HP: The Stellar Witch [OFC]

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At first, Lys didn't think it was a big deal. But after Lily Evans helped her clean her cauldron yet again, Lys began to sense that something was off. It seemed that, to repay Lys for helping her friend, Evans believed that such small acts of assistance were only fair.

If it had been anyone else—even Snape—doing this, Lys wouldn't have felt so uneasy. But Lily Evans? No, thank you. She came with a built-in problem named Potter.

This realization forced Lys to cling tightly to her post-Charms tutoring sessions like a lifeline. She had to learn the "Scourgify" spell as soon as possible.

"I must say, Miss Black, you are the most difficult student I've ever taught in Charms—aside from the Hufflepuffs," Professor Flitwick remarked, watching as Lys managed to turn a simple Scourgify spell into a Vanishing Charm.

The Scourgify spell was meant to tidy and organize objects according to a wizard's subconscious habits, causing things like dust and grime to disappear. It was essentially a household charm.

But the Vanishing Charm? That was used to make specific targets disappear completely, often employed for clearing out trash bins or, in darker contexts, disposing of evidence.

And this child? Even when Flitwick placed her homework directly in front of her as the target, warning her that a failed spell would make her work vanish and require her to redo it, she still couldn't cast it correctly.

It was as if she lacked real-life experience and the cognitive abilities typical of students her age. Her thinking was always muddled and unclear.

Over the course of intermittent tutoring sessions, Flitwick had spent quite a bit of time helping her. Yet, the girl still wasn't at a level where she could pass her final exams.

With only a month left before the exams, Flitwick couldn't help but worry whether this student would show any improvement.

Later, when Lily Evans offered to cast Scourgify for her after Potions class, Lys politely declined, insisting she could manage on her own.

Perhaps it was prompted by Evans, or maybe it was just Snape's own brand of mockery, but Snape gave Lys two bottles as gifts: one contained a suspiciously off-colored Tooth-Growing Potion, and the other was a Magic Stabilizer Potion meant for young witches and wizards experiencing accidental magic outbursts before starting school.

Snape was clearly mocking her magical control, implying it was worse than that of an untrained child. Furious, Lys retaliated by stuffing a handful of candy into Snape's pocket as she passed him in the library. This led to Madam Pince discovering the contraband snacks and chasing Snape out with a feather duster.

As the final exams approached, Lys finally began to panic. While she was no longer completely illiterate, and her essays could now barely pass as written work (though whether they made sense was another matter), she had improved significantly compared to when she had first started at Hogwarts.

But El told her that failing too many subjects would result in a parent-teacher meeting and possibly repeating the year.

Lys didn't fully understand what "repeating the year" meant, but a parent-teacher meeting? Absolutely not! Her mother wouldn't come, her father couldn't come, and Coco didn't count as a parent. So, failing was not an option.

The fear of repeating the year spurred Lys into an unprecedented level of diligence during the final month of her first year. She even threatened El, saying she wouldn't share her roasted chicken legs with him unless he accompanied her to the library. This earned El the dubious honor of being teased as the most hardworking Hufflepuff by his dormmates.

When the final exams concluded in June, Lys wore only a dark green shirt and black trousers, forgoing her school robes. She dragged El to the beech tree on the grounds, where she kept replaying the details of the exams in her mind, particularly her disastrous practical Charms test.

She had botched the simplest spell on Professor Flitwick's exam, turning the entire test table into a gleaming silver surface that reflected the professor's ghostly pale face.

Lys was convinced she had failed multiple subjects. Her History of Magic and Defense Against the Dark Arts exams had gone terribly, though she had performed exceptionally well in Transfiguration. The beetle she transformed into a button was perfectly shaped, complete with intricate patterns. Even her Astronomy star chart was nearly flawless, with only two stars misplaced.

Sighing over the difficulty of the exams, Lys lamented her fate. El sighed along with her—not because he was worried about his grades, but because his family, being Hufflepuffs, didn't place much importance on academic performance.

Still, listening to Lys endlessly recount the details of the exams wasn't exactly enjoyable. Not even a packet of honey-roasted fish snacks, as delicious as they were, could make up for it.

When they spotted the Gryffindor quartet in the distance, El grabbed Lys and steered her back toward the castle.