"Every year, I run into troublemakers like you, and when they break their legs, they all regret it," Madam Hooch tried to educate Ian with utmost sincerity.
But unexpectedly—
The Little Wizard just pulled out a bottle of potion that could fix broken limbs.
"I think what they need is this."
Ian knew Madam Hooch meant well, but the constant low-altitude flying practice didn't fit his always high-efficiency, fast-learning style.
"..."
Madam Hooch's expression was absolutely priceless.
She was silent for a long time before continuing, "Though your potion looks top-notch, it can only fix broken limbs. In some dangerous situations, you wouldn't even have the chance to drink it… Like if you fell from a great height."
She hadn't finished speaking yet—
Ian whipped out his magic wand and conjured a glider behind his back.
"?????"
Madam Hooch was completely at a loss for words. She couldn't understand why, despite excelling in all other subjects, the Little Wizard never shined in her class.
"Sorry, Professor, am I being too thorough?" Ian canceled his magic and looked at Madam Hooch with an expression steeped in irony.
"..."
Madam Hooch felt her teaching career was facing its greatest challenge yet, and honestly, she was starting to miss those students who secretly tried dangerous flying maneuvers.
At least other troublemakers actually want to learn, right!
For the next ten minutes, Madam Hooch seemed to guess Ian's true intentions and began trying all sorts of ways to spark his interest in learning. Ian could sense the care she put in, but after she finally let him go, he still felt somewhat regretful that Madam Hooch wasn't as easily angered as Snape.
"Maybe next time I should try to copy Malfoy and snatch someone else's stuff." Ian genuinely hoped he'd be banned from Flying Class entirely; his unruly behavior wasn't about defying Madam Hooch, he just figured he'd earn far more Skill Level points in the library instead of wasting time in Flying Class.
To be honest, Ian's thinking was a bit too biased towards certain subjects — even the heavens might not approve. So, when he was late to Magic Potion Class, he got punished by Snape.
Not only did he miss out on teaming up with Aurora for potion brewing, he ended up doing assignments right under Snape's nose, and brewed three batches only for Snape to coldly criticize them as poor-quality and send him back to redo them.
Snape was sharp-eyed now; ever since the Peeves incident, he hadn't mocked Ian's potions for "having no soul," or sneered that even Knockturn Alley would refuse to sell such rubbish.
Because he didn't finish last night's punishment as required, Ian had to swallow his pride and brew a fourth batch, and only when all the other Little Wizards had left class did Snape finally accept his potion with a dismissive grunt. But as Ian was about to leave, Snape clearly had no intentions of letting him off yet.
"I recall reminding you, no magic when cleaning the toilets… Tonight, you'll do it again, properly." Snape blocked the classroom doorway.
"But all the toilets are sparkling clean already!" Ian regretted not escaping through the window; he could only try to reason with Snape.
But—
Snape was ready for this, he waved his magic wand, pulled a huge bucket up from beneath the podium, "Then wax all the toilets!"
This was pure, manufactured trouble for Ian to suffer his punishment.
"Wax the toilets?"
Ian had never seen anything so ridiculous in his life.
He felt this was outrageous enough.
But Snape just gave him an almost-smirk and landed another bombshell, "To stop you sneaking around when I'm not looking, I brewed this wax especially for you. Your magic can't control these—you'll have to do the work yourself."
Potion-brewed wax, huh!
Ian, stubborn as ever, tried everything he could, but truly couldn't manipulate the wax in the bucket; it seemed like some material had been added that made it practically immune to magic.
"You actually used this stuff… just to wax toilets?!"
Ian was dumbfounded.
Snape was very pleased with his reaction.
"With a sneaky, lazy brat like you, extraordinary measures are needed." He flicked his cloak and left Ian alone with the bucket of wax.
"..."
Ian could feel Snape's gold-standard level of malice and determination to make him suffer. He was miserable, and started wondering, in true magical style, if his rebelliousness in Flying Class had somehow caused all this.
"Karma strikes back, huh!"
Ian's luck really wasn't great today. He'd barely loaded the wax into his giant Money Bag and turned the corner outside the classroom—only to bump into the biggest jinx of all.
Sunlight spilled into the corridor through the windows, and in that bright light, there was a figure coming toward him with garlic hanging around his waist and a huge bandage wrapped around his butt.
Double-crossing Quirrell.
Maybe he'd already healed his injuries, but no one could know that. So ever since suffering that ice-and-fire plus physical attack from the Little Wizards, he'd kept pretending his butt was severely injured; hard to imagine what kind of determination it took for Voldemort to endure being wrapped up like that.