52 Charms(4)

The trip to the great hall was smooth after that for everyone since Flitwick was with the students. Like before Daphne and Tracy split away from Nick and Harry and sat at the Slytherin table for lunch while this time Hermione sat across from Nick in a huff. "How did you do it?" she asked unhappily. Nick raised and eyebrow at the question before grabbing a ham and cheese sandwich from a nearby platter. "You will need to be more specific." Nick said casually before taking a bite of his sandwich.-

"The Lumos spell you cast earlier , I can't get it to work despite matching your movements and incantation perfectly." She said clearly upset at her failings. A few other nearby people also listened in hoping to figure it out as well. Nick chuckled and finished off the sandwich since it was merely finger food sized. "There is indeed a trick to the spell that makes merely copying what you see insufficient. We aren't friends so the best I'll give you is a hint "the key is in the name" take of that what you will." Nick said before ignoring the girl. He then ate a salad he specifically ordered from the house elves much to the confusion of everyone.

Nick found amusing how almost no one seemed to realize where their food was coming from though to be fair you never actually see a house elf drop the food off. Those who own house elves but still don't realize where the food is coming from confuse him though. Like how do you not recognize the same work as what you get at home? Still Nick decided to act all mysterious by keeping the secret to himself and enjoying his salad.-

Once lunch ended everyone headed back to their classes and Tracy and Daphne rejoined Nick and Harry. "You know we got asked by a bunch of people to share with them the secret to your spell." Tracy said with a giggle. Nick shrugged "It's not much of a surprise as someone who doesn't like failing asked me during lunch too." he said casually while ignoring the fact that Hermione could definitely hear the conversation. "The bushy haired girl?" Daphne asked curiously. Harry spoke up this time "Yeah she seemed pretty upset that she couldn't figure out the trick without his help." he said honestly.-

"Did you tell her?" Tracy asked with a glint in her eye. Nick grinned at her "Nope , she just got a hint at the secret , same as everyone else who was eavesdropping." Nick said jovially. Tracy smiled "Good , that spell is easily worth a days bragging rights and I don't want to hand them over so easily." she said with smug satisfaction. "My how very Slytherin of you." Nick joked. "I never said I wasn't ambitious or cunning I'll have you know." Tracy said feigning offense but still smiling widely. "Apologies milady for my insolence at daring to make assumptions!" Nick said dramatically making everyone laugh.-

The second half of charms class was much like the first in that Nick was basically just there to help the other students with the Lumos spell. More than once he was asked the secret to his version of the spell and he always gave the same hint he gave Hermione. Flitwick had no problem with Nicks act of hiding the secret since the hint truly led to the answer and they merely needed to figure it out. Ravenclaw had always been the house of wit and wisdom so as it's head of house he could appreciate the mental exercise Nick was giving them.-

By the end of the class only five other people besides Nick's group succeeded in casting nicks version of the spell in some capacity , none of which were Hermione. It weighed heavily on her mind as well since she clearly looked distraught as her classmates surpassed her. 'Man she's going to feel terrible when one of these people lets the secret slip accidentally while bragging.' Nick thought with a sigh. 'I did warn her so what happens from here on is entirely on her.' he thought completely giving up on the girl for now.-

Hermione was far too stuck in her ways at the moment and in magic that simply doesn't work. Magic loves imagination far more than it does structure and unfortunately Hermione is all about structure at the moment. Nick's version of the Lumos charm was a work of imagination and so it was outside a structural being like Hermione's grasp. Perhaps this incident would allow her to mellow out a bit and actually use her imagination that had been stuck behind ruthless amounts of cold logic. 'Hopefully it doesn't take getting saved from a bloody troll to get there this time.' Nick thought darkly.

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