"Wingardium Leviosa!"
Professor Flitwick held his wand, the incantation perfectly matching the flick of his wrist. The feather in front of him immediately floated upward and hovered above the desk.
"Very good. Never forget the subtle wrist movement we've been practicing," Professor Flitwick said in his usual high-pitched voice, standing atop his stack of books as always.
"A swish and flick—remember, swish and flick—and the incantation must be pronounced precisely, or you'll get other problems."
"Everyone pair up and start practicing."
Professor Flitwick began grouping the young witches and wizards below him. Harry was paired with Seamus Finnigan, while Ron was paired with Hermione Granger.
In the end, only one black-haired, black-eyed student remained unpaired.
"Gabin, you can wait on the side for a bit. I'll teach you the trick of silent casting in a moment," Flitwick said to Gabin, then went off to supervise the other students' practice.
Gabin simply nodded and watched the other practicing students with interest.
His gaze lingered longest on Harry, Ron, and Hermione—after all, they were the protagonists of the entire story.
Yes—he was not originally from this world. Due to an accident, he had transmigrated here and received a Hogwarts acceptance letter.
This should have been a joyful thing: he could learn magic and experience this dazzling, colorful wizarding world.
There was just one problem.
He was mute. Aphasic.
As everyone knows, magic requires speaking the incantation while wielding a wand—unless one advances far enough in magical study to master the skill of silent casting, in which case the spoken spell can be omitted.
Clearly, for a twelve-year-old first-year who had only just entered the wizarding world, silent casting was far too advanced.
It was especially difficult because he had to leap straight to silent casting—like asking a child who hasn't yet learned to walk to ride a bicycle.
Still, Gabin waved his wand along with the others, trying his best to make his movements standard.
After all, this was a rare opportunity in his life to learn magic. If he gave up just because of some difficulties, it would be far too disrespectful to whatever great deity had sent him to this world.
As for restoring the glory of wizards or defeating the approaching Voldemort—those things could be left to the protagonist group.
Compared to meddling in events that were already destined, he was far more interested in seeing the other scenery this world had to offer.
How about taming a dragon to ride? The descendant of dragons can't possibly have never ridden a dragon.
Actually, he shouldn't have been allowed to enroll at all. "Squib" and "mute" differ by only one concept in some minds, and as someone with aphasia, the most likely outcome was that he would never get past the basic spell-casting stage and would simply waste several years at Hogwarts.
In the end he would learn a great deal of knowledge he could never apply, becoming a new kind of squib in the wizarding world.
A squib who actually had magic.
But Dumbledore had strongly advocated for him, declaring that his magical talent was extraordinarily high—even surpassing Dumbledore's own at that age, approaching the level of the four Hogwarts founders.
And so, he had been allowed to enroll at Hogwarts as an aphasic student.
The first such case in the school's history.
Gabin continued waving his wand while keeping an eye on the movements of the protagonist trio.
Harry and Ron were loudly chanting the incantation and swinging their long arms like windmills, yet the feather in front of them showed not the slightest movement.
But in Gabin's unique perspective, besides their ordinary appearance, there was something indescribable that appeared along with their motions and then quickly vanished into the air.
Gabin knew—that was magic power.
With the knowledge of a Hogwarts first-year, plus what he knew from his previous life, he roughly understood spellcasting as consisting of three parts:
Wand movement, incantation, and magic power output.
The wand movement and incantation were like the positive and negative poles of a circuit, while magic power was the current flowing through it.
When they formed a complete loop, the spell (the light bulb) would activate.
But it wasn't as simple as building a circuit—every spell had its own unique magic circuit.
The Levitation Charm's magic circuit was like having a person's left hand (wand movement) draw a semicircle while the right hand (incantation) drew a half-square, requiring the starting points to be the same and the ending points to connect simultaneously.
And at the exact moment of connection, magic power had to flow through and complete the circuit.
The magic output couldn't be too strong either—excessive power would distort the lines of the magic circuit and cause the spell to fail.
Of course, first-year students didn't need to worry about that problem. Their magic reserves were very small; some could only complete the circuit once or twice at most.
As for Gabin—he truly lived up to Dumbledore's description of being exceptionally gifted. The total amount of magic power he currently possessed was already ten times that of the other students, and he could feel that as his body grew, his magic capacity was continuously increasing.
It was just a pity that he was mute. The difficulty of learning magic for him was more than ten times greater than for others.
Over on the other side, Hermione—who was paired with Ron—had already succeeded. The feather floated up and hovered above their heads.
"Excellent!" Professor Flitwick did not stint on praise. "Marvelous! Everyone, look—Miss Granger has succeeded!"
Hermione's nose was held high, basking in everyone's attention.
But Ron, sitting opposite her, looked as if he had just eaten a vomit-flavored Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Bean.
Gabin also turned his gaze that way. In his special vision, what Hermione had just completed was a full magic circuit—though the lines wavered a bit, the connection was only barely made, and the magic power was as thin as a hair, almost failing to bridge the two poles.
But for a twelve-year-old first-year girl, she was undoubtedly outstanding.
Gabin was also pleased—because he had memorised the circuit Hermione had just formed.
Since he couldn't experience the magic circuit himself, he could only learn by observing others.
"Alright, Gabin, stop watching the others. Let's begin your lesson," Professor Flitwick said, climbing onto Gabin Gray's desk.
He watched Gabin shift his gaze away from Hermione and sighed.
"It's truly a pity. If you weren't aphasic, Gabin, you would undoubtedly be even more outstanding than Miss Granger."
Gabin said nothing. There was nothing to be done about it.
Although he didn't hold much hope for Gabin'sprogress, Professor Flitwick still taught him the technique of silently casting the Levitation Charm with great care and patience.
"The key is to keep thinking it in your heart, child. You need extremely strong focus and willpower. You must vividly imagine the spell being cast. You can do it, child."
That was what Professor Flitwick said.
But Gabin's face was full of helplessness.
Fortunately, during the lesson, Professor Flitwick demonstrated silent Levitation Charm several times, allowing Gabin Gray to observe a magic circuit different from the one Hermione had used.
Tl/N : Drop powerstones for an early chapter release.