The little wizards were enthusiastically discussing among themselves. As first-year newcomers, they rarely had the chance to use magic. Even in the previous class, they were merely making lights, which was hardly satisfying for them. However, this class was different. Although they were still only producing light, hitting the light balls brought them a thrill akin to combat. In some ways, this was the closest to battle that the first-years had come.
In the hallway, Ron said to Harry with some annoyance, "Did you hear? Professor Fawley said I could have gotten a higher score."
"You did well, it's just your wand holding you back." Harry, who had been the first to perform, had nearly observed the performance of all the students. In his view, even without the bias of friendship, Ron's performance was better than most.
"Forget it, my family doesn't have the money to buy me another wand." Ron said awkwardly, waving his wand and nearly poking Hermione, who was passing by.
"Don't wave your wand in the corridor," Hermione frowned and glanced at them, "Do you want to lose points?"
Ron glared back, discontentedly, "Come on, Harry alone added ten points to our house, are you jealous?"
"Jealous?" Hermione snorted with laughter, puffed up her cheeks, crossed her arms, and glared back at him, "Harry's score is less than half of the professor's!"
Ron looked even more smug, his face filled with smiles.
"If Harry can achieve almost half the score of a professor in his first year, doesn't that just show how impressive Harry is?"
"Hmph, I bet none of you saw clearly how the professor cast his spells. The light he produced wasn't ordinary at all, those were all different spells!"
"Impossible!"
Even Harry's eyes widened in disbelief, his tone suddenly rising in pitch, noticeably distinct in the corridor.
"What's so impossible about it? Although I couldn't recognize all the spells, the professor was casting magic from start to finish, not one of them was repeated!"
"That means—" Ron was almost astounded.
"That means, the professor used 120 different spells!" Hermione said, her head held high and with a sense of pride.
On their way back to the Great Hall, they continued to discuss how many spells Professor Fawley could actually cast.
Hearing the discussion about Professor Fawley, the mischievous twins, George and Fred, eagerly joined in. With their involvement, and the spreading of words by the students who had just attended the class, the whole Great Hall became aware of the new tricks in Defense Against the Dark Arts. And a new Hogwarts mystery emerged—just how many spells could Professor Fawley cast?
When Professor Tewell entered the Great Hall, he was immediately stopped by the students.
"Professor, they say you know 120 spells, is that true?" a blond boy with a slicked-back hairstyle asked.
He pondered for a moment, realizing that word of his performance in class had spread.
"Mr. Malfoy, I've never counted how many spells I know, actually, if you include some minor, less significant spells, it might well be more than 120."
This statement instantly caused a buzz among the crowd, with everyone marveling and some students even claiming he knew more spells than Dumbledore.
Professor Tewell had to raise his voice to cover the bubbling discussions.
"I must emphasize again, knowing a large number of spells does not equate to great strength. In fact, in combat, we often use no more than ten spells."
"Mastering these ten spells is more useful than learning a hundred spells. As for Headmaster Dumbledore, I can assure you, he knows far more than I do."
In terms of magical knowledge, probably only the long-lived Nicolas Flamel could be mentioned in the same breath as Dumbledore in the global wizarding community.
With Professor Tewell's explanation, the young wizards reluctantly returned to their seats, but their discussions about the professor didn't stop.
Instead, it expanded! They ranked the professors in terms of strength, excluding Dumbledore, but this ranking was full of personal opinions.
"I bet Professor Fawley is definitely number one!" Ron declared confidently.
Neville nodded in agreement, but Percy Weasley, the Gryffindor prefect, disagreed.
"I admit Professor Fawley is strong, but hasn't he always excelled in combat? If we're talking about overall strength, Professor McGonagall is definitely stronger than Professor Fawley."
Penelope Clearwater, sitting next to him, was not pleased.
"Of course, strength means combat ability, not teaching ability," she gestured towards Professor Sprout at the faculty table, "And our Head of Hufflepuff, Professor Sprout, was a dueling champion in her early years. If it really comes down to it, she might be stronger than both Fawley and McGonagall!"
"Of course, I think Professor Fawley is a bit stronger than Professor McGonagall," she added quickly.
Of course, just discussing it wouldn't lead to any conclusions; after all, there were no standards for measurement, nor any examples to prove their points, and in the end, no one could convince anyone else.
Unless, there was a real showdown for them to witness.
As night began, a fantastical yet eagerly anticipated piece of news spread among the students—
Professor Sprout was going to duel Professor Fawley!
Under Penelope's careful verification, Professor Sprout joyfully confirmed the news.
Right after dinner, she planned to have a friendly spar with Professor Tewell.
Professor Tewell also nodded with a smile.
The conversation actually started after he sat down and began discussing classes with Professor Sprout—
"You have to understand them, Tewell," Professor Sprout consoled, "Students always have their misconceptions about magic."
"In fact, I've emphasized many times in class that proficiency is more important than the magic itself, yet they still prefer powerful and fancy spells."
After saying this, he shook his head helplessly.
"I understand. When I was a student, I always chased after various kinds of magic, especially the more unfathomable ones," Tewell comforted Professor Sprout in return.
The professor became interested, "I see you use regular spells very well, not like such a student at all. How did you correct that?"
"It wasn't until I watched the older students battle."
Professor Sprout immediately understood, but Professor McGonagall was completely confused.
"Do your upperclassmen even participate in battles?"
Before Tewell could respond, Professor Sprout explained for him.
"Durmstrang has a tradition of dueling. Each year group has a dueling competition, and at the end of the school year, there's a final championship between the years to determine the ultimate champion."
He then looked towards Tewell.
"With your strength, you must have won at least two or three championships, right?"
"Actually, it was seven years group championships and four overall championships."
Now, even Professor McGonagall and the other professors, who originally didn't know about this, understood the significance of Tewell being Durmstrang's most outstanding graduate.
From the beginning of his schooling, he was unmatched among his peers, and from his fourth year, he was unmatched throughout the entire school—a true juggernaut!