Sky and Kav met him outside Professor Mullard's Wizarding Literature classroom less than five minutes after the flying lesson ended, both muddy and bruised. The first boy was out of breath but managed to pant a few gasped words. "It was - awful." Albus shook his head, scratching his exhausted eyes.

"The Hufflepuffs... Never again, for as long as I live... They were hopeless!" Sky muttered indignantly. "Don't get me wrong, I hadn't ridden a broomstick before this afternoon, but Christ, the Hufflepuff girls kept laughing - laughing at me! - and falling off. Dupont was seething by the end and he took a good ten points off everyone. Except for bloody Orville, who was the only one who could stay upright for more than two minutes." He tried to rub some of the mud off his robes, as a few more Ravenclaws trudged miserably up the stairs, equally as filthy. They were followed by a couple of Gryffindors, who snickered at them. "Does anyone here know how to clean this bloody mud off? I think I've got half the lawns down my back."

Albus frowned. "Uh - I'm sure there's a proper spell but apparently Tersus works." He drew his wand and pointed it at Sky's back, the memory of the wand movements bubbling into the forefront of his mind. Spotting the perplexed look on Sky's face, he quickly explained, trying to cover up what he'd read over the last hour and a half. "One of the, er, Ravenclaw players mentioned it. Y'know. Friendly advice." The boy raised an eyebrow, unconvinced as Albus began the incantation, stiffly waving his wand in an upside-down triangle shape, cut by an L. The diagram had been a bit vague. "With any luck, this should get some of it off-" Some of the stains simmered before dripping to the floor, waxy-like, but the classroom door opened before he could siphon the rest off.

"Potter!"

He turned to face an infuriated Mullard, who appeared to have a committed relationship with the rules. "Sir?"

"Fifteen points for that-" The professor seemed to have lost the ability to speak. "Unpermitted use of magic in the corridors. Come in, all of you, what have you been doing? You look grimy as hell." Albus' fellow Ravenclaws entered the vast classroom gingerly, taking their seats next to several bemused Gryffindors, which included an apologetic-looking Scorps.

Mullard scowled at Albus. "You think you can flaunt the rules, don't you, young man?" He strode into the room and thumped his desk with his fists. "Rule-breaking will be punished, stringently, as long as you are under my authority!"

Albus took his seat next to Scorps, horrified at how Mullard had viewed and treated him as a trouble-maker. Did he really come across that way? How on earth was he going to prove Mullard otherwise, if that was all he ever expected? Now evident in the afternoon sunshine, his eyes were a steel-grey, colder than Albus had expected. He shivered.

"Hey," Scorps whispered, once the man's back was turned to the class. "Haven't seen you since the match. You alright?" Mullard's chalk screeched as he wrote down the key components of Wizarding Literature, snappily commenting that they needed to write notes "for the exam".

"Oh, yeah, course," Albus said, paying attention to the themes Mullard had underlined. "I really don't like heights, and the leg hurts at night... I must've been a bit mad to referee..." He drew a line linking power to corruption and evil. "Mhmm... What about you? Had a good day so far?"

Scorps scratched his nose as he began to copy down the notes. "We had McGonagall... Need I say more?"

Orville leant over. "Was she as good or bad as the legends say?"

"Well...she changed herself into a cat, and then back, so I'm not talking in front of any cats ever again, and then she insisted we all shut up and listen to one of the Hufflepuffs make up a song about some alphabet. Now, this woman must be hopping mad - she made each of us recite that stupid song, from memory," Scorps muttered. "She was very, erm, high and mighty over her subject. I know it's early days yet, but I'm dropping that sodding subject soon as."

Mullard coughed annoyedly. "Finished yet, boys?" He rested his thickset knuckles on his wooden desk as he spoke. "Now, Wizarding Literature is intended to complement your History of Magics studies by giving you a perspective on different eras and how wizards of each period have sought to capture that time. If any of you have attended Muggle schools before Hogwarts-" Sky shifted uncomfortably in his seat, "-you will find this differs slightly. There will be points where we will focus on language, on etymology, so you can understand the basic roots of our most common spells. What spells have you heard so far?" A frisson of excitement swiftly flowed through Albus as he realised this was what Auntie Hermione had described to him.

"Lumos," Christine offered. "It provides light."

Mullard nodded. "Yes. Latin in origin. It comes from the roots lumen and lux meaning light."

Somebody - Kavyansh - raised their hand.

"Yes?"

"Does - does this mean, in effect, we could create our own spells? If we understood where magic comes from in language...we could just find old Latin roots and use that to our bidding?"

Mullard smiled. It was the first time Albus had ever seen him smile. "Possibly. But I wouldn't suggest you do that yet. The complexities of language require years of further scholarship before you begin to understand how it all works. Even seventh-year students struggle with this level of intense study, and they've been learning magic a lot longer than you. Don't count on it." He was fascinated.

Mullard allowed a few more questions before sending them on their way again. "Bloody hell, that was a bit dry, wasn't it?" Scorps said as he headed in the direction of the dungeons for his Potions lesson. "Catch you at four in the library? Rose said we were going to have a Potions essay tonight and I'm not staying up unless I can help it. Good luck with McGonagall, mate." Albus shouted his response back before following Orville and Sky to the ground-floor courtyard classrooms. Kavyansh was already ahead of them.

"Bit of a git, wasn't he, Mullard?" Sky remarked, taking his robes off and pointing his wand at them. "What was that spell? Terpus? Tersus?" As the word left his mouth, the mud knotted together to form a hard slab and fell off. "Oh... So that's how it's supposed to go. Y'know, it felt like you were trying to cook dinner on my back." Why hadn't that worked for him the first time around? It'd worked perfectly in the privacy of his dormitory room earlier. He wondered if that'd been simple beginner's luck.

McGonagall was at the door, ready to welcome them in, followed by the eager-eyed and bushy-tailed Rose and a noticeably more cheerful Christine. As they took their seats, the professor exemplified what Scorps had told them; a quietly mad witch who was alarmingly able to Transfigure herself into a tabby cat at will. How had she done it? Was there a long magical process involved or was it just a simple spell on her part? As the class Oohed, a pop sounded, and she was once again standing in front of her desk, her face sterner, however that was possible, than before.

"It is not an easy subject, Transfiguration. Some of you will undoubtedly fail and leave. There is no shame in accepting failure, but what I do not accept is fooling around. If you do that, I will ask you to leave and you will not return. Now, you must conquer the theoretical basics before you even begin to think about waving your wands and saying spells." The class groaned, knowing that Scorpius had been dead on.

By the end of the lesson, Albus' brain had been exhausted and he was relieved to be able to head off to the library to crack on with McGonagall's homework, alongside a frazzled Orville and Kavyansh, who'd lapped up each letter in the Transfiguration Alphabet, each more frustratingly complicated than the last. They huddled over their essays, irritated by the copious footnotes which unravelled their precious free hours and sipped the flasks of lukewarm tea Rose insisted on bringing them. She was desperate to chit-chat with Albus over their Wizarding Literature lessons, which Scorps had immediately nicknamed Wiz Lit, clearly impressed by Mullard. "I hope they let us sit our OWLs on it! It sounds incredibly interesting!" Albus, as tired as he was from peering into his textbooks for hours on end to correct the mistakes in his Potions essay, nodded in agreement.

That became their routine as the days fluttered by, as soundly as Parmenides' wings over breakfast each morning, delivering yet another letter from Mum or Lily. The long evenings became shorter as their groups' grips on their schoolwork tightened despite the first few essays being a struggle. They quickly learnt to scan the pages-long footnotes after each charm and counter-charm and how to reference the way Professors Ellis and McGonagall liked, earning house points and rare smiles, in that order.

Herbology with Uncle Neville had become relatively straightforward, a subject that Albus had surprisingly enjoyed more than he thought he would. After miserable lessons with Mullard, where he often felt like the man had disliked him from his first impression of Albus, Professor Longbottom would sometimes hold him back to ask if he was okay and if he wanted dinner at Hagrid's later on. Because he was so busy exploring the castle and keeping his head down, Albus politely declined.

On the other hand, his regular absences from Dupont's flying lessons were ignored, and the professor failed to notice him lingering in the courtyard windows, watching as Christine, Kav and Sky adjusted to taking their feet off terra firma, Orville encouraging them. As they hurtled towards the end of October, the beginning of the Quidditch season at Hogwarts, Rose and Scorps had become increasingly animated. Albus hadn't heard of his older brother making the team, although he did occasionally see Tom shoulder his broomstick down the corridors after each practice session. The first match, a small decider between Ravenclaw and Gryffindor for whoever faced Hufflepuff next, had been marked on the common room calendar for weeks on end as the final Saturday of that month.

Albus, who was often awake until the early hours of the morning, was the first one at breakfast. As Ravenclaws came down, buzzing for the match they were determined to win against their rivals, Rose sidled onto the seat next to him, wearing a blue and silver scarf. He looked at her questioningly.

"What?" she asked. "Oh, this. I borrowed it from Christine. It didn't feel right to support Gryffindor after the series of Howlers I got off Uncle Fred." He nodded, smiling as the faint memory of Kavyansh recounting the story one night in the common room came to mind. In the middle of dinner, after the match, about four or five sodden letters arrived during the middle of McGonagall's speech to the student body. Everybody had looked to see what they were, and once Rose had picked them up, a drunk voice began bellowing about house pride and letting the Weasley side down. Of course, it had been good-natured on Fred's part, but that hadn't stopped Rose from feeling mortified.

A few more Ravenclaws trickled into the Great Hall, booing their Gryffindor rivals. A slightly green Cordelia, the Captain of the Ravenclaw team, sat down for breakfast, to a cheer. Orville and Kavyansh finally joined them, followed by Christine and Sky. "Eagle pride!" Sky cheered, a lump of cloth folded underneath his blue jumper. "We spent a fair bit of time looking for an old banner last night, and we're gonna levitate it, hopefully! every time we score."

"Not in front of our lot, I hope," Rose said, almost disapprovingly. Her voice was nearly drowned by the enthusiastic hubbub of students talking about the match.

"Me and Kav were hoping you would help us out on this one since you're the only one who got that sodding charm right," he said.

"Why can't we just hold it?" Albus asked.

"Surely that would be easier? At least we can't be blamed for the banner flying off as a certain someone did," Rose agreed, looking pointedly at Orville. They laughed and followed the excited masses out to the Quidditch pitch, Professor Ellis cheering the house team on ahead of them. "Apparently, this match is the first to be reported, live, outside of Hogwarts on the radio, so our family'll be listening at home, Albus!"

As they settled into their seats, Albus gently reminded her that they'd be supporting Gryffindor instead of Ravenclaw. A deafening squeal from what he assumed to be the microphone sounded. "Testing! One, two, three! Hello, can you all hear me?"

Rose buried her face in her hands. "It's James!"

"This is James Potter if you haven't figured that out already. Mum, if you're listening at home..." Laughter, replaced by boisterous cheering ensued. "Right, I promise you that we have a cracking line-up today."

The players, triumphant in their uniforms, marched onto the pitch below to more cheering, forming a line facing Professor Dupont, neutral in his resplendent black robes and the other team. "On the Gryffindor side, we have Captain Li Guotin, her Chasers Tom Morgan and Andrea and Günther Lehmann, Beaters Adair Faulds and Bobby Moore, with the formidable Alun Jonesey Jones!" Raucous cheering came from the Gryffindors, interspersed with some of the Hufflepuffs and Slytherins.

"Now, Ravenclaw, your captain, Cordelia Deryn as the Keeper, Chasers Dylan Keating, Owen Brown and Machiko Amaya, Beaters Bella Burns and Eva McDonald, with Aidan Brookman as the Seeker! I'm informed that both teams have been training with a clean sweep of the newest generation of Nimbuses so skill should win here... Not that I'm favouring any particular houses... Now, I think we're about to kick off. Dupont's whistle should- and away they go!"