Meno, or Excellence PV Cynthia Beaufort

Once you get used to it, magic is a rather mundane thing to practice. Learning new spells is always fun, of course. You're practically finding new ways to bend the universe to your will after all. But once you do learn a spell, or you do understand a potion, all you can do is practice. Cast it over and over, brew again and again, get every detail right so that when you need it, not a single second is wasted in its use.

First there was the incantation: some obscure Greek or Latin conjunction, decided on by god knows who god knows when, and woven permanently into the fabric of magical culture. Do you want to fix a broken vase? Turn to Latin. Are you lost? Well, that one is in English, but the point remains. And do you need someone gone? Aramaic allows you to do even that.

Next there was the movement: In his brief forays into wand lore, Lamik never quite understood their purpose. Convoluted, frustrating rituals which were often uncomfortable to preform. Barring a certain few though, they were necessary for truly stable casting. But then, what was up with their complexity? His current theory was that the complexity of a wands movement is directly correlated with the complexity of the spells effects and not with its power. This would explain why setting someone on fire only required you to point, while fixing a brooms reversing capabilities asked for the equivalent of a tongue twister for the hands. Still, there were outliers.

Finally there was the effect itself, and this is what it was all about. The implications of magic were rather astounding, in Lamik's eyes. The ability to control the world in such a way, and yet the requirement to keep it secret, to keep it hidden. How had it been managed for so long? For how long will the wizarding world maintain its veil?

In any case, these were the three things to watch out for when casting a spell: Incantation, Movement, Effect. Perfect all three and you've perfected a spell. Currently, Lamik was trying to do just that. There was a certain spell that every duelist should know- Protego, the Shield charm. The boy did in fact know it, of course, but for some reason it had always given him a bit of trouble. Yes, he had gotten by perfectly fine without Protego, however he reasoned that even now that he wasn't a duelist, he was better safe then sorry. He had, for the past half hour or so, been doing the same thing over and over again

Flick- "Protego."

Drop the spell.

Flick- "Protego."

Drop the spell.

Over and over, he brought it up, then let it fall. Every time he felt that something was off. Every time he grew ever so slightly more annoyed with himself. Eventually, Lamik decided to just test the damn thing, and so he turned to first person he could see. "Hey, can you try casting something at me?"