At Alice's nod, Trist gave her a full demo of forging the sword blank.
First, Trist used her wand to trace the shape-shifting Ancient Runes (ones she'd painstakingly translated) onto the dragon horn.
Right in front of Alice's eyes, the second Trist finished the last stroke and pressed her palm to the base of the horn, the whole thing started to morph. Slowly, it reshaped itself into a rough sword blank.
Next, with a flick of her wand, mithril flew over. She drew glowing white runes in mid-air; the liquid mithril flowed around each one like it was drinking the light, then wrapped itself neatly around the section that would become the hilt.
After a while the half-finished sword rose off the table, hovering perfectly.
Trist collapsed into the chair Theodore had dragged over for her, staring at the floating blade with the most defeated look on her face.
Alice opened her mouth to say something nice; then heard a tired countdown.
"Three…"
"Two…"
"One…"
Right on cue, the sword blank cracked clean in half, then split again, and clattered to the floor in three pieces.
Trist let out a bitter laugh. "Progress! Only three pieces this time instead of four. Huge win."
Alice glanced sideways at Theodore. "She been like this long?"
His mouth twitched. "Pretty much ever since the sixth failure."
Theodore turned to Trist, softer now. "Hey, you don't need to beat yourself up. Your Ancient Runes work alone already puts you miles ahead of everyone our age."
Trist just shook her head. "It's not failing that's getting to me. It's knowing exactly where the problem is and still not being able to fix it."
Alice's eyebrow went up. She knows the problem?
Trist kept going. "I actually noticed it a few attempts ago but couldn't prove it until just now. When I only draw the runes for sharpness, durability, and basic spell-resistance (no flight runes), the blank is perfect. Stop there and I'd have a sword that could slice through weak charms like butter."
"But the second I add the flight runes, everything goes out of balance. The different rune energies start fighting each other and tear the dragon horn apart from the inside."
Alice got it immediately. "So it's not that dragon horn can't handle the load; it's that we haven't figured out how to make the flight runes play nice with the rest."
"Exactly!" Trist shot to her feet so fast Theodore flinched. "I'm heading to the library right now. I swear I'm not graduating until I crack this!"
And just like that she stormed out of the abandoned classroom, leaving the two of them in the dust.
Alice watched the doorway for a second, then turned to Theodore. "Wait; what year is she again?"
"Fifth."
"…Should we really be letting a fifth-year blow off O.W.L.s to obsess over flying swords? I've heard those exams are brutal."
Theodore gave her the weirdest look. "That's the thing; she claims O.W.L.s are 'no big deal.' Says she'll walk away with eight or nine Outstandings without even trying."
Alice had no comeback for that. Ravenclaw really was built different. (Okay, not entirely fair; plenty of geniuses in the other houses and plenty of average kids in Ravenclaw, but still. Trist was ridiculous.)
After a quiet moment, Alice spoke up again. "Theo… do you think I should start some kind of company in the wizarding world?"
He blinked. "Where'd that come from?"
"Hogwarts is overflowing with talent. I don't want all of it to just… graduate and disappear."
Theodore thought about it, then nodded slowly. "A company could work, but neither of us has time to actually run the thing. The seventh-years will be gone soon anyway; just stay on good terms with the best ones and that's enough. The real goldmine is the people our age. Keep those connections tight, and by the time we graduate we'll have a huge, battle-tested crew that already knows how to work together."
Alice turned and gave him a long look. This was the first time she'd heard Theodore lay out actual long-term plans; and they were big.
He noticed her staring and touched his face self-consciously. "What? This is all just the logical next step from the goals you told me about ages ago."
"Nothing," she said with a grin. "I like the plan. You keep building. And one day, when your name's big enough that the old pure-blood families and the Ministry start paying attention, they'll look behind you and see the greatest, most powerful witch of our era standing there."
Theodore laughed softly, eyes warm. "You've got some pretty high ambitions yourself."
Alice lifted her chin, every inch the arrogant prodigy, and declared without a shred of doubt:
"I will be the greatest witch of my generation; no, of all time."
Theodore's smile faded into something serious. He bowed formally, the way pure-bloods do when they mean it.
"I believe it," he said quietly. "And I can't wait to watch it happen."
For a second Alice actually felt her cheeks heat up. People say the wildest things when the moment's right, and then cringe about it later.
The two of them just looked at each other and started laughing, the quiet, easy kind that only happens when you're absolutely sure the person across from you has your back.
They nodded once, in perfect sync, and that was that.