"Size is a metric for masons, not wizards. In a duel, the only dimension that matters is speed." — Filius Flitwick, 1963 World Championship Post-Match Interview
September 4, 1969, The Third Floor Corridor
The climb to the third floor was a lesson in the Castle's mood. The Grand Staircase, having apparently satisfied its hunger for Gryffindor tardiness, was behaving itself, locking into place with heavy, resentful thuds.
Lucius Malfoy led the Slytherin phalanx. He didn't look back to check if they were following.
"Charms," Lucius announced, his voice carrying over the sound of their footsteps on the stone. "The bread and butter of the magical arsenal.
He stopped outside a heavy oak door. He leaned on his cane, his expression shifting into something that sat on the razor's edge between sneering and grudging respect.
"Professor Flitwick is the Head of Ravenclaw. You will notice immediately that he is... diminutive."
Lucius curled his lip slightly, a micro-expression of distaste.
"There is goblin blood in the lineage. A biological curiosity that the Board of Governors tolerates."
Vega watched Lucius closely. The prejudice was there, baked into the bone, but it was warring with something else. Pragmatism.
"However," Lucius continued, his pale blue eyes hardening. "Do not let the height fool you. Do not snigger. Do not underestimate him. Before he retired to teach children, Filius Flitwick was the European Dueling Champion from 1959 to 1962."
Lucius tapped the silver head of his cane.
"And in 1963, he took the World Title in Tokyo. He dismantled the Russian champion, Dolohov's uncle actually, in forty-two seconds."
A murmur ran through the first years.
Vega's eyes widened.
In the wizarding world, Dueling wasn't just a martial art; it was the apex sport. Quidditch was for the masses, fast, loud, tribal. But Dueling? Dueling was chess played at the speed of light with live ammunition. To be a World Champion wasn't just about knowing spells; it was about reaction times measured in milliseconds, vector calculation under fire, and a magical core that could cycle high-yield curses without burning out.
He's not just a teacher, Vega realized, looking at the door with new eyes. He's a retired gladiator.
"He retired undefeated," Lucius added, smoothing his cuffs. "He knows more about combat magic than anyone in this castle, barring perhaps the Headmaster. Learn from him. Ignore the goblin blood, and watch the wand work."
Lucius stepped back.
"Proceed. And try not to step on him."
The Classroom
The Charms classroom was a stark contrast to the dungeon. It was flooded with light from high, arched windows. Books were stacked in precarious, defying-gravity towers that brushed the ceiling.
And standing on a pile of ledgers behind the desk was Filius Flitwick.
He was tiny. Barely four feet tall, with a shock of white hair and a face that was mostly smile. But Vega, applying the lessons from Kael and Thorne, didn't look at the face. He looked at the stance.
Flitwick didn't stand like a teacher. He stood on the balls of his feet. His center of gravity was perfect. His hands were loose, ready. Even standing still, he vibrated with a kinetic potential that screamed speed.
"Come in, come in!" Flitwick squeaked, his voice high and enthusiastic. "Find a seat! Don't knock the books!"
The Slytherins filed in, taking the left side. The Ravenclaws took the right.
Vega sat next to Cyrus.
"World Champion," Cyrus whispered, eyeing the tiny man. "It's hard to picture. My father said the '63 final was a bloodbath."
"Small target," Vega murmured, analyzing the tactical advantage. "Hard to hit. And if he moves as fast as Lucius implies, he'd be a nightmare to track."
Flitwick clapped his hands.
"Welcome to Charms! Now, I know what you are thinking. You are thinking about levitating feathers. You are thinking about unlocking doors. And yes, we will do that."
He hopped off the books. He didn't climb down; he dropped, landing silently, his knees bending to absorb the impact perfectly.
"But Charms is not just about utility," Flitwick said, walking down the aisle. "It is about Vectors."
He pulled his wand. It was short, swishy, likely dogwood.
"Professor McGonagall changes the what," Flitwick said, pointing at a stack of heavy textbooks. "I change the where."
He flicked his wrist.
It wasn't a spell Vega recognized. It was barely a movement.
Swish-flick.
The stack of books didn't just float. It exploded into motion. The books separated, swirling into a complex, rotating shield formation around Flitwick. They moved fast, cutting the air with sharp thwip-thwip sounds.
Images
"Vector control," Flitwick shouted over the noise of the books. "I am not lifting them. I am assigning them a localized gravitational orbit. I am telling them that 'down' is no longer the floor, but a point in space that I control."
He slashed his wand downward.
The books slammed back onto the desk, stacking themselves perfectly in a single second.
Thud.
The class sat in stunned silence.
"That," Flitwick beamed, straightening his bowtie, "is the difference between hovering and flying. Now! Wands out! The Levitation Charm. Wingardium Leviosa."
"The incantation is the key," Flitwick instructed, hopping back onto his podium. "But the intent is the engine. You must visualize the lift. You are not pulling the object up with a string; you are changing the air pressure beneath it."
Vega looked at the white feather on his desk.
Charms was about movement. It was about flow. It was about taking the Hum in his blood and giving it a direction.
And he had the wand for it.
The Quetzalcoatl feather in his sleeve was practically singing. It knew this magic. Wind, it whispered. Lift. Sky.
"Mr. Black," Flitwick chirped. "Show us the movement. Swish and flick."
Vega picked up his wand. He didn't feel the heavy, crushing weight he felt in McGonagall's class. He felt light.
He looked at the feather. He didn't visualize a grip. He visualized a thermal current. He visualized the air molecules rushing upward, creating a vacuum that the feather had to fill.
He let the Hum flow. He didn't compress it this time; he guided it.
Swish and flick.
"Wingardium Leviosa."
It wasn't a gentle lift.
The feather shot upward like it had been fired from a cannon. It hit the ceiling—twenty feet up—with a soft pap and stayed there, pinned by the force of the updraft Vega had created.
"Oh, my," Flitwick squeaked, looking up. "A bit... enthusiastic, Mr. Black."
"Sorry, Professor," Vega winced. "The wand... it likes the air."
Flitwick looked at Vega, his eyes narrowing slightly—not with suspicion, but with the assessing gaze of a duelist watching an opponent draw.
"A wind-associated beast core?" Flitwick asked suddenly.
Vega blinked. "How did you know?"
"The velocity," Flitwick said, pointing at the feather which was still pinned to the ceiling. "Dragon Heartstring is explosive. Unicorn hair is consistent. But that feather didn't just rise; it rode a current. That is wind magic. Atmospheric manipulation."
He smiled, a genuine, toothy expression.
"You will have to learn to throttle back, Mr. Black. In a duel, if you overpower a Disarming Charm, you don't just take your opponent's wand; you take their arm."
He waved his own wand, and Vega's feather drifted gently back down to the desk.
"But the vector was perfect. Five points to Slytherin."
Charms Classroom (Post-Lesson)
The classroom had emptied out, leaving only the smell of old parchment and the lingering, static taste of forty first-years trying to rewrite gravity.
Vega sat alone at a desk near the back. On the wood in front of him lay a single white feather.
It looked innocent. It was, in fact, his nemesis.
"Again," Vega muttered.
He picked up his wand. The Quetzalcoatl feather core hummed against his palm, vibrating with a frantic, restless energy. It felt like holding a leash attached to a greyhound that had just spotted a rabbit.
Lift, Vega commanded mentally. Do not launch. Do not explode. Just... lift.
He visualized the vector. He clamped down on the Hum in his blood with the Ring, trying to choke the flow of magic down to a trickle.
"Wingardium Leviosa."
Swish-flick.
The feather didn't float. It jerked violently upward, did a triple backflip, and slammed into the underside of the desk above, sticking there as if glued by the sheer force of the updraft.
Vega sighed, dropping his head into his hands.
"Too much torque," he diagnosed bleakly. "I'm putting enough lift under a gram of keratin to launch a brick."
"Torque is useful for bricks," a high, cheerful voice squeaked from the front of the room. "Less useful for delicate avian byproducts."
Vega looked up.
Professor Flitwick was standing on his desk again. He wasn't marking papers. He was watching Vega with bright, intelligent eyes that didn't blink quite often enough.
"The core is eager," Flitwick noted, hopping down. He walked, or rather, bounced, down the aisle. "Wind magic is about velocity. It wants to go fast. It hates hovering."
"It feels like I'm trying to thread a needle wearing boxing gloves," Vega admitted, summoning the feather back down. It fluttered to the desk, looking ruffled. "Every time I open the tap, the flood comes out."
"That is because you are thinking like an artilleryman," Flitwick said, stopping at Vega's desk. "You are thinking about the payload."
Flitwick pulled his own wand. It was short, flexible, and moved with a casual lethality.
"In the 1961 semi-finals in Paris," Flitwick said conversationally, "I fought a wizard named Axar Glashinov. He was a mountain of a man. His strategy was to cast Depulso with enough force to crack the arena walls."
Flitwick flicked his wrist. A piece of chalk from the blackboard zoomed over and began to orbit his head like a tiny moon.
"He cast with a firehose," Flitwick said, watching the chalk spin. "I cast with a straw."
"Efficiency," Vega murmured.
"Aperture," Flitwick corrected.
He tapped the air. The chalk stopped dead.
"You are trying to hold back the ocean, Mr. Black. That is exhausting. Don't fight the pressure. Just... narrow the exit."
Flitwick leaned in, his voice dropping to the serious, clipped tone of a coach.
"Your wand is a nozzle. Right now, you are set to 'flood'. Visualize the tip of your wand. See the magic not as a river, but as a thread. A single, spider-silk thread of intent."
He pointed to the feather.
"Don't tell it to go up. Tell it that gravity has forgotten it exists."
Vega looked at the feather.
A thread, he thought.
He closed his eyes. He felt the Hum—the massive, chaotic storm in his blood. Instead of crushing it with the Ring, he ignored it. He focused entirely on the tip of his English Oak wand.
He visualized a tiny aperture. A pinhole.
The Quetzalcoatl feather squirmed, wanting to roar. Vega forced it to whisper.
Just a thread, he told the wind. Just a breath.
He opened his eyes. He didn't swish. He didn't flick. He moved his wrist a fraction of an inch—a duelist's twitch.
"Wingardium Leviosa."
The magic slid out.
The feather didn't jerk. It peeled itself off the desk, tip first, and drifted upward. It moved slowly, smoothly, rotating gently in the air current. It stopped exactly at eye level and hovered there, perfectly still.
"Control," Flitwick whispered, his face glowing with approval. "Look at the stability. No vibration. No wasted heat."
Vega held the spell. He could feel the strain, it was harder to hold back than to let go, but the result was clean.
"It feels... sharp," Vega said, watching the feather spin.
"That is the beginning of mastery," Flitwick beamed. "A Blasting Curse cast with that level of control won't just knock a wall down, Mr. Black. It will cut a hole through it without cracking the plaster."
Flitwick turned to go back to his desk, but he paused. He looked back at Vega, and for a second, the cheerful Charms teacher vanished. The World Champion stood there.
"You have a duelist's reflexes," Flitwick noted softly. "And a massive core. If you can learn to throttle that engine... you will be very difficult to hit."
He tapped his nose.
"Keep practicing the aperture, Mr. Black. Speed is nothing without precision."
Vega let the feather drift back to the desk.
"Thank you, Professor."
"Oh, and Mr. Black?" Flitwick called from the front of the room. "Five points to Slytherin. For listening."
Vega picked up the feather. He placed it in his pocket next to the transfigured needle.
One killed the wood, he thought. The other tricked gravity.
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Cyrus was waiting for him as he left the classroom.
"He's fast," Vega murmured to Cyrus. "Did you see his wrist when he cast the shield? It was a blur."
"My father said he used to dual-wield in the championships," Cyrus said, adjusting his bag. "A wand and a parrying dagger. Goblin style."
Vega looked back at the closed door.
"He recognized the core instantly," Vega noted. "He analyzed the spell velocity and deduced the material. That's not a teacher's observation. That's a threat assessment."
Vega touched the Ring on his finger.
"Lucius was right," Vega decided. "The man is a lethal weapon in a bowtie."
"And you put a feather through the ceiling," Cyrus grinned. "Subtle."
"I'm working on it," Vega sighed, feeling the Quetzalcoatl feather purring in his sleeve, satisfied with the taste of the air. "But at least I didn't turn it into a lead pipe."
"Small mercies, Black. Small mercies."