The Lucky Challenge
The lab was unusually quiet that morning, almost unnaturally so. The usual hum of activity—the rustle of parchment, the low murmurs of researchers deep in discussion, the occasional fizzling spell work—was notably absent. Instead, the space was filled only with the soft creak of ancient wooden beams overhead and the occasional chirp of a charmed clock mounted high on the far wall.
Sunlight filtered through the tall, arched windows with a kind of reverent slowness, casting long, golden streaks across the stone floor. Dust motes hung suspended in the still air, catching the light like flecks of glittering stardust. Everything felt suspended—paused, as though the building itself was holding its breath.
Hermione stood at one of the central worktables, surrounded by a dishevelled perimeter of parchment scrolls, leather-bound tomes, and half-drunk cups of tea that had long gone cold. She had been there since early dawn, her brow furrowed in concentration as she traced a complex sequence of runes across a vellum diagram. Her quill tapped absently against the margin as she read, her mind somewhere far beyond the room.
She had hoped—foolishly, perhaps—that today would be quiet. Simpler. A day of real progress, with no interruptions, no unexpected explosions, and no interruptions from one particularly persistent colleague who had taken to calling her “Lucky Charm” with increasing regularity.
She should have known better.
“Morning, Lucky Charm.”
The voice rang out with maddening cheer, bouncing off the high stone walls with just enough echo to set her nerves on edge. Hermione didn’t look up. Her expression didn’t change.
“Don’t start, Seamus.”
But Seamus Finnigan was not so easily dissuaded. He strolled into the lab with the air of someone who believed the entire room was lucky to have him in it. His wand spun lazily between his fingers as he approached, boots clicking against the floor in a casual rhythm. He wore the company-issued research robes, though his sleeves were pushed up to his elbows, and his hair was—as always—a charming disaster.
“Start what?” he asked innocently, flashing a grin that had charmed its way through more than a few departmental disagreements. “I’m just greeting the magical embodiment of my fortune. Is that such a crime?”
He dropped his satchel on the nearest bench with a thud and leaned back against a tall shelf of alchemical treatises, one boot hooked over the other like he was preparing to tell a story. “Although, now that I think about it, I’ve been extremely fortunate just being here with you. I mean, you haven’t hexed me yet.”
Hermione let out a sigh—a deep, soul-weary exhale that suggested this was not the first time she had endured such a greeting. She closed her book with a deliberate thump, more forceful than necessary, and finally turned to face him.
“You’re insufferable,” she said, her tone clipped.
“And yet,” Seamus replied, his tone thick with theatrical offense, “you still let me in the lab. If that’s not a sign of cosmic alignment, I don’t know what is.”
Hermione didn’t flinch. She simply shifted her weight onto her other foot and crossed her arms, regarding him with the practiced expression of someone who had heard just about every excuse, theory, and ridiculous proposition he’d concocted over the years. “That’s because Dr. Ekwensi assigned me to supervise your calibration trials for the rune sequence integration project,” she said, her tone brisk and devoid of sympathy. “Not because I enjoy your nonsense.”
Seamus clutched his chest as though she’d delivered a fatal blow. “You wound me,” he said, eyes wide with exaggerated sorrow. “Truly, deeply. Right in the heart.”
She didn’t blink. “Tragic.”
“But that’s fine,” he continued, undeterred as ever. “If words won’t sway you, I’ve got a brilliant idea.” His voice took on that familiar lilt—the kind that always preceded one of his more harebrained schemes—and Hermione’s skepticism deepened instantly.
She arched an eyebrow, unimpressed. “This should be good.”
That only encouraged him. Seamus straightened from the bookshelf and stepped closer, the kind of energy trailing behind him that could either spark genius or chaos—though with Seamus, it was usually a bit of both. His grin widened as he gestured animatedly, excitement practically radiating off of him.
“Let’s settle this once and for all,” he declared. “The lucky charm debate, I mean.”
Hermione’s arms tightened across her chest. “Oh no. Absolutely not.” She shook her head before he could say another word. “I’m not entertaining your silly theory any further. You’ve already wasted enough of my time with that nonsense.”
“Ah, but hear me out!” he said quickly, raising a finger like a professor on the verge of a groundbreaking lecture. “We conduct a series of magical challenges. Nothing dangerous, nothing outrageous. Just a few controlled tests—magical tasks that require a bit of skill, a dash of uncertainty. You’ll be there. Observing. Maybe helping. Maybe not. It’ll be purely scientific.”
Hermione gave him a look so flat, so devoid of even a shred of belief, it could have flattened a lesser man. “Scientific,” she repeated, voice dry as parchment.
“Well… magical-scientific,” Seamus amended with a casual shrug, as though it were a perfectly valid academic field.
“Which isn’t a thing.”
“Details,” he said, waving the objection away with the same nonchalance one might swat at a gnat. “You want to prove I’m wrong, right? This is your big chance. You always say magic should be measurable, testable. That outcomes matter more than intention.”
Hermione opened her mouth, then closed it again. She hated that part of her did itch at the idea of a controlled magical trial—even a ridiculous one. She was methodical, precise. She didn’t deal in gut feelings or half-truths. And Seamus knew it.
“I don’t have to prove anything,” she said finally, her voice cool and measured. “Your hypothesis is built entirely on confirmation bias and wishful thinking. You’re seeing patterns where none exist and assigning causality without evidence.”
Seamus’s grin only widened. “Exactly,” he said, as though she had agreed with him entirely. “So you’ll help me debunk it. We’ll design the tasks together. You can control every variable. You’ll monitor the outcomes. And when it’s all over, you can say—with complete confidence—that there’s no such thing as a ‘lucky charm.’ Especially not you.”
Hermione narrowed her eyes, studying him for a long moment. She could already see how this would go. She’d spend hours designing the tests, running the trials, and meticulously recording every result just so she could shut down his nonsense once and for all. And he—he’d make jokes, throw in commentary, and somehow still manage to charm his way through the entire thing. But as much as she hated to admit it, a small part of her was intrigued. If only because she knew she could end this once and for all—with facts.
“And if—if—your theory somehow survives this absurd experiment?” Hermione asked, her voice sharpening with the edge of a challenge. Her eyes locked on his, unreadable and steady, though a flicker of something curious—perhaps begrudging amusement—moved behind them. “What then?”
Seamus leaned in slightly, as though he sensed her resolve beginning to bend. His posture was relaxed, but his grin had a touch of the triumphant. “Then you buy me lunch,” he said, as though it were the simplest thing in the world. “And admit I was right. Just once. No dancing around it. No footnotes or academic disclaimers. You say the words: You were right, Seamus.”
Hermione snorted—an inelegant, skeptical sound that made him grin wider. “You’re assuming I’d ever admit that.”
He gave her the most disarming smile in his arsenal, one perfected over years of getting away with trouble just by looking charming enough not to be blamed. “Come on, Hermione. You’re all about empirical testing, aren’t you? What better way to prove me wrong than to run the data, analyze the outcomes, and watch me fail gloriously under controlled conditions?”
She hesitated. That was the moment Seamus knew he had her. It wasn’t in the words—Hermione Granger rarely slipped up in those—it was in the pause. In that slight shift of weight, the subtle narrowing of her eyes, the barely-there tension in her brow that betrayed a flicker of genuine curiosity.
She could already see the flaws in the plan—random chance, placebo effect, observer bias, all the usual culprits that contaminated clean magical research. But beneath her rationalism, beneath her methodical need for order, was something more complicated. A part of her that wanted to take this on. Not to prove Seamus right, of course—but because his unwavering belief that she somehow made things better was... difficult to ignore. Irritating. Persistent. And maybe—just maybe—worth disproving once and for all.
“Fine,” she said at last, placing her book down with a quiet but definitive thud. Her voice was clipped, businesslike. “We’ll do it. But we’re doing it properly. We’ll set clear parameters. Each task will be measurable, repeatable, and carried out in controlled environments. I’ll design the challenges myself.”
Seamus practically beamed. It was the kind of smile that lit up his whole face, reckless and boyish and utterly sincere. “I knew you’d say yes.”
“But,” she added swiftly, holding up a finger before he could start celebrating, “when this inevitably proves inconclusive—or, more likely, completely debunks your theory—you’re dropping the lucky charm nonsense. No more calling me that. No more throwing around causality like confetti.”
“Cross my heart,” he said with an over-the-top gesture, his palm dramatically placed over his chest as though he were pledging allegiance to some noble order of magical fools.
“And no gloating,” she said, leveling a stern glare at him. “If—by some wild statistical fluke—you get lucky.”
Seamus raised both hands as though to prove his innocence. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
Hermione gave him a long, measured look, her brows drawing together slightly in that way she always did when weighing the consequences of her own decisions. There was already a flicker of regret simmering beneath her composed exterior—not because she feared being wrong, of course, but because she knew exactly what she was signing up for: a full week of Seamus Finnigan’s relentless charm, over-the-top theories, and maddeningly unwavering faith in something that defied all logic.
Still, she’d agreed. And once Hermione Granger committed to something, she did it thoroughly.
“Alright,” she muttered, the word coming out like an admission, her voice low as her mind spun into motion. She was already mentally sketching diagrams, drafting variables, and running spell calibrations in her head. “Seven challenges. That’s all. No more, no less.”
Seamus straightened up a bit at that, eyebrows lifting in interest.
“They’ll test various magical disciplines,” she continued, ticking them off on her fingers as she paced slightly in front of her desk. “Spell precision, focus, wand control, magical reflexes, and perhaps even some instinctual response work. Each challenge will introduce minor elements of chance—randomized variables, unpredictable conditions, things that might favor luck... if luck were real.”
Her tone made it clear she didn’t believe it was, but she gave him a look—one that was both stern and just a touch amused, as though daring him to poke holes in her logic. “You’ll perform the tasks both with and without my presence, so we’ll be able to gather comparative data. No interference. No cheating. This will be thorough and repeatable. If your hypothesis fails to hold up under scrutiny—”
“—Then I’ll admit defeat,” Seamus said quickly, holding up both hands like a man already facing trial. “Scout’s honor. I’ll never utter the words ‘lucky charm’ again.”
“Good,” she said primly, and returned to her desk. She picked up the heavy volume she’d set down earlier and flipped back to the page she had been studying before he barged in. She pretended to be absorbed in it, but the truth was, her mind was still half on him—and the ridiculous challenge she’d just agreed to.
“Oh, this is going to be fun,” Seamus said, his grin stretching across his face like he was about to embark on some grand quest rather than a structured magical evaluation. He rubbed his hands together gleefully, the way a child might before opening a birthday present. “What’s the first challenge? Tell me it involves dodging curses or at least summoning flaming quaffles.”
“I’ll let you know tomorrow,” Hermione replied coolly, not looking up from her book. “And don’t expect it to be easy.”
“I never do,” he said, already walking backward toward the door, his eyes still fixed on her. “But I do expect you’ll be there. That’s all the luck I need.”
Hermione froze for a half-second, her quill poised above the margin. She didn’t respond, at least not aloud. But her eyes flicked upward just in time to catch the end of his boyish grin before he ducked out of the lab. She let out a quiet breath, one she didn’t realize she’d been holding, and shook her head.
She pretended not to hear that last part—she had to—but even she wasn’t immune to the undercurrent of warmth that laced his words. There was something in Seamus’s optimism, something wholly unshakable, that made it hard to dismiss him entirely. Not magic. Definitely not luck. But something persistent. Something kind. Maybe even something a little bit... grounding.
She wouldn’t go so far as to call it fate or charm or any of those things that lived in the pages of fantasy and folklore. But she also couldn’t deny that, for all his maddening theories and reckless ideas, Seamus Finnigan had a way of making the air around him feel just a little lighter. A little brighter.
The Lucky Challenge had officially begun.
And whether or not it proved anything at all, one thing was certain: Seamus wasn’t going to give up the idea that Hermione Granger—logic-bound, fiercely independent, impossibly brilliant Hermione Granger—might just be the thing that made his world a little better.