. He treated himself to one slow, sarcastic clap.

"That, my dear devils, is the Levitation Charm. Not for feathers. Not for broomsticks. For everything else no one told you it could do." Fred and George were still staring at the cup, eyes wide open, as if the cup awakened them to reality. Fred broke first, dragging a hand down his face.

"You are telling us… all those fancy counter-spells, all that charmwork… and we could've just thrown it?"

"Throw it. Levitate it. Catapult it with a teaspoon," Cassian said, deadpan. Angelina smirked.

"Honestly, it is clever."

"Clever?" George hissed.

"It is heresy." Lee raised a hand.

"So you are saying we should start flinging stuff at magical wards?" Cassian glared at him, considering flinging him to the cup, "I am saying, if you can't unleash your imagination, you will spend your whole life tossing the same five spells around and get flattened by someone with half your talent and one good idea." The class fell silent. Fred gave a whistle.

"That is bleak."

"Accurate," Cassian said.

"And historical." He pushed off the desk, and walked back toward the illusion.

"Every war," he went on, "every rebellion, every mad little spell that turned the tide... none of it came from following instructions. It came from someone going, 'Alright, what if I did this, and it doesn't explode?'""Take Thistle March," he said, stepping back toward the board, showing the screen of light, where a mud-splattered battlefield, a banner half-ripped.

"Hamish the Fork wasn't in a duelling manual. He had no pedigree. No noble wand lineage. But he did have a swamp, and a very strong sense of mischief." Lee snorted.

"My kind of wizard." Cassian pointed at him without missing a beat.

"Exactly. Lee, in twenty years, you will be the subject of a footnote in a minor conflict, and someone like me will stand up in a room like this and say, 'This lad? Expanded the limits of what he was taught. Thank God for that.'" Fred leaned into George.

"I want a footnote. You want a footnote?"

"Only if it is scandalous," George whispered.

"Gentlemen," Cassian said, "if you live to be less than a footnote, I will be shocked. And if it involves pyrotechnics, I will be disappointed if I am not invited." The twins grinned, their quills already sketching something that Cassian was sure would end with either applause or expulsion. Possibly both. Then he turned to the board.

"Now. Since you've all proven you can levitate things other than feathers and your classmates' dignity," he said, tapping the slate, "we will take this charm a step further." The word appeared in chalk, Wingardium Leviosa. Under it, another word formed, Tactical Application.

"Someone tell me," Cassian said, "what is the limit of this spell?" Cedric raised a hand.

"Weight?"

"Good guess. Still wrong. Fred?"

"Is it... imagination?" Cassian gave a mock gasp, "Was that genuine insight? Sweet Lord. Mark the calendar." A few chuckles rolled around the room. Fred clapped, solemn. George whispered something about it being a historical event already. Cassian pressed on.

"The only limit is yourself. Your imagination. Everything else is just detail. Math. Formulas. If all magicks united and cast Wingardium Leviosa together, we could stop Earth from spinning." Blank stares. Right. That went straight over their heads. Not just over... soaring, comet-trail level. Cassian didn't even bother trying to explain planetary motion, axial tilt, or why Earth wasn't just a floating plate held up by particularly stubborn oxen.

Instead, he tapped the side of his wand lightly against his palm and sighed.

"You are to write a two-feet-long essay," he said.

"On unconventional applications of Wingardium Leviosa. And as I said before, no, I am not your Charms teacher. You are free to skip it. I am not grading these." He paused before adding, "It is for your own good. Goodbye." Fred raised a hand like he was hailing a cursed taxi.

"Define 'unconventional.'""You will know it when you accidentally float your brother's rat through a ceiling," Cassian said, already walking toward the door.

"If that helps." George muttered, "It does. Charlie is scary." Cassian slipped out for a moment of peace, two-feet essays should keep them busy till tomorrow. He could practically see Fred and George now, hunched over some brainstormed monstrosity involving levitating pies, or possibly levitating people inside pies. Wouldn't be the worst idea he ever read.