Doing New Side Quests in Hogwarts Legacy | Round 3 of Crossed Wands, Spell Practice 2, and Flying Trial
Published on HivePostify by @venapboyz · Mon Sep 07 2026
Hey gamers, how are you all doing? Hope everything is going great this first week of September! I'm still deep in my Hogwarts Legacy adventure and after finally completing Percival Rackham's first trial last session, I decided to take a step back from the main story and knock out some side quests that have been sitting in my log for a while. The goal here is simple: stack experience points, earn Talent Points, level up the character, and make sure I'm properly prepared before diving into whatever the main story throws at me next. So today we're covering three side quests that I got done in one sitting — Round 3 of Crossed Wands, Spell Practice 2, and the Flying Trial. Let's get into it.
Round 3 of Crossed Wands — The Final Tournament Round
So Crossed Wands has been one of those recurring side quests that keeps popping back up throughout the game, and if you haven't been following these from the beginning, the setup is simple — Lucan Brattleby organizes underground dueling sessions near the Clock Tower, and each round you advance the opponents get stronger and the stakes get a little higher. Round 3 is the final round of the tournament, and walking in knowing this is the last one adds a certain weight to it. Lucan matches you up with Natsai as your partner for this round, which is a solid pairing — Natsai handles herself well in a duel and having a competent ally on your side makes managing multiple opponents significantly easier than going it alone.
The opponents in Round 3 are noticeably tougher than what you faced in the earlier rounds. They're more aggressive, they use shield types that force you to think about which spell category to reach for rather than just spamming whatever you have loaded, and they coordinate their attacks in ways that can quickly overwhelm you if you lose track of positioning. The shield color management is really where this round tests you most — keeping track of which opponent has which shield while also maintaining awareness of where attacks are coming from across the whole dueling arena is the kind of multitasking the game has been training you for since the very beginning, and here it all comes together.
That said — with the rhythm I've built up from fighting Pensieve Guards, goblin loyalist waves, and everything else the main story has thrown at me recently, the actual execution felt more natural than I expected going in. The spell rotation is tighter now, the decision-making between color categories is faster, and knowing when to dodge versus when to push forward and press an attack has become something I do instinctively rather than consciously. I still had to repeat the round once before getting the win — the first attempt ended when two opponents focused fire on me simultaneously while my shield was down and I didn't have a Wiggenweld in the right slot fast enough. Second attempt was cleaner, more controlled, and ended with Lucan announcing us as the winners of the tournament. Good XP, a nice chunk of galleons, and one more quest checked off the list.
Spell Practice 2 — Combo Training With Lucan
Right after the Crossed Wands tournament wraps up, Lucan has another activity available — Spell Practice 2, which is also run by him and takes place against a dueling dummy in the same area. This one is less about competition and more about deliberate skill building, which honestly makes it one of the more quietly useful side quests in the game even though it doesn't have any dramatic stakes or story elements attached to it.
The practice session has you cycling through different spell combinations against the dummy, hitting specific sequences to demonstrate mastery of different combo mechanics rather than just casting randomly. What I found genuinely valuable here was how it forced me to use spell pairings I had been neglecting in favor of my comfortable go-to combinations. I'd been leaning heavily on Levioso into follow-up damage spells and Expelliarmus into basic cast barrages because those work reliably and I know the timing well. But Spell Practice 2 pushed me into working with Glacius freeze combinations, Accio pull into immediate cast chains, and Depulso knockback setups that I hadn't been using nearly as much as I should have been.
Practicing these against a dummy without the pressure of an actual fight trying to kill you is exactly the right environment to internalize new combos. By the time the session ended I had a cleaner mental map of how to weave Glacius into a rotation — freeze the target, immediately follow with Confringo to shatter the ice and deal bonus damage plus area shards, then capitalize on the stagger to land a big hit before they recover. That combo specifically is going to be extremely useful going forward and I honestly can't believe I hadn't been using it more consistently before this practice session forced me to actually try it deliberately. Sometimes the side content teaches you things the main story just assumes you already know.
The Flying Trial — Breaking Imelda's Record
The Flying Trial side quest is one of the more fun and purely enjoyable activities the game offers, and after the intensity of Percival's trial and two rounds of Crossed Wands dueling, hopping on the broom for a speed challenge felt like exactly the right kind of palate cleanser. The quest comes from Imelda Reyes, who you meet out near the Quidditch Pitch, and the challenge is simple in concept: fly the course on the pitch faster than her best time and break her record. Imelda is seriously competitive about this, which makes her a great character for this particular quest — she doesn't hand you the win and she talks about her record with genuine pride that makes beating it feel meaningful rather than just a checkbox.
The course itself runs through a series of floating rings positioned around and through the Quidditch Pitch at various heights, and your job is to hit every ring in the correct sequence as fast as possible while managing the broom's speed boost to maintain momentum without overshooting turns and losing the optimal line through the course. The boost is your best friend here but it's also your biggest liability — boost too early into a tight turn and you fly wide of the ring and lose precious seconds having to circle back. The optimal play is to save the boost for the long straight stretches where you can point the broom in one direction and just go, then ease off and steer cleanly through the sections that require precision over raw speed.
My first run through the course was purely exploratory — getting a feel for the ring placement, understanding where the turns are and how tight they actually are, figuring out which sections reward aggression and which ones need a more measured approach. After that first familiarization run the record fell on the next proper attempt. Once you know the layout the course flows really naturally and the broom controls are responsive enough that hitting the rings consistently isn't the challenge — timing the boost correctly is. Imelda reacts to losing her record with exactly the competitive frustration you'd expect, which is satisfying in the best way.
Once the record is broken the quest sends you to Albie Weekes at Spintwitches Sporting Needs in Hogsmeade — the same shop where you bought your broom originally. Albie wants to know your feedback on the broom you've been flying, asks how it performed on the course, and based on your answers he makes a small upgrade to the broom. The upgrade is primarily cosmetic in terms of the stats it changes but the conversation with Albie is genuinely charming and it pays off the original broom purchase quest in a satisfying way. He's the kind of NPC who genuinely loves what he does and talking to him about broom performance feels natural rather than just mechanical. Worth the trip to Hogsmeade every time.
Looking Ahead to the Care of Magical Creatures Class
So with Crossed Wands completed, Spell Practice 2 done, and the Flying Trial finished, the XP gains from this session have been solid and the Talent Points are stacking up nicely. The character is in a good place going into whatever comes next in the main story. And speaking of what comes next — after wrapping up these side quests I jumped back into the main quest log and the next mission waiting for me is the Care of Magical Creatures class. This one has been on my radar for a while because magical creatures are such a core part of the wizarding world and the game has been building toward giving them proper attention in the story. I'm not going to get into it in this post since I want to give it the full coverage it deserves, but the next article will be all about it. So gamers, stay tuned because the next chapter of the Hogwarts Legacy adventure is going to be a good one. See you in the next post!
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