You're doing it wrong, Kovacs. PV Reid Closed

Hjørdis examined the wand as the boy spoke. It did not look damaged at all, which was a good start. He told her the core and wood type but he did not say anything about speaking to a wandmaker about it, which kind of answered her question that perhaps he did not do that. She did not know much about the different wood types and what their properties were but she knew a little about the cores. His was very different to her own, so she sadly could not give him all of the information that he required, "The phoenix core might be partially the issue," She answered, "We'd have to look into the chestnut wood properties, though." Hjørdis wondered how much he actually knew about his wand. It was a powerful core but not the easiest to handle.

Holding the wand out for Reid, she handed it back to him. "Your wand movements are a little off." The Professor admitted, which was why he was unable to cast the spell properly. The spell was above his year, too. The school curriculum was planned very carefully. It was not for fun that students were taught spells in certain years but rather, because of the spell difficulty. Some spells were a lot harder than others and required more years of practice. Mastering lumos maxima would be a lot easier if you had already mastered lumos. "May I ask... is there a particular reason you are attempting to learn a spell that you have not been taught yet, Mister Kovacs?" She asked him, point blankly. She doubted that he was unaware of the dangers of doing such a thing.

Most students ought to know that. Some spells might break your wand. Others might backfire and cause you serious - perhaps even fatal - harm. She was pretty sure that the dangers of casting spells incorrectly was lesson one in the life of any hogwarts student. It was incredibly important that spells were not mistaught for that reason. Hjørdis wanted to know why he was risking such a thing. Was it simply to be a better wizard, beat his fellow students and get a better grade or was there something more than that? Lumos maxima was not a particularly dangerous spell or anything, so it was unlikely that he was going to use it to hurt someone. He could easily have waited to be taught this, surely. There had to be a reason he was choosing to practice it alone, without any guidance. 

She had the reputation of being cold, heartless, scary... It was one that she had spent years building. Training and honing her skills to try and keep the emotions from within her every surfacing to the top of her face. The blank facade of her face was the thing that everyone saw, what they knew her for. They believed that underneath everything, she had no heart because of her apparent lack of emotion.

But that was not true. Hjørdis was not emotionless. She simply spent years trying to hide her emotions behind a mask. She was not as cold as she allowed people to believe she was. The young boy replied to her question, in a way that surprised her. It was not a selfish or ridiculous desire. He was not being foolish. 

It stung a little. He was as second year, he could not be more than thirteen. Hjørdis sighed softly. She had only joined the school recently, long after the incident that Kovacs spoke of but she had seen things in the Hufflepost. Reading those articles, she saw the tragic incidents that the house had gone through. It was heartbreaking. But she did not know much about it. All she knew was what she had read in the articles, written by the students themselves. Incendio was definitely not smart. From the sounds of it, a student had started a fire and set the forest around them alight. Kovacs clearly sounded distressed by the whole situation. 

She stepped forward, picking up the textbook that had been singed by the boy. Perhaps unexpectedly, she lightly tapped his head with it. Not in a painful way, more like a gentle 'bap'. Hjørdis sighed softly, "Falling down does not mean you fail. Getting back up, trying again, that's real strength. You only fail when you stop trying." She adviced, disliking the fact that the boy likely felt like a failure because of that incident, where he was unable to cast a spell. She paused for a moment, allowing her words to sink in. Yes, Lumos was an easy spell compared to what he was attempting to learn now but when he was still new to the school, still learning to control his magic, it was still hard. 

"Kovacs... What you're trying to, it's admirable. I understand where you're coming from, it's smart. Honestly? I think it's incredible." Hjørdis added. The boy was not trying to study spells above his grade to hurt others, he was not attempting to gain power to boost his own ego or for boredom. No, he had a very noble, logical and rational decision. He wanted to better himself so he could protect himself, in a way that was did not cause harm or danger to others nearby. He was not willing to use Incendio. The young boy might have seemed like a fool - you had to be if you were going to throw a flaming book towards Jensen - but deep down, he seemed to just lack the confidence in his own abilities and want to better himself, desperately.  For the first time in their meeting, he was not wrong. Everything he wanted to do, it made sense to her. 

A part of her was actually kind of proud of him.

It kind of hurt her that she had to say the next thing but he was too young. As much as she would have loved to teach him lumos maxima, he was simply too young. "Unfortunately, I do have to advice that you stick to practicing the spells on your syllabus." She added, "It has been created that way on purpose. Spells that are harder to control, that require more experience, tend to go in the later years. Learning the spells available to your grade will pay off in the long run."  Hjørdis explained, as much as she did not want to. She would have loved to teach him the spell - it sounded like he really needed to know it. But the syllabus was something experienced wizards wrecked their mind over for hours and hours on end. They were planned, properly, to every last detail. If you were a prodigy in a subject, perhaps you could go a bit above your own grade. But that was not the case for everyone.