Your Professors Might Choke Me
Percy raised his hand.
“What am I, a spell vending machine you just press buttons on? Wingardium Leviosa!”
The skrewt floated up a good ten centimeters—then dropped straight back down.
It snarled and charged straight at Eugene.
“No! Come at me! Incarcerous!”
The ropes snapped taut with a sharp twang, but the skrewt simply switched targets and barreled toward Percy instead.
“Leviosa! Got it!”
“Now!”
“Flipendo!”
Penelope and Cedric shouted at the same time.
The skrewt flipped over.
“Stupefy!”
A red bolt slammed home.
“One down!”
“Nice—again!” Percy yelled. “I’ll float the next one!”
“Leviosa!”
“Flipendo!”
“Stupe—!”
Thwack—!
A rock kicked up by a blast-ended skrewt’s leg smashed into Percy’s gut.
“Percy, you okay?”
“If I’m not, I’m taking a break and letting you guys handle the rest, yeah?”
“As if. Get back up and do it again!”
“Heartless bastard. Stupefy!”
Another blast-ended skrewt went down.
“Two down!”
“Dude, this is literally our WoW raid group,” Percy said. “Cedric tank, Karina melee DPS, me ranged DPS, Penelope healer.”
“Shut your mouth!”
“No, I’m actually locked in right now!”
“Hey! Focus! Ah, shit, aggro’s bouncing. Go grab it!”
One of them broke free from Cedric and bolted toward the tent. Karina, still guarding Eugene’s side, hurled a rock that blocked the skrewt’s path with a nearby stone.
“Penny—! I’ve got the rear! Just cut it off!”
“Karina, nice—!”
In that opening, Penelope’s tickling charm exploded across the creature.
“Rictusempra—!”
“Hey! Why the hell are you using a tickling charm on a blast-ended skrewt?!”
“You don’t know these things are primate-based and ticklish? Look, it stopped. Hurry up and go again!”
“Blast-ended skrewts are primates? They’re crustaceans!!”
“You… absolute idiots! Please pay attention in Hagrid’s class for once!!!!! He brought one to school last year to show off. They’re modified for Auror training!! Ugh, shut up and just do it again.”
The party flipped the thrashing skrewt and stunned it once more.
Third one down.
Two left.
“What the—those two are splitting in different directions!”
“Damn it, Hagrid! What the hell did you modify them into?”
Percy and Cedric’s panicked shouts rang through the forest as the two remaining blast-ended skrewts scattered.
“Incendio!”
The spell shot from the tip of Penelope’s wand.
KWA-BOOM—!
One skrewt was engulfed in flame for a split second before a massive explosion reduced it to black ash.
“Penny? What did you just do? Since when can you cast Bombarda?”
“It’s Incendio. Light their tails on fire and they explode. There was still an ember left from the fire we made yesterday right along its path. Medium and fuel both present—lighting it up is easy.”
“Yeah, but you just fired a spell without saying anything?”
“Forgive me this once, raid leader? Let’s focus on the last one.”
Penelope giggled as she answered Cedric.
The final skrewt charged straight at Karina.
Right beside Eugene.
“Karina, look out!”
“You guys were already in danger!”
She drew her wand.
“I’m not the only one who’s allowed to dodge.”
The skrewt gathered flame.
BOOM—!
Karina lunged forward.
“Expulso!”
The blast threw them both backward.
“Vis Corporis Absoluta—!”
“Hey! That’s your father’s Ancestral Magic! You still can’t use it properly!”
“Percy. Shut up. Is that what matters right now? Accio—rock!”
“She only talks that rough to me. Diffindo—”
Percy grumbled, but he still fired cutting charms into the skrewt’s path, disrupting its footing so Karina could finish her spell.
She cast a weight-increasing charm on the stone in her hand and slammed it dead-center into the skrewt’s forehead.
The rock already weighed over a ton, and Karina crushed it home with overwhelming strength.
“For the record, the rice Eugene made yesterday was three-layer rice! I lied and said it was good, but I haven’t even gotten to properly roast him yet! We still have to have our drinking party!”
The skrewt’s forehead caved in—and Karina’s arm was left shredded.
Cedric shouted.
“Penelope, heal!”
“Heal? Are you insane? Episkey!”
“You understood me just fine!”
“Get a grip, Cedric. This is Scotland, not Dalaran!”
Light wrapped around Karina’s arm. The mangled limb roughly realigned, though the bones still hadn’t fully set and it trembled violently.
“Last one!” Percy yelled.
“Leviosa!”
“Flipendo!”
“Stupefy!”
Cedric’s spell landed last.
The skrewt hit the ground with a heavy thud.
Everyone was gasping for air, chests heaving.
Cedric lowered his shield and spoke.
“Line held well. Raid clear.”
“Yo, my heal’s on cooldown.”
“I’m out of mana.”
“I’ve got muscle pain.”
Penelope burst out laughing.
“Guys, we’ve lost it. Talking about heal cooldowns and being out of mana like this. If Professor McGonagall heard us she’d have a stroke. She hates people using magic terms like game slang.”
Then—
Pop.
The air tore open.
Instructor Marcus appeared.
“Exam over. Stop mentioning heals and mana. If you accidentally use those words at Hogwarts, your professors might choke me. Especially Minerva McGonagall.”
Karina tried to act fine, but she still let out pained groans while clutching her arm, standing guard over Eugene’s head.
“…Karina Yoo, pull yourself together. The fight’s over. And you are not your father, so stop doing reckless things like that. You’re the daughter of a subjugator, not a subjugator yourself. You and your father are different people. Remember that. You don’t have to copy everything he does.”
White light shot from Marcus’s wand and wrapped around Karina’s broken arm.
In moments it was fully healed and whole again.
He walked silently over to Eugene and raised his wand.
“Venom Extractus.”
Black venom flowed out.
Eugene coughed and opened his eyes.
“…Huh?”
Cedric rushed over and pulled him into a hug.
“You crazy bastard. I really thought you were dead. If you die before me I’ll kill you.”
Percy staggered over, chuckling, and pressed a waterskin to his lips.
“If you wanted water that badly you could’ve just asked me, you idiot. I’m the reason we had no water—why the hell did you take the hit?”
Penelope was sitting on the ground, still panting, while Karina wiped the blood from her face.
“What… was that a dream?”
“I wish it was. Then I could beat you to death without worrying about Azkaban,” Percy said.
“You got bitten by a snake, we fought scorpions, and right now the instructor’s magically extracting blood.”
“Instructor, wasn’t that a bit much? We called for you and you didn’t come—that’s against regulations.”
Cedric’s face hardened as he protested.
“I was here the whole time. I simply didn’t reveal myself. Look over there.”
Where Marcus pointed, beyond the trees they hadn’t been able to see, more than thirty skrewt corpses lay piled up.
“Eugene Kim, next time you see a magic field unraveling, cast any spell first to reinforce it instead of swearing. Then call your teammates. Originally this was forty weakened blast-ended skrewts calibrated for a full five-man party, but even with your scout retiring early you still took down five with zero fatalities, so I’ll take that into account.”
Listening to Marcus, Eugene looked closer: carapaces half-melted, tails severed, the ground scarred with dozens of explosion craters.
“Why is the difference that huge?! A five-man party gets forty but a four-man only gets five?! If Eugene hadn’t gone down we might’ve actually died!”
“If you’d truly been in danger I would have intervened. On a real front line, calling for allies doesn’t mean they come running instantly. And the difference? You already know a full five-man party is the urban-combat baseline Kingsley Shacklebolt established. Parties that lose their scout and operator early like you just did usually wipe before killing even five. Yes, these were weakened—but still, you…”
Marcus nodded.
“Good cooperation. You did quite well. Everyone passes. Walk two hundred meters ahead. The centaur teaching assistants will be with the other groups. It’s not completely over yet, but out of eight teams, you’re the first to clear.”
He looked at Eugene for a moment longer, then spoke again.
“And that wasn’t lethal venom. Percy Weasley, the spellwork was excellent, but next time examine things more carefully before choosing a spell.”
“Excuse me…??”
“That snake’s venom isn’t lethal. It’s a sleeping toxin. They captured East Asian specimens and modified them. Hagrid’s version uses sleep venom instead of killing venom. The trade-off is higher aggression, so Aurors use them often for camp-defense training. But if you’d been left in the middle of the forest for hours, hypothermia or getting stepped on by a skrewt would’ve killed you for real.”
“Ah, so that’s why the head shape…!!”
“It should be in Hagrid’s first-year curriculum. Next time just use Aguamenti. Or kick it once—that works too.”
He vanished without another word.
For a while no one could speak.
“Is he insane? Is he actually insane?”
Penelope burst out, excited.
“I’m posting this online.”
Cedric laughed.
“For whose benefit? We can’t be the only ones who get screwed.”
“Cedric, that’s the most correct thing you’ve said in three years.”
They all cracked up together.
And then the exhaustion hit.
They were truly, utterly exhausted.
It was the kind of day you just wanted to knock back a shot of soju and pass out cold.
“Hey, what was that three-layer rice Karina mentioned earlier?”
“…It’s a good thing. Like a Korean skill.”
“Ohhh… so this bastard really is Korean after all. Teach me that three-layer rice skill next time.”
“And Eugene Kim, you’re buying the drinks.”
“Fine.”
“Snacks too. You’re buying.”
“Got it.”
“And the Ice Bucket Challenge Lee Jordan nominated me for—you’re doing that for me too, Eugene Kim.”
“Fuck, that one’s a bit much. I’ve already got two stacked up myself.”
“Do mine too. I got nominated by Hannah.”
“Mine as well. Helene noona nominated me.”
“I just woke up from being a patient?”
“Who said do it right now? Just do them when we get back to school.”
“Today’s bus fare is going to be very, very expensive.”
Don’t worry, Cedric. I’ll pay the bus fare by saving your life.
The words never reached anyone; they scattered into the sunlight and drifted away.
“Eugene Kim, where do you think you’re going?”
Marcus Weybridge’s low, thick voice cut in.
“Huh? You said we passed.”
“Your friends passed. You just lay there the whole time.”
In the reflection of Eugene’s eyes, four friends rolled on the ground clutching their stomachs, howling with laughter.
“Eugene Kim, bye~~~”
“You bastards.”
Forcibly separated from his friends, Eugene was dragged off by Marcus for more physical training.
“Ah, seriously!!! Why are you doing this to me?!”
“Eugene Kim, if your friends had all wiped because of you, would you still be saying that?”
Fuck. He couldn’t think of a single comeback.
“Don’t you feel even a little sorry for your friends who only got to experience four-man party combat because of you? You stole their one chance at a full five-man party fight. If you understand, start running. Magic power, mental strength—everything comes from physical stamina. A weak body makes the head suffer.”
Fuck fuck fuck fuck. Even Hiddink wouldn’t have made them run this much.
Coming here to learn spellcraft and ending up doing more interval running than anything else—he never would have imagined it.
Still, he had gotten everything he wanted from the Weybridge Academy.
The resolve to rewrite the story after Book Five in order to save Cedric.
A hint about how Aurors’ magic-sensing ability actually worked.
And the faint certainty that Lucius Malfoy would be his enemy in this world too.
And then August 30, 2014 arrived—the day he would meet his friends again.