"This is the Ollivander one. My other gets really dramatic results so far, so I'm trying to learn everything with this one first to get a feel for the spells." Waft, goes the feather. Waft waft.

"Dramatic? Come on, that is just begging for a story." This time the feather actually rises slightly before flopping back down. Alli nudges it in annoyance with her wand and starts again.

"When I first picked it up I got a huge globe of light big enough to swallow me up, for a couple seconds. And since then I tried making my bed with it with a spell from a book my mum got me, but wound up with the bed made but the duvet and pillowcases turned inside out and the mattress flipped over. And I tried heating up my scrambled eggs because they got a little cold this morning and they burned. I'm just glad it seems to aim okay."

"Your feather is going to end up somewhere near the moon," Alli predicts.

"I don't know about that."

"Well. Fair. Probably just the roof," Alli admits. "Least you have the aim down, though. Imagine if it was your textbook?" She prods her misbehaving textbook disconsolately. "Roofs are not good places for them."

"They're not," agrees Miranda. "And yeah, the feather will probably hit the ceiling. Unless my theory about getting the spell down with the one wand first is correct."

"Do we get bonus points for that?" Alli wonders. "I mean. You're levitating it extra."

"Probably after a certain point it matters if I'm levitating it controllably."

"Nope. Control is strictly week two," Alli says with a suspiciously straight face.

"And you, what, stole the grading rubric?" dares Karen.

Karen twitches her wand; her feather bobs. She lets it settle, repeats the incantation, and nudges it up.

"Still better than mine," Alli points out. "Unless you count my textbook. But textbooks make really weird feathers.."

"I tried my second wand," says Miranda. "It does things really dramatically. I had it okay with the other one..."

"If you knew your wand was dramatic, Miss Swan, you should mention it before attempting spells," Flitwick sighs. He summons the feather down from the ceiling with a flick of his wand. "You'll need to concentrate much more carefully with a high power wand. For your first class, perhaps a return to your- other?- wand?"

Alli rolls her eyes at Flitwick behind his back- what's it matter if Miranda uses her wand today or next week?- and then winks at Miranda.

Miranda puts the chimaera wand away, but says, "Can you be more specific about concentrating with my higher-power one, please, Professor?"

"It requires extreme precision to work with high power wands!" he squeaks. "Concentrating on exactly how the spell should work, and not just the spell itself! Normally taught, hmm, let me see, fourth year? Practice will help, though! Practice, practice, practice." He eyes her pine wand. "First, with the pine, of course."

"Professor, what advice would you give me if I only had my hazel wand?"

He puffs up, looking mildly indignant. "Still to practice! But with a borrowed wand. But with the wand, well- attention. Very careful attention! Focus on how much power the wand may have, at all times." He waves his arms rather wildly at the ceiling. "Since whatever power the wand normally draws is clearly too much!"

Once he's gone, Alli looks over at Miranda's wand skeptically. "You'd think he wouldn't mind a little drama. You know, in between the feathers, feathers and more feathers."