Pao entered the practice room for perhaps the last time. Certainly the last time this year, he thought, but we'll see how mom and dad feel about keeping me this far away next year. Pao had started to become attached to this place, though. If he had anything to say about it, he'd be back at Hogwarts for his second year.

But he couldn't allow that to to bother him now. He needed to be focused solely on the shoes he was going to create. Pao had been thinking about what he may want to do here ahead of time. He quickly located his mannequin, Pao Jr., and rolled him to an open spot in the room. True, he didn't need it this time, but he wanted a little bit of company. "Time to do some work!"

He located the pile of paper plates. One.. two..., he thought as he separated them from each other. Back at Pao Jr., he took his time to once again visualize what he wanted. The boy sat on the floor with his feet on the plates. He imagined the pair of fluffy badger slippers that he hoped to create today.

First he thought about what a real badger looks like. The fierce teeth, the white stripe down the back, the small but powerful paws. Well, my slippers don't need paws. That would just look silly. And be awkward to walk on. So now the question was how to translate that badger essence into a slipper. At least slippers aren't very fitted. That gives me some wiggle room to focus on the design.

Finally, he imagined the badger face morphing into a slipper. Ew, no. He discarded his first version, which looked mean and scary. My feet don't need to threaten people. Not the goal. He tried again. MUCH better. He spent awhile etching every detail into his brain so he could spend as long on the spell as he needed to. "Okay, Pao Jr., I'm ready. Let's get going!"