‘The Wheel of Time’ Season 2 Episode 5 Features the Return of a Harry Potter Fan Favorite

The Wheel of Time Season 2 Episode 5 “Damane” kicks off a rather fun subplot starring the scene-stealing Verin (Meera Syal) embarking on an investigation in the White Tower. We first met the esteemed member of the Brown Ajah — the sect of the Aes Sedai sisterhood devoted to research — in the Season 2 premiere of the Prime Video show. Moiraine (Rosamund Pike) and Lan (Daniel Henney) were holing up at Tifan’s Well with Verin and her sister Adeleas (Nila Aalia). Now that Moiraine and Lan have split, Verin has returned to the White Tower and she’s trying to uncover what’s happened to talented novices Egwene (Madeleine Madden), Nynaeve (Zöe Robins), and Elayne (Ceara Coveney). Helping her on this quest? Verin’s incredibly likable Brown sister Yasicca, who just so happens to be played by Katie Leung, the Scottish actress behind another one of the most likable, bookish characters in a major fantasy franchise.

Yup, that was Harry Potter‘s Cho Chang shooting hard liquor, gossiping about the Tower, and sneaking through Sheriam Sedai’s (Rima Te Wata) private ledger of Novices. Audiences first met Katie Leung all the way back in 2005, when she was plucked out of Dundee, Scotland during an international search to find Harry Potter’s first major crush in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. She got to go to the Yule Ball with none other than Cedric Diggory, aka Robert Pattinson, in that film and would go on to give Daniel Radcliffe’s Harry his first kiss in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

That means that Katie Leung is science fiction and fantasy royalty, and yet I can’t help but feel that The Wheel of Time has already given the 36-year-old actress a much better platform for her unique, nerdy charisma than Harry Potter ever did.

We first meet Leung’s Yasicca when Verin arrives back at the White Tower. She and fellow Brown sister Nyomi (Rachel Denning) are adorably psyched to see Verin return. It’s a reaction that immediately tells the audience that these women are ardent friends. As soon as Adelaes’s home brew is passed around, Yasicca wastes no time in inquiring after Verin’s work on her History of the World after the Breaking. This also shows that these women, per their choice of Ajah, really do care about scholarship.

In a funny twist, casting Katie Leung as a member of the Brown Ajah in The Wheel of Time feels incredibly on point, or at least like full circle fantasy casting. After all, Cho Chang was a Ravenclaw in the Harry Potter series. That meant that her character had been sorted into the one Hogwarts House devoted to the pursuit of knowledge. Fast forward 18 years later and Leung is now playing a Wheel of Time character who has chosen to be part of the Brown Ajah…the sect of the Aes Sedai devoted to the pursuit of knowledge.

Yasicca isn’t actually a character that we meet in Robert Jordan’s books. There is a Yasicca in the books’ lore; she is a legendary member of the Brown Ajah. However, this character seems to be created for the show. Yasicca helps Verin by sneaking into Sheriam’s study to confirm what the Mistress of the Novices’ notes say about the whereabouts of the missing Egwene, Nynaeve, and Elayne. She not only does this, but uses her eidetic memory (aka photographic memory) to pick up on a discrepancy in the handwriting. It’s a clue that leads Verin to suggest that Sheriam may have made the notation under compulsion, which then leads Yasicca to surmise that the dreaded Black Ajah might be real.

Yasicca might be a character made up for Prime Video’s The Wheel of Time show, but we’re already hoping that she continues to play a part in the series going forward. Katie Leung imbues her with such sweetness and so much smarts that she pops on screen. Hopefully the fact that The Wheel of Time let Yasicca piece together the existence of the Black Ajah — a big plot point moving forward — is a sign that the show’s not done with Leung yet.

Either way, Katie Leung is forever and always our favorite crush-worthy magical nerd.