MLP belongs to JK Rowling and Harry Potter belongs to Lauren Faust.
Wait...
Dashie skidded around the corner and pelted into the classroom, closely followed by a panting Neville Longbottom. Grinding to a halt on the false leg, she glanced around wildly for the Professor, but relaxed as only the students could be seen.
'The cat,' Twilight said suddenly, and Rainbow leaned towards the tabby on the teacher's desk, scrunching her face up and squinting at the seemingly normal animal.
'Your turn, I can't figure it out,' she finally told the bookworm with a displeased growl, and Twilight almost dropped control as it was shoved into her hooves.
Mentally berating a sheepish Rainbow Dash, Twilight continued to stare at the cat for a few seconds more, before finally pulling away and standing straight. "Sorry we're late, Professor McGonagall, we got lost," she told the stunned tabby truthfully, then went to sit at the back of the class, Neville already seated to the System's left, and Hermione to their right.
To the class' shock, the regal cat leapt off the desk and sprung up to become the stern form of Professor McGonagall. "Yes, well, next time, perhaps I should Transfigure one of you into a compass, or a map," she grumbled, but they could sense some curiosity in her voice. "However, might I ask how you recognised me?"
Twilight, along with Dashie, cursed their own stupidity. Here they were, first day at school, and they'd already been singled out from the others.
Much to the shock of the others, Fluttershy took the reigns and answered the Professor without pause. "Well, I had meant it as a joke, but the first rule of joking is to never be surprised if the joke turns out to be true," she lied with absolute confidence, deflecting the question with ease.
The lesson began, but the first five minutes were spent by the others in the System gaping wide-eyed at a furiously blushing Fluttershy.
Professor McGonagall kept her eye out for promising students as she sat back down from handing out the matches. Her gaze drifted over the redhead, Ronald Weasley; the most inspired of the lot, Hermione Granger; the really quite unastounding System Baker; the-
Wait.
Silently casting a magical sight spell, the Transfiguration teacher almost had to cast a locking charm on her jaw as a myriad of bubbles popped into view. Although this wouldn't allow for the same accuracy that a certain half-goblin could achieve, the basic structure of the spells could be easily spotted.
The biggest bubble was a notice-me-not charm, but the structure was like nothing she'd ever seen! On the left hand side, a second, smaller bubble overlapped the first, locking them both into place. Three further bubbles, each representing a silent alarm spell, further stabilised the array.
The Deputy Headmistress sighed inaudibly, grasping at knowledge from her school days to puzzle out a weakness in the set of spells. Attempting to tear down the wards would set off the alarms; but breaking the alarms would destabilise the main spells, and the backlash could easily kill the boy.
Studying the bubbles out of the corner of her eye, the Professor finally spotted a weakness; namely that the alarms were designed to stay in one position, so System would be forced to take down the wards, after which she would be able to catch him before he left, without raising his suspicions. Praying that he could pull off the feat without causing a magical backlash, the Professor idly studied the lowered heads of her students, unable to tell how System was getting along in his Transfiguration.
Though judging by the sheer intricacy of the wards, she didn't suspect she'd have a reason to worry about his skill-level.
Twilight barely refrained from banging her head on the desk as she sensed the magic well up in the teacher's eyes. She hurriedly fished the fake wand out of her pocket and prepared a spell behind the notice-me-not to turn the miniature water-sculpture of a pegasus pony back into a slightly silvery match.
Applejack groaned as she caught on, taking control and dropping her forehead onto the desk with a bang. Now sporting a pulsing headache, Dashie and Rarity glared hexes at the sheepish farm-pony.
Attempting to gloss over her rather silly action, AJ turned to Twilight, cocking her head sideways. 'Not to call y'all a liar or anything, Twily, but I thought that spell was s'posed to keep attention off us?' she questioned, and the lavender unicorn sighed.
'Spells, plural, but yes. I was counting on the assumption that nopony would notice anything in the first place, but the professor is using a magical sight spell, so she probably knows that we have more spellpower than we let on. And since I don't use magic in the same way as wizards, she'll most likely notice a difference and report it to the Headmaster.'
Rarity trotted over looking rather pleased with herself at that point, so the distressed unicorn turned towards her. 'What if we pretended that we didn't even know about the charms?'
Twilight blinked twice, then her eyes widened and she threw herself onto Rarity with a sound that sounded suspiciously like 'glomp!'. She untangled herself sheepishly and stood back up, going over the quickly forming plan in her head.
Sometimes it was best to hide behind truth.
Back outside the mindscape, Professor McGonagall hid a gasp behind her hand as the wards simply melted away, in a way that would usually result in a small implosion. She watched intently as the magic condensed into a shapeless blob, before seeming to coat the apparently unaware tweenager, who had grabbed Neville Longbottom's arm and was now guiding him through the wand movements, enunciating the spell clearly to him.
Neville followed the movements a few more times, before switching to the incantation, and finally putting them both together. To the teacher's immense surprise, his match became pointed and silvery, the epitome of a perfect matchstick.
The youngest Longbottom excitedly whispered a question in System's direction, and McGonagall pricked her ears up and set up a hearing spell, dropping the magical sight to prevent magical exhaustion, as a despondant sigh left System's lips.
She almost ducked when System glanced suspiciously in her direction, but she managed to pass off her staring by letting her eyes slowly roam across the sea of heads. The odd boy gave a sort of half shrug, before discreetly closing a hand in front of him.
"It's kind of clichéd, but here." With that warning, the hand opened to reveal a dancing green flame, which then shifted colour and shape into a blue feather, before finally dissolving into nothingness. System then tapped a finger on the wooden match, which instantly shifted into a metal fishing hook, before changing back when he tapped it again. "Don't tell anyone, though, okay? W-I already stand out too much as it is."
"U-uh, sure thing," Neville stuttered, and McGonagall couldn't help but let a small grin through her mask of impassiveness, despite (or perhaps because of) her utter shock. She could see the bravery of the blonde boy shining through, and she couldn't help but wonder when System would polish the diamond in the rough.
The bell rang at that point, and five minutes later, she sat alone at the desk, her grin widening even as she transfigured a sheet of parchment into one of those muggle notebooks she had seen Hermione Granger scribbling in. There was an entirely new mystery to solve, and she had just been given a piece of the puzzle.
The rest would come later, but for now...
'System Baker
Highly skilled at several forms of magic.
Subconciously casts and stabilises notice-me-not wards.
Wards fell automatically while addressing Neville.
Seems to distrust most adults.
Helpful and a good teacher.
Dislikes standing out.'
She snapped the book shut and stood up to get ready for her next class.
I'm really sorry these chapters are so short and far-between, but I keep having different ideas for the lessons and stuff, so I keep deleting different bits, so etc etc etc you get the point.
I'm doing one class per chapter, so I think Herbology, flying and Potions, and then a surprise!
It involves a certain person who's missing a few body parts himself. That's all I'm going to say on the matter.
By the way, I'm writing a novel! Just go to .com for sporadic updates and other nonsense!
