Dipper's problem, Wirt reflected, was not that the kid lacked power in his magic. Neither did he lack the flexibility of mind necessary to weave complicated charms. Nor was he struggling with pronunciation or diction in his spells, and although his wand movements could use some work, they weren't far enough behind average that he should be having as many problems as he was. If any of those things had been the main source of Dipper's problems, then Wirt would have at least had some inkling of where to start in tutoring him.
Unfortunately, the problem was not one of those things. Instead, the main issue was apparently that the kid was constantly doing the first thing that popped into his little scheming head regardless of instructions, advice, or common freaking sense.
"Dipper," Wirt growled as he looked over the living, breathing, highly disgruntled llama that had was staring at him from the middle of the otherwise nondescript classroom. It had, presumably, been an old bookcase before Dipper's miscast spell had hit it a minute ago. "What did you do?"
"I was just practicing before you got here!" Dipper said, his hands balled into fists. His face was as red as the strawberry Every Flavor Beans that Greg always saved for last.
Burying his face in his hands, Wirt willed himself to take a relaxing breath. "…Practicing."
Dipper shifted his weight a little, and although he stubbornly refused to break eye contact, he ducked his head at a sheepish angle.
A little absently, Wirt found himself wishing that Beatrice was there. She wouldn't have been able to say anything aloud in front of Dipper, of course, but he'd at least have had someone else to exchange exasperated looks with. As much as he missed her, though, he couldn't exactly blame her for skipping out. After an incident last week where she'd been temporarily turned a violent shade of orange, she'd flatly refused to come to any more of Dipper's lessons.
"You wouldn't happen to remember the one simple thing I'd asked you to do the last time we met, would you?"
Reluctantly, Dipper muttered, "…to wait until you got here before trying a new spell."
"So what…" Wirt stammered, gesturing wildly at the llama in disbelief. "Just… Why!?"
"You don't know it was a new spell!" the boy said defensively, taking a step forward. "Maybe I'm just that bad at the stuff we learned last year, huh? Or maybe we just started learning about how to turn things into llamas for transfiguration today. Nobody said I hadn't followed your stupid instructions."
Wirt dropped his knapsack to the ground at his side with a thump as he stepped fully through the doorway and into the actual classroom. "First of all, there's no possible way that you were learning about turning things into llamas as a second year. Second of all, fine, sure, I guess I don't know for a fact that you were testing out a new spell. So then, let me just ask. Were you?"
There was a brief pause.
"…Maybe?" said Dipper, shrinking into himself.
"What spell were you even practicing?" Wirt asked, looking again at the llama, which had started to lip at one of Dipper's textbooks, which must have fallen to the floor at some point in the confusion.
"Uh… that… light one," Dipper said, scrunching up his face as he tried to remember the exact incantation. "Lumos, right?"
"Lumos," Wirt repeated, dumbly.
"The book was talking about this technique where you—" abruptly, Dipper cut off as he noticed what the llama was up to and rushed forward to grab his book back before it could be devoured.
"Accio," Wirt said with a sigh, and the textbook came flying up to him. The llama let out a bleat of protest.
"Um… thanks."
"You were saying?"
"Right. So I was reading through our Standard Book of Spells," Dipper said, gesturing vaguely to the book Wirt held in his hands, "and it talks at the beginning about how we'll be learning this technique this year where you build up energy at the tip your wand before you release it, right? But even though it's been more than three months, we still haven't even mentioned it in class! So I started looking ahead…"
Of course he had.
"…and about three-fourths of the way through, it finally started outlining how you're supposed to do it, and it used lumos as an example to walk people through their first try."
Wirt remembered that part. Wirt remembered that part very well—he'd been so intimidated by the warnings in that section that he'd put off learning it until Beatrice had finally gotten fed up with his complaining and goaded him into trying.
Wirt's eye twitched at the recollection. Again. It had been doing that a lot, recently. For a fleeting moment, Wirt contemplated taking Dipper's textbook, tearing out the pages on the spells that the kid had already learned, and giving those pages back to him while locking the rest in a chest in Wirt's dormitory somewhere.
Resisting the urge to destroy Dipper's property, Wirt instead cracked the textbook open and started to thumb through it. "It was somewhere near chapter twelve, right?"
Dipper nodded, and then blinked in surprise when Wirt thrust the book back into his arms, opened to the appropriate page. "Um…"
"Read the first three lines of the third paragraph," Wirt said, voice weary. "Out loud, please."
Dipper cleared his throat, located the spot on the page, grimaced, cleared his throat again and then read, "This technique, when mastered, enables the casting of far more powerful spells, but the reader is warned that this is not without risk and therefore requires the utmost concentration. Students are encouraged to experiment with this technique while being wary that lapses in concentration can result in painful side effects. It is best to first observe the technique, and then to begin mastering it under the careful guidance of one's instructor or another accomplished spellcaster." The rest of the page was filled with warnings of a similar caliber.
Raising one eyebrow, Wirt gestured grandly to the book.
"Okay, I get your point," Dipper huffed, slamming the book shut. "I'll give it a rest for now, alright? Can we please just forget about it and start the actual lesson?"
Before Wirt could answer, an odd, trilling bleat filled the air, and both boys looked back toward the center of the classroom, where the llama was trotting back and forth. As they watched, it knocked over a chair that had been standing in its way.
"How about we get someone to help us fix the llama problem, first?" Wirt replied. Transforming an object that big into something that complicated was, frankly, out of Wirt's ability range. They'd have to get a teacher to come and fix it. …Or, you know. Find a place for the new llama somewhere at the school.
"…Right."
Wirt wasn't sure whether it was a good thing or not that most of the teachers seemed to be used to Dipper's little mishaps by now. As soon as they managed to find someone (Professor Langtree, the divination professor, who was on her way back up from the staffroom), she took one look at Dipper's sheepish expression, gave a drawn-out sigh, and simply asked what needed fixed and where. A few minutes later, the llama was gone, the classroom had been tidied up, Langtree had finally finished rambling about her lost love, and gone back up to her office, and the boys were free to start practicing some of the more basic spells that Dipper had actually learned about over the last few days.
Things didn't go badly for the rest of their lesson, per se, but Wirt could tell that Dipper was frustrated with his own lack of progress all the same. At least nothing else was spontaneously turned into a llama.
Later that evening, after they'd each bid the other a tired goodbye and gone their separate ways, Wirt found himself rubbing at the back of his neck to fend off a growing headache. It wasn't exactly like he could go lie down and take a break, though. There was a prefects' meeting that night about supervising the Christmas decorations, and thanks to the madness that was Dipper's tutoring sessions, he was running late again.
I didn't just bite of more than I could chew with him, Wirt thought as he dragged himself up yet another staircase. I'm pretty sure I tried to swallow the entire kitchen.